The Marquess

by Patricia Rice

  But she’d been the recipient of enough lustful looks over the years to know what they meant. She had no fortune, no name, nothing with which to gift a man but her body. Most of the time she succeeded in ignoring the fact that she possessed the build of a tavern wench.

  She was small-boned and not stylishly attractive, so she could hide behind demure round gowns in unfashionable drab colors. Mostly, men didn’t notice her. When Blanche accompanied her, they didn’t even know Dillian existed. She preferred it that way.

  But other times Blanche’s suitors had sought her out when they found Blanche unavailable. They might act the gentleman around Blanche, but they saw no need for it around Blanche’s hired help. Dillian hadn’t mistaken their ardor as she had mistaken the vicar’s son. She knew lust for what it was now.

  She had seen desire in the marquess’s eyes. Hurriedly pulling her riding jacket around her and fastening it tightly, Dillian tried not thinking about it. She had rather enjoyed their suppers together. She couldn’t exactly call them pleasant. The marquess had a caustic wit and a bitterness that spiced their conversation somewhat heavily, but he also had a quick mind and an appreciation for intelligent subjects that she seldom found in society. She didn’t want their intellectual converse polluted with the physical weaknesses of the flesh.

  She played the fool. The marquess had no reason to continue their late night suppers once he caught the arsonist, and it seemed he had. She would have no reason to ever see him again. He could take his lust elsewhere, and she and Blanche could return to their normal humdrum existence.

  Except, even as she hurried down the stairs, she knew their lives would never return as before. Blanche would wear the scars of the fire forever, in one form or another. Her cousin’s need for a husband had become all too apparent at the same time the field of suitors would drastically narrow. Once Blanche decided on a husband, Dillian would have to venture into the world alone.

  She couldn’t think about that just yet either. She had enough on her mind dealing with the madman waiting for her out in the night.

  She waited for the footman to pass the bottom of the stairs and disappear into the further reaches of the ground floor. Then she darted into the foyer, down the hall, and out the side door to the stables. She hadn’t asked Effingham where they would meet, but she imagined he would watch this door for her appearance.

  She imagined correctly. Without his cloak, the white of his neck cloth gleamed against the dark outline of the barn. He wore a dark frock coat and vest, as he had these past nights when they’d shared their supper and a few hours together. She knew very well how elegant he looked in a gentleman’s clothes, no matter how outmoded. She also knew how dangerous he appeared when he flung the cloak around him and departed into the darkness.

  Silently, she handed him the cloak she held over her arm. He took it and pulled it on, concealing his features with the hood as he started briskly down the path to the woods. She thought he wore the hood more out of habit than necessity or any real need to hide himself. She wished she could hide her features quite so neatly.

  “What was he doing when you found him?” she whispered, unable to bear the silence.

  “Skulking.” The reply was succinct and without expression.

  She felt the thread of tension between them tighten. She thought they’d gone beyond their earlier disagreements to find some degree of understanding. Tonight’s incident had evidently rendered their truce null and void.

  So be it. She could be as rude and curt as he when she so desired. Without another word, Dillian stuck her nose up in the air and strode forcefully beside him.

  Except her legs weren’t as long as Effingham’s, and she kept falling behind. She had to race to keep up. Swearing under her breath as she tripped on a tree root, she deliberately stopped running and strolled leisurely, forcing him to look for her.

  Dillian could almost hear the curse on the marquess’s lips, but he refrained from speaking the words aloud. He forced his pace to hers as they left the beaten path, and he held branches back so she could pass.

  “In here.” He made a gesture with his head indicating the overgrown gazebo some long-ago generation had built. Dillian had nearly forgotten its existence. She wondered if the marquess had used it as his chambers these last few days. If so, he should be grateful it hadn’t rained. Even the mass of rampant vines couldn’t prevent the wind from blowing through the holes.

  To her surprise, he had a lantern. He threw open the sliding tin and let a crack of light illuminate one corner of the interior where a trussed and sorry figure lay curled upon the floor. The man turned his face from the beam of light, but she caught sight of his features well enough. She didn’t recognize him at all.

  She stepped out of the gazebo, forcing Effingham to follow. He had the lantern closed when he did so.

  “Well?” he demanded.

  “He’s not from around here,” she said. “Did he say why he was ‘skulking’?”

  “He said he’s a soldier looking for work. I’d believe him had he slept by the road instead of hiding in the bushes at the rear of the property.”

  Dillian clasped her fingers in front of her. She had little enough sympathy for the military and a very low opinion of military men, but she wasn’t completely narrow-minded. Many of these men had thought to find a better life by joining Wellington’s forces. Instead, they had returned home with missing hands and feet or worse and were left to fend for themselves. She didn’t wish any man harm, but she couldn’t allow a possible arsonist to destroy Blanche or the Grange.

  “What will you do with him?”

  “Take him to the local magistrate for questioning, I suppose. The threat of transportation for trespassing might loosen his tongue. When will those dogs you bought arrive?”

  He’d almost forgotten to act cold. She could hear the reasonable man with whom she’d spent these last few nights in the tone of his voice. “The dogs arrive in the morning,” she told him. “I’ve hired a trainer to teach them the grounds. How will they differentiate between you and an intruder?”

