This time Louise jumped. His smile broadened, particularly when she opened the book and began to examine it. In the middle of her delight at recovering it—a delight which was in some ways even greater than that which she had felt when he had handed her the proofs of her parents’ marriage and her own legitimacy—she felt a tear gather and run down her cheek, to be followed by another.
‘Oh, no,’ she said, dashing a hand at them, only for Marcus to pass over her desk his large linen handkerchief to help to stem the cascade which followed the preliminary two.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, ‘to behave like an errant watering-pot, particularly when you have made me so happy. But this is the only thing which I have left to me which belonged to my mother, and to have it is bitter-sweet—joy and sorrow combined.’
It was a tribute to Marcus’s delicacy—something which few who knew him would have thought that he possessed—that he knew what she meant. He was sorry to see her overset, but at the same time he was pleased that her manner to him was so different from that of their last meeting.
Indeed, it was as though their last meeting, with her rejection of him, had never taken place. One further proof of their new rapprochement, and their meeting of minds, came when Louise had wiped her last tear away and they both said together, ‘I have been thinking…’
They looked at one another and both of them laughed, before they both said, together again, ‘You first…’
Marcus put his head on one side and adopted what Louise always thought of as his Mr Marks face—one of humble and pleasant enquiry. ‘Allow me to say that after our last meeting, which was so full of disharmony, I thought that we would never be able to speak to one another again. This meeting, however, is so full of harmony that—’
He paused, for Louise to say smartly, ‘That we can barely speak to one another because we are too busy saying the same thing!’
‘Exactly,’ said Marcus. ‘Why do you think that is?’
‘Because,’ said Louise, a trifle warily, ‘I have been thinking over our situation very carefully and, among other things, I have concluded that I behaved extremely badly to you at our last meeting. You had taken a great deal of trouble to find out something which I have wanted to know all my life, and your only reward was for me to reject you in the rudest fashion possible. After that I wonder why you should ever wish to speak to me again! I decided that when, or rather if, we next met I should try to be as civil as possible to you.’
‘Oh, no,’ said Marcus, ‘do not reproach yourself. You had a great shock and when I began to think matters over I rapidly grasped how tactless I had been to propose marriage to you at such a juncture. You see, my darling, since wearing the lawyers’ clerk’s clothes I am beginning to talk exactly like one of them. My hurt pride made me short with you, and altogether I made a fine mess of things. But then, I always was a bull at a gate.’
‘Dear Mr Marks,’ said Louise affectionately, smiling at him through a shimmer of tears, present, but refusing to fall. ‘The word you should have used was we. We both made a fine mish-mash of things, did we not? I refuse to allow you to take the blame.’
‘By all means, let us agree to share it,’ exclaimed Marcus. ‘Recently I had a conversation with my father which made me realise how short life is, and how quickly we must grasp happiness to us when we meet it, lest it fly by and be gone forever. I immediately determined that I would come to you as soon as possible and try to mend matters. It does rather seem, though, that we are of like mind, since I take it, from what you have said, that you felt exactly the same as I did.’
‘Indeed,’ said Louise. ‘But I also have to tell you that I have not yet made up my mind what to do about these…’ And she waved a hand at the papers. ‘There is another matter, too, which troubles me, and that is that I do not wish, ever, to be known as the Marchioness of Sywell, and I would want the marriage to be annulled—if that is possible now that he is dead. I was a fool to agree to marry him, but my guardian was dying when he begged me to accept Sywell. He had been so kind to me that I did not wish to distress him by refusing his last wishes. Nor did I then know how great a monster Sywell was. I wish to be rid of him, once and for all.’
‘Well,’ said Marcus, ‘my advice is that you go to a genuine lawyer, and not the false one I am, and talk to them about the legal implications of your papers and whether or not you may petition for an annulment. I must say that I have no wish to marry the Marchioness of Sywell, even if Louise Cleeve agrees to my proposal. But I see by your expression that you have not made up your mind about that.’
