Читать книгу The Missing Marchioness - Paula Marshall - Страница 6

Autumn 1812

‘H o hum,’ said Marcus, Lord Angmering, in his usually bluffly cheerful manner. ‘Marriage, it’s all a nonsense! Don’t know why anyone goes in for it! Everything is much simpler with an accommodating ladybird who doesn’t interfere with your life outside the one she shares with you.’

‘What about an heir for the title?’ drawled his new acquaintance, Jack, who claimed to be a distant relative of the vast Perceval family. ‘Only possible within the law—and that means marriage.’

‘Good God,’ said Marcus, still in his teasing mode, ‘with two younger brothers waiting to grow up there can be no problem there, so why should I marry? Let other men acquire a leg shackle—I prefer to be free.’

He didn’t add that the lack of success of most marriages didn’t exactly offer much encouragement to a fellow to get hitched. So far as he was concerned, all that went without saying. It was only when he was half-foxed, as he was at the present moment, that he indulged in such mad bursts of honesty.

Not that he often drank too much, far from it, but he and his friends had been celebrating a marriage, that of a fellow member of their set, Nick Cameron, to his clever beauty, Athene Filmer.

‘Everyone’s getting hitched these days, never a season like it,’ Marcus continued, taking another great gulp of port, a drink he usually avoided. ‘And now there’s m’sister getting turned off at Christmas, and you’d think that it was a coronation we were preparing for, what with all the fuss it’s creating. Can’t think why everyone’s so enthusiastic about it all, it must be catching. Well, it’s not going to catch me.’

‘Care to bet on it?’ drawled Jack.

‘Why not? Easy pickings if I do.’

‘Very well. Waiter,’ Jack bellowed at a passing flunkey, ‘bring me pen, paper and ink, if you would—and quickly, before my friend here changes his mind.’

‘No chance of that,’ proclaimed Marcus, looking down his long nose at him. Damn the fellow for thinking that he would change his mind every time the wind blew in another direction! He didn’t know Marcus Cleeve very well if he believed any such thing.

His tormentor was still grinning knowingly at him, as though he had a private glimpse of the future which no one else shared, when the harassed waiter arrived with his order.

‘Now,’ said Jack, dipping the quill in the ink pot, his grin widening as he did so, ‘the only question is, how much? Five hundred guineas? To bet that you’ll not marry before a year from now? The money to be handed over to me if you do?’

Marcus was not so over-set that he contemplated the possibility of throwing five hundred guineas down the drain, even if he were bound and determined to live and die a bachelor. Who knew what might happen? He wouldn’t put it past his father suddenly to make his future inheritance conditional on his marrying an heiress. In fact he had half-hinted at that already, muttering something to the effect of ‘It’s time you settled down, Marcus. Marriage tends to steady a man.’

‘Oh, I think I’m steady enough without it,’ he had returned lightly, not wanting to start a discussion on the matter which might end in an argument.

So: ‘A fellow isn’t made of money,’ he pronounced as gravely as drink would allow him to—he was to think dismally the following morning that it was only the excessive amount of alcohol he had swallowed which had caused him to throw his money about so carelessly. All in all it was a pity he hadn’t fallen unconscious under the table before he had begun to brag about his fortunate state.

‘It’s not,’ he added solemnly, ‘as though I am usually a gambling man.’

‘Time you began then,’ announced Jack, who was one, with all the good cheer he could summon. ‘Don’t play the skinflint, Angmering, we all know that your pa made a fortune in India.’

‘True, but I’m not my father. Make it two hundred and fifty, and leave it at that.’

He couldn’t refuse to gamble out of hand—that would not be the act of a gentleman, to say nothing of a nobleman.

‘Three hundred,’ offered Jack hopefully. For some reason which he couldn’t really have articulated, he thought that a fellow who was shouting the odds about the joys of the bachelor state so loudly might really be in grave danger of relinquishing it.

‘Two hundred and fifty—or nothing,’ said Marcus stubbornly, ‘or else the wager’s off.’

‘Very well.’

