Miss Marianne's Disgrace

‘Let me see.’ Marianne tried to look at the injury, but Lady Ellington twisted away.

‘You needn’t fuss so much,’ she chided in a shaky voice. ‘It’s just a scratch, nothing more.’

‘Then allow us to examine it.’ Mrs Stevens reached over and gently peeled Lady Ellington’s fingers away from the wound. Her lips tightened as she studied the wide and bleeding cut.

‘This needs immediate attention.’ She pressed her handkerchief over it.

Lady Ellington winced and a fine perspiration spread out beneath the line of her light-blonde hair streaked with grey.

‘Will she be all right?’ Marianne asked as the embroidery on the linen blurred with red. One of her schoolmates at the Protestant School in France had cut herself this deeply. It had become inflamed and she’d gone from a lively child to resting in the churchyard in the space of two weeks. For all Marianne’s misfortunes, none would equal losing Lady Ellington.

‘Of course,’ Mrs Stevens reassured in a motherly tone. ‘But the wound must be closed. Fetch my son. He used to be a naval surgeon. He’ll see to it.’

‘But he wasn’t at dinner.’

‘He came in after we withdrew and is probably with the men. Go quickly. I’ll stay with Lady Ellington.’

Marianne rose on shaky legs and walked in a fog of worry out of the study. She turned down one hall, then paused. The heavy sauce from the fish course twisted in her stomach. This wasn’t the way. As she doubled back, the sweep of her footsteps on the carpet dulled the panicked thud of her pulse in her ears. She hadn’t paid much attention when she’d followed the ladies to the study after leaving the sitting room. She’d been too busy fuming over Miss Cartwright’s snide comments to concentrate on what turns they’d made to reach the distant room.

‘Where’s a footman when you need one?’ They’d been as thick as fleas along the wall at dinner and in the sitting room afterwards. Now there wasn’t even a lowly maid scraping out ashes in any of the empty rooms flanking the hall. Lady Ellington might bleed to death before Marianne found her way back to the other guests.

No, she’ll be fine. All I need to do is find Mr Stevens.

She turned a corner and the door to the wide front sitting room came into view. She exhaled with relief and rushed towards it, careful not to run. She didn’t want to fly into a fit of worry, not with Lady Ellington relying on her to keep a level head. Hopefully, the men hadn’t lingered in the dining room.

No such luck.

The women looked up from around the card table as Marianne stepped into the doorway. Their faces were no warmer or more welcoming then when she’d left them fifteen minutes ago.

‘Can we help you, Miss Domville?’ Lady Cartwright drawled, as if it hurt her to be polite.

‘Lady Ellington has injured herself and is in need of help. I must find Mr Stevens.’

‘Sir Warren,’ Miss Cartwright corrected, her lips pulling back over one crooked front tooth as she laid a card on the pile in the centre, ‘is in the dining room with the men.’

‘I’ll call a footman to summon him. After all, it can’t be too serious,’ Lady Cartwright sneered under her breath to Lady Astley and Lady Preston who sat with her at the card table.

‘No, thank you, I’ll fetch him myself.’ Marianne made for the dining room, not about to lose time waiting for these hard women to decide whether it was more important to put Marianne in her place or to help Lady Ellington.

She didn’t remember the hallway being so long when Lady Ellington had walked beside her, chatting gaily with Mrs Stevens about the new Italian landscape paintings they were about to view. Marianne quickened her pace, stumbling a little over a wrinkle in a rug before righting herself.

The deep laugh of men muffled by the double oak doors punctuated the growing whispers of the ladies congregating in the sitting-room doorway behind Marianne. They gasped in shock, practically sucking the air from the hallway as Marianne pushed open the doors and stepped inside.

They weren’t the only ones who were stunned. The footman jumped in front of her so fast, he almost lost his wig.

‘Miss, you shouldn’t be here.’ He shifted back and forth to block her view, as if she’d walked in on the men dancing naked in front of the buffet.

‘Move aside, I must see Sir Warren.’ She slipped around the ridiculous footman and headed for the table.

The men were too lost in a weedy fog of tobacco and fine port to notice her. All the candles but those at the far end of the long table of Lady Cartwright’s ridiculously long dining room had been extinguished, deepening the smoky shadows outside the circle of light.

