Читать книгу Love has his way - Барбара Картленд - Страница 2

The Marquis of Sarne groaned, moved slightly and then thought that the pain in his head could not be real because it was such an agony.

It seemed a long time later that he opened his eyes, saw an unfamiliar room around him and closed them again.

His head continued to throb. Now slowly and intermittently, snatches of memory came back to him while there were moments in between when he was oblivious of everything,

He was aware that his mouth was dry, his lips felt as if they were cracked and he needed a drink of water so desperately that he next forced himself to open his eyes and focus them on the wall opposite him.

There was a fireplace and above it a picture that he had never seen in his life before.

There was light coming from an uncurtained window, by which he could see furniture of a quality that he would never have had in one of his houses.

He closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them determinedly.

Where was he? And why the devil did he feel so ill?

He moved slowly and, as he did so, he saw that there was a piece of paper lying on his chest.

He tried to look down at it without moving his head unduly and saw that he was wearing his evening clothes.

What had happened and why should a piece of paper have been thrust on him?

It seemed incomprehensible until suddenly it flashed through his mind that he had been in evening dress when he had taken Nicole de Prêt out to supper.

Of course he could remember it now, calling for her at the stage door at Covent Garden in his carriage and thinking when he collected her from her dressing room that she looked so alluring that she would relish the applause of a crowd.

“Are you very sure that you would like to have supper at home?” he had asked her as he raised her small hand with its long thin fingers to his lips.

It was perhaps her hands that had attracted him at first, for she used them with so much more grace than the rest of the Corps de Ballet.

“Anywhere your Lordship weesh,” she replied in her fascinating broken English. “But it will be ready chez moi.”

It was fashionable for the bucks of St. James’s to pursue the French women who filled many parts on the stage and were on the whole better dancers than the English.

The Marquis had had under his protection a Spanish dancer who had greatly pleased him for over a year and he had thought that Nicole de Prêt could fill her place admirably, which suggestion he intended to discuss with her over supper this evening.

He placed her wrap consisting of a fur he did not recognise and did not consider a proper frame for her beauty over her shoulders and then they climbed slowly down the iron staircase that would lead them to the stage door.

The Marquis was sure that Nicole would admire his carriage for no one in London had one that was smarter or drawn by better bred horses.

The coachman wearing his distinctive Livery and the footmen who had opened the door, were receiving admiring glances from the crowd that waited at the stage door to see not only the principals of the show leaving but also to gaze at the gentlemen who escorted them and who had occupied the stage boxes during the performance.

Nicole de Prêt lay back against the comfortably cushioned inside of the carriage.

“You leeve in great style, my Lord,” she remarked.

“Which is something I hope you will share with me,” the Marquis replied.

By the light of the silver candle lantern in the carriage he saw her glancing at him in an intriguing way from under her long dark mascaraed eyelashes.

“Ees that an invitation?”

“I will explain it more formally after we have had supper,” the Marquis said.

She smiled at him and he was not certain whether she intended to accept his protection immediately or whether she would prevaricate a little and make herself ‘hard-to-get’.

Either way, the Marquis thought, the end was inevitable.

There was no woman in London who was not ready to throw herself into his arms if he so much as glanced in her direction.

Where the Beau Monde was concerned, the many Society beauties, who were toasted and acclaimed by his friends, made it very obvious that he was the man in whom they were really interested.

He had only to enter a room to know that every woman’s eyes looked at him invitingly and every pair of red lips was waiting for him to kiss them.

Where the theatrical world was concerned it was easier.

The Marquis had only, as one wag had once said, ‘to pick the choicest fruit from off the barrow.’

Nicole de Prêt did not speak and he liked the way she made no effort to entice him, but merely sat waiting for him to talk to her.

He had the feeling that she was a better class than most of the Corps de Ballet, although it was always difficult to estimate the breeding of a foreigner.

“Have you been in England long?” he asked her.

“Ever since I was a child.”

The Marquis raised his eyebrows and she said,

“My parents came over at the time of ze Revolution. They lose everytheeng they possess. Eet ees why I ’ave to earn my own living.”

This was such a familiar story among the French women in London that the Marquis did not believe it for a moment.

But because she would obviously expect it, he made a sympathetic sound before he said,

“I can see that the fur of your wrap is not worthy of your beauty. You must allow me to replace it with sable or perhaps would you prefer ermine?”

