Читать книгу The Missing Marchioness - Paula Marshall - Страница 7

‘K now anything about a pretty little modiste, Madame Félice by name, do you, Gronow, old fellow?’

Marcus thought that Captain Gronow knew everything that there was to know about everybody, and he was not far wrong. It was fortunate that he, too, had been in Hyde Park that afternoon, and he had ridden over to him to pick his brains about Madame.

‘Society’s favourite dressmaker, has her place in Bond Street, eh? I can’t say that I actually know anything—only on dits and suppositions which might, or might not, be true. Would that do?’

‘Anything would do—better than knowing nothing at all.’

Gronow pondered a moment. He didn’t ask Marcus why he wished to be informed about Madame, he thought that he knew.

‘Well, she appeared out of nowhere some time ago and was immediately able to afford not only to buy the Bond Street shop but also have it done over completely. So, the argument runs, she must have a rich backer—either here, or in Paris, since she’s supposed to be French. I say supposed, because no one is sure of that, either. But who can the rich backer be, eh? No one has ever seen her with a man. She sometimes rides here in the late afternoon, but she acknowledges no one—and no one acknowledges her. A mystery, eh, what, wouldn’t you say? The ladies say that she’s very much a lady. Perfect manners, never presumes, unless it’s to correct, very gently, provincial nobodies like the Tenison woman, Adrian Kinloch’s mother-in-law—whose taste certainly needed correcting, I’m told.’

‘A paragon, then,’ remarked Marcus somewhat dryly. It was a little discouraging to learn that either his beauty was virtuous or that someone, rich, powerful and discreet, ran her. On the other hand, discretion of the sort which Madame was evidently practising was always to be commended.

‘Lives over the shop, does she?’

‘Well, even that’s unknown. That ass Sandiman apparently came the heavy with her one day at her salon, and the story goes that she gave him a bloody nose for his impudence—which could argue virtue—or the appearance of it.’

Marcus was fascinated. ‘She’s so tiny, how in the world did she tap his claret?’

‘With a poker, apparently. Poor fool wasn’t expecting it, it’s said. She led him on for a bit and then, when he was least expecting it, planted him a facer as good as the Game Chicken could have done—except that he don’t use a poker! I’d look out if I were you, Angmering, if you’ve any notion of furthering your own acquaintance with her. Don’t want your looks ruined for nothing!’

‘Well, thanks for the warning, Gronow. Always best to know what might by lying in wait for you, eh?’

‘All’s fair in love and war, they say.’

‘And no real notion of who might be running her? If anyone? Could the money she spent to set up her business have been some sort of a final pay-off for her, do you think?’

‘No idea, old fellow, none at all. If I hear anything I’ll be sure to let you know.’

A mystery woman indeed then, Madame Félice. And strong-minded, too. One might have guessed at her possessing a fiery temper with hair that colour—and such a determined little chin: he particularly admired the chin.

Marcus rode back to where his sister sat, talking to Sharnbrook—and there was a fellow worth knowing. He had to commend Sophia for her common-sense and good judgement in bringing him to heel.

Now, if he could only persuade Madame—if she were free that was—that he, Marcus, would be as good a bet as any to set up house with, then he could be as happy as Sophia without the shackles of marriage to trouble him. All that remained necessary for him was to find some means of promoting his friendship with her, and that was going to be difficult.

In the normal course of events there were a thousand ways in which he could contrive to meet a woman. If she were in society there was the park, or the ballrooms of mutual friends, or he could make a polite afternoon call. Likewise if she were in the demi-monde there were any number of recognised haunts where she might be found.

But Madame Félice was different. She belonged to neither one or the other of these two groups. She had her own legitimate business, and possibly also a circle of friends—but these would certainly not be the friends of Marcus, Lord Angmering, a member of high society, of the ton. Not that he associated much with the ton himself.

Come to think of it, he had become, except for his brief visits to London, a bit of a solitary. So he would have to devise some ploy, some trick, to further his acquaintance with Madame—which would itself serve to add a little spice to a life which he freely acknowledged had lately been rather dull.

So the afternoon found him sauntering along Bond Street trying to look innocent, although the good Lord alone could explain why he should, seeing that he was bent on seducing a woman who, for all he knew, was truly innocent. Except that in the world which Marcus inhabited, women in occupations like Madame’s were rarely so. Gronow had hesitated to pass any judgement on her which was, in itself, remarkable, but that proved nothing.

