“Madeleine, this cannot go on.”

“What cannot go on, my lord? The ride? The Marquis of Risley taking an actress in his carriage?”

“You do not have to be an actress.”

“No, but that is what I am. It is how I earn my living.”

“I could change that.”

“Why do you want to change it? If you are ashamed to be seen with me, why did you ask me out?”

“Because I want to be with you every hour of the day and—”

“I will not become your paramour, Lord Risley. I do not know why it is that everyone thinks all actresses are harlots….”

“Madeleine, how can you accuse me of that?”

“That’s what you have in mind, is it not? That is what the flowers and the presents have all been about, to get into my bed. Deny it if you can.”

A Lady of Consequence
Mary Nichols

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Prologue

1817

M addy was alone in the kitchen, the last of the domestic staff to finish her day’s work. All the other servants had done their allotted chores and left her to it. The last to go had been Cook who had told her to ‘Look lively or you’ll not be done before it’s time to get up and start all over again,’ which did little to make her feel any less exhausted.

There had been a dinner party upstairs and the amount of washing up a dozen people could create was beyond her comprehension: a mountain of plates, tureens, platters, glasses and cutlery, not to mention all the pans in which the food had been cooked. The guests had all departed—she had heard their carriages going over an hour ago—and the family, Lord and Lady Bulford, the Honourable Henry and the two young ladies, Hortense and Annabel, had all gone to their rooms, uncaring that one of their servants still toiled in the nether regions of their London mansion.

The washing up finished, Maddy set out the breakfast trays ready for the ladies in the morning, filled the kettles with water and went to bank down the fire, her last task before retiring. She would never have been slaving here at all, if her mother had not been killed so tragically, she told herself a dozen times a day. Mama had been run down by a horse and carriage in Oxford Street when she was shopping for ribbon for a gown she was making. She had been a seamstress and a very good one and Maddy herself might have followed in her footsteps if it had not been for the accident.

That’s what everyone called it, a tragic accident for which no one was to blame. But the day of the funeral she had overheard two of their neighbours talking and they said the young dandy who had been driving the curricle had been racing it and he ought to have been horsewhipped for driving so dangerously along a busy thoroughfare; but then he was an aristocrat and drunk into the bargain, which seemed to be excuse enough for leaving a nine-year-old child without a mother.

The trouble was she had had no father either, at least not one she knew of, and so she had been sent to an orphanage in Monmouth Street that took in the children of soldiers orphaned by war. She supposed someone had told them her father had been a soldier, which was something she had not known for her mother never spoke of him. She had been sent from the orphanage to Lady Bulford when she was twelve and considered old enough to work.

The kitchen of Number Seven Bedford Row had been her world ever since; two long years with each day merging into the next, nothing to vary the routine, no one to talk to but the other servants who all treated her with contempt because of where she came from, though that wasn’t her fault, was it? She rarely left the house, except for two hours on a Sunday afternoon, which she spent walking in the parks, pretending she was a lady and had nothing at all to do but look decorative and catch the eye of some young beau who would whisk her away to a life of luxury, such as the Bulfords enjoyed.

She was too fond of dreaming, Cook was always telling her, but what else was there to do to enliven her day but dream? She was doing it now, she realised, squatting in front of the fire, gazing into the last of the embers and wishing for a miracle…

Startled by a sudden noise, she looked round, to see the Honourable Henry standing in the doorway with a quilted robe de chambre covering his nightshirt. Scrambling to her feet, she dropped him a curtsy.

‘Who are you?’ he asked.

‘Maddy, sir.’

‘That’s an unusual name.’ He smiled suddenly and his dark eyes lit with humour. He was, she decided, a very handsome young man. ‘Are you mad?’

‘No, sir,’ she said emphatically. ‘It is short for Madeleine.’ She had been Maddy ever since she arrived. ‘That’s a high-stepping handle for a nobody,’ the other servants had said when she told them her name. ‘Can’t have you putting on airs and graces here.’ And so Maddy she had become. She was too bewildered by a second upheaval in her life to care what they called her.

‘How long have you been working here?’

‘All day, sir.’

‘No, I meant how long have you been working for the family?’

‘Two years, sir.’ She paused. ‘Is there something I can do for you?’

‘Oh, yes,’ he murmured, looking her up and down. ‘Oh, yes, indeed.’

‘What is it?’ she asked.

He seemed to come out of a trance and laughed suddenly. ‘I came down for a glass of milk. I don’t seem able to sleep.’

She walked past him into the pantry where the milk was kept in a jug on the cool floor. ‘Could you heat it up?’ he asked. ‘It would be better warm.’

She put some milk in a pan and stirred up the fire again to heat it, while he stood and watched her.

‘You are a very pretty girl, do you know that?’ he said.

‘No.’ Standing over the fire had made her face red, but now she felt an extra warmth flood her cheeks. ‘You shouldn’t say things like that, sir.’

‘Why ever not? It’s the truth. I’ll wager there’s many a young blade dangling after you.’

‘No, sir. I’m not old enough for young men to dangle after, even if they were allowed, which they are not.’ Lady Bulford had made that quite clear when she first arrived and though she hadn’t known what her ladyship meant at the time, she had found out since and a great deal more about the ways of the world and young men in particular, which would have shocked her mother if she had been alive to hear it.

‘How old are you?’

‘Fourteen.’

‘My goodness, you are well grown for your age. My mother must feed you well.’

She did not feel disposed to tell him that she lived on leftovers, not only from the family table but from the servants’ table. She was a drudge and only one step up from the dogs and cats who lived in the yard and were the last to be fed. She poured the milk from the pan into a glass and handed it to him. ‘There you are, sir. I hope you sleep better for it.’

‘Oh, I am sure I shall. Will you be going to bed soon?’

‘As soon as I have washed up this pan and banked down the fire, sir.’

‘Goodnight, Maddy.’

‘Goodnight, sir.’

He disappeared, carrying his glass of milk, and she turned back to the fire. Fancy the master’s son noticing her and calling her pretty! Was she pretty? Her mama had always said she was and made her beautiful dresses and brushed her dark hair until it shone like velvet, but that had been a long time ago and now her clothes were a skivvy’s uniform and she was too tired to do more than rake a comb through her hair to get the knots out. If only…

If only Mama had been alive, she would be living with her in the small apartment over the dressmaking establishment that she had set up and which provided a decent living for them both; she would be learning how to create gowns and pelisses and pretty underwear and hats. Mama said they would make a name for themselves as the foremost modistes in London and that the upper crust would all flock to be dressed by Madame Charron and her charming daughter. Their name wasn’t Charron, of course, it was Cartwright, but Mama said the French name sounded grander.

She pulled herself out of what was becoming another of her fantasies and dragged her exhausted feet up the back stairs to her tiny room in the attic, one of a row that housed all the female servants in varying degrees of comfort according to their status.

She was climbing into bed five minutes later, when she heard footsteps on the stair. She paid little attention at first, assuming it was one of the maids coming back from fetching a glass of water, but when they stopped outside her door, she sat upright, her heart in her mouth.

The door opened and the master’s son, wearing nothing but a night-shirt, stood facing her. He was smiling. ‘Don’t be alarmed, my dear,’ he said, shutting the door behind him and quickly crossing the room to the bed where she was so startled she could do nothing but sit and stare at him. ‘I still can’t sleep.’

‘You want me to go down and fetch you some more milk?’ she asked, her only thought that she would never get to sleep at this rate.

‘No, my dear Madeleine,’ he said, sitting on the bed beside her and taking her hand; it was red raw from the all the washing up she did, but he did not seem to notice. ‘I think I could go to sleep if I could cuddle up to you.’

‘Sir!’ She was astonished and confused and, in some way, strangely excited. Her heart was beating in her throat and that one strangled cry was all she could utter.

He smiled. ‘You are so warm and so beautiful. You have the body of a goddess, don’t you know, and I cannot sleep for thinking of it. I want to touch you, touch your warm, pink flesh, feel you, kiss you.’ He leaned forward and, taking her head in his hands, bent his mouth to hers. His lips were soft and moist and his breath smelt of the wine and brandy he had consumed. His hands began to roam over her body, pulling up her nightgown and forcing her legs apart.

She realised suddenly that what he was trying to do was wrong. Hadn’t the women at the orphanage told her all about men’s carnal desires, hadn’t she been warned time and time again, against allowing her maidenhood to be taken before she had a wedding ring on her finger? It was, she had been told, the worst of sins, and they cited examples of children whose mothers had never been married. Bastards they were called. It was what happened if you lay with a man before the wedding night.

Some of them had called her a bastard, saying her mother had never been to church with her father, whoever he was, but she had furiously told them of her hero father, who had died fighting for his country, simply to shut them up. Now, in a sudden flash of insight, the servants’ talk began to make sense. This was no fantasy, no wished-for miracle, but a nightmare.

‘No!’ she cried, trying to wriggle out of his grasp. ‘You mustn’t.’

‘Mustn’t?’ he queried, throwing himself on top of her so that she was effectively imprisoned under the weight of his body. ‘But, my dear Madeleine, it is not up to you to say what I mustn’t do. I do as I please. You are a servant and must do as you are told. You would not want to be turned off without a character, would you?’

‘You wouldn’t do that?’ she asked fearfully.

‘I could, but I won’t, if you are a good girl.’ He buried his head in the valley between her breasts.

‘I am a good girl,’ she said, struggling to free herself. ‘Please let me go.’

He looked up. ‘When I’m done with you.’ He was not smiling now, but grimly determined and in a way that stiffened her will to resist. Had he continued to ply her with compliments, to whisper endearing words and been gentle, who knows if she might have succumbed? Such was her longing to be loved by someone, to be seen as a human being with feelings, to be treated with tenderness, she might have given up struggling. But, unused to being denied anything, he was angry. And that made her angry too.

She used the last of her strength to push her knee sharply into his groin and heard him yelp with pain as he leapt off her. She rushed for the door and, pulling it open, fled along the corridor and down the stairs in her nightgown, making for the safety of the kitchen. But she never reached it. She ran slap into Lord Bulford, who had left his bed and was coming along the landing, tying the cord of his undress gown, to see what all the commotion was about.

‘Where’s the fire?’ he roared.

‘Fire? I don’t know anything about a fire,’ she said.

‘Then what’s to do?’

‘Your son is in my room,’ she said, without stopping to think of the consequences such an accusation might have. ‘He tried…he shouldn’t have…’

‘My son? Don’t be ridiculous, you impertinent baggage. What would my son want in your room?’

‘George, what’s going on?’ Lady Bulford, having hastily donned a peignoir, joined her husband.

‘This ill-bred chit has accused Henry of going to her room.’

