“Think of the fun we could have,” urged Marcus, still retaining her hand in his.

“If you agreed to relax your principles a little. One thing you may be sure of, and that is my word is my bond. 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. I am not of the class of women who my lord Angmering, the Earl of Yardley’s heir, is likely to marry.”

“Ah, but,” said Marcus, kissing her hand again, “my 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.”

The Missing Marchioness
Paula Marshall

www.millsandboon.co.uk

PAULA MARSHALL,

married with three children, has had a varied life. She began her career in a large library and ended it as a university academic in charge of history. She has traveled widely, has been a swimming coach and has appeared on University Challenge and Mastermind. She has always wanted to write, and likes her novels to be full of adventure and humor.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Epilogue

Chapter One

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?

Chapter Two

‘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.