“Eet ees something I must consider, my Lord,” she said, “but you are veree generous.”

“Which is what I wish to be to you,” the Marquis replied.

The horses drew up outside a house in Chelsea and he looked at the place speculatively as he followed Nicole de Prêt from the carriage.

To his surprise when she had accepted his invitation earlier in the day, he had received a note from her making the suggestion that they should dine at her house rather than in one of the fashionable restaurants where the Marquis usually engaged a private room.

He had, however, accepted her hospitality and at the same time suggesting that he should provide the wine that they would drink.

He knew from past experience that women of Nicole’s class were no judge of wine and he had no intention of ruining his digestion with anything that was inferior or cheap.

He therefore sent a carriage during the afternoon to Nicole’s house with a case of claret, another of champagne and several bottles of his best brandy as well.

“What about food, my Lord?” his secretary, Mr. Barnham, had asked.

He was used to dealing with these things and knew that, if the food and wine were not up to the Marquis’s high standards, he would not enjoy the subsequent attractions that he would be offered during the evening.

“You had better send a pâté and a round of cold beef in case everything she produces is inedible,” the Marquis said.

“If she is French, my Lord, she should surely know something about food,”

“I am hoping so, at the same time I should like to be prepared,” the Marquis answered.

Mr. Barnham knew that this meant that he must send far more food than the Marquis had suggested and he hurried away to the chef with a long list of requirements.

The Marquis, however, was pleasantly surprised as he walked into Nicole’s house and found it far more attractive than its outside appearance suggested.

Chelsea, where the houses were cheap, was patronised by a number of bucks when they took a lady under their protection as it had been since the time of King Charles II.

The houses varied considerably and the one the Marquis had in mind in which to install Nicole de Prêt was large and luxurious and, as he had taken the trouble to ascertain, boasted an excellent kitchen.

This was much smaller, but tastefully furnished and the Marquis was not surprised when Nicole de Prêt said,

“I theenk, my Lord, we should dine upstairs in my sitting room. Eet ees far cosier than the dining room.”

“That would be delightful,” the Marquis agreed.

The evening was already moving so inevitably according to plan that he might have been watching a play that he had seen dozens of times before.

She went on ahead of him up the narrow but well-carpeted staircase and he admired the lines of her figure and the graceful way that she moved.

‘She is perfection!’ he told himself.

He thought with satisfaction that he was going to enjoy his evening and doubtless a great many subsequent evenings like it.

The sitting room, which had two windows, was well furnished in surprisingly good taste.

There was none of the garishness of brightly coloured satin cushions or vulgar souvenirs of the theatre that cluttered most chorus girls’ apartments.

Instead it might have been a room owned by a Lady of Quality and the Marquis decided once again that Nicole was better bred than the other girls who she danced with.

There was a table set in front of one of the windows and on it were four candles, which a maid in a frilly apron and a lace-trimmed cap came in to light.

“You sent much food weeth ze wine, my Lord,” Nicole said, “which I do theenk is an insult.”

“I do not |wish you to take it as one,” the Marquis replied. “I merely wished to save you trouble and expense.”

“I ’ave incorporated some of my extra special dishes with yours,” she replied, “and when supper is over, you can tell me which you prefer.”

She gave him one of her alluring little glances as she added,

“I shall be veree disappointed if I am ze loser.”

“That is something you could never be, not where I am concerned.”

She crossed the room to where a bottle of the Marquis’s champagne was already open and set in an ice cooler.

She poured out two glasses and brought one over to him to where he stood in front of the mantlepiece watching her and appraising every moment.

Then he took the glass from her and raised it.

“Shall I drink to your beautiful eyes,” he asked, “or to our future happiness together?”

“You are very certain that we shall be together.”

“That is, of course, all your deceesion, my Lord.”

He knew really that there was no question that she would not accept him as any woman in the theatrical world would be only too eager to do.

He had the reputation of being exceedingly generous as he could well afford to be.

The only difficulty, as Nicole had been told already, was that his interest in any woman, whatever her status in life, never lasted very long.

“We might as well face it,” he had heard a woman he had dallied with for a short while say to another, ‘he is here today and gone tomorrow so make the most of it while you have the chance’.”

The Marquis had been amused.

