A Ring From a Marquess

by Christine Merrill

  ‘Felkirk,’ he greeted the man with his most formal bow, silently thanking God that it had not been the Duke of Buh-Buh-Belston he’d needed to greet. The man come to deal with him was the duke’s brother. In precedence, he was beneath Stephen and owed him respect. But his demeanour was of a disapproving schoolmaster, about to administer a whipping.

  Felkirk took the chair he offered, but refused refreshment with a look that said he would rather sup from a pig’s trough than share a drink with the person he’d come to visit. ‘I understand that you have entered into a relationship with Miss Margot de Bryun?’

  ‘If I had, I would not speak of it,’ Stephen replied, narrowing his eyes to seem equally disapproving.

  ‘The lady in question is my wife’s sister.’

  ‘I know.’ When he’d imagined a union between them, he’d hung much on this relationship. The older sister had married well. If Margot was also elevated, would it really come as such a surprise?

  ‘Our connection is not widely known,’ Felkirk admitted. ‘That has less to do with any reticence on the part of my family than it does with the single-minded independence of Miss de Bryun. Margot did not wish to trade on the family name to make her success.’

  ‘She would not have to,’ he replied with no hesitation. ‘Her work is the finest I have seen in England.’

  By the shocked look on Felkirk’s face, a two-sentence reply from the notoriously silent Fanworth must have seemed like a flood of words. That it came in praise of a woman he refused to acknowledge was even more interesting.

  Felkirk gave a brief nod. ‘I will inform her sister of the fact. It will be a great comfort to her. But other matters are not.’ He gave Stephen a searching look, allowing him to draw his own conclusions.

  When Stephen did not immediately answer, Felkirk continued. ‘My wife and her sister are very close. They are similar in appearance as well.’

  ‘Then you are fortunate to have a married a lovely woman,’ Stephen said, again surprising the man again with his honesty.

  ‘I am aware of that. But I am also aware of the sort of attention such beauty can draw when one appears to be alone and unprotected—’

  ‘Her looks are not Margot’s only virtue,’ Stephen interrupted, feeling suddenly eloquent when presented with his favourite subject. ‘She is an intelligent young woman with an excellent sense of humour.’

  If Felkirk had been surprised before, now he looked positively shocked by this quick admission. ‘Since we can agree on her many excellent qualities, you must also understand how troubling it is to hear that she is entering into a liaison not likely to end in marriage.’

  ‘I fail to see how it can end any other way,’ Stephen said. Then he fixed Felkirk with a look that implied he was the one to put a dishonourable intent on their rather unorthodox courtship.

  ‘You mean to…’ It was like watching air leak from a billowing sail. Felkirk had not been prepared to win so easily.

  ‘Marry her,’ Stephen finished.

  Felkirk responded to this with stunned silence.

  The man expected him to explain himself. Not bloody likely, since any attempt to describe the current circumstances would end in a stammering mess. Stephen continued to stare, waiting for the man to speak.

  He saw Felkirk’s eyes narrowing again, as he tried to decide what to make of this sudden and complete victory. ‘Margot would not tell us the reason that she went to you.’

  ‘Nor will I,’ Stephen replied and continued to stare at him.

  ‘A marriage is necessary, of course, and the sooner the better. The rumours flow faster than the water at the pump room.’ Felkirk stated the obvious, but in a doubtful tone as though suddenly unsure of his mission.

  ‘A special licence then. I will set off for London immediately.’

  ‘Immediately,’ Felkirk repeated. ‘Without speaking to the lady you are to marry?’

  Stephen sighed. Perhaps, with some other girl, the matter could be easily settled between gentlemen. But his Margot was not the sort to let her future be decided by others. ‘I suppose I shall have to.’

  ‘You do not wish to speak to her?’ Felkirk was clearly offended.

  ‘She will not speak to me,’ Stephen clarified.

  ‘Despite the circumstances, I will not force her to wed you, if she does not wish to,’ Felkirk said.

