by M C Beaton
“So you see, Cartwright,” the earl was saying, “I have nothing against this Miss Westerville myself, but my lady and Ismene are going to make life hell for me until I get rid of her. Ismene came back from her ride in the park and insisted I send Miss Westerville packing by the end of the week.”
His voice became louder as he approached the door. Lucinda opened the library door and darted inside, her heart beating hard.
So it was soon to be all over. At the end of the week, she would leave London—but that would mean her father would have to leave the care of Beechings. Hot tears began to run down her cheeks. She must do something. If only someone would help her.
Being her father’s daughter, she began to pray for guidance. But when she had finished her prayers, an idea struck her—a solution—and she trembled, for such an idea could only have come from Lucifer himself.
She fled from the library to escape the voice in her head. She collected Ismene’s novel, the one she had been reading to her, from her room and forced herself to read the adventures of surely one of the most tiresome heroines in English literature.
Had Ismene summoned Lucinda on her return from the opera, Lucinda might then have tried to change her mistress’s mind about dismissing her. But Ismene did not.
So when Lucinda awoke early the next morning, that wretched voice was there, and louder, urging her on.
“All you have to do,” it wheedled, “is to ask the Marquess of Rockingham to marry you. No one wants him. No one wants you. A match made in heaven.”
“All right,” said Lucinda, answering the inner nagging voice. “’Fore George! I’ll do it!”
4
Lucinda’s courage almost deserted her as she walked to Berkeley Square. It was a lovely late-spring morning. The streets were quiet and deserted. An egg-shell-blue sky stretched overhead. Thin lines of smoke were beginning to climb up from the chimneys. Soon London would be covered by its usual ceiling of thin smoke. But for that moment the air seemed to have blown all the way from the country, scented with lilac and early roses.
She had memorized the marquess’s address, she realized, the minute Kennedy had mentioned it, almost as if such an outrageous idea had been at the back of her mind from the minute she had first heard of the Savage Marquess’s search for a wife.
Lucinda walked twice around the square until the thought of her ailing father stiffened her spine and gave her courage. Rockingham might just laugh at her. But Ismene would not rise until about two in the afternoon and so her job as companion would still be waiting.
She marched to the marquess’s town house and stood on the doorstep, looking up at the building.
Her courage deserted her again. Am I merely full of self-pity? wondered Lucinda. I am clothed and fed and my father is taken care of. With a little cunning, I could surely manage Ismene’s moods. She changes from moment to moment, and although she has told her father she wants quit of me, she could be made to change her mind. A little judicious flattery, a little fawning, that is all that is required. But then the thought of Ismene and everything about her personality filled Lucinda with revulsion.
Choking back a little sob of fright, like the noise a child makes when waking from a bad dream, she seized the knocker and performed a vigorous tattoo on it.
There was a long silence. Then a dust cart went past, the old horse pulling it clop-clopping over the cobbles, a blackbird sang in one of the plane trees in the square behind her, and next door a window shot up and a curious housemaid looked down.
Lucinda hammered on the knocker again.
She was just about to turn away when the door suddenly opened. Chumley stood on the step.
“Yes, miss?” he asked politely, his eyes quickly taking in the respectability of Lucinda’s dress. They roamed behind her as if searching for an accompanying maid, and, finding none, came to rest on Lucinda’s face with a tinge of wariness mixed with severity.
“I am come to call on Lord Rockingham,” said Lucinda.
“It is very early in the day. I must ask the nature of your business with his lordship.”
“A personal matter… of… of great importance.”
“Your card, miss?”
Lucinda fumbled in her reticule and took out one of her last, precious calling cards, turned it down at the corner to show she was calling in person, and handed it to Chumley.
His eyes searched her face again. Chumley at last recognized Lucinda as the pretty lady his master had helped in the park.
He hesitated only a moment. “Be so good as to enter, Miss Westerville.”
Chumley ushered Lucinda into a gloomy hall and then held open a door leading off it. She found herself in a damp, musty saloon. Chumley bowed and closed the door behind her and then she could hear his footsteps mounting the stairs.
She looked curiously about her. There were some fine chairs, quite modern judging by the fact that all had arms, the new style of lady’s and gentlemen’s dress allowing for such an addition, whereas the old-fashioned panniered gowns and coats with their skirts stiffened with whalebone had not. There was a William Kent bureau, surmounted by an eagle with one outstretched claw on which someone had hung a lady’s dusty garter. A backless sofa was placed in front of the fireplace. In front of it stood a sofa table, one of its open drawers revealing several well-thumbed packs of cards. The corners of the floor were still damp, as if the room had been recently scrubbed by a heavy hand and not allowed to air.
Over the fireplace was an oil painting of a stern-faced woman leaning on a pillar, while thunder clouds piled in the sky behind her. She had a nasty little smile on her face.
Lucinda nervously smoothed down her silk pelisse. The fact that the pale blue pelisse was one of Ismene’s, changed to fit her thinner figure, gave her a stab of guilt, and once more she wondered whether she was a weakling and a coward, running away to marry a rake.
