The Elopement
It was a fact universally acknowledged in the village of Marston Priors that Amanda, Lady Marston, although young, was the unchallenged arbiter of good manners.
‘For,’ as Mrs Duke said to Mrs Davy, ‘if Lady Marston feels it is inappropriate to travel even the shortest distance in a carriage without one’s personal maid, I am sure that you will never see me defying convention by going out alone.’ Mrs Davy, who could not afford to employ a lady’s maid, agreed glumly.
Amanda Marston woke slowly and luxuriously that morning. She knew that the day was well advanced because Benson had drawn back the curtains and the spring sunshine was drawing out the rich and vivid colours from the beautiful new Axminster carpet. She knew she had an eye for design. It was one of her greatest accomplishments.
The scent of the hot chocolate lured her and she reached out a languid hand for the cup. Her fingers brushed the crisp parchment of a letter and she picked it up, still mulling over whether the bed drapes required refurbishment and whether pale green gauze might look dangerously like a harlot’s boudoir…Not that she knew anything of such things…
She read the first line of the letter with vague attention, the second with concentration and the third with outrage.
My dear Amanda
It is with great pleasure that I can inform you that I have eloped with Mr Sampson. I have always hankered after participating in an elopement so you may imagine my pleasure. I believe that the usual form of words on these occasions is: ‘Pray do not come after us.’ I am of age several times over and know my own mind, so there is no point in either you or Hugo trying to fetch me back. Indeed,
I hope you will both wish me happy.
Your loving grandmother-in-law, Eleanor Pevensey
Amanda shrieked, an action that startled her as much as it did the footman on the landing outside. Amanda never screamed, not even in a ladylike manner over a dead mouse or small spider. She had always considered having the vapours to be a vulgar way of attracting attention. Now, however, she shrieked again.
Lady Pevensey had eloped.
Lady Pevensey was entrusting herself and all her lovely fortune into the hands of a penniless curate.
Of all the outrages perpetrated by her husband’s seventy-seven-year-old grandmother, this was by far the most shocking. Lady Pevensey had been living at Marston Hall for six months and Amanda had found her a serious trial. Lady Pevensey rode to hounds, swore like a trooper and forgot all about visiting hours.
But none of these offences against propriety was as dreadfully scandalous as an elopement.
Amanda actually spilt drops of chocolate on the beautiful linen of her bedclothes. Never had she felt so overset, not even when the silk for her new evening gown had been quite the wrong shade of rose-pink.
She shoved the chocolate cup aside and tumbled from the bed, grabbing her swansdown-trimmed wrap and hurrying to the door that connected her room to that of her husband.
She turned the knob. The door was locked. She remembered that it had not been used in the past six months and only at very irregular intervals in the three years of her marriage. For some reason this state of affairs suddenly made her feel more than a little troubled.
She ran barefoot to the door onto the landing, only to be confronted by the footman, whose Adam’s apple bobbed with shock at the sight of her ladyship en déshabillée. Normally Lady Marston would not emerge from her room until she was immaculately attired. This was unprecedented.
‘Where is Lord Marston?’ Amanda demanded, waving the letter agitatedly in the footman’s face. ‘I require to speak with him immediately!’
The footman boggled. Lady Marston never required to know where her husband was, treating his whereabouts as a matter of utmost indifference. Red to the tips of his ears, he managed to stammer that Lord Marston had breakfasted several hours earlier and, he believed, was out on the estate.
‘Then pray send to find him,’ Amanda snapped, ‘and send for Crockett. At once!’
Choosing her morning outfit was usually one of Amanda’s favourite occupations but this morning she found that the merits of her cherry-red promenade dress or her pale yellow muslin did not interest her. She had grabbed a lilac gown when her maid arrived and dressed with a lack of care that startled the poor woman severely. When Crockett enquired how she would like her hair arranged, Amanda said, ‘I do not have the time!’ scooped up the letter and positively ran down the stairs.
Lord Marston had not yet been found but Amanda remembered vaguely that he had said something about his sheep at dinner the previous night and so she set off towards where she imagined the pastures might be. Following a mixture of bleating and hammering, she located Lord Marston a good mile away, by which time her dainty slippers were ruined and the hem of her lilac gown three inches deep in mud.
Amanda did not notice, however, for as she drew near she realised that it was Hugo himself who was hammering in fence posts. His jacket discarded, his rolled up shirtsleeves revealed strong, bronzed forearms. The muscles moved beneath his skin as he worked with grace and precision. Amanda, who had been about to exclaim over the inappropriateness of her husband undertaking manual work, discovered that her mouth was suddenly dry.
Hugo caught sight of her and straightened. In the spring sunshine his eyes gleamed vivid blue in his tanned face. He rubbed his brow and Amanda saw a drop of sweat run down the strong brown column of his neck. She should feel disgusted but suddenly there was a curl of something quite other than disgust in the pit of her stomach. Why had she never noticed before that Hugo was so attractive?
‘Amanda?’ Hugo came up to her and caught her elbow. The warmth of his hand seemed to burn through the silk of her gown. ‘What the devil are you doing here?’
His gaze, normally so inscrutable, slid from the tips of her muddy slippers to her flushed cheeks and lingered on the hair loose about her face. Suddenly there was something speculative and heated in his eyes that made Amanda feel even more light-headed. It was not the sort of look a man should give his wife of three years. She could not remember Hugo ever looking at her like that. It was not respectable. Nor was his bad language. But it seemed incredibly hard to drag her gaze away from his, let alone to correct him.
‘I…um…’ Amanda made a huge effort to remember why she had needed to talk to him. Lady Pevensey. She held out the letter. ‘Your grandmother, Hugo! The most disastrous thing! She has eloped with Mr Sampson! We simply have to stop her.’
Hugo dipped his head over the note, affording her a most enjoyable view of his broad shoulders under the damp linen of his white shirt. He wore an old pair of breeches that Amanda would normally have scorned. But how well they fitted his muscular thighs and what a fine figure he had. She blinked. What on earth was wrong with her? Lady Pevensey’s elopement had overset her nerves, of course, and running around in the sunshine without a bonnet was very bad for her. She needed to lie down in a darkened room.
With Hugo.
The thought slipped into her mind and she was so shocked that she blushed. She saw that Hugo was watching her, a quizzical smile in his eyes. Another curl of excitement lit her blood, only stronger than before. To cover her embarrassment she snapped, ‘Well? What are you going to do, Hugo? Your grandmother has run off with a man half her age!’
The smile did not fade from Hugo’s eyes. ‘I do not think you are quite correct there, my dear. Mr Sampson came late to ordination and I believe he is now in his sixties—’