Her ladyship looked Maddy up and down, her lip curled in distaste. ‘She is clearly demented. Been having a dream, I shouldn’t wonder. Or mistook one of the footmen. If she has been entertaining them in her room, there is only one thing for it…’

‘I have not been entertaining anyone in my room,’ she retorted, forgetting that it was simply not done to answer back. ‘Your son came uninvited. Do you think I don’t know the Honourable Henry when I see him? He came down to the kitchen for milk and I gave him some, then he waited for me to go to bed and came to my room…’

‘Good Lord! The effrontery of it,’ Lady Bulford said to her husband. ‘As if Henry would look twice at a misbegotten nobody like her.’ She turned back to Maddy. ‘What were you hoping to gain by this Banbury tale, money?’

‘No, my lady, all I want is to be allowed to go back to bed and not have people coming to my room uninvited.’ She spoke very clearly, enunciating her words as her mother had taught her. ‘Will you please tell your son his attentions are not welcome.’

‘By God! I’ve heard it all now,’ his lordship said, his face growing purple with indignation. ‘Go back to bed, is it? And who with, may I ask?’

‘No one. I am tired, I have been working all day…’

‘Oh, well, if it’s overwork you are complaining of, that is easily remedied,’ Lady Bulford said. ‘You may pack your bags and leave this instant. Your services are no longer required.’

‘But I’ve done nothing wrong.’

‘Making false accusations against my son is wrong and impudence to your betters is wrong and complaining about your work is wrong, when everyone knows I am the most benign of employers.’

‘And so is rushing about the house in your nightwear in the middle of the night,’ his lordship put in, eyeing her appreciatively from top to toe.

‘I only did it to escape.’

‘Then you may escape. Permanently. You may go back to bed, but I want you gone by the time I come down for my breakfast.’

‘But, my lord, where will I go?’

‘That is no concern of mine. Back where you came from, I suppose. And do not expect a character…’

‘My lord, I beg of you…’

‘Enough. I am not going to bandy words with you. Get out of my sight before I throw you out here and now.’

Maddy went back to her room, relieved to find her unwelcome visitor had gone, and flung herself on the bed, sobbing her heart out. Why didn’t they believe her? It was so unfair. Where could she go? How could she live? Who could she turn to? She couldn’t go back to the orphanage, she was too old for that now. Must it be the poorhouse?

If Henry Bulford had an ounce of shame, he would admit what he had done and exonerate her. But she knew he would not. He was one of the upper crust, people with more money than they could spend in a lifetime and they thought that meant they could do as they liked, just as the young dandy who had run down her mother thought he could do as he liked. People like her were the lowest of the low and didn’t matter.

But gradually her misery turned to anger and anger made her strong. She would not be cowed. She was as good as they were, better than they were, and one day she would prove she did matter. One day she would beat them. One day they would have to acknowledge her as their equal; if she trampled on a few aristocratic toes to get there, so be it. And if one of those aristocratic toes turned out to belong to the Honourable Henry Bulford, so much the better. She did not know how she would do it, nor how long it would take, but nothing and no one would stand in her way. She would make her dreams come true; she would be a lady.

Chapter One

1827

T he curtain came down on the last act to thunderous applause. The cast took several curtain calls, but everyone knew it was really Madeleine Charron the audience wanted. She had the theatre world at her feet; all the young men of the ton and several who were not so young were raving about her, including Duncan Stanmore, Marquis of Risley.

‘I don’t know which I admire more, her looks or her acting ability,’ he said to his friend, Benedict Willoughby, as he rose with everyone else to clap and call bravo. ‘Both are bang-up prime.’

‘If you’ve got your sights set on her, you will come home by weeping cross, don’t you know?’ Benedict said. ‘Unlike most of her kind, she is very particular.’

‘You only say that because she refused to go out to supper with you last week.’

‘Not at all,’ Benedict said huffily, as they made their way towards the exit. ‘I’m not the only disappointed one; she’s turned everyone down, though I did hear she went for a carriage ride in the park with Sir Percival Ponsonby last week, so she can’t be that fastidious.’

‘Sir Percy is a benign old gentleman who wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

‘I didn’t say he would, but you must admit he’s an old fogey. He must be sixty if he’s a day and those ridiculous clothes!’

‘He’s well-breeched and he knows how to treat a girl. And he has always had a liking for actresses, you know that. They appreciate his gallantry and they feel safe with him. It won’t last. Percy is a confirmed bachelor.’

‘Good God! You aren’t thinking of betting on the marriage stakes yourself, are you?’

‘Don’t be a fool, Willoughby. It is not to be thought of. My revered father would have a fit. But I will take her out to supper.’

‘Yes, you have only to wave your title and your fortune under her nose and she will fall at your feet.’

‘I’ll do it without mentioning either.’

‘When?’

‘In the next se’ennight. I’ll put a pony on it.’

‘Done.’

They wandered out into the street. A flower girl stood beside her basket, offering posies to the young men as they escorted their ladies to their carriages. Duncan stopped beside her, fished in his purse for a couple of guineas and rattled them in his palm. ‘I’ll buy the lot,’ he said, throwing the coins in her basket. ‘Take them round the stage door for Miss Charron.’

She gave him a wide grin. ‘Any message, sir?’

‘No. Just the flowers. And do the same tomorrow night and the night after that and every night for the rest of the week.’ He found some more coins and tossed them in with the others, before turning to Benedict. ‘Come on, Willoughby, I’ll buy you supper at White’s and we can have a hand of cards afterwards.’

‘Aren’t you going round to the stage door?’

‘What, and stand in line with all the other hopefuls, begging to be noticed? No fear!’

Benedict, who was used to his friend’s strange ways, shrugged his shoulders and followed him to their club.

At the end of the week, a small package was delivered to the theatre, addressed to Miss Madeleine Charron. It contained a single diamond ear drop and a note that simply said, ‘You may have its twin if you come out to supper with me on Monday. My carriage will be waiting outside the stage door after the performance.’ It was unsigned.

It was meant to intrigue her and it certainly succeeded. Maddy was used to being sent flowers, but they usually arrived with their donors, anxious for the privilege of taking her out, or accompanied by billets doux or excruciating love poems and definitely not penned incognito. But a whole florist’s stock, every night for a week, followed by a single ear drop of such exquisite beauty it brought a lump to her throat, was something else again. This latest admirer was different.

‘And rich,’ Marianne said, when she saw the trinket. Marianne Doubleday was her friend, an actress of middle years, but a very good one, who had once, not many years before, fooled the entire beau monde for a whole season into believing she was a lady and a very wealthy one at that. ‘Are you sure you have no idea who it might be?’

‘None at all.’

‘And will you go?’

‘I don’t know. He is undoubtedly very sure of himself.’

‘So what is that to the point? No doubt it means he’s an aristocrat. That’s what you want, isn’t it?’

Years ago, when she had first joined the company as a wardrobe seamstress, Marianne had befriended her and later, when Maddy had been given small parts, had taught her how to act, how to project her voice so that a whisper could be heard in the gods, how to move gracefully, how to use her hands and her eyes to express herself and still conceal her innermost thoughts, how to listen and understand the undercurrents in a conversation, the innuendo behind the way a word was said, the ways of the worldly-wise, everything to bring her to the standing she now enjoyed.

In return Maddy had confided her secret ambition to be a lady. Marianne had not mocked it; after all, noblemen sometimes did marry actresses, but she had told her how difficult it would be, how they were usually ostracised by Polite Society and that being a lady was not all it was cracked up to be, that with wealth and status came responsibilities.

‘Besides, you’ll find all manner of obstacles put in your way by the young man’s parents,’ she had said. ‘If they have any standing in Society, they’ll fight you tooth and nail. They’ll have a bride all picked out for him, unless, of course you set your cap at someone old, but then he’s like to be a widower with a readymade family.’

Maddy had grimaced at the idea. ‘No, that won’t do. I want people to envy me, to look up to me, to take what I say seriously. I want to have a grand house, a carriage and servants. No one, no one at all, will dare look down on me or take me for granted ever again…’

‘A tall order, Maddy. My advice is to take what is offered and enjoy it without wishing for the moon.’

Although Marianne knew about her ambition, she did not know the reason for it. She did not know the inner fury that still beset Maddy every time she thought of Henry Bulford and his uncaring parents. It had not diminished over the years. All through her early struggles, she had nursed her desire for…what was it? Revenge? No, it could not be that, for Henry Bulford had inherited the title and was married and she did not envy his top-lofty wife one bit. They had attended the same theatrical party once and he had not even recognised her. But then why would he connect the skinny, pale-faced kitchen maid he had tried to rape with the beautiful actress who had taken London by storm?

A great deal of water had flowed under London Bridge since then, some of it so dreadful she wished she could forget it, but it would not go away and only strengthened her resolve. She had risen above every kick dealt her by an unkind fate, but sometimes it had been touch and go. She had nearly starved, had begged and even stolen—and she was not proud of that—until she had found a job as a seamstress. Hours and hours of close work, living in dingy lodgings, quite literally working her fingers to the bone and all for a pittance.

Her ambition was smothered by the sheer weight of having to earn a living, but it did not die altogether and one day in 1820—she remembered the year well because it was the year the King had tried to divorce his wife and become the butt of everyone’s ribaldry—she found herself delivering a theatrical costume to the Covent Garden theatre. Her employer sometimes helped out when they had a big production and this was wanted urgently. She had told Maddy to take it round there on her way home.

On this occasion, the whole company was carousing, having just pulled off a great performance at a large aristocratic mansion. The troupe was led by a colourful character called Lancelot Greatorex, who fascinated her with his strange clothes and extravagant gestures. Seeing her ill-concealed curiosity, he demanded to know if she were an actress.

‘Oh, no,’ she said.

‘How do you know you are not?’

‘Why, sir,’ she had said, laughing, ‘I have never been on a stage in my life.’

‘That’s of no account. You don’t need to tread the boards to play a part, we all do it from time to time. Do you tell me you have never had a fantasy, never pretended to be other than you are?’

‘I hadn’t thought of it like that.’

‘You speak up well. What do you do to earn a crust?’

He may have been speaking metaphorically, but to her a crust was all she did earn, and sometimes a little butter to put on it. ‘I am a seamstress,’ she said.

‘Are you good at it?’

‘Yes, sir. I did most of the stitching on the costume I have just delivered.’

‘Quick, are you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘How much do you earn?’

‘Six pounds a year, sir.’

He laughed. ‘I can double that.’

‘Oh, I do not think I can act, sir.’

‘I am not asking you to. Actresses are ten a penny, but good seamstresses are like gold dust. Would you like to join my troupe as a seamstress? Having work done outside is not always convenient.’

Maddy had not hesitated. The flamboyant life among stage folk appealed to her and, somewhere in the back of her mind, her sleeping ambition revived. If she wanted to better herself, to act a part for which she had not been born, then where better to learn it?

