The Runaway Bride Read online

  It had been simple enough to impress Henry with the size of Señor Vasquez’s fortune ‒ and Consuelo was his only daughter. Henry had for some time been living beyond his means, and with little immediate prospect of recouping his resources. It had not been too difficult to persuade him that an advantageous marriage was the answer to his problem, and that, notwithstanding the presence of a Spanish fiancé, Consuelo could be his for the asking. It had been somewhat galling to note the alacrity with which he had transferred his attentions to Consuelo, so that it reassured her from time to time to command his homage and see how easily he could still be enslaved.

  A touch on her arm recalled her to the matter in hand.

  ‘Dear Lady Covington, tell me what I am to do,’ pleaded Consuelo. ‘I cannot go with that man when my whole happiness is here.’

  Verena, knowing exactly what she intended her to do, paved the way with skill. ‘Do you think that if Henry went to see your father, perhaps? He is not a nobody, you know. He may be a trifle short of funds at the present, but one day, you know, he will be the Earl of Gratton.’

  Consuelo shook her head vigorously and the cloud of shining sable hair lifted and settled again about her face. She pushed it back impatiently. ‘It would make no difference, señora. I am promised to Don Miguel who is humourless and arrogant and incredibly old!’ The words rang like a knell. ‘In my country such a promise is binding unto death ‒ and if I am forced to marry Don Miguel instead of Enrique I think that I shall die!’

  Lady Covington had little patience with histrionics, but she did not allow this to show.

  ‘Then we must ensure that you do not have to marry him.’

  ‘I do not understand.’

  Her ladyship rose and crossed to the mirror where she turned this way and that, surveying herself critically, not unpleased with what she saw. ‘You are but an infant in your dealings with men, my dear. Captain Bannion, for example ‒’

  ‘I hate him!’ Consuelo spat the words.

  ‘You have made that abundantly clear,’ said Lady Covington dryly. ‘But you will never get the better of a man like the captain with those tactics. You should be thanking me, you know. I have been working very hard on your behalf.’

  Consuelo slid from the bed and went hopefully to her side. Verena Covington did not like their joint reflection half so well and turned abruptly away.

  ‘You have made him change his mind?’

  This was greeted with a light trill of laughter. ‘My dear, I am not quite a miracle worker!’ Consuelo’s expression fell. ‘But I have been rather clever, I think. I have persuaded the good captain that he has been less than fair to you and that he should postpone his departure until the morning following my ball.’

  ‘I do not see how that can do any good,’ said Consuelo.

  ‘Oh, come now ‒ only think! A lot can happen in two days. I see no reason why you and Henry, if you give your minds to it, should not outwit Captain Bannion.’

  Consuelo’s dark eyes grew round and then began to sparkle. ‘You mean … elope?’ She said the word half-fearfully. ‘Can we do such a thing?’

  ‘It is your only chance,’ said Lady Covington bluntly. ‘But it must be planned with care. You may leave that to me. I shall speak to Henry ‒’

  ‘May I see him, please?’

  ‘A little later, child. I will arrange it. But from now until Friday, you must do exactly as I tell you. It is settled that Captain Bannion will stay here for the remainder of his visit ‒ I have persuaded him that it will give him the chance to know you better. What I wish of you is that you behave as though you are growing resigned to your lot. Can you do that?’

  ‘But, yes!’ Consuelo danced around the room in an ecstasy of joy as the idea took shape in her mind, coming at last to kneel at Lady Covington’s side, lifting her hand dramatically to kiss it. ‘If you can do this thing for us, dear Lady Covington, we shall bless you for ever!’ She rose, all hauteur. ‘And I shall play my part when I meet the wicked captain with gr-reat conviction, you will see! I shall be heartbroken, but terribly brave!’

  ‘Yes, well, don’t overdo it, my dear. I think perhaps for this evening it might be more prudent, and more in keeping with your state of mind, if you do not come downstairs for dinner.’

  Verena Covington was herself stirred to a strange excitement at the thought of outwitting the captain; intrigue had ever been the breath of life to her. She liked to court danger and she sensed that Captain Bannion would be a dangerous man to cross, but an exciting one to know, for all that. And she could not but be aware that he found her attractive …

  ‘Do you know anything of Captain Bannion’s background?’ she asked casually, pleating her skirt with fingers that shook very slightly. ‘It might be as well to know where we stand with him.’

