Lord Tony’s Wife Baroness Orczy (story read aloud .TXT) 📖

Nor did he announce his departure to her in so many words. As soon as the maid had gone, he took his beloved in his arms.

“They have stolen Tony’s wife from him,” he said with that light, quaint laugh of his. “I told you that the man Martin-Roget had planned some devilish mischief⁠—well! he has succeeded so far, thanks to that unspeakable fool the duc de Kernogan.”

He told her briefly the history of the past few days.

“Tony did not take my warning seriously enough,” he concluded with a sigh; “he ought never to have allowed his wife out of his sight.”

Marguerite had not interrupted him while he spoke. At first she just lay in his arms, quiescent and listening, nerving herself by a supreme effort not to utter one sigh of misery or one word of appeal. Then, as her knees shook under her, she sank back into a chair by the hearth and he knelt beside her with his arms clasped tightly round her shoulders, his cheek pressed against hers. He had no need to tell her that duty and friendship called, that the call of honour was once again⁠—as it so often has been in the world⁠—louder than that of love.

She understood and she knew, and he, with that supersensitive instinct of his, understood the heroic effort which she made.

“Your love, dear heart,” he whispered, “will draw me back safely home as it hath so often done before. You believe that, do you not?”

And she had the supreme courage to murmur: “Yes!”

It was not until Bath had very obviously been left behind that Yvonne de Kernogan⁠—Lady Anthony Dewhurst⁠—realised that she had been trapped.

During the first half-hour of the journey her father had lain back against the cushions of the carriage with eyes closed, his face pale and wan as if with great suffering. Yvonne, her mind a prey to the gravest anxiety, sat beside him, holding his limp cold hand in hers. Once or twice she ventured on a timid question as to his health and he invariably murmured a feeble assurance that he felt well, only very tired and disinclined to talk. Anon she suggested⁠—diffidently, for she did not mean to disturb him⁠—that the driver did not appear to know his way into Bath, he had turned into a side road which she felt sure was not the right one. M. le duc then roused himself for a moment from his lethargy. He leaned forward and gazed out of the window.

“The man is quite right, Yvonne,” he said quietly, “he knows his way. He brought me along this road yesterday. He gets into Bath by a slight detour but it is pleasanter driving.”

This reply satisfied her. She was a stranger in the land, and knew little or nothing of the environs of Bath. True, last Monday morning after the ceremony of her marriage she had driven out to Combwich, but dawn was only just breaking then, and she had lain for the most part⁠—wearied and happy⁠—in her young husband’s arms. She had taken scant note of roads and signposts.

A few minutes later the coach came to a halt and Yvonne, looking through the window, saw a man who was muffled up to the chin and enveloped in a huge travelling cape, mount swiftly up beside the driver.

“Who is that man?” she queried sharply.

“Some friend of the coachman’s, no doubt,” murmured her father in reply, “to whom he is giving a lift as far as Bath.”

The barouche had moved on again.

Yvonne could not have told you why, but at her father’s last words she had felt a sudden cold grip at her heart⁠—the first since she started. It was neither fear nor yet suspicion, but a chill seemed to go right through her. She gazed anxiously through the window, and then looked at her father with eyes that challenged and that doubted. But M. le duc would not meet her gaze. He had once more closed his eyes and sat quite still, pale and haggard, like a man who is suffering acutely.

“Father we are going back to Bath, are we not?”

The query came out trenchant and hard from her throat which now felt hoarse and choked. Her whole being was suddenly pervaded by a vast and nameless fear. Time had gone on, and there was no sign in the distance of the great city. M. de Kernogan made no reply, but he opened his eyes and a curious glance shot from them at the terror-stricken face of his daughter.

Then she knew⁠—knew that she had been tricked and trapped⁠—that her father had played a hideous and complicated role of hypocrisy and duplicity in order to take her away from the husband whom she idolised.

Fear and her love for the man of her choice gave her initiative and strength. Before M. de Kernogan could realise what she was doing, before he could make a movement to stop her, she had seized the handle of the carriage door, wrenched the door open and jumped out into the road. She fell on her face in the mud, but the next moment she picked herself up again and started to run⁠—down the road which the carriage had just traversed, on and on as fast as she could go. She ran on blindly, unreasoningly, impelled by a purely physical instinct to escape, not thinking how childish, how futile such an attempt was bound to be.

Already after the first few minutes of this swift career over the muddy road, she heard quick, heavy footsteps behind her. Her father could not run like that⁠—the coachman could not have thus left his horses⁠—but still she could hear those footsteps at a run⁠—a quicker run than hers⁠—and they were gaining on her⁠—every minute, every second. The next, she felt two powerful arms suddenly seizing her by the shoulders. She stumbled and would once more have fallen, but for those same strong