Jack scrawled down the details of the bet, signed his name, and swung the paper round for Marcus to sign it, too, before handing it on to the others present who drunkenly scribbled their names as witnesses to it.

‘That’s that, then. Who’s for the Coal Hole now?’

‘Not I,’ said Marcus, who had had enough of Jack for one night. ‘Couldn’t walk there,’ and he laid his head on the littered table and began to sleep—or appeared to at any rate.

It wasn’t totally make-believe to cut the evening short, for an hour later the waiter who had fetched the writing materials woke him up, helped him to the door, and called a cab to drive him home. The word was perhaps an exaggeration—it was merely the house in Berkeley Square, his father’s home in London—a place which he rarely visited and where he was always unsure of his welcome.

Once there he fell into bed and didn’t rise until noon, when his valet woke him to remind him that he had promised to drive his sister, Sophia, to Hyde Park later that afternoon. They had arranged to meet the Duke of Sharnbrook, her betrothed, who was escorting an elderly aunt there in order to meet his fiancé and her brother for the first time.

His valet brought him breakfast in bed and a salver with a glass and a decanter on it: the decanter was full of the hair of the dog which had bit him. Marcus drank the port, grimacing, but that and the food seemed to settle his stomach. He might yet live!

Must remind myself not to go drinking again, he told himself severely. Look where it got Sywell, dead as a doornail and ugly with it!

Feeling much better, he decided to go downstairs and greet the day. He doubted whether his father would be about, and Sophia would surely soon be readying herself to see Sharnbrook. It would be a treat to have the house to himself, read the Morning Post, ring for coffee, yawn a bit and perhaps doze. He deserved a little holiday, and some peace, after setting his father’s northern estates in order after the previous land agent had neglected them.

Except that when he reached the entrance hall at the bottom of the grand staircase there stood, apparently waiting for him, the most bewitching little filly he had ever seen. She had lightly curling hair of that shade of gold called guinea, which had overtones of red in it, like the metal mined in Guinea itself. Her face was piquante to say the least, with an impudent little nose and a mouth so sweet and kissable that Marcus was tempted, there and then, to kiss it.

She was a pocket Venus, too, the type of female which he always preferred, and was dressed with the kind of supreme simplicity which he always associated with the best of taste. Her pale green walking-dress, with its delicate lemon trim, set off her bluey-green eyes and her dashing hair. Why did one always think of hair that colour as dashing? Bluey-green eyes, too, were dashing, were they not?

A female servant stood behind her, carrying bandboxes. Other boxes were being brought in by a footman wearing a livery which he did not recognise. They appeared to be waiting, and none of them had seen him descending the stairs.

A guest, perhaps? Although, to his knowledge, none had been mentioned as arriving.

Overcome, and ever gallant, Marcus spoke.

‘May I be of assistance, madame?’

His little Venus swung round and saw him at last. All brawny six feet of him.

‘Sir? You have the advantage of me.’

Her voice was pretty, too, with an accent in it which he recognised as French. There was something about her charming face which was oddly familiar. It was as though he had seen her somewhere before, and yet he could have sworn that she must be a total stranger. He would surely have remembered such an exquisite creature.

He bowed, ‘I am Marcus Angmering, at your service. The Earl’s heir, as you doubtless know. And you have the advantage of me, madame. Has the butler not announced you? You ought not to be kept waiting here.’

‘Very kind of you,’ she murmured, ‘but do not trouble yourself. The butler has just left to inform Lady Sophia and her mama that I have arrived. I am Madame Félice, the modiste who has the honour of dressing Lady Sophia for her wedding, and of providing her with a suitable trousseau for her honeymoon.’

Well, that explained the bandboxes, the footman and the French accent—most modistes of note being French. It was many years since he had been so attracted to a woman on first seeing her, and if Madame’s creations matched her appearance, then Sophia was indeed fortunate in having engaged her.

What to say next? He couldn’t let her walk away and out of his life without making some effort to cultivate her acquaintance further—which pompous statement, translated into simple English, really meant without him having the opportunity, at some time in the future, to persuade her to be his mistress. In even simpler words—to have her in his bed.

