The Disgraced Marchioness

by Anne O'Brien

  ‘So I should hope.’ Nicholas punched his shoulder in mock disgust, thinking that Hal looked as if he had spent a night of torment. No doubt the result of his conversation with Eleanor on the previous morning, the content of which still remained a mystery to him. Both parties had been at dinner, but so scrupulously polite to each other that it had been painfully unnerving to watch and listen. Like the silent shattering of fragile glass. The atmosphere had then glittered with shards of that broken glass, lurking to slice at the unwary—he had been more than glad to escape and join a party of friends at the theatre. What Henry had done he did not know and dare not ask. Eleanor had stalked from the room as soon as the meal had ended, leaving Mrs Stamford to stare with puzzlement from one to the other.

  ‘So you are leaving me to manage the estate in your absence?’

  ‘Yes. You will have to work for a living, for the first time in your life.’ Henry put down his glass and took the seat behind his desk. ‘Seriously, Nick. Would you dislike it too much? If so, it is unfair of me to leave you with it.’

  ‘No. You know me better than that, Hal. There is nothing that I would like more. I have plans. When Tom inherits the estate in the fullness of time it will be a wonder to behold with sound investment. When he is older, I will see that he is up to scratch. He will not live off the estate, giving nothing back, if I have anything to say in the matter.’

  Hal’s answering smile was bleak. ‘I know that he is in good hands.’ My son. My son.

  ‘And I know that you would not want to take it on. For you to have been born the eldest son would have been the worst possible destiny for you.’ Nick grinned in some sympathy. ‘Whereas I enjoy the life as a country squire. I shall not be sorry to leave town.’

  Henry’s smile vanished, leaving his face harsh and strained. ‘Hoskins can be relied upon,’ was all he said. He frowned unseeingly out of the window, arms folded before him on the desk. That was the key, of course, to his disastrous confrontation with Eleanor. Nick’s comment that he would not ever want the title, the social hierarchy, the acceptance that the manner in which the world saw him should rest purely on an accident of birth. The idea that all men should have the same opportunities open to them, to construct a future for themselves dependent on their own efforts, suited him far better. And it was that which had pushed him over the edge. The title was legally his after the death of his brother, tying him into a social and class system that he was more than ready to escape. That, coupled with Edward Baxendale’s vicious accusation and Mrs Stamford’s determined and unseemly pleasure at the outcome, had driven him to heap the blame on Eleanor. As if she were responsible for chaining him to a life that he detested as much as Nick enjoyed.

  Not true. Of course it wasn’t true. He knew it in every sinew of his body, heard it in every beat of his heart. And what had he done? He had made her cry! Humiliated her. Questioned her morality and her veracity. He deserved to be flogged. To be damned to the fires of hell.

  It had not helped him when last night he had taken himself on an impulse to the baby’s room. An astonished nursemaid had looked up from her seat beside the fireplace where she was sewing some small item of clothing. She leapt to her feet as if to leave the room.

  ‘Don’t go. I just need a moment.’ A lifetime.

  He looked down into the crib.

  Hair, brows, nose—exact replicas of those that he saw every morning in his mirror. A sturdy frame that would become lithe and athletic. He would ride a horse with elegant grace. He would shoot with skill and accuracy. He would have dogs and horses as he grew from babyhood. He would look to Nicholas for his initiation into the rites and responsibilities of adolescence and adulthood. He would grow up not knowing his father.

  The baby opened his eyes. Deep amethyst, fringed with dark lashes.

  Henry held out his hand, drawn impossibly against his will to touch, to savour. The baby chuckled and clutched, delighted with the company, making contact in his small fist, drawing the offered fingers to his mouth to gnaw on them with half-formed teeth.

  Henry’s chest tightened, he found it difficult to swallow. His son. And Eleanor’s. Whom he had rejected.

  Oh, God!

