Louise was in a quandary. She dearly wished to know what Jackson had found, and that being so she could not treat the bringer of that news with the contempt and dismissal which she would have done had Marcus come empty-handed. After all, it was he who had spoken to Jackson of her story, and paid him to look for the truth and the proof of it. Even if, at first, she had not wished him to do so, now that he had, and the quest was ended, she must know that truth, for good or ill, and judging by Marcus’s manner, it did not seem for ill.
‘Very well,’ she said, ‘because I half-believe you, and because you have done me a great favour you may sit there—’ and she pointed at the armchair which he always used ‘—and you may tell me what Jackson has found.’
All the eagerness which Marcus had felt until Louise had walked into the room came surging back.
‘Oh, my dear girl,’ he said. ‘He has returned with absolute and positive proof that Madame Félice is undoubtedly Louise Cleeve, the granddaughter of the previous Earl of Yardley. What’s more the proof, is so complete and authentic that no one could call it false or forged. With your permission we shall hand it over, once you have inspected it, to the Cleeve family lawyers so that you may return to your proper station in society.’
For the first time in her life Louise thought that she was about to faint.
‘Proof? Absolute proof,’ she half-whispered, ‘after all this time? Where did he find it? My guardian could not. Where was it?’
Marcus told her the story which Jackson had told him, ending with the information that Sywell and Burneck had always known who she was.
At this point Louise, who was recovering herself rapidly, said, ‘So that was why he married me. Oh, the devil, the wicked devil that he was.’
‘Yes,’ said Marcus, marvelling again at his love’s quick wits. ‘So Burneck said. Apparently they thought it a joke, he and Sywell.’
Louise rose to her feet and began to pace the room as Marcus had done earlier. ‘A joke! My life was a joke for them! All that suffering, that hard work, that loneliness, not really knowing who I was or who my relatives were, fearing that I was some abandoned bastard. And all the time they thought it was a joke.’
She remembered the long and difficult hours she had spent learning her trade, and although she did not regret them, yet the knowledge that all that tedious time she had had a place in life which had been denied her was almost more than she could bear.
Before their recent difference over his bet and the revelation of their secret meeting, Marcus would have taken her in his arms to comfort her, but under the circumstances he thought that it would be tactless, would be merely mistaken for part of his campaign to overcome her.
He must be patient, for the decision he had already made before Jackson’s visit, and after a sleepless night spent pondering on it, meant that in a moment or two he would say something which meant that Louise would never have cause to doubt his honesty again.
Instead, he said, ‘Shall I ring for the maid to bring you some tea—or even something stronger?’ for her face was so pale and her manner so shocked that he felt that she might need some kind of sustenance.
Louise shook her head and said in a strong voice, ‘No, I must not have the vapours like a fool who has never had to face the hardships of life. I am trying to believe that what you are telling me is true. It makes me look at my previous life in a totally new light. My guardian told me when he lay dying that I was Rupert Cleeve’s daughter, which gave me a name, but not legitimacy, and now you have given me both, which means that I must apologise for speaking so harshly to you when you arrived.’
‘Very understandable of you to feel harsh towards me after listening to Lady Leominster,’ Marcus said, moving a little closer to where she stood, her hand now on the mantelpiece to steady herself. ‘I left myself open to such accusations because of my behaviour to you when we first met. Now, if you feel well enough to deal with more revelations I have a very important question to ask you.’
Did she feel well enough to answer an important question? No, but the main rule of Louise’s life had been never to admit weakness, or bow to it. So why should she do so now? Besides, what else could he have to say to her which could either shock or surprise her? Louise was afterwards to wonder how naïve she had been to ask herself such a question!
So she turned and shook her head at him. Unknown to her, her colour was returning, and the man who loved her thought that she had never looked more beautiful nor more gallant. He moved even nearer to her, took her hand and said hoarsely, ‘My dear, it would please me if you would sit down before I ask my question.’
Louise was still so shocked that she did not refuse him but sat down immediately, to leave him standing before her, straight and tall, looking down at her with the most tender expression on his face.
‘My dear Louise,’ he said, ‘I am about to do something which I have never done before—and hope never to have to do again. I cannot sufficiently express the admiration which I have come to feel for you over the last few weeks, and the reservations which you expressed earlier about my behaviour have only enhanced that admiration, not dimmed it. If that were not enough, I have also come to love you dearly, something which I had never thought to do for any woman before. That being so, pray make me the happiest man in England by agreeing to become my wife.’
Marcus had not thought beforehand of what Louise’s reaction to this splendid proposal might be. If he had he would have thought that after it she would fall gratefully and lovingly into his arms.
He had not only brought her a magnificent prize, her true name and her legitimacy, but he had also offered her his heartfelt love, so that when she leaped to her feet and exclaimed, ‘Certainly not! I see what this is all about. When I was Madame Félice the modiste the only thing that I was fit for was to be your mistress, but, of course, Louise Cleeve, the descendant of Earls, is quite a different thing. She must be your wife. If Mr Marks had offered for Madame Félice, without knowing that she was either the Honourable Louise Cleeve, or the Marchioness of Sywell, then that would have been a different thing and would have earned him a yes immediately. But as it is, my answer must be a most definite No.’
