A Marquess' Forbidden Desire (Steamy Historical Regency)

by Lucinda Nelson

  Julius cast him a dubious look. “Did you?”

  In truth, no. He hadn’t. A sore heart had made him reckless. If he couldn’t have his Fairy Queen, he would take whoever pleased his father most.

  He’d thought it would be easy. But he had rolled the dice and lost a great deal in the process.

  “You should not have allowed him free reign,” Julius said.

  “I know that now,” Alexander snapped.

  “So what do you plan to do about it?”

  “What can I do about it?”

  Julius stood. “Well,” he began. “Perhaps I could come with you again. Take some of the strain of the experience off you.”

  Alexander frowned at him. “You can’t be there holding my hand throughout my marriage, Julius.”

  “No,” he conceded. “But it could make the engagement easier.”

  “What would you do?”

  He shrugged, but an air of indifference that Alexander couldn’t quite believe. “I’d just be around. Should you need me.”

  Alexander scrutinized him for a moment, before it dawned on him. “Is this about the maid?”

  “Of course not!” Julius retorted. It was the false insult in his voice that gave him away. Julius wasn’t the sort of man who would be insulted by any such accusation.

  “It is. You cad. Will you never give up?”

  His rouse fell away. “Never. There is something between us.”

  “Yes, there is. Hatred.”

  “Hatred is passion.”

  “So you admit that you hate one another.”

  “In a sense, yes.”

  Alexander rolled his eyes and turned away from his friend. He didn’t have time to muse over such a ridiculous notion with Julius. He had more important things to think about.

  “So I will meet you there tomorrow afternoon?” Julius called after him, as he left the estate.

  Alexander didn’t say anything, but that was answer enough. In truth, he would feel a little less agitated if Julius were there. Even if he was off tormenting some poor girl.

  ***

  Lady Marianne Purcell, Daughter of the Baron of Westlake

  “They seem rather in love,” Marianne murmured. “Don’t they?”

  She was sitting in the drawing room, watching Eliza and Lord Redmond from the window. She felt so… empty. Becky sat beside her. Her mother was visiting friends, so they could spend some time together without getting in trouble.

  “I’m not so sure,” Becky remarked. “He doesn’t look at her the way he looked at you.”

  “He was different then,” Marianne said. The truth was that she didn’t want hope. She appreciated that Becky was trying to soothe her, but hope would wind up hurting her more in the end.

  “Not so different,” Becky said quietly. She was sewing something and looking down at her hands as she worked.

  “Let us speak about something else.”

  “Like what, my Lady?”

  “Like you,” Marianne answered, with a small smile. “You and Lord Blackwood.”

  Marianne watched Becky’s lips tense. “Loathsome man,” she muttered.

  Marianne reached out and put her hands on Becky’s to make them stop. They’d been getting faster, more aggressive, at the mere mention of Lord Blackwood. “You’ll ruin the stitch,” Marianne said, with a soft smile. “Now be honest with me. You kissed him, so he must not be entirely loathsome.”

  Becky put her sewing down and looked at Marianne. “You did not know him as I do.”

  “You spent three nights with him. Was there not at least one moment when you found him likeable?”

  “He could be charming,” she said, reluctantly. “But I imagine he is charming with every girl he hopes to fool.”

  “Perhaps fooling you is not his intention.”

  “Julius was a mistake.”

  “Julius,” Marianne echoed. Her smile grew.

  “I mean Lord Blackwood,” she blurted, correcting herself. She picked up her sewing again.

  With a smile and an eye roll, Marianne let her be. She looked out the window again, but Eliza and Lord Redmond were gone.

  “Good day, my Lady,” came a voice from the doorway. Lord Blackwood stood there, looking handsome as ever.

  “Good day to you, my Lord. Are you well?”

  “I am quite well. I wanted to accompany Lord Redmond today in the hopes that I too might benefit from the company of the Purcell family.”

  “I am afraid Eliza is walking with Lord Redmond.”

  “Oh, but I would quite like to walk with you, my Lady.”

  This surprised her. She blinked at him, then nodded. “That would be lovely.” And truly, it would. Perhaps she could learn a little more of his friend. But more than anything, she thought she might enjoy Lord Blackwood’s company. He was so easy. So light.

  He put his arm out to her and she took it.

  Becky had kept her head and eyes low. She tried to scuttle out of the room, but Lord Blackwood stopped her. “Becky,” he said. “You should join us.”

  “I do not think so, sir.” She looked him in the eye and there was some heat in her stare. It looked stern. “And it is Miss Cole,” she corrected him.

  Marianne should have reprimanded her for that. To speak to a Marquess in such a way. A maid. But in truth, Marianne found it rather funny. She tried not to let it show, but the laughter burst out of her.