  ‘She wishes it,’ Stephen said. ‘She is not yet aware of the fact. But she wants to marry.’

  ‘Then, how…?’

  It was an excellent, if unfinished question. And then a plan occurred to him. ‘You must offer her an urgent reason to wed,’ Stephen said with a smile. ‘For example, if there were threat of a…’ He took a deep breath and forced the word out. ‘A duel…’

  ‘You wish me to call you out over this?’ Felkirk said with an incredulous snort.

  ‘If you would be so kind,’ Stephen said, relaxing.

  ‘I had hoped it would not come to that.’

  ‘It is not for my sake,’ Stephen reminded him. ‘It is for hers.’

  ‘But suppose she wishes me to fight you?’

  ‘If I know Margot,’ Stephen said, surprised by his own confidence, ‘she will not. She would think it foolish.’ His Margot was far too sensible to demand that men fight for her honour.

  ‘Then what good can it do?’ Felkirk asked.

  ‘Your wife will not take it so lightly. Suppose I am not the one injured?’

  Felkirk gave him a speculative look. ‘Think you can best me, do you?’

  Actually, he did. Fencing had been an excellent way to channel the rage he felt at his impediment. Those who had seen him with a blade deemed him a master. But now, he shrugged. ‘For the sake of argument, you must make her think I might. Though it may appear so, Margot will not risk the happiness of her sister to see me suffer.’ If such a strong-willed creature as his Margot had wanted to see him bleed, she’d want to stab him herself. Since he was as yet unmarked, he had hope.

  Stephen favoured his future in-law with an expression that was positively benign. ‘Surely, accepting my name and title is not too much of a hardship, if it assures your safety.’

  Felkirk held up a hand, as if to stem the rising tide of confusing arguments. ‘Am I to understand you? You are willing to marry my sister-in-law, if she would accept you?’

  If he could not explain the whole story to Felkirk, he could at least give the man one small bit of truth. ‘It would make me the happiest man in England to take Margot de Bryun as my wife.’ He spoke slowly, to add clarity as well as gravitas. And he was relieved that there was not a tremor or a slur over the name of his beloved.

  There was another significant pause before Felkirk said, ‘Will your family say the same?’

  In such moments, there was no point in giving ground. ‘I assume you mean Larchmont. If you ask the question, you know the answer.’

  ‘Your father is notorious for his strong opinions,’ Felkirk said, as diplomatically as possible.

  ‘His opinions do not concern me,’ Stephen replied. ‘I would be more interested to know the opinion of your family. Since you are married to the woman’s sister, I assume I will be welcome in your house. And your brother married a cit’s daughter.’

  ‘The circumstances in both cases were unusual,’ Felkirk said, but did not elaborate.

  ‘In this case, they are not. I wish to marry Margot for love. The rest is immaterial.’

  ‘Other than her unwillingness to see or to speak to you, of course,’ Felkirk added. ‘Or to tell any of us what is the matter so that we might know whether we do greater harm than good by yoking her to a man she despises.’

  She had loved him once. That he had managed to ruin that…

  Idiot. Dullard.

  And that was his father speaking again. He would stand squarely against such a marriage—that was all the more reason to press onwards. ‘I have no wish to make her unhappy by forcing this union. I simply wish for her to realise that she will be happy, should she marry me.’
/>   ‘And to bring her to this realisation, you wish to trick her into accepting you?’ Felkirk said with a frown.

  It was not a trick, precisely. He merely wished to nudge her in the direction she secretly wished to go.

  ‘The choice is still hers,’ he said. But he knew her well enough to be predict her reaction. She would marry him. After they were together, he would find a way to make her believe that he had nothing to do with the necklace. Once she realised that they were both victims of a hoax, it would be as it had been and they would be happy.

  For now, he smiled at Felkirk as though eager to meet his doom. ‘At least, we will see, soon enough, if she cares whether I am living or dead.’

  * * *

  ‘But surely, you must see that this is best for all of us.’ Justine was using the tone she had taken throughout their childhood to bring her difficult sister into line.

