On the other hand, to refuse to see him might look too particular.
‘Tell him he may interview me in my office at the back. I’ll go there immediately.’
She had no wish to see the man in public with her girls’ curious eyes on her. When Jackson finally walked in she said frostily, ‘I do hope that you have a good reason for coming here again, Mr Jackson. My good name will suffer if it becomes known that I am constantly being questioned by a prominent thief-taker.’
‘Sorry about that, madame,’ said Jackson, not looking sorry at all. ‘But I am trying to tie some loose ends up, that’s all. It’s about your early days at Steepwood. I think we’ve established that you didn’t meet the Marchioness when she was living there with her husband—or did we? I think you also said that you knew Miss Filmer, I mean Mrs Cameron, when you were girls together. Correct me if I am wrong.’
‘You are not wrong,’ said Louise, still frosty. ‘Is that all that you’ve come to say? If so, you might have saved yourself the visit.’
Jackson pulled a grubby piece of paper out of his pocket and stared at it, before scratching his head, and muttering, ‘Ah, yes, that’s it. What I didn’t ask you was whether you met the Marchioness when she was a little girl—Louise Hanslope by name—when you were also Mrs Cameron’s playmate. One might suppose that you did. If so, perhaps you could give me a description of her. You see, it’s an odd thing, but few people seem to have seen her, and what they remember ain’t much.’
‘You’re asking me if I remember a little girl whom I must have last seen years ago in the hope that it might help you to trace a grown woman? I find that even odder than people not being able to remember a woman whom they have rarely seen. No, I cannot remember meeting her, never mind remembering what she looked like.’
What was beginning to frighten her was that Jackson was starting to ferret out the connection between little Louise Hanslope, the missing Marchioness and Madame Félice. His next question proved that she was right to be troubled.
‘Well, there is another possible connection, madame. You see, I recently learned, quite by accident, you understand, that Louise Hanslope left the district when still almost a child, to be apprenticed to a dressmaker. You being in that line of business yourself, I wondered if you had ever come across her?’
Oh, yes, the man was more than a ferret, he was a bloodhound: a bloodhound who was threatening the safe life she had built for herself.
‘May I ask where this child was apprenticed, Mr Jackson?’
He inspected his grubby piece of paper again.
‘In Northampton, as I understand.’
‘Northampton!’ Louise began to laugh, something which she found difficult to control, for hysteria was threatening. ‘No, I have never met the lady—my apprenticeship was elsewhere. I’m afraid that I cannot be of any assistance to you.’
Jackson stuffed his piece of paper into his pocket. ‘Pity, that. I wouldn’t have troubled you, if it weren’t that I seem to be coming up against a brick wall where the lady is concerned. You must forgive me for bothering you again, but I have to inspect every avenue which might lead me to her.’
‘Oh, yes, I do understand that. Will that be all?’
Jackson did not immediately answer her. He made for the door, but before he laid his hand on the knob, he turned and said in an off-hand voice, ‘I’m not sure. I hope not to come back to you again, but there is one thing which still puzzles me.’
‘Pray what is that, Mr Jackson?’ This question was wrung from her, for she did not really want to know the answer since she might not like it. She had become suddenly sure that the man suspected something and was baiting her.
‘One of the teachers at Mrs Guarding’s school remembered that little Louise was very proficient in French for one so young—that was why I thought that you might—’ he paused as though searching for a word, came out triumphantly with ‘—that you might know her—seeing that you are French yourself. However, seeing that you tell me that you don’t, then that cock won’t fight, will it? If you’ll pardon the expression.’
He still showed no signs of leaving. Louise said, as coolly as she could. ‘Will that really be all this time, Mr Jackson? I am a very busy woman, with several trousseaus to complete. So far as I am concerned, gossip about the distant past is an unwanted luxury.’
Jackson’s smile for her was that of a tiger contemplating its prey.
‘All for today, I think, Madame. Good afternoon to you, I will see myself out.’
Louise sank down into a chair and put her hot face into her hands. He knows! Or he suspects, that I am the Marchioness—but he cannot prove it yet.
When, and if, he can, what then?
Never mind that I can prove that I couldn’t have killed my late, unlamented husband, the scandal which would follow such an unmasking would be my ruin.
Chapter Four
‘O h, dear, Madame,’ said Cardew, the Yardleys’ butler, ‘I regret to have to tell you that m’lady and Lady Sophia are not yet ready for you. They send you their apologies, but they had an unexpected visitor this morning, and are at present enjoying a very late nuncheon. They asked if you would kindly agree to wait for them in the picture gallery, where they have sent you coffee and ratafia biscuits. Your footmen and maid are welcome to eat in the kitchen.’
The butler’s expression showed what he thought of visitors who were inconsiderate enough to arrive in the morning, and with exquisite courtesy he led Madame to the picture gallery. This was a grand name for a long corridor lined with family portraits and some dated landscape paintings. Sure enough, there was a low table waiting for her with the promised coffee and biscuits on it.
