The Marquis Takes a Bride

by M C Beaton

  Then she collected a long gardening cloak from a closet in the hall and made her way in the direction of the far side of the lake. She was glad she had rid herself of the diamonds, which would surely have advertised her presence to anyone watching from a distance.

  The faint sweet strains of a waltz floated on the warm, still air and Jennie remembered how, only that morning, she had dreamed of dancing just that waltz with Chemmy.

  It was odd going to meet Guy in this strangely new and sculptured garden. Even the lake had been cleared of its choking weed and rushes, and a new fishing pavilion gleamed whitely from a small island in the center.

  There was a little stand of alders at the far side where she and Guy had once shared their hopes and ambitions for the future. Jennie found a little of her fear and apprehension leaving her as she remembered Guy’s tanned and boyish face and all the happy sunny days of their youth they had spent together. Of course! Guy was simply annoyed she had not invited him to the ball and was playing a prank on her. How stupid she had been to be so upset and so frightened. She would tell Chemmy all about it as soon as she saw him and make him laugh.

  “Guy,” she whispered, standing in the shadow thrown by the stand of alders. “What game are you playing?” A tall black shadow moved slightly and then Guy materialized in the moonlight.

  All Jennie’s fears returned as she stared at his face. Gone was the Guy of her youth. A grim, white-faced Guy stood silently looking down at her, his eyes glittering in a strange way.

  “What is this all about?” said Jennie. “Please tell me it was a joke. Please tell me Chemmy is not trying to murder me.”

  “Chemmy is not trying to murder you,” said Guy with a grim note in his voice.

  “Oh!” cried Jennie feeling faint with relief. “Then why…?”

  “I am.”

  “What?” breathed Jennie. “You can’t mean…? Oh, Guy what a tease you are.”

  “But I am,” said Guy, moving closer to her. “Or rather, I have been trying rather half-heartedly to kill you. Our little friend of Vole Lane was not very successful, although I paid him in full for saying that Chemmy was responsible. Then I was so sure you would break your pretty neck riding. Ah, well. As I said, these weak attempts are over. I am about to dispatch you to your Maker.”

  “Why?” said Jennie, although she felt she already knew the answer.

  “Money,” said Guy. “That was my money, Jennie. I never thought for a minute that the old fool would leave all of it to you. I thought he would only leave some, and I thought if I ruined you by seducing you, he wouldn’t even leave you any.”

  Guy fell silent, studying her face. A series of bright pictures flashed through Jennie’s brain as she seemed to look back on a Jennie now gone forever. She saw herself clasped in Guy’s arms, she saw herself throwing a temper tantrum with her unheeding grandparents, wearing that dreadful wedding gown to make Chemmy angry, holding her breath, sighing for Guy one minute and burning up with jealousy for Alice Waring the next.

  The spoiled child that was Jennie vanished, leaving a mature young woman who was determined at all costs to live.

  “How shall you kill me?” asked Jennie, wondering that her voice should sound so calm.

  “I shall hold your face down in the lake,” said Guy. “When your body is found, they will have to assume that you wandered away from the ball and fell in.”

  “Chemmy will never believe that,” scoffed Jennie.

  “Probably not,” shrugged Guy. “But he cannot accuse me, for I have several loyal witnesses who will swear I was miles away at the time.”

  “What happened to change you, Guy?” pleaded Jennie. “Remember how much you loved me when we were children? If it is money you want, I shall give you plenty.”

  “I want it all,” said Guy flatly. “I am as fond of you, Jennie as I am of anyone… and that is not at all. I am the only person I care about, for I am the only person I can trust. The world is based on deceit and lies. If you want something, you take it, and if something or someone gets in your road, why, you simply step over them, even if you have to kill them in the process. No, don’t try to run away. I shall catch you easily.”

  Jennie stumbled backwards, catching her foot on a tree root, and fell headlong on the ground, next to the edge of the black lake.

  Faintly, oh so faintly, the jaunty waltz danced across the glassy surface of the water.

  Guy was quickly beside her. He twisted her arms behind her back and thrust her face forwards—down towards the water until she could smell the mud of the lake.