  What could he possibly say to Eleanor? She had borne this beautiful child alone, without him. He mentally thanked Thomas from the bottom of his heart for coming to her salvation. Knowing his brother as he did, he understood exactly what Thomas had done and why he had done it. Married Eleanor to give her the shelter of his name and consequence, so that no one need know that she had borne a child without the protection of marriage vows, and his brother’s child would have all the benefits of being brought up as the Faringdon heir. Henry breathed hard against the flood of emotion that threatened to unman him, longing for that one impossible opportunity to tell Thomas of his gratitude.

  And he had accused Eleanor of treachery and betrayal, of luring Thomas into a marriage to satisfy her greed and ambition. Nothing could be further from the truth.

  But why had she not come to meet him, to join him on the voyage? If she had, their marriage would have legitimised the child and all the following complications would never have arisen. He would probably never know.

  He stroked his hand gently over his son’s hair, cupping his cheek, caressing the perfect fingers, the shell-like nails. Then turned and left the room, as quietly as he had come, with nothing resolved

  ‘Does Eleanor know?’ Nick broke into his uncomfortable musings, concerned for the stark misery in his brother’s eyes.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘Nothing of importance.’ Henry shrugged and switched his focus back to Nick, replacing the inscrutable mask. ‘Why?

  Well! Nicholas hesitated, remembering. That was one statement palpably untrue if Hal’s face, bleak with shock as he had exited the morning room after his conversation with Eleanor, was anything to go by. But should he interfere further? ‘Nothing. Just that I had thought that you were not…not indifferent to each other.’ Nicholas made his decision, for better or worse, and came to sit opposite the desk, to fix Hal with a stern expression. ‘To put it bluntly, I had thought that you were more than half in love with her. That is, until whatever passed between the two of you yesterday afternoon in the morning room.’ He waited the space of a heartbeat, seeing the shutters come down on any emotion in his brother’s face. ‘You are free to deny any or all of it if you wish, of course.’

  ‘Ha! I wish I were free.’ The words were wrung from Henry.

  ‘What should I understand by that?’

  ‘Nothing! Nothing at all!.’ Hal sighed and drove his fingers through his hair. ‘Yes, I love her. Of course I do. How can I deny it? I love her and I always will, even though I have hurt her beyond belief.’

  ‘So why are you leaving her? Have you told her that you love her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I also thought Nell loved you. Is it because she is Thomas’s widow that you have not spoken? I don’t see that it has any bearing on your feelings for her or hers for you.’ He frowned as he remembered their previous conversation. ‘Is that why you asked me if theirs had been a love match?’

  ‘Not really. There were other reasons at the time… But I have destroyed any hope of her love,’ Hal answered quietly. ‘She will never forgive me.’

  ‘It can’t be as bad as that.’

  ‘It can—you have no idea!’ I questioned the birth of her child. I accused her of every sin possible. I humiliated her.

  ‘Are you going to tell me?’

  ‘No. My feelings do not matter. Her life is here with the child. I have nothing to offer her. And—you cannot have thought…’ Hal’s face was bleak indeed ‘…there can never be any future between myself and Eleanor of that nature that has the blessing of the law. The church, little brother, in its infinite wisdom, denies the right of a man to marry his brother’s widow.’

  ‘I did not know…’

  ‘Oh, we could find a minister easily enough, who would turn a
blind eye and commit the deed. Particularly if we greased his hand with sufficient gold. Perhaps even the Reverend Julius Broughton could be persuaded on such terms!’ His laugh was a harsh travesty. ‘But anyone with ill intent or outraged morality could have such a union declared null and void. Imagine the scandal that would create! I will not do it, even if Eleanor would contemplate such a relationship between us. Which she would not, not after…’ He shook his head and lapsed into silence.

  ‘I see. I had not thought of that.’ Nicholas decided to leap into the yawning chasm of Henry’s reticence, to risk an outbreak of the banked temper in his brother’s eyes. It would not be the first time that he had pushed and provoked until he had goaded his brother into disclosing what was on his mind. He might risk a firm and horribly accurate straight right to the jaw—a not infrequent retaliation in childhood when tempers had run high—but Nicholas was quite capable of holding his own, and it would be worth it if he could draw some of the pain from Hal’s set expression.

