How to Impress a Marquess

by Susanna Ives

  “Don’t you dare have done something rash,” he hissed.

  He opened the letter and his stomach clenched.

  Dearest George,

  I was selfish to keep you for myself. I’m childish in my belief that my love for you was strong enough to overcome our history. That you would come to love me as I love you. You always said I was naïve in my beliefs and you were correct. And now, despite the deep pain I feel in leaving, I do not regret for a single moment sharing my love with you. You are an extraordinary man.

  Do you think time really heals all wounds? I don’t know. I think it all remains, all the love and hurt. You will always reside in my heart, so, in truth, I will always have a part of you. My true home—loyal and kind—is somewhere else and I will find it. I couldn’t keep you in a marriage of duty. I can’t deny you the same love that I feel for you that you will know for someone else. I wish us all that kind of love—you, Penelope, and Beatrice.

  I know you will want to look for me. You will be inflamed with that old-fashioned chivalry that I so adore. You think that I can’t care for myself. But I can. I will send you letters so that you know I am well. Never forget to draw or be a joyous little boy sometimes.

  Please tell Penelope and Beatrice that I have not forgotten the vows of our sisterhood. When I am stronger, I’ll return.

  Love Always, Lilith

  “No! No! No!”

  Don’t look for her be damned.

  He tore out of the room and down the servant stairs. “Has anyone seen Miss Dahlgren?” he demanded of passing servants. A footman answered that he had seen her around the morning room, which opened onto the back gardens.

  He rushed to that chamber to find it empty. He flung open the door to the outside. The velvet night was cold and windy. The whistle of a train broke the silence. Along the horizon traveled the black silhouette of a train and its long smoke trail.

  “No! Lilith!”

  He sprinted through the gardens and around the side entry for delivery wagons. He didn’t stop running until he reached the train station. The tired travelers descending the steps stared at the frantic man in evening clothes cutting through them. At the ticket counter, a young ticket agent with a fresh face and hair that spiked around his cap was idly stacking coins while reading from a journal that lay open below his lamp.

  “Pardon me,” George said.

  The agent didn’t look up from his periodical but continued reading, his lips forming the words.

  “I said, pardon me.” George slammed his palm down on the page, obscuring the text. “I’m Lord Marylewick.”

  The man jumped back, fear entering his eyes. He crossed his arms over his face and cried, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He began backing up, bowing at the same time. “Don’t harm me.”

  “What in God’s name are you talking about?”

  The agent lowered his arms and peered at George. “You’re… You’re the…the sultan, my lord.”

  “Oh bloody, bloody hell!” George boomed.

  The young man yelped and crouched under the desk while the remaining people in the station took a few steps back.

  In a matter of minutes the news had hit the village. It would only take a few more hours before the entirety of England knew.

  George groaned and leaned over the counter. “That’s right. I’m the dangerous, evil sultan. Now, you had better tell me if you’ve seen a beautiful woman with auburn hair and luminescent eyes. A mole rests just above her lip.”

  “Yes, my lord. We held the train a full two minutes for her.”

  “You did?” All the breath left his lungs. Lilith! He had lost Lilith.

  He could scarcely move his lips to muster the words, “W-when does the next train for London leave?”

  “Eight twenty-five in the morning, my lord,” the agent said from under the desk.

  George slicked his hands down his face, his eyes moistening as if he had received a nasty punch. How was he going to find her? She may think she could take care of herself but…

  But who would take care of him?

  The agent peered cautiously over the counter.

  “You may come out,” George’s voice broke with a faint, bitter chuckle. “I won’t murder you. Today.”

  * * *

  George staggered down the station steps and then walked home in the darkness. The towers of Tyburn obscured the waning crescent moon. She had been like the moon, moving around him. Since he became her trustee, he always knew where she was, he knew the dimensions and path of her orbit. And now she was gone. His universe in disarray.

