In a Perfect Mess With the Marquess

by Hazel Linwood

  Chapter 16

  “Oh, please hurry?” Nicholas murmured, as he waited for Wycliffe to fasten his cravat. He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece, since it would have been impossible to consult his watch—the latter was out of reach as Wycliffe fussed about with his cravat.

  “It’s not six o’ clock yet,” Wycliffe assured him. “And I had to take an age cleaning your shoes—there was so much mud on them. You’d think you’d been walking about in the shrubs, not going for a ride.” He made a puzzled face.

  “Absurd,” Nicholas said thinly. His heart thumped. Impudent fellow! What difference should it make, if Nicholas chose to walk about and get his shoes muddy? He felt a little guilty for his secret nonetheless.

  I wonder if Lady Martha is having the same trouble keeping this a secret.

  He bit his lip nervously. He looked down at the cravat his manservant had just tied for him. It looked exactly as it had the other day—frothy and extravagant. He put his head on one side.

  I look like a London Dandy.

  He revised his opinion when he looked at his own face. He didn’t look so much like a dandy; his dark eyes were tense and ringed with gray prints from sleeplessness and he looked alert and wary.

  “I’d better go,” he said, walking briskly through the door. “Don’t stay up and wait for me,” he called over his shoulder to Wycliffe as he left.

  “Yes, My Lord,” his man called back.

  Nicholas hurried down the stairs to the entranceway. As he did so, he remembered why he was so jittery. Since his argument with his father, the fellow had become even more critical and difficult.

  And I’m going to have him at close quarters all evening.

  He walked into the hallway, taking a big breath in. As he half-expected, his father was already there, dressed in a long overcoat and top hat and looking sourly at him.

  “You’re late,” he said.

  “By two minutes, perhaps,” Nicholas retorted thinly.

  “Two minutes.”

  Having exchanged eight words in total, that seemed to be the end of their conversation. Nicholas strode out of the hallway and down the steps, and stepped up into the carriage. His father followed, rapping at the roof with his cane to tell the coachman to leave.

  “This should be a productive evening,” his father said, leaning back in the carriage.

  Nicholas shut his eyes. He was quite prepared to act as if he were sleeping for the entire journey, if it meant his father would stop his critical tirades and leave him be.

  They rattled off into the dark. As they did so, Nicholas became aware of the fact that, under his wariness and anger, there hid excitement. He was looking forward to seeing Lady Martha again.

  They drew up outside Weston Manor twenty minutes later. Nicholas jumped down, leaving the door open for his father. Since their argument, they had barely spoken, and he wasn’t entirely disenchanted with the fact.

  My life seems a lot nicer without his constant bickering.

  Nicholas walked briskly up the steps. There was a torch lit in a bracket on the wall and he knocked on the door, waiting with a thumping heart for someone to open it. He could smell the wet scent of the evening and the spiced scent of the pomade his man had insisted he use, though he himself much preferred not to. All the same, he hoped that Lady Martha would notice, and that she might approve of it.

  “Good evening, My Lord,” a man greeted. “Lady Weston and her daughters await you in the dining room.”

  Nicholas nodded, and walked in, conscious that his father was right behind him. He passed his hat and overcoat to the butler, enjoying the fact that his father was probably aching to say something critical, but wasn’t able to in company.

  He rolled his shoulders, relaxing as he walked into the dining room ahead of the Duke.

  “Lady Weston.” He bowed to the countess, who was wearing a long blue gown; so dark as to be purplish in color. His eyes sought Lady Martha the moment he looked up. He stared.

  I have never seen her look so stunning.

  She had her hair again in ringlets, and she wore pearl earrings and a pearl necklace. The color of her gown suited her wonderfully well. It was a creamy pink that brought out the red of her hair and made her hazel eyes even more striking.

  “Good evening,” he said. He was halfway through bowing when he realized that he’d greeted Lady Martha first, instead of Lady Amelia. He hurried to correct the error, stammering out a name, but Lady Amelia was curtseying as if he’d greeted them both.

  Whew, he thought.

  He glanced sideways at the countess, but she was looking at his father. The look on her face was angry and he felt himself shudder.

  Whatever I might have believed of her, clearly she hates my father more than she hates me.

  He found that confusing. If she hated the pair of them so, why was she insisting on him marrying into the family? It didn’t fit.

  “Your Grace,” she greeted him acidly. “You visit us for dinner. This is an honor, is it not?”

  A person would have to be deaf not to hear the coldness of her tone. Nicholas wished he was—it was icy and frightening.

  “Lady Weston,” his father said, sounding equally cold. “I am here, yes. Shall we sit down?”

  Nicholas noticed he was staring at them, and hastily looked away as Lady Weston turned, with a rustle of fabric, and walked towards the table.

  He looked up and caught Lady Martha’s eye. She was looking at him, and he thought that she looked as shocked as he was.