Marcus had read of what the French called ‘coups de foudre’: that is, of being so struck by a woman on first sight that one had an instant determination to make her yours at any cost. He had always laughed at the mere notion, had prided himself on his dispassionate approach to life and love, and now, here he was in this damned uncomfortable situation.

One moment he was walking downstairs, fancy free, and before he had reached the ground a pair of fine eyes and a beautiful face had reduced him to gibbering inanity—no, had struck him dumb. The only explanation for his odd behaviour was that he had been continent for far too long. Living in the wilds of Northumberland, reserving his energies to improve his father’s estates, must have taken its toll on him.

He was saved from coming out with some piece of nonsense which would have only served to convince Madame of what a numb-skull he was by the arrival of Cardew, the butler, and two footmen: the latter there to carry Madame’s excess bandboxes. There were enough, he would have thought, to have dressed five future brides, rather than one.

‘This way, Madame Félice,’ said the butler, who was now leading Madame and her retinue upstairs, passing by Marcus, who had descended to the entrance hall himself, with a ‘By your leave, m’lord.’

Marcus nodded distractedly at him and at Madame, who offered him a brief bow in passing. He watched her, like a lust-struck gaby he thought afterwards, until the turn of the stairs took her out of his sight.

Madame Félice, which was not her real name, did not turn to look after the man who had examined her with such interest. She was used to being the subject of bold stares from men of all ages and every class. She had known that the man descending the stairs was Marcus Cleeve, Lord Angmering, the Earl of Yardley’s son and heir. She had seen him recently in Hyde Park when she had ridden there with only a groom as an attendant.

She had recognised him immediately, despite the many years which had elapsed since they had last met when she had been a girl walking in the grounds of Steepwood Abbey. It was plain from his manner that he had not recognised her—which was not surprising, given how much she had changed. Besides, her assumed French accent alone must have been enough to have put him off the scent of her, as it were.

Given that most men of the Ton regarded a modiste as fair game, a cross between an actress or a barque of frailty as the saying went, it was not surprising that they thought of her as prey—or that she conducted herself as prey would, by defending herself from them in every way she could.

Oh, she knew that look in Marcus Angmering’s eyes, she had seen it so often. The look which told her how much he was attracted—and which also told her that he thought she should be flattered by his attentions. She might be wronging him by thinking this, but she was sure that she was not. Life had taught her many hard lessons, and this was one which she would ignore at her peril.

For the present, she must forget him, and must concentrate instead on the business which had brought her to Cleeve House. All the same, she could not help wondering what Marcus Angmering would think if he were aware of her true name and history and what ties—even if distant ones—bound them together. How would he look at her then?

What would he say if he knew that Madame Félice had once been known as Louise Hanslope, who had married the late, unlamented Marquis of Sywell, and had then run away from him to arrive in London as a French modiste, society’s latest fashionable dressmaker?

More to the point, what would he say if he also discovered that her true name had not been Louise Hanslope either? That she was, instead, the daughter of his father’s long-dead second or third cousin—she could never remember which—and ought, more properly, to be addressed as either the Honourable Louise Cleeve, or as the Marchioness of Sywell—if she ever had the means, the opportunity and the desire of proving these remarkable facts.

If everyone had their rights she, too, would be expecting to be married to someone of her own station. In the normal course of events she would have been employing a modiste herself to design her trousseau, rather than be designing them for other, more fortunate women. She could not stifle an irreverent giggle at the thought of how Marcus would have reacted had she addressed him as cousin!

Stop that, Louise told herself sternly, things are as they are, and that being so I must concentrate on presenting her wardrobe to my cousin Sophia in my present incarnation of Madame Félice, society’s favourite dressmaker.

‘Beautiful, quite beautiful,’ said Marissa, Lady Yardley, a little later, walking around her daughter, who had been carefully eased into the elegant cream wedding-dress which had been contained in one of the boxes which Marcus had seen in the hall, and who was now admiring herself before a long mirror.

