The Outrageous Belle Marchmain

by Lucy Ashford

  He blinked. He gave a bow. ‘My fiancée, to be precise. My carriage is waiting, Mrs Marchmain’ was all he said.

  She fluttered her dark eyelashes and put her hands on her hips. ‘So you’re going to show me round this big, fancy house you told me about? I declare, I cannot wait. But how I do happer on; you must tell me if my conversation is too much for you, Mr D.’

  ‘Happer on?’ he echoed, frowning.

  ‘It’s what they say in Somerset for someone who is a chatterbox. I can rattle away at quite a rate, you see.’

  His jaw set, he held out his arm to lead her to his carriage.

  It was a fine, warm day. And this time, she realised, he’d brought his open barouche, with a liveried coachman at the reins; it was even showier than yesterday’s vehicle.

  He said, as he helped her in, ‘I want to make very sure we’re noticed together. Clearly you’ve had the same notion.’

  Belle glanced down at her dazzling attire—they would be noticed all right. ‘Oh, gracious, Mr D.,’ she simpered, ‘I do declare, you’re making my head spin with your flattery.’ She crammed on her tall-crowned pink hat with its festoons of ribbons.

  Mr Davenant jumped in after her and told his coachman to drive on.

  * * *

  The journey shouldn’t have taken long, but at the corner of St James’s Street and Piccadilly the traffic had come to a standstill because of some altercation between a dray and a hackney-cab driver. Adam’s coachman was forced to hold in his fine bays while around them the occupants of other stationary carriages gazed around and grumbled—until they espied Adam with his new companion.

  Belle could almost believe that the wretched man had arranged this.

  A barouche had been forced to a halt just behind them. It contained two men and three fashionably dressed women who, irritated by the delay, were casting around them for a topic to relieve the tedium.

  It didn’t take long for them to find it.

  ‘Look just there, in that carriage ahead of us,’ murmured one of the women. ‘That’s surely the handsome Mr Davenant, with—who would have guessed it?—with Mrs Marchmain, the little modiste from the Strand! Goodness, have you ever seen such a very loud gown and bonnet? Quite outrageous, especially as I’ve heard she was once of good family...’

  Belle trembled, a flush of anger spreading up from her throat to her cheeks. Adam was still looking straight ahead, as though he hadn’t heard them.

  ‘Of good family?’ the chattering went on behind them. ‘Really, my dear?’

  ‘Would you believe, her mother was niece to the Duke of Sutherland?’

  ‘Goodness! So perhaps Davenant hasn’t entirely lost his wits in taking her up?’

  ‘Taking her up? That’s the least of it. They are to announce a betrothal any day, I hear! The little modiste must have quite a few tricks up her sleeve.’

  ‘Or up her skirts,’ edged in one of the men, sniggering.

  Adam’s strong hand was suddenly on Belle’s. ‘Take no notice whatsoever. Smile up at me and pretend we’re having an amicable conversation.’

  She shrugged. ‘I warn you, Mr Davenant. This is just the start. You are going to find my company embarrassing, I assure you.’

  ‘Embarrassing? Good God, not in the slightest,’ he said calmly.

  She gave her most glittering smile and tilted her chin. ‘Then I shall have to work a little harder, shan’t I?’

  He bent his head low and murmured enticingly, ‘Do your worst, Mrs Marchmain.’

  Oh, my. The way he looked at her, with his dark head a little on one side and his eyes, slate-grey beneath those dark arched brows, crinkling with amusement. It made her lungs ache with the need for air. If she’d been standing, her legs would have given way.

  Ahead the traffic blockage was easing, but they were still some way from the quieter streets of Mayfair. Adam’s hand briefly tightened on hers. ‘Remember we’re supposed to be in love,’ he said. Then he leaned forwards, to give new instructions to his coachman.

  In love. Belle sank back against the seat and suddenly she was overwhelmed by memories.

  * * *

  When Belle was seventeen Aunt Mildred had agreed to take her to a summer gala night at Bath’s Sydney Gardens, and Belle had been so looking forward to the illuminations and the music. But her delight had quickly faded when she became aware that she was dressed quite wrongly for the evening.

  All the other girls—some of them her old school friends from the Bath seminary—were clad in delightfully wispy muslin gowns with fluttering white ribbons in their carefully curled hair. Belle wore a dress insisted on by Aunt Mildred, made of dull lavender silk and perhaps ten years out of fashion, with her hair scraped back in a bun.