  Clearly, she also had no idea of the animosity between their parents.

  “I have planned a five-course meal, so I am sure none of us shall go hungry,” Lady Weston was saying, a small, forced laugh at the end of her sentence.

  “This way, My Lord,” a footman said, beckoning him subtly across the room. He was placed at the right hand of his father, who was at the head of the table. Lady Weston sat at the foot. He was opposite Lady Amelia, and Lady Martha sat beside her sister.

  This is going to be awkward.

  He caught Martha’s eye and she grinned. Beside her, Lady Amelia smiled a forced smile at his father.

  “Duke, we finally meet you!”

  “Yes,” the Duke of Dellminster said. Nicholas inwardly rejoiced at seeing his father discomforted. Clearly even he, when faced with the beautiful, guileless Amelia, had to feel a little as though he was on the back foot.

  He looked away.

  “Now, I have some fine champagne here, and I think it prudent to toast the allegiance of our houses,” Lady Weston declared as she stood at her end of the table.

  Nicholas felt his stomach tie itself into a queasy knot. He glanced sideways and noticed his father was smiling.

  Seeing him look so contented sent a shiver of alarm down Nicholas’ body. He couldn’t recall ever seeing his father looking happy if it wasn’t at someone else’s expense. And, in this case, it was at his own. And that of both Lady Martha and her sister. The only contented parties in the room, who saw it as a cause for celebration, were his father and Lady Weston, he thought gloomily.

  He shot a glance down the table to where Lady Weston still stood, a cup in her hand, while a footman poured champagne from a vast green bottle. If he thought about it, her body was tense, her face in a rictus of smiling, but her eyes hard.

  She doesn’t look too pleased about this, either.

  “To the allegiance of our houses!” Lady Weston said, raising her glass. Nicholas thought her voice sounded hard and cold.

  “To our allegiance,” the Duke echoed. He raised his own glass to his lip and drank.

  “Our allegiance,” Nicholas said, touching the champagne glass to his own lips. He didn’t drink. He looked across at Lady Martha and Lady Amelia. Both their lips were dry.

  None of us wish to seal this agreement with a toast.

  He looked down the table.

  Lady Weston’s odd responses bothered him. On the one hand, it seemed—from what Lady Martha relayed to him—as if
she supported this match. She certainly insisted he visit often, and she took pains to promote the idea of the allegiance to him on each occasion.

  Yet, when he looked at her face tonight, her lips stiff with distaste as she chewed on a morsel of hors d’oeuvres, she seemed unhappy.

  It was as if she disliked this idea as much as any of them.

  “You went riding?” she asked the Duke as she looked up from her plate. They were the only two people in the room talking—he was studying his plate, and Lady Martha and Lady Amelia were also silently absorbed in their meals.

  “Yes, I did. I do enjoy a good ride. Almost as much as a good gamble.”

  Nicholas stared at his father. What was he doing? He couldn’t want Lady Weston to think he was about to lose the family fortune? Nobody should know about his intense interest in betting and cards.

  He looked at Lady Weston. She looked at his father with flint-cold eyes. She didn’t look surprised by the words at all.

  “Yes, I imagine it is,” she said.

  Nicholas looked at his father. He was smiling, as if he’d had the desired response to his odd comment. As he watched him, his father took a sip of his drink, then looked down the table at Lady Weston.

  “I find a good gamble very satisfying. With some people, you don’t know what the outcome will be. With others, you know straightaway that it’s just a matter of time before they play the card you knew they had.”

  Nicholas shifted about awkwardly. What was his father on about? He looked back at Lady Weston. Her coldly beautiful face was expressionless, her eyes hard.

  “You should be careful, then, that you never gamble with someone truly hard to understand,” she hissed. “Some people look so simple, but inside there’s more complexity than meets the eye.”

  The Duke looked at her. “I suppose it could happen,” he said with amusement.

  Lady Weston looked at him with a look so cold it actually sent shivers down Nicholas’ spine. He hastily looked at his plate, for fear that she would notice him watching.

  When he looked up, Lady Martha was looking at him. Her eyes were huge. She was clearly as shaken by the talk as he had been.

  What was going on?

  “Shall we all play a drawing room game after dinner?” Amelia said brightly. “I know such a fun one, where you have to guess an object by naming its properties…”

  Her voice faded into awkward silence. Nicholas, commending her bravery, cleared his throat.

  “I know very few drawing room games, Lady Amelia. I am afraid you would have to instruct me. We play no such games at home.”

  “No, we don’t,” his father said. “I prefer to play serious games. Ones with high stakes.”

  Nicholas saw that strange look pass between the two older diners again.

  “You may think of it as play,” Lady Weston said softly. “But be careful—some people don’t play games at all.”

  His father just laughed. Nicholas, who had heard the harshness of her words, wondered that his father could be so flippant.