  Two large tears fell from her eyes and dripped down into the lake, sending little sparkling ripples curling and widening.

  Suddenly the ground beneath her began to shake with the sound of running feet. Guy released her and swung around.

  The Marquis, with Perry at his heels, was running full tilt towards him. “Oh, God,” Jennie heard Guy mutter, although it did not sound like a prayer.

  For one split second Guy stood still, watching the Marquis bearing down on him—the next, he was off and running.

  Jennie staggered to her feet and stood trembling. “Chemmy!” she cried weakly, “Oh, Chemmy.”

  Her slim figure swayed as she was engulfed with roaring waves of faintness. The Marquis caught her in his arms and shouted to Perry, who came running up behind him, “Get her to the house, Perry. I can handle this alone.”

  “Then run, man, run!” shouted Perry, “or you’re going to lose him!”

  Perry gently gathered Jennie in his arms as the Marquis ran off in full pursuit.

  Guy was running for his life. Chemmy was swift and incredibly light on his feet for so large a man, but fear was lending Guy wings. Guy ran on and on, trying to find his direction in an estate which seemed to have been changed completely from the shaggy wilderness he had once known.

  New, formal paths edged with shells ran off into strange directions and bewildering shrubbery. He plunged into the rose garden only to find it completely redesigned. With a panic-stricken oath he plunged straight through the bushes and trees, thorns slashing at his face and becoming embedded in his clothes.

  He crouched in a clump of bushes and kept very still, trying to control his breathing and peering around like a trapped animal.

  Then he saw his escape route as he recognized old familiar landmarks in the moonlight. He burst from cover and ran wildly out of the rose garden in the direction of the north lawn, on the other side of the house from the ball.

  He could hear Chemmy pounding after him, but now Guy knew his way.

  He plunged into the tortuous paths of the Home Wood which bordered the north lawn, his heart thudding against his ribs.

  Then he saw the wall.

  He knew that his horse was tethered on the other side.

  He was going to make it after all.

  Guy scrabbled to the top of the low wall, his hessians sliding on the thick moss.

  Good! His horses was on the other side. He reached down, untethered the reins and let them drop.

  Sure of escape, he balanced himself on the wall and looked back. Chemmy was just emerging, crashing out of the woods.

  Guy waved his hand in a mock salute and sprang lightly from the wall onto his horse.

  But the thorns from the rose garden, embedded in the tough buckskin of his breeches and trailing briars trapped in the tops of his boots, scratched down the sides of the animal’s flanks as his feet searched for the stirrups.

  The horse reared and plunged. Guy met one of the deaths he had planned for Jennie.

  His head struck against the stone coping of the wall with a sickening crack and then he slid down into the ditch like a discarded puppet.

  Chemmy hurled himself over the wall. Guy’s horse was still plunging.

  The moon in all its glory picked out the stark whiteness of Guy’s dead face as he lay in the ditch.

  The Marquis knelt down slowly beside him and looked down for a long time at the strangely young and innocent face of th
e dead Guy Chalmers.

  Then he heard Perry calling, rose to his feet and hailed his friend.

  “He’s dead,” he said bleakly, when Perry at last stood beside him. “It’s a good thing the Chief Magistrate and the Lord-Lieutenant of the county are guests. We can have this mess cleared up and tidied away before we go to sleep. Where is my wife?”

  “At the ball,” said Perry, staring down at Guy.

  “Good heavens!” said the Marquis. “We must go and get her away if it is not too late. She will be panicking the guests with tales of murder.”

  “Not she,” grinned Perry. “I never believed she would have so much courage. The minute she recovered she was all for running after you. I told her that she should go to the house and I would tell her guests she had been taken ill and that a scandal must be averted at all costs. Do you know what she said?” explained Perry admiringly. “She said, ‘Then if I cannot help my husband, I shall do all I can to avert any scandal. Don’t be concerned, I shall change and return to the bail as if nothing had happened.’ You can trust her, you know.”

