The Missing Marchioness

“If you agreed to relax your principles a little. One thing you may be sure of, and that is my word is my bond. I would take good care never to betray or hurt you in any way.”

“Except,” said Louise hardily, “in the most fundamental way of all. I am not of the class of women who my lord Angmering, the Earl of Yardley’s heir, is likely to marry.”

“Ah, but,” said Marcus, kissing her hand again, “my lord Angmering, the Earl of Yardley’s heir, does not wish to marry anyone of any order of women at all—either high or low—and he does not choose his belles amies lightly.”

The Missing Marchioness

Paula Marshall

www.millsandboon.co.uk

PAULA MARSHALL,

married with three children, has had a varied life. She began her career in a large library and ended it as a university academic in charge of history. She has traveled widely, has been a swimming coach and has appeared on University Challenge and Mastermind. She has always wanted to write, and likes her novels to be full of adventure and humor.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Epilogue

Chapter One

Autumn 1812

‘H o hum,’ said Marcus, Lord Angmering, in his usually bluffly cheerful manner. ‘Marriage, it’s all a nonsense! Don’t know why anyone goes in for it! Everything is much simpler with an accommodating ladybird who doesn’t interfere with your life outside the one she shares with you.’

‘What about an heir for the title?’ drawled his new acquaintance, Jack, who claimed to be a distant relative of the vast Perceval family. ‘Only possible within the law—and that means marriage.’

‘Good God,’ said Marcus, still in his teasing mode, ‘with two younger brothers waiting to grow up there can be no problem there, so why should I marry? Let other men acquire a leg shackle—I prefer to be free.’

He didn’t add that the lack of success of most marriages didn’t exactly offer much encouragement to a fellow to get hitched. So far as he was concerned, all that went without saying. It was only when he was half-foxed, as he was at the present moment, that he indulged in such mad bursts of honesty.

Not that he often drank too much, far from it, but he and his friends had been celebrating a marriage, that of a fellow member of their set, Nick Cameron, to his clever beauty, Athene Filmer.

‘Everyone’s getting hitched these days, never a season like it,’ Marcus continued, taking another great gulp of port, a drink he usually avoided. ‘And now there’s m’sister getting turned off at Christmas, and you’d think that it was a coronation we were preparing for, what with all the fuss it’s creating. Can’t think why everyone’s so enthusiastic about it all, it must be catching. Well, it’s not going to catch me.’

‘Care to bet on it?’ drawled Jack.

‘Why not? Easy pickings if I do.’

‘Very well. Waiter,’ Jack bellowed at a passing flunkey, ‘bring me pen, paper and ink, if you would—and quickly, before my friend here changes his mind.’

‘No chance of that,’ proclaimed Marcus, looking down his long nose at him. Damn the fellow for thinking that he would change his mind every time the wind blew in another direction! He didn’t know Marcus Cleeve very well if he believed any such thing.

His tormentor was still grinning knowingly at him, as though he had a private glimpse of the future which no one else shared, when the harassed waiter arrived with his order.

‘Now,’ said Jack, dipping the quill in the ink pot, his grin widening as he did so, ‘the only question is, how much? Five hundred guineas? To bet that you’ll not marry before a year from now? The money to be handed over to me if you do?’

Marcus was not so over-set that he contemplated the possibility of throwing five hundred guineas down the drain, even if he were bound and determined to live and die a bachelor. Who knew what might happen? He wouldn’t put it past his father suddenly to make his future inheritance conditional on his marrying an heiress. In fact he had half-hinted at that already, muttering something to the effect of ‘It’s time you settled down, Marcus. Marriage tends to steady a man.’

‘Oh, I think I’m steady enough without it,’ he had returned lightly, not wanting to start a discussion on the matter which might end in an argument.

So: ‘A fellow isn’t made of money,’ he pronounced as gravely as drink would allow him to—he was to think dismally the following morning that it was only the excessive amount of alcohol he had swallowed which had caused him to throw his money about so carelessly. All in all it was a pity he hadn’t fallen unconscious under the table before he had begun to brag about his fortunate state.