He had known that this was undoubtedly the truth. It was the pursuit of the woman that he enjoyed and the hope that, as she was new, she would be perhaps a little different from the many women he had known previously.

Yet it was too much to hope for any great originality and, as one cynic in White’s Club had said,

“All cats are the same in the dark!”

Equally the Marquis liked women simply because they were a relaxation from his other activities.

He was a sportsman who was acclaimed on every Racecourse, at every mill and was the acknowledged champion swordsman of England.

The Prince of Wales asked his advice when he bought horses and the pugilists he had backed had been so successful that he found it hard with his latest protégé to find him a fight.

Besides all his sporting interests, the Marquis was continually in demand in the House of Lords.

He was an excellent speaker and, when he could be persuaded to take up a cause, he then championed it in a manner which made him a favourite with the Prime Minister and hated by the Opposition.

The rest of his time was occupied with his estates and large staff.

Sarne Hall, his fine mansion in Kent, was not only one of the largest and most admired houses in the country but the parties when he entertained there were so interesting and at the same time so exclusive that it was said that even the Prince of Wales would beg him for an invitation.

The Marquis owned other properties, all of which had something interesting and unusual about them, but he then expected his houses to excel as he expected all his possessions to be perfection down to the very last detail.

“The trouble with you, Sarne,” someone had said to him only last week, “is that you are too good to be true and the only thing that is lacking as you run over us with your chariot wheels is that you have no wife to cut you down to size!”

“Do you really think a wife would do that?” the Marquis asked with a twist of his lips.

“Women have a manner of making a man ‘toe the line’ in one way or another,” his friend answered.

“Then I shall be the exception,” the Marquis said. “I assure you I shall choose my wife as carefully as I choose my horses.”

“Knowing your damned luck,” his friend said, “she will doubtless be such a high-stepper that she will win the Gold Cup at Ascot and trot home with the Derby Stakes!”

The Marquis had laughed.

“You are setting me such a very high standard that I shall be wise and remain as I am a perennial bachelor.”

“You will certainly want a son to inherit so much wealth.”

“There is plenty of time for that,” the Marquis replied confidently.

He was, as a matter of fact, avoiding marriage because he had seen that, as far as many of his friends were concerned, it was a most unenviable state.

He had been very fortunate in that he had inherited the title before he was twenty, which meant that he had no father to pressure him into an arranged marriage such as was usually accepted as inevitable by the young men of his own age with whom he had been at Oxford University.

“Why the devil did I ever get so tied up with that virago who just makes my life a hell on earth?” one of his closest friends had asked him two years after they had left Oxford.

“You were too young to know your own mind,” the Marquis said.

“My mind?” his friend almost shouted, “my father’s mind! If you only heard the way he went on at me.”

He mimicked his father’s voice as he said,

“‘She will suit you admirably, my boy, comes from a very good stock and has a dowry of eighty thousand pounds, which is just what we want at this moment and there will be much more when her father dies’.”

“You should have looked at her rather than what she had in the bank,” the Marquis said unsympathetically.

“She seemed all right,” his friend went on. “It was only when the knot was tied and there was no escape that I realised what had happened to me.”

He sounded so unhappy that the Marquis had offered him the only consolation that was available.

“Come and stay with me in Grosvenor Square,” he said. “I will introduce you to some of the prettiest ‘bits of muslin’ in the whole of London.”

“Thank you,” his friend smiled, “and Sybil can scream herself stupid for all I care. If I cannot escape from that strident voice of hers I think I shall go mad.”

This was only one instance out of very many the Marquis had of how a marriage could demoralise and upset a man. As he told himself that it was the sort of thing that could never happen to him, he realised how quickly a woman could bore him and knew that, if this was inevitable where his mistresses were concerned, it was no less a foregone conclusion with a wife.

He therefore enjoyed his bachelorhood and never gave marriage a thought, except when he was reminded by those who could not mind their own business that one day he would have to have a son and an heir.

He agreed that was something he would require eventually but, as he had not yet passed his twenty-ninth birthday, there was certainly no urgency.

As he sipped his own excellent champagne the maid next brought in a number of dishes, which she set on a side table and the Marquis, who was a connoisseur of food and employed the best chef in London, walked across the room to inspect them.

They certainly looked and smelt appetising and he thought that there would be no need to resort to his pâté, which he perceived was also there should he need it.