  Margot gritted her teeth to resist responding. What she had hoped would be a quiet Sunday visit with her sister and brother-in-law was turning into a lecture on what she must do to salvage her reputation. Now that Margot was fully of age, Justine had no right to make such demands. Her life was her own. She could ruin it if she wished.

  That was an especially petty argument and another reason to remain silent. She had not wanted ruin. But neither did she want to wed Fanworth.

  Justine tried again. ‘If he can be persuaded to behave honourably, we can end this quietly. Your good name will be restored and you will have married into one of the most respected families in England.’

  ‘If I can be persuaded to take him, more like,’ Margot said. She doubted she would have to make such a decision. If the plan hinged on Fanworth behaving honourably, there was no need to bother with it.

  ‘If he can be made to offer, of course you will say yes.’

  ‘Do you mean to answer for me, as well?’ Justine had taken far too much on herself already. ‘I did not ask you to send Will to him, angling after a proposal.’

  ‘You did not have to ask,’ Justine said. ‘He did it for my sake.’ She reached out to take her sister’s hand. ‘I cannot stand by to see you destroyed over this foolish shop, just as it very nearly destroyed me.’

  ‘It was not the shop,’ Margot argued. ‘Mr Montague was at fault for what happened to you.’

  ‘But if you had been here, to see the looks polite women gave me, as I walked down the street…’ Justine’s voice broke. ‘I will not live to see the same thing happen to you. You will marry the marquess and retire to his home in Derbyshire. That is even further away than Wales. No one will know of the scandal and you might start anew.’

  ‘And what would become of the business?’ Margot said. Justine seemed to be ignoring the practicalities.

  ‘We will close this place and never think about it again. It has brought nothing but bad luck to our family and we will do well to be rid of it.’

  As always, Justine was blaming the building and its contents for any and all of their troubles over the last twenty years. It was nonsense, of course. But better that she fault the shop than take any part of the blame on herself, for things she had no control over.

  ‘If only I had refused, when you told me of your plan of taking over de Bryun’s,’ Justine said, the first tear trickling down her cheek, ‘I might have kept you safe.’

  Now they were returning to Margot’s least-favourite subject, the need for her older sister to control everything and make any and all sacrifices necessary to save the family. But it was unusual to see her so upset that she resorted to tears.

  Gently but firmly, she withdrew her hand from Justine’s, then returned it to cover her sister’s hands to console her. ‘You cannot fix everything, you know. You certainly cannot fix this, just by marrying me off to Fanworth and selling the shop. Especially since I am of age now and unwilling to do either of those things. I will stay away from him and be sure that he stays away from me. By next summer, all will be forgotten.’

  Unless, of course, the marquess had her arrested for the theft of the Larchmont rubies. She must hope that the week’s silence since their last meeting was a sign he deemed it better to forget certain details than to risk her blurting ugly truths about his character as part of a Newgate broadside.

  Justine was readying her next argument when they heard the sound of footsteps in the hall and her husband appeared in the doorway. At the sight of his tearful wife, Will Felkirk gave Margot a grim, disapproving look, as if to blame her for Justine’s distress. Then he came and sat at her side, close enough so their thighs touched and extricated her hands from Margot’s so he might hold them himself.

  His wife stared up at him with watery eyes. ‘You have spoken to him?’

  Will paused a moment, then glanced at Margot and nodded. ‘The matter is settled.’

  Margot breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Good. The sooner we can all put this nonsense behind us, the better.’

  ‘I put it to him quite simply. He will marry you, or I will meet him at dawn.’

  ‘A duel?’ At this, the normally stoic Justine dissolved into sobs.

  ‘It will not come to that,’ Margot insisted, alarmed at her sister’s extreme reaction.

  ‘You will marry him, then, if he offers?’ Will said, clearly relieved.

  ‘Not if he was the last man on earth,’ she replied, not bothering to think.

