Surrender to the Marquess Read online

  Sara discarded Ashe’s coat, huddled into the rug and accepted the tea gratefully.

  ‘Whatever happened?’ someone asked.

  ‘Did you not see?’

  ‘‘We were all looking at this wonderful cake that Cook sent out because it is Miss Henderson’s birthday and no one noticed until the splash,’ her mother said. ‘More tea, dear?’

  Sara had a strong suspicion that her mother had seen everything. When she was a child she had been convinced that Mata had eyes in the back of her head and, although she now realised that she simply kept a very sharp eye on all the members of her family without seeming to do so, it still felt like witchcraft sometimes.

  ‘It was my fault. I stood up suddenly,’ Sara explained, more to quell the chattering than anything.

  ‘Entirely my fault, I stood up suddenly.’ Lucian’s voice rose clearly to them as he strode up the hill, flanked by her father and brother.

  ‘You both stood up suddenly?’ Lady Thale exclaimed.

  ‘We saw a Marsh Harrier,’ Sara said.

  ‘—an otter,’ Lucian explained at the same moment.

  ‘Incredible,’ Mata remarked. ‘Presumably the bird of prey had the otter in its talons as it flew over? Your Cousin Ernest will be so interested to hear that, he is a keen naturalist, I believe.’

  ‘The otter was swimming in one direction, the harrier flying in another,’ Lucian said. He was tight-lipped, presumably disapproving of the Herriards’ habit of levity.

  Even Ashe was grinning. ‘Ah, that explains why the punt overbalanced.’

  The ridiculousness of the whole episode was beginning to dawn on Sara. ‘I think I must go back to the house and change,’ she said, not quite managing to quell the unsteadiness in her voice. ‘I feel a trifle, um, shaken.’

  ‘Hardly surprising.’ Lucian strode forward, showering the assembled onlookers with lake water, much like a large gun-dog. He bent and scooped her out of the chair. ‘You must rest.’

  ‘Lucian!’

  He was already several strides away from the tea table. ‘Did you want to stay there dripping gently while we made a mess of our stories and dug ourselves even deeper into the mud?’

  ‘No, but I can walk.’ Although it really was delicious being carried like this. Sara reminded herself that she was angry with him and could not quite recall why. His shoulders were shaking, she realised, and not with the effort of carrying her. ‘Lucian, are you laughing?’

  ‘Of course I am.’ He twisted to check that they were out of sight, then sat down on the edge of the terrace, Sara still in his arms. ‘And so are you.’

  She made an effort to sit up, found that he was holding her too tightly and gave up. It was far too pleasant to lie there and share the joke, held against the wet heat of his body, the pair of them smelling of mud and lake water. ‘When Mata said that about the otter and the harrier, I nearly spluttered into my tea. And your face—I couldn’t decide whether you had a mouthful of pond beetles or were trying not to laugh.’

  ‘It was laugh or weep,’ Lucian said wryly. ‘I have hardly appeared in a very impressive light since I got here, have I? Almost floored by your brother on the drive, being raked over the coals by your father for my immoral behaviour with his daughter, making an utter mull of a marriage proposal and then emerging from the lake dripping with pond weed for the amusement of the entire house party.’

  Sara managed to lever herself upright and twisted to look into his face. It was exceedingly unfair that he managed to look so good even soaking wet when she imagined she looked as though she had just emerged from a close encounter with a ducking stool.

  ‘Is that really how you think you appeared? Let me tell you that your restraint in not punching Ashe straight back was admirable, you stood up to Papa with great dignity and courtesy and I have to admit to an utterly shameful pleasure at being carried around by such a strong man.’ Lucian began to grin, so she added, ‘But I agree, that was an appalling proposal.’

  ‘I know. I will try again when we are both dry.’

  He will? Did she want Lucian to propose? For a moment Sara seriously considered it, then she realised what she was doing. She did not want to marry a man who did not love her, whom she did not love—and it did not matter how good he was in bed, or how good looking or how eligible.

  ‘Lucian—’

  ‘You look enchanting wet through, you know. I feel as if I had fished out a water nymph.’ He gathered her in again and kissed her, open-mouthed, possessive, very certain.