He sat down at the small table with Nicole opposite him and, as he ate a really excellent meal served expertly by the maid, who was also French, he found himself thinking that once again his exceptional luck had brought him Nicole.

She looked lovely in the candlelight and he liked the way her dark eyes slanted upwards a little at the corners and her face, although it owed a great deal to artifice, was also clear and unblemished.

They talked of the theatre and she made him laugh with some of her descriptions of the temperaments thrown by the leading ladies and the eccentricities of the Managers.

“Have you been in the theatre long?” he asked her.

“For three years,” my Lord.”

“Then why have I not seen you before?”

“Thees ees my first engagement at Covent Garden.”

The Marquis was well aware that her salary would not enable her to live in the comfort and luxury of the house that he was dining in and he wondered if he should ask her who had been her protector and who was paying for the very excellent dinner he was eating.

As they drank the claret, which was so good that the Marquis had sent a case of it to the Prince of Wales, he was not surprised when Nicole observed,

“Ze wine ees delicious, my Lord.”

“I am glad you appreciate it,” the Marquis said. “I find it exceptional. I had it shipped from France only two months ago.”

He saw that she was interested and then he commented,

“It is very unusual to find a woman who is discerning about wine. It must be your French blood or has somebody taught you?”

It was a leading question and he was aware that Nicole evaded it as she replied,

“I am told you have the best of everytheeng at your house, my Lord.”

“I think that is true,” the Marquis agreed, “but I asked you a question.”

“My father taught me a great deal about ze wines and he also insisted I understand food, French food, of course, which he considered was important in life.”

The Marquis was interested.

“Your father is alive?”

“Yes, my Lord.”

“Where does he live?”

“He lives in Little Hamble. You will never have heard of it, but it is a small village in Northumberland.”

Nicole spoke as if she had no wish to continue the conversation and it was easy to pause because the maid was clearing away the last of their dishes and setting a silver tray on which there was a coffee pot.

She filled up the Marquis’s glass of claret, having, he noted, opened a new bottle and put a decanter of brandy in front of him.

All this, the Marquis knew, was preparatory to leaving the room and he felt that the meal, which had been delicious, and the way that it had been served was exactly the right prelude to what lay ahead.

He took up his glass and raised it.

“To a perfect hostess,” he toasted, “and to a superb supper that I know will be the first of many!”

“You are sure of that, my Lord?”

“Very sure,” he answered. “If you are at all doubtful, I am ready to convince you that this is a very special evening for both of us.”

There was a deep note in his voice that he had always found to be irresistible and, as Nicole’s eyes met his over the candlelit table, he thought that it was a long time since he had found a woman who was quite so desirable.

He liked the way she had made no obvious effort to flirt with him or attract him during supper.

She talked in the same way as a Lady of Quality would have done and she ate daintily with an elegance that would have been perfectly in place at Carlton House with the Prince of Wales.

The Marquis also liked the way she had been evasive about some of his questions.

‘There is obviously some secret about her parents,’ he thought, ‘and even if she has been telling me lies she has been doing it so cleverly and so charmingly that I am intrigued rather than sceptical.’

Altogether he thought that his new liaison would prove very enjoyable and he pushed the chair a little way from the table and crossed his legs with an air of consequence.

It was not only his possessions that made them run after him as if he was the Pied Piper, it was his excessive good looks and perhaps the raffish buccaneering expression in his eyes which told all and sundry that what he wanted he took.

One of the Marquis’s ancestors had in fact been a pirate, and he remembered how when he was a boy one of his Governesses who was better read than the rest used to say when he was naughty,

“It’s no use your behaving like a pirate with me. You will do as I say or I will tell your father.”

It had taken him some time to realise that a pirate took by force what he could not get by lawful means and he often wondered whether, if he had not been in the fortunate position of being able to buy anything he wanted, he too would have used force.

If he could not prove it in any other way, he did so by taking the women who he wanted, whether they were the wives of jealous husbands or under the protection of a man who could not provide for them as generously as he could.

He had no scruples but, although quite a number of men would have liked to call him out and fight for their rights, there was not a swordsman or a pistol shot who would have tried to do so, knowing that he was superior in both weapons.

“Tell me about yourself,” the Marquis asked now, “I am not so naїve as to believe that there have not been many ardent admirers in your life before me.”

Nicole smiled a little mysteriously.

“I cannot really believe zat your Lordship wants to hear ze story of my life at zis stage in ze evening.”

