A Heaven on Earth Page 11

  He turned his horse to block Lord Moreton’s way.

  “I’ll bring you to heel, you little madam,” shouted Lord Moreton.

  He went back to the wrecked carriage and seized the coachman’s long whip, waving it wildly at Aurora.

  She jumped, trying to dodge out of the way and lost her footing, falling in the mud.

  “Enough!” the horseman yelled, leaping down from the saddle and in an instant he was grappling with Lord Moreton, pulling the whip from his hand and throwing it into the ditch.

  Aurora heard Phyllis scream out and she saw for an instant in the dull lamplight the gleam of a metal blade in Lord Moreton’s hand.

  She struggled to her feet and felt the shawl falling back from her head and the cold rain beating down on her.

  “Careful,” she shouted to the horseman. “He has a knife!”

  Lord Moreton lunged forward, but the other man was too quick for him and like lightning, seized his wrist and twisted it – and at the same time kicking forward and knocking Lord Moreton’s feet from under him, so that he fell heavily into the ditch.

  The horseman chuckled, shaking the rain from his hair and turned to Aurora.

  “Now, sweetheart!” he called, “what is your wish?”

  He took a step towards her, holding out his gloved hands and then suddenly stopped in his tracks.

  His dirt-smeared face gleamed in the rain and his eyes looked wild as the lamplight caught them.

  Aurora backed away.

  “It’s you!” he breathed and reached out for her.

  “No!” cried Aurora, suddenly terrified that she was about to be attacked again. “Keep away from me!”

  “Do you not know me?”

  Aurora wiped the rain out of her eyes, desperately trying to think how she could avoid this dishevelled rough man who seemed determined to take hold of her.

  But he seemed to have noticed that she was afraid and had halted just a few feet away.

  “Miss Hartnell,” he said in a gentle voice with not a trace of a rough accent, “what is going on?”

  It was the Earl.

  She had not recognised him in these workingman’s clothes and with a dirty face – in full dress for their secret assignation at the White Hart Inn.

  Aurora struggled to find her voice, but she could not even raise a whisper and stood shivering, cold and wet, in the middle of the road.

  “I wondered why you did not come tonight,” the Earl was saying, “for I received your letter assenting to our meeting and I was sure that you were a lady of your word. I am on my way back to Linford Castle and now I find you like this.”

  “I – I – ” she gasped, but still she could not speak and even if she could have made a sound, she would not have known what to say to him.

  He was gazing intently at her, all the wildness and roughness gone and as she met his dark ardent eyes, she felt flooded with warmth despite the freezing rain.

  “Why did you not come?” he asked her softly.

  “I – would – I was – ” she whispered and held out the old woollen shawl, now soaking with rain, that she had been wearing, so that he could see her disguise.

  But before the Earl could make out what she was trying to say, there was a noise of splashing and grunting, as Lord Moreton rose from the flooded ditch and staggered over to them.

  “So,” he spluttered, “Linford! The rascal who has been trying to poach my fiancée!”

  “You mind your words,” the Earl retorted, his brow creased with anger.

  “But I have put a stop to your little game,” snorted Lord Moreton. “She is safely mine at last.”

  The Earl turned to Aurora.

  “What is this, Miss Hartnell? You did not tell me you were engaged.”

  “I am not,” she spluttered, finding her voice at last.

  “The faithless little vixen!” howled Lord Moreton and gave his unpleasant high-pitched laugh. “So fickle and wayward, she doesn’t even know her own mind.”

  He grabbed the emerald necklace roughly so that the stones cut into Aurora’s neck, choking her.

  “She says she will have me and accepts my gifts – look at these stones. They don’t come cheap, I will have you know, and then throws them back in my face – ”

  “Miss Hartnell, is this true?”

  The Earl’s frown was deepening.

  “I – it – ” she stammered, praying that the necklace would break and free her throat. “I made a bad – mistake.”

