A stout landlord was bowing her into the inn. Looking at him through the slits of her mask, she thought that she detected a sly expression on his discreet countenance, and concluded with a stab of anger, that she was not the first female Lord Vidal had brought to this inn.
He ushered her into a parlour overlooking the sea, and stood bowing and smirking while Vidal delivered his orders. Mary walked to the fireplace, and stood there with her back turned.
‘Yes, my lord, yes!’ the landlord said. ‘Some coffee for the lady, and a roll, and a tankard of small-beer for your lordship. Yes, my lord; on the instant!’
‘Let it be on the instant,’ Vidal said, ‘or I miss the tide.’
‘My lord, it shall be!’ the landlord assured him, and bustled out.
Mary heard the door shut, and turned. Vidal had thrown down his whip and gloves, and was watching her in some amusement. ‘Well, Mistress Discretion?’ he said. ‘Do you take off that mask, or must I?’
She put up her hands to the strings, and untied it. ‘I think it has served its turn,’ she said composedly, and put back her hood.
The smile was wiped from his face; he stood staring at her. ‘What the devil – ?’ he began.
She took off her cloak and laid it carefully on a chair; she had quite forgotten her pistol, for she had a part to play. She tried to smile archly, as Sophia could, and hoped she did not boggle it.
‘Oh, my lord, I vow you are too easy to trick!’ she said, and tittered, quite in Sophia’s manner.
He strode up to her, and caught her wrists in a painful grasp. ‘I am, am I? We shall see, my girl. Where’s your sister?’
‘La, where should she be but in her bed?’ Mary answered. ‘Lord, how we laughed when she showed me your letter! She was all for playing some jest on you to punish you for your impudence. So we put our heads together, my lord, and hit on the very thing. Oh, she will die of laughing when I tell her how you never suspected ’twas I you had in the coach, and not her at all!’ There was not a tremor in Miss Challoner’s voice as she spoke her part; she was all flippant vulgarity upon the surface. But under the surface, good God, is he going to murder me? she thought.
Murder certainly looked out of his eyes, his grip on her wrists made her wince. ‘A jest, is it?’ he said. ‘Her jest – or yours? Answer me!’
Her rôle was hard to maintain, but she continued airily enough. ‘Oh well, to be sure ’twas I carried it through, and I dare say I should have thought of it if she had not.’
‘She thought of it?’ he interrupted.
She nodded. ‘Yes, but I did not at all like it at first, only when she threatened to get Eliza Matcham to go if I would not I consented.’ She glanced up at him fleetingly, but dared not keep her eyes on his. ‘You need not think, my lord, that you can seduce Sophia so easily. She led you on finely, did she not? But when she found you’d no thought of marriage, she determined to teach you a lesson!’
‘Marriage!’ he said, and threw back his head and laughed. ‘Marriage! By God, that’s rich!’
Her cheeks were stained crimson. His laughter had a jeering, wicked ring; he looked like a devil, she thought.
He let her go all at once, and cast himself down in a chair by the table. The murderous look had left his face, but in his half-closed eyes was a gleam that alarmed her more. The man meant mischief. His glance stripped her naked. Her cheeks grew hotter, and she saw that an ugly smile had curled his thin lips. His very attitude, while she still stood, was an insult. He lounged at his ease, one leg stretched out before him, a hand driven deep into his breeches pocket.
‘You’ll forgive my amusement,’ he drawled. ‘I suppose the truth is that Miss Sophia has found some other fool who offered more than I did, eh?’
She shrugged carelessly. ‘Oh, I tell no secrets, sir!’
The door opened and the landlord came in, followed by a serving-man with a tray. Miss Challoner walked over to the window while the cloth was laid. When they were alone again my lord said: ‘Your coffee – have I ever heard your name? Mary, isn’t it?’
She forgot her rôle, and said coldly: ‘I have not given you the right to use it, sir.’
Again he laughed. ‘My good girl, you’ve given me whatever rights I choose to claim. Sit down.’
She remained where she was, eyeing him.
‘Obstinate, eh? I’ll tame you,’ Vidal said, and got up.
