Surrender to the Marquess Page 8

  ‘What am I to say to her, then, if Marguerite speaks of Gregory?’ It sounded as though Sara’s teeth were gritted.

  Lucian forced away the memory of how that mouth, now so tight-lipped, had softened under his, how her tongue had felt, impudent and demanding in his mouth. ‘You will tell her that I have forbidden discussion of him and that if she wishes to keep you as an acquaintance that subject is out of bounds.’ His mother had never defied his father, Marguerite had never disobeyed either parent. His father had acted as though opposition to his will was unimaginable and, without uncles or elder brothers to model himself on as a youth, Lucian had tried to follow his example in everything except his womanising. So, was he lacking in essential authority to have lost control of the situation like this?

  The unladylike snort that greeted that pronouncement was answer enough. And I do sound damnably pompous, he thought. Good God, if looking after a sister was difficult, what would it be like when he had children of his own?

  ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ Sara demanded.

  ‘Like what, exactly?’ Now the conversation was descending to schoolroom levels. Somewhere there were beautifully behaved, elegantly minded young ladies who behaved with perfect decorum at all times and would be charmingly deferential to the men in their lives. Why was he surrounded by the complete opposite?

  ‘Speculatively,’ she said, after a moment’s frowning thought.

  ‘I have no idea why I should have been looking at you speculatively, which leads me to assume that you are reading more into my expression than was there.’ Pompous again. He had been trying for authoritative.

  ‘Very well. If Marguerite mentions Gregory, I will tell her what you say. She has heard my views on the matter already, so my silence now will make little difference.’

  As olive branches went that one was decidedly shrivelled, but he decided to accept it. ‘Thank you. A lack of encouragement will have to suffice.’ That appeared to have effectively flattened all conversation. After five minutes, as they entered the lane down from the cliffs into the town, he added, ‘I will take your mare back to the stables.’

  ‘Thank you, my lord.’ When they reached her house she permitted him to help her down, then hesitated with one foot on the lower step up to the front door. ‘There is an early evening concert at the Rooms tonight. Just a short one of light, popular pieces with refreshments afterwards. Marguerite might enjoy it.’

  He felt his irritation with her vanish like sea fret in the sunshine. He did not want to be at outs with this woman. He wanted…to be what…to be friends? Surely not. He was never friends with his mistresses. They had a civilised, cordial, passionate business relationship and that was all. ‘Thank you, I am sure she would like that very much. Will you be attending?’

  ‘I expect so. Until later then, Lucian.’ And her smile was as warm as that sunshine he had been imagining. Sara, it seemed, did not hold grudges.

  He found he was looking forward to an evening of undemanding music and tepid tea. His brains were obviously addling in the sea air.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘How well you look.’ Sara tucked Marguerite’s hand into the crook of her elbow and took her off towards the refreshment room. ‘We’ve just time for a cup of tea before the performance starts.’ The younger woman had colour in her cheeks, her languid air had vanished and her eyes were positively sparkling.

  ‘I had such a lovely walk along the promenade this afternoon. I took my maid, of course,’ she added.

  ‘I am glad to hear it,’ Sara said, wishing Lucian was within earshot to hear her sounding so respectable. ‘Did you just walk? There are some tempting shops in that direction.’

  ‘I discovered that little hat shop, just beyond the church, and then I went up to the library to look at La Belle Assemblée so I am completely au fait with the very latest fashions.’ Her smile suggested that she gained more satisfaction from perusing the latest hemlines than Sara did.

  ‘I wish I was,’ Sara said ruefully. ‘Mata keeps sending me prints from all the journals and pointing out that I must be in the direst need of a smart new crop and the most thorough review of the London shops.’

  ‘Is that the Indian word for mama?’ When Sara nodded she added, ‘Does she not come and visit you here?’

  ‘She doesn’t dare let Papa loose on me down here because he’ll try and dragoon me back to town. Besides, the two of them are a trifle noticeable in such a small place, which does not help my attempts to blend in.’