  “I do not need to be told I can trust my own wife,” snapped the Marquis, angry because the niggling voice of conscience was telling him that he did need to be told.

  He felt suddenly immeasurably tired. “Let us go to the house, Perry,” he said, “and change into our evening clothes before we alert the Magistrate. We’ll get a couple of the servants to move the body to the harness room for the moment. Tell them Mr. Chalmers met with a riding accident. It’s only the truth after all. Dear God! To think we shall have to go through the farce of attending this young wastrel’s funeral and Jennie will have to wear mourning again.”

  The diamonds once more flashing on her head and around her neck, Jennie executed a Scottish reel, partnered by an exuberant guardee and thought numbly about nothing.

  Sally flirted with so many young men that her parents, who were guests at the ball, were thoroughly shocked.

  And then the Marquis and Perry strolled into the ballroom, just as the last chord of the reel was being played. Sally blushed and became very quiet and demure, and Jennie’s mind began to race.

  The Marquis looked very formal and elegant and assured. He moved towards her, stopping to exchange brief conversation with various friends. At last he was at her side and Jennie found her voice.

  “What happened?” she whispered. “I have been nigh dead with fear.”

  “Fear for me… or fear for Guy,” said Chemmy, looking down at her, his eyes very blue and intense.

  Jennie looked at him, her eyes wide with hurt. “Fear for you…” she began, and then clutched his arm. “Oh, here is my next partner. Do tell him I do not want to dance, Chemmy, and please take me somewhere quiet. I feel shaky and my head aches so.”

  “Very well,” said Chemmy languidly. “Ah, Struthers,” he said to Jennie’s partner. “You must excuse my wife. She isn’t feeling at all the thing. Come, my dear.”

  He put his hand under her arm and guided her to the door of the marquee, still smiling and bowing to the guests they met on their road, and at last out into the blessed quiet and darkness of the summer night.

  “We shall go to the house,” said Jennie quietly. “I do not want to stay in these gardens this night.”

  The Marquis did not reply but kept a firm grip on her arm, more in the manner of a jailer than of a husband escorting his wife home.

  “Let us talk in my sitting room,” said the Marquis. “We will not be disturbed there.”

  When they reached his sitting room, they sat for a long while in silence, on upright chairs on either side of the fireplace, looking for all the world like a fashion plate from the pages of La Belle Assemblée, the Marquis in faultless evening coat and knee breeches and Jennie—who had changed from the now ruined rose muslin—in a white silk sheath with a silver gauze overdress.

  “Guy is dead,” said the Marquis at last. “Broke his silly neck.”

  “You broke his neck,” exclaimed Jennie.

  “No… much as I wanted to. His horse threw him.”

  “I’m glad,” said Jennie quietly. “He must have hated me for a long time.”

  “Oh, I don’t think he hated you,” said the Marquis. “He simply wanted your grandparents’ money and you were in the way.”

  “How could I have been so deceived?” said Jennie, trying to stop the sudden rush of tears.

  “What a watering pot you are,” said her husband acidly, devoid of his usual good humor. “You were in love with him and love is blind… or so I am led to believe.” He wondered for a moment how he could possibly be so jealous of a dead man.

  Jennie dried her eyes. “It is a pity you were never in love with me, my lord,” she snapped. “But, oh no, you were wide-awake to all my faults. But I am not avaricious as you believe. I only asked you about the Charrington diamonds because Guy told me you had given them to Alice Waring and she was wearing very beautiful jewels and you were flirting with her. And you are not faultless yourself, sir! I believe you discussed me with Mr. Porteous and told him you thought I was avaricious, for he kept lecturing me through those damned quotations of his about true love being above the price of rubies or something.”

  “Porteous was very loyal to you,” said Chemmy with a reminiscent smile. “That was why I employed him. His weakness was pretty girls, but never married ones. I found out about his wife from the Duke of Westerland. You see, I knew Porteous had burned a letter… it was still smoking on the hearth when I entered the study one day… and I knew that somehow it must be from the Duke. So I wrote to the old boy, asking him to reply to my club. He seemed amused, to judge from his letter. He has had to extricate Porteous from many an affair, but the man is such a brilliant tutor that he puts up with his foibles.”