She had become a seamstress, sewing, mending and pressing costumes and from that had progressed to becoming a dresser for Marianne Doubleday, chatting to her in her dressing room, learning, learning all the time. She was quick and eager and when they discovered she could read, they gave her the job of prompter, so that when one of the cast fell ill, who better to take her place but Maddy, who already knew the lines? And so Madeleine Charron, actress, had been born.

But was it enough? Did it fulfil her dream? Was she still burning with that desire to be a lady? A real one, not a fantasy. Could she pull it off? Was she, as Marianne suggested, wishing for the moon? She smiled at her friend. ‘So you don’t think I should go?’

Marianne shrugged. ‘It is up to you. You do not have to commit yourself, do you? The invitation is to supper, nothing more.’

‘And nothing more will be offered, I assure you.’

She had been out to supper with countless young men before and enjoyed their company, each time wondering before she went if this was the one who would fulfil her dream, but before the night was over, she had known he was not.

There were so many reasons: these sycophants did not have the title she craved; they were too young or too old; they were ugly and would give her ugly children; their conversation was a little too exuberant, or not exuberant enough. Some were fools, some gave every appearance of doing her a favour in spending money on a supper for her, some were married and expecting more than she was prepared to give. She did not intend to be anyone’s light o’ love.

‘But do have a care, Maddy, that you are not branded a tease.’

‘Have no fear, dear Marianne, you have taught me well.’

Maddy lingered over her toilette the following Monday night, spending more time than usual sitting before her mirror, removing the greasepaint from her face and brushing out her dark hair before coiling it up into a Grecian knot, before choosing a gown to wear. She prided herself on her good taste, and being a seamstress and a very good one meant that her clothes, though not numerous, were superbly made of the finest materials she could afford. It made her feel good to know that she could stand comparison with those who considered themselves her social superiors.

She slipped into a blue silk, whose fitted bodice and cross-cut skirt flowed smoothly over her curves. It had short puffed sleeves and a low neckline outlined with a cape collar which showed off her creamy shoulders and neck. She hesitated over wearing a necklace but, as most of her jewellery was paste, decided against it and fastened the odd ear drop in her ear before throwing a dark blue velvet burnoose over her shoulders and venturing out into the street.

Everyone but the night watchman had left and she half expected to find the road empty. It was her own fault if it was, she had kept him waiting and she could hardly complain if he had given up and gone home. But there was a carriage waiting. It was a glossy affair, though its colour she could not determine in the weak light from the street lamp. There was no sign of an occupant. Perhaps her admirer had simply sent the carriage to fetch her to wherever he was. She was not sure she liked that idea; it put her at a disadvantage. She stood, pulling her cloak closer round her, waiting for someone else to make the first move.

A hand came out of the door of the carriage, dangling an ear drop, the twin of the one she was wearing, and she heard a low chuckle. ‘If you come over here, my dear, I will fasten the other one for you. Beautiful as you are, you look slightly lopsided.’

‘Are you afraid to show your face, sir?’ she demanded.

‘Not at all.’ The door opened wide and a man jumped down and strode over to her. Young, but not juvenile, he was about five and twenty, she judged, and fashionably dressed for evening in a black tail-coat, a purple velvet waistcoat and a white shirt, whose lace cuffs fell from beneath his coat sleeves. A diamond pin glittered in the folds of his cravat. As he doffed his tall hat and bowed to her, she saw dark curls, and then, when he straightened again, humorous brown eyes beneath a pair of winged brows. His nose was long and straight and his mouth firm. He smiled, revealing even white teeth. ‘Here I am, your slave, ready to do your bidding.’

‘And does my slave have a name?’

‘Stanmore, Miss Charron. Duncan Stanmore, at your service.’

The name was familiar, and though she teased her brain, the when and where of it eluded her. She inclined her head in acknowledgement. ‘Mr Stanmore.’

‘I thought Reid’s for supper,’ he said. ‘Does that suit?’

‘And if I agree to that, I suppose I am to be rewarded with an ear drop.’

‘Oh, that is yours whether you come or no,’ he said lightly. ‘It would not be fair to dangle that in front of you like a carrot. That is not my way.’ He bowed. ‘But I would deem it an honour if you would have supper with me.’

‘Then supper it shall be.’

He gave a delighted laugh, which revealed the boy in him without in the least diminishing his stature, and led the way to the carriage, which she noticed, as she drew closer, had a crest upon its door. So Marianne had been right; he was not a commoner.

He handed her up into the carriage and made sure she was comfortable on the velvet seats before jumping up beside her. ‘Reid’s, Dobson,’ he told the driver.

The hotel was noted for its cuisine and was a favourite place of stage people and theatregoers alike, so it was busy, but as soon as the waiter saw her escort, he came forward with a broad smile. ‘Good evening, my lord. Your table is ready.’

Duncan smiled. ‘Thank you, Bundy. I knew I could rely on you.’

Her previous experience told her to expect a private room, or, at the very least, a table tucked away in some ill-lit corner where they would not be noticed and where her swain could bombard her with compliments and ply her with wine in the hope of his reward, but Duncan Stanmore obviously did not know the rules of the game. They were conducted to a small table to one side of the room, which, though discreet, gave a good view of all the other patrons and meant they could also be seen.

‘He addressed you as “my lord”,’ she said, when they were seated and the waiter had gone to fetch the champagne Duncan ordered.

He smiled. ‘Slip of the tongue, I expect. He knows better than that.’

‘You prefer to be incognito?’

He laughed. ‘That, my dear Miss Charron, would be impossible—in London, anyway. It is of no consequence. I do not expect you to address me formally. It would quite spoil the evening.’

He paused as the waiter returned with the wine, which he proceeded to pour for them. ‘The chef says he has a roast of beef as succulent as you’re likely to taste anywhere,’ the man said. ‘And there’s turbot in a shrimp sauce and suckling pig and ham what’ll melt in your mouth, not to mention sweetmeats and puddings—’

‘Goodness, I am not that hungry,’ Maddy said. She was laughing, but underneath the laughter were memories of a time when she had been starving and a tiny portion of the food the waiter was offering would have been a feast. Why could she never forget that? ‘A little of the fish removed with the beef will be quite sufficient, thank you.’

‘Then I will have the same,’ Duncan said.

‘Oh, please do not stint yourself because of me, my lord,’ Maddy said. ‘I will be quite content to watch you eat.’

‘I would rather talk than eat. And you forget, I am Duncan Stanmore, not Lord anything.’ He held up his wine to her. ‘To a beautiful companion.’ He took a mouthful, looking at her over the rim of his glass. She was beautiful, and not in the artful way of most actresses, achieved with paint and powder, a certain knowing expression and an exaggerated way of carrying themselves that commanded attention. Her loveliness was entirely natural. Her skin was flawless and her eyes, the deep blue of a woodland violet, were bright with intelligence and full of humour, though he detected just a hint of an underlying sadness about her lovely mouth. Was that why she was such a great actress?

‘Thank you.’

‘Tell me about yourself,’ he commanded, as the food was brought and served. ‘Is Charron a French name?’

‘It was originally. My grandfather fled from France with his wife and son, during the Reign of Terror and never went back. My father looked upon himself as English and fought on England’s side in the war against Napoleon. He was killed on some secret mission, very early on. Even my mother did not know what it was.’ The lies she had told so many times tripped easily from her tongue as if she had come to believe them herself.

‘I am sorry if talking of it is painful,’ he said. ‘I should not have asked, but I thought there was something about you that was not usual for an actress…’

‘And you, I collect, must have met many.’

He laughed. ‘A few, but none like you.’

‘Fustian!’

‘It is true. There is something about you that proclaims you a woman of breeding. Your grandfather would have been an aristocrat if he had to flee the Terror, and that accounts for it.’

She smiled. Her mother had taught her well and Marianne Doubleday had completed her education. She could play the lady to perfection. But playing the lady was not what she wanted. What did she want? Seven years before she could have given the answer to that promptly enough, but now she was not so sure. Her life was good as it was. She was adored from across the footlights, should she not be satisfied with that?

She could command a good wage, could afford to dress well, was the recipient of countless fripperies she could sell or wear, whichever she chose, and she had many friends among her fellow thespians who, contrary to popular belief, were not always at each other’s throats. She could flirt with the young men who besieged the stage door after each performance, go to supper with them and gently send them on their way without hurting their pride. So what had she been waiting for? This moment? This man?

‘Can you tell breeding on so short an acquaintance?’ she asked.

‘Of course. How did someone like you come to be an actress?’

‘My mother was run down by a speeding carriage when I was nine years old,’ she said. ‘I had no other relatives…’

‘What about your grandparents?’

‘My father’s parents both died some time before. They never got over the loss of their son, so my mother told me. I think my mother’s parents must have died too, for she never spoke of them. I was alone in the world.’

‘Oh, you poor, dear girl.’ His sympathy seemed truly genuine and she began to have the first feeling of unease for deceiving him.

‘What happened then?’

The rest was easy. The rest was the truth, or very nearly. She told him she had been sent to an orphanage for the children of army officers, (she had long ago upgraded the orphanage to one specifically for officers’ orphans) where she stayed until she was old enough to work, but nothing at all about the Bulfords. That did not bear speaking about. ‘There you have my history in a nutshell,’ she said, laughing. ‘Now you must tell me yours.’

‘Oh, I have nothing at all interesting to report. I was born, I went to school, I became a man…’

‘And married?’ She was surprised that question had not crossed her mind until now.

‘No, not yet, but undoubtedly my father will have me shackled before much longer. I am his heir, you see. I have a half-brother, a bantling by the name of Freddie, who will, no doubt, carry on the family name if I do not have a son, but he is very young still. That is all there is to tell.’

It was all he wanted to tell, she decided. ‘So you do not have to earn a living?’

He laughed. He had an infectious laugh and she found herself smiling back at him. ‘If you mean I live a life of idleness, that is far from the truth,’ he said. ‘My father would not allow it. I have to work on our estate, see that it is running smoothly, look after the tenants…’ He stopped, on the verge of telling her that he did have another mission in life, but decided it would introduce a sombre note to the proceedings and stopped short.

‘And that is work?’

‘It is harder work than you might think. But I come to London for the Season, as you see.’

‘To look for a bride?’

‘That is the accepted way of doing it, though I am not so sure it will work in my case. My father despairs of me, says I am too particular.’

‘And are you?’ She was slightly breathless, as if his answer was important to her. His name was Stanmore, he had said. Lord Stanmore, she supposed, but she could not remember any of the girls in the troupe mentioning a Lord Stanmore and they knew the names of everyone who was anyone in town; gossip was meat and drink to them.

