The Disdainful Marquis

by Edith Layton

  As she mounted the stairs behind the marquis and Jenkins, she realized that neither of them had seen through her masquerade, and that the light was dim, and she would be expected only to curl up and sleep by a hearth. And, she thought wildly, she could be gone by early light. Safe from the marquis and from the brutes below stairs, for they were traveling in the opposite direction. Gratefully, she limped up the stairs in the marquis’ trail. For a moment when she had recognized him and heard the firm assurance in the deep voice, she had longed to throw herself upon his mercy and reveal herself. But then she remembered where he had last seen her, and what James said. But tonight’s safety would do well. She hugged her bag to her chest and entered the marquis’ room as quietly as she could.

  His room was spacious and well appointed. It was obviously the best the inn had to offer. The marquis flung off his cloak and sighed.

  “This will be my sheet for the night, Jenkins. I expect these bed linens are inhabited. Perhaps they contain more livestock than the garments of that poor soul over there.”

  “English?” Jenkins asked with a lifted eyebrow.

  “The poor creature hardly understands his own language. Do you think him fluent in English?” The marquis laughed.

  “Right,” Jenkins said, and then, seeing Catherine sidling toward the fire, he said softly in French, shooing her, “Sit, sit. Go to sleep. Go to sleep, boy.”

  Catherine obediently put down her portmanteau and, gathering herself up in a small heap, lay down upon the stone hearth with her bag as her pillow.

  “Take off your hat, child,” Jenkins said again in French, reaching down.

  Catherine sat bolt upright and clutched her hat tightly to her head.

  “He’s terrified of us. Let him be,” the marquis said.

  “Gladly,” Jenkins said stiffly, “but I’ll sleep with my door open, for I think he’s not above theft.”

  “I wouldn’t worry,” the marquis yawned. “At least not about him. But I think we ought to speed up our pace a bit. That’s the second group of volunteers I’ve seen headed for Paris. The moment hostilities arise, we are fair game. I disliked to stop over here, but I refuse to ride through the French countryside in the dark of night. Tomorrow, if all remains the same, we’ll leave the horses and get on the coach. With luck, we’ll reach England before the week is out. And then let them march on Paris all they wish.”

  “Aye, lad. I think they’ll accommodate you. But pray it’s after we’re safely asea.”

  The marquis and Jenkins continued to talk softly about lists and plans and plots while Catherine lay quietly at the hearthside.

  She would very much have liked to have done with the whole scheme and was itching to leap up and tell them who they shared the room with. She yearned to have the burden of escape taken from her shoulders. But, she reminded herself as sternly as she could, it was in seeking the easy way, the comfortable way of life, that she got into difficulty. It was time that she took responsibility for herself at last. She sighed heavily.

  “The boy’s aching for sleep,” the marquis said, hearing her gusty sigh. “And, for that matter, so am I. I give you good night, Jenkins. We have a long day tomorrow.”

  Jenkins shot Catherine a suspicious look as he went quietly into the connecting room. Once there, he did not close his door all the way.

  Sinjun blew out all but one candle by his bed and lay himself down upon the cloak that he had draped over the unreliable sheets. In the semidark, he could only make out the outlines of the poor boy’s form by the dying fire. Satisfied that all was quiet, Sinjun lay back and rested his head against his laced hands.

  All was done, he thought. The lists lay sewn firmly in the seams of his coat. Now there would be a reliable guide as to whom they could trust, whom they would have to name enemy, and who would sell to the highest bidder. A smile touched his lips as he thought of the list. There was really no need for it, he knew them all by rote. And as for highest bidders, his thoughts wandered to the man he knew ached to arrest him on any premise. If he could leave this benighted land before the emperor returned, there would be no need of the list, and if not, he thought resignedly, he could find a way at least to get the list out safely. It was not as if there was anyone in England who would mourn long for him—it was not as if his oblivion would matter at all. He felt a twinge of despair and pushed the thought firmly away as he had trained himself to do. He was wide awake. Company in his bed would eventually bring sleep, he thought. But the serving wenches below stairs looked in as sad a state as the linens his cloak protected him from. And as for that female in Paris—his lips wrenched into an unpleasant smile—she had probably been long gone to a higher bidder. Sinjun lay back silently and waited resignedly for sleep to at last steal over him. It would be, he thought, a long wait.