  ‘And are you perfectly conventional when you are in London?’ Marguerite not only secured a cup of tea, but added two cream scones to her plate.

  ‘Yes, I suppose I am. I still feel like a fish out of water there. I had such a short Season and then I lived in Cambridge, but I suppose I will soon learn to spend large amounts of money, attend every fashionable event until I am absolutely exhausted, gossip with the best of them and flirt outrageously.’

  ‘And then escape down here before the bills, the gossip and the flirtations catch up with you?’ Marguerite suggested saucily.

  ‘Of course.’ Sara smiled, but she was puzzled. Was Lucian’s sister putting on a most convincing front of happiness and recovered spirits or was she more resilient, or perhaps less in love, than Sara had thought? The recovery from the weeping girl on the beach was incredible. ‘Here comes your brother to take you through to find your seats.’

  ‘Yours as well—you will join us, won’t you?’

  ‘Thank you.’ Sara smiled when Lucian reached their side and curtsyed and made small talk and did her level best not to think outrageous and improper thoughts lest they show on her face. What with trying not to show any distinguishing attention to Mr Dunton that would stimulate wagging tongues, puzzling over Marguerite’s welcome, but unexpected, cheerfulness and attempting not to fantasise about ripping Lucian’s exceedingly elegant tailcoat off his broad shoulders, she could feel her expression freezing into one of well-bred ennui. And her bruises from her fall were beginning to ache, which did not make sitting elegantly any easier.

  If the infuriating man was taking any notice of her at all he should feel thoroughly cold-shouldered, given that she was presenting him with her profile and not a single smile. The trouble was, she thought, listening with half an ear to the slow movement of one of John Field’s piano concertos, he was more than capable of ignoring anything that did not fit in with his determined view of how matters ought to be.

  *

  ‘Marguerite seems in good spirits,’ she remarked low-voiced during the interval, unable to resist talking to him any more.

  Lucian’s gaze followed his sister as she went to locate even more scones. ‘Yes. I have to agree with you, talking about things with another young woman has helped her. I feel more confident that she will continue to improve now.’

  ‘You are?’ Sara had difficulty believing in this sudden improvement. Surely Marguerite was not pinning all her hopes on Sara’s promise to investigate and feeling full of false confidence that Gregory was alive and well?

  ‘We lost my mother to a virulent fever when she was just ten years old and she is my only sister. I was twenty. I knew nothing about girls and my father coped by handing her over to her governess.’ He smiled fleetingly. ‘Then it was a shock when I found myself the Marquess so suddenly—that was during your first London Season, I think. There was a lot to learn, but I resolved that I was going to raise my sister to be as perfect a young gentlewoman as if her mother was still alive.’

  The smile no longer reached his eyes and Sara thought she glimpsed the grieving man pitchforked into awesome responsibility and determined, somehow, to be perfect.

  ‘My father had years to become used to the fact that he would inherit the marquessate,’ she said, recalling the frank family discussions about what the inheritance would involve. ‘Which was a good thing because Mata was horrified at the thought of it and almost refused to marry him when she found out. We stayed in India until the last possible moment, but he w
as fully prepared when it happened and my brother Ashe was older than you were when you inherited, so he was a great support. Mata said that after an Indian royal court Almack’s and St James’s Palace were simplicity themselves to negotiate. I cannot imagine poor Ashe finding himself responsible for me, though.’

  ‘I couldn’t let her down, I thought,’ Lucian said grimly. ‘She was without her parents just as she was becoming a woman—I had to make things perfect for her. And I failed.’

  ‘Perfection is impossible. And besides, what about you? You were bereaved, too, you must have been swamped with responsibilities and decisions.’

  ‘It was my duty to cope, that I did know. I am a man and head of the family. My sister’s future, our honour, were in my hands.’

  ‘Honour and duty,’ Sara murmured. ‘And what about happiness?’

  ‘One thing my father taught me was that persons in our station in life should not expect personal happiness, although we might hope for it.’

  ‘I am so sorry,’ she blurted out. ‘Oh, don’t poker up at me!’