‘It is exactly what we wished, Sophia and I: a dress which is perfect in its simplicity. It looks even better than it did in the sketch which you showed to us when we visited your workrooms. If the rest of the trousseau is equally comme il faut, then we shall not regret having asked you to design it. Is not that so, Sophia?’

‘Yes, Mama, but I am not at all surprised how lovely it is after seeing the beautiful clothes which Madame made for Nick Cameron’s bride. The nicest thing of all is that they are so different from Athene’s, because Madame has designed them to suit me rather than some imaginary perfect being in a fashion plate. I would have looked quite wrong in Athene’s trousseau, as she would have looked wrong in mine, given our quite different appearance and colouring.’

‘True,’ said her mother. ‘Madame is to be congratulated. I am looking forward to seeing Sharnbrook’s face when you arrive in church.’

‘Most kind of you,’ said Louise, bowing her head, and accepting the compliments as gracefully as she could. ‘But, m’lady, both your daughter and Miss Athene had the great good fortune to possess faces and figures which are a privilege to dress. My difficulties arise when I have to transform those who are not so lucky.’

They were standing in Sophia’s bedroom, surrounded by gowns already made up, and bolts of cloth to inspect for those garments which were still to be created. As well as gowns Madame Félice was responsible for Sophia’s nightwear and underwear. She had brought along samples of these as well as some pieces of outerwear, principally a long coat and a jacket like a hussar’s for wearing on a cool day, which she felt sure that Sophia would also require.

When Lady Yardley had visited her workrooms Félice, or Louise as she always thought of herself, had almost decided to refuse her invitation to dress Sophia, on the excuse that she already had more work in hand than she could usefully cope with. The strain of entering a house which she might have called home, of meeting relatives who had no notion of her true identity, was almost too much for her.

And then, looking beyond Lady Yardley into a long mirror where she, too, stood reflected, she had told herself fiercely: Nothing to that. I have always stared life straight in the eye, I have never run away from anything—other than that monster Sywell—and I shall not run away from this.

Besides, who knows what might happen?

Now that she was in the Yardleys’ home there was even a certain strange spice in knowing who she was, and that the assembled Cleeves were quite unaware of the cuckoo who had entered their nest. Except, of course, that she was not a cuckoo, but was as much of an honest bird as they were!

Nothing of this showed. She was discretion itself as she knelt before Sophia, pinning up her dress a little to show her pretty ankles, adding an extra discreet tuck here and there, suggesting that Lady Sophia ought to wear as little jewellery as possible.

‘Yes,’ nodded Lady Yardley. ‘I was most impressed by the turn-out which you created for the Tenison child’s marriage. I was informed that you had vetoed her mama’s wish that she should be hung about with geegaws. I, too, wish Sophia’s innocence to be emphasised, not only by her white gown, but also by a lack of old-fashioned family heirlooms, bracelets, bangles and brooches. They can always be worn later when the first bloom of youth has gone.’

‘Indeed,’ said Louise, rising gracefully, and in the doing showing her own pretty ankles—attributes which Marcus would have admired had he been present. ‘Very well put, m’lady, if I may say so.’

Careful, she warned herself, don’t overdo grovelling humility. Dignified gratitude would be a better line.

This internal conversation with herself had become a habit for Louise from childhood onwards. She had had so few friends besides Athene Filmer, now Athene Cameron, that to ease her loneliness she had revived the imaginary companion of her lonely childhood, who might argue with her, but would never desert her.

Finally, everything else having been inspected and approved, Lady Yardley was measured for her new wedding outfit, something tactfully discreet as befitted the mother of the bride. Louise had already decided that it was a pleasure to dress Lady Sophia and her mama; they were not only considerate clients, but her taste and theirs coincided exactly.

Lady Yardley might not have been a beauty in her youth, but her face had character and she had worn well, and was more attractive in middle age than many who had been called pretty when they had been girls. Louise had sometimes wondered what Lord Yardley’s first wife had been like. The idle gossip which had come her way had suggested that the marriage had not been a happy one: the same idle gossip, however, credited the Earl’s second marriage as having been much more successful than his first.