In his musings he had finally reached Madame’s salon with its little bow-window, a large hat on a cream-coloured shawl chastely displayed inside it—an indication of Madame’s character? He sincerely hoped not.

Now to go in—but what to say? He could scarcely ask her to make him a pretty little toilette. On the other hand, what about a shirt? Would it be beyond Madame’s talents to design a shirt for him? He could always claim that his present tailor was not sufficiently up to scratch for a man who hoped to make a good show at his sister’s wedding.

Yes, that was it.

It wasn’t a very convincing notion but it would have to do.

Marcus pushed the shop door open and walked in.

Louise had had a trying day. Her forewoman had contracted a light fever, and had consequently been unable to come in to work: her best cutter had thrown a fit of the tantrums on being asked to create something which she did not care for, so that Louise had been compelled to do it herself to prove that the design was not only feasible, but beautiful. This had finally brought obedience from the cutter, but having been proved wrong she had sulked for the rest of the day.

Now, to cap everything, the assistant who manned the shop counter had come in all of a fluster.

‘Madame, there’s a man outside who says he wants you to make him a shirt. I told him that you only design for ladies, but he won’t take no for an answer, won’t go away, and demands to speak to you.’

‘Does he, indeed? Does this man possess a name?’

‘Oh, I’m sure he does, but he hasn’t given it.’

Louise heaved a great sigh. Whatever next would turn up to ruin her day?

‘Very well, Charlotte. Remain here while I go and dispose of him.’

A man wanting her to make him a shirt! Whoever had heard of such a thing—and whoever could he be?

She walked determinedly into the shop—to stare at Marcus.

As seemed always to be the case, the mere sight of him was sufficient to deprive her of all common-sense.

‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said foolishly. And then, to recover herself a little, ‘I might have guessed.’

He smiled at her and, yes, he really did look rather splendid today—even more so than when she had first met him. Not that he was in the least bit conventionally handsome, his face was too strong for that—and his answer to her was almost what she would have expected from him.

‘Might you, indeed? Am I so eccentric?’ he asked her, his expression comically quizzical.

‘To want me to make you a shirt, yes. Surely you must have an excellent tailor.’

‘Quite so, but I wished to further my acquaintance with you, and this was the only way I could think of doing so, seeing that we are unlikely to meet socially, and I haven’t the slightest idea where you live—other than it might be over your salon. As a matter of interest could you possibly make me—or create, I believe is the ladies’ word—a shirt which would past muster in the best houses?’

Louise began to laugh. His expression was so charmingly impudent when he came out with this piece of flim-flam that it quite undid her determination to be severe with him. She would let him down as lightly as possible.

‘Now I know that you are funning. I suppose that I might be able to do what you have just suggested—but are you really informing me that this whole light-minded conversation with me and my assistant was solely for the purpose of getting to know me better? And, if so, to what end, m’lord? I cannot believe it to be an honest one, given the difference in our rank.’

Now this was plain speaking, was it not? And he should surely not have expected anything else from her, not with hair that colour, and with her determined little chin. He would match it with plain speaking of his own.

‘You cannot know, madame, what an extraordinary effect you have had on me. Or perhaps you can, because I find it difficult to believe that you have never attracted a man’s instant admiration before.’

Nor could he know, thought Louise a trifle sadly, that her experience of the ways of men, other than those of her late, brutal husband, was non-existent. She had barely spoken to anyone of the opposite sex since she had fled Steepwood Abbey. Which was, of course, why she had no notion whether it was usual for her to feel as she did every time she met him, which was a kind of wild exhilaration which seemed to take over her whole being.

She had told herself after escaping from her prison that she would never have anything more to do with a sex which could spawn such monsters as Sywell, and here she was bandying words with one of them, and experiencing these strong frissons of excitement while she did so. What frightened her was the thought that if she were to encourage him she might find that he was no better than Sywell—or that he might even be worse.

Could she trust him?

Perhaps when he looked at her as though—

As though, what? She didn’t like to think.

‘Come, m’lord,’ she said, and her voice was sad, all her recent light banter missing from it, ‘you must know as well as I that your intentions to me cannot be honourable. A great gulf lies between us.’

