Signpost To Love Page 6

  “As a matter of fact now you have suggested anything so exciting I shall certainly consider it,” Baptista replied mischievously.

  “In which case I shall immediately notify your father as to what you are doing!” the Earl threatened.

  “You could not be so treacherous, so underhand or indeed so cruel,” Baptista protested.

  Then she looked at him and added,

  “I know you are only teasing me, but it frightens me even to think of Papa. Supposing he has caught up with us by now and will appear at any moment to take me away from you?”

  She looked over her shoulder apprehensively as she spoke and the Earl remarked dryly,

  “Unless your father has managed to find a carriage and horses to exceed the speed of mine and has travelled all through the night, I am convinced we have put a great many miles between him and us.”

  He heard Baptista give a little sigh of relief and knew that, even if she had exaggerated her father’s treatment of her, he still had the power to terrify her in a way which the Earl knew no father should have been allowed to do.

  They had a quick but appetising luncheon in a small town and then set off on what the Earl knew was quite a long stage to where they would stay that night.

  He wished to ride, but, when he suggested that Baptista had taken enough exercise, she answered,

  “I am not in the least tired and I want to ride your magnificent horses. I may never have the opportunity again.”

  The Earl did not dispute this but lifted her onto the saddle, thinking she was very light, although having the strength to control a spirited horse.

  He had always thought that a woman could look her most attractive on horseback, but he had often found the women he fancied lost a great deal of their allure when they were indifferent riders.

  Looking at Baptista’s slender figure in her well-cut extremely chic French riding habit, he thought as he had last night that, if she was dressed by one of the great dressmakers either in Paris or London, she would cause a sensation in the Social world.

  Then he told himself that this was something she would be unable to do because she would be hiding from her father. For at least the next three years she would have to live secretly and obscurely if there were any English people about.

  He found himself wondering what her mother’s position was in French Society.

  As the wife of another man, she would hardly expect the more respectable ladies in Paris to accept her if she was living with the Comte de Saucorne.

  It would therefore mean that, unless they were to be content just with each other’s company, Lady Dunsford would know only the less respectable families or perhaps merely the Demi Monde.

  He found himself frowning at the thought that in that case Baptista would make the acquaintance of a number of very undesirable men who would expect her morals to be as questionable as those of her mother.

  For the first time he began to consider whether in rescuing her from a tyrannical father and taking her to Paris he was perhaps doing her a disservice.

  He was well aware that Frenchmen would find her alluring and extremely attractive.

  Her fair hair, blue eyes and pink-and-white skin were a Frenchman’s idea of an English beauty.

  While, as her father’s daughter, they would treat her with respect and perhaps even consider her eligible to marry one of the sons of a noble house, in the company of her mother the proposals they would make to her would involve something very different from marriage.

  The Earl was aware by now how innocent and intrinsically pure Baptista was.

  Despite the fact that she had read a lot and was extremely intelligent, she was absolutely ignorant of the world and the men who lived in it.

  She had indeed come up against what the Earl knew was something unnatural and repulsive in her father’s obsession for punishment. But, although he recognised that it had a perverted connection with physical enjoyment, that aspect of it had never occurred to Baptista.

  Even what the ordinary man desired of an attractive girl was something she had no knowledge about and he wondered how long she would be able to remain in such a state once she reached Paris.

  ‘Perhaps I should turn round,’ he told himself, ‘and take her back to England and find out if there are any Dunsford relatives who would take her under their protection.’

  Even as he thought of it, he knew that Lord Dunsford was her natural Guardian and would still have the power legally to force her to obey him and, if he wished it, to incarcerate her in a House of Penitence.

  The more he thought about Baptista and his responsibility towards her, the Earl found himself between the devil and the deep blue sea.

  Whatever he did it seemed to him that he would be hurting Baptista and perhaps the lesser of two evils was to take her to her mother.

  ‘I may find my fears on that score are quite groundless,’ the Earl tried to console himself.

  At the same time, when Baptista looked at him with her eyes shining in her small, flower-like face, he was apprehensive about her future, a matter that had never concerned him before with the women he knew.

  They had ridden for nearly two hours when quite suddenly it began to rain and the Earl, looking at the darkness of the sky ahead, was sure that they were in for a thunderstorm.

  They were passing through a flat part of the country and, while there were few woods, there were, as was inevitable in France, tall high trees lining each side of the narrow roadway.

  One of the hazards of a thunderstorm was that during it a tree might be struck and fall either to block the thoroughfare or, more dangerous, to land on any animal or vehicle that happened to be passing.

  When the Earl and Baptista had given up their horses to the outriders and were once again seated inside the travelling carriage, the Earl, looking out of the window, realised that they were driving straight into the storm.

  There was nothing they could do about it but to drive on, although the Earl hoped that there might be a town ahead where they could shelter until the worst of it was over.

