The Disgraced Marchioness

by Anne O'Brien

  ‘What is she like?’ he asked Nick as they climbed the main staircase. ‘Is she pretty? Amenable?’

  ‘Not so. She is a Beauty. A Diamond of the First Water! Thomas showed far more taste than I would ever have given him credit for. But you will soon see for yourself.’

  Nicholas opened the door into the blue withdrawing-room, a light attractive space with azure silk hangings that matched and complimented the fashionable blue-and-silver-striped wallpaper. The room had, Hal noted, been newly refurbished, remembering the previous drab greens and ochres of his mother’s occupancy. A fire in the hearth beckoned. Sun glinted on the delicate crystal chandelier and the polished surface of a small piano. It was undoubtedly a lady’s room, a lady of style and exquisite taste.

  And the tableau within the room that met the critical gaze of the two men was equally attractive. A young woman was seated on the rug before the fire, her black silk skirts of deepest mourning spread around her. A baby in the experimental stage of crawling was in the act of reaching up to take a red ball from his mother’s hands, then tried to stuff the soft felt into his mouth. A grey kitten curled at their side. The lady laughed at her son, face alight with pride and delight in his achievements; she reached forwards to pick him up and cuddle him against her breast, pressing her lips against his dark curls. The baby chucked and grasped her fashionable ringlets with small but ruthless fingers.

  It was a scene to entrance even the hardest of heart.

  Then the lady looked round at the opening of the door.

  ‘Eleanor! I though we would find you here,’ Nicholas began. ‘Can I introduce you…’

  The tension in the room was suddenly palpable. It tightened, brittle as wire, sharp as a duelling sword, in the space of a heartbeat. The kitten arched in miniature and silent fury at the appearance of the inquisitive spaniel. The newly widowed Marchioness of Burford, always pale of complexion, became paper white, expressive eyebrows arched, eyes widening with shock, as they fixed on the gentlemen at the door. Her smile of delight for her baby vanished, leaving her still and wary. Lord Henry Faringdon simply froze on the spot, every sense coated in ice, spine rigid. His breath backed up in his lungs.

  Nicholas looked from Eleanor to Hal and back again. What in the Devil’s name was wrong here? He had no idea.

  For an endless moment Nicholas stood uncertain between the two, his introduction brought to an abrupt and uncomfortable halt. He looked towards Eleanor where she still knelt on the rug for some illumination, brows raised. Once pale, her face was now flushed with bright colour, but he could not read the expression that flitted momentarily across her expressive features. Embarrassment? Perhaps. A flash of anger? But that seemed unlikely in the circumstances. It did not seem to Nicholas that it was grief. There was no enlightenment to be had here.

  Meanwhile Hal, he noted, had no expression at all! His face was shuttered, unreadable, his eyes hooded, an expression Nicholas recognised with a touch of trepidation from their childhood and adolescence. His brother was a past master at disguising his thoughts and feelings if he chose to do so and could quickly retreat into icy hauteur. His lips were now firmly compressed. If he had been about to say something on his entrance, he had clearly changed his mind. He continued to stand, rooted to the spot, the open door at his back.

  Nicholas gave up and, for better or worse, completed the formal introduction.

  ‘Eleanor. You must know that this is my brother, Henry. He received our sad news at last and is come to… Well, he is here, for which I am relieved.’ The bland stare from the Marchioness gave him no encouragement to continue. Hal’s enigmatic silence was no better. ‘Hal…this is Eleanor, Thomas’s wife.’

  The silence stretched. The tension held.

  Then good manners reasserted themselves as if an invisible curtain had been lifted. The lady placed the child back on the rug and rose to her feet with graceful composure, shaking out her ruffled skirts. Hal walked forward and bowed as the lady executed a neat curtsy and extended her hand in dignified welcome. He took it and raised it to his lips. All formal courtesy, appropriate to the occasion, all social graces smoothly applied. So why did Nicholas still feel that the banked emotion in the room could explode at any moment and shatter them to pieces?