  The weak, primitive female part of her kissed him back, tongues tangling, her body arching to get as tight to his body as she could, and all the time the sensible part argued that this was wrong, that she was encouraging the ridiculous notion that they might marry.

  Lucian released her far too soon for the primitive part. Too soon for the sensible part, if she was honest with herself. ‘That was skating rather too close to behaviour I gave my word not to indulge in while we were here. And you will catch a chill in those wet clothes. See—you are shivering.’

  She was shivering from reaction, not the wet clothes, but Sara did not contradict him. ‘Yes, you are quite right.’ She got to her feet. ‘I will order baths for both of us and I will see you later, before dinner. Prepare yourself to be teased or interrogated by everyone though. I suspect the joke may be too good for the company to resist.’ He had laughed at the lake, but would his sense of humour stand teasing? Most marquesses held themselves very high and such a loss of dignity would affront all of them—except Papa, of course. She hadn’t seen much evidence of a light-hearted side to Lucian before, but then his worry about Marguerite would explain that, no doubt.

  *

  Lucian watched Sara’s progress to the terrace steps and then into the house and wondered at the emotion stirring in his chest. She should have looked amusing, her skirts bedraggled and clinging to her legs, muddy water dripping, her hair in rats’ tails. And yet he felt no temptation to laugh, only to smile. The feeling, the warmth in his chest, must be affection, he supposed, although it was very different from the affection he felt for his sister.

  Lord, but he had made a fool of himself, making that proposal as though it were nothing more important than an offer to take her for a drive in the park—and one made on the spur of the moment, at that.

  He had misjudged the moment, her emotions and, he supposed, his own. But, strangely, it did not make him any less determined to try again. Sara had been pleased that he had found some humour in the situation, he realised as he got to his feet and grimaced at the state of his breeches and his Hessians. She must have thought him very dour and intense all the time she had known him and he suspected that humour was important to her.

  Lucian made his way round to the garden door and found an old settle to sit on while he pried off his sodden boots and stockings before he sullied the polished floors. He was met by the butler in the hallway who ushered him upstairs with the air of a man to whom half-drowned marquesses dripping on the marble were an everyday occurrence. Lucian managed to keep the straight face that his dignity was obviously supposed to require until he was inside his room and then gave way to mirth.

  Lord knows what I’m laughing about, he thought as he began to wrestle with the knot of his neckcloth. My sister isn’t out of the woods by a long chalk and when she is I’ve got to find some way of advancing Farnsworth’s career. I have just made a complete fool of myself in front of a highly select company who will doubtless spread the tale all round town as soon as they can get pen to paper. I’ve thrown my perfectly rational plan for finding a wife out of the window and I have made a pig’s ear of a proposal to my mistress. Who, at the moment, is not my mistress but my host’s daughter.

  ‘My lord?’ Charles, the footman who had been delegated to act as his valet, came out of the dressing room, his arms full of towels. Pitkin, his real valet who was enjoying a much-deserved holiday in Sandbay, would have simply ignored his master’s behaviour, but this young man was obviously uncer
tain.

  Lucian grinned at him and threw his arms wide, an invitation to view the wreckage.

  The footman’s lips twitched. ‘Your…your bath is ready, my lord. I will consult with Mr Rathbone, his lordship’s man, and seek his advice on restoring your boots and garments.’

  ‘Thank you, but do not spend too much effort on them, I fear they are beyond redemption.’

  ‘Mr Rathbone works miracles,’ the young footman assured Lucian in awed tones, almost setting him off again. His host’s valet was obviously far more awe-inspiring than any marquess, especially a sodden one.

  He dismissed Charles, stripped, and wallowed in hot, pine-scented water and thought. When was the last time he had laughed out loud? Not a laugh at some single joke, but uninhibitedly at something ridiculous, at himself. Laughed for the joy of it, because he was happy.