  He was, however, aware that this was a thinly populated area on their route to Paris and could only hope that the storm would abate and be less violent than appeared likely.

  His hopes, however, were not realised. The rain not only poured down, but the flashes of lightning and the rumbles of the thunder frightened the horses.

  The coachman was having difficulty in controlling them and the footman, who was also a groom, mounted the offside leader as was usual in such emergencies.

  To enable him to do so, the carriage stopped and the Earl said,

  “I will take over the driving.”

  He did not wait for Baptista to reply, but got out in the pouring rain and climbed up onto the box.

  They moved on and half-an-hour later Baptista was aware that they were turning into the courtyard of a small inn.

  She could just see that they appeared to be on the outskirts of a hamlet and the door of the carriage was opened by a rather rough-looking man in dirty clothing.

  She saw that it was not the type of inn that the Earl would ordinarily have patronised, but it would obviously be foolhardy to travel any further.

  She walked inside to find it was a low-ceilinged poorly furnished place, but not as dirty as she had first anticipated judging by the man who had opened the carriage door.

  An elderly man who was obviously the landlord came forward to welcome her and when she explained that they had stopped owing to the storm, he was very effusive in his offer of hospitality.

  “I am sure the first thing Monsieur and his servants will require,” she said in her good French, “is for their clothes to be dried.”

  That, the landlord assured her, presented no difficulties.

  There was a large fire in the kitchen and when the horses were stabled everyone would be looked after and well fed.

  The Earl came in as he was speaking and, as soon as she saw him, Baptista knew that she was right in thinking that his
clothes needed drying.

  He had fortunately put on his overcoat before he left the carriage for the coachman’s box, but even so it was obvious that it was soaked and even his hair was plastered down on the sides of his face.

  He laughed at her expression as she saw him and said that the coachman and outriders were in a far worse state than he was.

  The landlord of the inn lit the fire in the large open grate and the Earl divested himself not only of his overcoat but also his smart grey whipcord riding jacket.

  Baptista found herself thinking how attractive he looked in his white muslin shirt, which fortunately had escaped a soaking, his buckskin breeches and highly polished riding boots.

  The Earl ordered a bottle of wine and when it came insisted on Baptista having a glass with him.

  “I don’t like drinking alone,” he said, “and I have a feeling that, while the wine may be drinkable, the food will not be of the quality we have enjoyed so far.”

  “Will we have to stay the night?”

  “I hope not,” the Earl replied, “but so far the storm does not appear to be abating and it can be difficult and even dangerous to drive on the wet roads unless one can see clearly where one is going.”

  As he spoke a crash of thunder overhead told them that the storm was still with them and Baptista thought that by the time it passed it would be dark.

  “At least the landlord seems very obliging,” she said.

  “I don’t expect many travellers stay here,” the Earl replied. “The town where Barnard is waiting for us and which I have found in the past has a first class hotel is only twelve miles away and it will be infuriating if we cannot reach it.”

  “I am quite happy.”

  Baptista smiled at the Earl as she spoke. She was thinking that for her, wherever they might stay, it was an adventure and an excitement that she had not expected when she escaped from her father.

  How could she have been so fortunate as to find anyone like the Earl not only to carry her swiftly away from a terrifying future but also to be so understanding and at the same time kind?

  Baptista had never been alone with a man before and, although she had no idea what the wrong sort of man might expect of her, she thought that if she had travelled with someone unpleasant it would have been disagreeable or she might have been in the company of a man who tried to kiss her.

  She had never been kissed, but she had read in one of the novels she had borrowed from the servants at home – which would never have been allowed in her father’s library – that gentlemen did attempt to kiss pretty girls who, if they were pure, fought violently against such advances.

  ‘The Earl certainly does not wish to kiss me,’ Baptista told herself and found herself wondering what it would be like if he did.

  The landlord’s wife, a middle-aged woman who seemed somewhat dour and by no means as pleasant as her husband, showed Baptista upstairs before dinner.

  By now she realised that she would not only wash her hands in the bedroom but also be obliged to stay the night in it.

  The inn was a small one and there were only two bedrooms on the first floor adjacent to each other and both low-ceilinged and sparsely furnished.

  “You can have which room you like, madame,” the landlord’s wife said.

  Baptista, looking first at one and then the other, saw that there was in one room a four-poster bed hung with needlework curtains that were faded yet must at one time have been beautiful.

  As the landlord’s wife saw Baptista admiring them, she explained that her husband had bought the bed from a château nearby whose contents had been sold.

  Because it looked more imposing than the bed in the other room which was much smaller with only a headboard made of plain wood, Baptista left the more impressive bedroom for the Earl.

  There were no carpets on the floor, only mats, but the wooden boards were clean and she hoped the mattresses were the same.

  However, while they were eating dinner and finding it better than the Earl had anticipated, he said,

  “You cannot trust the beds in these small inns and I have therefore told my servants to bring in all the rugs from the carriage and I suggest that you lie on one and cover yourself with another.”