‘Oh, I don’t know. I suppose I am.’ This conversation was not going at all the way he had expected it to. It was not the light, teasing banter he usually employed when talking to the little bits of muslin he chose to dally with. She had more about her than they did, much more. He had not been joking when he said she had the bearing of an aristocrat. It showed itself in the proud way she held her head, the way she used her cutlery, the way she sipped her wine, the way she spoke, without that silly simpering voice young women of the lower orders used when trying to impress him. Madeleine Charron saw no need to impress him; she considered herself his equal.

‘How in particular?’ she asked.

‘That’s just it, I do not know,’ he said. ‘I have never troubled to analyse it. I suppose what I mean, is that I shall recognise her when I meet her.’

She laughed. ‘So you have not yet met her?’

‘I think I might have.’ Even as he spoke, he knew the idea was preposterous, outlandish, laughable. But it would not go away.

‘When did you meet her?’

‘About an hour ago.’

She stared at him for a moment, then sat back in her chair and burst out laughing. ‘I have heard many a proposition, but that is a new one, it really is.’

He frowned. ‘You laugh.’

‘Am I meant to take you seriously?’

His mind suddenly produced an image of his illustrious father, of his stepmother and his sister, Lavinia, as he presented Madeleine Charron to them as his intended wife and knew she had been right to laugh. ‘We could pretend, just for one night,’ he said lightly. ‘It might be fun.’

‘It depends what you expect of me,’ she said, and she was not laughing now. ‘I am an actress, pretending is second nature to me, but if you mean what I think you mean, I am afraid you have quite misunderstood my role.’

He sat back and rocked with laughter. ‘Oh, the lady is the aristocrat and no doubt about it. What rank was that grandfather of yours, a comte, a marquis or a duke, perhaps?’

‘A comte,’ she said. Marquises and dukes would be too easy to trace.

She was not naturally a liar and suddenly she found it all very hard going. He was too nice to deceive, too much the gentleman. She knew he would not coerce her or force himself upon her as Henry Bulford had done, but if she were determined enough, she could make him fall in love with her, make him defy his stiff-necked father to marry her. The ball was in her court. Why, then, was she so reluctant to pass it back? Why, when she had the opportunity to further her long-term goal, had she lost her courage? Only the memory of her humiliation at the hands of another aristocrat kept her from confessing her perfidy.

‘And one does not lightly roast a comte’s daughter,’ he said, unaware of her tumultuous thoughts.

‘I am sorry,’ she said, suddenly serious.

‘Sorry? Sorry for what?’

‘If you have deluded yourself that I would easily succumb…’

‘If I had, you have soon put me in my place,’ he said with a smile. ‘Let us begin again, shall we?’

‘How so?’

‘Tell me about being an actress. I once acted in a play my sister put on for a charity my stepmother favours and I found it quite hard work.’

‘It is. What part did you play?’

‘Oberon. It was A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’

‘I know it well.’

It was easier after that. They spent the remainder of the evening talking pleasantly, laughing together, comparing their likes and dislikes and Maddy found she could forget he was one of the hated aristocracy, could forget her schemes and just be herself. He was a charming and attentive companion and she paid him the compliment of genuinely enjoying his company.

At two o’clock in the morning, they found themselves alone in the dining room and the waiters hovering to clear the table. Reluctantly they stood up to leave. ‘My, how the time has flown by,’ he said. ‘I have never been so well entertained in my life. Thank you, sweet Madeleine.’

‘It has been a pleasure,’ she said, allowing him to drape her cloak about her shoulders and escort her to the door.

They had almost reached it when the proprietor came, bowing deferentially. ‘I hope everything was to your satisfaction, my lord?’

‘Yes, indeed,’ he said. ‘You may send the reckoning to Stanmore House. It will be paid promptly.’

Stanmore House. Maddy knew where that mansion was and who it belonged to. Sir Percival Ponsonby had pointed it out only the week before when he had taken her out in his carriage and regaled her with who was who among the many people they had seen in the park. Why hadn’t she made the connection when Duncan Stanmore had first introduced himself?

She had been having supper with the Marquis of Risley, the Duke of Loscoe’s heir. The Duke was reputed to be one of the wealthiest men in the kingdom, so it stood to reason his son wanted for nothing. He had entertained her for several hours, and not once had he hinted of his illustrious background. Why? In her experience, most young men were boastful and would not have been able to keep quiet about having a duke for a father. Was he, too, playing a part?

He put his hand beneath her elbow to escort her to his waiting carriage and helped her inside. ‘Tell me where you want to go and I will see you safely there,’ he said.

He was being studiously polite now, as if the contract he had made to give her supper in exchange for her company had been fulfilled and that was the end of it. She admitted to a tiny feeling of disappointment. And telling herself she was being more than inconsistent did nothing to appease her. She had made it clear he could expect nothing else and he, like the gentleman he was, had accepted that. But he might have put up more of an argument!

She told him the address of her lodgings at the bottom end of Oxford Street, which she shared with several others in the company. He passed it on to his coachman and they sat in silence as the coach rattled through the almost deserted streets. There was a constraint between them now, as if they had run out of things to say and did not know how to proceed.

It was unlike Duncan to be tongue-tied, but she had bewitched him, not only with her good looks and her curvaceous figure, but also with the way she spoke, the way she held her head, the way her expressive hands drew pictures in the air, her humour. He could see that speeding coach, could see the childlike figure weeping over a dead mother, could feel her pain. And no one to comfort her, no father, no grandparents, no one except an orphanage such as his stepmother supported. It was a wonder she had not become bitter.

Instead she had risen above it and the result was perfection. He had never been so captivated. Not that any liaison other than that of lover and chère amie was possible. She was not wifely material, at least not for him, and suddenly he could not bring himself to spoil that perfection by suggesting they continue the evening elsewhere.

When the coach stopped at her door, he jumped down to help her to alight. ‘Thank you for a truly delightful evening,’ he said, raising her hand to his lips.

Dozens of young men had done the same thing, but none had made her shiver as she was shivering now. It was not a shiver of cold, but of heat. His touch was like a lick of flame that spread from her hand, up her arm and down to the pit of her stomach and from there it found its way to her groin. She had never experienced anything like it before, but she recognised it as weakness. She shook herself angrily for being a traitor to herself. This was not the way, she berated herself, allowing herself to fall under his spell was not part of the plan. He was supposed to fall under hers!

‘I nearly forgot,’ he said, putting his hand in his pocket and extracting the diamond ear drop. ‘You must have this to remind you of the delightful time we spent together.’

‘Thank you.’

‘May I put it in?’

Gently he took her earlobe and hooked the jewel into it. Then he bent and put his lips to her ear, kissed it and whispered, ‘I shall always remember it.’ Now he was the stage-door admirer that she was used to, paying extravagant compliments and meaning none of them.

She found herself smiling. ‘You are too generous, my lord Marquis.’

‘Drat it, you have seen through me,’ he said, laughing and breaking the stiff atmosphere that had suddenly developed between them.

‘Did you think I did not know the Marquis of Risley?’

‘No, I suppose not,’ he said, with a theatrical sigh. ‘And I thought you loved me for myself alone.’

There was no answer to that and she did not give him one. She turned and went into the house and closed the door behind her, leaning her back on it, hearing his carriage roll away. She had had her chance and she had let it go. All those years nursing a hate, all those years working towards her goal and she had fallen at the first hurdle. What a ninny she had been!

Beautiful he had called her, aristocratic, he had said, different. Oh, she was different all right. She was a fraud, a tease, for all she had told Marianne she was not. And she had been given her just reward: supper and a pair of diamond ear drops. She supposed she should be flattered that he thought her worth that much, but then diamonds were commonplace to him and would hardly make a dint in his fortune. The pin in his cravat had been worth many times his gift to her.

She toiled wearily up to her room, to find Marianne sitting on her bed, waiting for her, clad in an undress robe in peacock colours and her hair in a nightcap. ‘Well?’ her friend demanded.

‘Well, what?’ She sank on to the bed and kicked off her shoes.

‘What happened? Did you find out who he was?’

‘Oh, yes, I found out.’

‘And? Come on, don’t keep me in suspense. I was right, he is an aristocrat, isn’t he?’

‘Yes. None other than the Marquis of Risley.’

‘The Duke of Loscoe’s heir! I am impressed. What happened?’

‘He bought me supper at Reid’s, entertained me with anecdotes, brought me home and left me with the other ear drop.’

‘That’s all? He didn’t suggest a private room?’

‘No. He was amiable and generous and a perfect gentleman.’

Marianne laughed. ‘Oh dear, and you are disappointed.’

‘Not at all.’ She could not tell Marianne of her doubts. ‘I had no intention of falling at his feet or even encouraging him. I need to be more subtle than that.’

‘More subtle,’ Marianne repeated, looking into Maddy’s bright eyes. ‘Oh, Maddy I do hope you have not developed a tendre for him. The Duke will never allow his son to become attached to an actress.’

‘But if that actress also happens to be the granddaughter of a French comte, he might condescend to overlook her faults.’

‘You never told him that tale of the French émigré, did you?’

‘Why not?’

‘Oh, Maddy, you will be in a serious coil, if you persist. Tell him the truth, make a jest of it before he finds out for himself.’

‘I didn’t know who he was when I told it. He was pretending to be a nobody while I was doing my best pretending to be a somebody, so we were both at fault. It was only harmless fun, not to be taken seriously at all. I am sure his lordship did not do so.’ And that was what rankled. He had not asked to see her again and she would not be given another opportunity to demonstrate her ascendancy over him. He had been the one to draw back, as if he had suddenly remembered who he was and what she was. An actress.

‘I am glad to hear it.’ Marianne stood up, prepared to leave. ‘Now, I suggest you go to bed. You will be fit for nothing later today if you do not.’

When Marianne had taken her leave Madeleine undressed and climbed into bed, knowing, late as it was and tired as she was, she would not sleep. Her evening out, which had been so enjoyable in one way, had been a disaster in another. Sometimes for days, even weeks, at a time she managed to forget her past and her enmity towards the aristocracy, but tonight had brought it all back and she was feeling decidedly vulnerable.

The fact that the Marquis had appeared to believe her story of her French grandfather, and had said he had known she was a lady of good breeding, made her wonder about her unknown father. She racked her brains, trying to think of anything her mother might have said to throw some light on who he could have been, but there was nothing. She could not remember Mama even mentioning him.

Her grandfather was certainly not a French émigré, she had invented him, but supposing the fictional character could give her an entrée into Society? And in the dark watches of the night when anything seems possible, a plan began to form in her mind, a plan so audacious it made her shiver. But she needed the help of her friend Marianne.

‘Well, do I owe you twenty-five pounds or not?’ Benedict asked Duncan the following morning when he came upon him at Humbold’s coffee house, blowing a cloud and amusing himself watching the people passing the window. ‘A week has gone by and no news of the citadel being stormed.’

‘Citadel?’

‘The lovely Madeleine Charron.’

