“Are you mad at me?” She’d asked him, in a raspy voice.
He’d shaken his head, with a sad smile. “My love, you have always been so resilient in the face of your sister’s meanness. That resilience was bound to break eventually. I only wonder, why now?” He’d asked.
She’d thought of telling him the truth then. But when she’d tried to summon the words, fear had crippled her. She had put her cheek back down on her pillow and said nothing.
It was two more days before her mother finally came to see her. And in that time Marianne had eaten very little. She’d done very little besides lay in bed.
“You look as sour as everyone else feels,” she said, from the doorway. She didn’t approach Marianne’s bedside.
Marianne lay with her back to the door, staring at the window. The curtains caught on the faint breeze coming through.
“Do you have nothing to say for yourself?” Her mother quipped.
Marianne closed her eyes. “Have you heard from Lord Redmond?” She rasped.
“That is none of your concern really, now is it?”
Marianne wished she’d leave.
“What you did was a betrayal of this family, Marianne. A betrayal of your sister. Do you understand that?”
“If by revealing the truth I have hurt Eliza, then I do not regret it.”
“You are a callous, callous girl,” her mother snapped. “And if I see you outside of this room, I will have you dragged right back to it. Do you understand me? These next few weeks will be very delicate indeed. I will not have you ruining anything else.”
With that, her mother turned and stormed away.
Callous, she’d called her. A tear came to her eye. She didn’t feel callous. She felt sore and miserable. And though she continued to tell herself she’d done the right thing, she had to wonder if that was true.
Still, she had no word from Lord Redmond. Not a single letter. Another few days passed and Eliza came to see her. The moment her sister stepped foot into the room, it felt colder. She pulled the covers tighter around her shoulders.
“What do you want?” Marianne whispered. Though she already knew the answer. She had come to witness her misery.
“I have come to tell you the good news, dear sister. Don’t you want to hear it?”
She wanted nothing less.
“Lord Redmond has seen through your lies. Mother spoke to his father this afternoon. The engagement still stands.”
“But he has not come?” Marianne asked with a break in her voice and a heavy feeling in her heart.
“He is in London. He thought it best that he not be around you, as his presence clearly incenses you.”
Marianne pulled the cover tight to her mouth, to stifle the sound of her crying. She had made a fool out of herself. Had her feelings misled her? Had she wanted him for herself so much that she’d been willing to sabotage her family and his good opinion? Under the guise of righteousness?
She’d only wanted to protect him.
“You know that they were not lies, Eliza,” Marianne whispered. It was clear that she was crying by the sound of her voice. “You know as well as I do. Now please leave me.”
But she did not. She stepped up closer to the bed and leaned down towards Marianne. Marianne felt every muscle in her body tense.
“I know you want him,” she hissed into her ear. “But he’s mine. He has chosen me. Isn’t that ironic? The one man you want… wants me.”
Marianne was silent. Because she knew that if she spoke, it would egg Eliza on.
But silence bored her. She stood straight again and looked down at Marianne. “You really are pathetic, aren’t you? Perhaps I’ll come back tonight so that we can talk some more. And tomorrow. And the next day.”
Marianne started trembling.
She felt Eliza leave, but the atmosphere she left behind in the room was pervasive and suffocating. Marianne threw the covers back and called out, “Becky, Becky!” She felt desperate.
But it was only a few moments before Becky came.
“My Lady!” She cried when she saw Marianne weeping. “What has happened?”
She felt like she was hyperventilating. The prospect of being trapped here, subject to Eliza’s whims day and night, terrified her.
“We have to go, Becky. We have to go. Please, please make us a way out of here.”
She withered into her friend’s arms like a dead flower. She caught her and sank to the ground with her, where she cradled Marianne’s head like she was a babe.
“Alright, my Lady. Shhh, shhh. There is somewhere we can go.”
Marianne looked up at her through watery, stinging eyes. “There is?” She croaked.
Becky nodded. And Marianne trusted her so entirely that she didn’t ask anything more. She just lay her head on Becky’s chest and let her tears run until they dried up.
In the wake of her sister’s threats to torment her, Marianne had been manic. But, in time, she calmed. She sniffled back the last of her tears and sat on the edge of her bed beside Becky.
“I was thinking we might go to Lady Lilia’s,” Becky explained.
“We will go to Lilia’s, then,” Marianne agreed, with a nod. It was something Marianne would have thought of herself, had she not been so upset.
“We can leave in the morning, my Lady,” Becky assured her. She was still holding her hand.