  ‘I do not need your pity,’ Lucian said, his voice frigid.

  ‘It was sympathy, you prickly man,’ she snapped back. Mrs Prewitt, the mayor’s wife, was watching them with raised eyebrows and Sara fixed a smile on her lips. ‘And it is rapidly evaporating,’ she added in honeyed tones. ‘Here comes Marguerite.’ Which was a good thing because she wanted to take him by those perfectly-cut lapels and shake him.

  *

  Fourteen shillings plus two pounds plus three pence four farthings plus…

  Sara jammed her pen back into the inkwell and glared at the page in front of her. The previous week’s takings should be perfectly easy to total and reviewing sales and what needed re-ordering was simply a matter of routine. But last night’s concert kept intruding between her and the page and Sara found she was still brooding on Marguerite’s mysteriously good spirits and Lucian’s attitude. That, of course, was now no mystery at all.

  Raised by a father with a rigid attitude to duty and then pitchforked into high position as a young man, where all he had to cling to was the imperative to live up to that upbringing, it was no wonder he had made a mull of understanding his sister. But it did not explain why such an intelligent man appeared incapable of learning from his mistakes.

  The sound of the shop door bell and raised voices brought her to her feet, but a peep around the curtain showed that it was only Miss Denver, a nervous and voluble spinster who was being dealt with by Dot.

  ‘There, there, you sit down and I’ll fetch you a nice cup of tea, Miss Denver. Yes, it must have been a shock, but these poor fellows can’t help the way they look. Wounded in the war, I’ve no doubt…’

  Miss Denver was still wittering on when Sara closed the account book and came out to the shop. ‘And in the circulating library of all places! I only went in to look at the new patterns for tatting in Ackermann’s Repository—and I found such a pretty one—and I said to that nice Mr Makepeace, you shouldn’t let such a…a Janus in to frighten decent ladies.’

  Sara had a momentary fantasy of two-faced Greek gods inhabiting the circulating library. Lucian was the only god-like being around and he definitely only had one face, which was quite enough. She pulled herself together and went to distract Miss Denver before any of the other customers became totally exasperated with her. Last week she had been rabbiting on about the dangerous presence of gypsies on the heath—‘We’ll all be murdered in our beds…’—and had succumbed to strong hysterics when Dot had remarked that she welcomed the opportunity to buy a new supply of clothes’ pegs.

  ‘I have some charming new shades of cotton in. They might be just the thing for that pattern you found. You have such good taste, Miss Denver, you must tell me what you think of the colours…’

  *

  By the time the twittering had finally subsided, the accounts were straight and the orders written, Sara felt in need of some company that did not make demands, require direction, brood with dark sensuality or worry her. She made her excuses to Dot, went up the road to the circulating library and sank wearily on to the chair at the counter.

  The lower part of the library was empty, save for the shop boy on hands and knees pursuing spiders out of corners with a feather duster. ‘James, say something soothing. I have just been dealing with the accounts for Indian ink, which would not tally, the inability of my paper suppliers to read what is written on an order and, worst of all, Miss Denver, who you sent to me in strong hysterics.’

  James blushed as always when she used his first name, but leaned confidingly across the counter. ‘I am sorry and it is rather a problem. I am going to have to warn ladies before they go upstairs, after that nice Miss Dunton was in tears yesterday and now Miss Denver is so upset. But I cannot forbid the library to a gentleman whose manner and dress is perfectly acceptable, simply because he is scarred, poor fellow. So tragic, under the circumstances. What if it is an honourable war wound? I would never be able to live with myself if he was snubbed and insulted on my premises.’

  ‘No, of course not, poor man.’ Strange that Marguerite had not mentioned being reduced to tears when she said she had been to the library, but perhaps she had felt ashamed of her reaction, or it had simply been a result of her heightened sensibility.

  ‘May I be of assistance now you are here, Sa—? Er… Lady Sara?’ His ears had gone red, which meant, she guessed, that he had almost dared to use her first name in public.

  ‘Have you any new novels in? I want to lose myself in something thoroughly entertaining.’