‘No.’ Louise was restless.
She rose from her chair and walked to a small side-table which held a jug of water and a pair of matching glasses. More so that she could recover herself a little and decide what she had to say in a manner which would not cause Marcus further hurt, than for any other reason, she said, ‘I need a drink of water. Would you care for a glass, too?’
‘Yes,’ said Marcus, who understood that this delaying tactic meant that Louise was probably about to tell him something which he did not wish to hear. ‘Talking is thirsty work, and I am not used to it. The farmers and artisans I deal with on father’s northern estates are silent creatures. We converse in monosyllables.’
‘And we have scarcely been doing that,’ agreed Louise, handing him his glass. ‘I hope that you will understand that what I am about to tell you is not my final word. The truth is that I am torn in two. You see, I am building up a fine business here in Bond Street and if I were to marry you then I should have to give it up. The wife of Yardley’s heir cannot be a tradeswoman entering the homes of his friends as something little more than a servant when she is engaged on business there. On the other hand—’ and she paused to take a sip of her so far neglected drink ‘—on the other hand I find that I am in love with Yardley’s heir and would wish to be his wife. I trust that you see my dilemma.’
She had not yet sat down at her desk again, but stood before him having laid her glass upon it.
Marcus, his face ablaze, rose, and before she could stop him, took her in his arms. ‘You love me! That is all I know—and all I need to know. Oh, my darling heart, I have longed to hear you say these words. I have confessed my love to you, but I had no notion whether or not it was returned. Oh, to hell with words, they are not my métier, not my métier at all. This I do know—and it is better than any words.’ And he began to kiss her passionately, his right hand holding her head, his left around her shoulders, so that his kisses might rove around her face like butterflies softly alighting.
He was, at first, gentle with her, for he knew her to be a virgin, and a virgin who might have been ill-treated by that swine, Sywell. At first she resisted him a little, but then her passion, fuelled by his, grew to the point where they were exchanging kiss for kiss and caress for caress until they were both so aroused that they neither knew nor cared what they were doing on the inevitable path to consummation.
Louise had never before experienced the sensations which were sweeping over her. For the first time she understood the power of the passion which could overwhelm a man and a woman: a passion which was heedless of propriety, of circumstance, of the social differences between them. So fiercely was she affected that her response to him surprised her.
They remained, twined together, lost to the world, until Marcus, the more experienced of the two, broke away from her, gasping, ‘Not here, not now, anyone might enter and find us. I must not ruin you when you have not yet accepted my offer of marriage. You will accept it, won’t you? Say that you will.’
Louise, her hair dishevelled, her eyes dilated, her lips swollen, and her face rosy from their recent passion, at last managed to offer him a coherent answer.
‘I may not do so until I have solved my two conundrums—whether I wish to become Louise Cleeve, or whether I wish to remain Madame Félice. Oh,’ she suddenly wailed, ‘what shall I do, Marcus?’ For since he had taken her in his arms and begun to make love to her, he was no longe
r either Lord Angmering, or simple Mr Marks, but only Marcus. Marcus who loved her. Marcus whom she now knew that she loved.
‘I am being unfair to you,’ she ended sadly. ‘I know I am.’
‘Unfair to both of us,’ he whispered, still standing away from her, since he dare not touch her lest they both go up in flames again. ‘Do not be long before you make a decision, I beg of you.’
‘By Saturday,’ she said. ‘Visit me again on Saturday—as Lord Angmering this time. I am sick of shams. I have unknowingly lived a lie all my life, and do not wish to tell any more, either knowingly, or unknowingly.’
Marcus nodded agreement, even though the four days which would pass before Saturday arrived would seem an eternity.
It was only after he had gone, with one last agonised look at her, that Louise knew that, when she had told him to call on her as Lord Angmering, she had already—unknowingly—made her decision.
It only remained to inform him of it.
