In a Perfect Mess With the Marquess

by Hazel Linwood

  “I wanted to have a look at the house,” Lady Martha confessed to him as she mounted up. “I heard Mama mention something about the place to Haley, and it interested me, because I’m not allowed to come here.”

  “Oh?” Nicholas said. He found that left him with more questions than he had before. Her mother had forbidden her to come here? Why had she?

  “Yes. It was silly of me, I know,” Lady Martha said, looking at the ground. “I hope you don’t think too poorly of me.”

  “Lady Martha,” he said quite firmly. He was mounted up now, and his horse was alongside hers. He looked into her eyes. “I would never think poorly of you. Never.”

  He amazed himself with that confession. His cheeks burned and he looked at his hands, embarrassed by the strength of his words. When he looked up, Lady Martha had turned away. She was looking straight ahead along the path before them.

  “Lord Calperton,” she said softly. “We need to go.”

  “Yes,” he agreed. “Yes, we must. Allow me to escort you part of the way, at least.”

  “Yes. Thank you, My Lord,” she agreed.

  They rode in silence. The day was overcast and they rode under a dark sky, which looked every moment like rain might pour down and soak them both. Nicholas hoped it wouldn’t—it was dangerous to the health to get wet and sit about in wet clothes.

  “I thank you,” Lady Martha said as they neared her home. Her voice was tight and formal and Nicholas wished that they could return to the easy informality of their earlier conversations. He wondered what he had done to upset her so much.

  “No need,” he said, turning to smile at her. They were almost at her home, now, after about an hour’s ride.

  “I don’t know what I would have done without you,” she said, and her eyes lit with her smile.

  He felt his heart stop. She was so beautiful in that moment that he longed to reach for her and kiss her right as they were, both riding towards the manor. She was side-saddle, and it would have been so easy to lean down and kiss her.

  He looked down at his hands.

  “I am grateful I could be of service,” he managed, though the words were tight in his throat and he found it difficult to speak.

  They looked at each other for a long moment and she smiled again. “I must be on my way,” she said softly.

  “Yes. Me, too. I bid you good day,” he said, and turned his horse down the path. She would ride straight, to Weston Manor, and he would go left, heading back to his home.

  “Farewell, Lord Calperton,” she called as she rode away.

  He felt his heart twist—there was something so heavy about the leave-taking, as if they truly would not see each other again. He made himself disregard the feeling as he rode to his home.

  He knew he was developing deep feelings for Lady Martha, but he also knew that it was absolutely the last thing he should be doing.

  He allowed himself to imagine for a moment that his father’s plans didn’t exist. If that were the case, he would be spending every moment with Lady Martha. Every dinner, every recital, and even the meeting at the fete in the village! He would do it all.

  “Nicholas, have you never heard of duty?” he asked himself harshly. He realized, as he rode back to the manor, that was exactly what his father always said to him.

  He sighed and shook his head and rode back to the stables.

  When did my own inner prompting become my father’s voice?

  He had no idea. He only knew that he was in a difficult and confusing situation. And that he wanted to see Martha again. That was all that mattered to his heart.

  He wished it was all that mattered to anyone else, also.

  Chapter 7

  Martha tore along the hallway and up the stairs, heart thudding. She was running as quickly as she could, but also trying not to make any noise. Her riding boots were standing by the door, and her indoor shoes were almost silent.

  The less attention I attract, the better.

  She ran up the upstairs hallway and to her bedroom, leaning on the door for a moment. She was relieved.

  I finally made it back safely.

  Martha collapsed wearily onto the bed. Her heart thumped from the haste with which she’d climbed the stairs, her brow damp. She had dreaded having to explain herself to their mother. As it was, now that she had the chance to quickly disrobe from her riding gear, she could pretend at being back an hour before.

  Mama would never stop shouting if she knew where I’d been.

  The manor in the woods—Edgerly Manor—was utterly forbidden.

  Martha thought about it as she hastily threw her riding cloak onto the chair and tugged off her riding habit, wincing as she felt a thread pull under the sleeve.

  I’ll sew it later.

  In her chemise, she stepped lightly over to the wardrobe to find a day gown. It was quite challenging to do up the buttons by herself, but if she summoned Penitence to do it for her, she’d risk her mother finding out the truth.

  Best if she thinks I’ve been sitting in here for an hour already.

  She fumbled with the buttons, her arms aching as she tried to reach up to the ones behind her shoulders. A pox on it! she thought, annoyed. The chances that she’d done them all up into the wrong holes was high. She tried to see the back of her gown in the mirror, but in the end she gave up and ran a hand through her hair.

  “It’ll have to do.”

  Buttoning up her own gown—with buttons on the back—was challenging. Styling her own hair into ringlets or a chignon was challenging to the extreme.

  She brushed it carefully, aware that it was a horrid frizz, and ran as quietly as possible down the hallway.