  Catherine sat up slowly. It had been a long time since she had heard any movement from the marquis. She had lain still for a long time—she could endure no more. Her leg ached with a steady throb that began to encompass her whole body. Whatever James had said, she knew she must get her boot off. She would take her money and conceal it somewhere else upon her person, for no one, she told herself, should really be expected to endure such travail.

  The sound came to Sinjun’s ears immediately and his face twisted into a disgusted grimace. He raised himself slightly and looked over toward the boy. The fool was sitting up, slightly hunched over, and the sound of his rhythmic panting was clearly audible. Sinjun lay back and gave himself points for his own idiocy. Jenkins, of course, was right again, as usual. See how he was repaid for a moment of compassion. Sinjun had spent his boyhood in boarding schools, and he had traveled in the thick of many various armies. Lovely, he thought grimly, I give the waif a safe harbor and he repays me by using my room to abuse himself in. Ah well, he thought angrily, at least it won’t go on for long. And I think I won’t tell Jenkins in the morning, for it will delight him no end.

  But after several long laboring minutes had gone by, the fool of an idiot was still at it. Sinjun wondered at his perseverance, for the harsh breathing went on, not only unabated, but considerably louder. Slowly, with the stealth that had surprised many enemies, Sinjun raised his long body from the bed and padded slowly on light feet to see what the devil was going on. He felt a moment’s self-recrimination when he saw that the poor fool, far from attempting to enjoy himself, was merely struggling to get his shabby boot off.

  With an exclamation of impatience at himself and the world which sent poor half-wits out into it with no protection, he approached the boy.

  “Here,” he said gruffly in the local argot, “let me do it.”

  He had expected the boy to be surprised, but not to the extent that he was. For he jerked up to a sitting position and cowered away.

  “Come,” Sinjun demanded in the same dialect, “I will help you. Do not be afraid.”

  And without waiting any longer, he made a gesture of impatience and reached down to grasp the boy’s boot. He held it firmly and began to wrench it off. As he gave it a twist and the final tug to free it, three things happened almost simultaneously.

  The boot, freed from its grip on the boy’s foot, came off in his hand. A small packet flew from it and landed on the floor with a damp thud beside him. And the boy cried out in English in a high, clear woman’s voice, “No. Do not touch me. Please, don’t.”

  And then as he stood dumbfounded, the boy flung his hands to his head and fainted away.

  Sinjun bent over the boy and stared at him. Then, still shaking his head, as if to clear his sight, he gathered the boy in his arms and carried the insubstantial weight to his bed. Once he had lain the lad there, he gently removed the ridiculous hat and stared long at the still white face. He pushed back one dark curl from where it had fallen onto the forehead and continued to stare, genuinely staggered at the sight of the unconscious form.

  “Well,” said Jenkins slowly from behind him, as he sheathed his knife carefully, “it looks as though you’ve finally gotten her where
you wanted her, lad. In your bed.”

  For once the marquis did not return Jenkins’ sally with another. He only stood and watched the closed face beneath his.

  “Here’s a pretty sight,” Jenkins grunted.

  Sinjun wheeled around to see Jenkins holding up the bootless leg. The small white high-arched foot was blood-smeared and torn.

  “This,” Jenkins snorted, holding up the small bloody linen-wrapped packet, “is what did the trick. A boot’s a good place for treasure, as you well know, but not when there’s scarcely room for a foot there as well.”

  “At least,” said a small frightened voice from the bed, “it was safe till I disturbed it.”

  Sinjun turned and looked down into a pair of wide terrified eyes.

  “That,” he said, with a slow smile, “is more than I can say for you, child.”