Chapter Eight
O n his way home, for he had come to think of Berkeley Square as home, Marcus was accosted by none other than Jackson. If the Runner thought that M’lord was a little oddly dressed, nothing in his manner betrayed it to Marcus. Marcus, for his part, was too busy going over in his mind his recent encounter with Louise to trouble about such trifles as his clothing.
‘A word with you, m’lord, if you would allow me the liberty of speaking to you in the street.’
‘Certainly,’ said Marcus. ‘As you see, I am dressed for such an occasion. No one will remark upon us.’
‘Quite so, m’lord—or should I call you Mr Marks?’
Marcus could not help laughing. He clapped the Runner on the shoulder, exclaiming, ‘Is nothing hidden from you, man? Have you been tracking the man who employed you to track others? If so I can only commend you for your diligence—and your impudence. I cannot decide which is the greater.’
‘Quite, so,’ said Jackson with a grin. ‘The more a thief-taker knows, the better he is at his chosen task. I have been keeping a weather eye on Madame F—which meant keeping one on you when you decided to visit her. Her little maid was very helpful. She told me when I took her to the fair that you were Madame’s cousin—which, of course, is true—and a lawyer’s clerk, which isn’t. Now I no longer need to keep an eye on either of you. I suppose that your pa told you that my masters have decided to end the enquiry into Sywell’s murder?’
‘He did, indeed. Which leads me to wonder why you should feel a need to speak to me.’
‘Well, m’lord, it’s like this. One might think one knows who did commit the foul deed—if murdering the likes of Sywell can be called foul—but it’s a different matter to prove it in a court of law. Convincing evidence is sadly lacking—all the possible principals having splendid alibis—including your pa, which let him off the hook. To be honest he was my prime suspect; he had a lot to avenge, what with his family losing the Abbey and all—but pinning him down might be difficult. Besides, my masters wouldn’t like me to go around accusing belted Earls of murder without proof.’
He stopped and gave Marcus what could only be described as a meaningful leer. ‘Now, you’re a right sharp fellow—not in the least like most of the nobility and gentry I’ve had to deal with. Follow the plough and shoe the horse, eh? Now, if you’d not been in Northumbria when the deed was done, you’d have topped my list of suspects, but you had the best alibi of the lot—’
‘I didn’t know that I either needed one, or had one,’ said Marcus with a grin as knowing as Jackson’s.
‘Aye, but like father, like son, I always say. Now, take your pa. Went to India and made a fortune didn’t he? By his own efforts, and not many of the nobs do that. He’s a man what does things, what looks after his own. A man I can respect, not a swine like Sywell. So then I ask myself, what’s justice? Sure as fate, it ain’t the law—or leastways, not always. I’m sure you takes my meaning. So, I tells my masters that, to my regret, I have no proof of who might have topped Sywell. I didn’t say, after all I had heard about the swine, that whoever did it should be given a medal—except that he didn’t finish the job properly, and do for that slimy devil Burneck as well. Now, his alibi interested me the most, particularly when I knew who had arranged it. Enough said, eh?’
‘If I knew what you were trying to tell me, Jackson, I might agree with you.’
‘Oh, but you do, m’lord, don’t you? Now you may both sleep easy—for your different reasons acourse. I wish you well—though by the looks of him your pa ain’t long got much longer on this earth. Let’s hope Heaven’s law—or justice, call it what you will, is better than ours. Who’s to say?’
He gave Marcus one last bow, sweeping off his greasy hat with an ‘I bid you good day, m’lord,’ and was off, crossing the road, where he was soon lost to view among the passing crowds.
He knows, thought Marcus dazedly, he knows, and he has, in his own words, let my father ‘off the hook’. How the devil does he know?
Which was a question Marcus was never able to answer to his own satisfaction. What he did know was, that for his own reasons, Jackson had spared his father obloquy and the hangman’s noose.
Still another confrontation awaited him when he entered Cleeve House. His father and stepmother met him before he had mounted the main staircase to go to his room to change into something more fitting for the Earl of Yardley’s heir.