“But what about you? When mother finds out that you have left with me, she will be livid.”
Becky did not say anything, only squeezed Marianne’s hand. Becky was putting herself on the line for her. Something she’d never be able to repay her for.
“I will tell her that I forced you to come,” Marianne said, though she knew that would not entirely placate her mother.
“I want to go, my Lady. Whether it angers your mother or not.”
This surprised Marianne. Becky had always been so reserved. A stickler for the rules. Yet here she was, encouraging Marianne to run away with her.
Seeing Marianne’s surprise, Becky looked down at her lap and said, “I do not want to stay here anymore than you, my Lady.”
“Why, Becky? As a family, have we not been good to you?”
She nodded. “You have been. Even the Baroness and Eliza have not been too unmanageable for the household staff. It is not that.”
“Then what is it?”
Becky didn’t answer, but Marianne saw that her brow was softly furrowed.
“It’s Lord Blackwood,” she realized.
Becky nodded slowly, without looking up at Marianne. “My Lady, there was something I did not tell you that night that Lord Riversdale kissed you. When Lord Blackwood and I were walking together.”
“You were arguing,” Marianne recalled.
Becky shook her head. “At first we were, but then he asked something of me.”
“What did he ask?”
She looked as if she couldn’t get the words out. Her eyes were glistening with unshed tears. “He asked me to marry him.”
Silence was her only response. Marianne’s lips parted and she simply stared at her friend. “Oh Becky,” she whispered, at last. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
A tear rolled free of Becky’s lashes. “I was ashamed.”
“Ashamed? What is there to be ashamed of? You have earned the love of a good man.”
“That is just it, my Lady. I have not earned anything. I do not deserve the love of a Marquess. I am a maid.”
“You are far more than a maid, Becky! And rank be damned!”
But Becky just shook her head and wiped her cheeks dry. “I said no.”
Again, Marianne went quiet.
“I said no, my Lady. And I am afraid to see him again, because-” her words caught in her throat. “Because he looked so forlorn that it broke my heart. I cannot bear to see that again.”
Marianne heard her take a deep, but shaky breath. “And if I stay here, I know that I will see him again. It is inevitable. He will come with Lord Riversdale.”
Becky looked up at Marianne. “You see? I must go with you, my Lady. I must.”
Marianne cupped Becky’s hand between her own. She could have wept for her friend just then. The dearest of friends, who loved a man well beyond her reach.
But did he need to be beyond her reach? It was a question that was plaguing her.
“But Becky, if you love him… why say no?”
“For the very same reason that you have not pursued Lord Redmond, my Lady.” As Becky said this, she pulled her jittery hands free of Marianne’s. She stood and smoothed her skirt, then wiped at her cheeks again.
“It is simply not done,” Becky said, with new resolve. “Lord Redmond is engaged to your sister and cannot break his word. And Lord Blackwood is far, far beyond my rank.”
Hearing it from Becky’s lips… it sounded like such a foolish reason. A reason that meant nothing in the grand scheme of their love for each other.
And if Becky’s reason was foolish… then was Marianne’s reason not foolish too?
“We will leave soon,” she concluded. “But there is something I must do first.” Marianne stood.
“My Lady?”
“I need to speak to Lord Redmond.” He’d told him the truth of Eliza’s character, but there was something else she needed to say.
That she loved him.
Chapter 24
Lord Alexander Anthony Redmond, Marquess of Riversdale
That night he’d left Marianne with Lord Fuller, he’d never felt so heavy-hearted. That moment had felt like resignation to a life of misery. He’d gone inside to speak to Eliza and had expected some sign of affection or relief from her.
But she hadn’t thrown her arms around him. She’d stood with her chin high and her arms crossed over her chest. She’d said, “So you’ve decided to show some decency.”
Alexander had started to explain himself. He’d just needed a little time alone. But Eliza hadn’t wanted to hear it. She’d said that he’d have to do a great deal if he hoped to be forgiven.
He knew her well enough to realize what she meant.
“Shall I take you shopping?” He’d said.
She’d perked up right away.
It had felt strange to grovel for something he didn’t really want. But he did it. For his honor and for his family’s reputation. No one could say that the Marquess of Riversdale wasn’t a man of his word.
She started chatting about where she’d liked to go.
It was then that Marianne had flown into the room.
He’d stood. He’d seen her so recently and yet she looked as if something terrible had happened.
Watching it unfold had felt like being part of a nightmare. The screaming. The accusations. The revelations and the way Marianne had been wrangled out of the room like a wild animal. He’d wanted to help her, but Eliza had blocked his path.