These were not, however, matters which she could discuss with her clients, but her interest in them was natural, considering that they were, after all, her relatives, even if that interesting fact was never to be revealed. She wondered if she would see Marcus again before she left the house. He was not a conventionally handsome man—unlike his father—but there was a suppressed power about him which Louise found interesting.

After all, what did handsomeness matter? Sywell had been a handsome man in his youth, although in his old age no one could have guessed that.

Louise did not ask herself why she might hope to see Marcus again—particularly as since her unhappy marriage to Sywell she had tended to avoid men. The one man in her life had been such a monster that it was not surprising that she had sworn never to have anything more to do with them.

Which made it all the more surprising that Marcus Angmering had made such an impression on her.

Marcus found that, contrary to his expectations, his father had not, as he usually did, left the house that morning either to go to his club or—more rarely—to visit Parliament.

He entered the library in search of the Morning Post to find that the Earl was there before him. Marcus could not help noticing that his father seemed frail these days. There was a transparency about him which made him appear older than his years. Nevertheless he looked up eagerly when he saw his eldest son enter.

It had been a source of unhappiness to the Earl that there had always been constraint between them: a constraint born out of his failed marriage with Marcus’s mother. It had been a great relief to him that Marcus and his second wife had dealt well together. Marcus respected her because she made his father—and his household—happy. She genuinely liked Marcus, admiring in him the ruthless honesty with which he approached life.

‘Ah, Angmering, I had hoped to see you,’ his father began. ‘There are a number of matters which I wish to discuss with you. Not business ones— I have inspected the documents and accounts which you have brought from the north, together with your report of the changes you have made to the running of the estates there. I am more than satisfied with what you have done. I should have got rid of Sansom long ago—advancing years had marred his judgement. I have nothing but admiration for what you have accomplished.

‘No, what I wish to speak to you about is something more personal. I sincerely hope that you will not take amiss what I have to say to you. I know only too well how much you value your freedom, and how much the notion of marriage fails to attract you. I must, however, ask you again to consider making a suitable marriage—not only to provide yourself and the estates with an heir, but because I would wish you to find for yourself the happiness which I share with my dear Marissa. I would not like this matter to come between us, but I feel it incumbent upon me to raise it with you.’

Marcus knew how difficult his father must have found it to talk of his desire to see him married by the careful way in which he was speaking, quite unlike his usually bluff and, somewhat impulsive, straightforward manner.

He owed it to him to answer him reasonably. Of late, and particularly since he had reorganised the northern estate so satisfactorily, the stiffness which had lain between them had eased a little. Consequently Marcus’s answer was as diplomatic as he could make it.

‘You know, father, that I would prefer not to marry, and I believe that my wish not to do so has been reinforced by the knowledge that you now have not one, but two, other sons. Better than that, it is plain that both of them are shaping to be worthy possible inheritors of the title—’

His father interrupted him impatiently. ‘That may be so, but fate can be unkind, Marcus. Of recent years I have seen families which appeared to be as well supplied with male heirs as ours lose them all to accident, or sickness, whereupon some unknown appears who has been trained to nothing and who consequently respects neither his new possessions nor his title.

‘I would not wish to deprive either Edmund or Edward of the possibility of them—or one of their sons—inheriting, but I would like the bulwark of a son from you. I wish this all the more particularly since you have grown into such a responsible and sensible fellow. No, I would wish you to marry and soon. I know that I cannot compel you—but I would ask you to bring your undoubted common-sense to bear on this matter. I cannot ask fairer than that.’

Marcus bowed his head.

‘Very well, sir. I will do as you wish and think about marriage. So far, I have met no one with whom I would wish to spend the rest of my life. Whatever the truth of your marriage to my mother, that to dear Marissa has been a great success, and if I could meet anyone half as worthy…’ he stopped and shrugged, spreading his hands before continuing ‘…but so far, I have not. Were I to do so I should not hesitate to follow your wise example. I cannot say more.’

