70 A Witch's Spell Read online

  “If there is,” the Marquis replied quickly, “it is some of the magic you are weaving around me until I am certain everything I drink contains a magic potion and there is witchcraft creeping into every corner of the house!”

  “What a lovely idea!” Hermia exclaimed. “That is the right sort of magic, the magic which will bring you happiness and give you everything you wish for yourself!”

  “I wonder – ” the Marquis remarked reflectively.

  Because there seemed to be nothing more to say, Hermia thanked him again, then ran up to her room to write a letter to Peter.

  The Marquis, she thought, had been very kind and now she felt as if she was enveloped in a golden light for the rest of the day.

  *

  Only when she came downstairs dressed in an exquisitely beautiful gown, which she hoped he would admire, did she see Hickson coming from the hall with the Marquis’s evening cape over his arm.

  It seemed strange that he should be bringing it up the stairs now and she stopped to say,

  “Good evening, Hickson. Is his Lordship in the drawing room?”

  “No, miss,” Hickson replied. “I thought ’is Lordship would ’ave told you ’e’s not dining ’ere tonight.”

  “Not dining here?” Hermia asked. “But there is a party.”

  “Yes, I know, miss, but ’is Lordship promised a long time ago to dine at Carlton House before ’is Royal Highness leaves for Brighton tomorrow.”

  “I understand,” Hermia said, “but I hope that he will come on later to the ball I am attending.”

  “If ’e does, I think it’d be a mistake for ’is Lordship to stay up late and as ’e won’t wear ’is cape ’e may catch a chill,” Hickson spoke in exactly the same tone that Nanny might have used.

  Hermia smiled.

  “His Lordship is very much better,” she said. “In fact he told me so today.”

  “All the same ’e should take more care of ’imself,” Hickson persisted.

  Because the valet seemed as worried as she was, Hermia said,

  “I am desperately afraid that the men who attacked him last time might try to do so again.”

  “That’s right, miss,” Hickson agreed. “But ’is Lordship never ’as a thought for ’imself and when I tells ’im Mr. de Ville will murder ’im before ’e’s finished, he just laughs.”

  Hermia gave a little exclamation.

  “Do you really think that?”

  “I does, miss,” Hickson said. “Mr. Roxford’s tried it once and ’e’ll try again, you mark me words!”

  “H-how can we – stop him?” Hermia stammered.

  “You try speakin’ to ’is Lordship, miss. He won’t listen to me, says I’m an old fuss-pot, but it’s no use fussing after a man’s dead. You ’as to do somethin’ about it before that ’appens.”

  “Yes, of course,” Hermia agreed, “but what can I do?”

  Hickson gave a deep sigh.

  “I don’t know, miss, and that’s a fact! I put ’is loaded pistol beside the Master’s bed at night, but he tells me anyone who attacks ’im in ’is bedroom would ’ave to be a spider or else fly in through the window!”

  Hickson spoke in an aggrieved voice, but Hermia knew how fond he was of the Marquis. If he was apprehensive, so was she, feeling that the attack, having failed last time, would be repeated sooner or later.

  “Does his Lordship carry a pistol with him when he is out riding?” she asked.

  “I suggested it, but ’is Lordship says it spoils the shape of ’is coat!” Hickson replied. “However, there’s always one in the phaeton, when ’is Lordship travels any long distance.”

  Hickson paused before he added,

  “But the men who’re attackin’ his Lordship don’t want ’is money but ’is life!”

  Hermia gave a cry of horror, but there was no chance of saying any more because from where they were standing she could see the guests arriving for dinner.

  Then, as she walked into the drawing room where Lady Langdon was waiting, Hermia felt that with the Marquis not there all the excitement had gone out of the evening.

  She found this surprising for she had been looking forward to it so much.

  Then, as she moved over the soft carpet she knew, although it seemed incredible, that unmistakably and irrefutably she loved him.

  *

  Afterwards Hermia could never remember what she said at dinner or even who had sat on either side of her.

  All she could think of was that she had fallen in love as she had always wished to do, but with a man who was as far out of reach as the moon.

  She had hated him when he had kissed her, she had thought him to be the villain in her fantasies and she had been afraid of his sarcastic remarks and the way he looked at her.

  Now she knew that only love could have guided her to the witch’s cottage, so that she could save his life.

  Only love could have made it possible for her to support a man of the Marquis’s size and weight back through the wood to safety.

  She thought that she had been very stupid not to realise why it had felt so exciting to have the Marquis, even though he was injured, at the Vicarage.

  Then, when he had persuaded the Earl to build a timber yard, because it was what she had suggested to him, she should have known that what she felt for him was not only gratitude but love.

  How could she have been so foolish as not to understand that beneath a disdainful facade he was warm-hearted, generous, compassionate and understanding?

  It was not just magic that had changed everything and made the atmosphere in the Vicarage seem even happier and more exciting than it had ever been before, but her love for the man whose life she had saved.

  ‘Of course I love him!’ Hermia thought.