  She’d wanted to sink through the floor as the other girls giggled and stared.

  Two weeks later she’d asked Aunt Mildred if she could go again. Her aunt had frowned at the frivolity of two outings within a month, but Uncle Philip had peered at Belle over his spectacles and said, ‘Why not? Heaven knows the girl needs preparation for her London come-out next year. She has to marry well—she has no other future.’

  That time as they travelled to the Sydney Gardens Belle kept herself well cloaked-up, and only when they were there did she reveal what she’d done to her old silk dress. She’d altered seams to tighten the fit over her slender waist and hips. She’d lowered the neckline and cut off the unfashionably long sleeves to remake them into little puff ones. She’d sewn on some white satin ribbons which brought the lavender gown to life.

  That afternoon she’d cajoled a housemaid into arranging her thick dark curls in a pretty cascade, all hidden from Aunt Mildred’s inspection until they’d reached their destination and Belle handed her drab bonnet and cloak to a footman.

  Aunt Mildred was horrified. Belle was the envy of all the girls there and was surrounded by young men. And that night, she fell in love with Captain Harry Marchmain.

  * * *

  ‘We’re there,’ Adam Davenant’s deep voice said in her ear.

  She jumped. ‘So—so soon?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  They were outside a tall, elegant house. As they climbed the steps a manservant clad in black was there to greet them almost immediately.

  ‘This is Mrs Marchmain, Lennox,’ Adam said to him. ‘Mrs Marchmain—my steward.’

  ‘Mr Lennox!’ Belle beamed at him. ‘My, what a delight to meet you!’

  Lennox was well trained; there was not a flicker of surprise in his eyes at her gaudy apparel as he bowed his head.

  Then Lennox retreated and Davenant began to show her round himself. Every so often he stopped, his eyebrows raised quizzically. ‘I’m waiting for your objections,’ he said.

  ‘Heavens above, I’m flummoxed! Give me time, Mr Davenant,’ she answered in a merry Somerset lilt, pointing a jaunty finger at him.

  But her heart was beating rather fast. This place was—exquisite. It was light, airy and spacious. Everywhere smelled newly polished; the brass and the woodwork gleamed. There must be servants galore under Lennox’s direction; she saw them in the distance occasionally. All employed to maintain the house where Davenant kept his mistresses and where he intended to get his revenge.

  A faint headache throbbed at her temples. She was feeling tired and somewhat daunted; a feeling not helped by the fact that Davenant once more looked remote, and forbidding, and utterly male.

  She swallowed quickly on the sudden dryness in her throat as he turned round while leading her up the stairs and caught her staring at him. ‘It’s delightful, Mr D.,’ Belle declared, looking around. ‘Such a pretty abode.’

  He was watching her carefully, his eyes assessing her. ‘I sense a “but” on its way. I sense that pretty is not what Mrs Marchmain requires.’

  ‘Lawks, Mr D.,’ she announced with a sigh, following him airily into the first-floor drawing room, ‘you’ve certainly hit the nail on the head.’

  ‘I have?’

  ‘Well, of course! These f
urnishings are hideously insipid, I fear. Pastels and beiges—the word “dowdy” doesn’t begin to cover it, I’m sure you’ll agree. This, this and this—’ she swept her hand at various pieces of expensive furniture ‘—will have to go. I rather favour raspberry pink and lime green this season, you see.’ She gestured at her own bold costume.

  Not one muscle of his handsome face flickered. He said calmly, ‘Raspberry pink and lime green it is.’

  ‘And the overall theme must be Egyptian, of course,’ she declared with sudden inspiration. ‘I think the Egyptian style so—ennobling, don’t you, Mr D.? Ah, the glories of a bygone age! So we will need plenty of black marble and gilding. And sphinxes—yes, I have my mind absolutely set on sphinxes.’

  ‘Do what the deuce you like, Mrs Marchmain. Speak to Lennox and he’ll tell the tradesmen to send the bills to me.’

  Belle blinked. Then—a little faintly—‘No financial limit?’

  He shrugged. ‘Spend as much of my filthy lucre as you like. Though I must admit I draw the line a little at livestock.’

  His turn to take her by surprise. ‘L-livestock?’