  It was about time they addressed the obvious. “Perhaps you two should walk together,” Marianne suggested. “Have it out.”

  “But Lady Marianne-” Lord Blackwood began, looking sincerely astounded. Perhaps he had thought that he would come here and have to create a rouse in order to see Becky.

  But Marianne didn’t care much for custom and she didn’t see why two people who liked each other – or hated each other? – shouldn’t be able to spend some time along together. Even as a maid and a Marquess.

  Lord Blackwood blinked at her, then at Becky. Marianne knew that she surprised him. She returned to sit by the window. “Mother won’t be back for a couple of hours, Becky. You can be quite certain of that.”

  “What about Eliza and the Baron?” Becky asked. “We shouldn’t risk it.” She was looking for an out, but Marianne wasn’t going to give her one.

  “I will tell them that Lord Blackwood lost his pocket watch somewhere in the grounds and you are helping him retrieve it.”

  Becky pursed her lips tight. She was looking for another excuse, but nothing came. At last, she conceded with an abrupt exhale. “Very well,” she said.

  When Lord Blackwood put his arm out for her, she didn’t take it. She stormed off. She laughed in their absence. In Lord Blackwood’s presence, Becky didn’t act like a maid at all. She was haughty. Wonderfully so.

  Shaking her head, Marianne looked back out the window. Still, she couldn’t see Eliza and Lord Redmond.

  She often asked herself why she chose to watch them everyday, when it hurt as much as it did.

  Perhaps it was her final indulgence. To see his face. Scrutinize his walk. Memorize his smile.

  So that when she was alone and lonely, she could comfort herself with a fantasy that he was with her instead.

  “Have you seen your sister?”

  She turned. Lord Blackwood stood in the doorway, looking very severe. Not at all like the shy man she’d danced with at the fair. “I thought she was with you.”

  “She was,” he answered. His voice was so very terse. “But we had a falling out and she ran off.”

  Marianne blinked. “I am sorry to hear that, my Lord.” A falling out? An easy thing to do with Eliza, but she’d been on her best behavior with her fiancé.

  And Lord Redmond always looked so smitten. She couldn’t imagine them ever falling out.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” Marianne asked.

  Chapter 16

  Lord Alexander Anthony Redmond, Marquess of Riversdale

  ‘A falling out’ was an understatement. They’d been walking. Eliza
had been babbling on about the estate again. About all the jewelry she had her eye on. And Alexander had been simmering, close to boiling.

  He’d given her ample opportunity to ask him something. To try to cultivate some kind of relationship with him. To instigate intimacy. He’d even tried to do it himself. He’d told her she was beautiful. That he admired her.

  But she’d only wanted to talk about the money.

  For hours.

  At last, he’d interjected in a stiff voice and said, “I was thinking we might stay in a little cottage in the country actually. Live a quiet life.”

  She’d stopped talking. Stopped walking. And just stared at him. As if he’d gone mad.

  “You can’t mean that,” she said, quickly, sounding a little panicked. And he enjoyed seeing something else of her, even if it wasn’t exactly a promising trait. At least she could feel something other than materialistic joy.

  He shrugged. “It is a simpler life.”

  “Simple and dull.” Her panic was rising, along with her temper. “You’re not a stupid man. You wouldn’t throw away all that you have.”

  “I do not see it as throwing anything away,” he remarked, in a calm and musing voice. As if he hadn’t noticed her rising ire.

  “You must be mad. I would not allow it.”

  He quirked a brow at her. “You would not allow it? I think you misunderstand the nature of a marriage, Eliza. You will do as I say.”

  It wasn’t like him to say anything like that. He wasn’t a dictator like his father was. He wanted an equal relationship with his wife. But he enjoyed testing her. He was giving her the opportunity to pleasantly surprise him and she was failing miserably.

  Her face seemed to go purple with pressure. He saw a blue vein pulse in her temple and her lips were pursed as if she meant to shout at him. But before she could muster any words, she turned on her heel and stomped away.

  A true temper tantrum.

  He sat on a bench, expecting her to come back. He wondered if he was any better than her. After all, he’d lost his temper and lashed out at her in his own way. He hadn’t stormed off, but he hadn’t exactly taken the high road either.

  He resolved that he would apologize, no matter how bitter it tasted in his mouth. He would work on maintaining his patience. Because if he didn’t, how would they ever make this work?

  Eliza didn’t come back. After a while, he went looking for her. To no avail. So he went inside and asked Marianne.

  She asked him if she could do anything to help.

  “Would you help me look for her? It would feel rather intrusive to walk the house alone.”