“Why not?” the Marquis enquired. “It seems a good moment. When you have finished your claret, I want you to try my excellent brandy. After that we will find it more comfortable to be closer than we are at this moment.”

He picked up his untouched glass of claret.

“You intrigue me and excite me,” he said. “And now tell me about yourself.”

As he spoke, he drank nearly half of the claret in his glass.

Only as it passed down his throat did he think that there was something strange about it.

Then. as he raised the half-empty glass to his nose and smelt it to discover if there was anything wrong, he was aware that something extraordinary was happening to his whole body and he was finding it hard to move – to think –

He struggled against a strange darkness and a paralysis that seemed to be overwhelming him.

Then he remembered no more.

*

Now it came back to him in a rush and with what was almost a superhuman effort with his head swimming, the Marquis forced himself to sit up on the bed.

‘Dammit, I was drugged,’ he muttered to himself.

He could not believe that such a thing could happen to him like any greenhorn who came to London from the country and had his money taken from him by the first prostitute who accosted him in the street.

But now he, the Marquis of Sarne, the man who had boasted often enough that no one had got the better of him because he knew every trick in the trade, had been drugged with his own claret by a ballet dancer from Covent Garden!

How could she? Why should she?

Surely Nicole knew what would be the repercussions of such an action on her part?

Any Theatre Manager in London would sack a member of the cast who behaved in such a manner towards anyone as important and influential as the Marquis of Sarne.

He sat up and now with a greater effort he moved his legs off the bed and onto the floor.

As he did so, he put his hand to his forehead as if he was afraid that his head would burst open or fall off his neck.

‘God knows what it is that they gave me!’ he thought to himself, ‘but it must have been gunpowder for the effect it has!’

After a few seconds he opened his eyes and saw lying on the floor at his feet the paper which had been on his chest and must have been dislodged by his movements.

There were two pieces of it.

He stared at them for some time, seeing that on one was writing while the other appeared to be a printed form.

For a moment he was not particularly interested, only concerned with the splitting pain in his head and then, perhaps because he was sitting up, he began to feel a little more human.

‘I must get out of here as soon as I can,’ he told himself.

There was sunshine coming through the window that was uncurtained and he supposed that he had been there all night.

Finally with once again a hand to his forehead to help steady himself, he reached down with the other and, picking up the two pieces of paper, held them in front of his eyes.

On the first, which was written in a strong bold hand, were the words,

“My first inclination was, having drugged you, to then chuck you in the river. Then I thought that drowning was too good for you and have therefore made the punishment fit the crime.

Rather neatly, I think.

Kirkhampton.”

The Marquis stared at the note and then read it again.

So it was Kirkhampton who had drugged his claret, Kirkhampton whom he disliked and who disliked him, but he would never have credited him with the intelligence to do anything that would humiliate him so effectively.

“Damn him!” the Marquis swore aloud, “I will call him out if it is the last thing I ever do in my life.”

Then, as he looked at the other piece of paper that he had picked up from the floor, he stiffened.

For a moment he thought that his eyes must be deceiving him and he looked at it again.

It was a Marriage Certificate bearing his name!

He read it and re-read it.

It stated clearly, although he could hardly believe what he was reading, that a marriage had taken place on June 15^th, which had been the night before, between,

“The Most Noble Vallient Alexander, Marquis of Sarne, bachelor, and Romana Wardell, spinster, the Ceremony having been conducted by the Reverand Adolphus Fletcher, Chaplain of His Majesty’s Prison at Fleet.”

“It just cannot be true!” the Marquis exclaimed.

But the Certificate appeared to be in order and he knew with a feeling of horror that the Chaplains who were to be found at the Fleet Prison would perform any Ceremony, however disreputable, for money.

Their behaviour was a total scandal, which the Marquis had heard complained about both inside and outside Parliament for many years.

He had not been particularly interested and, if there had been a Bill introduced to get rid of such pests. he had not been aware of it.

He felt sure now that a Marriage Service conducted by a Chaplain of the Fleet Prison was valid if he was in Holy Orders,. At least he had always heard so.

The Marquis rose to his feet.

Perhaps, he thought, this was a joke, a jest played on him by Lord Kirkhampton to pay him back for what he considered the insults that the Marquis had offered him over several years.