  ‘Caged birds. Lapdogs and the like,’ he answered. Just then Lennox appeared to ask if anything was needed and Adam said to him, ‘Mrs Marchmain will require some refurbishments to the place, Lennox. You will, perhaps, draw up for her a list of tradespeople to whom she might like to give her instructions.’

  ‘Of course, sir.’ Lennox gave Belle a stiff bow, and Belle felt her stomach lurch with despair. He looked so disapproving...

  ‘Lawks a mercy, Mr D.,’ simpered Belle, ‘I have heard that amongst the ton, you know, it is the latest thing to have all one’s servants dressed in purple.’

  Lennox almost choked; Davenant’s dark eyebrows shot up. ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh, yes! Black is so boring. Like having dozens of gramfers crawling around one’s house.’

  Lennox looked horrified. ‘Gramfers?’ echoed Adam.

  ‘Woodlice, Adam dearest. La, I thought you knew your Somerset!’

  Adam Davenant never batted an eyelid. ‘I will consider the matter.’ He turned to his steward. ‘We’ll take tea in the ground-floor salon in ten minutes, Lennox, thank you.’

  Lennox looked as if he was about to have an apoplexy as he made his way rather dazedly to the door. Belle mentally apologised to the poor man, then turned brightly back to Adam. ‘Well? Are you going to show me the rest of my new residence, Mr D.?’

  * * *

  Really, the house was faultless. She’d been in many fashionable homes, but this was simply exquisite. She followed Davenant around in a state of rather helpless awe, though whenever he turned to her, she would wrinkle her nose in a frown and point, wagging her finger. ‘I do declare, Mr D., we need brighter colours here—a touch of orange, I think—and oh, Lady Cattermole has some Egyptian-style onyx tables in her parlour and I am so wildly jealous of them, you know.’

  ‘There’s a sale of Egyptian antiquities at Christie’s tomorrow afternoon,’ he said. ‘I’ll arrange for you to attend.’

  Yet again Belle was dumbfounded by this man’s tolerance. She was behaving ridiculously. Monstrously. Why on earth was he putting up with her whims?

  Rather dismayingly, Belle reminded herself that she knew the answer. He was a powerful, a clever man. He was waging a ruthless campaign against her, her brother and, she suspected, the whole of the fashionable world that had once dared to question his right to occupy his place in the upper strata of society.

  She jutted her chin. Yes, he was using her—but she would make sure he regretted it.

  * * *

  It was easy, of course, to keep up the image she’d chosen to project while he was showing her round the house. In every room Belle flounced about, excited, silly, preposterous. She was momentarily floored when he led her into the bedroom—oh, goodness, the size of that luxurious bed, with all its cream-silk hangings—but she very quickly regained her composure by criticising the lack of colour in the expensive curtains at the windows and the dullness of the priceless Aubusson rug.

  It was not quite so easy to maintain her frivolous mask when they retired to the exquisitely furnished salon. Poor Lennox had brought teapot and cups and also put coal on the fire; he glanced at Belle rather nervously on his way out, as if expecting her to demand that he dress himself in purple livery that very minute.

  As the door closed behind Lennox Davenant sat in one of the satin-upholstered chairs and stretched out his long, booted legs. ‘Do you mind pouring?’ he asked Belle.

  ‘Not at all.’ She just hoped her hands wouldn’t shake. ‘Oh, my, this is all so exciting.’ She pointed at the piano in the corner. ‘Just to think—of an evening, as your fiancée, I suppose you will require me to entertain you by playing that piano, or singing, or some such delightful pursuit. I declare I cannot wait!’

  ‘Then I must inform you that no musical duties will be required. You see, I’m tone deaf.’

  ‘In that case, Mr Davenant,’ she declared brightly, thrusting his cup of tea at him, ‘I could play a hand or two at piquet with you. What fun that will be!’

  ‘It won’t,’ said Davenant. ‘One gambler in the family is enough.’

  Oh, no. Trust her to walk straight into that one. Damn the man and his superiority.

  ‘Well,’ he went on, ‘now that it’s just the two of us, Mrs Marchmain, can you tell me why you’ve been prattling like a drunken parrot for the last hour or so?’