The Earl’s pleasure at this conciliatory speech was manifest. He could only hope that Marcus meant what he had said.

‘Excellent,’ he said, ‘and now I trust that you will find it possible to remain in London until we all visit Northampton to celebrate Sophia’s marriage. Sharnbrook has been most obliging about the matter. I can only hope that this wretched business of Sywell’s murder will not cast too great a shadow over it. I understand from a friend at the Home Office that nothing further has come to light which might give us some notion as to who was responsible. The trouble is, I understand, that there are so many who might have wished him dead, and no real evidence to suggest who, among the many, it might have been.’

Marcus frowned. He knew that some of the on dits which had flown around after Sywell’s brutal murder had suggested that his father might be the culprit, but he could not believe that to be true. He had hoped that the real criminal might have been found, so that the on dits would be silent at last. Sywell’s existence had been like a dark cloud hanging over the Cleeve family, and his strange, and savage, death had only served to enlarge that cloud, not disperse it.

‘Two things puzzle me,’ he said. ‘One is that the Marchioness, his young wife, should have disappeared so completely, and the other is that the authorities should spend so much time and energy trying to discover who killed him. Given the dreadful nature of the man, his own wretched life and the misery which he caused to so many others—including you, sir—one can only wonder why they don’t see his death as a merciful release for society, and all his many victims.’

‘Oh,’ replied the Earl, ‘in these sad times when revolution and violent dissent are all around us, those who rule us do not like to think that the death of an aristocrat, even one as hateful as Sywell was, should go unpunished. As for his missing wife, I believe that they now accept that he did away with her, and that further search for her as a possible murderess is time-wasting and pointless. Besides, his death seems to have been very much a man’s way of killing, not a woman’s.’

Marcus shrugged his shoulders. ‘I suppose that there is some truth in both your suppositions. As for his wife, until a body is found, anyone’s guess about her fate is as good as everyone else’s.’

‘True. But since the Abbey and its remaining grounds have reverted to me, after Burneck confessed that not only was my cousin deprived of them by a foul trick, but that Sywell murdered him into the bargain, I have felt very unhappy over the fact that, if she still lives, she has been left a pauper. I would have liked to do something for her. It seems that Sywell led her the devil of a life—which is not surprising, seeing what a brute he always was.’

Later Marcus was to remember this conversation about Sywell’s missing wife and to smile a little ruefully at it. At the time he had little more to say about the Marquis and his affairs, but took the opportunity to discuss with his father some further alterations to the running of his estates before leaving to go downstairs and try to find out whether his blonde Venus had left. If she hadn’t, he might contrive to find some way of speaking to her again.

From the bustle coming up the stairs it seemed that Madame Félice had not yet left but was on the point of doing so. Bandboxes, hatboxes and bolts of cloth were being carried out of the entrance hall to her carriage. She was standing to one side, supervising the operation as briskly as though she were Wellington on the field of battle.

Splendid! He must think of something convincing enough to detain her for a few moments without that something looking too obviously contrived. Fortune, however, was with him. Two footmen had just lifted out Madame Félice’s remaining luggage, leaving her in the hall with her small bag, when the door was flung open and his two half-brothers shot noisily in, wrestling with one another, their protesting tutor following close behind them.

In their puppy-like play they failed to see Madame Félice, and one flailing arm caught her and knocked her against the wall. Marcus jumped down the two remaining steps, caught one boy by the ear and the other by the wrist before the tutor could either separate or reprimand them.

‘Enough of that,’ said Marcus grimly. ‘On your knees, lads, and apologise to Madame.’

‘Only if you let go of us, Mark Anthony,’ exclaimed the larger of the pair. ‘We were only funning and had no notion anyone was here.’

‘Well, you do now. Both together and quick about it.’

‘Sorry, and all that,’ said the second boy cheekily on his way down to his knees, earning himself a cuff from Marcus for his easy impudence.