The door opened and the Marquess of Rockingham walked in. He could hardly be called a pretty sight. His thick black hair was tousled, he was unshaven, and his tall athletic body was wrapped in an Oriental dressing gown gaudily embroidered to the point of decadence. His bare feet were thrust into Turkish slippers. His green eyes were bloodshot. He had left Almack’s and had gone to a gambling hell. A long night’s drinking in a smoke-filled room had worked its usual ruin. He had had only a bare two hours’ sleep.
He threw Lucinda a jaundiced look, strode over to the sofa and stretched out on it, clasped his hands behind his head, looked up at her, and said, “Well?”
Lucinda looked down at him miserably. This was hardly a Sir Galahad. She doubted if the marquess had one chivalrous thought in his brain.
“I have made a mistake,” she said quietly. “I must apologize for troubling you, my lord.”
“Don’t be silly,” he snapped. “You have roused me at this unearthly hour for some reason, you have risked ruining your reputation by calling here, so you had better tell me what it’s all about. God, my tongue feels like a carpet.” He threw back his head and roared, “Chumley! Chumley! Where are you, you lazy hound?”
The door opened and Chumley came in carrying a tray with a steaming pot of coffee and two cups.
“As usual, Chumley,” said the marquess, “you have read my mind. Put it down on the table. Miss Westerville shall serve us.”
“Very good, my lord.”
The marquess pulled himself upright and patted the sofa beside him. “Sit down, Miss Westerville.”
“I… I… I…”
“Sit down!”
“There is no need to bark at me,” mumbled Lucinda, gingerly sitting on the edge of the sofa. “I am not deaf.”
“Pour the coffee and tell me what you are doing here.”
Amazed that her hand did not shake, Lucinda poured him a cup of coffee, and then one for herself.
“I came here,” she said in a colorless voice, “to ask you to marry me.”
“Odso, why? No, no, don’t tell me. I think I know. You must escape the clutches of the
horrible Ismene. You must provide for your father.” He raised a mocking eyebrow at her and quoted:
“Stern daughter of the voice of God!
O Duty! If that name thou love
Who art a light to guide, a rod
To check the erring and reprove.”
He studied her face. The wide hazel eyes looked at him miserably.
“Well, I don’t see why not,” he said. “Pour me another cup of coffee.”
Lucinda did as she was bid. “It was bold of me to come here,” she said. “Perhaps I should return to my post as companion. Ismene means to send me packing, but I am sure I could flatter her into a good mood.”
“Not for long,” he said languidly. “You are a deuced sight too pretty.”
“Pretty? I?” Lucinda looked at him in surprise.
“Yes,” he said, amused. “You. Pretty.”
“You do not seem at all surprised by my proposal.”
“I shall be when my poor addled brain clears. Have you any conditions? I accept the care of your father.”
“Yes,” said Lucinda nervously, fiddling with the material of her gown. “I would like six months’ grace before we enter into the, er, intimate side of marriage.”
“In return for which…?”
“I shall not interfere with your life in any way, but if we can manage together tolerably well, then after six months I shall do my best to give you heirs.”
“And if we do not suit?”
“Then the marriage, not consummated, can be easily annulled.”
The marquess wondered whether to tell her that he had heard Chamfreys fulminating in the card room at Almack’s over the fact that one of his relatives should have to work and had sworn to go to Beechings and remove Mr. Westerville into his own care. But if he told her that, she would not marry him, and then he should have to go through all the dreary, boring business of courting someone.
“I accept your terms,” he said. “Now, hear mine. We will be married today—”
“No!”
“Why not? A little bribery and corruption and I can have a special license in my pocket within the hour. Either you marry me, or you don’t. I’ve accepted your terms, so it’s not as if I’m going to drag you to the marriage bed.”
Lucinda looked at him, trying to find some hint of compassion or concern behind those mocking green eyes. “Can’t we wait?” she asked feebly.
“No. Chumley!” he roared, making Lucinda jump.
When Chumley came in, the marquess said, “Take the required amount of money from my desk and go and get me a special license.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“I am getting married today to Miss Westerville here. Think you can arrange that?”
“Yes, my lord, provided Miss Westerville is over twenty-one.”
“Oh, curse it all. Of course she’s not over twenty-one.”
“I am… just,” said Lucinda. “But—”
“There you are, Chumley. Your new mistress is over twenty-one. Hop to it.”
“Very good, my lord.”
When he had left, Lucinda said with a weak smile, “I suppose it is rather like going to the dentist. ‘If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly.’”
“Not an apt quotation. It is marriage you are supposed to be contemplating, not murder.”
“I had better return and inform Lady Ismene—”
“No, you may as well stay here. Think of the scenes. Think of the tantrums!”
Lucinda shuddered.
“Well, I had better go and make myself ready. This is your home now. You had better look about. I do not seem to have the knack of keeping servants, so at the moment I am reduced to Chumley and the daily scrubbing women.”
He stood up and stretched his arms above his head. His dressing gown fell open to reveal his broad naked chest.