Marcus bowed his head. He was not going to deny that. What he could do was reassure her that he would always treat her kindly, would never exploit her in the way in which many men exploited their mistresses, whether they were members of the ton, or of the demi-monde, that curious half-world in the shadows which lay between high society, respectable middle classes and the honest poor.

‘In terms of the society in which we live—’ and goodness, how pompous that sounded! ‘—you may be right, but as between the fact that I am a man and you are a woman who attracts me strongly that gulf cannot exist. In other words we are Adam and Eve, not Lord Adam and Miss Eve.’

Marcus could hardly credit what he had just said—it was so totally unlike his normal mode of speech—although to be fair he was being his usual downright, honest self with her, and no one could ever accuse him of being devious. Except, he thought ruefully, when he was pretending that he had entered her salon in order to have a shirt made—and if that wasn’t being devious, what was?

Louise must have been thinking so too, for she primmed her mouth a little comically, and said, ‘You will, however, agree, m’lord, that we have come a long way from the days when Adam and Eve walked the earth—and one thing is certain about Adam, he didn’t require a shirt to be made for him when he was in Paradise!’

‘True,’ said Marcus, bowing, and taking the opportunity to grasp her hand and plant a kiss on the palm of it for good measure. ‘But I am sure that you grasp the point which I was trying to make. I would like to see more of you, Madame Félice, much more, and the only problem about that is how I can manage to do so when we do not move in the same circles.’ The smile he gave her on coming out with this was a meaningful one.

‘My problem, m’lord,’ said Louise repressively, ‘is that I do not move in any circles at all. My life is a quiet one, and I would prefer it to remain that way.’

‘But think of the fun we could have,’ urged Marcus, still retaining her hand in his, ‘if you agreed to relax your principles a little, only a little. One thing you may be sure of, and that is that my word is known to be my bond and I would take good care never to betray or hurt you in any way.’

‘Except,’ said Louise hardily, ‘in the most fundamental way of all. For one thing is quite certain—any arrangement which you might wish to come to with me would not include marriage. I am not of the class of women whom m’lord Angmering, the Earl of Yardley’s heir, is likely to marry.’

‘Ah, but,’ said Marcus, kissing her hand again—it was encouraging to note that she was not attempting to remove it from his grasp—‘m’lord Angmering, the Earl of Yardley’s heir, does not wish to marry anyone of any order of women at all—either high or low—and he does not choose his belles amies lightly.’

Why was she continuing to bandy words with him when he had made it quite plain that his intentions towards her were dishonourable? Was it that she liked the cut and thrust of argument? Or was it because, despite all, he attracted her so powerfully that the mere sight of him excited her? Nevertheless she must not allow him to persuade her to behave foolishly, so her answer to him must be a measured one.

‘Ah,’ she said, sighing a little, ‘but you must admit that your belles amies are light, else they would not be your belles amies. No virtuous woman would agree to such an arrangement. Lowly I may be, but virtuous I intend to remain, even though it might mean that I never marry.’

‘What is virtue worth,’ asked Marcus, smiling seductively, ‘if it prevents us from finding happiness?’

‘I would not be happy if I were your mistress, m’lord, and I would deem it a favour if you released my hand. I did not give you permission to take it.’

‘Certainly, but not before favouring it with yet another kiss.’

‘You are impudent, sir.’

‘Always when pursuing beauty,’ and he kissed her hand again before slowly releasing it. ‘I would not displease you by refusing such a reasonable request.’

‘Then pray oblige me by agreeing to another reasonable request from me—that you leave.’

‘Without placing an order for a shirt?’ he asked her, his face comically sad.

Louise could not help herself. She began to laugh, recovering herself sufficiently to splutter, ‘Lord Angmering, you are the outside of enough. Please, take your noble self and your unseemly offer away at once. There, is that enough to persuade you that I am serious in refusing even to consider what you obviously think to be a great honour: that I become your latest barque of frailty?’

‘So, your answer is no?’

‘No, no, and no again—did you expect anything else, m’lord?’

‘I hoped—what did I hope?’ Marcus was asking himself that question, not Louise. Faint heart, he thought, never won fair lady, and Marcus Angmering prided himself that his heart was not a faint one.

He leaned forward to look down into her beautiful eyes and tried not to drown in them. ‘I must inform you,’ he murmured confidentially, ‘that I have a most inconvenient habit. I never take no for an answer. No, I think, challenges me more than yes.’