  She was passing the drawing room when she heard something. She wasn’t sure what it was at first, but after hearing the sound repeated, she realized what it was. It was the sound of a person, crying.

  “Amelia!” she said as she stared through the door, feeling her heart twist painfully. “Sister! What is ailing you?”

  Amelia was sitting at the pianoforte, hands on her knees, tears streaking down her pale face. “I’m sorry. I just…I can’t get this piece of Beethoven’s right, and I feel so useless. I can’t do any better!” She started crying again, shoulders lifting.

  “Amelia!” Martha came and sat down on a chair, taking Amelia’s hand in her own. “Sister, stop trying so hard,” she said reasonably. “The recital isn’t going to be this week. And you’ll be able to play it perfectly well by next Monday, I promise you that.”

  “Martha…I don’t know. It’s so hard! And I just don’t seem to be able to concentrate on anything that I do. It’s this horrid betrothal.” She covered her face with her hands and cried.

  Martha took a breath. She could have said that Lord Calperton was hardly a beast, and that he had an intriguing character, one that she couldn’t help admire and she was sure Amelia would like if she tried to get to know him. But she understood all too well how Amelia felt. Her sister loved Lord Alton, and it was quite apparent to anyone.

  And I know how she feels, now. I never understood what it meant to fall in love.

  She felt her cheeks go red.

  I am not in love with him. I can ill afford to let myself be.

  She schooled her face to neutral just as Amelia looked up. She was smiling, though her brown eyes swam with tears. She took Martha’s fingers in her own and squeezed, hard.

  “I am so grateful to have you, Martha,” she said softly. “You’re the only person who would not condemn me for my thoughts about him.”

  Martha nodded slowly. She felt a little guilty for having judged Amelia for failing to see the outstanding qualities of her betrothed. She could understand it completely, after all—no man seemed to her as fine as Alton did, no person as wonderful.

  “Sister, do you think that you can come to terms with this?” Martha asked seriously.

  Amelia looked at her, eyes wide. She stared into the hallway, as if half-expecting their mother to appear like a ghost and condemn
them. Martha shut the door. When she returned back to her seat, she clasped her fingers around Amelia’s again.

  “Martha…I have no understanding of how I am meant to do this,” Amelia said softly. “I cannot…I cannot wed a man I cannot love. And my heart belongs to someone else.” She covered her face in her hands and started sobbing in earnest.

  “You should run away,” Martha blurted out, without thought. “Go to Scotland, take a new name. Don’t come back. You and he could make a life there.”

  “Martha!” Amelia stared at her, and the color had drained from her face even more, were that possible. “I couldn’t do that! It’s dangerous. And besides…Lord Alton would not be able to support us there on his allowance. And I couldn’t leave you, and Mama…what would she say?”

  “She’d shout the walls down for two days, and then she’d make peace with it, as she’d likely have to,” Martha said slowly.

  “No,” Amelia shook her head. “I couldn’t do it, Martha. It’s not the solution.”

  Martha didn’t want to say anything, since she was of the opinion that the idea was quite fitting to the situation. If Amelia ran away with the man she loved, that would make her happy, and it would make life easier for Martha, too—or at least it would mean that she had a chance to do what she wished to. It would mean that she could, at least in her mind, allow the possibility of herself and the man who intrigued her so.

  Martha, don’t think about it.

  “Well, if you think it’s a bad idea, then of course you should not do so,” Martha nodded slowly. “You could always pretend to go mad, and then Mama would have to send you to the country house in Norfolk. Then you could miraculously recover, as soon as everything is as you wish it.”

  Amelia chuckled. “Now, of the two ideas, I think that one is wonderful! Only, I don’t think I can go convincingly mad. It might be fun, though.” She looked at Martha, eyes bright again.

  Martha smiled, too. “I think it could be fun! Why don’t we both do it? Then we can keep each other company in the tedium of the country house until we declare ourselves cured.”

  Amelia took her hand. She was still chuckling, the tears drying where they had soaked her skin. “Oh, Martha…I do wish we could. You make me feel better, though. It doesn’t seem quite so unbearable anymore. And you’re right—if we couldn’t bear it, there is always another way out.”

  “Yes,” Martha nodded. She didn’t think either of them would really attempt to play mad, but the thought that, if they were really stuck, they could think of a way out of it, was comforting.

  They talked for a little longer, and Martha turned the pages while Amelia practiced the part of the sonata that plagued her.

  “Thank you, Martha,” Amelia said fondly as she stood to leave “You truly are the dearest sister.”

  “Oh, sister…so are you,” Martha said with a soft smile.

  . She was feeling awfully hungry and wanted to ask Cook for something before luncheon. She went down to the kitchens and Mrs. Orston, the cook, gave her two tiny jam pies that had been intended for tea time. She swallowed them down gratefully and went upstairs to her bedchamber to sit on the bed. She shut her eyes, feeling desperately weary.