Marcus was thunderstruck. He did something completely out of character. He fell on his knees before her to plead with her, and took her hand in his—but she rejected it, and threw it from her, her face stony.
‘No!’ he exclaimed. ‘You wrong me. I had already made up my mind to marry you before Jackson discovered your true identity, but I wanted to tell you of it and offer for you at the same time.’
‘So you say now,’ said Louise, the tears not far away. All her life everything important which had happened to her had turned to dross, and now even Marcus’s proposal seemed to be tainted because he had never offered her marriage before he had discovered that she was Louise Cleeve, but only after. ‘So you say now.’
Marcus was suddenly desperate. ‘Only consider,’ he begged of her. ‘Ever since we first met we have each been drawn to the other, otherwise you would never have allowed me to become your friend—you would have rejected me immediately. I know that I was attracted to you the moment I saw you. Say yes, my darling, only say yes.’
But she turned her head away from him again, saying, ‘I was lonely. You lightened my loneliness, that was all.’
‘No.’ And now he rose and moved towards her, to try to take again the hand which she had pulled away from him after he had made his proposal, but still she refused him.
It was hopeless—for the moment at least. He remembered the old adage: He who fights and runs away will live to fight another day. He would leave now, not torment her, but he would return, for he could not lose her now, he could not. More than ever he wanted to make her his wife, not only because he loved and desired her, but because he wished her to be the mother of his children.
Even the stoic spirit which she was displaying while refusing him had only served to make him love her the more. Her strength of will, her determinatio
n to be true to herself, impressed a man who valued such attributes almost before anything else. Perhaps, when he had gone and she had had time to consider carefully everything which he had told her, she might change her stubborn mind.
After all, she had received so many great shocks recently that it would only be when she had recovered from them that she could contemplate his proposal objectively, and realise that the strength of his passion lay behind it.
If he deluded himself, then so be it—but he must not trouble her now.
He rose to his feet and said as calmly as he could, ‘I will leave you to think over all that I have said today, and hope that when you have done so you might feel able to give me a better answer.’
Louise nodded mutely, before saying, ‘There is one thing which I must ask you, Lord Angmering, and I hope that of your goodness you will obey me in this. Pray bring me my mother’s marriage lines and the other papers which relate to my birth. Do not give them into the keeping of lawyers before I have had time to decide what best I should do now that I know my new station in life. I may, or may not, wish to remain simple Madame Félice, for I shall never call myself the Marchioness of Sywell despite my marriage to him, and I trust that you will allow me to make that decision for myself after—as you say—due consideration. I must also ask you to say nothing to anyone of what Jackson has discovered until I have made that decision.’
‘Yes,’ he said simply, ‘the decision must be yours. I shall see that you receive them. Only remember that you have now acquired a whole new family, who, I am sure, would wish to try to recompense you for the years of hardship which you have endured in obscurity. Their love and friendship awaits you.’
He did not say that he would bring the papers in person, for he did not wish to behave in such a manner that she might think that he was blackmailing her into receiving him when, for the moment, she had rather not.
After he had gone, closing the door carefully behind him, Louise rose and walked to the window to watch Mr Marks walk away. Since their recent friendship she still had great difficulty in thinking of Marcus as Lord Angmering. The man who wore clerk’s clothing, ate oysters in the street, and talked to her so simply and cheerfully was quite unlike the few great men she had ever met.
She was not to know that the workers on the Yardley estates in the north also thought the same of the man who walked among them wearing country clothing, who had learned how to shoe a horse, to work in the blacksmith’s forge and who had insisted on being taught how to plough a straight furrow.
Some had despised him for trying to acquire the basic knowledge of a working farmer rather than sit back in his grand house and idly accept the rents which the land brought him. Some respected him because he wanted to share in their hard lives a little. Others, like Louise, were somewhat baffled by him.
But why should she be baffled? Marcus’s nature was a straightforward one. He had told her quite plainly when she had first met him that he wished to make her his mistress. He had not wooed her with fair words, pretending that he was courting her, using that as the means to an end, and that end seduction, betrayal and desertion.
He had treated her more kindly than any other man she had ever met. She thought of Sywell, of the brutality which he had inflicted on her, and which had caused her to run away and hide herself from him in London—a place he detested and avoided. There had been other men whom she had met when she had visited great houses in London in order to outfit their wives, daughters and sisters. Men who had not hesitated to accost her and whisper their base desires into her ears.
There had even been one who had tricked her into being alone with him on the pretext that his sister, for whom she was making a wedding dress, had asked that Louise visit her in her drawing-room. She had escaped ravishment only by the merest chance, and her own cunning, but the memory could still make her shiver.
