“I do,” she answered. “Very much so.”
“Do you dance well?”
Her lips quirked, recalling the way she’d danced at the fair. She had felt so liberated that she hadn’t cared much for routine at the time. She’d danced like a fool and it had made the Knight smile so much that she didn’t even mind being a poor dancer.
“Not in the least,” she answered. “I make quite the fool of myself when I dance.”
His smile remained, but he tilted his head a little as he looked at her. “That does not seem to embarrass you.”
“It does not,” she admitted. “I find dancing rather freeing. The consequence of that being that I have a little less self-control than I would usually have. I enjoy that feeling.”
“And what of the consequences?”
“The consequences?” She smiled. “A few men and women think me foolish. Hardly a consequence.”
He blinked. But before he could muster an answer, her mother interjected quickly. “Eliza is a splendid dancer, aren’t you my dear?”
“Oh yes,” she said. “I love to dance. And I have been told that I dance very well indeed.”
The Marquess nodded. She caught him looking at her a few more times throughout the meal. He must think her very strange indeed. Not that she minded. She was counting the minutes until she could go home.
When they bid them goodbye at the door, the Marquess took a moment for her. She wasn’t sure why, but she thought it very kind. As Eliza said goodbye to his parents, he stood in front of her and bowed. “It was a great pleasure to meet you,” he said.
***
Lord Alexander Anthony Redmond, Marquess of Riversdale
“And you, my Lord,” the lady answered. When she curtsied, her necklace swung free of the neckline of her dress. It was on a long chain, so it hung low. In a sudden moment of foolishness, Alexander reached out and caught the pendant in his hand. His brows were furrowed deeply as he opened his fingers and looked down at the pendant resting in the center of his palm.
She had frozen. And he knew why. Because he had just snatched at something of hers as if they weren’t strangers. But there had been something about that necklace. Something familiar.
It was a star with several points. Simple. Antique looking.
His eyes whipped back up to hers and he released it like it had burnt him. She was frowning at him warily and tucked the necklace back into her dress.
“I… it is very lovely,” he said, in an attempt to rectify his mistake.
“Thank you…” she said, though there was notable wariness in her voice. “Good day, my Lord,” was the last thing she said. No one had seen. Thank God.
She left with her family.
There was no question in Alexander’s mind. He had spent the night staring at her, trying to work out why she was familiar. What it was about her that made his chest tingle deep beneath his rib cage.
And here the truth was, staring him in the face.
Lady Marianne Purcell was the Fairy Queen.
What remained of the truth came in hard, sharp flashes. She was the Fairy Queen and she did not know who he was. She was the Fairy Queen… and she was a lady. Not a country girl. She was the Fairy Queen and he was engaged to her sister.
“Well, my darling, are you happy?” His mother said. She was standing behind him in the foyer.
Alexander turned around to face her. He’d been staring at the closed door, as if he could still see Lady Marianne Purcell. As if she was right there in front of him. In his mind’s eye, she was.
His face was blank with shock and he couldn’t process his mother’s question. “My dear?”
He blinked and focused on his mother’s face. She looked so very happy and hopeful. And behind her, his father was standing. Watching his face.
“Yes,” he answered. “Of course I’m happy.”
“She’s fair,” his mother said.
He nodded. “Very.”
“So she will satisfy you as a wife?”
“It is a good match,” was all he said. In truth, he didn’t know enough of his fiancée. Though she had spent most of the night talking, he hadn’t heard more than a few words because he’d been so focused on her younger sister.
The idea suddenly made him feel like a terrible cad. For all he knew, Eliza could be entirely lovely. And if there were ever a part of him that might have contemplated breaking off the engagement so that he could pursue Marianne, it was overcome by his sense of moral responsibility.
He wouldn’t do that to an innocent young woman.
“I have plans this evening,” he remarked, suddenly.
“Oh?”
“Yes. I promised my company to Julius. I will return in a few hours.”
He left quickly after that, leaving his parents looking surprised but not necessarily worried. They were too happy with the events of the evening to be worried.
Alexander rode to Julius estate, pushing his horse at a gallop. He didn’t know why he needed to see his friend so urgently. Perhaps because Julius was the only man who knew the truth and Alexander felt like he was floating in an illusion.
He needed someone to prove to him that he wasn’t going mad. That he wasn’t leaping to conclusions about Lady Marianne Purcell because he was heartbroken and still harboring some hope.
Perhaps it wasn’t her. Perhaps it was only a necklace. But it wasn’t just the pendant that had convinced him. It was everything about her. And what she’d said about dancing. Yes, that more than anything. It was an uncommon thing for a lady to say, but he’d remembered how the Fairy Queen had danced. So freely. He’d loved her foolishness.
