Belinda Goes to Bath

Hannah fell silent. Belinda was left to think about the nature of love. Of course she had often thought about love, but had imagined that feeling would be something pure and spiritual. At that very moment, she hated the marquess, but at the same time longed for some sign of affection from him.

She peered out of the window of the carriage again. ‘We are moving down to lower ground,’ she said, ‘and there is no snow and the road is quite dry. How odd the vagaries of the English climate! Although I am concerned for Miss Wimple, I am sharp set. I barely touched anything last evening. The venison was vile, stringy and gamy, and the smell!’

‘I confess I could touch little of it myself. Moral people seem to have stomachs of iron. Both Miss Wimple and Mr Biles ate great quantities of the stuff. But as to Miss Wimple, it is our duty to apprise her of the facts because she is a woman and a fellow sufferer. If we women do not stick together, then what hope is there for us?’

‘Have you never met a man with whom you could spend the rest of your life?’ asked Belinda.

‘There was one,’ said Hannah, ‘but he turned out to be a cheat and a liar and deceived me sore. Thank goodness that there are good men in this world.’ She thought of Sir George Clarence with his fine figure, his piercing blue eyes, and the courteous way he listened to her so intently. He had offered to take her on a tour of the gardens of Thornton House on her return. Would he remember his offer? Perhaps he would marry and his new wife would frown on this strange friendship with a servant, albeit a former one. The thought of Sir George’s marrying anyone depressed Hannah.

‘The carriage is stopping,’ she said.

‘Perhaps we are going to be allowed something to eat,’ remarked Belinda hopefully.

The marquess opened the carriage door. ‘I am going to make inquiries at this inn.’

‘Any hope of breakfast?’ asked Belinda.

‘Later,’ he said shortly.

‘You have the right of it, Miss Pym,’ said Belinda bitterly when the marquess had closed the carriage door again. ‘We must always do as we are told.’

‘My fault,’ said Hannah. ‘Never ask a tentative question of a gentleman or the answer is bound to be no. I should have said, “Help us down. We are going to have breakfast.”’

‘That wouldn’t have worked either,’ said Belinda. ‘Try it.’

After only a short time, the marquess returned. ‘Good news,’ he said. ‘They stopped here and paid a driver handsomely to return the carriage and horses to the earl.’

‘Did they go ahead on foot?’ asked Belinda.

‘No, they paid for a pony and gig and took off in that. They asked the road to Monks Parton.’

‘And where is that?’ asked Hannah.

‘About six miles to the north.’

‘Good,’ said Belinda. ‘Now, if you will but stand aside, my lord, I am going inside that hostelry with Miss Pym and we are going to have some breakfast.’

‘As you will,’ he said.

‘There you are,’ muttered Hannah gleefully. ‘Works like a charm.’

Seated at a table in the coffee-parlour of the inn, Belinda and the marquess studied each other warily. Belinda thought the marquess, even in top-boots and a plain coat, looked more like a haughty aristocrat than ever, his cold eyes giving nothing away. The marquess wondered why Belinda, tired as she was, and with shadows under her eyes, looked like the most beautiful woman in the world, and then wondered whether she had bewitched him, but he showed all these confused thoughts and feelings like a true English gentleman by asking her, ‘More coffee, Miss Earle?’

Hannah began to despair of the pair of them. Of course there were marriages where husband hardly ever spoke to wife, but such had been the marriage of Mr and Mrs Clarence, and only look where that had led. Her eyes glowed blue with remembered sadness.

‘You are like a chameleon, Miss Pym,’ said the marquess. ‘I have observed your eyes change colour according to your mood.’

Hannah, who privately thought he would have done better to observe Belinda’s eyes, replied, ‘Humph,’ and buried her nose in her coffee-cup.

‘The sky will soon be light,’ said the marquess, ‘and the morning promises to be fine. It should be an easy and pleasant journey to Monks Parton. I have plenty of carriage rugs. Would you care to wrap up well, Miss Earle, and join me on the box?’

Hannah feared that Belinda was on the point of saying something pettish and kicked her viciously in the ankle. Belinda let out a yelp of pain.

‘What is the matter?’ asked the marquess anxiously. ‘Is it your ankle? I had forgot about that sprain.’

‘I experienced a sudden twinge of pain in my other ankle,’ said Belinda, glaring at Hannah. ‘Yes, I would like to join you. I have never travelled on the box of a carriage before.’

Hannah smiled, well pleased.

After Belinda had been helped up on the box and wrapped in a bearskin rug, Hannah climbed inside, accompanied by the marquess’s valet, curled up on the carriage seat and went to sleep.

‘How very high above the ground we seem to be,’ said Belinda nervously.

The team of grey horses ambled slowly forward. The air was sweet and there was a hint of spring in the warmth of the wind. Behind her the tiger, also wrapped in rugs, had fallen asleep.

‘So I have you to myself at last,’ said the marquess. ‘I am sorry I did not make you a formal proposal of marriage, but the circumstances were odd. I shall call on your great-aunt when we reach The Bath.’

‘But what do we know of each other?’ demanded Belinda, looking at his hard profile. ‘I had made up my mind not to marry, to be independent.’

‘You would have independence were you married to me. A spinster has a sad life.’

‘Miss Pym is a spinster.’

‘True. But Miss Pym is an Original.’

‘But you don’t really want to marry me,’ said Belinda. ‘You were just being chivalrous.’

‘Alas, I am never chivalrous.’

‘Why do you want to marry me?’

The marquess reined in his horses and looked down at her angrily. ‘Because I love you, dammit, as well you know.’

‘No, I don’t know,’ snapped Belinda.

He dropped the reins and took her in his arms. ‘Then let my silent lips tell you what my words cannot.’ He kissed her tenderly on her eyes, her nose, and then her mouth. No more bruising kissing, thought the marquess. But Belinda freed her lips and looked up at him with starry eyes, and said with a break of laughter in her voice, ‘Oh, you do love me, and I love you so much, Frenton.’

He crushed her close to him and sank his mouth into hers. Her passion rose to meet his. She caressed his hair and then choked and sneezed as a fine cloud of scented powder rose in the air.

‘We had better be married very soon,’ he said tenderly, handing her a large handkerchief.

‘Yes,’ agreed Belinda happily. ‘And you do believe me, or rather you did believe Miss Pym when she told you the real story about that footman?’

‘Yes, my love. Oh, yes, Belinda.’

‘I do not know your first name,’ said Belinda, shyly twisting a button on his coat.

‘It is Richard. Say, “Richard, I love you.”’

Her eyes were shining. ‘Oh, Richard, my dear heart, I love you so much.’

He held her close. Their lips joined in a kiss of such intensity that for both the world seemed to spin round faster and faster about them.

Inside the carriage, Hannah Pym awoke and sat up. The carriage was at a standstill. Perhaps they had arrived and the marquess and Belinda had not troubled to wake her. She opened the carriage door and climbed down.

There was a farmer, leaning on a gate with a farm-hand beside him. Both were looking up at the box. The farmer had a large steel watch in one hand. ‘Reckon that be about five minutes, Ham,’ he said.

‘Reckon as it do,’ agreed Ham with a salacious leer.

Hannah joined them and looked up at the box. The marquess and Belinda were wrapped in each other’s