  ‘My lady. I am pleased to make your acquaintance, but I regret the occasion. May I express my condolences. Your loss must be very great, as is mine.’

  ‘Thank you, my lord. Your good wishes are most acceptable. I miss your brother sorely. You must know that I have received all possible support and kindness from your family.’

  All that was proper was expressed with cool, precise formality.

  But it was all wrong.

  At their feet the child, tired of the red ball and lack of attention, began to fret and whimper. The lady immediately stooped and lifted him.

  ‘This is Thomas’s son.’ The Marchioness turned the baby in her arms towards the visitors.

  Against his will Henry was drawn to approach the child. The Faringdon line had bred true again. The infant had thick, dark curls, which would probably straighten with age. And one day when the chubbiness of babyhood had passed, he would have the fine straight nose and sharply defined cheekbones of his father. Already the dark brows were clear, arching with ridiculous elegance in the infant face. But the eyes. They were not true. They were hers, his mother’s. As clear as the finest glass, as luminous as costly amethysts. The baby smiled and crowed at the attention, stretching out a hand to the newcomer. He had a dimple, Hal noticed inconsequentially as he allowed the baby to grasp his own fingers, smiling against all his intentions as they were promptly gnawed by tender gums.

  ‘His name?’ Henry had his voice well in hand.

  ‘Thomas.’ Eleanor did not. Her voice broke a little. ‘He is named for his father.’

  Henry stroked the baby’s soft hair, his grief for his dead brother swelling in his chest.

  Eleanor immediately stepped back with the child, putting a subtle distance between them. ‘Forgive me—I am a little over-wrought and the baby will be tired and hungry. If you will excuse me, I will take him to the nursery.’

  She turned away abruptly, never once allowing her eyes to meet Lord Henry’s, and began to walk towards the door.

  ‘My lady.’ Henry’s words stopped her, but she did not turn to face them as if the open door was a much-desired means of escape. ‘I would request a meeting with you. A matter of business, you understand, as a trustee of the estate.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘In an hour, perhaps, if that is to your convenience. In the library.’

  ‘Of course,’ she repeated. ‘An hour.’

  The Marchioness left the room, taking the child with her.

  Lord Henry’s eyes never left her until her slim figure turned the corner round the sweep of the main staircase.

  It was one of the longest hours of the Marchioness of Burford’s life.

  After leaving her son with a doting nurserymaid, she paced the fine Aubusson carpet in the library, oblivious to the splendour and comfort around her. The richness of the tapestries that glowed against the panelled wood left her unmoved. The leather bindings of the books with their gold and red tooling might be sumptuous, but failed to catch her eye. The polished oak furniture, well loved by generations of the Faringdon family, went unnoticed. Nor could she sit, not even in a sunny window seat with its view of woods and distant hills and the parterre which she herself was in the process of planting. Nervous tension balled in her stomach. She felt cold, yet her hands were clammy with sweat, even as she wiped them surreptitiously down her black silken skirts.

  She had dreaded this meeting, fully aware that it could happen—was almost inevitable to happen—at some time in the future. But she had hoped, prayed even, that it would never come about. Or be so far into the future distance that painful memories would have faded, emotions stilled. And she had deliberately closed her mind to the consequences. But when she had looked up to see him in the doorway, tall and
dark and magnificent, it was as if all time had been obliterated. Her heart had leapt. Her pulse quickened and raced before she had sternly reminded herself of the events of the past.

  And as she remembered again now, anger flared, all-consuming, raging through her veins so that she trembled with the force of it. He would receive no welcome here from her.

  But what would she say to him? Or he to her? On a thought she realised that he was just as shocked as she, more so since he had apparently been unaware of her marriage. At least she had known of the possibility of this meeting and had been able to prepare. From the immediate tensing of his whole body on setting eyes on her, as if facing the barrels of a shotgun, he had been stunned.