Louise repressed a desire to laugh again. She had hoped that her repeated refusal might persuade him to leave. She had deliberately not mounted a high horse by taking a loud moral line, since he had not attempted to attack her physically in any way, unlike Sandiman and some others she had heard of. Other than by taking her hand and stroking and kissing it gently, that was.

‘Do I understand, m’lord, that you prefer a challenge? If so, let me persuade you that I am not prepared to enter a verbal jousting match with you over whether or not I shall become your current ladybird. Had you offered me marriage my answer might still have been no, seeing that our acquaintance has been so short.’

She ended by pulling out her little fob watch and staring at it before saying, her bright eyes flashing fire, ‘I calculate that our two meetings, taken together, have not lasted so much as half an hour—which must constitute some sort of achievement, seeing that it has included one improper proposal and two proper refusals. That being so, and seeing that I have a great deal of work awaiting me, I must, again, ask you to leave—and, nobleman though you are—that you will be gentleman enough to obey me.’

Marcus bowed. ‘Splendid, madame. I do believe that between us we could write a Drury Lane farce which would rival Sheridan—were we not both so busy I might suggest a collaboration. That fact alone persuades me to go, bearing in mind that “he who fights and runs away, will live to fight another day!”’

Louise could not resist murmuring back at him as he bowed his way out, ‘Oh, is that what we have been doing, m’lord, fighting?’

He turned towards her before he left and shook a finger at her, ‘Address me as Angmering, if you please, not m’lord: I can see that you are not yet ready for Marcus. I shall be back, soon.’

Louise sank on to one of the chairs provided for customers, and put a hand to her hot face.

No, I am not ready for this, or for him, nor will I ever be—I think. I thought that being Sywell’s wife would have affected me as cowpox is supposed to affect smallpox, as an inoculation against men—but no such thing. And what is the most surprising fact of all is that he bears no resemblance whatsoever to the handsome hero whom I used to dream about when I was poor little Louise Hanslope. The hero who would come to rescue me from penury and misery. He’s certainly not handsome—but he’s something better. He’s not a dandy either, simply a strong man who is full of confidence in himself.

But he shall not have me for his doxy unless I truly wish it, and I have no notion what my real feelings for him are—or might be.

But she was lying to herself, and knew it. The physical pull of him was so powerful that now he had gone she found herself shivering, and what did that tell her?

Something which she did not want to know.

Marcus could not truly read his own feelings either. He had not flattered himself that Madame Félice would succumb to him immediately, but he had been of the opinion that it might not be too difficult to win her.

He thought that no longer. There was steel there. By her appearance he might have thought her fragile. Fragile! Oh, she might look so, but she was actually as fragile as the Emperor Napoleon or one of his marshals. Send her to Spain, and Wellington would surely win his war there in short order!

On the other hand there was little pleasure in an easy conquest. His campaign to win her into his bed might be long, but it would be entertaining if this afternoon was anything to go by, and the prize he would gain at its end would be well worth winning.

To the victor the spoils—and now to return to his humdrum life again, to visit his old aunt, his mother’s sister, who had arrived in London for a short stay and had written to him to say that she particularly wished to see him.

What puzzled him was what she could possibly have to say to him. He remembered meeting her once, years before, and even then, when he was little more than a child, noticing that, unlike his mother, she was no beauty. He had heard that she was married to a Norfolk squire and had had a large family: his cousins, whom, for one reason or another, he had never met.

He discovered that she was still not a beauty, but, like his stepmother, had a face full of character. Her pleasure at meeting him was great and unaffected.

‘Oh, how much you resemble your father!’ she exclaimed when all the proprieties had been gone through, and they were seated together and he had accepted a glass of Madeira and some ratafia biscuits.

‘I always admired him, you know, and was sad when he offered for Danielle, and not me. On the other hand I was later relieved that he had not done so, for I should not have liked to go to India, so hot and nasty, and I could not have had a better husband than my dear Robert, God bless him.’

Robert Hallowes had died some years earlier and she had been living at the Dower House on the Hallowes estate near King’s Lynn. She spoke briefly of her life there, and asked Marcus about his in Northumberland.