“Move,” he’d said, but she would not. When he tried to go around her, she thumped on his chest to keep him steady. A move that made it clear that if he wanted to get past her, he’d have to manhandle her.
Something they both knew he wouldn’t do.
The Baroness tried to reassure him afterwards, frantically. But he’d just kept up asking where Marianne was. If she was well.
They told him not to believe the lies Marianne had told, but he didn’t engage in that conversation with them. Because he honestly didn’t care. All he cared about was Marianne’s welfare.
He’d never seen her so upset.
In the following week, he did not visit the house, under the Baron’s request. He suggested that his daughters needed some time to themselves.
Alexander wasn’t sure how to feel about this. He longed to see Marianne, but he couldn’t stand the thought of seeing Eliza. A feeling that was growing, day by day. Still, he did not break off the engagement.
He did, however, express his concerns to his mother.
“She is not what I expected,” Alexander admitted, when his father wasn’t around to overhear. “I feel… misled.”
“I am sure your father would not have made you a bad match, my darling,” she assured him. They sat at the dining table, talking over dinner. He didn’t have much of an appetite and pushed his food around his plate.
“I do not think he misled me, mother. I think that he too was misled.”
“How do you mean?”
“I have heard rumors about Eliza. Rumors regarding her temperament.”
His mother put her fork down and reached across the table to touch his hand. He looked up at her with a feeling of hope rising in his chest.
But she didn’t say what he’d hoped she might.
“My son. Sometimes love comes later. It did with your father and I.”
He lowered his eyes back to his food. She didn’t understand. How could she? She didn’t know Eliza. And she didn’t know Marianne.
Do you know Marianne? He sometimes asked himself this. When he recalled the manic look on her face and the way she’d charged into the drawing room, he wondered if he didn’t know her at all. What had compelled her to do such a thing? When she’d been so restrained and timid before. So rational and kind.
Alexander hadn’t thought her capable of speaking ill of anyone, even if it was the utter truth.
And it had been the truth. Alexander had no doubt of that. The news Marianne had brought him hadn’t been a shock. He knew that Eliza was bitter, materialistic and shamelessly greedy. He wasn’t fooled by Eliza, because she was a bad actor.
But it didn’t matter if she was unlovable, because he wasn’t marrying for love. He couldn’t marry for love.
If he could, he would be marrying Marianne.
He sent letters to Marianne. He sent a new one everyday, but he heard no response.
Of course, he thought of going to the house, but he’d been told not to. And he respected Lord Westlake, even if he didn’t entirely respect Eliza.
Why would she not answer him?
His worry mounted as the days passed, until it became all too much for him. He needed to understand what had provoked Marianne to speak against her sister that night. Why then, when she’d had months to tell him the truth of Eliza’s character?
It wasn’t as if Lord Granthy’s testimony revealed anything particularly surprising about Eliza, after all. No, it had been something else that had changed in Marianne. And he needed to know what it was.
Alexander waited until the early hours of the morning before he made the journey to the Purcell household. He dismounted his horse at the gate and tied it there, so that the clomp of hooves on the path would not wake anyone.
He moved stealthily, swallowed up by the night, until he stood beneath her bedroom window. He knew, because Eliza had given him a dull, but comprehensive tour of the house.
She’d gestured at Marianne’s room with a dismissive hand, though it had been the only room he’d been interested in.
Alexander picked up a few pebbles from the ground.
He threw one, lightly, so that it tapped against her window.
Then another. And then another.
He paused when he thought he heard a sound and ducked into the bushes. But no one came out. With a sigh of relief, he stepped back out onto the path and when he looked up at the window… he saw her.
She was leaning out and frowning down, her face cast in moonlight. “Hello?” She whispered.
“Lady Marianne,” he called up at her, as hushed as he could be without going unheard. “I need to speak to you.”
“Lord Redmond?” There was a jitter in her voice. “What are you doing here?”
“Please come down. I will explain everything.”
She hesitated, then disappeared from the window.
He waited for what felt like forever, until he was sure she was not going to come. But then, very quietly, the front door creaked open.
She was wearing a white nightgown and was hugging her arms around herself, because it was cold outside.
He went still and just stared at her. She l
ooked like an angel come down from heaven, with sleepiness in her eyes.
“Here,” he murmured, as he took his jacket off and handed it to her. “Put this on.”
She thanked him with a smile.
“Come this way,” she whispered. “Away from the house.”
A Marquess' Forbidden Desire (Steamy Historical Regency) Page 19