  ‘Indeed yes. There is An Angel’s Form and a Devil’s Heart and Secrets in Every Mansion just come in, both from the Minerva Press. Or, if you are in a mind for something more unusual, there is this.’ He produced three volumes from under the desk. ‘To be honest, I would welcome your opinion as it seems rather dark in tone and possibly may alarm many of my readers. It is from a small press.’

  ‘Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus,’ Sara read and flipped through a few pages. ‘“I started from my sleep in horror; a cold dew covered my forehead…” I can see I am going to be reading this in broad daylight, James. But I will borrow it and both the novels you suggest. Could you have them sent round? I will go and see if I can wrest a copy of the Morning Post from the Colonel and immerse myself in what the society pages have to say.’

  She really did want to see if there was a review of the latest theatrical productions, but she also wanted to show the unfortunate gentleman with the scars that not every woman would recoil from him in horror.

  The stranger was sitting next to the window reading a newspaper, the strong light from behind throwing his face and figure into silhouette. Sara suspected the position was chosen deliberately, for it made it almost impossible to see his face in any detail. He was wearing an eyepatch, that she could tell, and he seemed quite young.

  She settled down with the Morning Post, made a note of one production to avoid and one to see, if she did as she was inclined to and travelled up to London in a week or so.

  *

  She left after twenty minutes, called in at the shop and found it quiet, so went down to the promenade for a breath of fresh air. An open carriage bowled past with Lucian sitting next to his sister. He raised his hat, Marguerite waved and Sara waved back.

  Would he do the right thing and find out what had happened to the mysterious Gregory? she wondered as she watched the carriage disappear in the direction of the coast road to Weymouth. And if he did and the man was alive, would he be able to restrain himself from calling him out?

  Men! They were impossible to live with and yet she definitely did not want to live without them. If she went back to London Papa would be anxiously looking for a suitable new husband for her, however much he tried to hide it. Ashe would be circling anyone who showed the slightest interest and warning off any man who was not—in his opinion—perfect. And if anyone made the slightest reference to her unconventional decision to marry a scholarly c
ommoner, let alone her current eccentric lifestyle, they would both be bristling in her defence and more than ready to issue a challenge.

  If they were not careful, she thought, she would wed a librarian—that would rattle them. Not that she wanted to marry poor James, even if he ever plucked up enough courage to court her. The only man she wanted, the one by now half a mile out of town, would drive her to distraction within days, she was certain. Not, shamefully, that marriage was what she wanted him for.

  Sara made herself smile at a party of ladies strolling along the promenade, stopped to admire Miss Wheatley’s new parasol and advise Mrs Carlow on the best place to collect seaweed, bought herself an entirely unnecessary length of lace, two cream tarts and a fashion journal she could have perfectly well read at the library, and finally went back to the shop where Dot had hung up the Closed sign in order to eat her noon meal.

  ‘Hmmph,’ Dot remarked at the sight of the packages. ‘I’ll put the kettle on the hob and get a plate for those tarts. Eating cream cakes won’t get that man in your bed, although cakes are a lot less trouble in the long run.’

  ‘Dot!’ But the reproof was half-hearted. ‘He is very attractive. And loyal to his sister and intelligent when he is not being an idiot about honour above everything else.’

  ‘And he must be rich and he’s your class and that’s where you ought to be, and you know it, not hiding down here.’

  ‘I am not hiding.’ That was half-hearted, too. Sara rather thought she was hiding, not so much from anything but because she had absolutely no idea what would make her happy and she was avoiding making a decision. ‘And taking that man as my lover is not going to do anything for my social standing.’

  ‘Not as a lover,’ Dot mumbled through a mouthful of cream cake. ‘A husband.’

  ‘Lucian? He’s the Marquess of Cannock, you know, only he’s incognito because of Marguerite’s situation. And I know what you are just about to say, that it makes him even more suitable. But he would be impossible to live with, he doesn’t want me—’ Dot snorted ‘—not to marry, and besides I do not want to marry anyone.’