They both stared at him. His father said, more mildly than he would have done a few weeks ago, ‘What the devil are you doing in that get-up, Angmering? Bit early in the day for a masquerade, isn’t it?’
Thinking furiously on his feet, Marcus said cheerfully, ‘I’ve been working with a friend’s horse this morning, and I’m about to change.’
‘Really, Angmering? Really?’ said the Earl. ‘If that was so, why are you not wearing something more suitable than a clerk’s clothing? I thought you were one of Lawyer Herriott’s men come to badger me about my will. Which reminds me, I would wish to speak to you this afternoon about some of the minor details. You know the major ones so far as they affect you already.’
‘Certainly, father,’ Marcus replied, stifling a grin at his father’s cheerful sarcasm about his clothes. ‘When I am more suitably in the pink, perhaps, than I am now. Or would a clerk’s clothing be more suitable for examining a clerk’s work than appearing dressed as a member of the dandy set?’
Marissa who had also been smiling at this agreeable exchange of rudenesses, added her own contribution to them. ‘My dear Marcus, however finely you dress you never look remotely like a member of the dandy set. Everything about you is too down-to-earth for that.’
‘Oh,’ said Marcus, pulling a comic face, ‘I can see how much of a disappointment I am to you both.’
‘Indeed, not,’ said Marissa, leaning forward to retie his well-worn linen cravat for him. ‘I much prefer your down-to-earth manner to the false and artificial compliments and dress for which the dandy set are famous. The only thing is, I would dearly like to know the reason for your present appearance. I hope the explanation does you credit, that’s all.’
‘Very much so, dear Mama.’ And Marcus gave his stepmother a kiss on her cheek. ‘When I ultimately tell you the reason for it, you will quite understand and forgive me.’
With that he bounded upstairs to change into clothing more suitable for Yardley’s heir. Its only drawback was that it was so much less comfortable than his clerk’s humble attire. Nevertheless when he walked into his father’s study to discuss the draft of the will which a true lawyer’s clerk had left with him, the Earl looked approvingly at him, saying, ‘I wish you would always take such care of yourself, Angmering.’
He received in reply another cheerful smile from Marcus, and: ‘Exactly what my valet has just said to me, sir. Depend upon it, I will try to follow your joint advice in future.’
Even his father, usually so staid and proper, laughed at that piece of impudence.
‘And now,’ he said, ‘let us get down to work
. I informed you the other day of the main thrust of the will so far as it affects you, Marissa and the Neds. I do however, have one problem, and that relates to our cousin Rupert’s lost daughter. The estate and its moneys came to me as the next Earl, unencumbered by any dower or provision for his child. I feel, though, that it is my duty to make some kind of reference to her in my will when all the other settlements are finalised.’
Marcus was in a quandary. He wanted to tell his father that Lord Rupert’s daughter was no longer lost, and more than that, that he wished to marry her! But he had given his word to Louise to say nothing about her having the power to prove that she was the missing Cleeve daughter until she had decided whether to claim her birthright. Since he had once nearly lost her love because he had broken his word, he was of no mind to do it again—and lose her for good.
He sat silent for a moment before saying, ‘I honour you, sir, for wishing to remember her, which was more than her father was able to do. Perhaps you could put in trust a sum large enough to give her a useful income if, by chance, she were ever found. Something in the order of what her father would have left her, had he been spared to return to England.’
‘Excellent, Angmering,’ said his father energetically. ‘I was thinking of something along those lines. I will see to it immediately. Now there are a number of other, more minor matters we must discuss before Marissa summons us to partake of this newfangled notion, tea in the afternoon!’
Marcus nodded and they worked until Cardew threw the door open and announced, ‘Tea is served in the blue drawing-room, m’lords.’
If Saturday could not come soon enough for Marcus, Louise was in the same case. One thing which he had said affected her more powerfully every time she thought of it: that she would be gaining a real family, something which she had never possessed before.
The Missing Marchioness (Mills & Boon Historical) Page 14