“Julius,” he breathed, when his friend welcomed him inside. He looked concerned and had a furrow between his brows.
“Are you alright? You look rather distraught.”
“I need your wisdom.”
Julius smiled mischievously. “At last, you recognize my intelligence.”
“I do not have time for joking,” Alexander interjected. “I believe that tonight I-” Even saying it sounded mad.
“What is it?” Julius asked, more seriously.
“I saw the girl tonight. The girl from the fair.”
Julius’ momentarily serious countenance turned sympathetic. “Oh, Alexander. How could you possibly have seen her? And even if you had, how would you recognize her?”
“I’m telling you Julius – she came to my house for dinner tonight. With her family.”
“I thought you were meeting your fiancé tonight.” Julius’ eyes widened. “Is she your fiancé?”
“No,” his voice broke when he said it. “She is my fiancé’s sister.”
Julius was silent a moment. Then he took a slow breath and said, “I think we ought to sit down.”
Alexander recounted the evening to Julius. He told him about Eliza. About Marianne. He told her what she’d said, how she behaved and about the necklace.
Throughout, Julius didn’t say anything. He mused silently and rubbed his jaw. When at last Alexander was finished, Julius looked across the room at him.
“You don’t believe me…” he realized, as he saw his friend’s expression.
“My friend, I want to believe you. But you have not been yourself these past few months. I think it is time that you let this girl go.”
“But she is the girl! I’m certain of it!”
“Alexander-”
“It was a unique necklace, Julius. And her eyes are the same color and she-”
“But did she appear to recognize you?”
Alexander pursed his lips. “No,” he said. “But that does not necessarily mean-”
“And she behaved as a lady. Is that right?”
“Yes, but-”
“While your girl was most certainly a country girl, was she not?”
His lips parted, but he didn’t know how to answer this at first. It took him a moment before he managed to say, “Well, perhaps I was wrong about her. Perhaps she was a lady all along.”
“Or perhaps,” Julius said, standing. He crossed the room towards Alexander and put his hand on his shoulder. “Perhaps the thought of marrying has shaken up your mind.”
Alexander looked away from him and ahead of himself, at the wall. Perhaps Julius was right. This was mad, wasn’t it? And so sudden. So out of the blue. And the likelihood of it being true that this girl was his Fairy Queen was so slim that it seemed almost entirely impossible.
Alexander expelled a slow breath and closed his eyes.
Julius squeezed his shoulder and said, “I think you need a drink.”
***
Lady Marianne Purcell, Daughter of Baron Westlake
The Riversdale family came the following week for afternoon tea. Marianne had remarked that she might be visiting her friend Lilia at the time, but her mother had insisted on her presence.
“The Marquess is not simply marrying Eliza. He is marrying the family. And that includes you.”
A queer thought, but she accepted her mother’s wishes. As always.
Still, she had every intention of excusing herself to go for a walk during their visit, so that she did not have to spend too much time in the presence of others. It wasn’t that she disliked the Marquess and his family. It was just that she so much preferred solitude these days. Although she had begun to worry that her mind was a little too fanciful when it was alone.
She would think so much of the Knight. Imagining ways that she could have kept him. Or where their kisses might have led. Sometimes these fantasies keep her warm and happy. Sometimes they make her cry when she remembers that they’ll never come to be.
“Marianne,” her mother hissed at her through the door. Marianne had been sitting upstairs in the reading room, staring out the window. “Did you not hear? They’ve arrived. Come down instantly.”
It was unusual for her mother to come herself. But she supposed that Becky and the other staff were busy in the kitchen, preparing lunch. Mother would not want to risk disturbing that endeavor.
Marianne followed her downstairs, smoothing her dress as she went. She felt very tired today.
“I’m ever so sorry, my Lords. My daughter, Lady Marianne. You met her the other night, my Lord,” her mother said to the Marquess, who stood and bowed.
“But we have not met,” the gentleman beside him said.
“My Lady, this is Lord Julius Blackwood. The Marquess of Nollenshire,” Lord Redmond said. “He is a friend I made during my time at Oxford.”
“Hello, sir. How very nice to meet Lord Redmond’s friend,” Marianne replied. She felt the gentleman watching her closely, while Eliza’s fiancé would not look at her at all.
“Yes, he is a lovely fellow, as I have learned in your absence, Marianne,” Eliza said, though the gentleman had only been there a few minutes at most.
The gentleman spoke to Eliza for a while, while their mother sat nearby smiling and nodding. Marianne, on the other hand, looked out the window until Becky came in.
She carried a silver plate of tea, but she did not make it three paces into the room before she suddenly sucked in a breath and her hands went limp.