  The scowl returned to Consuelo’s face. ‘I know very little, for although he came sometimes to the house, I seldom encountered him. I believe Maria once told me that his mother was from a family of great nobility in Valencia ‒ there was much talk among the servants that a person with such connections should be a mere sea captain …’ A gleam came into her eyes. ‘Perhaps they disowned him because he was not enough respectable!’

  Verena moved impatiently. ‘And yet your father thinks well enough of him to entrust him with the safe return of his daughter?’

  ‘Captain Bannion carries all my father’s merchandise,’ said Consuelo hotly. ‘No doubt he regards me in a similar light!’

  ‘That is no way to speak of your father.’ Lady Covington’s reproof was chilling.

  ‘No. I am sorry, but it is not easy for me to think well of him when he sends such a one for me … a nobody that he knows only from the war.’

  ‘The captain is not exactly a nobody. My husband tells me that his father is Sir Patrick Bannion, a most charming rake … though he’d never a penny to bless himself with. I had no idea he had a son!’

  ‘Well, I cannot see that it helps at all to know these things,’ Consuelo reasoned. ‘If we are to outwit him, we will have to be very clever, for I expect that he can be quite ruthless. He lived and fought with the guerrilleros in the mountains during the war, you know.’ Consuelo gave a pugnacious little nod. ‘That would suit him very well, I think!’

  ‘Oh yes, it would,’ murmured Lady Covington.

  Chapter Three

  It was not easy for Consuelo to remain quietly in her room. Now that she had hope, she wanted to be doing something useful towards hastening the hour when she and her beloved Enrique could run away. But Lady Covington had been most severe with her about not doing anything to spoil her plans, so she must be patient. She changed her riding dress for a gown of jonquil muslin with a high waist and tiny puff sleeves, and for some time she lay on the bed reading the pretty verses Henry had composed for her. But when her duenna demanded to see her most unexpectedly, she was obliged to push them quickly under the covers.

  Señora Diaz had herself been summoned from her couch by Captain Bannion’s curt insistence upon seeing her. She had presented herself to him in a small insignificant saloon at the rear of the house (an indignity which did not escape her), dressed in her habitual black, and draped in a quantity of shawls, notwithstanding the heat of the day.

  She had listened, sour-faced but impassive, to his opinions of her laxness concerning her duties to her charge ‒ and at the end of an uncomfortable ten minutes was left in little doubt that he considered her guilty of negligence. He had concluded by exhorting her coolly to bestir herself.

  ‘You have yet time to redeem yourself, señora, for I am looking to you to ensure that Señorita Vasquez is ready and at least outwardly compliant to undertake the journey home on Saturday.’

  Not unnaturally, this reprimand from a stranger, an ill-mannered man whom she considered in every way her inferior, did not sit well with Señora Diaz, who proceeded to vent her spleen in the only way open to her.

  For some time she harangued Consuelo in a plaintive monotone for her base ingratitude, he
r want of decorum, the ruthless way in which she had made use of her duenna’s state of collapse in order to pursue her own selfish pleasures.

  ‘Did I not warn how it would be?’ Two button-black eyes burned self-righteously in the recesses of her pallid, overplump face. ‘And now what comes to me? I must return to face your father, for you have called down his wrath not only upon your own head, but upon mine also! And I know not what is to become of me if I am turned off …’

  Consuelo might have been more incensed had she not been so preoccupied by the very important problems appertaining to an elopement; and besides, she had heard it all before ‒ many times. So she contented herself with a murmured ‘sí, señora’ whenever a pause seemed to indicate that some kind of answer was required of her.

  When, however, the duenna’s fingers fastened cruelly on her arm in order to emphasize a point, the young girl drew herself up very straight and demanded coldly that she unhand her.

  It was too much; like a pricked bubble, Señora Diaz stopped in mid-sentence on an angry sob and, exhausted by so much unaccustomed effort, departed in order to recruit her strength for the ordeals ahead by way of the dish of sugared plums which Lady Covington had so kindly sent to her room.