  But what had he to be happy about here? Marguerite’s situation was still to untangle, his dignity was in tatters, his proposal of marriage had been rejected. There was no prospect of lovemaking until they left Eldonstone. And yet… It was Sara, of course. She made him happy and even when she was angry with him his heart lifted at the sight of her, at the sound of her voice. He enjoyed her courage and her common sense and her intelligence and her passionate defence of Marguerite and Gregory. She made love like an angel. A wicked angel, he corrected. And…

  The thought trailed away unfinished, leaving him staring at the picture hanging on the wall opposite. A still life of exotic fruit and foliage was absolutely no help in focusing his disordered thoughts. And… And I love her?

  Chapter Sixteen

  I love Sara? No, impossible. Love, from what he had heard of it, involved a great deal of mooning about sighing, the urge to write poetry to the lady’s eyebrows and an inability to focus on anything but the beloved object and her perfections.

  There was nothing, from what he had ever heard, about brooding on the beloved object’s imperfections and she certainly had those. Sara was independent to a fault, argumentative, worryingly apt to produce weapons when thwarted and had no hesitation in telling him that she disagreed with him on the subject of masculine honour and a man’s responsibilities to his womenfolk.

  And she had made a love match before, had felt her husband had been a friend. Lucian scrubbed his back and tried to fit that kind of relationship into his model of a ton marriage. It did not fit, however much he twisted and turned it.

  So why did he want to marry her? Because he desired her? But they were already lovers. Because she was so good to Marguerite? But they could remain friends whether sisters-in-law or not.

  He slid right under the water and came up again with a sudden flash of insight. He felt alive when he was with Sara in a way he did in no other company, or his own, come to that. She made him feel happy.

  Lucian climbed out of the bath and began to towel his back, then, swathed toga-style in a pair of large bath sheets, strolled into the bedchamber to find Charles laying out evening wear.

  ‘What do you think about happiness, Charles?’

  ‘My lord?’ The young man eyed him warily. Nobs were obviously not expected to come out with questions like that, but he answered readily enough. ‘I’m all for it, my lord.’

  ‘So what makes you happy, Charles? Not just cheerful for the moment, but happy.’

  Charles pondered while he smoothed out a shirt. ‘Having a good place, like this, where they’re fair and there’s opportunities. And being with my girl.’ He shot Lucian a sideways glance, obviously assessing his views of staff ‘walking out’. ‘If I make second footman then we could get married, because she’s head dairymaid now and I reckon her ladyship will let us have one of the little sets of rooms over the dairy. Anyway, I’m happy when I’m with Miriam. And going home to see my old mum and her being proud of me, like she is. Plain black silk stockings, my lord? Or the ones with the stripe in them?’

  ‘Oh, striped, I think. Let us be frivolous today, Charles.’

  *

  Sara was in the drawing room before dinner, in the midst of a group of the younger guests, when Lucian came down looking immaculate and not at all like a man who had been pitched into a muddy lake. He took a chair opposite her and smiled when the other men chaffed him about his misadventure.

  ‘Most inelegant, I know. The word will get around town and I’ll be cut by all the swells,’ he said easily. ‘I trust you not to spread the word, gentlemen, or I’ll be lampooned in the press as the Marquess of Duckweed.’

  ‘You’re a good sport to take it like that, Cannock,’ Lord Tothill remarked. ‘Me, I would have been contemplating putting an end to my existence.’

  ‘Oh, I was utterly cast down for a while,’ Lucian agreed. ‘Actually fingering the edge of my razor. But then I had a most uplifting conversation about happiness with my temporary valet, a young man named Charles, and now I am positively cheerful about the whole thing. After all, I have the satisfaction of making you gentlemen all feel superior, of entertaining the ladies and of having the opportunity of holding Lady Sara in my arms for minutes on end.’

  ‘That, naturally, is worth any amount of pondweed,’ Philip Greaves agreed, with a gallant bow to Sara.

  When the laughter died down she studied Lucian, trying to decide what was different about him this evening. He seemed far more relaxed, she realised, which was strange considering he had proposed and been turned down and had ended up in the lake.

  ‘What did Charles say about happiness?’ she asked.

  ‘That for him it is being in a position where he feels he can do well and advance, he is making his old mum proud of him and he has a young woman he hopes to marry. It made me think and it seems to me that is not a bad definition—be doing something we enjoy to the best of our ability, make those whose opinion we value proud of us and have the prospect of a happy marriage before us.’

