arms, both rock-still, their lips joined in a long kiss.
‘Been like that this age, mum,’ said the farmer cheerfully. ‘Ham, here, was saying as how he’d choke were he to do that there, but I says to him that he do breathe through his mouth the whole time, which is why he couldn’t achieve it. Wunnerful it is. Never seen the like.’
‘My lord!’ called Hannah angrily. ‘You are making a spectacle of yourself.’
The marquess started, released Belinda and looked down. ‘And so we are,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Climb in again, Miss Pym. We are on our way.’
Hannah climbed in and sat bolt upright. Their faces had been, yes
She had always been cheerful and hopeful. She considered life had treated her well. She had never known disease or infirmity or starvation, never regretted her spinster state. But now she felt weak and childlike and lost.
A thin ray of sunlight shone into the carriage. Hannah looked out. They were travelling quickly now along a high ridge of land. The fields stretched out, calm and peaceful, and with only a few remaining patches of snow. Her spirits began to lift. Here she was, plain Hannah Pym, off on another adventure and assisting in the marriage of a marquess. She shook her head, wondering how she could have become so blue-devilled only a moment ago.
‘It must have been that venison,’ said the ever-practical Hannah Pym. She rubbed her crooked nose and straightened her square shoulders.
Monks Parton was a small, sleepy village, unchanged since Tudor times. Houses of timber and wattle and thatch crouched around a triangle of village green like so many shabby cats. Two women were drawing water from a well at the edge of the village green. The marquess called down to them, asking them if they had seen any sign of a portly gentleman in clericals and an equally portly lady, driving a pony and gig.
One of the women shook her head but vouchsafed that there was a small tavern at the end of the village that had three bedchambers for guests.
The marquess drove on. The tavern, called the Bear and Stump, was as old as the houses of the village. One end of it sagged towards the ground, and the beetling thatch over the dormer windows reminded Belinda of Penelope’s false eyebrows.
‘I am coming with you,’ said Belinda firmly, when the marquess showed signs of leaving her behind. ‘She will not feel quite so humiliated if there is another woman there to comfort her.’
Hannah was determined to be ‘in at the kill’, but for less charitable reasons. Although she felt they were only doing their duty, she did not like either the moralizing Miss Wimple or the pontificating Mr Biles and was looking forward to seeing the guilty pair brought down a peg.
Before the marquess could stop her, Belinda had rushed before him into the inn, demanding of the landlord whether there was a Miss Wimple in residence.
The landlord, a stocky fellow in a smock who looked more like a labourer than the host of a tavern, scratched his head and said he had no one of that name.
‘Then,’ said the marquess, stepping in front of Belinda and Hannah, ‘we are also looking for a married couple by the name of Biles.’
‘Ho, them,’ said the landlord. ‘They’s here, right enough. Room at the top o’ the stairs.’
Belinda made a dart for the stairs but the marquess drew her back. ‘Pray give them my card, landlord, and ask them to step below, if you would be so good.’
Belinda waited impatiently while the landlord backed towards the stairs with many low bows. ‘Why do we not go up?’ she asked.
‘Age and passion do not mix in your young mind,’ said the marquess. ‘You might find yourself faced with a highly embarrassing tableau were you to burst into their room.’
There were sounds of a sharp altercation from above and then the landlord returned. ‘Take a seat in the tap, my lord, my ladies, and they’ll be down direct.’
‘There is no back way by which they might escape?’ asked the marquess.
‘No, my lord. Window’s too small for a gurt woman like her.’
They waited uneasily in the tap, sitting in front of a log fire.
After half an hour, Mr Biles and Miss Wimple entered. He had abandoned his clericals and was dressed in a coat with a high velvet collar and brass buttons. Miss Wimple was wearing a white-striped cotton dress printed in a tiny flowing floral pattern in red and blue and yellow. On her head, she wore a splendid cap of the same material. Both looked mulish and defiant.
Belinda rose and ran forward and took her companion’s hands in her own. ‘Miss Wimple,’ she said, ‘you have been sadly deceived. This man is married.’
‘I know,’ said Miss Wimple crossly, tugging her hands free.
‘But
‘My love for this gentleman is pure,’ said Miss Wimple, her eyes flashing. ‘Hardly a love that such as you, Miss Earle, would understand.’
‘Mr Biles,’ said the marquess, ‘what do you plan to do about your unfortunate wife?’
‘Miss Wimple is now my wife, before God,’ said Mr Biles, raising his hands to heaven.
‘But not before man,’ said the marquess drily. ‘I repeat, what of your wife?’
‘She may divorce me,’ he said coldly. ‘She has her own money. She will not starve.’
‘But Miss Wimple may do so,’ said the marquess, ‘if your fickle fancy lights on another lady.’
‘Never!’ cried the pair in unison.
The marquess looked at Belinda, who gave a little despairing shrug.
‘Then all I can do,’ said the marquess, ‘is counsel you to get as far away from the Earl of Twitterton as possible. For although you returned his carriage, in his eyes you may have stolen it, if only for a brief time, and if he presses charges against you, you will be transported.’
‘You sully our great love with your warnings and fears,’ said Miss Wimple grandly.
‘Tcha!’ snorted Hannah Pym. ‘We are wasting our time here. You are a fallen woman, Miss Wimple, and I am only amazed that you can still try to hang on to the high moral ground. Come, Miss Earle.’
Belinda was glad to escape. As they stood together beside the marquess’s carriage, she said in an amazed voice, ‘And I thought she would be so grateful to be rescued. Where now?’
‘To Lady Bellamy,’ said the marquess. ‘Journey’s end and life’s beginning.’
She’s made a romantic of him, thought Hannah.
Belinda looked at Hannah shyly. ‘Miss Pym, would you do me the very great honour of residing with me for a few days? I confess I dread to think of being alone with my aunt.’
‘Gladly,’ said Hannah. ‘But you must not enter Bath on the box of his lordship’s carriage. That would not do at all.’
Tired and weary, they reached Lady Bellamy’s in Glossop Street. The marquess told Belinda he would call on her great-aunt that afternoon, kissed her hand, and then mounted to the box of the carriage again.
Hannah rapped on the door. An old butler opened it and informed them that Lady Bellamy was in the Green Saloon on the first floor.
Belinda clutched Hannah’s arm as they mounted the stairs. ‘I am feeling unaccountably nervous,’ she said, glancing around. ‘This place is like a prison.’
Hannah nodded in agreement. The hall had been bare except for one side-table. The staircase was uncarpeted, which was not unusual, but there were no pictures on the walls and the window on the landing above them was barred.
The butler opened the double doors, took their cards, and announced them in a surprisingly loud voice.
Belinda’s heart sank right down to her little green kid slippers when she saw her great-aunt. Lady Bellamy had always been a hard-faced, austere woman, but she looked even more grim and disapproving than Belinda remembered her to be. The first thing Hannah noticed was not her ladyship, but the fact that the windows of the Green Saloon were barred as well.
She then turned her attention to Lady Bellamy. She was a tall, gaunt woman dressed in a gown that looked like sackcloth. A Bible lay on a small table beside her. She put out a hand and rested it on the cover of the Bible and
