The Runaway Bride Read online

  ‘D’ye mean you’re to take our little Consuelo away?’ Lord Covington wheezed, fumbling for his snuff box. ‘Oh, come now, sir!’

  At this point Hepworth entered with a tray, and there was some little delay as the drinks were poured and served. As he left, Hepworth was instructed by her ladyship to ask Señorita Vasquez to step up to the drawing room the moment she returned from her ride.

  ‘She’ll not take it kindly, m’dear.’ Lord Covington cast a meaningful glance at his wife.

  ‘Oh, Captain Bannion knows all about Henry, do you not, sir?’

  He inclined his head, refusing the snuff offered to him.

  ‘Bannion?’ mused his lordship. ‘You wouldn’t be the Bannion … the one involved with young Cochrane in that spot of bother in the Basque roads? 1809, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Best chance we ever had to blast the French fleet out of existence!’ Nick Bannion’s eyes sparked with anger, remembering.

  ‘By George! It was you!’

  Lady Covington, her interest aroused, listened with veiled eyes as her husband waxed enthusiastic.

  ‘It was the damnedest thing I ever heard tell of, m’dear! Night as black as the devil, storm raging, and the French holed up safely under the protection of the shore batteries … or so they thought, what?’ He chuckled and continued, oblivious of the younger man’s discouraging expression.

  ‘But they’d reckoned without Lord Cochrane, and Bannion here … With a few chosen men they ran the best part of twenty fireships and explosion vessels inshore right under the noses of the enemy … wreaked havoc … set most of the French ships hopelessly adrift …’

  ‘We didn’t succeed as well as we’d hoped,’ said Nick, drawn reluctantly to intervene. ‘The weather was against us. But we could still have finished them off come daylight if that pious, psalm-singing purist, Gambier, hadn’t sat on the horizon with the Fleet, ignoring Cochrane’s signals that the French were at our mercy!’ Nick’s lips twisted. ‘Lord Gambier didn’t approve our brief, you see ‒ not quite the thing, attacking your enemy at night! Also, he deeply resented Lord Cochrane’s being sent to supersede him! By the time we stung him into action by going it alone, it was almost too late. And soon after, the Admiral called off the action. Cochrane was so angry, he demanded a court martial!’

  He had said much more than he’d meant to, and was very much aware of Lady Covington’s eyes resting on him with an amused, calculating expression. It threw him on to the defensive, the more so as Lord Covington continued jovially, ‘That’s right! And Gambier was cleared and everyone spoke of the action as a great victory … enemy ships destroyed and all that! Well, I never! And later, as I recall, you were put ashore somewhere around that area and spent some time in the mountains with a party of brigands.’ He blew his nose. ‘Well, now … we must talk more about this after dinner, what? You’ll be staying for dinner, of course?’ He looked to his wife.

  She said smoothly, ‘Naturally, we should be delighted to have you stay, captain.’ Her voice lifted with faint irony. ‘I had no idea we were entertaining one of England’s heroes!’

  ‘Nothing of the kind, ma’am,’ said the captain stiffly. ‘As to dinner, I regret ‒’

  There came an interruption in the form of a light rap on the door. It was flung open to admit a tiny glowing figure in rich brown velvet, a froth of lace at her throat, her dark eyes brilliant.

  ‘Dear Lady Covington, Hepworth said that you wished to see me. We have had a splendid ride …’ Consuelo’s voice trailed away as she saw that her ladyship was not alone. ‘Oh, forgive me, I did not know …’ Again the words dried up as a man rose from the chair opposite and turned ‒ broad shouldered, black-browed, to face her ‒ a man looking curiously out of place in the lovely white and gold drawing room. And surely something about him was familiar to her?

  Lady Covington extended a graceful hand. ‘Come, child, and be introduced.’ She smiled encouragingly. ‘But then, perhaps no introduction will be necessary. Captain Bannion, my dear, is a friend of your father.’

  Consuelo stared blankly as he bowed.

  ‘Good afternoon, Señorita Vasquez.’ His voice was dry. ‘I am sorry to break in upon your pleasures with such distressing abruptness, but I have come to take you home to your father.’

