Chapter Twenty-One
Cecily had been riding along the road to Brampton for more than an hour, and she was still not calm enough to stop herself glancing back every two minutes to check that she was not being followed. Luckily, she had encountered only a few farmers with carts full of produce trundling in the opposite direction. Nothing that might make her heart beat faster.
When she saw the horseman coming towards her at quite a pace, then, it was all she could do not to gallop away.
"Breathe," she told herself sternly. "It is one man. You are not being hunted by one man, but many. Do not draw attention to yourself. There is nothing to fear."
She steeled herself not to glance back again until some moments had passed. When she finally gave into temptation, the sight that met her eyes brought on a cry of joy.
It was Robert.
She turned her horse around and trotted up to meet him.
"Cecily!" Robert called. He brought his horse alongside hers and reached out to grasp her hand. She let go of the reins entirely and put both of her hands around his, keeping her seat side-saddle with consummate ease. "Thank goodness you're safe. Are you well? No-one has tried to hurt you?"
"I saw no-one the whole ride here," said Cecily, not failing to notice the wildness in Robert's eyes. "What has happened to you? That's Lord Jonathan's horse, is it not? Did you meet with your father?"
"It did not go as I'd hoped," said Robert grimly. "I fear we must plan for the worst. If this Mr Clearwell has nothing of any use to tell us…"
"Don't imagine bad things before they've happened," Cecily admonished him. "We must hope for the best."
Robert shook his head. "I intend to marry you regardless of what we discover today. It seems to me that it will be an easier task to reconcile our families once we are already wed."
Cecily's heart fluttered with a heady combination of nerves and excitement. "You cannot wish to elope?"
"Why not?"
"Robert, the scandal!"
"But I must have you, Cecily," he said gently, sending a thrum of pleasure through Cecily's chest. "I find I can no longer do without you. Say you will marry me, and hang the consequences?"
"So this is love, then," Cecily murmured, hardly daring to say the words. In truth, she had already known for some time. Robert had entered her heart so swiftly and completely that it would have been the ultimate cruelty to find she had not entranced him in return.
"It is love." Robert sounded as awed by the words as she did. "I never thought to marry for love."
"Nor I."
"But there is nothing more to be done, Cecily. My heart is yours."
Cecily glowed with happiness. "And I am yours. Truly, and always."
"Then it is agreed? You will come with me to Gretna Green?"
Cecily hesitated only for a moment. Her father's face appeared in her mind's eye, as bristled and gruff as ever. How would he take the news of his only child running away with a Hartley?
There was no getting around it. He would be devastated. He might never be able to forgive her.
Her mother, though… Her mother had tried once before to heal the rift. Cecily's confidence rose a little. Her mother would not abandon her. And she would always have Jemima, not to mention the firm friends she had in the Duchess of Redhaven and the Countess Streatham. She would never be an outcast from society – only, possibly, from her father's heart.
"If that is what you wish, I will do it," she said. Robert's whole body visibly relaxed at her words. She had not realised until that moment how vulnerable he had made himself by asking her. She supposed he was not used to laying his heart on the line.
"Then you will be Countess of Scarcliffe before the week is out," he said. Cecily almost jumped at the strangeness of the title. Countess of Scarcliffe! That would take some getting used to.
"There is no need to abandon our plan of reconciling our families," she said. "We will need all the weaponry at our disposal to defeat their hatred of each other. Let us ride quickly to Brampton and see what can be discovered there."
They were not now too far from the village, and the remainder of the journey passed swiftly. Cecily had forgotten her fear. Her character had never tended towards misery, and the prospect of a forthcoming solution to her troubles was enough to lift her spirits entirely.
Robert was less easily cheered. He did not go into detail about his encounter with his father, and Cecily did not press him. She was sure that he would speak of it when he was ready. In the meantime, she distracted him with cheerful chatter and amusing suppositions as to what their life would be together.
"We will ride out each and every morning, in rain, snow, or shine," she said determinedly. "And, when we have dinner parties, we will not serve fish, for I cannot abide it."
"Are we to do much entertaining?" Robert asked, a faint smile beginning at the corner of his mouth.
"Naturally! Jemima will stay with us, of course."
"I wouldn't dream of denying you."
"And I have a great deal of acquaintance in London who will be simply longing to visit Scarcliffe Hall. And we must have your sister to visit! She is lately married, is she not? We will be a very comfortable pair of newlyweds. I mean to become her dearest friend."
"You will like her," said Robert. "You both have the same disregard for propriety."
"My, Robert! How can you say such a thing?" Cecily turned up her nose, inwardly glad that he had recovered his spirits enough to tease her. "I am never anything less than the height of propriety."
"We shall see how prim and proper you are tonight, when we are alone together in a room at the inn under the names of Mr and Mrs Somerville, the two happy newlyweds," said Robert. His voice was deep and serious in a way that set Cecily tingling with something more than joy.