‘I suppose you knew of, if you did not mix with, that dreadful man, Sywell. He was someone to avoid, you know. His reputation was bad from the first moment he burst into society, and believe me, burst was the right word! Your father grew to dislike him intensely and there were some rumours about him and Sywell both being interested in another young woman before he met Danielle and myself in our first season. Fortunately I was not the sort of youthful moneyed beauty Sywell was always pursuing.’

She gave a jolly laugh after saying this, and Marcus could scarcely believe that she was his mother’s sister, so unlike was she to her. She took a sip from her glass of Madeira before saying in a more serious voice, ‘I think that it is time that I spoke to you about the reason for my asking you to visit me. I have often thought that you ought to be told the truth about your parents’ marriage and when I heard from a friend that there had always been some constraint between you and your father, and that they thought it likely that it arose because of their failed marriage, I was more than ever convinced that I had a duty to do so—so here we are.’

She stopped, and now she was so solemn that she was like a different person. ‘You must understand that Danielle was a great beauty and it was our parents’ hope that she would make a grand marriage. They put a great deal of pressure on her to marry your father, who was known to be the likely Yardley heir, and was then a young man of great promise.

‘The trouble was that she had already fallen in love with the heir to the small estate next to ours, and was most reluctant to give him up—except that I think that the notion of becoming Lady Yardley one day attracted her. I regret to say it, but she was always flighty, changed her mind every other day and felt it her duty to attract every young man she met. My parents were eager for her to be married. They thought that it would settle her.

‘Alas, once she was married, she became more flighty than ever. She regretted her lost love and made up for it by behaving as wildly as she could without putting herself in danger of society ostracising her. She was very like Lady Caroline Lamb is today: defying all the conventions. The worst thing of all, though, is that her behaviour made your father doubt whether you were truly his son. It was only when, as you reached manhood, your likeness to him became so strong that he could no longer doubt that he was truly your father.’

Marcus gave a great start on hearing this. It explained so much of his father’s behaviour to him. He said, and his voice sounded strange to him when he spoke, ‘Had he any real reason to believe that she was telling the truth?’

His aunt smiled sadly. ‘A little, perhaps, but the pity of it was that Danielle, when they quarrelled, which was often, frequently taunted him with the possibility that he was not your father. It grieves me to say this, but the main reason for the failure of their marriage lay at Danielle’s door rather than his. He was, in fact, extremely patient with her. Unfortunately her behaviour resulted in the coolness which lies between you and your father. She was unhappy, made him unhappy and destroyed the affection which should lie between father and son. In all fairness to him—and to you—I thought that you ought to know the truth.

‘I understand that his second marriage is a happy one, and that you are fond of your stepmother and she of you—but my poor sister had much to answer for before she died. She had already broken off all ties with our parents and with me—to our great grief.’

Marcus sighed. He thought bitterly of the many years during which he and his father had been estranged. Of late they had come together a little, and now it seemed, if his aunt could be believed—and he thought that she could—that he might be able to heal the breach which misunderstanding had created.

His aunt could see his distress. She said, her voice anxious, ‘I hope that I was not wrong to tell you this, but I owed you the truth.’

Marcus leaned forward and kissed her impulsively on the cheek. ‘You were not wrong, but right, and I wish that I had known of this before. It must have hurt you to speak so plainly of a sister whom you must once have loved.’

‘Yes, you are like your father,’ said his aunt. ‘Brave and strong-minded. He never once complained to anyone about Danielle’s folly, but bore it like a man. He has his reward in Marissa—and, I am sure in you. Now let us talk of other, happier, things. I hope that you will all come to visit me. I should dearly like to see your half-sister and brothers.’

‘So you shall,’ said Marcus energetically, ‘and you shall come to Sophia’s wedding, too. After all, you are my aunt and now I owe you a debt of gratitude for telling me the truth.’

All the way home his thoughts ran round and round his head like animals exercising themselves in a cage. As a child he had always thought that there must be something wrong with him that his father had shown him so little affection. Later, his father’s manner had changed a little, and the story his aunt had told him explained why it had. He must try to forget his own resentment and make up for the lost years which lay between them.

Had she seen the last of him? Louise rather doubted it. There was a determination about Marcus Angmering which she found admirable, but which frightened her a little. He had spoken the truth when he had said that there were few places where they might meet, but she had no doubt that one way or another he would contrive to meet her.

