He bowed with great dignity, and went out of the room, leaving the Duke to wonder what might be going to happen next. He walked over to the window restlessly, and stood fidgeting with the blind-cord. As he stood there, he had the satisfaction, at least, of seeing the landlord and the man in the plush waistcoat walking across the dirty yard with pails in their hands. From the medley of squeals in the distance he inferred that they were on their way to feed the pigs. He had not soberly supposed that either of them would be called in to overpower him, for he could not perceive any good end to be achieved through such methods, but he felt more at his ease with them out of earshot. Mr. Liversedge might be an entertaining scoundrel, but a scoundrel he certainly was, and would probably stop at very little to extort money from his victims. It was evident that he considered the supposed Mr. Ware a negligible opponent. The Duke had seen the indulgent contempt in his smile, and had done nothing to dispel it. He was by this time quite determined not to allow himself to be bled of as much as a farthing. By fair means or foul—and he would feel very little compunction at using foul means against a gentleman of Liversedge’s kidney—he must wrest Matthew’s letters, which Liversedge had in all probability gone away to collect, away from him. And since it seemed unlikely that this could be achieved without Mr. Manton’s pistol coming into play, he was happy to see the landlord and his henchman going off to feed the pigs.
Mr. Liversedge was absent for some ten minutes, but presently the Duke heard his ponderous tread, and turned round to face the door.
It opened; Mr. Liversedge’s voice said unctuously: “Come in, my love! Come and tell Mr. Ware how deeply he has wounded your tender heart!”
The Duke jumped, for this was a possibility he had not envisaged. The thought darted across his mind that if his true identity should be guessed it might occur to Mr. Liversedge’s fertile brain that the Duke of Sale, held to ransom, would prove a more profitable investment than his niece’s broken heart. His hand slid once more into the pocket of his coat, to grasp the butt of his pistol, and he braced himself to face the inevitable disclosure.
Into the room stepped a vision of loveliness. The Duke caught his breath, and stood staring. His cousin Matthew had certainly spoken of Belinda’s beauty, but he had not prepared him for anything as superb as the creature who now stood on the threshold, regarding him out of eyes so large, so innocent, and of so deep translucent a blue as to make his senses swim for a dizzy moment. He closed his own eyes involuntarily, and opened them again to make sure that they had not deceived him. They had not. He beheld a veritable beauty. A face of rose-leaf complexion was framed in a cascade of guinea-gold curls, artlessly bound with a ribbon of scarcely a deeper blue than those glorious eyes; the brows were delicately arched; the little nose classically straight; the wistful mouth, with its short upper-lip, as kissable as it was perfect in proportion.
The Duke swallowed once, and waited. That melting gaze widened a little as it rested on him, but the lady said nothing.
“Did not Mr. Ware promise you marriage, my love?” said Mr. Liversedge, closing the door, and bending solicitously over the vision.
“Yes,” said the vision, in a soft, west-country voice. “Oh, yes!”
If the Duke had been dizzy before, his senses now reeled. He could think of nothing to say. He wondered, for an unreasoning instant, if those tender blue eyes could be sightless, since he resembled his cousin hardly at all. But when he stared into them he saw a sort of speculation in their gaze, and knew that they were not.
“And did he not write you letters, my love, which you very properly gave to me, promising that he would make you his wife?” prompted Mr. Liversedge.