The Notorious Marriage

Kit rubbed his head ruefully. ‘Yes, I can tell! And yes, I do remember we had agreed to stage it that way, but…devil take it, what about Nell! I only got married the day before…’

Luttrell’s eyebrows shot up into his hair. ‘Married! Thought you were keeping away from the petticoats, Kit!’

‘Well of course I was, but it just…happened!’ Kit said furiously. His head was aching more than ever now. ‘I married Eleanor the day before I went to the meet—that was why I was going to tell Benson I couldn’t make this trip!’ He put his head in his hands. ‘For God’s sake, Harry, do you hear me? I’ve just got married! I’ve left my bride all alone with no idea where I am…’

Luttrell put a calming hand on his shoulder. ‘Deuced bad luck, old fellow, but how was Benson to know? Besides, that was three days ago now…’

Kit raised his head and stared at him, his eyes wild. ‘Eleanor’s been alone with no word for three days now? Hell and the devil…’

‘You can send word when we get to Dublin,’ Luttrell suggested. ‘Besides, we’ll only be gone a few weeks, Kit. All over before you know it and no harm done. Surely your bride will understand when you explain…’

Kit shook his head, but he did not reply. There were two distinct sorts of sickness, he discovered. He had never been a good sailor but could deal with seasickness. It was purely physical. But the second…His heart ached. He remembered Eleanor, smiling at him and begging him prettily not to be gone too long…He groaned aloud. Three days ago!

Luttrell was getting to his feet. ‘I’ll bring you some hot water and something to drink,’ he said. ‘There’s food, too, if you feel up to it, though you still look a bit green, old fellow…’

Kit gave him a half-smile. ‘My thanks, Harry. Much appreciated. Is there pen and paper here?’

Luttrell gestured towards the desk. ‘Over there.’ He went out.

Kit stood up and stretched. He felt bruised all over. It must have been a hell of a blow to the head, but then he had always suspected that Benson did not like him. For all that they had worked together on various operations, he had never quite trusted the other man. Harry was a different matter, of course, dashing, devil may care, but utterly trustworthy. A true friend. If anyone could help him out of this mess…

Kit sat down at the writing desk and drew the paper slowly towards him. This was probably not the best time to write to Eleanor, when his head felt the size of a stuffed marrow, but he had to try. He would never forgive himself otherwise. Probably he would never forgive himself anyway and as for asking her pardon…Kit grimaced, momentarily wishing for a return to oblivion. It was a true nightmare and it had only just begun.

Chapter One

May 1814

Eleanor Mostyn knew that she was in trouble even before the landlord told her, with a sideways wink and a leer, that there was only one bedchamber and there would be no coaches calling until the next morning. Eleanor, following him into the tiny inn parlour, thoughtfully concluded that the signs were all there: they were miles from the nearest village, it was pouring with rain and the carriage had mysteriously lost a spar when only yards from this isolated inn. What had started out as a simple journey from Richmond to London looked set fair to turn into a tiresome attempted seduction.

It had happened to her before, of course—it was one of the penalties of having a shady reputation and no husband to protect her. However, she had never misjudged the situation as badly as this. This time, the relative youth and apparent innocence of her suitor had taken her in. Sir Charles Paulet was only two-and-twenty, and a poet. Though why poets should be considered more honourable than other men was open to question. Eleanor realised that her first mistake had been in assuming it must be so.

She knew that Sir Charles had been trying to charm his way into her bed with his bad poetry for at least a month. The baronet was a long, lanky and intense young man who laboured under the misapprehension that he was as talented as Lord Byron. Still, she had thought his attentions were a great deal more acceptable than those paid to her by some other men during the Season. He might be trying to seduce her but she had believed that the only real danger she was in was of being bored to death by his verse. That had to be mistake number two.

Eleanor removed her sodden bonnet and decided against unpinning her hair, even though it would dry more quickly that way. She had no wish to inflame Sir Charles’s desires by any actions of her own, and she knew that her long, dark brown hair was one of her best features. No doubt her hopeful seducer had written a sonnet to it already. At the moment he was out in the yard, giving instructions to his groom and coachman, but she knew that she had very little time before he joined her in the parlour, and then she would need to be quick-witted indeed. The lonely inn, the unfortunate accident, the single bedroom…And he had been dancing attendance on her for the past four weeks and she had been vain enough to be flattered…

Here Eleanor sighed as she looked at her damp reflection in the mirror. Eleanor, Lady Mostyn, passably good-looking, only nineteen years old and already infamous, having been both married and deserted within the space of a week. She could remember her come-out vividly, for it had only been the Season before. Then, she had been accorded the scrupulous courtesy due to all innocent débutantes; now she was a prey to every dubious roué and rake in town.