  She knew that the men she had met and the compliments they had paid her had never seemed quite real. They were but cardboard figures stepping out from the pages of a book rather than flesh and blood.

  The Marquis was real, so real that he had filled her thoughts, her mind and her heart ever since she had known him.

  However, she tried to use her common sense and tell herself that she could never mean anything to him and that he was going to marry Marilyn.

  She had thought at first it was unlikely, but when he had persuaded her uncle to open a timber yard, she was quite certain it had been understood between them, even if it was not put into words, that the Marquis had got his way simply because the Earl wished to placate such an important son-in-law.

  ‘I love him!’ Hermia said to herself when they arrived at the ball, which was taking place in one of the most splendid and majestic houses in London.

  Again there was all the glitter of jewels and decorations that she had found so entrancing and about which she had written pages and pages of description to her mother.

  But tonight the chandeliers did not seem to shine and she found the decorations tawdry.

  Although she had no shortage of partners, she had the greatest difficulty in showing any interest in what they said to her or listening to them.

  She was wondering how soon it would be possible for her to go home and, if Lady Langdon would think it strange that she should not wish to dance until the early hours of the morning, when two men appeared in the doorway of the ballroom.

  Hermia was dancing with Lord Wilchester, a young man who was paying her the most fulsome compliments.

  “When may I see you alone?” he asked. “Can I call on you tomorrow?”

  “I am not sure what we are doing,” she replied vaguely.

  “That is the same answer you gave me last night and the night before,” he persisted. “I have something to say to you that I can only say when we are alone.”

  His fingers tightened on hers until his clasp was painful and Hermia realised that he intended to offer her marriage.

  It flashed through her mind that, as he was very rich and influential, it would be a marriage that would delight her father and mother and, of course, Lady Langdon.r />
  But when she looked up into his eyes Hermia knew that if he pleaded with her for a hundred years she had no wish to be his wife.

  “Lord Wilchester was paying a lot of attention to you,” Lady Langdon had said last night as they drove home. “You have certainly made a conquest. I wish I could think that he might propose to you, but I am afraid that is aiming too high.”

  Hermia had not replied and Lady Langdon went on,

  “Lord Wilchester is one of the most charming young men I have met for a long time. He has a large estate in Oxfordshire, besides owning Wilchester House in London which is quite exceptional.”

  She had sighed before she added,

  “But it is expecting too much. Every ambitious mother in London has been trying to capture him for their daughters and I think if he marries anybody it will be one of the Duke of Bedford’s daughters.”

  Hermia had not thought about it again, but now she knew without Lord Wilchester saying any more what he intended.

  ‘I should accept him to please Papa and Mama,’ she thought.

  She looked up to see the Prince Regent coming into the ballroom and behind him the Marquis.

  Because she was so glad to see him and because everything else faded away from her mind she forgot Lord Wilchester and what he was saying to her until, as if his voice came from a long way away, she heard him say,

  “I asked you a question!”

  “I-I am sorry,” she said quickly. “I did not – hear what you said.”

  Again she was watching the Marquis talking to their hostess and she saw as he did so that his eyes were searching the ballroom as if he was looking for her.

  Then she told herself that, if Lady Langdon thought Lord Wilchester was out of reach, even more so was the Marquis.

  She did not miss the innuendos she had heard almost every evening at dinner or at any luncheon party she attended.

  “You are staying at Deverille House?” her partners always exclaimed. “Good gracious, you must be a very important person!”

  “Why should you think that?” Hermia had asked, knowing the answer.

  “Deverille is never seen with young women. In fact it is always said in the Clubs that he would not know a young woman if he saw one!”

  Then usually the man who had thus spoken would look embarrassed and say quickly,

  “Perhaps I am being rude. Of course, as Lady Langdon is chaperoning you, that means you are a relative.”

  Hermia had not troubled to contradict that idea.

  She did not miss either the disagreeable and jealous looks she received from the beautiful women who clustered round the Marquis when he introduced her to them.

  “Miss Brooke is my guest,” he would explain and a look of curiosity would be replaced by one of incredulity or of unconcealed antagonism.

  Hermia thought she could not imagine that women could look so beautiful or so alluring and not hold every man irresistibly captivated by their charms.

  There was no doubt they set out to entice the Marquis and, watching them, Hermia thought for the first time that she could understand what the temptations of St. Anthony had been like.

  Or to put it in a more familiar way, she thought that the lovely Sirens who surrounded the Marquis pictured the villager’s imagination of the witches who revelled with Satan in Witch Wood.

  They fluttered their long dark eyelashes at the Marquis, pouted at him with reddened lips and the gowns they wore seemed almost indecently décolleté.

  It told Hermia quite clearly that, despite the beautiful gowns she had been given, she was no more than the stupid inconsequential village girl the Marquis had once mistaken for a milkmaid.

  ‘That is how he thinks of me,’ she mused miserably.

  Then she felt as if she went down into a little hell of her own, where there was no requited love, only the frustrations of yearning and wanting what was out of reach and unobtainable.

  Although the Marquis smiled in her direction at the ball, he made no move to speak to her and, when the Prince Regent left, he left with him.

