‘Well, not my actual lover,’ she said, blushing rosily. ‘The man I am in love with.’
‘But you accepted my proposal.’
‘Papa had just discovered how I felt about Hugo – Lieutenant Drayfield, that is. He is the second son of neighbours of ours and I have known him forever, but he was home on sick leave from the Peninsula – a wound in his shoulder that refused to heal – and we got to know each other much better and fell in love. And he asked Papa for my hand, but he was furious because Hugo has only his pay and a merely respectable competence from family money.’ She bit her lip, glanced at him and, presumably encouraged by his expression, went on.
‘Then you proposed and I knew that your affections were not engaged, so I accepted and made excuses for not making the betrothal known. If he thought that I had seen the error of my ways, then Papa would allow me more freedom again. And I imagined that when I ran off with Hugo anyone who found out would sympathise with you and consider that you’d had a lucky escape.’
‘And today’s the day?’
‘No, Monday. Hugo’s transport sails from Portsmouth late on Tuesday night. I was going to hire a post chaise and drive down there. We are all supposed
to be visiting connections in Richmond on Monday, so I will pretend a severe headache to stay at home.’
‘And you are proposing to hire a chaise and travel over seventy miles by yourself to a dockyard full of soldiers?’
‘Exactly. I can hardly take Winslow, my maid, with me. She doesn’t want to leave England, so I would have to abandon her at Portsmouth to travel home by herself and then Mama would dismiss her without a character. She is going to say she made me a sleeping draught and thought she should leave me rest and when she went to check I had gone. I’ve written a letter to my parents in which I boast of outwitting her. She is not going to find my letter until late afternoon – it will have slipped down behind my bureau.’
Theo suppressed a groan. If he could have waved a magic wand and wished, then he would have asked that Lady Penelope loved another man and could be happily married to him without a scandal. And here he was with half his wish come true and the other half a nightmare.
‘Are you certain he loves you?’
‘Yes.’ She eyed him suspiciously. ‘You are not going to give me away, are you?’
‘I cannot let you make that journey by yourself. If you are certain, absolutely certain, then I will take you in my carriage – and I will want to talk to your Lieutenant Drudgefield – ’
‘Drayfield!’
‘– myself before I let you out of the carriage.’
‘Lord Northam – ’
‘Don’t stop to thank me.’ He grinned at her when she frowned at him. ‘I will go now before your mother comes home. When shall I meet you on Monday?’
‘They are leaving at nine – early because our friends want to go out on the Thames on a pleasure boat. Take your carriage round to the mews at the back. Winslow is going to lower the bags out of the window to me on a rope.’
‘You know where to find me if you need to send a message before then.’ He retrieved his hat and stood up. ‘I hope we may both find happiness at the end of this.’
And not a monumental scandal, he thought as he slipped a half sovereign into the butler’s hand and went down the steps into the street. Am I out of my mind? But I can’t let her travel all that way by herself and find goodness knows what at the end of it. At least this way I’ll know she’ll be safe and I can run an eye over this officer of hers. None of which was going to be any help if he found himself at dawn on a chilly morning squinting down the barrel of a pistol at Lady Penelope’s brother…
There were architectural quirks with a building that was of two distinct periods, cobbled together. The original outside west wall of the Elizabethan part of Mannerton Grange was now an inside wall and on the old side was the double-height chamber that was now the dining room. Windows and doors on the ground floor had been blocked up when the modern wing was added, but a small, rather decorative, window had been left high up. Now glazed, it provided a feature in one of the upstairs bedchambers.
Perry had the modern window frame and glass removed and Laura found a length of black gauze that must once have been a voluminous mourning veil. When it was fixed to the bedchamber side of the window it allowed anyone inside in the dark to see out and to hear what was happening in the dining room below without being seen themselves.
With five hours to go before the guests arrived Laura set the footmen to dragging carpets across so that a semicircle of chairs could be set by the window with no risk of movement being heard below. She counted as they were positioned. Me, Pitkin, Flynn, Lieutenant Morefleet, Will and Charlotte Hogget. She still had not discovered Charlotte’s real name.
Perry was supervising the laying of the table in the dining room below. With sixteen guests and only six ladies it had been a nightmare to work out, but they had finally arrived at a seating plan that did not entirely throw precedence out of the window, kept relations apart from each other and spread Theo, Gerard Redfern and Jared out along the table. Perry, as the host, had to take the head of the board and he had asked Mrs Giles to act as hostess so she would be seated at the foot.
If Theo comes in time. Or at all, Laura thought bleakly. He had promised to be back on Tuesday at the latest and this was Friday. There had been no word and, since Wednesday, Jared – never a man to show much emotion – had been looking more than usually stony-faced.
Finally, convinced that Theo had met with some accident and Jared was hiding it from her, she had cornered him and demanded an explanation. He knew nothing about Theo he promised her, but he’d received a letter from his wife in which she had mentioned the latest scandal in Town – the disappearing of Lady Penelope Haddon, Theo’s betrothed.
He’s eloped with her. But why should he? They are betrothed. So why? Why… She could make no sense of it and neither could Jared or Perry but the fact remained that there was no sign of Theo. No word.
‘He wouldn’t let us all down,’ Perry said stoutly. ‘He knows how important this dinner could be.’
Jared had simply looked grim and had sent Jed Tucker off to ride to London in search of Theo while Laura somehow walled up the anxiety, and the quite unfair sense of betrayal, in some dark corner of her mind and got on with the preparations and the planning.
Down in the kitchen Mrs Bishop had been working on the dinner since the day before and Laura had to keep popping in to jolly her along ever since she’d discovered that on the night she’d have to share the space with three large Dragoons.