She owned a little house in Chelsea to which she retired at the weekend. During the week she lived over the workrooms. She drove her girls hard, but only on five days a week, something almost unknown in the trade, but she had found that they worked better in those five days than those did whose employers demanded longer hours and less kind conditions. She remembered her own harsh youth too well to subject others to it, and it amused her to discover the monetary benefits of a more liberal regime.

Two days after Marcus had visited her she became aware—or thought that she did—that she was being watched. Living with Sywell had given her a sixth sense. Twice she saw the same stranger on the corner when she went out for a stroll in the late afternoon. And could it be simple coincidence that the same stranger appeared on the pavement in front of her Chelsea hide-away, whose address no one, not even her fore-woman, knew? They all thought that she lived permanently above the salon.

Had Marcus Angmering had the gall to pay a spy to follow her? She would not put it past him. What could be wrong with her that all the men in her life turned out to be domineering creatures determined to have their own way? Wasn’t it enough for her to have had Sywell to endure without another such creature turning up to chase after her?

Or was she seeing enemies around every street corner simply because her past life had made her wary of everyone and everything? She liked to think that, but she could not be sure.

Louise was not mistaken. Marcus had driven straight to the address of the ex-Runner whom he knew his friend Nick Cameron had used to discover what he could about Athene Filmer.

‘It’s a simple task,’ he told the man, whose shrewd face and knowing eyes quickly summed up Marcus as the hard sort of gent who knew what was what—and what he wanted. ‘Just find out whether she lives above the shop—or whether she has another home away from it, that’s all. And whom she mixes with—if she mixes with anyone, that is,’ Marcus added, remembering that Louise had told him that she didn’t move in any circles.

Jackson knew better than to ask m’lord why he wanted to know. He nodded, and promised absolute discretion. ‘You may be sure, m’lord, that the job will be done in such a way that she won’t know that it’s being done at all.’

‘Excellent,’ said Marcus.

The Earl saw Jackson on his way out. He said, his brows raised a little, ‘You have had occasion to employ an ex-Runner, Marcus? They are not always either honest or reliable, but I believe that that man is.’

He did not tell Marcus that Jackson had visited him on behalf of the Home Office over the matter of Sywell’s murder, nor did he ask Marcus why he had employed him.

Marcus said quietly, ‘My friend Cameron recommended him; he found him honest. I need a confidential matter settled before I leave London.’

The Earl did not ask what the confidential matter was, but began to move away. Marcus said, ‘sir, there is something which I wish to say to you and now seems as good a time as any—if you have a moment for me, that is.’

His father turned towards him and said a little heavily, ‘I always have time for you these days, Angmering. It is my deepest regret that once I had not. I promise to listen to you and give you my full attention.’

Marcus blinked; it was almost as though his father knew what he was about to say. They moved back into the study. His father did not sit behind his desk, but walked across to sit in a chair by the window. He motioned Marcus to the one opposite.

Now that the moment had come, Marcus found that he was lost for words. Once, when he was younger and rasher, he might have attacked his father with the knowledge of what his aunt had told him, reproached him a little for mistreating him because of what he had thought his mother had done. Now he could only feel pity for a man who had been as much a victim as himself.

‘Sir,’ he began, ‘I met my aunt, my mother’s sister, yesterday at her request, not mine. She told me the true story of your marriage, and explained to me why, when I was a child, there was always a strong reserve in your manner to me.’

It was the kindest way he could think of to describe the coldness and lack of interest which his father had shown in him during his childhood. Since the Earl made no immediate answer to him, he ploughed on, finding in himself a diplomacy which he had not known he possessed.

‘She also explained why, when I grew up, your manner to me softened a little, and when I look at the portrait of you painted when you were my age now and I look at myself, the strong resemblance between us convinces me, as it must have convinced you, that I am truly your son.’

The expression of pain on his father’s face was momentary, but it was there. Marcus felt it incumbent on him to continue. ‘My aunt also told me that the fault in your marriage did not lie with you, and that you had shown great patience with my mother’s behaviour until the day she passed out of our lives.’

He was silent—and so was his father.

Finally the Earl spoke. ‘If I find it difficult for me to answer you, it is because I feel, and have long since felt, shame that I treated an innocent child as harshly as I did. Even if your mother had spoken the truth about your fatherhood I should not have visited her sin upon the head of someone as defenceless as you were then. The constraint which still exists between us comes on my side from my stupidity in allowing a lie to dominate my—and your—life for so long.