Louise, meanwhile, had moved away from the wall: the blow had been a light one, and the arrival of Marcus like an avenging angel was a source of amusement to her rather than relief. She knew all about boys of this age—the forewoman of the French emigré dressmaker to whom she had once been apprenticed had had three of her own. Louise had even joined them in some of their romps before she had turned from a hoyden of a girl into a young lady who realised that such romps might become dangerous.

‘These,’ said Marcus when both lads were on their knees before her, begging her pardon in soulful voices, ‘are the Two Neds, Edward and Edmund… Like the Saxon kings after whom they are named, they have never learned to control their behaviour.’

‘Mama says we’re getting too old for you to call us that,’ said the somewhat larger boy, Edward, who was the older of the twins by two minutes.

‘True,’ said Marcus, mimicking his father’s favourite phrase. ‘And I’m too old for you to call me Mark Anthony.’

‘You are only our brother, but you discipline us as strongly as though you were our uncle,’ continued Edward, still defiant.

‘Oh, come on, Ned One,’ said Edmund—he was always the peacemaker. ‘He always stands up for us—you know he does.’

He appealed to the tutor, who had remained silent once Marcus took charge. ‘And we shouldn’t have been larking our way into the entrance hall, should we, Mr Wright?’

‘Indeed not, Ned Two. I mean Edmund.’

‘Well, seeing that there’s no harm done, and that I’ve accepted your apologies in the spirit in which they were given,’ said Louise briskly, amused by what she could plainly see was the friendly rapport which existed between Marcus and his half-brothers, ‘you will allow me to leave unimpeded.’

‘Only,’ said Marcus gallantly, offering her his arm, ‘if you will allow me to escort you to your carriage.’

What could she say to that, but ‘Thank you, m’lord.’ Anything else would have been churlish.

‘Excellent. This way, then,’ and he manoeuvred her out to where her carriage, piled high with her bandboxes and other paraphernalia, was waiting.

Once outside, though, when she lifted her small hand from his arm he took it gently into his large one, saying, ‘I hope that all went well with m’sister’s trousseau, madame.’

Why was she so breathless? Why was he so overwhelming? She had even faced Sywell down, so why should one admittedly large, but extremely civilised, nobleman have this peculiar effect on her?

She wanted to snatch her hand away, but reason said go slowly, lest she say, or do, more than she should. She could not believe how cool her voice sounded when she finally spoke.

‘Very well, m’lord. Both your sister and her mama were very easy to please, since our tastes coincided.’

‘Excellent,’ Marcus said again. Something seemed to be depriving him of sensible speech but what could he say to detain her which would not sound as though he were trying to coerce her into meeting him again? Which was, of course, what he wanted to do!

‘I believe that your premises are in Bond Street.’

His eyes on her were now admiring, no doubt of that. It was, perhaps, fortunate, Louise thought, that her horses suddenly grew impatient.

‘It is time that I left,’ she said slowly. ‘I have further engagements this afternoon.’

Marcus could not help himself. ‘With your husband, I suppose.’

Well, at last, here was something to which she could give a straight answer.

‘No, I am not married. I am a widow,’ she added. Perhaps that would deter him from pursuing her further, since that was obviously what he wished to do.

‘Not recently, I hope,’ he said.

Marcus thought that for sheer banality this conversation took some beating.

Louise thought so, too. What in the world is wrong with us?

‘Not quite,’ she replied—and what kind of an answer was that?

Marcus released her hand, but not before kissing it.

‘You will allow me to assist you into the carriage.’

Her hand out of his, Louise felt that some sustaining presence had vanished. It was an odd feeling for her, for she had grown used to being self-sufficient. The presence reappeared when he helped her up, and disappeared again when he let go of her.

She was aware, although she made no effort to look back at him, that he watched her until her carriage was out of sight. Something told her that it might not be long before she saw him again—and that something was right.

The question was, could she afford to know him?—however much she might want to. Anonymity had been her protector since the day when she had fled Steepwood Abbey, to find safety far from her tormentor, and from anyone who might remember poor little Louise Hanslope.

Marcus watched her carriage go, his mind in a whirl. Like Louise, he could not believe the strength of his reaction to someone whom he had only just met. He must see her again, he must.

But how?