  He entered Tyburn through the garden doors. No music filled the house. All was silent, as though a death had occurred. He continued to Lilith’s chamber. There, he picked up her letter, folded it, and slid it into his pocket. He took the pages stacked on the commode over to the grate. He stirred the coals until they burned bright enough to read by.

  Colette had been captured and taken to the sultan’s palace. George could see very little of how Lilith had redeemed his character until the story twisted.

  “Do not torture yourself, my dove. Sate your curiosity. Open the box.”

  She could resist no longer. She knelt before him, lifted the lid slowly, and peered inside. In the dim light she could see nothing.

  “It’s empty,” she cried. “You have tricked me.”

  “It is merely too dark to see the thinnest of paper. So old that the text fades, but I know the words by heart.”

  “What are they?”

  “The secret to Greek Fire.”

  “W-what?” cried Colette. “You knew all along. Why did you drag me from my home? My father died. I’ve lost everything because of you.”

  Shadows concealed his face, but still she could see his eyes, glowing with tender light. “The secret couldn’t fall into the hands of my enemies. They are savage beasts, willing to stop at nothing to destroy the prosperity of my kingdom. For the safety of my people, I fostered a reputation as a merciless tyrant to frighten my enemies.”

  He plucked a yellow budding flower from a bush and tucked it into her flowing tresses. “I came for you and your father, not knowing what I would find. I was ready to kill you both for the protection of thousands. But I found that you were neither cruel nor ambitious, only a loving woman desperate to save her ailing father and to keep a devastating secret from falling into the wrong hands. Alas, it was too late for my physicians to help your father and too late to garner your trust.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He caressed her cheek. “You wouldn’t listen. You believed the lies that I had propagated in your lands. So I made you think me the barbarian of your imagination in order to get you to safety. I knew that villains far worse than I would have no compunction about torturing you to death. These monstrous men are still out there, waiting. They want to hurt my Colette.” He gently kissed her lips. “Can you trust me? Can you find peace in my garden? Can you call my palace your home, my fair and loving Colette?”

  She was a mere slave girl now. A nobody in a foreign land. He probably kissed all his concubines with the same tenderness. “At my home, my father loved me. My home had love. Here, there are so many men demanding your time, so many ladies who desire you. My love would be nothing.”

  “There are many who desire me because I am the sultan, but none love me with the spirit I feel in you. I’m rapacious for your heart’s contents.” He cupped her chin in his hand. “I shall keep unto you only, sing in the garden to you, and feed you grapes from my lips. This can be your home, full of beauty, for the rest of your days.”

  Colette had found a home in the sultan’s lovely gardens.

  But her creator was still wandering, lost and hurt.

  Twenty-two

  The next day, George and Penelope stepped onto the platform at Euston Station in London.

  “Are
you sure Beatrice can manage Mama?” Penelope asked for the fifth time.

  “No, but Mama won’t murder her as she will us.”

  “I’m going to insist she come to us in Grosvenor Square. Mama will squash her sweet spirit. I can’t let what happened to me happen to her.”

  “I’m going to unite us all once I find Lilith. We’re never going back to the way our lives were before.”

  She squeezed his hand. “Tell me we’ll find her. That all will be well.”

  He wished he could. His voice stuck in his throat. “Yes,” he managed, but didn’t truly believe it.

  He clutched his walking stick and portfolio that held Lilith’s chapter. He kept his head bowed as they waded through the travelers. All around him he could hear the sensational buzz. As with all gossip, the mundane truth was twisted to something grotesque. “Ellis Belfort is really a female ward of Lord Marylewick. The stories are about his cruel treatment of her. He locked her in the cellars of Tyburn for days, giving her only broth to eat.” “Lord Marylewick punched Lord Charles and threatened to murder him.” And “Lord Marylewick and his entire family have gone mad. Lord Fenmore must divorce his insane wife.” The inanity was spreading like an aggressive cancer. He held Penelope’s arm and whispered, “Don’t listen.”