  Consuelo’s plotting was once more interrupted when Maria came to say that Lady Covington desired to have words with her in her boudoir, but this time she did not mind, for there, in her ladyship’s boudoir, her Enrique awaited her. She flew into his arms with a joyful cry and he gathered her to him with all the ardour for which her romantic soul yearned.

  ‘Ah, my dearest love, how I wish I had been there to support you,’ he whispered into her ear. ‘But, have no fear, the arrogant captain shall not be permitted to carry you off in such a cavalier fashion!’

  Consuelo’s eyes widened; a tiny frisson of fear ran down her back. ‘You would make him fight you? Oh, but you must not!’ Between the pages of a novel, a duel was very acceptable, but in reality … She struggled from his arms and turned to Lady Covington, who was reclining upon her chaise longue wearing a pale pink negligee and watching them with a slight frown puckering her brow. ‘My lady, he must not fight Captain Bannion, must he?’

  ‘Certainly not.’ Lady Covington’s voice was cool. ‘Henry knows well enough that I will have no brawling in my house.’

  ‘Well, how do you expect me to behave when I meet him?’ demanded Henry with the air of one determined to give his all. ‘Should I be civil when I know he means to carry Consuelo away very much against her will? A poor sort of lover I should be an’ I did not challenge him!’

  It was pure bravura. Lady Covington, knowing that a duel was the very last thing Henry would wish for, glanced at Consuelo’s glowing face and contented herself with an exasperated: ‘You will do as I tell you, Henry, or you are like to ruin everything. Now let us all sit down calmly and I will tell you both what I think you should do.’

  Henry shrugged resignedly, and Consuelo, supposing that her beloved was bruised in spirit, seized his hand impulsively and pressed it against her cheek.

  ‘I am very proud, amigo, that you wish to fight this man for me, but I would so much rather that you did not get yourself killed!’

  Her words ruffled his feelings more than somewhat. ‘I am generally reckoned to be a pretty fair shot,’ he declared pettishly.

  ‘Yes, but Señor Bannion fought with the guerrilleros and will very likely be a better one,’ she reasoned, and, as a thought struck her: ‘Besides which, it is entirely possible that he might cheat!’

  ‘Consuelo!’ Exasperation was threatening to get the better of Lady Covington. ‘Please to come and sit down.’ She swung her feet gracefully to the floor and patted the place beside her on the chaise longue. Consuelo sat and Henry took the ridiculously fragile-looking chair opposite them. ‘That is better.

  ‘Now then, Consuelo. Between us, Henry and I have evolved a plan which, if everyone plays their part as I hope they will, should give you an excellent chance of deceiving Captain Bannion for as long as it takes you to make good your escape. But it involves the exercise of patience.’ She looked severely at them both.

  ‘I still think we should go tonight,’ said Henry with unexpected obstinacy. ‘Can’t see the value in kicking our heels here for another couple of days ‒ having to be polite to that man!’

  ‘You are right, querido.’ In her enthusiasm Consuelo could not remain quiet. ‘I, also, have been giving the matter much consideration and I have thought of a splendid plan! It is really very simple. As soon as everyone is in bed tonight, we can drive away in your curricle ‒ and I will be your tiger. That boy of yours, Green ‒ he shall lend me one of his suits. His livery will look very well on me, do you not think?’

  She saw her beloved frown. ‘Or would you prefer that we ride?’ She shrugged. ‘It is all one to me.’

  But this was going too far to suit Henry’s notions of propriety. ‘Certainly not! I could not possibly permit …’

  Consuelo looked at him sitting there on the pretty little gilt chair in his beautiful blue coat and yellow pantaloons, his cravat a marvellously discreet confection, a faint look of distaste marring the handsome features. Her eyes danced.

  ‘Oh, Enrique ‒ I have shocked you! But indeed, you must not be stuffy! An elopement should also be an adventure. Am I not right, Lady Covington?’

  She swung round and encountered a shaft of anger which astonished her.