‘Supper we agreed and supper it was,’ Duncan said, sitting down opposite his friend and beckoning to the waiter to bring a dish of coffee to him. ‘Taken at Reid’s with plenty of witnesses, so pay up and look cheerful about it.’

Benedict dug in his tail pocket and produced his purse. ‘And?’ He carefully counted out the twenty-five sovereigns in five neat heaps. ‘You are going to refine upon that, I hope.’

‘Nothing to refine upon.’

‘You are bamming me.’

‘No. What happened and what was said between us is our private business and nothing to do with the wager.’

‘She turned you down!’ It was said almost triumphantly.

‘Not at all.’ Benedict was annoying him and he was damned if he would tell him anything. ‘But, unlike you, I do not rush in where angels fear to tread. I prefer to deal gently with the fair sex. It pays in the end.’

‘Ah, the assault goes on. You want another wager?’ His hand hovered over the coins. ‘Double or quits?’

‘For what?’

‘For a night in her bed.’

Duncan should have refused. He should have scooped up his winnings and told his friend that he had no intention of even trying, when he realised that Benedict would take that as weakness or a lack of self-confidence at the very least and would offer to do the deed himself. The thought of his clumsy friend going anywhere near Madeleine filled him with a kind of desperate fury. He smiled. ‘Done, my friend.’

‘Done to the wager or done to the deed?’ Benedict queried, grinning.

‘The wager, you bufflehead.’

Benedict retrieved the coins and replaced them in his purse with evident relief. ‘Another se’nnight?’

‘No, give me credit for more finesse than that. Make it a fortnight.’

He could have bitten his tongue out. If the object of the wager had been anyone else but the lovely Madeleine Charron, he would not have given it another thought. As it was, he was consumed with shame. She had endured so much in her short life, he had no right to play with her as if she were a toy. She deserved his respect. He flung the contents of the coffee cup down his throat and with a curt, ‘I will see you later,’ stood up and left the premises.

He knew he ought not to see Madeleine again, but he also knew it would be impossible to stay away. He had been ensnared. It was not a condition he was comfortable with and he set off for Bond Street, where he took out his frustration, anger and guilt on his sparring partner at Gentleman Jackson’s boxing saloon, until that gentleman called out to him to stop if he didn’t want to be done for murder. He apologised and decided there was nothing for it but to go home and pretend nothing had happened. He had enjoyed an evening out with a pretty actress; nothing out of the ordinary in that, nothing to lose another night’s sleep over.

He would pay Benedict his fifty pounds and be done with it.

Chapter Two

B eing part of a theatrical troupe, Madeleine was used to strange hours, when night became day and day was a time for sleeping and she did not see Marianne again until the following afternoon when the cast met to rehearse the new play to be put on the following week.

Although he sometimes put on burlesque or contemporary plays lampooning the government, Lancelot Greatorex was chiefly known for his revivals of Shakespeare’s plays to which he gave a freshness and vitality, often bringing them right up to date with modern costumes and manners and allusions to living people or recent history. The following week Madeleine would be playing Helena in All’s Well That Ends Well, which lent itself surprisingly well to such treatment.

In it, Helena, a physician’s daughter, cures the king of a mysterious illness and as a reward is allowed to choose one of his courtiers for a husband. She chooses Bertram, Count of Rousillon, but he maintains Helena is beneath him and though he is obliged to obey the king and wed her, he goes off to the wars rather that consummate the marriage. Later, Helena tricks him into bed by making him think she is another woman for whom he has a fancy and they exchange rings. When he realises what has happened, he accepts Helena for his wife.

Maddy did not like the play; she thought the hero a weak character and the ending even weaker and she questioned whether a marriage based on such a trick could possibly be happy. Now that she was contemplating a hoax herself, the question was even more pertinent. Not that she intended to trick anyone into her bed, far from it, but she did mean to deceive Society as a whole.

‘Madeleine, do pay attention,’ Lancelot said mildly, after she had missed her cue for the second time. ‘You have been in a brown study all afternoon. Whatever is the matter with you?’

Maddy pulled herself out of her reverie and peered down into the gloom of the orchestra pit where he was standing. She knew from past experience that his mild tone hid annoyance, and it behoved her to pull herself together. ‘I am sorry, Mr Greatorex. It won’t happen again.’

‘To be sure it won’t,’ he said. ‘Unless you wish to see your understudy in the role. Now, let us do that scene again.’

Madeleine looked across at Marianne who winked at her. She smiled back and began the scene again and this time it went some way to satisfying the great actor-manager. Nothing would ever satisfy him completely, he was such a perfectionist, but he knew just how far to go with his criticism before he had a weeping and useless performer on his hands. Not that anyone had ever seen Madeleine Charron weeping, not offstage, though she could put on a very convincing act on stage if it were required.

After the rehearsal, Marianne joined Madeleine in the dressing room they shared to prepare for the evening performance of Romeo and Juliet. ‘It is not like you to miss your cue, Maddy,’ her friend said. ‘Is anything wrong?’

‘No, not at all. I am a little tired.’

‘I hope you did not lie awake last night, fantasising about the Marquis of Risley.’

‘Now, why should I do that? He is one of the idle rich and you know what I think about them.’ Her answer was so quick and sharp, Marianne knew she had hit upon the truth.

‘Then why, in heaven’s name, did you find it necessary to deceive him?’

‘It just came out. It always does, when anyone asks me about my family.’

‘But why? You are admired and respected as an actress. Why cannot you be content with that?’

‘I don’t know. I suppose because I have always wanted a family of my own, someone to belong to, and if invention is the only way—’ She stopped speaking suddenly. Her reasons seemed so trite, so unconvincing, and yet Marianne detected the wistfulness in her voice.

‘You do have a family, my dear,’ Marianne said softly. ‘You have me and all the rest of the company; that is your family. Mine too, come to that.’

‘Yes, I know, but I can’t help wishing…’

‘We all have dream wishes, Maddy, the secret is to recognise them for what they are, and to be able to distinguish the attainable from the unattainable. You have it in you to be an outstanding actress, one of the few who will be remembered long after they have left this world behind, a byword for excellence. Surely that is better than being remembered for a short time for pretending to be something you are not.’

‘That is what acting is, pretending to be someone else.’

Marianne laughed. ‘You do like to have the last word, don’t you? I will concede you right on that, but you should not extend that into your everyday life.’

Madeleine was silent for a minute, during which they attended to their make-up, but if Marianne thought that was the end of the conversation, she was mistaken. Maddy worried at it like a dog with a bone. ‘You have met the Stanmores, haven’t you?’ she asked, apparently casually.

‘Yes, the first time was when I took part in an amateur production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream they put on at Stanmore House to raise funds for the Duchess’s charitable works. The whole family was involved, even the children.’

‘And they took you for a lady?’

‘Yes, but only because Sir Percival Ponsonby introduced me and vouched for me. He was the one who invented my history.’

‘He evidently did not mind deceiving them?’

‘It was in a good cause.’

‘And they never guessed?’

‘Oh, it all came out in the end, of course. We never meant to deceive them permanently.’

‘And they forgave you and the Duchess still receives you. I know you are sometimes included in her soirées.’

‘I go to entertain the company. It is in aid of the charity and I am pleased to do it, but the Duchess does not treat me as an equal, though we deal very well together.’

‘Will you take me with you next time?’

‘Maddy, don’t be a ninny. How can I? I go by invitation and they are not easy to come by.’

‘You could fix it. Offer them a performance that needs two players and take me to assist you.’

Marianne looked thoughtfully at her friend, wondering what was behind the request. ‘Perhaps I could, but the Marquis might not like his outside pursuits intruding on his home life; he might be very angry, not only with you, but with me for encouraging you.’

‘He cannot know that you know my story is not true. No one will blame you. At least it will make him notice me.’

Marianne burst into laughter. ‘He has already done that and you repaid him with whiskers.’

‘I know. But if he believed them, where’s the harm?’

‘Maddy, my love, his father will have the story checked, even if the son takes it at face value. You will be in a serious coil, if you persist.’

She had not thought of that, but then brightened. ‘What can he discover? So many Frenchmen came over during the Terror, there’s no keeping track of them.’

‘I think you would do better to own up and apologise.’

‘I will. When the opportunity arises. But the Marquis did not intimate he was going to ask me out again and I can hardly accost him in the street to tell him, can I?’

Marianne laughed. ‘No, but going to his home and confronting him will not serve either. Besides, he might not be there. True, he still lives at Stanmore House but that does not mean he is tied to his stepmama’s apron strings. Most young men of his age, married or not, have flown the coop long before they are his age.’

‘He said his papa was anxious for him to marry.’

‘No doubt he is. But you must face the truth, my love, he will not look at you for that role.’

Madeleine sighed, thinking of the play they had just been rehearsing. ‘If I were really a comte’s granddaughter, he would.’

‘If you were a comte’s granddaughter, my dear, you would not have led the life you have and you would not be nursing a grievance against the whole haut monde. And if you are thinking of exacting your revenge on Stanmore, father or son, then you are like to have your fingers burned, mark my words.’

‘I am not thinking of revenge. It is the haut monde I wish to study. I want to see the family together; I want to see how they deal with each other, if they are loving towards each other and how they treat their servants. You have taught me a great deal and I am sure there is nothing you do not know about acting the lady, but I want to see it for myself. I want to be among them just for a little while. It will be a great help to me when I have to play the great lady.’

Marianne looked at her with her head on one side, as if cogitating whether to believe her or not. ‘And you expect me to collude with you in this?’

‘Yes, dear Marianne, get me an invitation to the next soirée you go to, please, just this once. I won’t ask you ever again.’

She was not sure why she wanted this so much. It was not as if she hoped to promote herself in the eyes of the Marquis, let alone his family, but if she could make the story of the French comte convincing enough, the fact that she was accepted at Stanmore House might gain her entry to a few more social occasions and maybe she could establish herself in Society without having to delude some susceptible nobleman into marrying her. And perhaps, in time, she might meet someone who could know the truth about her and still love her.

Her imagination soared; she could see herself fêted and showered with invitations and being accepted. Yes, that was what she wanted most, to be accepted. She wanted to be seen at Stanmore House in order to set the ball rolling. ‘Please,’ she begged. ‘If you cannot ask her ladyship yourself, ask the help of Sir Percy. I believe he is a frequent visitor to Stanmore House. The Duchess will perhaps listen to a suggestion from him.’

Sir Percy was one of the few men who did not ask sexual favours for his patronage. Marianne said it was because he was in love with the Duchess of Loscoe and had been ever since she first came out, but she had married the Earl of Corringham and, after he died, the Duke of Loscoe. Having been rejected, Sir Percy had taken refuge in pretending to be an outmoded fop. He was far from that, as Madeleine appreciated, and if anyone could help her, he could.

‘She might, but I doubt he will agree to hoax the Duke and Duchess.’