‘I tell you, Warren, it’s an investment you can’t miss.’ Mr Hirst thumped the table in front of him. His words were thicker and more slurred than when he’d rattled on to her at dinner about his intention to import a new type of tobacco from North Carolina. He’d pleaded with her to speak to Lord Falconbridge about investing in his venture, addressing her breasts more than her during the discussion. The noxious little man. His lust was all she’d come to expect from most gentlemen. Carnal pleasure was the only thing the men who’d streamed through Madame de Badeau’s entrance hall had ever wanted from her and they’d despised her for not giving it to them.

The men on either side of Mr Hirst nodded in agreement, except for Lord Cartwright who slumped forward on the high polished table, snoring beside an empty wine glass.

‘You could make a fortune,’ Mr Hirst insisted.

‘Rupert, I’ve already made a fortune with my novels,’ the man who must be Sir Warren replied. He sat with his back to Marianne, a glass of port held at a languid angle to his body.

‘Sir Warren,’ Marianne called out, interrupting his leisure.

Chairs scraped and men coughed and sputtered as they hurried to stand. Even Lord Cartwright was hauled to his feet by Lord Astley. Lord Cartwright’s bleary eyes fixed on her.

‘What in heaven’s name are you doing in here?’ he sputtered, wavering and nearly falling back into his seat before Lord Astley steadied him.

‘I need Sir Warren. It’s urgent.’

‘I’m Sir Warren.’ The man with his back to her set his drink on the table and turned.

She braced herself, ready to receive from him another chastising look like the others had flung at her, but it wasn’t there. Instead, his deep-green eyes were wide with the same surprise filling her and it dissolved all of Marianne’s sense of urgency. He was tall, with a broad chest she could lay her head on, if she was inclined to embrace people, which she wasn’t. His long, sturdy arms ended in wide hands with slender fingers tinged a slight black at the tips. He was taller than the other gentlemen with long legs and narrow hips. The softness of the country hadn’t set in about his flat stomach beneath his waistcoat or along the line of his jaw shadowed by the first hint of light stubble. He wore his blond hair a touch longer than the other men with a few strands falling forward over his forehead. There seemed something more professional man than gentleman in his bearing. Although his clothes were fine, they weren’t as tidy or well pressed as the other gentlemen’s and his cravat was tied, but the knot was loose.

Unlike his companions, he didn’t appraise her large breasts, which she did her best to hide beneath the chemisette and high bodice. Instead he waited patiently for her to explain herself, like Mr Nichols, the old vicar at the Protestant School in France used to do whenever he’d caught her being naughty. Where had this man been at dinner? With him by her side instead of old Lord Preston, she might have actually enjoyed the overcooked lamb.

The rest of the men weren’t so kind, brushing her with their silent disapproval and more lurid thoughts.

‘How can I be of assistance?’ Sir Warren prodded, snapping her out of her surprise.

‘You must come at once. Lady Ellington has cut herself badly and needs your help.’ She reached out, ready to pull him along to the study before she dropped her hand. To touch a man, even innocently, was to encourage him and she needed his assistance, not his ardour.

His smile faded like the last flame licking at a coal in a fireplace. He slid a glance to Mr Hirst. It was a wary, troubled look like the ones Mr and Mrs Smith used to exchange during Marianne’s first month at their house when they’d been forced to tell her Madame de Badeau still hadn’t written.

Hollow disappointment crept into her already knotted stomach. Sir Warren wasn’t going to help her. Like every other reputable gentleman, he’d swiftly but politely decline any involvement with her before rushing across the room to avoid the taint of her and her reputation.

How petty.

She opened her mouth to shout him down for not having the decency to rouse himself from propriety long enough to help an ailing woman, but he spoke first.

‘I’ll see to her at once.’ Sir Warren motioned to the door. ‘Please, lead the way.’

She clamped her mouth shut, near dizzy with relief as she hurried back across the dining room, keenly aware of his steady steps behind her.

‘You there, lead us to the study.’ She snapped her fingers at the footman, afraid she wouldn’t remember the way and waste more time heading down pointless hallways.

The footman jumped at the command, walking briskly in front of them as Marianne and Sir Warren followed him out of the dining room.

‘What happened?’ Sir Warren asked in a voice as rich as the low A note held down on the pianoforte.

Marianne twisted her hands in front of her, noting the hard faces of the women watching them from the sitting-room doorway. ‘She cut herself on a broken porcelain bowl.’