  He let his eyes linger on her as he lowered himself to sit beside her, and trailed one finger slowly across her jawline,

  “A great deal more than I can say for you,” he smiled.

  Chapter XIV

  Catherine’s voice faltered as she brought her story to a close. The marquis had sat beside her silently as she had told it. She had no idea what expression he wore, as she had been afraid to chance a look at him. Instead, she had watched the far less threatening, more sympathetic play of expressions on Jenkins’ concerned countenance. And it had been Jenkins who had insisted that she tell all in such a gentle fatherly manner that she had complied. If she had been alone with the marquis, there was every possibility that she could not have uttered a word, for when she had woken from her pain-induced swoon, his face had held menace, and his voice had implied further distress for her at his hands. But she had taken heart from Jenkins’ presence. For no matter what the marquis’ intentions, she doubted he would initiate any ploy against her with Jenkins in the room. Now, risking a glance at the marquis from under her lashes and seeing the unblinking gray gaze fixed upon her, she did not know which she feared more—his anger, his disdain, or his easy seductive acceptance of her.

  But there was nothing seductive in the look which he now bent upon her. There was only outraged incredulity. He rose and paced a step and then wheeled back to her.

  “Do you mean to tell us that you actually believed you were to be no more than a companion for the duchess? That your duties were only to be to hold her knitting or sit and have pleasant little cozes with her about her grandchildren or her rheumatics?” he asked.

  She shrank back from the force of his voice, but then found herself growing angry at the tenor of his words.

  “How should I have thought otherwise?” she argued, “for she was a duchess and she seemed to live at the height of respectability. Even Arthur—he’s my brother-in-law, you know, and he is a stickler for propriety—could not claim otherwise. Indeed, he would have been glad to have thrown an obstacle in my path, for he did not want me to earn my own way at all. If he had had even an inkling of anything amiss, he would have thrown it up to me.”

  Seeing the patent disbelief upon the marquis’ face, she went on with more spirit and a genuine sense of outrage, “Women such as the duchess may be common coin in your set, Your Lordship, but I assure you we have none such in Kendal. Why, if any woman behaved so, her relatives would have her clapped up somewhere to protect her from herself. Mrs. Blake is the only true eccentric we have,” she mused, “and that is because she is so overfond of cats. And even so,” she added triumphantly, “her children have told her if she adopts one more, they’ll have the whole lot out on the streets, for people will begin to talk.” Sinjun ran a hand through his hair while Catherine could hear Jenkins’ low chortling. But then the marquis turned again and said with a certain slyness, Catherine thought, “And yet, even you must have realized what her game was by the time we met upon the packet to France. For both Rose and Violet were in the duchess’s trail then. Never say you thought those two particular prime bits were there to complete a cozy sewing circle? Or that they were too reticent to tell you the whole of it?”

  “No,” Catherine admitted in a little voice, hanging her head, “by then I did know. “

  “Then, in the fiend’s name, why didn’t you just throw up the whole bad business and hie yourself home to Kendal and rejoin your eccentric cat-loving old ladies?”

  “I hadn’t the funds,” Catherine answered softly.

  “Why didn’t you appeal to someone you knew? Or tell the duchess the whole game was off?”

  “She wouldn’t have paid me,” Catherine said sadly, “for she had already advanced me my wages for the first months and told me the rest would only come quarterly. And I did not think she would take kindly to my denouncing her and demanding unearned money for my return home before her journey had truly begun. And I knew no one else.”

  Sinjun stood still and then said with a softer voice and an expression she found hard to read in the dim light, “But you did know me. And I’m not known to be pinch-pursed, and, certainly, I had not been distant with you.”

  “Oh yes,” Catherine flared suddenly, “you have not been. But you took no pains to conceal your opinion of me. And I was going to tell you twice, in fact. But that first time aboard ship you only began to give me advice about which gentlemen I should attach myself to for profit. Wouldn’t I have presented a pretty picture if I had asked you for money after that recitation?”