  They took a hansom cab to his London townhome. He told the driver to wait outside and stepped in long enough to settle Penelope in and interrogate the staff about whether Lilith had called during the night or morning. No one had seen or heard from her.

  He had the cab drive him to Lilith’s old home. His fingers shook as he unlocked the door. The house had the silent feeling of having been empty for some time. Nothing was amiss in Lilith’s bedroom, nothing to give any indication that she had come here in the night. He let his fingers drift over her books, reading the titles—all the things that she loved and thought about. He drew up the bed covers. They smelled of citrus and vanilla. Lilith. His throat burned. Through the second-floor window, he could see the rooftops—sloping, peaking, rising far into the horizon. Would he ever find her?

  He couldn’t think about it. He had to keep moving or he would be paralyzed.

  He had the cab driver deposit him at Fleet Street in front of a brick building with “McAllister’s” printed across the top. George clutched the portfolio holding Lilith’s chapter under his arm. As he crossed the walk, he accidentally rubbed shoulders with a lady in a vibrant orange dress and possessing a yellow parasol.

  “Pardon me,” he murmured.

  The woman gasped. “You! It’s you!”

  George raised a brow. “Are we acquainted?”

  “You’re Sultan Murada.”

  “No, I’m Lord Marylewick,” George explained nervously, realizing this woman was off her nut. “The sultan is fictional.”

  “Murderer! Murderer!” The woman shook her parasol at him. “How dare you hurt dear little Colette?”

  People were stopping on both sides of the street and not to observe the mad, ranting woman but the vile sultan. They pointed to him and whispered to each other.

  “What?” George flung up his hand. “I didn’t murder Colette. At most, I tried to…” Wait! Was he trying to defend some fictional version of himself? He spun on his heel.

  He opened the door to find a narrow set of stairs and a sign that read “Office” with an arrow pointing upward. The floors shook with the pounding of presses. He lifted his cane and took the steps two at a time, coming to an open stairwell where a young clerk with an air of put-upon sullenness hunched at a desk. The man peevishly thumped the stack of papers he was reading with his pencil. “Relative clause! For God’s sake, use a comma!” he cried in agony and then added one with a great flourish.

  “I am seeking the editor of this paper,” George said. “Presumably, a Mr. McAllister.”

  The clerk’s indolent gaze drifted from George’s face to the portfolio he held. A bored glaze came over his large, slightly bulging eyes. “Mr. McAllister is busy. If you would like to leave your manuscript for consideration, I shall add it to my pile.” He flicked his pencil toward a mini Leaning Tower of Pisa made of paper and stacked suspiciously close to the rubbish bin.

  The clerk continued in a bored drone, returning his attention to the pages he was reading. “You may expect an answer in four to six weeks. Any inquiries before that time will be politely ig—”

  “I’m Lord Marylewick.”

  The man’s mouth dropped. He shot out of his chair, scurried to a closed door, and tapped it. “Mr. McAllister. You have a v—”

  “Not now!” a voice boomed from inside.

  The clerk gave George a nervous smile and knocked on the door again. “Mr. McAllister, Lord Marylewick is here. Standing right here. Eyeing me. He’s very angry.”

  Not five seconds later the door flew open and a man with unkempt, greasy curls and a beard that needed trimming scrambled out of his office. His shirt, waistcoat, and brown plaid trousers had the ruffled appearance of having been slept in. He performed a series of curt bows as he approached George.

  “Lord Marylewick, you honor us with your presence. A great honor, indeed. We are humbled.” He glanced around and behind George and added, “I see you are alone?” There was an arch in his voice that left his question dangling. George looked at the man’s anxious eyes and guessed the reason for worry.

  “My solicitor is attending a funeral—his mother’s,” replied George in a deep intimidating voice. “I elected to visit you myself.”

  “Sorry to hear about your solicitor’s mother. Very sorry indeed. Please come in.” He made a shooing motion to the clerk. “Stuart, bring us some tea.”