  ‘He is not the last man on earth. He is a marquess,’ Justine snapped, tears still streaming down her face. ‘Now stop acting like an honourable match with the son of a peer is a fate worse than death.’

  ‘I cannot stand to be in the same room with him, ever again.’

  ‘If you do not like him, you need not live with him after the ceremony. But you will not draw my husband into fighting him, to protect the reputation you were careless with.’

  ‘I did not ask him to be involved in this,’ Margot snapped back.

  ‘And I did. Because I had no idea you would be such a ninny about it. It was quite clear, a few weeks ago, that you doted on the man. You would not leave him alone when I warned you what would happen. And now, because of your stubbornness, my Will could be injured, or even killed.’

  ‘There, there,’ Will said, gathering her close.

  ‘It will not come to that,’ Margot repeated. ‘Do not allow yourself to become overwrought over nothing.’

  ‘I will if I wish to,’ Justine said, with another shower of tears. ‘If you have no care for yourself, think of the child that will be born fatherless…’

  This was too much. ‘I am not increasing,’ Margot insisted. She had been more than a little relieved to discover that herself.

  ‘I was not talking about you. What about my child?’ This was followed by more tears from Justine and a glare from Will.

  ‘You?’ Of course. It had to be true. Justine had been making sly admissions of morning illness, of tiredness, of a desire to start a family and of the readying of the nursery at the old Bellston manor. But had her shy sister ever said in so many words that a birth was imminent? Or had Margot been too busy with the shop, and with Fanworth, to notice?

  ‘And now Will might have to risk himself because you are unwilling to listen to reason,’ Justine said, sniffling into the handkerchief that her husband offered her.

  He leaned close to her, whispering into her ear and kissing the side of her face. Whatever he had said seemed to calm her, for she turned back and pressed her face into his hair, smothering his lips with her own.

  If possible, an awkward situation was becoming even worse. She had missed the obvious clues to her sister’s pregnancy. Though she refused to believe that she had put him at risk of his life, she had managed to involve Will in her problems. And now they had all but forgotten she was here.

  When Will managed to disengage his wife from himself, he looked over her head, glaring again at Margot. ‘As you can see, Justine is distressed by recent events.’

  ‘But I cannot simply marry him,’ she said. Even when things had been going well, she had kno
wn that was impossible.

  Now he was looking at her with disgust as though she were the most selfish creature on Earth. ‘Either I will put the announcement of your betrothal in tomorrow’s paper, or we will fight on Tuesday morning. One of us will be injured, or perhaps killed. I hope you are satisfied with that prospect, for there is no third alternative.’

  At this, Justine let out a wail. ‘There will be no fighting. I will go to him, myself, if that is needed. I will throw myself on my knees and beg him to do what is right for our family.’ She raised a hand to her temple in a gesture that Margot would have called melodramatic, if her sister had ever been guilty of such a thing. ‘Do not worry, Margot, I will take care of everything. Just as I always have.’

  ‘No!’ Margot’s shout of frustration was every bit as loud and dramatic as the behaviour of the other two people in the room. But it brought an instantaneous halt to their emoting. ‘I will go myself, immediately. And I will go alone. I will be back in time for supper, to tell you what we have decided.’

  Whatever happened, it would not involve a pregnant Justine, on her knees, begging Fanworth for anything. She might think that it was her job to sacrifice for all and for ever. But, by the Blessed Virgin, Margot had caused this problem and she would solve it herself with no help from her older sister.

  Chapter Ten

  For the third time in as many weeks, Margot was arriving unescorted at the house of the Marquess of Fanworth. This time, she gave up even pretending that it was possible to move unnoticed and greeted any acquaintances she passed with the cheery wave of an unrepentant harlot. Let them think what they would. She was fairly sure that, no matter what happened today, it would end in a story that would give the whole town something to gossip about. For all she cared, they could choke on their tongues.

  Mrs Sims admitted her without a raised eyebrow. Then she glanced at the steps towards the bedrooms, as though expecting Margot intended to show herself up. The insult was subtle, but it was there, all the same.