‘It’s not,’ he added solemnly, ‘as though I am usually a gambling man.’

‘Time you began then,’ announced Jack, who was one, with all the good cheer he could summon. ‘Don’t play the skinflint, Angmering, we all know that your pa made a fortune in India.’

‘True, but I’m not my father. Make it two hundred and fifty, and leave it at that.’

He couldn’t refuse to gamble out of hand—that would not be the act of a gentleman, to say nothing of a nobleman.

‘Three hundred,’ offered Jack hopefully. For some reason which he couldn’t really have articulated, he thought that a fellow who was shouting the odds about the joys of the bachelor state so loudly might really be in grave danger of relinquishing it.

‘Two hundred and fifty—or nothing,’ said Marcus stubbornly, ‘or else the wager’s off.’

‘Very well.’

Jack scrawled down the details of the bet, signed his name, and swung the paper round for Marcus to sign it, too, before handing it on to the others present who drunkenly scribbled their names as witnesses to it.

‘That’s that, then. Who’s for the Coal Hole now?’

‘Not I,’ said Marcus, who had had enough of Jack for one night. ‘Couldn’t walk there,’ and he laid his head on the littered table and began to sleep—or appeared to at any rate.

It wasn’t totally make-believe to cut the evening short, for an hour later the waiter who had fetched the writing materials woke him up, helped him to the door, and called a cab to drive him home. The word was perhaps an exaggeration—it was merely the house in Berkeley Square, his father’s home in London—a place which he rarely visited and where he was always unsure of his welcome.

Once there he fell into bed and didn’t rise until noon, when his valet woke him to remind him that he had promised to drive his sister, Sophia, to Hyde Park later that afternoon. They had arranged to meet the Duke of Sharnbrook, her betrothed, who was escorting an elderly aunt there in order to meet his fiancé and her brother for the first time.

His valet brought him breakfast in bed and a salver with a glass and a decanter on it: the decanter was full of the hair of the dog which had bit him. Marcus drank the port, grimacing, but that and the food seemed to settle his stomach. He might yet live!

Must remind myself not to go drinking again, he told himself severely. Look where it got Sywell, dead as a doornail and ugly with it!

Feeling much better, he decided to go downstairs and greet the day. He doubted whether his father would be about, and Sophia would surely soon be readying herself to see Sharnbrook. It would be a treat to have the house to himself, read the Morning Post, ring for coffee, yawn a bit and perhaps doze. He deserved a little holiday, and some peace, after setting his father’s northern estates in order after the previous land agent had neglected them.

Except that when he reached the entrance hall at the bottom of the grand staircase there stood, apparently waiting for him, the most bewitching little filly he had ever seen. She had lightly curling hair of that shade of gold called guinea, which had overtones of red in it, like the metal mined in Guinea itself. Her face was piquante to say the least, with an impudent little nose and a mouth so sweet and kissable that Marcus was tempted, there and then, to kiss it.

She was a pocket Venus, too, the type of female which he always preferred, and was dressed with the kind of supreme simplicity which he always associated with the best of taste. Her pale green walking-dress, with its delicate lemon trim, set off her bluey-green eyes and her dashing hair. Why did one always think of hair that colour as dashing? Bluey-green eyes, too, were dashing, were they not?

A female servant stood behind her, carrying bandboxes. Other boxes were being brought in by a footman wearing a livery which he did not recognise. They appeared to be waiting, and none of them had seen him descending the stairs.

A guest, perhaps? Although, to his knowledge, none had been mentioned as arriving.

Overcome, and ever gallant, Marcus spoke.

‘May I be of assistance, madame?’

His little Venus swung round and saw him at last. All brawny six feet of him.

‘Sir? You have the advantage of me.’