  ‘Look, Hal. I am not blind. To put it bluntly, the love between the two of you is as clear as a rising hawk at noonday. It shimmers between you when you are together in the same room.’ He saw the glint of denial leap into his brother’s eyes and stretched out a hand across the desk to grasp his wrist in strong fingers. ‘Don’t bother to deny it. She is as much in thrall as you. Why not simply take her with you? Marry her in New York where the family connection is not a matter of public knowledge. Surely it is better than committing yourselves to a lifetime of misery apart?’ He hesitated, tensed his shoulders. He might as well say it. ‘Do you have to be so damned noble?’

  ‘Noble?’ The icy flash in Henry’s eyes heralded the expected eruption of passion. He snatched his wrist from Nick’s light grasp, surged to his feet and strode to the window, his back turned against his brother’s sharp gaze. ‘Noble! Never that. This all started with an act of supreme selfishness on my part. Don’t speak to me of nobility.’

  Nick opened his mouth to ask his meaning, but did not. Too personal. Too painful. And perhaps, watching the unfolding events of the past days, he could guess at one of the problems which beset the two people he loved most. Hal could easily be Tom’s father. But Hal would be protective of Nell and the child to the bitter end. It would be insensitive in the extreme for Nick to press him for an answer.

  ‘I must not risk dragging Nell’s name through the mire again. I won’t do it, Nick. She will be safe here, with all due respect and honour. I know that you will care for her.’

  ‘Of course.’ His brother’s anguish tightened cruel fingers in his gut. ‘Are you indeed quite certain, Hal?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You know your own affairs, I suppose.’ Nicholas looked dubious but realised that he would get nothing more from his brother. Whatever had been said between Hal and Eleanor on the previous day was having a dire and lasting effect.

  ‘Yes. I do. I shall leave for Liverpool in two days.’ Henry strode to the door, opened it, thus bringing the conversation to an end.

  And then I need never see her again!

  As Lord Henry was engaged in deflecting his brother’s interest and planning his future without Eleanor, the Marchioness of Burford was spending the day with a martial glint in her eye. Her mood alternated wildly between intense hurt and intense fury, the latter being in the ascendant. Sparkling anger ran through her veins, intoxicating in its effect, instilling her with magnificent energy. She railed silently at the pig-headedness and insensitivity of all men, and Lord Henry Faringdon in particular. So! She had lied to him, lied to Thomas, had she? How dare he accuse her of such perfidy—and without one scrap of evidence? How dare he believe that she had acquired wealth and a title through a devious and unscrupulous manipulation of Thomas? What had she done to deserve such an attack? Not that she cared! And what could possibly have driven Lord Henry Faringdon to use such cruel taunts towards her? Not that she cared about that either! She did not want an explanation from him. Or an apology. Or anything at all, ever!

  Eleanor would not listen to the hurt of her broken heart. She would dearly like to break his lordship’s head instead, with a particularly ugly Sèvres vase which stood on the mantelpiece in her bedchamber. Except that it would be a waste of the vase.

  So she spent the day in a ferment of anger and bad temper. She contemplated throwing her breakfast cup of hot chocolate at the wall—except that Marcle would think that she had taken leave of her senses, as well as having to deal with the resulting sticky consequences. She thrust the pins to hold her curls in place with a savage turn of her wrist as if she were skewering Lord Henry’s vital organs. She even snapped at her mother in unusual temper. No. She did not wish to go to Hookham’s circulating library. If her mama wished to do so to exchange the latest offering from Walter Scott, then she must go alone. When Nicholas attempted to draw out the rigidly controlled lady by offering to escort her to eat ices at Gunter’s in Berkeley Square, he was met with a coldly formal refusal and a flash of amethyst eyes, hardly the reaction he had anticipated for such a compassionate gesture and such an agreeable way to spend a morning. Eleanor noted the surprise, but she would not feel guilt—not even the slightest twinge. Presumably all Faringdon men were similarly obtuse and insensitive as Lord Henry Faringdon! She informed Lord Nicholas, in similar style to her conversation with her mama, that if he did indeed wish to stroll through Mayfair on so trivial an errand, he was free to do so, but without her. She was sure that he could pass the time far more profitably without her assistance. And then she turned her back on his amazed stare, leaving Nicholas to consider that perhaps ices had not been the best offering for so glacial a lady. And relieved that he did not have to spend any length of time in her company until her usual good humour had been restored to her. Whenever that would be. He bowed and retreated in poor order.