Louise sat down, drank the coffee, which a watching footman considerately poured for her, and nibbled at the biscuits before deciding to pass the time by inspecting the paintings. She gave a cursory glance at the landscapes, which were conventional in the extreme, before she passed on to examine the portraits of past members of the Cleeve family, which included some going back for more than two hundred years. After all, they were her relatives, and it would be nice to know what they looked like, and if she resembled them in any way.
She had just reached a section devoted to some of their wives when the door at the far end opened and Marcus entered. She was so engrossed in inspecting all her unknown ancestors that she did not hear him…
Marcus had spent the morning discussing his future with his father. It was the first fruits of their reconciliation and the two men were easier with each other than they had ever been.
‘I want to continue to live at Jaffrey House,’ his father had said. ‘It is more my home than the Abbey ever was. On the other hand I am determined to restore the Abbey to its former glory, which will mean a fair amount of restoration and rebuilding. Sywell looted it of the little furniture that was left and consequently the interior looks more like a dog kennel than the ancestral home it ought to be.
‘My present secretary and librarian tells me that a curse was put on Steepwoods thousands of years ago, by the pagans who created the Sacred Grove and the rune stone. All those who came after them who failed to worship the stone, but followed false Gods, would be doomed to perpetual unhappiness and ruin. Steepwood’s chequered history, he said, seemed to bear out the existence of the curse.
‘First the Abbey founded here was dissolved and ruined, and every owner of it, all the way down the centuries, lived a tragic life, including Sywell who met with a terrible end. So I am inclined to agree with him that there was such an unlikely thing as a curse, and that it has persisted right down to the present day. Bearing that in mind, I am going to ask you to think carefully about a proposal which I am about to make to you, for that proposal involves the ownership of the Abbey.
‘The local landowner who bought much of the Abbey’s lands from Sywell has fallen heavily into debt and has asked me to buy them back, to which I have agreed. They will, however, need a great deal of work done with them before they become profitable
again. Since you have made such a good fist of restoring the northern estates I am going to ask you to take on the task of doing the same thing for Steepwood’s. At the same time you could begin to renovate the Abbey with a view to making it your permanent residence when I am gone to my last rest.
‘Jaffrey House could then be the home of the dowager—but such decisions will, of course, be yours to make in the future, not mine. You need not give me an answer immediately, but I would like one soon. Such an ambitious project will have the merit of making work for the local people, and when it is finished will provide permanent employment for the large staff needed to run it.’
Marcus had stared at his father. ‘You are sure that you want to do this, father? One might have thought that after waiting so long to regain the Abbey you would wish to begin its restoration yourself.’
His father had shaken his head. ‘I am too old, Angmering. I am over seventy and wish to secure the family’s future, by giving you carte blanche in this matter, since you have proved how responsible you are over and over again. Think of it as reparation for my neglect of you in the past. It is my hope that you will soon marry and settle yourself and your wife at Steepwood as soon as possible. But I also thought that you ought to know of the curse before you make your decision.’
Marcus’s immediate response had been to refuse, and then he thought that, after all, his work in Northumbria was done. He could employ a good agent there to run the reformed and rescued lands. Here he had been thinking that he might need occupation and his father was giving him the opportunity of a lifetime—to restore the neglect of centuries, for previous Earls of Yardley had been careless of the land.
As for the curse, he thought nothing of that. He was a true child of the Enlightenment, which had rejected such medieval notions, and possible fear of it would play no part in his decision-making.
His father had again spoken of him taking a wife, and for the first time Marcus did not reject the notion out of hand. A wife would be a great help when the time came to refurnish the Abbey—otherwise he would be entirely in the hands of the furniture makers, bibelot sellers and upholsterers, would he not? He could imagine Félice running round with bolts of cloth, inspecting carpets and mirrors and… His stepmother had told him that her taste was impeccable.
He became aware that his father was expecting some sort of answer from him. He would give him one, and one which he hoped would prove acceptable.
‘I cannot say that you have done other than surprise me,’ he said at last. ‘A month ago I might have given you a different answer. All I can tell you at the moment is that I am inclined to agree to what you wish, but I would like a few days to think it over. You know me, Father. I need to consider a proposition as grand as this carefully, not rush into it without thought.’
‘Agreed, Angmering,’ said his father. ‘But pray do not take too long before you give me your final answer. I am an old man, and I would like to know that I am leaving a sound ship behind me before I finally hand it on to a new captain.’
They had talked of minor matters before his father left him to visit Whitehall. Marcus made his way downstairs, where he met Cardew in the Entrance Hall. He had always believed that servants knew more about their masters than their masters thought that they did, and Cardew promptly proceeded to prove him right.
‘Ah, m’lord, a word with you,’ he said. ‘M’lady and Lady Sophia have taken their nuncheon late today and have asked the modiste who has arrived for a fitting to wait for them in the picture gallery, where I have provided her with coffee and biscuits.’
He paused, looking as though he expected some kind of response.
Marcus said, a trifle impatiently—his mind was full of his recent conversation with his father. ‘And, Cardew, and? There must be a point to this.’
‘Oh, m’lord, just that I thought that you might like to know that Madame Félice is here.’
