A Duel of Hearts

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It was perhaps Lord Glosford’s ill-advised words and her godmother’s continual nagging which had made Caroline accept so readily Sir Montagu’s suggestion of a secret race. He had spoken about it to her at a ball and then made an assignation for them to meet the following day in the park.

Mrs. Edgmont could do nothing when, during a stroll in Rotten Row, Sir Montagu walked beside Caroline and spoke in such a low voice that she was unable to overhear the conversation.

“Rohan has vowed that his wife is the best whip in the country, and that he will match his greys against my chestnuts driven by any female I like to suggest,” Sir Montagu said. “The race is to my sister’s house near Sevenoaks, and the wager is one thousand guineas.”

“And you propose that I drive your chestnuts?” Caroline asked.

Her eyes were sparkling. She knew Sir Montagu’s chestnuts. They were incomparable, and it was difficult too, not to wish to beat Lady Rohan who was often insufferable when she boasted of her feats with the ribbons

“I know of no one else who could defeat her ladyship,” Sir Montagu said softly.

Caroline hesitated. She knew she ought to refuse, she knew that a race on which large sums were wagered was not the sort of sport in which any well-bred girl should indulge, let alone Lady Caroline Faye, only daughter of the Marquis and Marchioness of Vulcan ... and yet the temptation was so great.

“I suggest,” Sir Montagu went on in his soft silky voice, “that no one shall know whom I nominate as my whip until the race is run. One phaeton shall start of Hyde Park Corner and the other from Whites Club. There will be starters at both places and only when the race is won shall we reveal the identity of the winner.”

“But how shall we keep it a secret?” Caroline asked. ‘Mrs. Edgmont will question me if I wish to leave the house after we have dined.”

“You can leave a note saying that you have made arrangements to meet some friends and will be in the company of Lady Rohan. You will be home earlier than if you had been to a ball, and if your chaperon learns the truth she will be too proud of you to chatter overmuch.”

Mrs. Edgmont would be too horrified not to wish to keep it quiet, Caroline thought, but she felt the excitement was worth any, risk even her godmother’s anger. It would be a thrill such as she had never known before to race against the tried and famous Lady Rohan, who was spoken of always as a nonpareil with a whip.

There might be trouble later, but Caroline had never lacked courage. She raised her firm little chin.

“I will do it,” she told the gratified Sir Montagu, “but it must be a dead secret until the race is over.”

“I swear it,” he replied.

She could be sure now that he had kept his word. Of course there had been no race, no bet, no competing phaeton driven by Lady Rohan. It had just been a trick to get her into his power and for all she knew, he might not even have a sister living near Sevenoaks. All she could be certain of was that it seemed inevitable that she must stay here tonight as Sir Montagu’s wife, and the price of his silence would be the announcement of their engagement.

Caroline shivered again as she thought of it. There was something oily and unpleasant about Sir Montagu. She had always known him for a commoner, even though it had amused her to flaunt him in the face of her other admirers who were all much younger, and who often found it difficult to compete with his wit and insolent effrontery.

Caroline looked around the bedroom, at the big four-poster bed, at the fire burning in the small fireplace, at the vase of flowers standing on the dressing-table with its frilled muslin petticoat.

Sir Montagu had chosen a pretty setting for his treachery. The mere thought of his thick, smiling lips, his dark eyes and his rather large hands filled her with a terrified repulsion. She had got to escape, she had got to get away from here. But how? How?

If she made a scene, if she called for the landlady and insisted on being sent back to London in a post-chaise, it would still cause a scandal. Besides, there was always the chance that they would not heed her, they might even think that it was just the shyness and the fright of a bride. It would be easy for Sir Montagu to over-rule her protests, to constitute himself her jailer as well as the legal lord and master they believed him to be.

Caroline looked wildly round her once again and then she crossed to the window. She threw wide the diamond-paned casement. The moon was giving more light than when she had entered the inn. It flooded the small garden which lay behind the house and beyond it she saw the darkness of trees. A wood! Caroline stared towards it and then looked down. Below the window was a drop of perhaps five or six feet on to a flat piece of roof which might cover a small larder or scullery. At the side of this, dimly outlined in the shadows, Caroline could see a water butt.

She stood staring down at it and made up her mind. She crossed the bedroom to the door and bolted it then, hurrying to the casement, she- swung herself on to the window-sill. Her dress of French velvet, with its rucked hem and full sleeves gathered and slashed with satin, was somewhat difficult to manipulate, but Caroline was used to climbing.