  Baptista looked at him wide-eyed.

  “Are you saying that we should not undress?”

  “I have no intention of doing so,” the Earl replied, “and I think you might be sorry if you did.”

  Baptista gave a little shudder.

  “I shall take your advice, my Lord.”

  She drank another glass of wine at dinner and realised after they had sat talking in front of the fire that she was very sleepy.

  She gave a stifled little yawn and the Earl smiled.

  “Go to bed, Baptista,” he said, “and to make up for lost time, I want to start very early tomorrow morning, so you will not be able to sleep late.”

  “I will not do that,” Baptista replied, “and I hope by tomorrow it will have stopped raining.”

  “I was looking out before dinner,” the Earl told her. “The storm has passed and the rain is lessening. But I would not wish to travel in the dark and we will be safer here.”

  “Where are the servants going to sleep?”

  “I have already discovered that there are very comfortable haylofts over the stables.”

  The Earl smiled as he added,

  “I think as a matter of fact they will doubtless find them more comfortable than the beds upstairs!”

  “I think you are being needlessly censorious about our accommodation,” Baptista said. “The landlord’s wife who, I understand, has been doing the cooking, has certainly done her best considering she was not expecting visitors.”

  “That is true,” the Earl agreed. “I will see that tomorrow they are fully recompensed for the effort they have made on our behalf.”

  His clothes had been dried and he had sat down to dinner wearing his jacket.

  Despite being in riding clothes, he looked so handsome and attractive that Baptista wished she had her new gown to wear rather than being arrayed only in her riding habit, which she had worn all day.

  She thought, however, it was unnecessary to wear the coat and had come down to dinner dressed in her skirt and a thin white blouse that had been provided for her to wear with the habit.

  It had a little bow at the neck and there was a frill at her waist and she thought to herself that, after the dull drab clothes her father had made her wear, it was extremely elegant.

  She had taken a great deal of trouble in arranging her hair and then thought despairingly that the Earl would find her neither smart nor attractive when he compared her with the ladies who entertained him in London and those who would be waiting for him in Paris.

  Again she was very ignorant of the circle the Earl moved in, but she had often read the social columns of the newspapers.

  The names of the people mentioned had meant nothing to her, but it had made her aware that there was a world of gaiety, amusement, balls and parties outside the walls of her home which to all intents and purposes was a prison.

  “Why cannot I attend a ball, Papa?” she had asked her father one day.

  She had not thought of the consequences of such an artless question and had brought down on her head a tirade against those who sought only a life of pleasure at the expense of their souls and a violent denunciation of her wish to follow a life of sin that would lead to eternal damnation.

  She had never asked her father such a question again, but she often thought how wonderful it would be to dance and to attend one of the balls given in London, which were reported the following day in the Society columns of The Times and The Morning Post.

  She knew now that the Earl’s name must often have been amongst the long list of guests and she thought that, when she left him, she would in future always look to see where he had been.

  She could imagine him talking to some beautiful woman glittering with jewels or dancing with her under the crystal ch
andeliers in a crowded ballroom.

  She wondered why the idea seemed to give her almost a pain in her heart and told herself that there was no need to be envious.

  She was sure that her mother would take her to balls in Paris and that she would find plenty of young Frenchmen who wished to dance with her.

  ‘They will not look like the Earl,’ she thought wistfully.

  She was certain that never again would she see a man so handsome or such an outstanding rider.

  As she went upstairs in the inn, she thought that perhaps she was being foolish to leave the Earl so early when she might have gone on talking to him.

  Then she knew that she was in fact very tired and it would spoil all the things they were going to do tomorrow if she was fatigued.

  She found herself hoping that this delay would mean that they would not reach Paris as quickly as the Earl had intended.

  ‘Once he deposits me with Mama,’ she told herself, ‘I will never see him again.’

  The thought made her feel that she must treasure every second she was with him and once again she had the impulse to go back down the stairs, sit in front of the fire and go on talking to him.

  Then she told herself that he would very likely prefer to be alone as he had told her to go to bed.

  While they were dining, the rugs from the carriage had been taken upstairs and Baptista now saw that on her bed was a woollen one to cover the bedclothes and another lined with fur to cover her.

  Although it was a warm night, the damp outside and inside the room made her shiver and she hoped that the Earl would not be cold as she had obviously been given the thickest rugs.

  Because he had told her to sleep in her clothes, she took off her blouse and washed in the basin, which stood on a small table at the side of the room.

  The water was cold, but she did not mind that, although the towel, which was small and rough, made it difficult to dry herself.

  She put on her blouse again, hoping that it would not be too creased when morning came and, taking off her shoes, sat down gingerly on the bed.

  It seemed exceedingly comfortable and she suspected that the mattress was made of goose feathers.