No, Marcus was not like that at all, and his last words to her, that she would be acquiring a family, had struck a chord which vibrated inside her long after he had gone.
She had always been alone. The few people she had known and loved in childhood had, one by one, disappeared. Mrs Hanslope, whom she had called mother, then John, her guardian, and she had lost Athene Filmer when she had left Steepwood to be apprenticed in Northampton.
She had made few friends in London, and knowing and loving Marcus had been to her like manna found in the desert by the starving Israelites. Only her own deep sense of integrity had prevented her from consenting to be his mistress when her mind, as well as her senses, told her to accept him, if only to fill her empty world.
Louise told herself briskly not to repine. She had work to do, decisions to make, and so many different futures had opened before her—who until now, had had none—that she was quite bewildered.
Besides, she was already beginning to regret having sent Marcus away…
Chapter Seven
M arcus arrived back at Berkeley Square determined not to let the afternoon’s events overset him. He cursed his own folly in not grasping what Louise’s reaction to his delayed proposal of marriage would inevitably be. He was sure that her own common-sense would guide her once the shock of his news had worn off. Her unexpected refusal had only served to increase his determination to make her his wife. Nevertheless he knew that he was doomed to a few uncomfortable days, but he had survived them before.
He met his father in the entrance hall. He immediately thought that Marissa was right to worry about him: he looked old and ill.
Impulsively he said, ‘Is it possible that I could have a word with you, sir? If it is convenient, that is,’ for he saw his father flinch away from him a little, which disappointed him, since he had thought that they had reached a better understanding of each other since their recent confidential talk.
‘Of course, Angmering, let us go to my study. While we are on our way allow me to inform you that I was buttonholed today by some fellow from the Home Office who told me that the enquiry into Sywell’s death has been abandoned. Other more urgent problems relative to the state of the country—the Luddite riots in the Midland counties in particular—demand the attention of those who have been pursuing it. It seems that it must remain a mystery which might solve itself in time.’
So Jackson’s task was over. He would doubtless be returning to the Midlands, but for a different reason.
‘At least they will not be troubling you again, sir,’ he offered as his father pointed him to a chair facing his desk.
He sat down and hesitated for a moment, not quite sure how to broach his, and Marissa’s, worries to the man opposite to him. He took so long that his father said suddenly, ‘Well, what is it, Angmering?’
‘It’s this, sir. Both Marissa and I fear that something is worrying you so much that you are beginning to look quite ill. She fears that it may be more than your health, and I share those fears. If it is possible for you to confide in me, pray do so. A trouble shared is a trouble halved. If anything is wrong it may ease matters if you speak to me of it.’
‘I know,’ said his father, turning his face away from him. ‘I cannot speak of it to Marissa, although she has begged me time and again to tell her what is wrong. Is it possible that I can confide in you?’
‘That, sir, you must decide. Believe me, my one intent is to serve you as a good son ought, and I fear that of recent years, I have not always been the kind of son in whom you could confide—now that matters have changed perhaps you may be able to do so.’
‘True, Angmering, true. For my part I have never given you credit for being the sound fellow that you are; that being so, I feel that I may trust you to hear what I have to say. At the end I would appreciate it if you would give me some notion of what you think I ought to do. It is a long story I have to tell, and not a pretty one. It goes back many years, and I fear that, at the end, you may not wish to know the man who tells it to you.’
Marcus had already heard one story which reached back in time, and now it seemed that he was to hear another
. He had helped Louise, and now, strange though it seemed, his father now needed his help and advice as well.
‘Until you tell me all, Father,’ he said, dropping the impersonal sir, for he thought that his father looked even more ill when he had finished speaking than he had done before, ‘I cannot advise you.’
‘Before I begin,’ his father said, ‘I must ask you to treat what I shall tell you in complete confidence. You are to inform no one of it, no one, however much you think that you ought to do so. Without that assurance given to me on your word of honour, I shall say no more.’
Marcus was about to reply without thinking, ‘Of course, sir. You must know that my word is my bond,’ when he remembered that he had said something similar to Louise—and then he had immediately broken that word solemnly given.
One result of that betrayal—even though it had been done with the best of intentions, had inevitably been to weaken Louise’s trust in him, and had probably influenced her subsequent refusal of his offer of marriage.
This time, and always in the future, whatever the cost, he would keep his word. He saw that his father, registering his hesitation, and unaware of what was causing it, had put his head in his hands as though he could no longer bear its weight.
Marcus said, and his voice rang with truth, ‘You may depend upon it, father, I shall reveal nothing of whatever you are about to tell me. I will swear an oath before you to that effect if that would reassure you.’
His father lifted his head again, ‘No need, no need, Angmering, your word will suffice. After all, I have little time to live, although I hope to survive long enough to see Sophia married at Christmas, and when I am gone—what I shall tell you will fall into the vast pit of the past.
The Missing Marchioness (Mills & Boon Historical) Page 12