  “Yes!” cried Lord Moreton. “And then, the trollop, she realises what she has lost in rejecting me and entices me back into her clutches by most devious and unladylike means.”

  Lord Moreton gave the necklace a final twist and then released it, pushing Aurora roughly so that she fell to her knees on the muddy road.

  “But this is the woman who is to be my wife,” he continued in a calmer voice, “so I shall speak no further of her treacherous and deceitful character.”

  The Earl looked down at Aurora, but made no move to help her up.

  “Far be it from me to come between a man and his wife-to-be,” he sighed.

  Aurora felt the necklace burning into the skin of her throat, stifling her words.

  ‘It’s like a slave’s collar,’ she thought. ‘I will never be free of it.’

  “Come, Duncan,” the Earl was saying. “We must be on our way.”

  The second horseman had also dismounted and was coaxing Lord Moreton’s frightened horses out of the ditch, watched by Phyllis still cowering under the hedge.

  “Duncan!” the Earl raised his voice and the sound of it cut through Aurora like a knife.

  Duncan then jumped from the ditch and pulled off his heavy cloak, which he tossed towards Phyllis.

  He leapt onto his horse and taking the other one by the reins, led it over to the Earl.

  ‘He believes Lord Moreton’s lies. He is not even going to speak to me,’ mused Aurora, as she watched the Earl swing into the saddle and dig his heels into the plump sides of his carthorse, ‘not even to say ‘goodbye’.’

  The rain was beginning to slacken as she watched the two men ride away out of the circle of lamplight and disappear into the night.

  She put her hands up to the emerald necklace and tried to undo it, but her fingers were too stiff with cold to work the clasp.

  She tugged hard at it, but still it would not break.

  ‘There is nothing I can do,’ she thought, ‘and there is no one who will help me. I must marry Lord Moreton – although I would rather die – ’

  She struggled onto her feet and then turned to face her future husband.

  Soaked with the rain and covered in goblets of mud from the wet ditch, he seemed even less prepossessing than usual.

  Aurora choked with utter misery as she gazed at his round heavy face and small puffy eyes and reflected that this was the sight she must now face every day for the rest of her life.

  Suddenly there was a rustle behind Lord Moreton, and something heavy flew into the air and descended like a black cloud over his head.

  Lord Moreton gave a muffled shout and flailed his arms around, but he was completely covered in the folds of a thick woollen cloak.

  “Quick then, Miss Aurora,” hissed Phyllis, peering round from behind him, her hair straggling and wet, “take this strap and help me tie him up.”

  She tossed a long piece of leather from the coach horses’ harness at Aurora.

  Lord Moreton was fighting hard to free himself.

  But Phyllis, although only a fraction of his size and weight, skilfully twisted the folds of the cloak around him so that he had little room to move and in a few moments Aurora had him tightly strapped up.

  He writhed and struggled and Aurora could hear his frantic bellows through the thick cloak.

  Phyllis dragged him off the road and into the ditch again, where they left him next to his coachman, who had also been neatly tied up with pieces of harness and gagged with Phyllis’s white cap.

 
“Now,” crowed Phyllis, going over to the wrecked coach and untying their two holdalls from the rack on the roof.

  “We’ll sling these over one horse, and me being no sort of a rider, Miss Aurora, I’ll sit up behind you on the other.”

  “But Phyllis – ”

  “No buts, Miss Aurora, we have no time to lose.”

  The two coach horses had been untangled and were now standing quietly under the hedge.

  Phyllis and Aurora tied the heavy bags so that they lay across the back of one and then Aurora scrambled up onto the other.

  It felt strange not to have a saddle, but the remains of the harness were there to cling onto.

  “Come on, Phyllis, jump up,” she urged.

  “It’s a long way from the ground,” gasped Phyllis, shaking with fear as she climbed up by way of a tree stump in the hedge.

  “Be brave, Phyllis, don’t lose heart now, after what you have just done!”

  Phyllis gave a little snort.

  “Why, yes. I learned a trick or two from Frank the footman, didn’t I?”