  Chapter Two

  There was a curious little silence during which Nick waited with frowning formality, betraying nothing of his surprise. Consuelo’s father had said that she was beautiful, but Nick, having only the vaguest memory of her as a child, had thought it to be no more than the natural partiality of a parent for his only daughter.

  But Consuelo was beautiful. And watching the proud head thrown back, he had little doubt that the rest of the parental prophecy would prove equally accurate. ‘Alas, Señor Bannion,’ her father had sighed resignedly, ‘she can also be distressingly wilful!’ And there was surely stubbornness in the thrust of that full lower lip. He was already regretting his quixotic offer of help.

  Consuelo meanwhile stood unmoving, a great fear clutching at her stomach. She looked to Lady Covington ‒ exquisitely fair, exquisitely lovely, her green eyes a little pitying as she lifted her shoulders in an elegant shrug. She looked to Lord Covington standing ill at ease before the fireplace, and in his face read embarrassment and a certain distress. As for Captain Bannion, he simply watched her impassively. No pity there, no help, no hope. Her fear grew ‒ and with it came a great anger.

  ‘This I do not believe!’ she cried. ‘My father would not send such a one as you to do this thing!’

  The captain’s face wore its most shuttered look. ‘Believe what you will, señorita, it is the truth and you had better accept it. I am a busy man and have little time to pander to tantrums.’ He paused and seemed to be choosing his words with care. ‘In fact, your father is ill and your recent irresponsible behaviour has done little to improve his health. Does it concern you at all, I wonder, to learn that by your actions you are causing him a considerable amount of unnecessary suffering?’

  A little colour came up under the pale olive skin and faded almost as it came. She would not be taken to task by this man who was little more than a common sailor. How dare he look at her as though she were malvada ‒ a wicked, recalcitrant child! She drew herself up very straight and looked down her nose at him with as much hauteur as she could command.

  ‘I am sorry that my father is unwell, captain. He knows, I hope, that I would never willingly cause him one moment of grief ‒’

  But he was growing impatient of so much argument. ‘I have no wish to listen to your protestations of regret, señorita,’ he said curtly. ‘You may save them until you are able to deliver them in person.’

  ‘Ah, no!’

  ‘For the present I would like to speak with your duenna,’ he continued inexorably, looking her over with critical eyes and remembering the two figures he had seen riding across the fields with much intimacy as he had driven up. ‘It would seem that the señora has been lax in her duties.’

  ‘Señora Diaz is indisposed, Captain Bannion,’ Lady Covington interposed smoothly. There was a faint mocking light in her eyes, as though she found the whole episode a little absurd. ‘I fear she has been unwell almost from the day she arrived. I am sorry if you feel we have failed in our care of Consuelo, for she has become as a daughter to us, has she not, my lord?’

  ‘By Jupiter, yes!’ Lord Covington stumbled over the words, but the glance he directed at Consuelo plainly showed his adoration. ‘Delightful little creature! Not a scrap of trouble! I am sure, my love, that the good captain ain’t in any way casting doubt upon our care of Consuelo.’

  His wife threw him a look of thinly veiled contempt which did not escape Nick. A charming pair! he decided, growing impatient once more. His voice was clipped.

  ‘I accuse no one of anything, my lord. All I ask is that Señora Diaz be exhorted to bestir herself in order that she may make ready to accompany her charge. I have a crew kicking its heels in London and a cargo awaiting deliv
ery. My time is valuable. I wish to leave for Spain as soon as possible.’

  ‘Leave?’ cried Consuelo. ‘No! I will not leave this place without my Enrique!’ She ran to Lord Covington, flinging out her hands to him imploringly. ‘Dear lord, tell him that it is not possible!’

  ‘There, there, child!’ Lord Covington gathered her hands into his, patting them awkwardly and looking more than anything like a distressed sheepdog. ‘Come now, captain,’ he blustered. ‘You are being over-hard on this dear creature! You can see how it is with her ‒ so deep in love with young Linton and he with her ‒ quite affecting to behold, y’know!’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Nick dryly. ‘Fortunately I am not so easily swayed.’

  ‘Insensato!’ Consuelo turned scornful, tear-drenched eyes upon him. ‘What would you know of such a love?’