  On meeting by chance Lord Henry himself, the chief culprit in the drama, Eleanor gratified him with an icy inclination of the head, the tiniest of movements, certainly one of her more effective set-downs, and then proceeded to walk past him into the parlour as if he were invisible, and closed the door in his face with considerable satisfaction.

  Still restless and with time hanging heavily, she took herself off to spend a pleasurable interlude with baby Tom in the nursery. But the infant was tired and fractious with teething. When denied his own way over the delicate but potentially dangerous issue of cuddling the grey kitten who had accompanied them from Burford Hall, he wailed and fussed, his cheeks flushed with frustration and damp with tears. His mama kissed him and mopped up the tears, with fruitless efforts to deflect Tom’s attention from his heart’s desire, until she shut the kitten out of the room. The baby eventually fell into an exhausted sleep after another outburst of heartrending sobs, leaving Eleanor with the cynical observation that he was entirely like his father, bad tempered when thwarted to any degree. But his father need not think that he would receive any such sympathy from her, she vowed, as she crooned a soothing lullaby to her son and smoothed his ruffled hair.

  By this time Eleanor felt the need to do something outrageous. She contemplated the possibilities with enjoyment. She could perhaps walk down St James’s Street without her maid, under the ogling eyes and raised quizzing glasses of the bucks and beaux of the Bow Window Set. An action of complete impropriety that would surely damn her utterly in the eyes of the polite world and ensure that no one would be willing to receive her. What did it matter? Lord Henry Faringdon had believed the worst of her even when she was innocent!

  The sooner Lord Henry Faringdon left these shores the better! Even if the rift in her heart throbbed with pain and widened a little further at the prospect!

  Perhaps she should stroll along Bond Street, she mused, toying with the light luncheon served by a wary Marcle, who was more than a little aware of the remarkable unpredictability of his mistress’s mood. She could fritter money extravagantly on any number of fashionable articles that she did not want and did not need. But perhaps not. In the end sh
e took herself off to the Countess of Painscastle’s at home where she regaled and entertained her hostess with a somewhat selective and censored account of the events of the previous day and her difference of opinion with Lord Henry. Judith’s instant sympathy was balm to Eleanor’s damaged soul, especially that lady’s willingness to rise to her defence against all men, in particular her hapless cousin, Lord Henry Faringdon.

  All in all, in spite of the satisfaction which she undoubtedly felt, it was one of the most exhausting days of Eleanor’s life.

  Later that same afternoon Henry returned from an equally exhausting visit in the company of Lady Beatrice Faringdon. She had insisted on hearing all the details of the Baxendale scandal, word for word, commenting at length and with much pride on her insight into that gentleman’s perfidious character, and equally that of the disgraced Reverend Julius Broughton. Henry felt wrung out and decidedly irritable. And so groaned inwardly when Mrs Stamford accosted him in the hall, obviously lying in wait for his return. He had had enough of managing females to last a lifetime.

  ‘I need to speak with you, my lord.’ She saw his reaction, his inclination to retreat, and knew that he would make an excuse. She stretched out a hand to touch his sleeve in unexpected intimacy, but her words were all formality. ‘Urgently, my lord. Or I would not trouble you.’

  ‘Very well, ma’am.’ They climbed the stairs, Henry wishing that he were anywhere but here, and he bowed the lady into the small parlour where a fire had been lit for his return.

  She looked at him as he walked past her into the room, shocked by the weariness that he could not hide.

  ‘I think I will ring for some tea. You look tired, my lord.’

  ‘If you wish.’ He would have much preferred a brandy, but it did not really matter. Nothing seemed to matter when he had so deliberately and callously broken Eleanor’s heart and refused to recognise his own son. Nothing else mattered at all in comparison.