  “Foibles,” screamed Jennie, her diamond tiara glittering and flashing. “Do you call it foible, sir, to try to seduce my best friend under mine own roof?”

  “If Sally goes on flirting and ogling the way she does,” said the Marquis dryly, “then any man is going to try to seduce her.”

  “Well, Porteous was mercenary. He must have been,” said Jennie, “for Sally kept hinting that she would soon have her own money and that she thought that elopements were romantic.”

  “That’s Sally,” said the Marquis scornfully. “Porteous could have eloped with many a wealthy miss before this, according to the Duke. The fun of the chase seems to be our friend Porteous’ obsession. Sally might become older and wiser because of her experience. Do you think I would leave you alone here with a man I thought was not reliable? Yes, I can see you do.”

  “Guy is dead,” said Jennie. “He tried to murder me and you sit there indulging in a petty family squabble. You have no feelings, sir. You are unnatural!”

  “I have very natural feelings,” said the Marquis. “I feel that the spoiled child I married has gone, to be replaced by a beautiful woman… who does not love me one jot.”

  “And does it matter?” asked Jennie quietly, trying to study the expression in his eyes as the candles dipped and flickered in the night wind blowing in at the windows.

  “Ah, no you don’t,” said Chemmy softly. “You cannot take all the time. You must give a little.”

  Jennie looked at him doubtfully. Did he not know that after the events of the evening, her courage was at low ebb? Sitting very straight in her chair, she closed her eyes. She spoke so softly that the Marquis had to lean forward to catch the words.

  “I love you, Chemmy,” she said.

  She felt herself being rifted gently up into his arms and slowly opened her eyes. He was looking down at her, his face no longer bland and amiable, but alight with passion and warmth. “What do you say, Chemmy?” she pleaded.

  “I was always a man of action,” he laughed and he bent his mouth to hers, crushing her lips under his hard mouth and driving a whole world of fears and uncertainties spinning away into delicious blackness.

  Still kissing her and holding her tightly, he kicked open
the bedroom door.

  “Chemmy,” said Jennie when she could, “you have not said you love me!”

  “With all my heart,” he said, smiling down at her in a way that made her heart turn over. He put her gently down on her feet, still holding her very close.

  “Aren’t you worried about spoiling the shape of your coat?” teased Jennie.

  “No,” said the Marquis of Charrington, holding her tighter, “I… hell and damnation. That man has no soul!”

  “Chemmy!” came Perry’s urgent voice from outside the door. “Are you there? The Lord-Lieutenant is below to see you. He wants to know what you want to do with the body?”

  “I shall be with you directly,” shouted the Marquis, and then in a lower voice to Jennie. “He will soon have two bodies to cope with, for I shall surely die of frustration.” Then he noticed her white face. The horror of the evening had returned to plague her. The Marquis felt a guilty twinge of impatience. She saw death and decay almost every day on the gibbets, so why must she be so nice in her feelings about her wretched cousin? Then he remembered ruefully that none of the bodies dangling from the public scaffolds had tried to murder her, or had been related to her, and gave her a quick hug and kissed the tip of her nose.

  “Come with me,” he said. “We shall deal with this matter quickly, speed our guests on their way and return to more important business. Remember, my love, Chalmers died of an accident and nothing else befell. We don’t want any scandal attached to your name.”

  Jennie wondered long afterwards how she had ever managed to survive that night.

  The painful business of Guy’s death was dealt with and was used as an excuse to put an early end to the ball. Although it was four in the morning, it was a very successful affair and could well have gone on another few hours.

  At last, of the guests, only Sally and Perry were left. Jennie and her husband sat politely with them in the Blue Saloon, until it appeared to both that the couple were going to sit up quarreling for the rest of the night.

  Sally could not be left without a chaperone and Perry showed no sign of taking his leave. He had taken exception to the plunge of Sally’s neckline, Sally had taken exception to his criticism, and both were now glaring at each other and trying to think of the most wounding remark.