  She laughed with bitter eyes at her own predicament. You are a fool. You were not prepared at all. It took your breath away to see him again!

  But now she had her own secrets to keep, whatever her personal inclination in the matter. She took a deep breath to steady her nerves. There was no room for guilt here. She would keep those secrets until the day she died. The only one who had shared them with her, who had understood their significance, was now dead, and she would keep faith with the vows made.

  Eleanor set her mind to rule her heart.

  When he came to her she was ready, standing before the long window, composed, confident, a glossy layer of sophistication. She would hold this interview on her own terms as Marchioness of Burford.

  He closed the door softly, advanced and stood for a moment. They might have been strangers, distant acquaintances at the most, except that at least then he might have put himself out to be sociable. As it was he looked at her with apparent indifference in his cold grey eyes and the stern set of his mouth.

  And surveyed her in a detailed assessment from head to foot with an arrogance that chilled her blood.

  How right Nicholas had been, he thought. The Marchioness was not pretty. He had forgotten how very beautiful she was. Heart-stoppingly so. All that glossy brown hair with its autumnal tints, caught up in fashionable ringlets. Any red-blooded man would dream of unpinning it, of allowing it to curl in his hands or against his lips. He remembered exactly how it had felt. Her perfect oval face with straight nose and sculpted lips was lovely indeed. Calm and translucent as a Renaissance Madonna—until he looked at her eyes. Amethyst fire, fringed with dark lashes, and at this moment blazing with temper and wilful determination. Here was no simpering miss, he acknowledged. The pretty and naïve debutante of his memory had vanished for ever. She was tall. Taller than he had remembered, the crown of her head reaching well past his shoulder. And the black gown, extravagantly fashionable, complimented her elegant figure and the natural cream of her complexion. Assured and polished, she had grown into her new status since he had known her as Miss Eleanor Stamford. His brother had indeed shown excellent taste in his choice of bride.

  Eleanor found herself flushing under the sustained regard. It had the whip of an insult and she raised her chin against it but she would not retaliate. She would not!

  The silence between them had lasted too long for social correctness. But when the lady almost felt compelled to break it, it was he who did so.

  ‘My Lady Burford. I believe that you deserve my congratulations as well as my condolences.’ He bowed with cold grace. Another calculated insult. ‘At least I now know the answer to one of the many unsolved mysteries of this world! I have clearly been lacking in my understanding of the driving ambition of some of the members of your sex. I realise that with any real understanding of human nature, I should have been able to work it out for myself.’

  ‘My lord?’

  ‘You look surprised, my dear Eleanor.’ Lord Henry’s smile was an essay in contempt. ‘It is simply that I now find it perfectly plain why you chose not to respond to my offer of marriage, in spite of your previous…shall I say, encouragement of my suit. You had your sights set on a far bigger and more important fish in your small pond. And a far richer one.’ The slick of disdain could not quite disguise the underlying pain, but the words had the bite of a lash. ‘I could obviously offer you nothing in comparison. I am sorry that my brother’s death has caused all your planning to go awry, my lady! As widow of the Marquis of Burford, your social position will be far less glamorous than you had plotted and planned for—if my brother had had the consideration to live.’

  Eleanor found herself unexpectedly speechless.

  Whatever she had expected him to say, whatever tone she had expected him to use towards her, it was certainly not this.

  ‘I do not understand. You will have to speak more plainly, my lord.’ Eleanor managed with an effort of will to keep her response cool, with none of the confused bewilderment that resulted from his words.

  ‘I admire your composure,’ he continued in the same conversational tone, ‘but of course you must have anticipated that we would meet again at some point, given the family connection. Unlike myself, who had no notion of what you had achieved in my absence. Did you perhaps expect me to have the supreme good manners not to mention our past dealings? To behave as if nothing untoward had occurred?’

  Eleanor reconstructed her thoughts with a little shake of her head, trying to ignore the heavy sarcasm.

