Sylvia Andrew (7 page)

‘But your aunt assured me—she said you would be fortunate to find a man willing to marry you—’

‘My aunt is dead, Mr Chizzle. My fortune was never hers to give away. And though I am sure that you have a noble indifference to the personal possession of wealth, I should tell you that any future husband of mine will have no control of the Shelwood inheritance. Under the terms of the trust set up by my grandfather, the income remains mine and later that of my children, even after I marry.’ Her suitor’s jaw dropped. He looked rather like a stranded fish, thought Francesca, somewhat unkindly. She said, ‘Do please get up.’

Mr Chizzle recovered himself and rose with commendable dignity. ‘Your aunt warned me,’ he said sadly. ‘You do not have that nobility of character a man should seek in his wife. I had hoped that with precept and discipline we should succeed in subduing the baser aspects of your nature. But it is not to be. To impute mercenary motives to a man who wishes merely to protect you, to save you from the dangers that surround a young girl left alone…’ He gave a great sigh, then turned to go.

‘Mr Chizzle!’

‘Yes?’

‘My aunt, as patron of the living of Shelwood, had full confidence in your discretion. I trust that I may repose equal confidence?’

The chaplain drew himself up, then said coldly, ‘Your threats are unnecessary, Miss Shelwood. I wish to forget an episode which has been painful in the extreme. I will not mention this matter—or you—to anyone. Anyone at all. Goodbye.’

Francesca could hardly wait for him to leave. She struggled with a wild desire to laugh at the ridiculous picture Mr Chizzle had presented, bending his spindly, black legs in a travesty of a suitor’s supplication, his face scarlet with his exertions. But then she was overcome with a feeling of sadness. So much for romance! Was Mr Chizzle merely the first in a succession of such suitors?

It was clear that the Shelwood estate and seventy thousand pounds were attractions which would more than compensate for any shortcomings in herself. Well, let the suitors come! And in her own time and at her own choosing, she would take a husband—but she doubted very much that she would be in love with him, whoever he was.

The sound of a carriage coming up the drive sent her to the window. Another visitor come to commiserate! She was in no mood for yet more verbal fencing. What she needed was time to herself—time in which she could come to terms with her new situation. It looked as if she was soon going to have to learn to deal with fortune seekers, if the last half hour was anything to go by. She would escape through the kitchen, while the visitor was waiting at the front of the house.

But here she miscalculated. The visitor had taken his carriage round to the stables; as Francesca came out through the gate to the kitchen garden, she was confronted with a tall, handsome, self-assured figure. She stopped dead.

‘Good afternoon, Miss Shelwood.’

‘What are you doing here, sir?’ she asked, ungraciously.

‘I heard of your aunt’s death. I want to talk to you, Francesca.’

There was a silence. ‘Well?’ said Francesca. ‘I’m listening.’

Marcus hesitated, then said, ‘It…it is a somewhat private matter. May we go inside?’

F
rancesca led the way in silence to the small parlour, where the ridiculous scene with Mr Chizzle had so recently taken place. But the tall, elegant figure that followed her in presented a very different picture from that gentleman. She was puzzled. What was Marcus doing here? What did he want of her? She stole a glance at him. He looked calm enough, but there was an air of reluctance about him—as if he was being driven down a road he was not quite sure he wanted to travel.

‘And now?’

‘Francesca, I want you to marry me.’

Francesca sat down suddenly. Whatever she had been expecting, it had not been another proposal. A feeling of apprehension chilled her bones. Perhaps Mr Chizzle and Marcus were not so very different after all?

He went on. ‘Forgive me if I express myself a little abruptly—I know this must come as a surprise to you. Though our acquaintance is longstanding—’

‘Nine years,’ she said expressionlessly.

‘Nine years—it has been short in terms of hours and minutes we have spent with one another.’

‘Very short.’

‘But I have always felt a…a communion of spirit with you, and believe we could make as good a marriage as any other I have seen.’

‘Always?’

‘Always what?’

‘Always felt this communion of spirit, as you call it?’

‘Damn it, you know we share it!’

‘I thought we did, certainly. Nine years ago. But you said that you were poor, that you had nothing to offer me, that we each had our own way to make. I remember what you said, you see. I was…quite distressed at the time.’

‘I know. I behaved badly, Francesca. I never intended to hurt you, but I know I did. Please forgive me.’

Francesca carried on as if he had not spoken. ‘Then you disappeared for nine years. We met by chance in the lane the other day—you hadn’t come to seek me out. Indeed, at first you didn’t even recognise me.’

‘You will allow that that was unsurprising. Your dearest friends might not have recognised you in all that mud.’

‘You are right, of course. In spite of the “communion of spirit’, as you called it. Er…I still don’t quite understand this proposal of marriage, however. Are you now trying to say that you have loved me all this time—unknown even to yourself?’