"Why, Cecily," laughed Robert. "Is that a blush I see? Surely not."
Cecily touched her cheeks, which were glowing hot. "I am not blushing."
"No?"
"It is simply the exertion of the ride."
"Ah. Quite so."
"You will now remember that you are a gentleman, and refrain from teasing me any further about such…intimate matters."
"Was I teasing?" Robert managed to hold her gaze firmly as his body moved with the rolling trot of his horse. "I meant to be serious."
Cecily lowered her eyes. She was not quite used to the sensation of being truly in love with Robert. When he threw her one of his smouldering dark looks, her heart responded with such overwhelming emotion that it was almost painful. She had lost the mastery of herself which she had always prized. Worse, she didn't care.
They reached Brampton just as the afternoon was at its hottest. Cecily waited with the horses while Robert made enquiries in the inn as to where they might find Mr Andrew Clearwell. He brought her out a cool cup of water, and Cecily drank gratefully.
"I ought to take better care of you," said Robert, brushing a strand of hair back from her eyes. "All my travel provisions were left behind in the curricle."
"I am hardier than I seem," said Cecily stoutly. "Have you discovered Mr Clearwell's address?"
"We will find him at the far end of the village. Here, let me find a stable boy. I have taken a room for us in the inn tonight."
Once again, Cecily felt that spike of anxiety mixed with anticipation. She did not want to disappoint Robert by asking that he secure them separate rooms, but nor did she want him to believe he could take full liberties with her before they were wed. Before she could speak, Robert seemed to sense her concern.
"It is for the sake of secrecy," he said. "If we are posing as newlyweds, we must take a single room. I am not trying to seduce you." He fixed her with that mesmerising dark gaze. "Not yet."
Cecily was almost disappointed.
Andrew Clearwell lived in a sweet little cottage at the very edge of the village. Cecily was used to visiting such places when she made her rounds of the poor people of Loxton, but it was clear from the well-kept little garden and the upkeep of the thatched roof that Mr Clearwell was not living in poverty. Rather, the house was the perfect size for a single man of limited fortune.
It looked exactly the way a painter's house ought to look, Cecily thought, as Robert tapped on the front door. Ivy grew up the sandstone walls past one of the upstairs windows, and the garden was filled with neat rows of rosebushes in full and fragrant bloom.
The door was answered, after a few moments' wait, by an elderly man wearing a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles and a benevolent expression. He seemed to be expecting someone else, and when he saw Robert and Cecily, his smile quickly turned into a frown.
"You had better come in," he said, without bothering with an introduction.
"Mr Clearwell," said Robert, "my name is –"
"I can guess who you are."
Mr Clearwell showed them into a small but well-appointed sitting room. Cecily took a seat on a wooden rocking chair and rocked gently back and forth as she watched Mr Clearwell peer out of the window, as though expecting to see someone coming after them, before pulling the curtains closed.
"There we are," he said, once the outside world was firmly shut away. "We can speak now without fear of who might notice us. Or rather – who might notice you." He turned and made Cecily a creaky bow. "Forgive my bluntness. I do not often have such illustrious guests… Lady Cecily."
"You know who I am?" Cecily was astonished. Mr Clearwell bustled over to a small side cabinet, where he took out a tall bottle of sherry.
"I am a painter, my lady. A portrait artist. I never forget a face once I have painted its features. You have the Balfour profile. Your lineage is an open book to anyone who knows how to read it."
Alarmed, Cecily touched her face, as though her fingers could make out the contours he had so easily recognised. If it were that simple to discover who she was, their plans of elopement would not come about as easily as they had hoped.
"Do not distress yourself," said Mr Clearwell, setting out three small sherry glasses. "There are not many on this earth who possess my talents. You, my lord," he said, nodding towards Robert, "must either be the Earl of Scarcliffe or his brother."
"That's right. I am Lord Robert, the elder brother."
"May I offer you a drink?" Mr Clearwell asked the question almost as an afterthought, the bottle already poised in his hand.
"Thank you," said Cecily, who would not allow even the most disconcerting encounter to make her forget her manners. "That's very kind."
"I will certainly need one," said Mr Clearwell cryptically, and poured out three glasses of sherry. "I think it will come as no surprise to you, my lord, that I painted an ancestor of yours." He looked from Cecily to Robert with an expression that was altogether too shrewd. "I cannot tell you the shock I received on seeing the pair of you on my doorstep. It brought back such memories…"
He shook his head briskly, as though those very memories were a source of pain that he wanted to force to the corners of his mind. He handed out the glasses of sherry and raised his own. "We ought to make a toast," he said. "To a happier conclusion of this sorry business between your two great families."
Robert raised his glass in silence. Cecily followed. As she sipped her sherry, Mr Clearwell knocked his down in a single swallow.
"Now," he said, taking a seat. "I expect you have some questions for me."