She had an impulse to run from him, and curbed it. She was swept off her feet and dumped down, none too gently, on a chair by the table. A heavy hand on her shoulder kept her there. ‘You elected to come with me,’ the Marquis said, ‘and by God you’ll obey me, if I have to lay my whip about your sides!’
He looked so grim that she could not but believe he would do as he threatened. She sat still and he removed his hand from her shoulder. ‘Drink your coffee,’ he said. ‘You’ve not much time.’
Her hands were no longer quite steady, but she contrived to pour some coffee into the cup.
‘Shaking, eh?’ said that hateful voice. ‘I shan’t beat you if you behave yourself. Let me have a look at you.’ He turned up her face with a careless hand under her chin. ‘You’re not so bad-looking after all,’ he remarked. ‘I dare say we shall deal extremely together.’
She drank a little of the hot coffee; it put heart into her; she replied calmly: ‘Unfortunately we shall have no opportunity of judging. I go back to London by the first coach.’
‘Oh no, my dear,’ said his lordship. ‘You’ll go to Paris with me, in Sophia’s stead.’
She pushed her cup and saucer away from her. ‘You’re talking wildly, my lord. You won’t expect me to believe that it is me you want to run away with.’
‘Why not?’ said his lordship, coolly. ‘One wench is much like another after all.’
She sat very upright, her hands lightly folded in her lap. ‘You’ve been worsted, sir, but need you insult me?’
He laughed. ‘We’ll see who’s worsted when we reach the end of the jest, my girl. As to insults, egad! I wish you would tell me how I may insult so bold a piece as yourself. Don’t put on that missish face, my dear. It won’t serve after this night’s escapade.’
‘You can’t take me to France,’ she persisted. ‘You think because Sophia was indiscreet – that I – that we are loose women, but –’
‘If you’re trying to make me believe in your virtue, you’re wasting your breath,’ interrupted his lordship. ‘I knew what your sister was from the start, and as for you, whatever doubts I may have had you’ve set at rest. Virtuous young ladies, my dear, don’t lend themselves to these jests. I may not be very much to your taste, but if you contrive to please me, you won’t find me less generous than any other man.’
‘You are unpardonable!’ she said in a suffocated voice. She got up, and this time he made no effort to prevent her. ‘Have the goodness to tell me how far I am from London. What is this place?’
‘Newhaven,’ he replied, draining his tankard.
‘Can I travel by stage-coach from here?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ said his lordship with a yawn. ‘It need not concern you. I meant what I said.’
‘To take me to Paris? You’re absurd, my lord. Do you suppose I should make no outcry? In these days even a noble marquis could scarcely force a young female aboard his yacht.’
‘Scarcely,’ agreed his lordship. ‘But I can make you so damned drunk that you’ll be in no fit case to struggle, my girl.’ He drew a flask from the pocket of his greatcoat and held it up. ‘Hollands,’ he said briefly.
She was scandalised. ‘I think you are mad,’ she said with conviction.
He got up and came towards her. ‘You can think what you like, Mary, but you’ll drink my Hollands.’
She moved back till the wall stayed her. ‘If you touch me, I’ll scream,’ she warned him. ‘
I don’t desire to make a scene, but I will.’
‘Scream away,’ he said. ‘You’ll find old Simon is very deaf – when he doesn’t want to hear.’
She was shrewd enough to know that the landlord would hesitate to interfere with his noble patron if he could avoid it, and felt suddenly very helpless. The Marquis towered over her, and it seemed likely that he really would force the contents of his flask down her throat. She said quietly: ‘Please do not make me drink that. I am not a shameless woman, my lord, though I must seem to be one. I can – I think I can make you understand, if you will listen to me.’
‘I’ll listen to you later,’ he replied. ‘There’s no time now.’
As though to corroborate him, someone knocked loudly at the door, and called: ‘My lord, we’ll miss the tide!’
‘I’m coming,’ he answered, and turned back to Mary. ‘Quickly, you!’
She held him off, both her hands clasping his wrist. ‘You need not make me drunk,’ she said. ‘Since there’s no help for it I’ll come.’
‘I thought you would,’ said the Marquis with a grim little smile.