  ‘I think that is truly inspiring, Lord Cannock,’ Miss Eversleigh, the most sensible of the young ladies, said. ‘I shall write that in my commonplace book so I do not forget it.’

  ‘Sounds a bit serious to me.’ Johnny, her brother, pulled a face. ‘What about fun, I’d like to know?’

  ‘Nothing wrong with adding champagne, race horses, a good hand of cards and a dance with a pretty girl to the recipe,’ Lucian said and the other men laughed.

  ‘Are you looking for that special young lady yourself, Lord Cannock?’ Miss Hopely, definitely not one of the more sensible girls, enquired with a flutter of long lashes.

  ‘What single gentleman with any sense is not, Miss Hopely?’ Lucian countered.

  ‘And what young lady is not looking for a handsome gentleman with some sense?’ Marguerite came up and perched on the arm of Lucian’s chair. ‘It works both ways, brother dear. And I am come to scold you for overworking poor Mr Farnsworth. You must remember he has only one eye now. I have been helping him sort those dreadfully dull estate papers you have heaped on him.’

  ‘That is very thoughtful of you,’ Lucian said absently. Sara thought she caught just the flicker of an eyelid in her direction. ‘But there is a great deal I need him to do.’

  Marguerite pouted in a most convincing manner and Sara got up and went to find Porrett, the butler. ‘Can you place Mr Farnsworth next to Lady Marguerite tonight please, Porrett?’

  ‘That is just as her ladyship made out the seating plan, Lady Sara. It did not appear to accord with precedence, but her ladyship said that she would like to create an informal atmosphere.’

  ‘Excellent.’ The plan was working out perfectly. By the end of the week Gregory and Marguerite would appear inseparable, Lucian, in this strangely mellow new mood, would bow to the force of young love and all would be well.

  But what on earth was the matter with him? First he proposed to her, out of the blue, now he was talking about happiness and marriage in a way far removed from the starchy man she had first met. Very strange. This Lucian she could almost…

  Mata was already working her way around the drawing room, chatting
to the guests and pairing people up for dinner. ‘Lord Cannock, will you take Sara in, please?’ she said. ‘Mr Eversleigh, Miss Hopely. Lord Brendon? Now, where has he got to…?’

  Gradually everyone sorted themselves out and began the walk to the dining room. ‘It is going well with Marguerite and Gregory, I think,’ Sara murmured as she laid her white-gloved hand on his sleeve. ‘We must draw him out a little, make sure the more influential ladies have an opportunity to discover what a nice young man he is.’

  ‘Yes.’ Lucian sounded vague, although Sara had the distinct impression that he was anything but, this evening. ‘I would like to talk to you later.’

  ‘That might be as well,’ she agreed, evenly. ‘We need to clear the air, I think. I promise not to get you soaking wet this time.’

  ‘You think I had a brainstorm this afternoon, don’t you?’ He held her chair and then pushed it in as she sat and began to remove her gloves.

  ‘Didn’t you?’ She did wish he would stop alluding to that proposal. Even thinking about it made her feel confused and flustered and she hated feeling like that—had not felt that way for an age, not since Michael had kissed her in the bookshop and she’d realised—

  ‘Oh, no. No.’

  ‘I am sorry, my lady. Would you prefer the white wine?’ The footman at her elbow was looking at her in a way that made her realise she had spoken aloud.

  ‘Oh, Thomas, I’m sorry. The champagne will be perfect, thank you.’

  No, I am not falling in love with Lucian Avery. I refuse to. I… He… We…

  ‘The library, do you think?’ Lucian suggested. ‘It always seems deserted in the evenings.’

  ‘Yes, yes of course.’ I must stop gibbering, I sound a complete ninny. ‘Papa is threatening to put together a cricket match later this week. Will you play?’

  ‘I would enjoy that,’ Lucian said politely. ‘But are there enough men to make up two teams?’

  ‘He has an Eldonstone Eleven already made up of staff and tenants and they play regularly with other village and estate teams all through the summer. With him and Ashe, and if all the male guests play, then we will have two teams.’