  “They won’t need to. I’m returning to the manor once I deliver your intruder to the authorities. I’ll send Lady Blanche and Michael back here as soon as I arrive. I’ve done all I can. Michael is sharp enough to do the rest.”

  Dillian panicked. Somewhere in the back of her brain, she knew what he was doing. He was running away from her. What had happened tonight made continuing their casual dinner conversation impossible. She knew that, somehow understood it, but she couldn’t accept it. The Grange needed his protection. She had nothing else besides Blanche, and Blanche was safe in Hertfordshire. No one would look for her in a moldering castle without servants or society. If Blanche came to the Grange, Dillian would lose them both.

  He was a marquess. She couldn’t ask him to stay as a guard dog. She couldn’t demand that he let Blanche stay as a guest in his home when he so blatantly discouraged guests. Damn.

  “Will you at least come back and tell me what the magistrate said before you return to Hertfordshire?” she asked, not knowing how else she could stall him.

  He didn’t immediately reply. She held her breath as he deliberated. If he would just return on the morrow, perhaps she would have thought of some way of holding him by then.

  “I hadn’t considered lingering to hear his verdict,” he admitted gruffly. “I have no use for British authorities.”

  Of course. That was true. Dillian took a deep breath and tried again. “I would send Blanche some traveling clothes and a message before you go. I cannot believe it safe for her to travel, nor for her to stay here. I would warn her of the consequences and suggest other arrangements. Perhaps I should return with you.”

  She felt rather than saw his sharp look at this suggestion.

  “That is not the brightest thing you have ever said, Miss Whitnell,” he said stiffly. “I will return here for any messages you wish to send, but that is all.”

  She disliked it, but she understoo
d it. She still found it unnerving being addressed by her father’s name instead of her mother’s after all these years. Blanche should never have revealed so much. Unable to argue, however, she nodded and started back toward the marked path without a word of farewell.

  She heard him following at a discreet distance, but she didn’t acknowledge him. She must have been all about in her wits thinking she could hold a marquess here to protect her home. It was Blanche she worried about now. Blanche could find no safety here. The episode tonight proved that. Somehow, she must force the miserable man to let Blanche stay in his Gothic ruin.

  Without power or money, she had very few means of coercing him to do anything.

  Chapter Ten

  “Will there be anything else this evening, Miss Reynolds?” the butler asked with all the deference accorded the mistress of the house.

  Dillian didn’t know what Blanche had told the servants when she first came here as Blanche’s companion, but she had always been treated in the same manner as Blanche. The understanding between the cousins might make that appropriate, but the servants knew nothing of their familial relationship. Or supposedly, they didn’t. Just because Dillian’s mother had grown up here did not mean that the servants knew Dillian’s identity. Her mother had never returned here after her marriage.

  There were any number of people named Reynolds in this country. She hoped no one knew her real identity. Neville would choke on his fury should he learn Blanche had hired the notorious Colonel “Slippery” Whitnell’s daughter as companion, even if she was Blanche’s cousin.

  But that was all water over the dam now. Dillian made a gesture of dismissal to the butler. “Go on to bed, Jenkins. Make sure Jamie is summoned to patrol. I heard some of the Radicals were in the village today.”

  “They have no reason to come here, miss,” Jenkins replied indignantly. “The Grange has always been good to its people.”

  She had no desire to explain that other forces might be at work besides rebellious farmers. She thanked him and wandered up the stairs.

  The marquess hadn’t returned to report what had happened with the magistrate. Now she not only had to worry over Effingham’s whereabouts, but if the intruder might have escaped. Would he have had confederates who might have freed him, harming Lord Effingham in the process? She should know better than to worry, but she had little else to do.

  Perhaps she should go back to Arinmede and look after Blanche. She would feel much better if she knew Blanche was all right, that her sight was recovering, that they might escape somewhere safe shortly. Once Blanche recovered, they could tour the Continent for the next six months. Neville would have a hard time finding them there.

  If she returned to Arinmede, would the marquess really throw her out?

  Instead of going to her own room, she wandered down the hall to the corner chamber. These rooms had been furnished as family rooms with a library and salon and dining parlor. The front corner provided a lady’s study, with a delicate Queen Anne writing desk, chairs for reading and sewing, and several shelves of books. She had need of a good book tonight.

  She dismissed Sir Walter Scott and picked up one of Miss Austen’s social satires. She’d read it before, but she’d read everything in here at least once. Miss Austen was always worth reading again.

  She still couldn’t force herself back to her room. If the marquess climbed any more vines, he would have to look for her here instead of her chamber. She felt morally more secure in this proper setting. She also felt better with a view of the road. She settled in a window seat with a lamp, and occasionally peeked behind the draperies to see if anything had changed.

  She just felt uneasy. The dogs had arrived with their trainer, but they were new to their job. She couldn’t rely on them yet. She couldn’t imagine the geese patrolling the yard with any regularity. How had the marquess passed by them last night if so?