  That interchange seemed to kill all conversation at the table. The footmen appeared and fetched away the plates, bringing out bowls of fragrant soup. Nicholas was hungry, and he wished he could have enjoyed the meal. Instead, he felt as though he was constantly on the wrong foot, never able to relax for a second.

  He looked up to see Lady Martha watching him. Her eyes met his and he could see a twitch of her lips that showed a smile. Whether she was amused, horrified, or simply inured to the irony of it, he couldn’t tell. One thing he knew for certain, he needed to talk to her.

  Chapter 17

  Nicholas followed Lady Martha up the stairs, relishing this moment to be alone with her. The dinner over, they were all moving upstairs to the drawing room, and Nicholas, seeing Lady Martha leave first, seized an opportunity to accompany her.

  He walked behind her for most of the way, but caught up in the upper hallway.

  “What a dinner!” Martha whispered. Her face was still. “I was so scared.”

  Nicholas nodded grimly. “I never heard such talk,” he agreed. He inclined his head towards the dining room, where he could hear his father still talking, his voice too low to be distinct.

  “What can it all mean?” she asked, as she went up the stairs. He walked close to her, and Lady Amelia followed behind. He looked around at her with a smile, and she looked back, face pale and anxious.

  “No idea,” he admitted. He was trying to seem calm, but he felt truly shaken. Whatever were his father and Lady Weston about?

  There was so much more to this than he was aware.

  His mind went back to the man visiting the house. His father had spoken of money, then—of a large sum of money. What was that about?

  He couldn’t have made some sort of bet with Lady Weston, could he?

  The more he thought about it, the more horrid it seemed. And the more he couldn’t help thinking it was possible. His father was a sinister man, and he often wondered if he cared about anything except wealth, paying his debts, gambling, and his own importance. But, was it really possible, that he’d go too far?

  Nicholas glanced back to the hallway. He could see Lady Weston, walking beside his father.

  He lost sight of them as he rounded the bend of the stairs, and walked towards the drawing room.

  “So,” Lady Martha said lightly. “Here we are. If you want to smoke, there’s a terrace. And there’s some light refreshments over here, if anyone is hungry.” She gestured at the big round table, where someone had laid out cups for coffee, and a tray of little delicacies to nibble on.

  Nicholas shook his head. “I am not hungry. I couldn’t be less hungry if I tried to.”

  They all chuckled. Without Lady Weston and his father there, it felt almost light and carefree. He looked at the shining, bright-eyed faces in front of him and he wished he could do something to help them both.

  I have to fix this with my father. I have to refuse to do what he wants of me.

  He swallowed hard. His father was in the doorway now, and he noticed Lady Martha and Lady Amelia become visibly tense.

  “Nicholas. Care for a smoke?” his father asked. He was digging in his coat pocket, and Nicholas watched him take out a tin box that he knew held cigars.

  “No, thank you,” Nicholas said thinly. He was sure his father knew he never smoked. He had hated tobacco since his father had forced him to smoke a cigar when he was twelve to “harden him up”.

  “I’ll smoke two, then,” his father said lightly. He headed out of the French windows.

  Nicholas felt everybody visibly relax as he left. He felt almost sorry for Lady Weston, who, for a second or two, looked as relieved as all of them.

  “Daughter, why don’t you play us a tune?” she asked Lady Amelia. “We could all do with a relaxing sonata.”

  Nicholas had to agree. He found himself standing in the middle of the room, on his own. Lady Weston was laying out cards on the table, a game of solitaire, Nicholas guessed. Lady Martha was hurriedly reading through a music book, he guessed she was checking through the words of a song. Lady Amelia was sitting at the piano.

  He looked around the room. Everyone was in a small island on their own, and he gazed at Lady Martha, free—for the first time that evening—to do so.

  When Lady Amelia started to play the piano, Nicholas was surprised when Lady Martha started singing. She had a high voice, thin and clear like the sound of a bell. He shut his eyes for a moment, enjoying the sweetness of it. Then he opened them again, indulging his chance to watch her.

  The candlelight fell brightly on her reddish hair, her skin as pale and fine as rose-petals as she sat bent over her music sheet. He realized he was staring and tore his gaze away just as his father came into the room.

  “A fine night out there. Very chilly. You missed a nice cigar,” he told Nicholas.

  Nicholas shot a look at him. How dare he interrupt? His father sighed and walked to the other side of the room without saying anything fu
rther. Nicholas hoped he hadn’t seen him studying Lady Martha.

  Whatever you let that man see, he will use to exert his will over you.

  He shuddered. He had never seen that side of his father so clearly. Now he saw him like a sinister spider; with himself, Lady Martha, Lady Amelia and even their mother, in his clutches.

  He glanced at Lady Weston. She was standing by the wall, half in the shadows, and he shivered. He couldn’t see her face, but her posture was tense and waiting.