‘It is not exactly a hoax, is it? And he will do it if you ask it of him, he is very fond of you, he told me so when we were out in his carriage last week.’

Marianne chuckled. ‘Did he now?’

‘So, will you ask him?’

‘Perhaps, if the opportunity arises next time I see him, but I make no promises.’ She adjusted her powdered wig, stood up in a flurry of silk-covered hoops and took a last look at herself in the mirror. ‘Come now, put it from your mind and concentrate on the play. I can hear Lancelot calling everyone to their places.’

Madeleine’s performance as Juliet that night excelled anything she had done before and the applause at the end meant she had to take several curtain calls before they would allow her to go. Her dressing room was awash with flowers and she examined each bouquet carefully to see who had sent them, but none that she could see had come from the Marquis of Risley. It was evident he was not going to further their acquaintance; she would not give him the carte blanche he wanted and so he had lost interest. But she would not admit to being disappointed, not even to herself.

Duncan was sipping tea in the withdrawing room of Stanmore House, having dined at home with the Duke and Duchess and their guests, his sister Lavinia and her husband, the Earl of Corringham and the Earl’s sister, Augusta, and her husband Sir Richard Harnham.

‘Duncan, you really must put in an appearance at Almack’s at least once this Season,’ Lavinia said.

‘Why?’ he demanded. He loved his sister dearly, but ever since she had married James six years before and borne two lively children, she seemed to think she could bully him into doing anything. He gave a quirky smile; she had always tried to bully him, even when they were children; it was nothing new. ‘Why should I dress myself up in breeches and stockings and stand about like a liveried footman just for the dubious pleasure of dancing with some plain chit who thinks she can trap me into marriage?’

‘How can you be so cynical, Duncan? There are any number of very acceptable girls coming out this Season. How do you know that one won’t turn out to be exactly what you are looking for?’

‘I doubt it. They will either be missish and just out of the schoolroom, with silly giggles and no conversation, or spinsters at their last prayers who have been residing on the shelf for years and yet each Season they dust themselves off and launch themselves at every eligible man foolish enough to go near them.’

The Duke and the Duchess, their stepmother, had been listening to this exchange between brother and sister with amused tolerance, but now the Duchess smiled. ‘Duncan, don’t you want to marry?’

‘Not particularly, Mama, certainly not enough to jump into it simply because a young lady is considered suitable. Suitable for what? I find myself asking.’

‘Why, to be a marchioness,’ Lavinia said.

‘But it is no certainty that someone who might make a good marchioness will make a good wife. I want to have feelings for the woman I marry, feelings that last a lifetime. I am not prepared to shackle myself to a breeding machine with whom I have nothing in common. There is more to marriage than that.’

‘In other words, you want to love and be loved,’ Frances said softly.

He did not think his stepmother’s comment needed an answer. She understood him and had often in the past interceded for him with the Duke and he loved her for it, but if she was ranging herself alongside Lavinia in this quest to find him a wife, he was going to disappoint her.

‘Somewhere out there, in the ranks of the nobility, there is someone who will answer for both,’ Lavinia persisted. ‘You must give Society a chance.’

He smiled at his sister. ‘You were fortunate that your choice of husband was also suitable from the point of view of the haut monde, Lavinia dear, no compromise was asked of you. It does not happen often.’

‘Thank you very much,’ James put in drily.

‘You know what I mean.’

‘All I am saying is that you should attend those functions where you might meet suitable young ladies,’ Lavinia went on. ‘But if you do not go out and about, how can you possibly make a choice?’

‘I do go out and about, I am not a recluse.’

‘Oh, yes, you go about with your dandified friends and hover about stage doors dangling after actresses, but you won’t find a wife there, now will you?’

‘Vinny!’ her husband admonished her. ‘It is not for you to comment upon how your brother spends his evenings.’ He paused, curious. ‘How do you know so much anyway?’

‘Benedict told his sister and she told me.’

‘What did he tell her?’ Duncan asked, suddenly interested.

‘Oh, nothing of import, except that you were rivalling each other to take a certain actress out to supper. Felicity said there was a wager on it.’

Duncan muttered darkly under his breath. Trust Willoughby to empty the bag. If the object of the wager had been anyone but the delectable Miss Charron he would have answered teasingly, but there was something about their meeting the evening before that did not warrant that; it was the confidences they had shared, the private moments when they had not been flirting with each other, when he had been privileged to see the real Madeleine Charron hidden behind the actress. It was something he wanted to keep to himself; now that Benedict had made light of it, he was angry.

And disturbed. If that second wager were to become common knowledge, he would be in a coil, not only with Madeleine herself, but with his father, who would never countenance a lady being used in that way, actress or not.

‘Benedict Willoughby should keep his tongue between his teeth,’ he said.

‘Did you win it?’ James asked.

Duncan felt trapped. He could not be impolite to his brother-in-law, but he was aware that he was being forced into a corner. ‘Yes, a light supper, no more, and it has nothing to do with whether or not I go to Almack’s.’

‘Then you will come,’ Lavinia said, delighted her ploy had worked.

‘I suppose I will have no peace until I agree.’

‘Then we shall go on Wednesday week. It is a special occasion to mark the anniversary of Waterloo. I believe Wellington will be there.’

‘Oh, then I am safe; the ladies will be all over him and will ignore me.’

‘Duncan, I despair of you,’ Lavinia said.

But Duncan was not listening; he was employed in puzzling his brain into devising a way of making Benedict stay mum about their second wager without losing face.

The Duchess smiled. ‘Duncan, what are you doing tomorrow?’

‘Nothing I cannot postpone, if you need me, Mama,’ he said cheerfully.

‘Will you come to the orphanage with me? I have a pile of clothing I have collected and I need a strong arm to carry the baskets.’

It was typical of the Duchess to take them herself; she liked to be personally involved and the fact that the orphanage was not in the most salubrious part of town did not deter her. But she had promised the Duke she would never go unescorted, and as he was rarely free to go with her due to government business, she would ask Duncan or James or sometimes Sir Percy.

The mention of the orphanage reminded Duncan of Madeleine and the story she had told him, a story that had tugged at his tender heart. He really must stop thinking about her; it clouded his judgement. ‘Of course, Stepmama, I am at your service. What time do we leave?’

‘Ten o’clock—that is, if you can rouse yourself from your bed in time.’

‘I will be ready and, just to show you my good intent, I will not go out again tonight, but retire early.’ He was only teasing; he was quite used to staying up until the early hours, dawn sometimes, and he could still rise bright and early.

He was as good as his word and presented himself in the breakfast parlour in good time to eat a hearty breakfast and oversee the loading of two large laundry baskets full of donated clothes into the boot of the carriage before handing his stepmother in, settling himself beside her and instructing the coachman to take them to Maiden Lane.

‘You are thoughtful,’ remarked the Duchess when they had been going for a few minutes and he had not spoken. ‘You do not mind coming with me? I have not kept you from more pleasurable pursuits?’

‘No, not at all,’ he said abstractedly.

‘Then you are troubled about something else.’

‘No, Mama, not a thing,’ he said, falsely bright. They were crossing the square in front of St Paul’s and he had just spotted Madeleine Charron walking arm in arm with Marianne Doubleday towards the market.

Having spent a wakeful night trying to decide what to do about that disgraceful wager, he was unprepared for seeing her again so soon. The sight of her, laughing with her companion as if she did not have a care in the world, set his heart racing. If she knew what was going on in his mind, she would not be laughing. She would be angry.

His head was full of her and his loins were stirring with desire, even now, in this busy square. He had made a wager of which he was thoroughly ashamed and yet the fulfilling of it would give him a great deal of pleasure. One-half of him goaded him, telling him the pleasure would not all be his, he knew how to give pleasure too and he could be very generous to those who pleased him and what else could an actress expect? The other half of him knew that such thoughts were reprehensible and dishonourable and he ought to have more respect for her than that. Why, he would not treat the lowliest servant in that cavalier fashion.

The ladies had stopped and were looking towards the carriage and it was then that the Duchess saw them. ‘Oh, there is Miss Doubleday. I need to speak to her.’ And before Duncan could make any sort of comment, she instructed the coachman to pull up.

The carriage drew to a stop beside the actresses and Duncan had perforce to jump down and open the door for his stepmother to alight.

Marianne took a step towards them and curtsied. ‘Your Grace, good morning.’

‘Good morning, Miss Doubleday,’ the Duchess said. ‘I hope I find you well.’

‘Oh, exceedingly well, my lady.’ She smiled, almost mischievously. ‘My lady, may I present my friend and colleague, Miss Madeleine Charron.’

Frances turned towards Madeleine, while Duncan stood silently behind her wondering what was coming next. ‘I am pleased to meet you, Miss Charron, though I would have known you anywhere. You are become quite famous and rightly so. I saw your performance in Romeo and Juliet and it moved me almost to tears.’

‘Thank you, my lady.’ Madeleine made a curtsy, though she always maintained she would never bow the knee to anyone just because they were aristocrats, but she did not want to embarrass Marianne, nor alienate the Marquis. And her ladyship was not behaving like a top-lofty aristocrat at all, getting down from her carriage to speak to them.

Her ladyship indicated Duncan with a movement of her gloved hand. ‘This is my stepson, the Marquis of Risley, a keen theatre-lover.’

Duncan held his breath, half-expecting Madeleine to say they were already acquainted, but she simply smiled coolly at him and inclined her lovely head. It was not a bow, simply an acknowledgement. ‘My lord.’ When she looked up again, he saw the merriment in her violet eyes and found himself smiling back at her.

‘Miss Charron,’ he said, doffing his hat. ‘I am honoured.’

If the Duchess noticed the conspiratorial look that passed between them, she ignored it and instead turned back to Marianne. ‘Miss Doubleday, I am glad we are met, I wanted to have a word with you about a little musical evening I am planning. If you are free of engagements, I should be very grateful if you would perform for us.’

‘I will deem it an honour, my lady. But it would depend on the day. A Thursday would be best. We have no evening performances on Thursdays.’

‘Yes, I know. I will bear that in mind and send you a note.’

‘Then I shall look forward to hearing from you, Your Grace.’

‘I leave the choice of offering to you,’ the Duchess added. ‘I am sure you will think of something suitable.’

‘I will give it some thought, my lady.’ She jumped as she felt Madeleine’s fingers digging into her back. ‘Perhaps a dialogue, my lady, that is, if you would allow Miss Charron to accompany me.’

‘An excellent idea.’ She looked at Madeleine and smiled. ‘Do please come, Miss Charron. It is all very informal and having both of you at once will be a great draw. Don’t you think so, Duncan?’