Her voice was pretty, too, with an accent in it which he recognised as French. There was something about her charming face which was oddly familiar. It was as though he had seen her somewhere before, and yet he could have sworn that she must be a total stranger. He would surely have remembered such an exquisite creature.

He bowed, ‘I am Marcus Angmering, at your service. The Earl’s heir, as you doubtless know. And you have the advantage of me, madame. Has the butler not announced you? You ought not to be kept waiting here.’

‘Very kind of you,’ she murmured, ‘but do not trouble yourself. The butler has just left to inform Lady Sophia and her mama that I have arrived. I am Madame Félice, the modiste who has the honour of dressing Lady Sophia for her wedding, and of providing her with a suitable trousseau for her honeymoon.’

Well, that explained the bandboxes, the footman and the French accent—most modistes of note being French. It was many years since he had been so attracted to a woman on first seeing her, and if Madame’s creations matched her appearance, then Sophia was indeed fortunate in having engaged her.

What to say next? He couldn’t let her walk away and out of his life without making some effort to cultivate her acquaintance further—which pompous statement, translated into simple English, really meant without him having the opportunity, at some time in the future, to persuade her to be his mistress. In even simpler words—to have her in his bed.

Marcus had read of what the French called ‘coups de foudre’: that is, of being so struck by a woman on first sight that one had an instant determination to make her yours at any cost. He had always laughed at the mere notion, had prided himself on his dispassionate approach to life and love, and now, here he was in this damned uncomfortable situation.

One moment he was walking downstairs, fancy free, and before he had reached the ground a pair of fine eyes and a beautiful face had reduced him to gibbering inanity—no, had struck him dumb. The only explanation for his odd behaviour was that he had been continent for far too long. Living in the wilds of Northumberland, reserving his energies to improve his father’s estates, must have taken its toll on him.

He was saved from coming out with some piece of nonsense which would have only served to convince Madame of what a numb-skull he was by the arrival of Cardew, the butler, and two footmen: the latter there to carry Madame’s excess bandboxes. There were enough, he would have thought, to have dressed five future brides, rather than one.

‘This way, Madame Félice,’ said the butler, who was now leading Madame and her retinue upstairs, passing by Marcus, who had descended to the entrance hall himself, with a ‘By your leave, m’lord.’

Marcus nodded distractedly at him and at Madame, who offered him a brief bow in passing. He watched her, like a lust-struck gaby he thought afterwards, until the turn of the stairs took her out of his sight.

Madame Félice, which was not her real name, did not turn to look after the man who had examined her with such interest. She was used to being the subject of bold stares from men of all ages and every class. She had known that the man descending the stairs was Marcus Cleeve, Lord Angmering, the Earl of Yardley’s son and heir. She had seen him recently in Hyde Park when she had ridden there with only a groom as an attendant.

She had recognised him immediately, despite the many years which had elapsed since they had last met when she had been a girl walking in the grounds of Steepwood Abbey. It was plain from his manner that he had not recognised her—which was not surprising, given how much she had changed. Besides, her assumed French accent alone must have been enough to have put him off the scent of her, as it were.

Given that most men of the Ton regarded a modiste as fair game, a cross between an actress or a barque of frailty as the saying went, it was not surprising that they thought of her as prey—or that she conducted herself as prey would, by defending herself from them in every way she could.

Oh, she knew that look in Marcus Angmering’s eyes, she had seen it so often. The look which told her how much he was attracted—and which also told her that he thought she should be flattered by his attentions. She might be wronging him by thinking this, but she was sure that she was not. Life had taught her many hard lessons, and this was one which she would ignore at her peril.

For the present, she must forget him, and must concentrate instead on the business which had brought her to Cleeve House. All the same, she could not help wondering what Marcus Angmering would think if he were aware of her true name and history and what ties—even if distant ones—bound them together. How would he look at her then?

What would he say if he knew that Madame Félice had once been known as Louise Hanslope, who had married the late, unlamented Marquis of Sywell, and had then run away from him to arrive in London as a French modiste, society’s latest fashionable dressmaker?