‘Of course not! Look, nine years ago you were very young, without a penny to your name, and I was an ill-paid soldier. Marriage was out of the question.’

‘And now?’ asked Francesca. Try as she might, she could not keep the cynicism out of her voice.

Marcus was too intent on what he was saying to notice. ‘But things are different now! And I feel I could give you the protection, the support that you lack in your present circumstances. You need a man to take care of you, give you the things you never had—’

A sudden vision of Mr Chizzle saying very much the same
thing, not an hour before, flashed through Francesca’s mind. ‘Thank you, but I really don’t need anyone,’ she said. ‘I have plenty of money—enough for everything I need. I see you’ve heard the news.’

‘Yes.’

‘I wonder how? Did you know that I have seventy thousand pounds, too?’

He smiled, the old quizzical, deceitfully tender smile. ‘That much?’ Then he came over to her, took her hand and kissed it. ‘My dearest girl! Still the same, gallant spirit!’

She waited in stony silence.

He eyed her closely, then said with an air of admiration, ‘Well, I admit, that puts icing on the cake. It does indeed. Seventy thousand pounds, ay? A great deal of money.’

When she still said nothing, he put his arm round her and drew her to him. ‘But you know in your heart that I’d want to marry you, whatever your dowry, Francesca. I’d marry you even if you had nothing, if you were a pauper. Come, stop prevaricating. Say you’ll let me look after you for the rest of your life. I swear you won’t regret it.’ His manner was tender, but somewhat complacent. There was no suggestion that he was uncertain of the outcome.

Francesca badly wanted to stay calm, to deal with him as she had dealt with Mr Chizzle, but, as always seemed to be the case with this man, her emotions were getting the better of her. It was obvious that he expected her to fall into his arms as easily as she had done all those years ago. That she would be so dazzled by his blue-eyed charm, so blinded by the powerful attraction he knew he could exercise, that she wouldn’t see the greedy self-interest behind it, the desire to better himself at her expense. She must have given him a pretty poor opinion of her wits during their brief affair, indeed she must!

Her efforts to hide her rage and humiliation were choking her. Mr Chizzle had been bad enough, but this was ten—
twenty times worse. She suddenly lost the battle with herself, and gave vent to her feelings. ‘I won’t pretend to feel grateful or flattered,’ she said, thrusting him violently away. ‘I don’t need looking after; to be honest, I think you’d marry me if I had a squint and a wooden leg, as long as I had the rest.’

‘What the devil are you talking about? I’m offering you the protection of my name and all that is mine.’

‘Really? Well, I wouldn’t marry you if you had five hundred thousand pounds and half of England for your heritage! My father was a charmer and a scoundrel, a rake and a fortune hunter, who didn’t give a damn for the hurt he caused. The last thing I want is a husband just like him!’

‘Now, listen to me, young lady—’

‘No, I will not listen to you!’ Years of distress and resentment rose up inside Francesca as she stormed on. ‘I listened nine years ago, when you charmed me off my feet and then told me you had nothing to offer me. At the time I was fool enough to believe you sincere. I soon learned differently, and it’s a lesson I am very unlikely to forget.

‘So, allow me to tell you, sir, that
nothing
is now what I have to offer you! Take yourself and your professions of concern, your offers of protection, back to Witham Court, or wherever your other ladies are hiding. They might listen to you, but I never will—my only wish is never to see you again!’

He stood, staring at her as if she had gone mad.

‘Have I not made myself plain, sir?’ she said passionately. ‘Why do you not go?’

‘You have made your opinion of me perfectly plain,’ he said, rigid with rage. ‘If you really think of me in such terms—though God knows why you do—then I understand your refusal to marry me. But I question the need to express yourself quite so offensively, with such remarkable lack of moderation. A simple refusal would have sufficed. We have
obviously each been mistaken in each other. Good day, ma’am. I wish you well in your future life, and will do my best to comply with your wish that we should not meet again.’ He bowed and left the room.

Francesca sat down and buried her face in her hands. She sat there a long time, listening to the sounds of his carriage dying away down the drive…It was strange how painful the final disillusionment was. They had been so close, and so far apart. They had fought, and made love, all in the space of one day. They had met after years of separation, and now they had quarrelled for the last time. And the strange thing was that, during all of this, she had only ever known half his name.

‘Marcus!’ she whispered, ‘Oh,
Marcus
!’ and then at last the bitter tears fell.

Marcus drove back to London in a worse temper than he had ever known before. He was furious with himself and with Francesca Shelwood. After all these years, after all the women he could have asked to marry him and who would have been more than eager to receive his proposal with delight, he had exposed himself to a refusal from a penniless nobody! He must have been mad! His sister had already told him he was too quixotic—she would think he was out of his mind, if she learned that he had actually offered to marry Francesca Shelwood to save her from life as a drudge—or even worse!