  Aurora then remembered Duncan throwing her the cloak and was longing to ask what part he had just played in Lord Moreton’s downfall, but she suddenly felt a deep shiver travel down her spine and knew that they must stay no longer.

  “Where shall we go, Phyllis?” she asked.

  “We shall go West, Miss Aurora,” replied her maid. “To Cornwall!”

  The road in front of them was dark and everything that Aurora knew and cared for was lost.

  But then she could only hope and pray, as the horse bounded forward beneath her, that what lay ahead was no worse than what she was leaving behind.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Aurora lay in the small bedroom under the eaves at Treworra House and gazed out through the diamond-paned window towards the sea.

  She could not remember how long she had been ill, but at last her fever had gone and she was beginning to feel a little better.

  She thought feverously back over the long journey to Cornwall, recalling how Phyllis had taken that unlucky emerald necklace and been able to sell it in one of the little country towns they passed through.

  It went for only a fraction of its worth, since no one would believe that those stones were real, but with a few coins in their pockets they were able to buy saddles for the coach horses and also pay for simple rooms at the inns and hostelries along their way.

  And how useful cook’s cast-off gowns had proved, although they had been the subjects of much teasing and friendly ribaldry where they stayed.

  But no one had questioned that the two women in the thick woollen dresses and heavy shawls were not Amy and Prudence, a carter’s wife and her cousin, travelling to visit their family in Cornwall.

  And eventually they had arrived here, at Phyllis’s suggestion, at this delightful old house where Miss Morris, a childhood friend of Aurora’s Mama, lived.

  Grey-haired and gentle, Miss Morris had welcomed them most kindly, saying it was a joy to see her old friend live again in the beauty of her daughter and that she was happy to be of service to Aurora in any way.

  Aurora had endured being battered by cold and rain as they travelled the muddy roads and had not complained for an instant about the damp sheets and bad food they encountered at some of the inns.

  But the journey had taken its toll of her and as soon as she reached the safety of Miss Morris’s house, she fell ill with chills and fever.

  Miss Morris nursed her most tenderly, sitting up at all hours beside her bed and then concocting nourishing delicacies in case Aurora’s appetite should return.

  Now, as she lay looking out of the window, Aurora was alone.

  In the distance she could hear Church bells ringing, so it must be Sunday morning and Miss Morris must have gone to the service.

  Aurora stretched herself and sat up.

  The room was warm and cosy and yet there was a sad feel to it.

  It was rather like Miss Morris herself, she thought, who was dainty and kind and always looked immaculately clean and well presented, but whose gentle grey eyes held a deep and resigned unhappiness.

  Aurora shivered and wrapped the bed covers around her.

  All the while she had been ill, she had not thought about the terrible events that had brought her to Cornwall for the pain had been too much for her to bear.

  But now she was starting to feel stronger and more clear-headed and so she must face up to the reality of her predicament.

  ‘I can never return home,’ she reflected, ‘my Papa will never accommodate me under his roof again, and as for Lord Moreton, what would he do to me, if he was ever to see me again? I am an outcast!’

  But there was one other even more painful thought that she must face up to.

  And that was the fact that she would never be able to see the Earl again, hear his voice and see his dark eyes light up at the sight of her.

  ‘He believes I am treacherous and fickle and every manner of bad things a woman might be,’ she moaned to herself as she lay back on her soft pillows, a tear trickling down the side of her nose.

  ‘And perhaps I am!’

  There was a knock at the door and Phyllis entered, carrying a tray.

  “Why there’s an improvement,” she burbled. “You be sittin’ up, miss. But whatever is the matter?”

  Aurora told her, as best she could, as she was now sobbing wildly and could hardly force her words out.

  Phyllis laid the tray on the side table and sat down by the bed.

  “Look here, miss – ” she said kindly. “I have brought you tea and the thinnest slices of bread and butter. Do try some, please – you haven’t eaten a thing in so many days.”