‘Did you, indeed?’ And of course the man was right, but damn everything, how did he know that Lord Angmering was greatly taken with the modiste? Did the whole world know—and how?
Marcus decided not to try to find out. He said instead, ‘Thank you for that useful information, Cardew. Tell me, do you think that Madame might care to make me a shirt?’
He had succeeded in rattling the perfect servant—but not for long. Cardew smiled and said, ‘Oh, m’lord, I am sure that you could find that out for yourself,’ and walked away, cat-footed.
Well, well, well, why not take the hint and visit Madame—since there were no secrets in the Cleeve household he might as well take this splendid opportunity to be alone with her—quite respectably.
He ran lightly back upstairs, and turned on the first landing towards the door which led to the picture gallery. He pushed it open to see Félice standing about halfway along it, looking up at a portrait of his great-great aunt, Adelaide Cleeve.
She had not heard him arrive, and he remained where he was to study her at leisure. She had her head tipped back and was inspecting the painting with the care with which she did everything. A wall lamp threw a halo of light on her head—and in that moment two things happened.
The first was that he knew that firm little chin—and now he knew where he had seen it before. On a child in the woods at Steepwood who, when he had bandaged her leg, had thrust that same determined chin at him, and had said, ‘I am not a coward, boy, even if I am a girl!’ A child who had been with Athene Filmer and about whom Jackson had been so recently questioning him.
As if that were not strange enough, the second thing which struck him was bizarre in the extreme. For the living and vibrant woman standing in the corridor and the long dead one whose painted face was hanging on the wall were so alike that they might have been twins.
He could not doubt that Madame Félice was no Frenchwoman, but was little Louise Hanslope grown up, the Louise Hanslope who had become Sywell’s Marchioness—and what would Jackson make of that? And what did he, Marcus Cleeve, Lord Angmering, the Earl of Yardley’s heir, make of a woman who bore the face and colouring of the Cleeves—and why on earth had he never noticed that before?
He was dumbstruck, until Louise moved and, moving, saw him. He thought that the expression on her face might match that on his own, since it was one of complete and utter disbelief.
They stared at one another. Marcus was the first to move. He said, and his voice sounded hollow in his ears.
‘I’ve seen you before, haven’t I? Years ago.’
He had not meant to say any such thing. He was aware that it sounded like an accusation, but he could not help himself, the shock was too great.
Louise genuinely had no notion to what he was referring. All she could think to say was, ‘Why? Why do you think that? How could you have seen me?’ The expression on his face shocked her. She had wanted to be playful—as she usually was with him, to come out with something like, ‘My dear Mr Marks, whatever can you mean?’ but the words had stuck in her throat.
Marcus was so surprised that he scarcely knew to which puzzle to address himself. The puzzle of discovering that Madame Félice was almost certainly Louise Hanslope—and all that that implied—or the other puzzle, that of her likeness to his female ancestor.
‘Are you telling me that you do not remember having met me before?’ he finally said, aware how inadequate such a lame response was.
‘Not to my knowledge,’ Louise said. ‘Why do you think that we have?’
Something about his expression was beginning to alarm her. The discovery of her likeness to Adelaide Cleeve had not frightened her—but the thought of Marcus’s response to it had. His claim that they had met before was a mysterious one, and she needed to know why he had made it. The rapport which had been growing up between them was near to shattering—if it were not shattered already.
‘You really do not remember?’
To be fair, he thought, perhaps, she didn’t. After all, she must have been very young, and although a young girl might, as she grew older, retain a like
ness to the child she had been, a boy was likely to change completely in looks between the age of fourteen and thirty.
‘It was at Steepwood,’ he said. ‘I was out walking and met you there one afternoon when you were still a child. I am not sure how old you were. You were with Athene Filmer, and you tripped and fell, cutting your knee. I used my handkerchief to bind it. I remember I asked you not to cry, and I believe you said something to the effect that you weren’t a coward—I can’t remember the exact words.’
He saw her face change even as he spoke. Louise’s memory of the incident was a faint one, but it was there, waiting to be called into existence by some accident, some trick of fate.
‘You were that boy? I remember, dimly, something like that happening—but you do not resemble in the least the boy who helped me. I should never have known you, and even now it is only because you have told me of the incident that I can believe it was you. Why are you looking at me like that, m’lord?’
‘Mr Marks,’ Marcus said, automatically. ‘I am Mr Marks to you, remember.’
‘Not here,’ she said. ‘Not now. And something else is troubling you, isn’t it?’
‘Many things,’ he said. ‘That you are not French, that, if I am right, you are Louise Hanslope and Sywell’s widow, and that you have said nothing to me of this—nor to Jackson, either. Why? Why the secrecy? From what I have heard, and what I know of you, it is most unlikely that any accusation that you murdered Sywell could possibly stand…’
He ran out of breath.
‘Well, m’lord,’ said Louise, seeing her bitter-sweet affair with Mr Marks dying before her, ‘I’m happy that you are willing to concede that I am no murderess, which I assure you that I am not. But I must say again that something else is troubling you, and I am asking you what that is?’
The Missing Marchioness (Mills & Boon Historical) Page 7