More to the point, what would he say if he also discovered that her true name had not been Louise Hanslope either? That she was, instead, the daughter of his father’s long-dead second or third cousin—she could never remember which—and ought, more properly, to be addressed as either the Honourable Louise Cleeve, or as the Marchioness of Sywell—if she ever had the means, the opportunity and the desire of proving these remarkable facts.

If everyone had their rights she, too, would be expecting to be married to someone of her own station. In the normal course of events she would have been employing a modiste herself to design her trousseau, rather than be designing them for other, more fortunate women. She could not stifle an irreverent giggle at the thought of how Marcus would have reacted had she addressed him as cousin!

Stop that, Louise told herself sternly, things are as they are, and that being so I must concentrate on presenting her wardrobe to my cousin Sophia in my present incarnation of Madame Félice, society’s favourite dressmaker.

‘Beautiful, quite beautiful,’ said Marissa, Lady Yardley, a little later, walking around her daughter, who had been carefully eased into the elegant cream wedding-dress which had been contained in one of the boxes which Marcus had seen in the hall, and who was now admiring herself before a long mirror.

‘It is exactly what we wished, Sophia and I: a dress which is perfect in its simplicity. It looks even better than it did in the sketch which you showed to us when we visited your workrooms. If the rest of the trousseau is equally comme il faut, then we shall not regret having asked you to design it. Is not that so, Sophia?’

‘Yes, Mama, but I am not at all surprised how lovely it is after seeing the beautiful clothes which Madame made for Nick Cameron’s bride. The nicest thing of all is that they are so different from Athene’s, because Madame has designed them to suit me rather than some imaginary perfect being in a fashion plate. I would have looked quite wrong in Athene’s trousseau, as she would have looked wrong in mine, given our quite different appearance and colouring.’

‘True,’ said her mother. ‘Madame is to be congratulated. I am looking forward to seeing Sharnbrook’s face when you arrive in church.’

‘Most kind of you,’ said Louise, bowing her head, and accepting the compliments as gracefully as she could. ‘But, m’lady, both your daughter and Miss Athene had the great good fortune to possess faces and figures which are a privilege to dress. My difficulties arise when I have to transform those who are not so lucky.’

They were standing in Sophia’s bedroom, surrounded by gowns already made up, and bolts of cloth to inspect for those garments which were still to be created. As well as gowns Madame Félice was responsible for Sophia’s nightwear and underwear. She had brought along samples of these as well as some pieces of outerwear, principally a long coat and a jacket like a hussar’s for wearing on a cool day, which she felt sure that Sophia would also require.

When Lady Yardley had visited her workrooms Félice, or Louise as she always thought of herself, had almost decided to refuse her invitation to dress Sophia, on the excuse that she already had more work in hand than she could usefully cope with. The strain of entering a house which she might have called home, of meeting relatives who had no notion of her true identity, was almost too much for her.

And then, looking beyond Lady Yardley into a long mirror where she, too, stood reflected, she had told herself fiercely: Nothing to that. I have always stared life straight in the eye, I have never run away from anything—other than that monster Sywell—and I shall not run away from this.

Besides, who knows what might happen?

Now that she was in the Yardleys’ home there was even a certain strange spice in knowing who she was, and that the assembled Cleeves were quite unaware of the cuckoo who had entered their nest. Except, of course, that she was not a cuckoo, but was as much of an honest bird as they were!

Nothing of this showed. She was discretion itself as she knelt before Sophia, pinning up her dress a little to show her pretty ankles, adding an extra discreet tuck here and there, suggesting that Lady Sophia ought to wear as little jewellery as possible.

‘Yes,’ nodded Lady Yardley. ‘I was most impressed by the turn-out which you created for the Tenison child’s marriage. I was informed that you had vetoed her mama’s wish that she should be hung about with geegaws. I, too, wish Sophia’s innocence to be emphasised, not only by her white gown, but also by a lack of old-fashioned family heirlooms, bracelets, bangles and brooches. They can always be worn later when the first bloom of youth has gone.’