He turned away from her to the table, and picked up his tankard, and drained it. He never took his eyes off her, and she found herself unable to look boldly back at him as she would have liked to do. He set down the tankard as she came to pick up her cloak from the chair where she had laid it, and said with a drawling note in his voice: ‘You’ll see no one but my own fellows on the quay, but if you should be tempted to make a scene, remember I shall be beside you, and can throttle you before you’ve time to make more than one screech.’
He strolled over to her as she drew her cloak round her, and before she realised what he was about, he had grasped her arm, and taken her throat in one of his shapely hands. He let her feel what strength lay in his fingers, and though for dignity’s sake she forced herself to be passive the blood drummed unpleasantly in her head, and she felt herself to be in danger of losing her senses. ‘Like that,’ the Marquis said, smiling mockingly down at her. He let her go, and she put up her hands to her bruised throat. ‘Unpleasant, eh?’ he said. ‘If you force me to do it again you’ll find yourself unable to speak for quite a little while. Having throttled you – and I can do it in a flash, my dear – I shall carry you aboard, informing anyone who might chance to be about that you have swooned. Do you quite understand, wench?’
The muscles of her throat felt stiff. She managed to say: ‘Perfectly, sir.’
‘I thought you would,’ he said softly. ‘Now come!’
He dragged her arm through his, and led her to the door. The pistol in the pocket of her cloak knocked against her knee, and she remembered its existence with a start.
She did not think that she could pull it out with one hand, with the Marquis holding her other in his. She was very much afraid that it might go off if carelessly handled, nor had she any intention of firing it, and creating thereby the very scandal she wished to avoid. When she took it from its holster she had been prompted by no more than a vague notion that it might be well to possess a pistol. No plan of using it had entered her head; she had not even foreseen the need of it. It was too late now, but at the first opportunity she would manage to extricate it from the coat pocket into which it fitted so tightly.
The Marquis led her out. He stopped in the coffee-room to pay his bill. The landlord was all obsequious attention. Miss Challoner made a mental resolve never again to set foot in Newhaven.
She accompanied the Marquis, willy-nilly, out on to the quay. White horses raised their crests in the troubled sea; Miss Challoner eyed them with inward trepidation. Then she saw the graceful yacht she had observed from the coach; it was heaving on the water even in the shelter of the quay. Miss Challoner began to feel squeamish, and glanced imploringly up at the dark face above her.
My lord paid not the slightest attention, but compelled her to walk down the gangway on to the deck of the Albatross. She was aware of a few curious looks from some rough-looking men who were busy with a maze of ropes, but his lordship marched her past these to a steep companion-way. Evidently feeling that she was incapable of negotiating it, he tossed her up over his shoulder, and so took her down it. On the lower deck she was set down, and thrust into a fair-sized cabin.
‘Go inside,’ he commanded. ‘You should be comfortable enough, I trust. Stay there till I come; I shall not be long.’
When he had gone Miss Challoner made her precarious way to the bunk against the bulkhead and sank down upon it. Now was undoubtedly the time to possess herself of the pistol, but curiously enough she made no attempt to do this. The cloak slipped from her fingers unheeded as she put her hand to her head.
Outside men were shouting and stamping about the deck. The yacht heaved more than ever, and Miss Challoner was almost flung from the bunk. She decided to lie down; she had, at the moment, no interest in what was going forward on deck.
A little while later the Marquis entered the cabin, without ceremony. ‘Well, my dear, we’ve weighed anchor,’ he said with that detestable smile of his.
Miss Challoner opened her eyes, marvelled to see his lordship so untroubled, and shut them again with a shudder.
‘And now,’ said Vidal silkily, ‘and now, Miss Mary Challoner…!’
Miss Challoner made a heroic effort, and raised herself on her elbow. ‘Sir,’ she said, self-possessed to the last, ‘I do not care whether you go or stay, but I desire to warn you that I am about to be extremely unwell.’ She pressed her handkerchief to her mouth, and said through it in muffled accents: ‘Immediately!’
His laugh sounded heartless, she thought. ‘Egad, I never thought of that,’ he said. ‘Take this, my girl.’
