The Missing Marchioness

On the following Monday afternoon he arrived in Berkeley Square.

‘I think I’ve found what you want, m’lord. The lady lives over her workrooms in Bond Street during the week. After six o’clock on a Friday she hires a Hackney cab and is driven to a little house in Chelsea not far from the river, where she spends Saturday and Sunday. Sunday she goes to church all respectable like and speaks to no one—other than to shake hands with the Reverend at the end of the service.

‘Early on a Monday morning she returns to the shop. She has a couple of servants at her weekend place: a housekeeper and a maid of all work. It seems that she does not mix with her neighbours and during a careful watch she had no visitors other than a lad who delivers milk.’

He paused. ‘I have to say that I think she’s something of a fly lady, because I suspicioned that she knew that she was being watched. On my first day I perhaps wasn’t too careful, since after that every time that she went out she looked around her most busily. I made a few discreet enquiries about her, thinking that they might be useful to you. It seems that she has no gentleman callers, either in Bond Street or in Chelsea. The opinion is that she is ladylike and discreet.’

‘Excellent,’ said Marcus. ‘That is all I need to know. Would you prefer to be paid now?’

‘If it suits you, m’lord, yes.’

Feeling a bit of a cur for having Madame Félice watched, Marcus handed him his money on the spot, but he did not feel so much of a cur that he did not glumly regret that he would have to wait until the weekend before he paid her a call!

Saturday morning found him hiring a cab and setting off for Chelsea. Either being a modiste paid well, or Madame had a fund of money of her own, for the little house was a jewel of a place, newly appointed and painted. He thought that, apart from the paint, it resembled Madame herself. Whistling gently, he paid off the cabbie and knocked on her elegant front door…

Louise had just finished eating a late breakfast and was drinking a cup of excellent coffee—she always shopped at Jackson’s in Piccadilly—when she heard the door knocker and wondered who it could be at this hour.

She did not have long to wait. The little maid came in saying, ‘There’s a gentleman to see you, mam.’

‘A gentleman, Jessie? Did he give his name?’

‘No, mam. He said that he thought that you might know who it was? He said that he was in need of a shirt—but, mam, could he really mean that? He was wearing a very fine one.’

‘Did he, indeed?’ Louise jumped to her feet half-amused, half-scandalised. ‘Tell him to go away, at once.’

‘Yes, mam.’

Jessie disappeared, only to reappear again a few moments later. ‘Oh, mam, he says as how he won’t. He says that it’s most urgent that he see you, and that he’s prepared to wait outside until you’re ready to speak to him—and he gave me half a sovereign to tell you that—look!’

Louise, who had sat down, jumped up again. Bribery and corruption of her servant, was it now? What next would the man get up to? For she had no doubt that it was his lordship of Angmering who had somehow tracked her down.

‘Do you want me to give it back to him, mam?’ asked her maid anxiously.

‘Certainly not, by his behaviour he deserves to lose more than half a sovereign. Tell him that—’ Inspiration failed her. Oh, bother the man, what message could she send that would be sure to get rid of him?

‘Tell him that if he doesn’t go away I shall send for the local constable to remove him,’ she came out with at last.

‘He won’t like that, mam,’ said her maid, still anxious.

‘I’m sure that he won’t, but tell him so all the same.’

Out shot the maid again. Louise picked up her cup and began to drink coffee agitatedly.

This time, though, when the maid reappeared she was trailing in the wake of that haughty aristocrat Marcus Angmering, who was apparently so determined to see her that he would play any trick which his inventive mind could think up.

‘I wouldn’t wish you to go the trouble of setting the law on me,’ he said cheerfully, once the maid had left, ‘So I decided to speak to you in person, so that we could settle our difficulties without delay—and pray do not reprimand your maid for letting me in. She found it difficult to deny someone so much larger and stronger than she is.’

Louise stared at him, the coffee cup halfway to her mouth, and to her horror found herself saying, ‘What difficulties, sir?’ instead of telling him to remove himself from her dining room.

‘The difficulties relating to your inability to accept my kind offer of protection.’

She put down her coffee cup with a trembling hand. ‘Your impudence, sir, is beyond belief. You force your way into my home, terrorise my servant…’

Marcus interrupted her. ‘Oh, scarcely that,’ he murmured, his mouth twitching. ‘I wouldn’t describe giving her half a sovereign as terrorising her.’

‘Oh…’ Louise gave what could only be called a gasp of exasperation. ‘You are no gentleman, sir, you twist every word I say. You know perfectly well what I mean—and there are no difficulties about your offer of protection—I refused it in the plainest terms possible.’

‘But so quickly,’ Marcus protested. ‘You didn’t even pretend to consider it—which is not the proper way to refuse a business proposition.’

‘I never pretend, sir,’ and oh, dear what a lie that was, since her whole life, and even her name, was a pretence. ‘You have had my answer. Pray allow Jessie to escort you to the door.’

‘Without even the offer of a cup of coffee,’ he said sadly. ‘That’s no way to treat a guest, madame.’

‘You are not my guest,’ she flashed back at him. ‘You come here uninvited, force your way in—’

‘True,’ he said, still sad. ‘But how else may I speak with you, tell me that?’

His smile was so wicked, his eyes mocked at her so gently, that Louise felt as though she had begun to melt internally. She had never experienced such a sensation before. No, he was not handsome, but he was better than that—he must be to have such an effect on her. She licked her lips, and saw his expression change when she did so—and wondered why.

Louise was inexperienced in the arts of love because she had never been subjected to anything other than the acts of frustrated lust. She had no notion of what might attract or rouse a man. Marcus, watching her, was, to his surprise, sure that she was truly innocent, and that the signs of fear which she occasionally showed were genuine.

He was suddenly ashamed. He had been teasing her after the fashion in which he teased Sophia and the Two Neds, but where that had been innocent and playful this could be construed as malicious. More so when he could see her quivering lip and her trembling hand.

‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘I should not be doing this, I did not mean to frighten you. I ought to go.’ And he began to turn away from her, to leave by the door by which the little maid had earlier left.

He was going! She would be alone again. Fearful though she was, Louise found that she did not want that. Beyond the fear of him which Marcus had briefly seen lay something else.

She was so lonely. All her life she had been alone. The only bright stars in it had been her guardian and later Athene Filmer and she had lost both of them. If he left her now, to whom would she speak this day? To the housekeeper, the little maid and later, perhaps, tradesmen, shop-girls, and barely them.

‘No,’ she said, the words almost wrenched from her, ‘don’t go. You…I…standing there you tower over me—pray sit down.’

Now what had caused that, Marcus wondered? There was even the faintest hint of a smile on her face, a tremulous one. Was he seeing the first breach in her defensive wall?

He said, as lightly as he could, ‘Oh, I am not so tall that I could be called a tower, but you are such a dear little thing that I can see I might appear to be if not a tower, a turret.’ And he pulled out a chair and sat opposite to her at table.

Yes, he had provoked a proper, if rueful, smile by his last remark. Emboldened by it, he asked, rather after the manner of a small boy seeking a favour, ‘Would your kindness extend to offering me a cup of what smells like excellent coffee? I was so anxious to meet you again that I skipped breakfast.’

Oh, he was impossible! How in the world had he managed to persuade her into not only allowing him to stay, but also to sit there, smiling, as though his proper place was in this room with her as though they had just risen from bed and were being Darby and Joan together.