The first had been when the Marquis had questioned the riding of his jockey in a race at Newmarket and after an enquiry the horse had been disqualified.

Lord Kirkhampton had been absolutely furious and had told the Marquis in no uncertain terms what he thought of him.

After that they had ignored each other on many social occasions at which they were both present or in White’s Club.

Then there had been the time when they had been pursuing the same ‘fair charmer’.

She was indeed very beautiful and very flirtatious with a husband who, although he was distinguished, was very much older than she was.

He was frequently laid up and the lady in question had divided her favours for a few weeks between the Marquis and Lord Kirkhampton and, as was inevitable in such a situation, the Marquis had won.

He had then demanded that she should give up his rival.

“I like you both,” she had protested.

“That is not good enough for me,” the Marquis said. “You have to choose, my dear, and if you prefer Kirkhampton I shall understand. I was looking forward naturally to entertaining you at Sarne.”

He knew as he spoke that he was tipping the odds in his favour.

The party that he was giving at Sarne House included the Prince of Wales and it would be certainly an amusing visit not only for His Royal Highness, since everyone who was really interesting in the Beau Monde would be invited to entertain him.

“In the circumstances,” the lady had smiled, slipping her hand into the Marquis’s, “Lord Kirkhampton will have to dine alone tomorrow night.”

It was a victory that he had never been in any doubt of winning, but Lord Kirkhampton had naturally been livid with anger.

He tried to discredit the Marquis by abusing him to his friends, but they merely laughed.

“Leave Sarne alone,” he had been advised. “Surely there are plenty of other women in the world and other races for you to win?”

Lord Kirkhampton, who was a dark, vindictive and fiery man, had gone about muttering that he would have his revenge.

“So I will get even with you one day, Sarne!” he had stated only a month ago when the Marquis had outbid him at Tattersalls for a horse that they both wanted.

“Do you want to bet on it?” the Marquis had questioned him mockingly.

He had known, as his enemy walked away in fury, that the way he spoke had only added fuel to an already hot fire.

Now Lord Kirkhampton had struck back.

It could not be true what the Marriage Certificate purported to say.

Nevertheless the Marquis definitely felt anxious.

Feeling rather unsteady on his feet, he walked across the room and, seeing his reflection in a mirror, he stopped.

The drug had most certainly played havoc with his appearance.

He was looking unnaturally pale and there were dark lines almost as if they were those of dissipation under his eyes.

His muslin cravat, which had been crisp and spotless last night, clung limply around his neck and his hair, normally arranged in a windswept way favoured by the Prince of Wales, was definitely untidy.

The Marquis, however, turned away from the mirror.

What did it matter what he looked like? All he wanted was to go home and find out what the piece of paper in his hand meant.

He opened the bedroom door and found to his surprise that he was on the second floor.

This would mean that someone, presumably Lord Kirkhampton and his accomplices, had carried him up the stairs when he was unconscious.

He gritted his teeth in fury to think he had been so helpless in their hands and wondered if Lord Kirkhampton had really intended to drown him.

He thought it was not an impossibility for his Lordship was the type of headstrong fool who would do anything to assert himself.

Holding onto the banisters because he still felt that his head was thick with the drug, the Marquis began to walk slowly down the stairs.

On the first floor the door to the sitting room he had dined in last night was open.

He could see the table where he had sat, but it was now bare.

The door of the room next door was also open and the Marquis could see it was prettily decorated just as he had imagined Nicole would have it with the bed draped in pale pink and a flounced dressing table to match.

The wallpaper and the furniture was all very feminine and in good taste.

It was there that he had expected to enjoy himself last night and once again the Marquis felt like groaning aloud that he had been made to look such a fool.

He went down the stairs and only as he came down the last flight did he see that there was a woman in the hall.

He wondered if she was a servant and, as he reached the last step of the stairs, she rose nervously to her feet.

The Marquis glanced at her, then with a little difficulty tried to pick up his tall hat, which he saw lying on a chair opposite her.

He would have walked on towards the door, but the woman said in a small frightened voice,

“I-I was told to – wait for you.”

“Wait for me?” the Marquis expostulated.

“Y-yes.”

He turned to look at her.

She wore a dark travelling cape with a plain bonnet of chip-straw which made it difficult to see her face.

“Why are you waiting for me?”

Even as he asked the question he had the horrifying feeling that he knew the answer already.