  But her ladyship’s patience was at an end. She had everything so beautifully worked out ‒ had even managed to persuade Captain Bannion to stay at Covington Manor, meeting every problem that he had put in the way ‒ so much did she wish to exploit that gleam of desire she had glimpsed in his eyes. He was quite unlike any man she had ever known ‒ the merest conjecture as to how it would be to be possessed by Captain Bannion set her senses in a turmoil.

  Now, these two silly children were like to wreck all her plans. She didn’t much care whether their hopes were blighted eventually; in point of fact, she would be very much surprised if they were capable of outwitting a man like Bannion for long, but if they took it into their heads to run off prematurely, he would go after them and that would probably be the last she would see of him. Her schemes would count for nought.

  ‘Can you think of no one but yourselves?’ she demanded. ‘Do you realize how long I have spent in preparations for my ball on Friday evening? Over two hundred guests are invited ‒ Hugh is hopeful of persuading Prinny to attend ‒ and all will be wrecked if you are minded to be selfish.’ They both looked so astonished that she forced herself to be calm. Her beautiful green eyes reproached them gently. ‘Is it so much to ask that you wait a little longer?’

  Consuelo was immediately contrite. ‘Dear Lady Covington ‒ you have been so good, so kind! We will do whatever you think best.’ She looked at Henry severely. ‘Will we not, querido?’

  He eyed Verena sardonically as though deeply suspicious of her motives, but he knew himself to be powerless against the two of them. He shrugged assent.

  ‘That is better,’ she said, mollified. ‘I promise you it is for the best. And, you know, I do believe Consuelo’s idea of taking Green’s place is an excellent one. It will make tracing you that much more difficult. But you will not leave until just before dawn on the Saturday morning … everyone will by then be asleep. Consuelo, is your maid to be trusted?’

  ‘Oh, Maria will do anything I ask of her,’ said Consuelo confidently. ‘She is devoted to me!’

  ‘Good. That could be useful. But not a word to her beforehand.’ Lady Covington yawned delicately and stood up. ‘And now, my dears, you must go away so that I may finish dressing for dinner. The Fossburys are expected, also Madame Garrishe.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Consuelo, aggrieved. ‘I shall be very sorry to miss Madame.’

  ‘Never mind, child, you will see her on Thursday and again on Friday evening. Now, do run along.’

  By the time her dinner was sent up on a tray, Consuelo was ravenous. Maria was quite astonish
ed to see how quickly everything set before her was eaten and enjoyed without a murmur. When it was made known that she was taking dinner in her room, Maria had expected that the food would be picked at, especially in view of all the upset and heartbreak which had been so apparent earlier. Though to be sure a change had come over her mistress after Lady Covington had spoken with her. But no amount of probing on the maid’s part could elicit from Consuelo anything other than a mischievous grin.

  ‘I shall take a walk in the garden,’ she informed Maria after prowling the room restlessly for some time.

  ‘But señorita ‒ it is almost dark!’

  ‘So? What has that to say to anything? The air will still be warm ‒ and much fresher than during the day.’

  ‘Do you wish that I accompany you?’ asked the reluctant maid, who had already planned an assignation with the second footman, believing that her mistress would be occupied elsewhere.

  ‘Certainly not.’ Consuelo was very definite. ‘I wish to be quite by myself.’

  Maria’s eyes opened a little wider. Could the señorita be plotting something? With the second footman still in mind, Maria decided that it was not her place to interfere.

  The evening air enfolded Consuelo with all the softness of the fine lacy shawl which she had draped about her shoulders. The mingled scents of Lady Covington’s herb garden were sweet in her nostrils as she wandered past it towards the east front of the house. The last of the sunset had now faded, and looking down to the lake she saw a row of poplars etched in black silhouette against a sky paled to that shade of calm clear turquoise which precedes the velvety blackness of night. From the uncurtained windows of the drawing room light poured out over the great semicircle of balustraded steps, spilling down on to the terrace below and trickling away over the lush green lawns to disappear into the indistinct greyness beyond.

  Inside the drawing room the company would be laughing and talking, enjoying themselves ‒ probably without a thought for her. Consuelo felt dejected and quite irrationally deprived. Would they miss her, any of these people, when she was no longer here? She thought not. It had been the strangest day ‒ a day filled with every emotion from elation to abject misery; now, with all passion spent, she felt unaccountably flat.