She opened her eyes once more, and found that his lordship was holding a basin towards her. She found nothing at all incongruous in the sight. ‘Thank you!’ gasped Miss Challoner, with real gratitude.
Seven
Miss Challoner awoke with a long sigh, and lay for a moment with her eyes still closed. To open them would be to court disaster, and she had borne enough, she decided. Then she began to realise that the yacht was no longer pitching and tossing, but was, in fact, almost motionless. She opened her eyes and looked distrustfully at the furnishings of her cabin, but these no longer rose and fell before her indignant gaze.
‘Thank God!’ said Miss Challoner devoutly.
She felt extremely weak, and her head when she raised it from the pillow swam unpleasantly. She lay still, therefore, trying to recollect the happenings of the past interminable hours. She found that her memory was somewhat blurred, but she remembered that Lord Vidal, having presented her with a basin, had retired. He had certainly come back later – hours later, when she was too exhausted even to speak, and he had forced something exceedingly fiery down her throat. With a vague fear of his threat to make her drunk she had tried to struggle, whereupon he had said, still apparently amused: ‘It’s only brandy, my dear. Drink it.’
So she had drunk it, and it had sent her to sleep. She supposed his lordship must have tucked her up; she had not suspected him of so much consideration.
In the middle of these reflections the door opened, and the Marquis himself came in. He was bright-eyed and a little dishevelled. ‘You’re awake, are you?’ he said. ‘Up you get, then.’
‘I don’t think I can,’ said Miss Challoner candidly. ‘My head swims.’
‘You must. We’re at Dieppe. What you want is food,’ his lordship informed her callously.
Miss Challoner was impelled to sit up. ‘You can force your presence on me, I suppose,’ she said bitterly, ‘but if you have any feeling at all you will not talk to me of food.’
‘I haven’t,’ said Vidal. ‘You don’t know it but you will be perfectly well when you have dined. Get up and come ashore.’
That last magic word brought Miss Challoner to her feet. His l
ordship offered his arm. ‘That’s better,’ he encouraged her. ‘I’ve bespoken dinner and beds at the Coq d’Or.’
They came up on to the deck. Miss Challoner, having requested my lord to precede her, climbed up the companion as quickly as a swimming head would allow. Once on deck she observed that the sea was miraculously calm and blue, and blinked at it in surprise. Then she saw the long shadows on the quay, and asked what time it was.
‘Close on six,’ replied Vidal. ‘We met rough weather.’
Her brain refused to work. She kept on repeating to herself: ‘I’m in France. I can’t get home now. It’s of no avail to ask the time. I’m in France.’
The Marquis led her up the gangway and along the quayside until the Coq d’Or was reached. ‘Your gear has been taken up,’ he said.
She looked at him, puzzled. ‘But I have none,’ she said.
‘You are forgetting,’ he replied ironically, ‘I told Sophia to bring nothing, but promised I would provide her with what she might need.’
‘Have you bought – dresses for Sophia?’ she demanded incredulously.
He grinned. ‘Oh, not only dresses,’ he replied. ‘You can teach me nothing of what a lady requires. Shifts, négligées, lappets, beads, perfume from Warren’s, Poudre à la Maréchale – you’ll find ’em all there. I have endless experience, I can assure you.’
‘That I do not doubt,’ she said.
He bowed. ‘I trust you will approve my taste,’ he said, and handed her over to the waiting abigail.
Miss Challoner saw nothing for it but to go upstairs in the wake of this damsel. She had a very fair notion of what her appearance must be, and she felt quite unequal to the coming scene with the Marquis until she had tidied her person.
She spoke French prettily enough, and had no difficulty in making the maid-servant understand her wants. She washed her face and hands, did up her hair again, using the brush and comb of his lordship’s providing, and very gingerly withdrew the pistol from the pocket of her cloak. She thought she would be able to hold it so that the panniers of her gown concealed it from view, and practised this in front of the mirror. Deciding that it was hardly successful, she held the pistol in her right hand and draped her cloak over her arm, so that its folds fell over the weapon. Satisfied, she left her chamber and went downstairs to the private parlour his lordship had engaged.