  It seemed to take her a moment to decide. Was she so set upon avoiding him? And after they’d agreed to be friends?

  “Let us try the library first,” she suggested and stood to accompany him upstairs.

  “Does she often go there to read?” He asked, as they started on the stairs.

  “No,” Marianne said. “But she sometimes goes there to find me when she’s angry.”

  He frowned. “To seek your counsel?”

  Marianne didn’t answer for a moment, as if she was trying to conjure a lie. “Something like that,” she said, evasively. He didn’t press the subject.

  They stopped in the hallway just outside the library. The very same hallway where he’d cornered her. “Perhaps you should go first,” she suggested.

  “Why?” He wondered.

  “She may be upset if she sees that we are spending time together alone.”

  “But she…” He was going to say that Eliza didn’t know what had transpired between him and Marianne. But he caught himself. It was an unspoken agreement that they didn’t mention what had happened in Bath unless they absolutely had to.

  Marianne seemed to know what had been about to say. Her cheeks were a little pinker. “No, she doesn’t know.”

  “Then why should it upset her?”

  “She can be jealous from time to time. As all of us can be.”

  As all of us can be, she’d said. To redeem her sister, or because she too felt jealousy? He doubted Lady Marianne would be so obvious as to reveal the latter, so he assumed it could only be the former.

  He had to wonder why Lady Marianne was always so kind to Eliza, given how mean she could be to her. So kind, in fact, that it seemed as if she would not even allow Alexander to believe the truth about his fiancé. That she was a jealous, mean woman. As he was quickly learning.

  “Then I will go first. And if she is in there, I will not come back out.”

  She agreed with a silent nod.

  He opened the door and stepped inside.

  ***

  Lady Marianne Purcell, Daughter of the Baron of Westlake

  She waited a few seconds. Then started to turn away from the library. But before she reached the top of the stairs, she felt the warm clasp of fingers around her wrist.

  She looked back at him. His face was cast in shadows. Shadows so deep that it almost looked as if he was wearing his mask again. She smiled at him softly. Darkness made reality fall away. It always had.

  The darkness wore down her self-control, until she felt like a cluster of feelings without any direction. In a moment of foolishness, she murmured, “You look as you did in Bath.”

  She reached up towards his face, but didn’t touch his skin. Only followed the curves of the shadows with her finger. “As if you are wearing the mask again.”

  He didn’t appear to be breathing.

  Lord Redmond released her wrist and took a step away. Damn the darkness, she thought. It always made her act like such a reckless fool.

  Her hands fell back to her sides.

  “She isn’t there,” he said. His voice was raspier.

  “We could try father’s office,” Marianne suggested and started to turn back towards the stairs. But he stopped her by putting his hand on her arm.

  “I wondered if-” He paused, as if words had failed him.

  She glanced up at him, then away. Her heart felt heavy with anticipation. But she didn’t know what it was anticipating. “Yes?”

  “I wonder if you might show me what books you like to read…”

  She blinked up at him. “My Lord?”

  “If we are to be friends… we ought to know what each of us likes. Don’t you agree?”

  She couldn’t disagree. But she looked back over her shoulder a little anxiously. What if Eliza happened upon them? Though they wouldn’t be doing anything wrong, she knew that her sister wouldn’t see it that way. Even without the full story.

  But could she miss this opportunity with him?

  Seeing her hesitation, he spoke again. “How are we to be friends if you avoid me, Lady Marianne?”

  A good question. She looked up at him shyly. “It is complicated,” she whispered.

  “It doesn’t have to be.”

  She threw one last look back… as if she expected to see Eliza standing right there. Listening. Watching.

  Then she nodded softly. “Alright.”

  They went into the library together. It was Marianne’s favorite place in the world. In part because of the books, but mostly because of the windows. They were tall and wide, with glass diamond shapes stained purple, green and blue dotted throughout the panes.

  “It’s quite something,” he remarked. She could feel him watching her face as she stared at the windows.

  “It is,” she agreed.

  She moved to sit on the windowsill and look down at the gardens. Marianne could feel him behind her, but he didn’t sit and she didn’t look back at him. She felt this shiver pass up her spine and she wasn’t sure if it was a bad feeling or an incredible one.

  “I’ve seen you sitting here,” he murmured. “Looking down at the gardens.”

  For a moment, Marianne let her eyes close. The thought embarrassed her. She didn’t want him to know how much she watched him.

  “I like looking out at the gardens,” she said, almost defensively.

  “Then why do you
not go down and walk in them?”

  “I do sometimes.”

  “Just not when I am there.”

  Marianne did not answer him. She felt her cheeks getting warmer. “Are you suggesting that I am avoiding you?”