  Aurora was feeling extremely weak, but she tried to calm her sobs and after she had sipped a little hot tea and tasted the bread and butter, she felt some vitality seeping back into her exhausted body.

  “That is so good, Phyllis, but what am I going to do? I just don’t know which way to turn.”

  “Well now, miss, you can’t do anythin’ but rest for the time bein’, since you’ve been so very ill. But there is no need to worry, because Miss Morris has told me you are welcome to stay here for as long as you want. And, as for the other business, well – you are in a fix and no mistake, but I’m sure there’ll be a way out of it.”

  Aurora smiled, as somehow it was just impossible to feel gloomy in the company of Phyllis, who would never allow herself to be defeated by any situation.

  After all, even Lord Moreton had been no match for her!

  “I should like a little more bread and butter, please, and then perhaps tomorrow I shall think about getting up.”

  “That’s the spirit, Miss Aurora,” enthused Phyllis and then she frowned.

  “What is the matter?” Aurora asked her.

  “There’s just one thing that be botherin’ me about us never bein’ able to go back to Hadleigh Hall.”

  “What?” asked Aurora.

  “Well, we never did find out what an ‘amanuensis’ is and now we’ll never be able to ask your father!”

  Aurora burst out laughing.

  “Oh, Phyllis, you are so funny sometimes! Don’t worry, I am sure Miss Morris will have a dictionary.”

  *

  The next day, Aurora felt so much recovered that she was able to come downstairs and sit with Miss Morris in the parlour.

  She sat by the fireside and watched Miss Morris’s slender fingers pulling a needle through a piece of linen as she created a beautiful silk rose on a cushion cover.

  “How are you feeling now, my dear?” Miss Morris asked in her soft gentle voice.

  “I am much better, thank you, and I must thank you so much for all your kindness to me.”

  “Why, it’s a great pleasure to have my dear friend Marianne’s daughter in my home,” smiled Miss Morris.

  “I don’t know how much Phyllis has told you – ”

  “She has told me everything, as far as I know,” said Miss Morris grave
ly and laid aside her embroidery. “You are in a difficult position, my dear, but I do not think that you have done anything wrong.”

  “Who will ever believe that, though? When Lord Moreton and Stepmother are telling such different stories?”

  “That is where the difficulty lies, but we must place our trust in the Good Lord and the truth will prevail, I am sure of it. And you have a home with me here for as long as you need it.”

  Aurora sighed.

  Although she was feeling warm and well cared for and now sitting in a most comfortable armchair, she could not help but feel very sad and low.

  She shook herself, realising that she was showing a great lack of manners.

  “Thank you, dear Miss Morris, your kindness goes far beyond anything I could have expected. But may I ask you something?”

  “Of course, Aurora.”

  “Do you know what an amanuensis is?”

  Aurora experienced a sudden pain in her heart as she remembered the Earl’s low voice saying the word, when they faced each other through the whirling snow.

  Miss Morris laughed.

  “What a strange question, my dear! I think it is a Latin word and means ‘a special trusted servant’, who will obey your every command, but where did you come across this word?”

  “Phyllis will be very delighted,” murmured Aurora, blushing and declining to answer Miss Morris’s question, “I think she thought it might mean something derogatory.”

  “Not at all, my dear, a most appropriate use of the word is when it is applied to your wonderful Phyllis! But I can check that the meaning I have given you is correct. I will ask our Vicar, Mr. Bramley, when he comes to call.”

  Aurora thanked Miss Morris and was a bit surprised to note that, as she spoke of the Vicar, a cloud of sadness passed her face.

  “Are you all right, Miss Morris?” she asked.

  “Yes, yes, of course. I must go and check that all is well with cook in the kitchen.”

  Miss Morris then hurriedly left the room.

  Aurora felt a distinct tightness around her heart as she watched her leave, as her charming hostess was clearly upset about something.

  ‘I do wish I could speak to her about the Earl,’ she reflected, ‘but I dare not. It is a secret I cannot share with anyone.’