‘Oh, without doubt,’ he said promptly, aware that Miss Charron was looking at him with a strange light of mischief in her eyes, as if she were bamming him. She was up to something and he hoped she was not going to put him to the blush in front of his family and the top-lofty friends his stepmother invited to her soirées. But she could not possibly know whether he would be present or not. He seldom attended his stepmother’s routs; they were more often than not exceedingly boring and he usually had to be coerced into putting in an appearance.

‘Then it will be my pleasure, my lady,’ Madeleine said.

Having made their adieus, the Duchess and Duncan returned to the carriage and were carried away, leaving the two actresses staring after them.

‘Well,’ Madeleine said, letting out her breath, which she suddenly realised she had been holding. ‘I never thought it would be so easy.’

‘And I am not so sure I shouldn’t make your excuses and go alone,’ her friend said. ‘I am afraid you will stir up a hornet’s nest.’

‘No, I will not. I will be the embodiment of decorum, you will be proud of me.’

‘How can I be proud of you, when I know what a deceiver you are?’

‘One tiny fib, that’s all I told, and it harms no one. Besides, I told you I would confess, if I ever find myself talking to the Marquis privately again.’

‘Oh, there is no doubt you will, I saw the way he looked at you. And you smiling back at him, like the temptress you are.’

‘I am not!’

‘Oh, my dear, I sometimes think you do not know when you are on stage and when you are off it.’

“‘All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players”,’ Maddy quoted, remembering Lancelot Greatorex’s words the day she had first met him. You don’t need to tread the boards to play a part. We all do it from time to time. Do you tell me you have never had a fantasy, never pretended to be other than you are? Oh, she had certainly done that.

‘That may be true,’ Marianne said. ‘But we can only play the role for which we have been cast…’

‘You played the lady,’ Madeleine interrupted her. ‘You went to Stanmore House and deceived the whole company, so why can’t I?’

‘The reasons for doing it were very different. I was enrolled to help catch a blackguard who meant to harm Lady Lavinia.’

‘You never told me that.’ Madeleine was glad to divert the conversation away from her own motives; if Marianne continued to question her about them, she would be hard put to answer truthfully because she did not know what they were herself. Was she still nursing a grievance against the whole nobility? And how could making a fool of the Marquis of Risley assuage that?

Was it simply that she wanted to see what it was like to be a lady of consequence? Or was she so ashamed of her past that she had to invent one nearer to her liking? But that must mean she was ashamed of her darling mother who, poor as she was and without a title, had been a gentlewoman in the truest sense of the word. Such a thing was inconceivable; she was proud of her mother. But oh, how she wished Mama had told her something of her father. But he was a shadowy figure, a wraith, with no substance.

Perhaps it was envy that the Marquis of Risley could trace his forebears back generation after generation while she did not know who she was. Her name wasn’t even Charron, it was Cartwright. But could she even be sure of that? Her mother might have fabricated that too, just as she had invented the French émigré. And having brought him into existence, she was stuck with him.

Marianne smiled. ‘Maddy dear, you have gone into another of your daydreams. If you do not keep your wits about you, one of these days you will be run down by a coach.’

Her words pitched Madeleine back fifteen years. She was standing outside a haberdashery shop and her mother, who had just come from the shop, was pulling on her gloves and saying something about getting home. She heard again the clatter of horses’ hooves, the sound of carriage wheels, the yells as the driver tried to pull the horses up. She saw his contorted face as the carriage careered out of control and then her mother wasn’t beside her any more. She was lying in the road, white and still, and a small trickle of blood was coming from under her head and growing wider. Maddy could still hear her own screams.

‘Maddy! Maddy! Whatever is the matter?’ Marianne’s voice came to her, loud and insistent. ‘You are white as a sheet.’

Madeleine gave a huge shudder and looked about her. She was back in 1827, in front of the colonnaded arcade of Covent Garden. The traffic flowed past her; there was no one lying in the street and her friend was tugging on her arm.

‘I was thinking of my mother.’

‘Oh, Madeleine. The Lord smite me for the fool I am. I forgot. I am sorry. Will you forgive me?’

‘There is nothing to forgive.’ She smiled at her friend and took her arm. ‘Come, we had better be going.’

But the memory remained at the back of her mind, as if she needed a reminder of why she was what she was and why she had to break free from the constrictions of the past. And it had been her mother who had invented the name of Charron, so it was her mother who was guiding her now. It made her feel better.

‘You did not tell me you were arranging a musical soirée,’ Duncan said, as he and the Duchess continued to their destination.

‘Is there any reason why I should have? I have them regularly and you have never shown the slightest interest in them before.’

‘Yes, I have. I attended the last one.’

‘Only under extreme duress and you only stayed fifteen minutes.’

‘Perhaps I had another engagement.’

‘Oh, undoubtedly. At White’s or Boodles, I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘Mama, you make me sound like a regular gamester, and you know I rarely gamble.’

Frances smiled, remembering how he had played truant from school and gone to a gaming hell when he was only fifteen. The Duke had rung a peal over him and extracted a promise not to visit such places again. Oh, she knew he went to the gentlemen’s clubs, but he had matured enough not to gamble more than a few guineas, which he could easily afford to lose. ‘So, I collect, you wish to come to my next gathering. Could it, perhaps, have something to do with the delightful Miss Charron?’

He looked startled. ‘Now, why do you say that?’

‘Because I know you very well and I know you cannot resist a pretty face.’ She paused. ‘Was she the one you and Benedict were wrangling over?’

‘We were not wrangling. He challenged me to take her out to supper without telling her who I was, that was all. I wish now I had not.’

‘Why?’

‘It seemed an ungentlemanly thing to do.’

‘And so it was.’

‘She told me her history and I felt so ashamed. She comes from a good family, Mama, her grandfather was a French comte who fled the Terror. Her father was killed in the late war and her mother was run down by a carriage when she was nine years old. She has been forced into acting by a need to earn her own living.’

‘If it is true, then it is very sad.’ She paused. ‘But do be careful, Duncan, you do not raise hopes in her that can never be fulfilled.’

He laughed a little harshly. ‘Oh, Mama, you are as bad as Lavinia. I took her out to supper and escorted her home afterwards. Nothing untoward happened, I promise you. I am not a rake.’

‘Oh, my dear boy, I know that.’

The coach drew up outside the orphanage in Maiden Lane and he was saved any more embarrassing revelations. His stepmother was very astute and he could no more have tried to deceive her than fly to the moon.

Duncan helped the coachman carry the baskets of clothes into the orphanage, where they were gratefully received by the ladies who looked after the orphans. Duncan, who had accompanied his stepmother on other occasions, had never before paid much attention to the inmates, nor the conditions in which they lived. The house was clean, the children clothed and fed and that was as far as his observation had taken him, but now, thinking of Madeleine Charron’s story, he looked with new eyes.

While the Duchess talked to Mrs Thomas, the woman who ran the place, he wandered round the house, looking in all the rooms: the dining room with its long table and benches; the dormitories with their rows of beds, which reminded him of his boarding school; the room converted into a tiny chapel; the kitchen where some of the little inmates toiled at preparing the meals for the others. Was this how Madeleine had lived?

She had said the orphanage she lived in had been for the children of officers, so perhaps it was a little more comfortable. But what was comfort when you were all alone in the world? How could comfort make up for the loss of a dear mother? His mother had died when he had been twelve years old and he had found that hard to take, but he still had a father and a sister and, for the last ten years, a stepmother he had come to love dearly. What must it be like to be all alone in the world and the prey of any jackass of a dandy who fancied he could buy your favours? He suddenly felt very protective towards Miss Madeleine Charron.

London audiences were usually appreciative, if somewhat noisy, but on the first night of All’s Well That Ends Well some of them seemed to be in a mood to find fault. They did not wait for the other actors to speak their lines to Madeleine, but called out witticisms and then laughed loudly at their cleverness, earning sharp rebukes from those who wanted to see the play in peace. Marianne found it extremely hard to ignore them and to carry on with the performance and she was glad when the curtain came down on the last act.

‘They did not like the play either,’ she said to Marianne when they returned to their dressing room. ‘It makes me wonder why Mr Greatorex chose it.’

‘Fustian! Most of the audience loved it,’ Marianne said. ‘It was only that rake Willoughby, who fancies himself a pink of the ton, causing trouble. Didn’t you see him? He was with a crowd of young rakehells, all foxed out of their minds and intent on making themselves unpleasant. The rest of the audience was trying to silence them.’

‘And made them worse. They think that wealth and position give them the right to do as they please, that they can be brash and inconsiderate and spoil other people’s enjoyment and no one will say a word against them. They think they can get away with murder.’ She could not help thinking about her mother’s death at such times. It had been such a one who had run her down.

‘I was surprised to see Stanmore with them.’

‘Was he?’ She tried to sound indifferent, but mention of the Marquis set her pulses racing.

‘Yes, I caught sight of him sitting next to Willoughby as I was waiting for my entrance, so you see he is no different from the rest.’

‘I did not say he was.’

It was hard to admit it, but she was bitterly disappointed. He had seemed a pleasant and attentive supper companion, who had talked to her as an equal, which had made her think that perhaps he was different from others of his breed. But he was not. She had been a fool to confide in him, telling him things about her past she had never told anyone except Marianne. Now, she supposed, he had regaled his drunken friends with the story and they had decided to have a little fun with her. She felt mortified and furiously angry and was certainly in no mood to accept the huge bunch of red roses the Marquis sent to the dressing room with a note to say he would be waiting for her when she came out.

‘You may take them back,’ she told the messenger who brought them. ‘Tell his lordship I have no need of his bribes and I shall be dining with friends.’

‘Well, I am surprised at you,’ Marianne said, when the man had gone, then laughed. ‘Now, I suppose, you are going to play hard to get.’

‘I always was hard to get,’ Maddy snapped, thinking suddenly of Henry Bulford, now Lord Bulford, of course. Marianne was right; they were all alike. So be it. Far from confessing her deception to the Marquis, she would play the nobleman’s granddaughter for all she was worth. Someone would pay for her humiliation, not only tonight’s but all she had ever suffered.

‘Oh, my dear child, they were loud and uncouth and very annoying, but you must not take it to heart. After all, you have endured worse than a little calling out and hissing in the past and risen above it like the great actress you are, so don’t let tonight’s nonsense make you bitter.’

Madeleine smiled suddenly. ‘Always my inner voice, dear Marianne, the one that keeps me from my excesses, be they of rage, resentment or the dismals. What would I do without you?’

‘I am sure you would manage, my dear. Now, I am off to dine with Sir Percy. What will you do?’

‘I think I will go straight home. I am excessively fatigued and it may be why my performance was not at its best tonight.’

‘Fustian! It was as good as it always is. Take no notice of a handful of drunken rabble-rousers.’

‘The Marquis of Risley, among them.’ She paused. ‘There is no need to ask Sir Percy about going to the Duchess’s, seeing we have managed it without his help. The fewer people who know my intentions the better.’

‘You still mean to go through with it, then?’