Lucinda quickly looked away. “What have you done?” screamed a voice in her head. But when she looked up again, it was to see him leaving the room.
She sat for a long time, very still, listening to the silence of the house, telling herself that all she had to do was to open the door and run away.
But she thought of her father and she at last forced herself to admit that the marquess had been more than generous in accepting her odd provisos.
A little warm feeling of gratitude toward this odd rake began to spread through her body. She decided to explore, and went down to the kitchens first.
She looked in dismay at the greasy black hole that was the main kitchen. There was an antiquated open range for cooking, a rough table covered in old scraps of food, greasy walls and dirty china and filthy pots. Obviously it had not been used for cooking anything lately. The hearth was cold. Chumley must have made the coffee on a spirit stove abovestairs. There was a tolerably clean baize apron hanging behind the door. Lucinda took off her pelisse and bonnet, tied on the apron, and proceeded to light the fire. A little scrubbing and cleaning would take her mind off her fast-approaching nuptials.
The marquess had shaved himself and dressed by the time Chumley returned and silently handed him a special license and a gold ring. “Where am I to be married?” asked the marquess.
“St. Edmund’s in Dove Lane, Holborn, my lord.”
“I suppose it will have to do. Hardly the most salubrious neighborhood. You had better be brideman, Chumley. Can you raise some female to act as maid of honor to Miss Westerville?”
“I have already arranged for a Mrs. Grant, a sidesman’s wife, to perform that service.”
“You may raise your wages, Chumley.”
“Your lordship is most kind. There is one problem, however…”
“That being…?”
“Miss Westerville is no longer in the saloon.”
“If that silly unmentionable epithet has fled the coop, I shall track her down and wring her neck.”
“May I say, my lord, Miss Westerville did not strike me as the sort of lady to do anything so impolite. Had she changed her mind, then I am sure she would have informed your lordship first.”
The marquess stood frowning. Then he said, “Follow me.”
He clattered down the stairs with Chumley after him. To Chumley’s surprise, his master continued on down the back stairs to the kitchens.
“I thought so,” said the marquess with satisfaction.
Chumley peered over his master’s shoulder.
The fire was blazing in the kitchen range.
The table was scrubbed, and shining dishes gleamed in serried ranks on the dresser. From the scullery came the sound of splashing water.
The marquess, followed by Chumley, walked through to the scullery. Lucinda was diligently scrubbing pots.
“I want a wife, not a slave,” said the marquess.
Lucinda straightened up and brushed a damp tendril of hair from her forehead. “I will not be able to engage any kitchen staff if the place is left in the disgusting mess in which I found it.”
“May I say, my lord,” put in Chumley, “that the mistress has the right of it. The last housekeeper I tried to engage took one look at the state of the place and had the vapors.”
“Then why didn’t you clean up the place yourself, man?”
“Because in a servantless house, I have a damn sight too much to do as it is, my lord,” snapped Chumley.
Lucinda waited, trembling, for the marquess’s wrath to break over poor Chumley, although surely such insolence from a mere servant deserved any master’s wrath.
The marquess contented himself with casting a malevolent look at his valet. “Are you going to stand there delivering yourself of jaw-me-deads all day? Or are you going to see me married?”
“We shall leave as soon as the mistress is ready.”
“She’s not the mistress yet and won’t be if someone doesn’t hurry up!”
“Come with me, Miss Westerville,” said Chumley.
Lucinda followed the valet out and up the stairs to the dusty bedchamber. A toilet table had bee
n hurriedly cleaned and supplied with cans of water and fresh towels.
“Thank you, Chumley. Is it so hard to get servants?”
“Yes, miss, but a lady in the house will make life different.”
He bowed and withdrew.
With the cleaning of the kitchen, Lucinda felt she had burnt her boats. The work had kept her frightened thoughts at bay. A calm descended on her as she washed her face, brushed her hair, and straightened her dress.
When she entered the saloon to join the marquess, she noticed he looked tolerably healthy and his eyes were clear. He appeared relaxed and amused.
She tied on her bonnet and allowed Chumley to help her into her pelisse, both of which she had left in the kitchen.
The marquess held out his arm, his green eyes glinting down at her.
She timidly took his arm. “There you are!” he said bracingly. “We look quite like an old married couple already.”
From then on the day took on an even more unreal appearance for Lucinda. She felt as if she were acting in a play. The church was dark and smelly and her maid of honor, a squat, mannish woman, reeked of gin. Lucinda had attended many weddings with her father and knew the service by heart, but the marquess needed to be prompted. He became cross and fidgety and began to exude a restless air of boredom.
When they were finally declared man and wife, he planted a brief and careless kiss on Lucinda’s cold mouth and led her hurriedly from the church.
“Thank God, that’s over. If I’d known what an infernal bore it was going to be, I doubt if I’d have faced up to it.”
“Where to, my lord?” asked Chumley as they climbed into the carriage. Chumley was acting as coachman.
“We’d better go to Clifton’s,” said the marquess.
“No,” protested Lucinda.
“Why not? You need your bits and pieces, and Ismene can hardly eat you with me around.”