‘Indeed,’ said Louise, rising gracefully, and in the doing showing her own pretty ankles—attributes which Marcus would have admired had he been present. ‘Very well put, m’lady, if I may say so.’

Careful, she warned herself, don’t overdo grovelling humility. Dignified gratitude would be a better line.

This internal conversation with herself had become a habit for Louise from childhood onwards. She had had so few friends besides Athene Filmer, now Athene Cameron, that to ease her loneliness she had revived the imaginary companion of her lonely childhood, who might argue with her, but would never desert her.

Finally, everything else having been inspected and approved, Lady Yardley was measured for her new wedding outfit, something tactfully discreet as befitted the mother of the bride. Louise had already decided that it was a pleasure to dress Lady Sophia and her mama; they were not only considerate clients, but her taste and theirs coincided exactly.

Lady Yardley might not have been a beauty in her youth, but her face had character and she had worn well, and was more attractive in middle age than many who had been called pretty when they had been girls. Louise had sometimes wondered what Lord Yardley’s first wife had been like. The idle gossip which had come her way had suggested that the marriage had not been a happy one: the same idle gossip, however, credited the Earl’s second marriage as having been much more successful than his first.

These were not, however, matters which she could discuss with her clients, but her interest in them was natural, considering that they were, after all, her relatives, even if that interesting fact was never to be revealed. She wondered if she would see Marcus again before she left the house. He was not a conventionally handsome man—unlike his father—but there was a suppressed power about him which Louise found interesting.

After all, what did handsomeness matter? Sywell had been a handsome man in his youth, although in his old age no one could have guessed that.

Louise did not ask herself why she might hope to see Marcus again—particularly as since her unhappy marriage to Sywell she had tended to avoid men. The one man in her life had been such a monster that it was not surprising that she had sworn never to have anything more to do with them.

Which made it all the more surprising that Marcus Angmering had made such an impression on her.

Marcus found that, contrary to his expectations, his father had not, as he usually did, left the house that morning either to go to his club or—more rarely—to visit Parliament.

He entered the library in search of the Morning Post to find that the Earl was there before him. Marcus could not help noticing that his father seemed frail these days. There was a transparency about him which made him appear older than his years. Nevertheless he looked up eagerly when he saw his eldest son enter.

It had been a source of unhappiness to the Earl that there had always been constraint between them: a constraint born out of his failed marriage with Marcus’s mother. It had been a great relief to him that Marcus and his second wife had dealt well together. Marcus respected her because she made his father—and his household—happy. She genuinely liked Marcus, admiring in him the ruthless honesty with which he approached life.

‘Ah, Angmering, I had hoped to see you,’ his father began. ‘There are a number of matters which I wish to discuss with you. Not business ones— I have inspected the documents and accounts which you have brought from the north, together with your report of the changes you have made to the running of the estates there. I am more than satisfied with what you have done. I should have got rid of Sansom long ago—advancing years had marred his judgement. I have nothing but admiration for what you have accomplished.

‘No, what I wish to speak to you about is something more personal. I sincerely hope that you will not take amiss what I have to say to you. I know only too well how much you value your freedom, and how much the notion of marriage fails to attract you. I must, however, ask you again to consider making a suitable marriage—not only to provide yourself and the estates with an heir, but because I would wish you to find for yourself the happiness which I share with my dear Marissa. I would not like this matter to come between us, but I feel it incumbent upon me to raise it with you.’

Marcus knew how difficult his father must have found it to talk of his desire to see him married by the careful way in which he was speaking, quite unlike his usually bluff and, somewhat impulsive, straightforward manner.

He owed it to him to answer him reasonably. Of late, and particularly since he had reorganised the northern estate so satisfactorily, the stiffness which had lain between them had eased a little. Consequently Marcus’s answer was as diplomatic as he could make it.