‘Yes, more than ever.’

Marianne finished dressing just as Sir Percy arrived to take her to supper. He was dressed in an outrageous coat of puce satin with a high stand collar and huge pocket flaps in a darker pink velvet. His waistcoat was a striped green marcella and his trousers were cream coloured and strapped under his red-heeled shoes, left over from a time when he was young and red heels were the height of fashion. He knew perfectly well that everyone laughed at his dress and some of the young bucks laid bets on what colour he would be wearing next, and it amused him to amuse them.

He executed a flourishing leg to both ladies. ‘Delectable, my dear Marianne,’ he said, surveying her from head to toe. ‘Does Miss Charron come too?’

‘Oh, no, dear sir,’ Madeleine said, laughing. ‘The role of chaperon does not suit me. I am for home and bed.’

‘Do you say so?’ he queried, lifting a dark eyebrow. ‘Now, I thought I saw Risley’s coach outside. It must have been there for one of the others.’

‘I expect it was.’

‘Come along, my dear.’ He addressed Marianne. ‘I am as hungry as a hunter.’

They disappeared in a flurry of rainbow colours, leaving Madeleine to complete her toilette alone, dressing in a green round gown with leg o’mutton sleeves and a sleeveless pelisse of light wool and topping her dark curls with a small green bonnet, decorated with a sweeping feather. She took her time, hoping that the Marquis would give up and go home, but when she ventured out into the street, the carriage was still there. Straightening her shoulders and lifting her head, she walked past it.

‘Madeleine!’ Her name was spoken softly but urgently. ‘Madeleine, wait!’

She swung round, but could see nothing but his dark shape in the shadow of the building. ‘I have nothing to say to you, sir.’

‘Why not? Have I offended you?’

‘I will let your conscience be the judge of that, sir. If you have one, that is. I bid you goodnight.’

He reached out and put his hand on her arm to detain her. ‘Let me escort you home, then you may tell me how I have displeased you.’

She shook him off. ‘I do not need to ride in a carriage for that, my lord. It is easily told. You mocked the play. You brought your drunken friends to make fun of me. You threw orange peel on to the stage and cut off my speeches before they could be properly delivered. I am used to being derided, Lord Risley, but I had thought you were more sensible of my talent. You certainly made a great pretence of appreciating it last week, but that was before I refused to become your paramour, wasn’t it? Was this your vengeance?’

‘Vengeance? Good God! Surely you do not believe I am as contemptible as that?’

She ignored his denial. ‘And now I suppose those…those…rakeshames are privy to everything I told you in confidence.’

‘No, never! I was with those fellows, but I did not know what they would do and I certainly took no part in their bad behaviour. Please believe me. I would not for the world have you hurt.’

‘Hurt, my lord,’ she said haughtily. ‘I am beyond hurting. I am angry that other people’s enjoyment of the play was spoiled by a handful of idle ne’er-do-wells.’

‘So am I, believe me. Please allow me to take you home. You cannot walk through the streets alone at this time of night. Anything could happen.’

She smiled slowly in the darkness. ‘You are concerned for my safety?’

‘Naturally I am.’

‘And you would walk with me?’

‘If you prefer that to riding in my carriage, then I will be honoured to do so.’

‘Then send your carriage home. It is not fair on the horses to keep them waiting so long.’

He turned and instructed his coachman to take the equipage home, then offered her his arm. She laid her fingers upon it and together they strolled off in the direction of Oxford Street. He would have to walk home from there, but she did not care. It served him right.

Chapter Three

N either spoke for several minutes, both deep in thoughts they could not share. Though she was still very angry with him, Madeleine was obliged to admit, if only to herself, that she was glad of his company. She could easily have asked the stage door-keeper to fetch her a cab, but instead she had elected to walk home, a decision she regretted almost as soon as she had made it, but her pride prevented her from retracting. To reach Oxford Street from Covent Garden on foot meant going through a most insalubrious area of town, where footpads and other criminals abounded and a lone woman was fair game. Furious with her escort she might be, but she was glad of his protection.

Duncan was fully aware that his fellow carousers had assumed he had left them to take Miss Charron home in pursuit of the wager, which he wished with all his heart he had never made. Tomorrow they would demand chapter and verse in order to be convinced that he had succeeded in climbing into the actress’s bed. He sighed heavily; he would have to admit failure and put up with the ribaldry that was bound to follow. He would never live it down. And he prayed most heartily that Miss Charron herself never got to hear of it. How, in heaven’s name, could he explain it to her and still keep her goodwill?

Judging by the peal she had rung over him a few minutes before, he had lost it already and he cursed himself for agreeing to dine with Benedict and his friends and accompanying them to the theatre afterwards. Once they began hectoring the performers, he had tried to restrain them, but they were all so drunk, they took no notice and, to his eternal shame, he had given up.

‘Miss Charron,’ he said at last, ‘I most humbly beg your pardon if I have offended you—’

‘It is not me alone you offended, my lord,’ she said in her haughtiest voice, ‘but all the other performers and the audience too who could not hear the play for the noise you and your friends were making. You call yourselves gentlemen! I have seen more gentlemanly behaviour in street urchins.’

‘You are right, but in my own defence I can only say I did not know my friends would behave in such a fashion; they had taken a drop too much.’

‘A drop!’ She spoke scornfully, walking swiftly, head high, so that her words were carried to him over her shoulder. ‘A barrel would be more accurate. And that is no excuse, though I am aware everyone thinks it is. Now, I beg you to say no more about it, for talking about it is making me angrier by the minute.’

‘If you will not hear my apology, then I will remain silent.’

‘Please do.’

They resumed their silent contemplation as they walked, more quickly now. The streets had been busy around the theatre, which was lit by street lamps, but now they were in an unlit area, where the houses were crowded together and what little moonlight there was could hardly penetrate. Every now and again a door opened to reveal the noisy interior of a low tavern, as people came out to wend their way drunkenly homeward. There were puddles in the road and unpleasant smells whose source could not be determined. There was a scurrying of mice around a pile of rubbish and a cat screeched as someone threw something at it from a bedroom window.

Madeleine shuddered, realising she had become soft. Not so many years before, she would have walked through here and thought nothing of it. No one would have accosted her; she was a child of poverty, just as they were, and had nothing to steal. What a long way she had come. But not far enough, nowhere near far enough. She smiled suddenly.

‘My lord, I am sorry.’ She laid a hand on his arm and the slight contact heightened her awareness of him as a man—a tall, muscular, handsome and very virile man. ‘That was unkind in me when you have taken the trouble to see me safe home. Talk if you wish to, I shall listen.’

The sudden change in her tone of voice took him by surprise. The virago had gone and been replaced by a woman who appeared to care that she had berated him unjustly. And the hand on his sleeve was as warm as the smile she turned towards him. He could see her face clearly by the light coming from the window of a house they were passing. The rest of her—her clothes, her hat, her small feet in patent leather shoes—were in shadow, but the face, framed by the soft outline of the feather in her bonnet, was clear, the eyes bright and the lips slightly parted.

She was beautiful and desirable and if she were not who she was and if he were not who he was, he could easily fall in love with her, properly in love, not as a man loves his mistress, which would be acceptable in Society so long as he kept her in the background, but as a man loves the woman he would like for his wife. The unthinkable thought shook him to the core and he took a moment to compose himself before he spoke again.

‘I am not a great talker,’ he said, reaching across himself to put his other hand upon hers. He did not know why he did it; it only served to heighten his already excited senses. ‘But I would like us to be friends and if I have in any way endangered that by my insensitive behaviour, then I am truly penitent. I will insist on Mr Willoughby offering you an apology.’

She laughed lightly. ‘Oh, I do not think that will be necessary, my lord. An apology not heartily meant is not worth the effort of making and I doubt he even realises he has anything to apologise for. Pray, let us forget it.’

‘I will,’ he said, ‘if you will stop addressing me by my title. I prefer Duncan, or if you cannot manage that, then Stanmore. Sometimes, you know, a title can be a dreadful encumbrance.’

‘You don’t say so.’

‘Indeed, I do. It can have a very restricting influence on a fellow.’

‘You mean because everyone knows you and you cannot get into the least scrape without the whole world knowing of it?’

He grinned in the darkness; she was right about that. ‘Something of the sort. But it also means some people, those whose opinion I value, are uncomfortable with me, afraid to speak their minds.’

‘Can you wonder at it? You are all-powerful, or at least your father, the Duke of Loscoe, is; earning your disapprobation could easily ruin a man. Or a woman, come to that,’ she added softly.

‘I collect you have no such constraints.’

‘Should I have?’

‘No, certainly not. That is what I like about you. You say what you think and if it means giving me a jobation, then you do not hold back, do you?’

She laughed. ‘No, you must take me as I am. I have never been in a position to learn the niceties of Polite Society but, from my limited observation, I have come to the conclusion that a great deal of what goes on is empty sham. One must do this. One must on no account do that. The hierarchy of status must be maintained at all costs…’

‘Everyone in Society is not like that,’ he said softly. ‘My own parents are as liberal as anyone can be.’

‘Yes, the Duchess was very amiable when she spoke to me last week, but that does not mean she would accept me in her circle of friends.’

‘I do not see why not. You are the granddaughter of a count.’

She did not like to be reminded of that untruth, but she was not yet ready to confess her fault, for all she had promised Marianne she would. ‘A French count, that is not the same as an English one, is it?’

He smiled. ‘Perhaps not, but Mama would make no distinction.’

‘I imagine the Duke would.’

‘Not necessarily. Oh, undoubtedly he can be top-lofty, it was especially true when my sister and I were children, but the present Duchess has tamed him, you know. You will see, when you come to the house for the soirée, how very agreeable he can be.’

‘Will he be there?’ She had not thought much about facing the Duke before and she began to tremble at her own temerity. It was easy to boast to Marianne of what she meant to do, but putting it into practice was proving harder than she had imagined; the Marquis of Risley was turning out to be much too good-natured and caring for her peace of mind. If she were not vigilant, she might even find herself liking him too much. And that would never do. ‘I had thought it would only be ladies.’

‘No, there is usually a sprinkling of gentlemen my stepmother has coerced into donating funds to her charity.’

‘And does that include you?’

‘I would not miss it for the world,’ he said. ‘The delectable Miss Charron gracing the Stanmore drawing room, that is something to be seen. Mama was right, you will draw the haut monde like a magnet.’

‘Fustian!’

‘Oh, indeed yes. The evening will make a great deal of money for the orphanage.’

‘Orphanage,’ she echoed in a small voice, watching her feet, unable to look up at him in case he saw her agitation in her face.

‘Yes, did you not know? Mama has been involved in providing homes for soldiers’ orphans ever since the war. Why, when they opened the one in Maiden Lane, she rolled up her sleeves and helped to scrub it out.’

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