  “I wish there was a simple solution to this,” she said softly. There seemed no way out, and the situation was clearly hurting Amelia. She found it hard to acknowledge, even when she was alone in her bedchamber, how much it was hurting her, too.

  Images of her meeting with Lord Calperton in the woods played through her mind, again and again. The way he had looked at her, the way he had stopped to help and hadn’t thought twice about keeping her secrets. The way he had looked into her eyes and that heart-stopping, tummy-tingling feeling when he had bent down towards her, as if he would kiss her.

  Nonsense, Martha.

  No gentleman would think to kiss a lady he barely knew, an Earl’s daughter. Even in different circumstances, that would be unlikely to the point of impossibility.

  All the same, when she recalled the way he had looked at her, and the way her body had heated up like she was standing before a fire, she couldn’t help but feel that he had thought to kiss her.

  She shut her eyes and leaned back against her pillows, letting herself drift in fond memories.

  When Penitence came in to tidy the room before luncheon, she was still sitting there, lost in her recollections of the morning.

  Chapter 8

  Nicholas contemplated his reflection in the mirror with some annoyance. He was wearing his best evening clothes—with a black velvet collar, and breeches that reached his knee, worn over silk stockings. He had a silk cravat in one hand, and he turned to call through into the wardrobe room.

  “Can you come and fasten this thing, Wycliffe, please? I need to be ready by seven o’ clock.”

  “Of course, My Lord,” Wycliffe said, appearing from the room next door with highly-polished riding boots in one hand. “I will get it all tied in the new style—the frothier, the better, eh?” he grinned, starting to work deftly as he spoke.

  “I believe you,” Nicholas said thinly.

  He was annoyed by everything this evening; a result, he thought, of the fact that he simply didn’t want to go out.

  He watched his reflection in the mirror as Wycliffe did his work. The cravat grew from a filmy silk scarf around his neck to a full, frothy necktie with several layers of folds. With it, his reflection transformed from a thin-faced, modestly-dressed young man to someone who looked quite modish.

  Please, don’t let me look like a dandified London gentleman!

  He shut his eyes a moment when Wycliffe finished his work, convinced that he’d look silly and full of airs, but as it happened, he just looked more serious.

  He let out a sigh of relief and went into the hallway.

  “Son. There you are. I hope you were listening earlier at dinner,” the Duke of Dellminster said thinly, from where he stood at the top of the stairs.

  Nicholas made himself nod in reply. “Yes, Father,” he said. If his father couldn’t hear that he had to grit his teeth to say that, then he was even less aware than Nicholas had assumed.

  “Fine,” his father said, proving that he hadn’t noticed, or didn’t care. “I can’t convince you enough to get this settled as quickly as you can.”

  “The business, as you put it earlier, concerns my life and future,” Nicholas pointed out. He couldn’t keep his anger out of his voice, or his hurt. “I think that it should be settled at the pace I wish it to be. What say you?”

  His father stared at him, and Nicholas wondered if he saw surprise on his face for a moment. He covered it instantly. “Foolish,” he said softly. “You’re very foolish, son.”

  Nicholas tensed. He could hear the danger in his father’s voice, and he was sure the man’s business associates or solicitor would capitulate at once, hearing even that small threat. But he himself was used to it. His hand clenched into a fist, but he kept his voice level as he replied.

  “I may be foolish,” he said. “I would rather be foolish and maintain my liberty than be compliant and do your will instead of my own.”

  His father looked at him.

  “Son!” he said, as Nicholas turned away, walking down the steps to the front door. “Son! I haven’t finished talking to you.”

  No, Nicholas thought grimly. I’m sure you have not. That was just the beginning, no doubt. But you have no right to command me.

  He stopped to take his hat and coat from the butler, who held the shoulders so he could shrug into it before the door.

  “You will conclude this soon!” his father shouted down the stairs. “Or I will have your allowance cut to a quarter, and leave you from my will. I can leave it to your uncle.”

  Nicholas rolled his shoulders, and looked into the terrified eyes of the butler. He had clearly never seen the Duke in one of his blackest moods. Nicholas, who was used to it, took it all with a jaded air.

  He’s all sound and nothing else. He rages and threatens, but why
should I believe him? All he wants is his own way.

  He nodded his thanks to the butler, who passed him his hat, and then headed out into the night. He took a breath of the fresh night air and felt his dull resignation give way to confusion and surprise.

  What happened to me? Why am I seeing Father so clearly for the first time?

  He had always known his father was manipulative and difficult but he’d never seen it so clearly before, nor had he taken it so calmly. He couldn’t help wondering, as he swung up into the two-seater carriage, whether his meeting of Lady Martha had something to do with it.