  Hours later, her head nodded over the book, and she had to jerk herself awake. Yawning, she admitted she couldn’t manage this vigil any longer. Feeling a vague sense of disappointment that the marquess hadn’t returned, Dillian peeked out the window again before giving up for the night.

  She blinked and rubbed her eyes. Surely, she didn’t see...

  She did see. She saw a line of blazing orange flames marching up the drive, held in the hands of a mob of men.

  She wouldn’t panic. The Grange was all she had, even if it wasn’t hers. She would protect it at any cost.

  Dropping her book, Dillian flew down the hall, screaming at the top of her lungs. She didn’t scream from panic but as the fastest way of arousing the household, both upstairs and down. She heard one of the maids in the attic fall from her bed with a thump. She hit the stairway and raced down, yelling for Jenkins and Jamie.

  Fully garbed for his rounds, Jamie waited for her at the bottom of the staircase. “What is it, Miss Dillian? What is it?”

  “Outside! Get everyone outside! They’re coming with torches.”

  To a household of servants who had already been burned from their home once, that cry sent shouts of fear and fury careening through the hallways. Jamie raced to the back of the house to wake the cooks and kitchen help; Dillian raced up the back stairs to make certain all the maids had heard her.

  The chaotic sound of dogs barking and howling, mixed with the outraged squawks of a gaggle of geese and the gonging of the alarm bell turned the silence into a nightmarish cacophony. Dillian didn’t need the hysterical screams of the maids adding to the chaos.

  “Quiet! Run to the kitchen and fetch pails and kettles, then get outside. No one has set fire to anything yet, and I’ll be blamed if I let them. I need your help. Now, hurry.”

  As her calmness and orders sank in, they raced to obey, chattering the whole time but no longer screaming. The Grange staff had always been orderly. She gave thanks for that now. They helped quiet Blanche’s town staff who were convinced they would all burn in their beds this time.

  Grateful she hadn’t changed into her nightshift, Dillian grabbed one of her grandfather’s old hunting guns from the study. Jenkins came running up with his shirt only half on and his trousers partially buttoned, a far cry from the staid and respectable butler of earlier. She handed him another of the hunting guns.

  “Hand out the rest of the guns to any of the men you trust. I’ll see that mob dead before one inch of this place is burned,” she said furiously.

  Jenkins grabbed a handful of blunderbusses and shotguns, and handed them out as Jamie and the other footmen joined him. When Dillian flung open the front door, he offered a vocal protest, but she ignored him. She didn’t have patience for arguing over propriety.

  The mob had already reached the last curve in the drive. She could see the torchlight flickering over blackened faces. She couldn’t recognize anyone in the darkness, let alone with disguises. It didn’t matter. She fully intended to kill them if they came closer.

  She felt Jenkins and the armed servants filing out of the house behind her. She hoped the maids had run out the back as ordered. She had enough militant Whitnell in her to see the Grange burned over her dead body, but wisdom enough to know death was always a possibility.

  “What do you want?” she shouted over the howls of the dogs. The trainer held them back at the corner of the house. She didn’t want the animals hurt by gunfire. She hoped he kept them there unless needed.

  The mob ignored her. Seeing the armed servants behind her, they veered in the direction of the stable. The horses! She hadn’t thought to rescue the horses. Torn between guarding her house and protecting innocent animals, Dillian hesitated.

  Incredibly, into that moment of indecision rode a horrifying specter of silver and black. Dillian gasped and stepped back as the specter’s huge horse rode between her and the mob. Even with torches lighting the night sky, she could only discern the rider’s shape and mass— and the bright arc of a shining sword.

  The mob screamed as the huge beast rode down on them, scattering them across the lawns,
sending them flying down the drive in retreat. The sword arced and flashed and torches flew into the dew-damp grass, there to sputter out, abandoned as their owners took to their heels.

  “The stable!” Dillian screamed, pointing in the direction of a few brave souls who sought the flammable straw and hay. Her staff ran where she pointed, but the cloaked figure on horseback got there first.

  The cloaked figure on horseback.

  The marquess.

  Dillian almost melted with relief. He hadn’t gone away and left her alone after all. He still looked after the Grange. She still had a chance to persuade him to stay or take her with him.

  If he didn’t get himself killed first.

  She screamed and ran toward the stables as remnants of the mob surrounded him, threatening horse and rider with their torches. Unable to aim her weapon with any degree of accuracy, she shot it into the air, drawing their attention.

  The black shadow on the horse didn’t hesitate as he used the distraction to cut a swath through the mob with his deadly sword. Cries of pain filled the air, and the men with torches fell back, seeing for the first time the servants running toward them with weapons.

  The man in black used his magnificent beast to cut off those few still attempting to reach the haystacks. They flung their torches in fear and ran. Dillian watched in relief as a few of the grooms stomped out the torches before their fires could catch.

  “A most unusual sight,” Jenkins murmured from beside her, a slight note of puzzlement in his voice. “He appears some knight of old riding to the rescue.”

  Dillian tried to see the dashing cloak and upraised sword from the servant’s point of view, but she saw only the mocking smile and the flat black of the marquess’s eyes. She shook her head. “More like a corsair, Jenkins. Beware he doesn’t claim the sinking ship.”