‘I ask your pardon, and trust that from now on we might become friends. We cannot call back the past and change it, but we can refuse to allow it to poison our lives on the future. My own relief is that my behaviour to you did not harm you—you have turned into the kind of son a father can be proud of. I therefore ask you to forgive me, if you can.’

Marcus leaned forward and said in his straightforward way, ‘No forgiveness is needed, sir. Understanding rather, for what my aunt told me made me feel pity for you—and lessened the pity I felt for myself.’

His father rose and put out his hand, saying, ‘Let that serve as an epitaph for the dead past, Angmering, and we will shake on it, if you would. It is fitting that before your sister marries we should come together thus and be able to join in the celebrations as a true father and son at last.’

Marcus rose, too. They stood face to face, the stern father, and the son whose likeness to that father was written on his face, in his voice and in his manner.

‘Indeed, sir—and that will be the end of that, I trust.’

His father nodded and they remained silent for a moment, the loud ticking of the clock being the only sound in the room: a fit commentary on the passing of life and time.

Marcus did not have long to wait for his hiring of Jackson to bear fruit; after all—as the man had told him—it was a simple enough task compared with most he was given.

On the following Monday afternoon he arrived in Berkeley Square.

‘I think I’ve found what you want, m’lord. The lady lives over her workrooms in Bond Street during the week. After six o’clock on a Friday she hires a Hackney cab and is driven to a little house in Chelsea not far from the river, where she spends Saturday and Sunday. Sunday she goes to church all respectable like and speaks to no one—other than to shake hands with the Reverend at the end of the service.

‘Early on a Monday morning she returns to the shop. She has a couple of servants at her weekend place: a housekeeper and a maid of all work. It seems that she does not mix with her neighbours and during a careful watch she had no visitors other than a lad who delivers milk.’

He paused. ‘I have to say that I think she’s something of a fly lady, because I suspicioned that she knew that she was being watched. On my first day I perhaps wasn’t too careful, since after that every time that she went out she looked around her most busily. I made a few discreet enquiries about her, thinking that they might be useful to you. It seems that she has no gentleman callers, either in Bond Street or in Chelsea. The opinion is that she is ladylike and discreet.’

‘Excellent,’ said Marcus. ‘That is all I need to know. Would you prefer to be paid now?’

‘If it suits you, m’lord, yes.’

Feeling a bit of a cur for having Madame Félice watched, Marcus handed him his money on the spot, but he did not feel so much of a cur that he did not glumly regret that he would have to wait until the weekend before he paid her a call!

Saturday morning found him hiring a cab and setting off for Chelsea. Either being a modiste paid well, or Madame had a fund of money of her own, for the little house was a jewel of a place, newly appointed and painted. He thought that, apart from the paint, it resembled Madame herself. Whistling gently, he paid off the cabbie and knocked on her elegant front door…

Louise had just finished eating a late breakfast and was drinking a cup of excellent coffee—she always shopped at Jackson’s in Piccadilly—when she heard the door knocker and wondered who it could be at this hour.

She did not have long to wait. The little maid came in saying, ‘There’s a gentleman to see you, mam.’

‘A gentleman, Jessie? Did he give his name?’

‘No, mam. He said that he thought that you might know who it was? He said that he was in need of a shirt—but, mam, could he really mean that? He was wearing a very fine one.’

‘Did he, indeed?’ Louise jumped to her feet half-amused, half-scandalised. ‘Tell him to go away, at once.’

‘Yes, mam.’

Jessie disappeared, only to reappear again a few moments later. ‘Oh, mam, he says as how he won’t. He says that it’s most urgent that he see you, and that he’s prepared to wait outside until you’re ready to speak to him—and he gave me half a sovereign to tell you that—look!’

Louise, who had sat down, jumped up again. Bribery and corruption of her servant, was it now? What next would the man get up to? For she had no doubt that it was his lordship of Angmering who had somehow tracked her down.

‘Do you want me to give it back to him, mam?’ asked her maid anxiously.

‘Certainly not, by his behaviour he deserves to lose more than half a sovereign. Tell him that—’ Inspiration failed her. Oh, bother the man, what message could she send that would be sure to get rid of him?

‘Tell him that if he doesn’t go away I shall send for the local constable to remove him,’ she came out with at last.