His sense of injustice grew. His motives had been of the purest. Many would say he had acted nobly in asking Francesca to be his wife—to choose a nameless pauper when he might have chosen from any number of London’s most eligible debutantes. Whatever she said, he didn’t for one minute believe her claim to have seventy thousand pounds. She was merely putting on a front, as she had done at least twice before. Seventy thousand pounds, indeed! What a story!
She might have seventy guineas, but not much more. The depth of her ingratitude was immeasurable…immeasurable!

But why had she refused him so angrily? Her father’s neglect had done much to sour her view of life—that was obvious. And his own behaviour in the past had not been the sort to reassure her. But to be so excessively vituperative…The woman was a neurotic, and did not deserve his sympathy or his regard. From this day on he would forget her. She could find her own way through life, without any further help or interest from
him
!

Unaware of her catastrophic misunderstanding of Marcus’s motives, Francesca did her best during the next few weeks to conquer her personal unhappiness and concentrate on a seemingly unending series of tasks and duties. She accomplished these with grim determination, for she had formulated a plan and was now working to it.

Thanks to her aunt’s behaviour, she had very little experience of estate business, but Mr Barton was an invaluable ally. He found a very well-qualified agent to look after Shelwood and, by accompanying him round the estate, Francesca made sure that it would be looked after with understanding as well as efficiency. Shelwood Manor was partially shut down for the time being, and again with Mr Barton’s help she found new places for one or two servants who were no longer needed. Betsy was put in charge of the rest.

Francesca intended to visit the Manor occasionally, if only to keep an eye on its welfare, but she would soon be busy elsewhere. One piece of business she was glad to perform. A deed of gift was drawn up, and Madame Elisabeth was presented with the cottage she had tenanted for so many years, and given an increased annuity.

Mr Barton had performed one other service for Francesca. She had told him that she would like to meet her father, if it could be arranged.

‘Miss Shelwood, I shall do my utmost to find him. He has been abroad for many years, of course. It may take some time. Leave it to me.’

But only a week or two later, he came back to Shelwood. ‘I cannot believe our good fortune, Miss Shelwood! As you know, I have been trying to trace your father for you for some weeks without success. I had sent a letter to him at Packards, the family home in Hertfordshire, telling him that your aunt had died, and that I was anxious to get in touch with him. Not with a great deal of hope—the house has been unoccupied these many years.

‘But see! I have here a letter from your father. It arrived this morning; I have come post haste to tell you of its contents. Lord Beaudon arrived in England only a few days ago, called at Packards, saw the letter and replied immediately. He writes that he no longer feels bound by the promise he made to your grandfather, and would like to see you again. He wonders if you would care to visit him in Hertfordshire. Is that not strange?’

Francesca agreed that it was strange, and asked him to make suitable arrangements. She would do as her father had asked. Mr Barton left happily prepared to do everything necessary to re-unite father and daughter, and Francesca was left with a curious feeling of apprehension and excitement. She decided to ask Madame Elisabeth to go with her to give her support.

So it was that, in the middle of October, Francesca found herself gazing curiously around her as her carriage bore her up the long, winding drive to Packards, the Beaudon family seat. Madame Elisabeth and Carter, her new maid, sat opposite her, two grooms were outside, and her new carriage was both comfortable and stylish. Her aunt’s death was still very recent, so Francesca was dressed modishly, but quietly, in black. She was aware that it did not suit her.

‘You are very quiet, Francesca,’ said Madame Elisabeth. ‘Are you weary from the journey?’

‘It hasn’t been such a long one, madame. But I have not been sleeping very well.’ She gave her companion a little smile. ‘Meeting my father after all these years is…a little nerve-racking.’

‘You will have so much to say to one another.’

‘You think so? We shall see.’

Francesca drew a deep breath as she stepped out of the carriage in front of a wide, shallow flight of steps. She was ridiculously nervous. The steps led to a handsome doorway and in front of the doorway stood a tall figure. Her heart gave a thump, and for a moment she thought she was seeing things. But then the figure moved towards them; she saw that this man was white-haired and used a stick. He was older than she had expected—he must have been well into his forties when she was born. And, though he had once been as handsome as that other, his face was pale and lined, and he was very thin.

‘Francesca! My dear child!’ He descended the steps, took her hand in his and surveyed her. ‘I cannot begin to tell you how happy I am to see you again.’

For years, Francesca had resented the way in which her father had abandoned her, but the chill round her heart was melted a little by the sincerity of his voice and by the warmth of the expression in his eyes. She swallowed and said politely, ‘And I am glad to see you, Papa. May I present Madame de Romain to you? My friend and companion.’