  ‘Oh, for pity’s sake, spare me any more of this Cheltenham tragedy!’ Nick turned to Lady Covington, the only other person to appear unmoved by so much passion; almost, he thought, she seemed amused by all the fuss. ‘Madam, perhaps you can instil a little sense into this child?’

  ‘I am not a child!’

  Her ladyship’s brows arched delicately. ‘Perhaps, sir, you might show a little more tolerance.’ As she flushed angrily, she turned to Consuelo. ‘My dear, Captain Bannion is acting for your father. If he insists that you return home, there is little that any of us can do.’

  ‘No doubt he is being well paid for his services!’ came the scathing retort. ‘Is that not so, captain?’

  The creases about his eyes came together, narrowing them to angry slits, but he would not be drawn. Consuelo gathered the remnants of her pride.

  ‘Well, it matters little, for I will not go with you.’ She turned on her trimly booted heel and marched to the door.

  ‘Señorita!’ His voice ‒ the voice his crew knew so well ‒ stopped her before she ever reached it. ‘I have a letter here for you from your father. I advise you to read it and digest its contents well.’

  Consuelo came back, reluctantly, stiff-backed ‒ and with a commendable degree of composure held out her hand for the letter; looked at it and then at him. ‘You know its contents?’

  ‘I do. Briefly, it requires that from this moment you obey me in all things as you would your father until you are once more beneath his roof.’

  She stared at him, tore open the letter and devoured its contents at a glance. A tight band constricted her chest, her breath seemed to be forced unevenly from an aching throat. ‘No! Absolutamente, no! I will never submit to you!’

  They stood very close, glittering blue eyes locked with flagrantly defiant black ones. Then:

  ‘Oh, but you will,’ he said with a soft vehemence that was more disturbing than mere anger, ‘because I am not your father, or Lord Covington, or even that young puppy with whom you fancy yourself in love, to be twisted round your little finger; because however much you rail at me, or sulk, or seek to cajole me, you will not move me one jot!’

  A moment more their glances held ‒ and it was Consuelo who broke; without another word, she drew a tearing, sobbing breath and fled from the room, picking up her skirts as she passed a startled footman, to rush headlong for the stairs.

  In the drawing room the vacuum left by her abrupt departure was filled by Lord Covington’s blustering protestations until he was silenced by a look from his wife.

  She said with mild exasperation: ‘Well, sir ‒ that was an ill-managed business ‒ and I took you for a man of sense! You may be a most excellent leader of men, but you have a remarkably clumsy hand when it comes to dealing with a mere slip of a girl!’

  Anger flared and then died in his eyes, to be replaced by a brief ironical smile. ‘I did make a sad botch of it, didn’t I? But, damn it, I had no idea she was such a little hellcat!’

  Lady Covington’s smile was sympathetic. ‘Well, but what did you expect? That she would submit meekly to your edict? Consuelo is a young woman of spirit, but not a hellcat, I promise you. Still, it is not too late to make amends.’

  His look was guarded. ‘I will not go back on what I said.’

  ‘Of course not. One could not expect you to do so,’ she agreed soothingly. ‘But, if you were to be a little conciliating … if you could, perhaps, give the child a day or two in which to grow used to the idea …’ As he opened his mouth to protest, her husky laugh stopped him. ‘Oh come, captain ‒ you must appreciate what a shock this has been for Consuelo. We had so many things planned!’

  ‘Maybe, but ‒’

  ‘I know what you are going to say ‒ your ship and your horrid old commitments!’ She silenced her husband again as he would have intervened. ‘But surely,’ she continued persuasively, ‘your cargo will wait a day or two, and I am quite certain that your crew will not cavil at the prospect of a few days more ashore?’

  ‘I am sure they will not!’ he agreed dryly and there was a gleam in his eye. ‘What I was about to say, ma’am, is that I very much doubt whether the kind of delay you speak of will alter the señorita’s mind for the better.’

  ‘Leave Consuelo to me.’ She sensed that he was wavering and gave him her most charming smile. ‘How would it be if you were to stay, say until the weekend? I have some guests arriving tomorrow and we are having a ball on Friday evening. Consuelo has been so looking forward to it. And you must stay here, naturally ‒’

  ‘Ah, as to that, ma’am, I have my room booked at the Ship in Brighton. It was their gig I hired to come up here today.’