“I-I am – your – wife!”

It was obviously difficult for her to say the words, but the Marquis heard them.

There was a moment’s silence.

Then in a surprisingly strong voice considering the way he was feeling, the Marquis said,

“If you are part of this dastardly plot of drugging and doubtless robbing me, you can tell Kirkhampton to go to the Devil where I shall doubtless find him!”

His voice seemed to echo and re-echo around the small hall.

Then, as the Marquis turned again to the door, the woman blurted out,

“P-please – Lord Kirkhampton has – left.”

“Doubtless you know where to find him,” the Marquis retorted, “and don’t forget to give him my message.”

He had the door open by now and with a sense of relief he could see that his carriage was standing outside.

He had told his coachman last night to wait for two hours and then, if he did not have a message from him, to come back first thing in the morning.

It was an inexpressible relief for him to know that his horses were there.

Seeing him in the doorway the footman jumped down from the box and, as the Marquis took another step forward, the voice behind him came,

“Please – my Lord – please – I don’t know – what to do.”

The Marquis paid no attention, but moved on towards his carriage.

He had moved onto the pavement when from behind him she asked,

“If you – could – just give me – some m-money I could – go home.”

“I have no intention of giving you a penny!” he replied and stepped into his carriage.

The footman closed the door and jumped up onto the box.

The carriage drove off and only when they reached the end of the road did the Marquis realise that it was a cul de sac and there was only a crescent of houses at the end with a small garden in the centre round which the carriage could turn.

He therefore was driven back the way he had come and, as if he just could not help being curious as to what the woman who had spoken to him had done, he looked out of the window.

He saw to his surprise a man, doubtless a servant, as he was wearing an apron, pulling a trunk out through the door while she stood and watched him.

The man threw the trunk, which was a small one, down the steps and, just as the carriage drew even, he went inside and slammed the door of the house.

As they passed by, the Marquis saw the woman sit down on the trunk and put her hands up to her face.

‘So she is no more use to them,’ he thought with satisfaction. ‘That should teach her a lesson that she will not forget in a hurry.’

The carriage was then held up at the end of the road by the traffic.

As the Marquis leaned back and shut his eyes, it suddenly struck him that if the woman he had just left crying on the doorstep was really his wife she could, if she told anybody who she was, cause a very unpleasant scandal.

He sighed.

It was not possible! He could not credit it.

He would not even acknowledge that she had any right to his name.

But he knew the paper in his pocket had an unpleasant look of authenticity about it and the Marquis was afraid in a way that he had never been afraid of anything before.

This was a situation he would get out of some way or another, but it might take time and money and the most important thing as far as he was concerned was that nobody should know that the whole episode had ever occurred.

The Marquis had a quick brain and so he realised as they turned into the main street that it would be extremely foolish to leave this woman who could make endless trouble for him alone in London without any money.

If she was telling the truth, it would only be a question of time before she was picked up by some charlatan who could use her to blackmail him in an excessively unpleasant fashion.

The Marquis made up his mind.

He bent forward to stop the carriage and, when the footman then jumped down to hear his commands, they drove back to the house that they had just left.

He half-suspected that the woman who had just been thrown into the street had only been another bait to trap him as Nicole had done with her invitation to supper.

She was still sitting there with her hands over her eyes and she only looked up when the carriage came to a standstill beside her.

Once again the footman came to the carriage door.

“Ask that young woman to join me,” the Marquis ordered sharply, “and put her trunk up behind.”

“Very good, my Lord.”

The footman was too well trained to show any surprise in his voice or his expression.

The Marquis heard him saying,

“His Lordship asks if you’ll join him in his carriage, ma’am.”

The woman obviously hesitated and for a moment the Marquis felt that she was going to refuse and then she came to the carriage door.

“Get in,” he called out.

Because he was just so angry he could not help speaking in a sharper tone than he would have used to a dog.

She obeyed him, sitting not beside him but opposite him on the small seat with her back to the horses.

The Marquis heard the footman strapping her trunk onto the back of the carriage, but he did not speak.

The horses had started off again to drive to the end of the road and turn as they had done before.

Then the woman said pleadingly,

“Please – may – I – ”

“I have no wish to listen to your lies,” the Marquis interrupted her harshly. “You will be silent until we arrive where I am taking you.”

She bowed her head and he supposed that she was crying again.