‘He won’t like that, mam,’ said her maid, still anxious.

‘I’m sure that he won’t, but tell him so all the same.’

Out shot the maid again. Louise picked up her cup and began to drink coffee agitatedly.

This time, though, when the maid reappeared she was trailing in the wake of that haughty aristocrat Marcus Angmering, who was apparently so determined to see her that he would play any trick which his inventive mind could think up.

‘I wouldn’t wish you to go the trouble of setting the law on me,’ he said cheerfully, once the maid had left, ‘So I decided to speak to you in person, so that we could settle our difficulties without delay—and pray do not reprimand your maid for letting me in. She found it difficult to deny someone so much larger and stronger than she is.’

Louise stared at him, the coffee cup halfway to her mouth, and to her horror found herself saying, ‘What difficulties, sir?’ instead of telling him to remove himself from her dining room.

‘The difficulties relating to your inability to accept my kind offer of protection.’

She put down her coffee cup with a trembling hand. ‘Your impudence, sir, is beyond belief. You force your way into my home, terrorise my servant…’

Marcus interrupted her. ‘Oh, scarcely that,’ he murmured, his mouth twitching. ‘I wouldn’t describe giving her half a sovereign as terrorising her.’

‘Oh…’ Louise gave what could only be called a gasp of exasperation. ‘You are no gentleman, sir, you twist every word I say. You know perfectly well what I mean—and there are no difficulties about your offer of protection—I refused it in the plainest terms possible.’

‘But so quickly,’ Marcus protested. ‘You didn’t even pretend to consider it—which is not the proper way to refuse a business proposition.’

‘I never pretend, sir,’ and oh, dear what a lie that was, since her whole life, and even her name, was a pretence. ‘You have had my answer. Pray allow Jessie to escort you to the door.’

‘Without even the offer of a cup of coffee,’ he said sadly. ‘That’s no way to treat a guest, madame.’

‘You are not my guest,’ she flashed back at him. ‘You come here uninvited, force your way in—’

‘True,’ he said, still sad. ‘But how else may I speak with you, tell me that?’

His smile was so wicked, his eyes mocked at her so gently, that Louise felt as though she had begun to melt internally. She had never experienced such a sensation before. No, he was not handsome, but he was better than that—he must be to have such an effect on her. She licked her lips, and saw his expression change when she did so—and wondered why.

Louise was inexperienced in the arts of love because she had never been subjected to anything other than the acts of frustrated lust. She had no notion of what might attract or rouse a man. Marcus, watching her, was, to his surprise, sure that she was truly innocent, and that the signs of fear which she occasionally showed were genuine.

He was suddenly ashamed. He had been teasing her after the fashion in which he teased Sophia and the Two Neds, but where that had been innocent and playful this could be construed as malicious. More so when he could see her quivering lip and her trembling hand.

‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘I should not be doing this, I did not mean to frighten you. I ought to go.’ And he began to turn away from her, to leave by the door by which the little maid had earlier left.

He was going! She would be alone again. Fearful though she was, Louise found that she did not want that. Beyond the fear of him which Marcus had briefly seen lay something else.

She was so lonely. All her life she had been alone. The only bright stars in it had been her guardian and later Athene Filmer and she had lost both of them. If he left her now, to whom would she speak this day? To the housekeeper, the little maid and later, perhaps, tradesmen, shop-girls, and barely them.

‘No,’ she said, the words almost wrenched from her, ‘don’t go. You…I…standing there you tower over me—pray sit down.’

Now what had caused that, Marcus wondered? There was even the faintest hint of a smile on her face, a tremulous one. Was he seeing the first breach in her defensive wall?

He said, as lightly as he could, ‘Oh, I am not so tall that I could be called a tower, but you are such a dear little thing that I can see I might appear to be if not a tower, a turret.’ And he pulled out a chair and sat opposite to her at table.

Yes, he had provoked a proper, if rueful, smile by his last remark. Emboldened by it, he asked, rather after the manner of a small boy seeking a favour, ‘Would your kindness extend to offering me a cup of what smells like excellent coffee? I was so anxious to meet you again that I skipped breakfast.’

Oh, he was impossible! How in the world had he managed to persuade her into not only allowing him to stay, but also to sit there, smiling, as though his proper place was in this room with her as though they had just risen from bed and were being Darby and Joan together.