The Danbury Scandals Read Free

has been ill-used enough. All I ask is
that you be kind to her...’
    ‘Kind to her!’
The girl’s voice was a squeak of outrage. ‘She’s one of your by-blows, isn’t
that it? Papa, how could you insult us by bringing her here? And taking her up
to Her Grace. I can’t think what Great-Aunt was thinking of to allow it. It’s
enough to make Mama turn in her grave.’
    Maryanne did
not wait to hear more. She turned and ran towards the front door. The startled
footman sprang to open it and she hurtled down the steps and away across the
lawn.
    Her flying feet
took her across the park between the tall cedars which gave the mansion its
name, to the wall which enclosed the immediate grounds, where she found a small
gate which led into the woods. Here it was quiet and cool and she stopped
running to catch her breath. She did not know where she was going; all she
wanted was to get away from that great house and people who made hateful
insinuations which made her blood boil.
    But she could
not help remembering a titbit of gossip told to her by the housemaid at
Beckford Rectory. ‘They say ‘is lordship left his wife and ran off with a
kitchen maid. They say he went abroad with ‘er, but ‘e came back a year or two
later all by ‘isself and settled down as if nothing ‘ad ‘appened. Though they
do say there was a bebby...’
    She had scolded
the girl and dismissed it as nonsense, but could there have been some truth in
it after all? She remembered, too, that when she first came to Beckford as a
ten-year-old there had been some gossip about her which concerned her mother,
but her guardian had soon silenced it and she had never learned what it was. He
always referred to her mother, when he spoke of her at all, as ‘that poor
misguided lady’ in condescending tones which infuriated Maryanne. There
couldn’t be a connection, could there?
    She stumbled
on, with her head in too much of a turmoil to notice where her feet were taking
her, unaware of anyone else on the path until she found herself imprisoned
against a broad chest. She let out a squeal of terror and began to struggle.
    Six feet and
more of bone and rippling muscle, he held her in a grip so powerful that she
could not pull herself away until he chose to release her. ‘Let me go!’ she
shouted, trying to beat on his chest with her fists. ‘Let me go!’
    He put her
gently from him, but still retained her hand. ‘Your pardon, mam’selle .’
    Startled by his
accent, she looked up at his face. His hair was thickly curled and he had a
small scar over his left eyebrow which made it look as if it were lifted in a
permanent expression of doubt, but it was his eyes she remembered most of all;
fringed with enviably long dark lashes, they were like brown velvet with a
sheen of gold and now regarded her in a way which made her blush to the roots of
her fair hair. ‘Why, it’s you... the gypsy... the poacher... the man I saw...’
She stopped suddenly, wondering why she had been such a ninny as to let him
know she remembered him.
    She had
encountered him only three days before on her way back from a walk across the
downs, when she had been taking a short cut through Lord Danbury’s woods.
Unlike today, when he was dressed in riding breeches, he had been wearing a
rough labourer’s coat and had no collar or cravat, except a spotted
neckerchief, tied flamboyantly beneath a firmly jutting chin. Strangers in
Beckford were a rarity and until the interview with Lord Danbury had driven
everything else out of her mind she had been much occupied wondering where he
had come from and what he was doing in Beckford woods. He could have been a
poacher or one of the gypsies who were camping on the downs. On the other hand,
when he had bidden her good-day, he had sounded French. She had wondered if he
was a spy or had escaped from one of the many French ships which had been captured
and brought to Portsmouth as prison hulks. But he had not been doing any harm
and the war was so