The silver plate tumbled loudly, causing everyone to stand. Tea and milk spilt and china shattered, but Becky didn’t move. She looked like she had seen a ghost and was staring ahead of her at God only knew what. “Becky, is everything alright?” Marianne lurched towards her and put her hand on her forearm, trying to get her attention.
“You stupid girl!” Eliza shouted, while their mother flanked the gentlemen and started babbling out apologies.
“I am so sorry, my Lords. So, so sorry for her incompetence and-”
“She is not incompetent,” Marianne interjected, in a stern voice. “She is unwell. Just this morning she reported sickness to me, but your anxiousness regarding this visit prevented her from saying so to you, mother. She insisted that I allow her work, because she did not want to disappoint you. And I was foolish enough to allow it.”
It was all lies. But she knew that her mother would be too mortified by the suggestion that she was unkind to her servants to respond with anything but kindness in the face of such a lie. Her jaw went momentarily slack.
“Come now, Becky. We will have someone else clean this up and put you to rest,” Marianne insisted, and gave Becky a subtle, wide-eyed look that silently insisted upon her cooperation.
“Yes,” her mother piped. “Yes, of course, you must rest Becky. Marianne, would you take her and have this mess seen to?”
Eliza was stood by the window. She only made a noise of reproof under her breath and muttered something about coddling.
“Certainly,” Marianne agreed.
“Is there anything we can do?” Eliza’s fiancé asked. As Marianne led Becky out of the room, she heard her mother tell the Marquess that he needn’t worry. Just as they closed the door behind them, Marianne caught a glimpse of the Marquess’ friend – Lord Julius Blackwood – watching them with a dropped jaw and a white face.
“It’s him,” Becky hissed at her the moment they were in the hallway. She was whispering and her eyes were fixed on Marianne’s face. She’d taken hold of each of Marianne’s arms. A position that Marianne didn’t mind in the least, but that she knew Becky would be in trouble for if any of the other members of the household saw her.
“Shh,” Marianne said, as she led her into their father’s empty office, where they could speak in private. Their father was out on business errands, because he hadn’t wanted to suffer another afternoon of social calls. Marianne supposed that they had become rather alike since she’d come back from Bath. “What’s the matter, Becky?”
“It’s him, my Lady. It’s Julius.”
“Lord Blackwood? Yes, that is his name. But why-” She recalled it then, in a sudden rush. “Julius…” she whispered. “Is that not the name the gentleman at the fair gave you? The friend of…?”
She didn’t finish the sentence. And Becky’s frantic, pale face was answer enough. “As I told you, my Lady, I saw his face. The very same face in the drawing room.”
“Then Eliza’s fiancé…”
“It may not be him, my Lady. I am certain that Lord Blackwood has many friends.”
It was Marianne’s turn to go pale. She stared ahead of herself and shook her head as if she’d just seen a ghost. “But I have felt it,” she whispered. “I have felt this peculiar feeling about the Marquess ever since I first met him. And he-” She stopped suddenly.
“What is it, my Lady?”
Marianne looked down and pulled the necklace from her neckline so that she could hold the star pendant in her palm. “When I first met him, as we were leaving that night, my necklace swung free and he did the strangest thing.” She looked up at her friend’s face with this weighted, tight feeling in her gut. “He grabbed it. As if it meant something. He just grabbed it and stared.”
Becky put her hands over her mouth. “My Lady, don’t you see? Lord Julius has seen my face and, if that is truly the Knight you kissed, then Lord Julius will reveal you to him. You will be given away.”
It was a concern she hadn’t yet thought of, because her mind was somewhere else. It was taking laps around one terrible fact. That if that gentleman was her Knight, he wasn’t hers at all.
He was Eliza’s. And Marianne didn’t have a hope of changing that.
And if that was the truth… then Marianne couldn’t let him know who she was. If she did, she’d risk her sister’s marriage and might well ruin Eliza’s entire life. Her prospects flushed away.
“And you Becky,” she realized. “You have kissed a Marquess. Do you trust him not to make that known to my mother and father?”
Becky paled, but then shook her head. “He wouldn’t. If only because it would reflect terribly on him if he did.”
Marianne nodded. At least Becky’s position in their household did not seem to be at immediate risk. “We have to stop him from saying anything to Lord Redmond,” she said abruptly.
“But how?”
; “It has to be you,” she said. “I will ask Lord Blackwood to view the library with me. You will meet me there and I will leave the pair of you to speak alone.”
“Alone?”
“Yes. There is a chance that he may listen to you. But in my presence I doubt he would risk mentioning the fair. He may well deny it if we raise it with him.”
Becky nodded, with mounting resolve. “Yes, my Lady. But we should act now.”
A Marquess' Forbidden Desire (Steamy Historical Regency) Page 10
