The Major's Guarded Heart. Isabelle Goddard
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had no option but to walk. She could sense the tension in the man and feel the hard pressure of the shotgun in her back. She did not think he would use it if she tried to escape, but she could not be sure and dared not take the chance. She was marched for minutes on end until they were out of the spinney and walking over smooth lawns towards the main driveway. This was the spot she had been seeking. A gig was drawn up outside the front entrance—precisely as she had imagined. The baronet would be leaving, she had decided, and as he came down the steps, she would trip up to the front door, telling some story of having become lost and wandered by accident on to his land, and looking a picture of primrose loveliness. He would wonder how he could ever have ignored such a delightful girl and, filled with contrition, immediately set about trying to please her. That was the fantasy. The reality was that her feet oozed mud, her hair dripped water and, far from tripping, she was being roughly frogmarched to an uncertain fate.
The man steered her towards the back of the sprawling mansion. She was being taken to the servants’ quarters, she thought—at least she would be spared the humiliation of meeting Justin Delacourt face to face. Down a long passageway they trundled, a passageway filled with doors, but at its very end a large, airy kitchen. The room was bright and homely, smelling of baked bread and fresh coffee and Lizzie realised how hungry she was. Her tiny breakfast seemed an age away.
‘Look ’ere, folks,’ the man said gleefully, ‘look what I’ve caught meself.’
The cook was just then taking newly baked cakes from the oven, but at the sound of Mellors’s voice, she stopped and looked around. The scullery maid on her knees paused in her scrubbing and the footman held aloft the silver he was polishing.
‘You best put that gun down,’ Cook said crossly. ‘Master won’t like that thing in the house.’
Mellors did as he was told, but was unwilling to give up his glory quite so quickly. ‘See ’ere,’ he repeated and pushed Lizzie into the centre of the room. ‘Take a look at me very first catch. There’ll be plenty more of ’em before I’m through.’
The cook sniffed at this pronouncement and the footman allowed himself a small snigger. Wearily the scullery maid began again on her scrubbing.
Lizzie stood in their midst, dripping puddles on to the flagstones, her cloak still wrapped around her, the hood still covering her head. Anger at this stupid man coursed through her veins. It wasn’t his fault that she was drenched, she conceded, but to be treated so disagreeably and then made a fairground exhibit was too much.
She pushed back the hood on her cape and shook her damp ringlets out. The cook, the maid, the footman, stopped again what they were doing and gawped, open-mouthed. Mellors, busy fetching a rope to bind his victim’s hands, turned round, surprised by the sudden ghastly silence. Even in her present state, Lizzie looked lovely. What she didn’t look was a poacher.
‘What have you done, Mr Mellors?’ Cook rubbed the flour from her hands with a satisfied smile on her face. It was clear that the new bailiff was not a popular man among his fellows.
Lizzie was swift to use the moment to her advantage. ‘How dare you!’ Her voice quivered with indignation. ‘How dare you treat a lady in such a dastardly fashion!’
Mellors looked bewildered, but still managed to stutter a reproof. ‘But yer wuz poachin’, miss.’ His obsession was all-consuming and he failed to see the absurdity of the situation.
‘Poaching! Are you completely witless? Do poachers normally come calling in a muslin dress?’
There was more sniggering from the footman and the unhappy bailiff hung his head a little lower. ‘No, miss, but...’
‘And if I am a poacher,’ Lizzie continued inexorably, ‘where are my tools? Do you think I have hid them? Perhaps you would like to search me for the odd snare?’
The footman guffawed at this idea, but the look she shot him bought his immediate silence.
‘And where, pray, are my illegitimate spoils? Why be a poacher and be empty-handed?’
‘You could ’ave ’idden the stuff, miss,’ he tried desperately.
‘Hidden? Upon my person, perhaps? You are ridiculous.’
‘Mebbe you warn’t poachin’, then, but you wuz still trespassin’,’ he continued doggedly.
‘I am no trespasser, you scurvy man.’ Lizzie drew herself erect, making up in dignity for what she lacked in height. ‘I came to call upon Sir Justin Delacourt.’
Mellors shifted uncomfortably. His master’s name gave him pause, but he would not yet own himself beaten. ‘So what were yer doin’ in the spinney, miss? It ain’t usual for Sir Justin’s visitors to come by that way.’
For an instant Lizzie was flustered and she saw a small, sly smile creep over Mellors’s face. There was no alternative—she would have to behave shamelessly.
‘I met Sir Justin for the first time yesterday,’ she said in a low voice, ‘but I was deeply moved by his sorrow. I had not the opportunity then of speaking to him of his dead father and I came here today only to pay my respects. I meant well, but look how I’ve been treated!’ She began to sniffle slightly and managed to squeeze several realistic teardrops from her eyes.
‘There, there, my pet,’ the cook weighed in. ‘Look what you’ve done, you clumsy oaf!’ She turned to Lizzie. ‘Come here, my dear. You need looking after, not lambasting. Poor lamb, you’re wet through.’
Lizzie coughed artistically. ‘I meant no harm, ma’am. You see, I was so touched by Sir Lucien’s death and his son’s grief that I merely wanted to say how sorry I was.’ A few more tears trickled down her cheeks without robbing her of one mite of beauty.
Mellors and the footman looked on askance, but the scullery maid clasped her hands to her breast, drinking in the romantic possibilities. ‘I am soaked to the skin,’ Lizzie continued, her voice barely audible, her hands clasped together in anguish. ‘I have been in these clothes so long that I shall likely die of pneumonia.’
Her sudden terrified wail startled her listeners into action. There was a general fussing and clucking as the cook and the scullery maid took her to their bosoms and Mr Mellors protested his innocence and the footman was sure that a fit young woman would not contract pneumonia from just one soaking.
‘What the deuce is going on here?’ Sir Justin strode into the kitchen and in an instant the uproar ceased and was followed by a strained silence.
‘Perhaps one of you would care to explain this mayhem and tell me why I have been ringing for coffee for the last ten minutes without answer. Do I employ you to serve me or not?’ His beautiful voice held a new severity.
All of a sudden he became aware of Lizzie, abandoned in the middle of the room, and still dripping ceaselessly on to the floor. An expression of blank amazement replaced the frown on his face.
‘Miss Ingram?’ he queried. ‘Can it be you?’
‘It can.’ She gave a saucy smirk at the bailiff and, since there was nothing left to lose, announced boldly, ‘I have come to call on you, Sir Justin.’
Justin remained motionless, stunned by the vision before him. Elizabeth Ingram was the last person he expected to find in his kitchen, and to find her dripping and mud stained was astonishing.
‘How came you here, Miss Ingram?’ He almost stuttered the words.
‘At the point of a gun,’ she said bitterly. ‘You should not complain that your servants are tardy, Sir Justin. One of them at least is a little too eager.’
‘What can you mean?’
‘Your bailiff believes me to be a poacher!’
Justin looked even more stunned, his hand ruffling the fair halo of hair. ‘Mellors?’ he queried, hoping for enlightenment, and was immediately subjected to the bailiff’s impassioned defence.
‘The