  ‘Oh, all that can easily be taken care of, captain! So, what do you say?’

  He knew well that he was being cozened, yet he found himself saying with a wry grin: ‘You make it very hard for me to refuse without appearing boorish, ma’am. Very well, I agree ‒ but only until Saturday. I can stretch matters no further.’ He turned to Lord Covington. ‘Your wife has a most persuasive tongue, sir.’

  His lordship brushed away the inevitable trickle of snuff from his coat and gave him a sanguine look from under bushy brows. ‘Oh, aye,’ he said. ‘I never knew her not to get anything once she’d set her mind to’t.’

  There was a touch of asperity in Lady Covington’s voice, though she laughed. ‘Fie, my lord, you make me sound like a … a scheming jade! Take no notice of him, captain. All will work out splendidly. You will have time to become better acquainted with Consuelo. I give you my word, she is a delightful girl!’

  The delightful girl was at that moment in her own bedchamber, flung down upon her bed in a storm of weeping. It was a most attractive room decorated in yellow and white, and now, with the sun pouring in, looking at its best. But Consuelo was for once blind to its charms as she pummelled the pretty sprigged counterpane with clenched fists in a passion of mingled grief and temper.

  Her maidservant, Maria, looked on with sympathetic concern. As was usually the case, word had travelled quickly among the servants that a gentleman had arrived to take her mistress back to Spain. But the gentleman was not, as Maria had been expecting, Señor Vasquez.

  Having been with the Señorita Consuelo from her earliest days, she had been prepared for tantrums, but never before had she witnessed such an abandonment of weeping. Maria sighed … of course, one knew well enough the cause! The Lord Linton was a young gentleman of such handsomeness ‒ and of so romantic a disposition! Had not her mistress a whole sheaf of poems tucked beneath her pillow at this very moment ‒ paeans of praise to her eyes, to the passing grace of her dainty feet, even to the ground they walked upon? Who would not weep to exchange such flights of passion for the cold proud arrogance of Don Miguel, fine match though he undoubtedly was?

  She regarded her own plain scrubbed countenance in the looking-glass and sighed lustily. Would that someone might pen such love poems to her! And yet ‒ words were small comfort on a cold night. She had curves enough, and in the darkness a man might forget a plain face.

  Maria leaned over the bed and stroked the sable hair, shaken loose from its pins. ‘Do not weep so, señorita,’
she pleaded. ‘You will make yourself ill!’

  ‘I do not care! I wish only to die! Yes ‒’ Consuelo lifted her head to sob tragically at the shocked maid. ‘‒ That is it … I will kill myself, and then they will all repent of their cruelty, but it will be in vain!’ Her glance fell upon the exquisite ball gown of cream silk trimmed with Valenciennes lace which was hanging outside the closet ready for Lady Covington’s ball. ‘Ah, but then no one will see my pretty dress! Ah, Maria ‒ what am I to do?’

  She scrambled upright and smote her forehead. ‘Estúpida! Of course. I must see Enrique. Maria, you will take a note to him without delay.’

  There came a sharp little rap on the door and Lady Covington swept in, trailing her pale silk skirts. She signalled for the maid to leave.

  ‘Well, child, you have set the place in a pucker!’ She sank gracefully on to the bed beside Consuelo, reflecting with some irritation how lovely the little Spanish girl contrived to look after a bout of weeping which would have left most women with swollen eyes and a blotched skin. In Consuelo the dark brooding eyes merely grew larger and more luminous; a flush added a faint dusting of colour to the pale olive skin, and emphasized in a most provoking manner her beautiful high cheekbones.

  Verena Covington decided that she really would not be sorry to see Consuelo go. Who could have guessed that the quiet, grave-eyed girl who had arrived from Spain but two months since with her duenna would so soon blossom into a vivacious young woman who was already attracting a deal more attention than could rightly be tolerated?

  That was why she had thrown Henry Linton into Consuelo’s path. His passionate attachment had become a trifle tedious, besides which, though her husband was remarkably obtuse, it might well prove awkward were he to suspect that he was being cuckolded by a much younger man ‒ and under his own roof at that.