  The marquis, Catherine noted, looked abashed for the first time since she had met him. A brief uneasy silence fell over the room which was at length broken by Jenkins’ query. “And the second time?”

  Catherine, remembering the moment in the marquis’ close embrace, only flushed. And the marquis, instantly remembering the same scene, for once was speechless. He only gave a low muttered curse and walked to the fire to stare at its dying embers.

  “Well then,” Jenkins said with suppressed laughter in his voice, “we should see about binding up that limb of yours, Miss Catherine. For one-legged companions are not in too much demand this season. Just sit back. I’ll go to fetch some clean water. No need to worry, for His Lordship can tell you I’ve some experience in that line, and I’ll have you up and ready to travel by first light.”

  Jenkins went quietly out into the passage. Finding herself alone in the room with the marquis, Catherine sat very still, not daring to break into his seeming reverie. But before long he was back, standing beside the bed and looking down at her. She did not dare to even look up at him this time, being too aware of his proximity and of her embarrassing position, occupying his bed.

  “And how,” he asked finally, “did you think to come through the whole of your adventures with your reputation intact?”

  “Oh,” she said slowly, “as to that, it hardly mattered, for I intended to go home to Jane and Arthur immediately upon my return. One’s reputation in Paris and London wouldn’t count for much there. For no one I know travels further than to market most of the time.”

  “And how,” he persisted, “did you think to return with your person intact?”

  She looked up at him in anger when the meaning behind his words became clear to her.

  “As to that,” she said with some heat, “I felt that I could rub on well enough if I remained alert and circumspect in my dealings with the gentlemen in the duchess’s set. And so I did. Except, of course, in your case. For you were the only one who attempted liberties. The others were content to accept “No” and look around for easier game.”

  “Liberties!” he exploded, shouting loudly enough to make her wince. “Do you consider a few brief embraces liberties? When you were prancing about Paris, painted and half clothed in the company of acknowledged tarts? I think,” he said, sitting down abruptly beside her again and taking her chin in one hand and forcing her head up to meet his blazing eyes, “that you should know more of ‘liberties’ by now. Didn’t those two expensive bits of muslin you were cloistered with all these weeks tell you more about liberties?”

  “No,” Catherine protested, drawing back f
rom him and his touch. “No, they didn’t. They were actually very prim with me. They said that they did not think they should tell me anything I didn’t already know.”

  The marquis dropped his hand and shook his head, as if to clear it. He gazed at her steadily till she shrank with embarrassment. She could see belief and disbelief battling in his expression. Then he smiled a slow easy smile that curiously both melted and chilled her, and went on in a low sweet voice, “But there was nothing you did not know about embraces, was there, little Catherine?” He took a curl of her hair in his hand and toyed with it as he spoke. “I do not remember that there was need of too much further instruction in your kisses. You are not totally inexperienced then, are you? Mine was certainly not your first kiss, was it?”

  “Of course not,” Catherine blazed, striking his hand away, “yours was the fourth. I did not grow up in a clam shell. And if you count Roger Scott’s, it is five. But,” she admitted carefully, “I do not usually count Roger Scott’s for that was only upon my cheek, and I have never been sure if that was his intention or if he missed. But it makes no matter, for I was very angry with him anyway and did not speak to him again.”

  The marquis looked at her speechlessly, but any reply of his was cut off by Jenkins, who had appeared by the foot of the bed and who shooed him away by saying briskly, “I have to do up the lady’s foot now. And if you two persist in quarreling at midnight, you’ll call the whole inn’s attention to the presence of a female in your rooms. Here now, My Lord, do you hold her hand. For I have to put some medication upon the wounds and I think she’ll be glad of something to hold on to, for it will smart a bit.”

  “No thank you,” Catherine said loftily, snatching her hand from the marquis’ grip.

  But when Jenkins poured some of the fine French cognac he had produced from his bags over her aching foot, she involuntarily grasped the marquis’ hand again and bit her lip to keep from crying out.