Her re-emergence into the Ton this Season had set all the tongues wagging once again about her notorious marriage, just as Eleanor had known it would. Not enough time had passed for the scandal to die down, but she had been foolishly determined to confront the gossips, to prove that though her husband were gone, squiring opera dancers around the Continent if the stories were true, she was not repining. She had the Trevithick pride—plenty of it—and at first it had prompted her to defiance. Let them talk—she would not regard it.

Eleanor stripped off her cloak and hung it over the back of a chair. Needless to say, she had underestimated the power of rumour. One salacious story had led to another, each more deliciously dreadful than the last. The gossips said that she had eloped with Kit Mostyn to avoid a forced match; that he had deserted her on her wedding day because he had discovered her to be no virgin; that she had told him to leave because she had discovered he was a brute and a satyr who indulged in perverted practices…Eleanor sighed. The gossip had caused a scent of disrepute that hung about her and had the rakes sniffing around and the respectable ladies withdrawing their skirts for fear of contamination. Worse, she was not blameless.

Despite her mama’s strictures that a lady always behaved with decorum, Eleanor had decided to scorn the gossips and fulfil their expectations. Just a little. At the start of the Season her off-white reputation had actually seemed rather amusing, much more entertaining than being a deadly dull débutante or a devoted wife. And in a complicated way it was a means of revenge on Kit, and she did so desperately want revenge. So she had flirted a little, encouraged some disreputable roués, even allowed a few rakes to steal a kiss or two. She had planned on taking a lover, or even two, perhaps both at the same time. The possibilities seemed endless for an abandoned bride whose husband clearly preferred to take his pleasures elsewhere.

The idea had soon palled. Eleanor had known all along that she was not cut out to be a fast matron. The liberties were disgusting, the kisses even more so. All the gentlemen who buzzed around her had the self-importance to assume that she would find them attractive and did not bother to check first. Their attentions had become immensely tedious, their invitations increasingly salacious and their attempted seductions, such as the present one, most trying. In the space of only six weeks Eleanor had had to slap several faces, place a few well-aimed kicks in the ankle or higher and even hit one persistent gentleman with the family Bible when he had tried to seduce her in the library. And she was miserably aware that it was her own fault.

Eleanor sat down by the meagre fire and tried to get warm. Now she had to deal with Sir Charles’s importunities. If she had found it difficult to decide whether to live up or down to her reputation previously, she knew now beyond a shadow of doubt that she was not cut out for some sordid intrigue. There was enough scandal already attached to her name without some indiscreet dalliance in a low tavern with a man she found boring. Besides, she inevitably compared every man she met to Kit and found them wanting. It was curious but true—he had left her alone to face the scandal of their marriage and she had not heard a word from him since, yet still she found other men lacking.

In the five months since Kit’s defection, Eleanor’s childish infatuation had turned to anger and misery. When her mother delighted in passing on another snippet of gossip about Kit that had been garnered from her acquaintance, Eleanor hardened her heart a little more each time. However, it did not prevent the memory of her husband from overshadowing every other man she knew.

But that was nothing to the purpose. Eleanor smoothed her dress thoughtfully as she tried to decide what to do. She could appeal to Sir Charles’s better nature but that was probably a waste of time as she suspected that he did not possess one. She would not be here if he did. She could play the innocent and scream the house down if matters turned nasty, or she could act the sophisticate, then run away when she had lulled Sir Charles into a false sense of security. Eleanor frowned. She was not entirely happy with either option. There was plenty of room for error.

She could hear voices getting closer—Sir Charles was quoting Shakespeare in the corridor. Oh dear, this was going to be very tiresome. The door opened. Sir Charles came in, followed by the innkeeper bearing a tray with two enormous glasses of wine. Eleanor raised her brows. That was not in the least subtle and somehow she had expected better of a poet. She really must rid herself of these false expectations.

‘There you are, my love!’ Sir Charles’s voice had already slipped from the respectful courtesy of their previous exchanges to an odious intimacy that made Eleanor’s hackles rise. ‘I hope that you are warm enough—although I shall soon have you wrapped up as cosy as can be, upstairs with me!’