  Later Lady Langdon and Hermia drove home alone and, as the two horses drew the comfortable carriage swiftly down Piccadilly, Lady Langdon said,

  “You looked very lovely tonight and the Duchess commented that you were undoubtedly the prettiest girl in the room! I noticed too that Lord Wilchester was very attentive.”

  “He asked if he could call and see me tomorrow,” Hermia said without thinking.

  Lady Langdon gave a little exclamation.

  “He asked to see you alone?”

  “Yes, but I don’t wish to be alone with him!”

  “My dear child, don’t be so ridiculous! Can you not understand that he is going to propose to you? He would never ask to see you alone otherwise.”

  “I thought perhaps he was thinking of something like that,” Hermia said in a low voice, “but – I don’t wish – to – marry him.”

  “Not wish to marry Lord Wilchester?” Lady Langdon cried in amazement. “But, my dearest Hermia, you must be off your head! Of course you must marry him! It would be the most marvellous brilliant marriage you could aspire to! In fact I will be honest and say that I had no idea you could capture the heart of the most elusive bachelor in the whole of the Beau Monde!”

  She paused and then added almost as if it was a joke,

  “With, of course, the exception of my brother, who has sworn he will never marry!”

  “Why should he do that?” Hermia asked with a different note in her voice from what there had been before.

  “Has no one told you that poor Favian was abominably treated by a girl he lost his heart to the year after he came down from Oxford?”

  “What happened?”

  “It was quite an ordinary story, but had consequences we never envisaged at the time.”

  “What were they?’

  “Favian fell in love with the Duke of Dorset’s daughter. She was lovely, quite lovely, but I always thought that she was not quite what she appeared.”

  “I don’t understand,” Hermia murmured.

  “Caroline was very beautiful, looked magnificent on a horse, which, of course, pleased Favian and appeared to be as much in love with him as he was with her,”

  Lady Langdon gave a little sigh.

  “The whole family was delighted because Favian had just come into the title and being so rich and so attractive was being pursued by every woman he met.”

  She paused before she went on,

  “We all thought that, if he settled down and spent more time in the country than in London, it would be excellent for him and perhaps prevent him from going into the Army, as he wished to do.”

  “Did they become engaged?” Hermia asked.

  “Not officially. The families of both sides knew it was an understanding and in fact the announcement was due to go into The Gazette when Favian discovered that Caroline was behaving in an outrageous manner with the man she was really in love with!”

  Hermia made a murmured exclamation and Lady Langdon continued,

  “I could hardly believe that any well bred girl would stoop to having a love affair with a man of a different class all together and disgrace herself by meeting him surreptitiously in the ground of her father’s estate.”

  “Who was he?”

  “He was her father’s horse trainer and, of course, Caroline had often been escorted by him when she went riding.”

  Hermia could see what had happened and Lady Langdon said in a tone of the most utter contempt,

  “It was disgraceful, absolutely disgraceful, that any lady should behave in such a manner! I learnt, although Favian could never talk about it, that he had received an anonymous letter from somebody who was jealous of him and he surprised Caroline and the man she loved in very unfortunate circumstances.”

  “It must have hurt him very much,” Hermia muttered.

  “It made him extremely cynical and he immediately joined the Army and fought in the Peninsula and France until Well
ington was victorious at Waterloo.”

  “I had no idea he was a soldier.”

  “The Duke of Wellington said that he was an excellent Officer in every way, but, although he came back to enjoy the good things of life that were waiting for him, I have always felt that he was somewhat contemptuous of them.”

  It was what Hermia had thought herself.

  Then she said, because she could not help asking the question,

  “Has the Marquis never fallen in love with anybody else?”

  “There have been many women in his life,” Lady Langdon replied. “In fact they never leave him alone! We have been hoping and praying that he will marry, if only to prevent that ghastly cousin of ours Roxford de Ville from borrowing money as Favian’s heir presumptive.”

  There was a pause before Lady Langdon added,

  “I rather hoped he might marry that pretty cousin of yours. In fact when he told me he was going to stay with her father I hoped it that was she who attracted him rather than your uncle’s horses, of which Favian has quite enough already!”

  There was no need for Hermia to reply, because at that moment the horses drew up outside the Marquis’s house.

  “We are home,” Lady Langdon announced, “and I must admit that I am ready for bed.”

  They walked up the staircase together and climbed the next flight to the second floor.

  The rooms there were equally impressive with high ceilings and, as was to be expected, exquisite decoration.

  When she reached her own bedroom, Hermia felt that for all the pleasure it gave her it might as well have been an attic with nothing in it but an iron bedstead.

  All she could think of was the Marquis being disillusioned and disgusted by the girl he had fallen in love with and in consequence swearing that he would never marry anybody.

  When her maid, who had waited up to undo her gown had left her, Hermia went to the window to pull back the curtains.

  Once again, as she had done before, she looked at the new moon that was just rising up in the sky and thought that, just as it was out of reach, so was the Marquis.

  ‘I may love him, but he will never love me!’ she reflected.