  The man’s small office appeared to have been hit by a tidal wave of paper. Great towering stacks on the verge of tipping over covered every surface. Pages were even tacked to the walls. McAllister removed a stack of illustrations from a chair. “A new artist we are considering for future volumes. Please, please sit down.”

  George sat, keeping the portfolio in the crook of his arm.

  The editor leaned against his desk and rubbed his hands together. “I want to say that Miss Dahlgren never gave me any indication that the sultan character was inspired by anyone she knew. I see no reason to get the courts involved.”

  “That remains to be seen,” replied George coolly, even though he would cut off several of his less-needed appendages before dragging his name through the courts. “Do you know where I might find Miss Dahlgren?”

  “Of course, of course, let me get her address.” He began to flip through the mountain of documents on his desk. “Now, where is it?” Seeing the futility of this scavenger hunt, he opened the door and shouted. “Stuart! Fetch Miss Dahlgren’s address.”

  “When did you last see Miss Dahlgren?” George continued.

  “Over two weeks ago. She turned in the installment of Colette and the Sultan that we last published. Naturally, we’ll cease to print the story.” He forced a chuckle and then his features turned hawkish. “Unless, of course, you would care to write a letter releasing us of any defamation and libel. Not that those terms apply in this case.” Another forced chuckle. “No, no. Merely a precaution. Better safe than sued—I mean sorry!” He wiped his damp brow with this sleeve.

  “Whether I sue depends on my meeting with Miss Dahlgren.”

  McAllister edged toward the door. “Stuart, hang the tea. Get the address.”

  Stuart walked into the office holding a teapot that he set down on a stack, and pulled a random page from the sea of disorganization. “Ah yes, here it is,” said Mr. McAllister. He read off the address of Lilith’s old residence. The one George had visited. His spirits flagged.

  George rose, restless to continue his search. “Please let me know if you hear from her in any regard, else my solicitor might bandy about those terms of defamation and libel. Do not print any work of hers until you talk to me.”

&
nbsp; “Perhaps we could work out an agreement. A most lucrative agreement. The story is very popular. People will be quite angry if we couldn’t finish it.”

  “Perhaps not.” George strolled from the office, letting his cane strike the floor.

  * * *

  He stepped outside and gazed at the soot-filled sky cluttered with hundreds of roofs and chimney stacks. The image began to shift. The building, sky, street all turned to a watery, despondent gray with thick black lines outlining the streetlamps and roofs.

  “Murderer! Sultan!” The crazy woman had waited for him. Her vivid yellow parasol broke through the gray. A crowd had swelled around her.

  Bloody hell.

  He quickly waved down a hackney to head back to the safety and sanity of Grosvenor Square. Outside the carriage window, London passed. Building after building. London housed three million people. The metropolis could easily swallow Lilith. If she were even in London. She said she would come back when she was stronger. But could he wait that long? What if something happened to her?

  What if…

  What if she found someone else?

  He couldn’t stomach the idea of another man touching her. She was his. She was his art. He would find her if he had to seek out every tormented artist and writer in England.

  Two streets later, he tapped the window, halting the carriage. He stepped down and asked the driver to wait. He walked into the art store. A hunched woman with metallic silvery hair and pale, almost translucent blue eyes was busy organizing paintbrushes into canisters according to size.

  George removed his hat. “Pardon me, I would like to know where I might find some prominent artists’ studios…and…and…”

  “Yes?” The woman smiled, forming kindly crinkles at the corners of her eyelids.

  “I would like to purchase some paint.”

  * * *

  Day after day, the headlines became more ridiculous. Penelope continued to read them, fretting, upset, questioning her decisions. George recommended that she stop paying the stupid rags any heed, as he had. He had spent a lifetime catering to people and this was how they treated him? To hell with them. He accepted no visitors nor replied to any summons. He pushed to the back of his mind that Parliament returned in a week’s time. A letter from the prime minister lambasting his behavior and demanding an audience remained unanswered. He couldn’t muster his old self, the conscientious George who kept everything in its place.