Indeed this was by no means the first occasion on which she had climbed out of a bedroom window. Time and time again as a child she had been punished by her governesses and by her parents for climbing out of her bedroom at home, and playing truant in the park or going down to the beach when she should have been asleep

Very carefully Caroline lowered herself out of the window until there was only a drop of a foot or so, then she finally let go of the sill. She landed with a thump on the flat roof and held her breath for a moment afraid that someone below might have heard her. But nothing happened. Everything was quiet save for a very distant burr of voices and laughter which might be coming from the tap-room.

Caroline peered down. It still seemed a long way to the ground, but there was the water butt and she realised that she must set her foot on the edge of it, holding on to the wall meanwhile. The only real danger was that she might fall into the butt itself but Caroline was sure-footed besides being able to balance herself cleverly, and with the exception of a scratched finger, a large tear in her skirt where it caught on a nail, and a great deal of dust and dirt on her hands she reached the ground without mishap.

She paused for a moment, then peeped in at the window nearest to her. As she had guessed, the flat roof was over a scullery. It was in darkness, but the door was open and beyond it she could see the big kitchen of the inn. The landlady was bustling around and there were several other people there as well. There were two young women with round, red cheeks under their mop caps and a man, with a bald head and wearing an apron, who looked as if he might be a potman. They were laughing and talking together and even though the window was closed, there was a savoury odour of roast meat.

Caroline did not wait to see more. She picked up her skirts and ran swiftly across the garden into the darkness of the trees on the other side. The wood was, not thick and, as it was still early in the year, the undergrowth was not high. There was a small path running between the trees and Caroline followed this. She had no idea where it might lead her, but her one idea was to escape as far as possible from the inn. She hurried on, deciding as she went that the main road to Sevenoaks must lie in this direction and that, if she could reach it, she would doubtless find a coaching house where she might procure a post-chaise which would carry her back to London. Once or twice she stumbled over briars which lay across her path they caught, too, in her skirt and Caroline had several times to stop, and disentangle them from the velvet, which was not improved by this rough contact with nature.

She had walked for some minutes when she heard voices. She stopped quickly. ‘Were they already in pursuit of her,’ she wondered. She had imagined it would be some little time before they ascertained that she was not in her room and as the bolt that she had placed across the door was a heavy one, it would require quite considerable strength to break it down.

Then she realised that the voices she heard were ahead of her and not behind as might be expected if someone was coming from the direction of the inn. She listened. Suddenly a cry of pain, of horror or indeed of agony, rang through the wood. It was just one cry, and then there was silence.

Caroline’s heart seemed to stop for a full second, and then beat again so fiercely that it almost leapt from her body. She pressed herself close against a tree trunk, holding on to it tightly with both her hands. The cry seemed to echo in her ears, but it was not repeated, instead she heard the sound of someone crashing through the undergrowth, moving swiftly almost as if running.

For one terrified moment she thought the person was heading in her direction. She pressed herself even closer to the tree hoping wildly that she, would not be seen. But the footsteps turned before they reached her. She heard them passing, she even saw someone moving through the shadows. She believed it to be a man, but the moonlight was deceptive and she was too frightened really to be certain of anything save that the footsteps were receding further and further away.

She listened to them, hardly daring to breathe, until she could hear them no more, and then there was silence - that strange, pregnant silence which follows a sudden noise. The wood seemed unnaturally quiet. Before there had been rustlings, the movement of small animals in the undergrowth, the flutter of a disturbed bird, now there was only silence, a silence which in itself was a fiercesome thing.

At last Caroline drew a deep breath. She moved from against the tree, aware for the first time, how tightly she had clung to it. There were marks on her hands where she had pressed them against the bark. She brushed them against each other and brushed away some leaves and dust from the front of her dress. Then she went on.

The little path she had followed still wandered ahead of her and eventually came to a clearing. The moonlight was bright, the trees were cut back to form a circle and on the far side of it Caroline could see the wails of a cottage. Studying it carefully, she perceived that the cottage was nothing more than a shell. It’s thatched roof had fallen in, the doorway was dark and empty, and the bricks were crumbling away.

There was nothing to be frightened of, Caroline told herself severely, but she was well aware that her breath was coming quickly and that her heart had never ceased pounding against her breast since that strange cry had echoed through the wood. Going forward a few more paces she stopped, and an exclamation of horror burst from her parted lips. There on the ground in the centre of the clearing was the body of a man.