  ‘An offer of marriage, you say? You promised marriage, certainly. And I believed you. But I never received such an offer. It appeared that you had changed your mind.’ She held him in that clear gaze, willing him to deny her challenge. ‘I could wish that you had been sensitive enough to inform me of it. Instead you left me, left the country. No word, no explanation. Nothing. I was forced to learn of your departure from elsewhere. I admit, my lord, I had expected better treatment at your hands.’

  ‘You have a short memory, my lady.’ He was implacable in his response.

  ‘I have an excellent memory, my lord! I expected to hear from you. You promised that you would write when you had arranged your passage.’ Eleanor could hear her voice rising as the past flooded back and she fought hard to keep it controlled. ‘And then I was left to learn that you had sailed. To America. With no intention to return in the near future. You obviously had no thought for me at all.’

  ‘I sent you a letter. Telling you when I would sail. Asking you to join me as we had discussed. I gave you time and place.’ Lord Henry turned from her to stand before the fireplace, the distance between them a little greater. She was so lovely with the sun gilding her hair in an iconic halo. It would be so easy to believe her. And so disastrous if he allowed himself to do so. Besides, he knew that she lied. He clenched his jaw. ‘Don’t deny it. I know the message was delivered to your home. The groom I paid to do it confirmed the delivery.’

  ‘I received no such letter.’

  ‘It would certainly be more comfortable for you to hold to that fact, would it not, dear Eleanor?’ Lord Henry struggled to keep his tone flat, conversational even. ‘I would be the first to agree that such problems arise. It is quite possible for letters to go astray, as I discovered only a few hours ago. After all, I had absolutely no knowledge of Thomas’s marriage to you until Nicholas broke the news in the gun room. And yet Thomas had certainly written to inform me of the happy event.’ He picked up a fragile porcelain figure of a shepherdess and lamb from the mantelpiece, contemplated for the barest second smashing it on the hearth, replaced it gently with the utmost control in exactly the same spot. ‘But I know without any shadow of doubt that my letter was delivered to you, allowing you all the time you would need to join me at the vessel. My messenger was most reliable, as you could imagine for so important a delivery.’

  ‘Such a letter, if it ever existed, never reached my hands.’ She could find nothing other to say in her own defence.

  Lord Henry shrugged, a gesture of cynical disbelief. ‘If you insist on holding to that, my lady… Tell me. Did you know my brother before I left, or did you wait until I had gone before you put yourself in his way?’

  ‘I…’ She could not believe that he had actually said that—that he could think so little of he
r!

  ‘It would not be very difficult to lure Thomas into marriage,’ he continued to taunt her. ‘You have a beautiful face, as I know to my cost. And my brother found it easy to trust those he liked.’

  ‘I never lured Thomas!’ How could the man whom she had once loved more than life itself be so deliberately vindictive?

  ‘No? But he offered you marriage.’

  ‘Yes. He did.’

  ‘I expect your lady mother was delighted. Your family might be respectable enough, but you had hardly been groomed for the role of Marchioness.’ He lifted a hand to sweep the room in an expansive gesture. ‘And here you are, mistress of Burford Hall, a town house in the most fashionable part of London and a hunting lodge in Leicestershire. Quite a killing, my lady.’

  ‘Of course. It was more than I could ever have dreamed of.’ A frown marred her forehead as she attempted to catch his meaning.

  ‘You must have been astounded at your good fortune. A Marquis as rich as Solomon in all his glory. Instead of a younger son with uncomfortably Republican leanings and an inclination to make his own way in the colonies.’

  So! He thought she had callously rejected him in the interest of wealth and social position. She caught her breath at the injustice of the veiled accusation and stepped towards him with an unconcealed passion.

  ‘I would have risked everything to go with you if you had told me!’ Her hands curled into fists, at odds with her feminine appearance. ‘My home, my family. I would have followed you anywhere. How can you possibly doubt that?’

  Lord Henry raised his brows in eloquent disbelief.