  Belle had just lifted her own tea to her lips. She put the cup down, too hastily; it shook in its saucer. ‘Why, Mr D.—’

  He cut in, ‘If you’re hoping to make me regret our temporary betrothal, then I assure you, you’ll fail. I’ve explained to you quite clearly that I’m going to make use of your presence here to protect me from the marriage-hunters, so you might as well stop wearing yourself out with your inane chatter. And for God’s sake, stop calling me Mr D.’

  Belle had gone rather pale.

  ‘And if you’re intent on putting me off bedding you,’ he went on, ‘then let me remind you that I’m not going to touch you unless you beg me to.’ And then I’ll think twice about it.

  Belle squared her shoulders. ‘You will see me in hell first, Mr Davenant!’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ he said irritably, ‘stop behaving like some third-rate actress.’ He took his tea cup. ‘My God, anybody would think I was about to subject you to a torture chamber at the very least.’

  Belle wasn’t thinking of a torture chamber. She was remembering that kiss; unwise, because she was just putting down her own cup and missed the saucer so some of the hot liquid spilled on the table.

  Davenant was on his feet. ‘I will ring for one of the maids.’

  ‘No. Please,’ she said rather desperately. ‘They will think me so stupid...’

  He eyed her sharply. ‘Then I’ll fetch a cloth myself. Mrs Marchmain, you are perhaps finding all this more difficult than you thought.’

  ‘No,’ she said quickly. Edward’s debts. Oh, Lord, Edward’s debts. ‘No. Please. After all—we both of us know this is only a matter of convenience, don’t we? And my brother—he will want, I am sure, to find some way in the very near future to pay back his gambling debts to you—’

  ‘Your brother hasn’t a hope in hell of paying me back,’ Davenant broke in curtly. He made for the door again. ‘That cloth. I’ll be back in a moment.’

  She settled her cup back in its saucer, but her fingers were still trembling.

  * * *

  You’ll marry again before too long, people had said. You must. So very tragic, but you’ve your life ahead of you...

  No, had been her reply. No, I’ll never marry again. Not ever.

  Now she shivered, alone in the grandeur of that lovely house. Oh, God, she ought to be honest. She ought to say, Mr Davenant, I thought I could play this game, but I find that I cannot.

  He was coming back in with a cloth in his hand, which he used to blot the tea neatly from the table.
Then he said, ‘Mrs Marchmain, unless I’m very much mistaken, you’re about to spill more of that tea all over your gown, which would be a great pity.’ Smoothly he moved her cup away from her side of the table.

  ‘You mean—you actually like my outfit?’ Earlier Lennox had taken her pelisse and bonnet, leaving her clad in a pink-muslin walking dress with long sleeves and copious cherry-coloured flounces.

  He ran his eye over her as he returned to his chair and sat down. ‘Very much so. But if you’re hoping to disguise your charms, you’re utterly mistaken. If anything, it enhances them.’

  She was looking down at herself in dismay. ‘How—what do you mean?’

  ‘The fabric of your gown might be all-concealing, but it’s nevertheless rather thin. You were cold, I think—fashed, as you’d say in Somerset—just now.’

  Belle’s eyes shot down to her breasts. Saw them peaking beneath the fine muslin, the nipples prominent... Oh, Lord. Resisting the urge to fling her arms across them, she sat very straight and said quietly, ‘You are hateful to remark upon something so personal.’

  ‘Just trying to help.’ He smiled his sleepy smile that did something rather strange to her insides.

  Belle said with icy sweetness, ‘Perhaps you’d like to choose my wardrobe for me, Mr Davenant?’

  ‘Whatever’s happened to your Somerset accent? And choose your wardrobe? Good God, no. You have a reputation as a leader of fashion. Live up to that. Surprise me.’

  She said bitterly, ‘It’s difficult for me to surprise you, since you know far too much about me and my brother already.’

  ‘About your brother, yes. But not you.’ His expression was suddenly grave. ‘Although I do know that your husband died in the war.’

  ‘He was killed at the Battle of Toulouse five years ago.’

  Adam remembered Lowell suggesting that she might still be mourning her husband. Dressed like that? Surely not. But he said, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s something many women have had to bear.’ She faced him without flinching, though just for a moment she’d looked vulnerable, almost afraid. ‘But you did not invite me here to talk about my past.’ She gave that forced smile again. ‘I suppose I ought to be making light gossip, about the latest play, or some such thing. Or flattering you, Mr Davenant...’ Her voice trailed away once more.