The innkeeper smirked meaningfully and Eleanor looked down her nose haughtily at him. No doubt he was warmed by the size of the bribe Sir Charles must have slipped him to connive in so dubious an enterprise. She wondered whether Sir Charles had always spoken in rhyme and why on earth she had not noticed it before. It was intensely irritating.

‘The inn is adequate, I suppose,’ she said coldly, ‘but I do not anticipate staying here long, sir. Surely there is someone who could carry a message to Trevithick House? The others will be almost back by now and will be concerned to find me missing…’

‘Oh, I do not believe that you need trouble your pretty little head about that, my love,’ Sir Charles said airily. He struck a pose. ‘Why, I sense a verse coming over me!’ He smiled at her. ‘My heart leads me to wed when I spy your pretty head, as you lie in my bed…’

‘Pray, sir, restrain your imagination!’ Eleanor snapped. ‘I do not believe that an inclination to wed forms any part of your plans! As for the rest of your verse, I like it not! A work of folly and vivid imagination!’

Sir Charles did not appear one whit put out. Evidently it would take more than plain speaking to deter him. He came close to the fire, rubbing his hands together. Eleanor found herself hoping uncharitably that his ruffled sleeves would catch alight. His dress was very close to that of a macaroni, with yards of ribbons, ruffles and lace, and she was sure he would go up like a house on fire.

‘Alas, my dear Lady Mostyn, that you are married already, otherwise I would show you my affections were steady!’

Sir Charles fixed her with his plaintive dark eyes, behind which Eleanor could see more than a glimpse of calculation. ‘You must know that my love and esteem for you know no bounds—’

‘As does your effrontery, sir!’ Eleanor interrupted, before he could finish the rhyme.

Sir Charles pressed a glass of wine into her hand and downed half of his own in one gulp.

‘You know that your relatives will not reach home for a half hour at least, sweet Eleanor, and will not start to worry about you for another hour after that, by which time it will be dark…’ His eyes met Eleanor’s again, carrying the implicit message that no one would be coming to help her. Eleanor noted wryly that he could speak plainly enough when he chose. ‘But have no fear! You are safe with me here!’

Eleanor bit her lip and turned her head away, hearing the innkeeper’s laugh as he went out and closed the door behind him. There would be no help from that quarter.

Sir Charles nodded towards her wine. ‘Drink up, my love. It will fortify you.’ He suited actions to words, gulping the second half of his wine in one go, wiping the excess from his chin. ‘This is a charming opportunity for us to get to know each other a little better. Most opportune, my rose in bloom!’

‘Or most contrived!’ Eleanor said coldly. She looked straight at him, noting that he was nowhere near as good-looking as she had once imagined him to be. His pale brown eyes were too close set to look trustworthy, and taken with his long and pointed nose they gave him the appearance of a wolfhound. Who was it had told her never to trust a man who looked like a hunting dog? It could only have been her aunt, Lady Salome Trevithick, and Eleanor wished she had paid more attention.

She took a sip of her wine, if only to give herself breathing space. Damnation! How could she have been so unconscionably foolish? She had been set up like a green girl and now had very limited options. The poet was nowhere near as harmless as he pretended and her dénouement looked to be only a matter of time. She shuddered at the thought.

Sir Charles smiled at her. It was not reassuring. His lips were thin and wet-looking. Eleanor, realising suddenly that staring at his face might give quite the wrong impression of her feelings, looked hastily away.

‘How far are we from London, sir?’ she asked casually.

Sir Charles’s smile became positively vulpine. ‘At least ten miles, my lovely Lady Mostyn. We are benighted, I fear. You must simply…accept…your fate, my love, my dove.’

Eleanor’s eyes narrowed. ‘The carriage—’

‘Will not be ready until tomorrow, alas.’ Sir Charles spoke contentedly. ‘Tomorrow will be soon enough. Here we shall stay in our pastoral heaven with only our love, the darkness to leaven…’

Eleanor, privately reflecting that Sir Charles’s poetry was the hardest thing to tolerate so far, nevertheless thought that it could be useful. If she could but flatter him…

‘Pray treat me to some more of your verse, sir,’ she gushed, with what she knew to be ghastly archness. She hoped that his vanity was greater than his intellect, or he would know at once precisely what she was doing.

Sir Charles wagged a roguish finger at her. ‘Ah, not yet, my pet! I believe our landlord is waiting to serve us a feast fit for a king…’