The Savage Marquess (2 page)

Lucinda was not pretty by the standards of London fashion. Her nose was too short and her mouth was a trifle too generous. Her eyes were hazel and fringed with long lashes and her chestnut hair was thick and had a natural curl. But she was too tall and too thin in an age when plump bosoms and rounded arms were much admired.

The water in the copper began to bubble. She raised the heavy wooden lid and then heaved up the basket of soiled linen and tipped in the contents.

She went out into the garden, preparatory to going into the house to make a nourishing vegetable broth for her sick father.

The spring sunlight struck down on her bare head and a light warm breeze flirted with the darned skirts of her muslin gown. She turned away from the house instead and wandered down to the end of the garden, where there was a rustic seat under the spreading branches of an apple tree.

She wanted to pray for her father’s recovery, but found she could not. What kind of God was up there who could ensure that the vicar, the Reverend Mr. Glossop, his wife, and two nasty daughters continued to live in riches and health while her father wasted away? When his curate, Mr. Westerville, had first fallen ill, Mr. Glossop had cut his miserable wages in half and had considered he was doing a great Christian act by paying him even a pittance. Lucinda knew it would be only a matter of time before Mr. Glossop ceased to pay him anything at all.

She had even humbled herself by going to ask Mrs. Glossop for work, but that sour and snobbish lady had remarked acidly that Lucinda’s place was at her father’s bedside. In vain did Lucinda plead they had not enough money to buy medicine. Mrs. Glossop had ceased to listen and her two daughters had cast sly, pitying smiles in Lucinda’s direction and had continued to play with their latest expensive toy, a clockwork nightingale.

There seemed to be no way she could earn money. A month ago, Tom Barnet, the squire’s son, had called and had begged her to marry him. He was a tall, gawky youth, quite stupid, and given to long drinking bouts. Lucinda had told him gently she would think it over. By the end of the day, she had decided to accept. Her marriage to the squire’s son would ensure expert nursing and medicine for her father.

But Tom Barnet did not call again. She had just been summoning up her courage to call at his home when she learned from Mrs. Glossop that Tom had been sent away on the Grand Tour “because it is rumored he has fallen for some undesirable village girl.”

The post boy’s horn, sounding from the front of the cottage, broke into her bitter thoughts. She ran through the garden and along the side of the cottage to the front.

“Letter for Mr. Westerville,” said the post boy. “Got a crest and all.”

Lucinda took the letter from him and examined the heavy-crested seal. She recognized the Earl of Clifton’s coat of arms.

She went indoors and carried the letter upstairs to her father’s bedroom.

Mr. Westerville was lying in an old four-poster bed. A shaft of sunlight fell on his thin, wasted face. His sparse gray locks straggled down on his shoulders.

He opened his eyes as Lucinda came into the bedroom, and gave her a faint, sweet smile.

“Was that the post boy?”

“Yes, Papa. A letter for you with the Earl of Clifton’s crest.”

“Then it is good news,” said Mr. Westerville, a faint tinge of pink staining his cheeks.

“Good news!” cried Lucinda. “Oh, Papa, I know what it is. You have written to the earl for help.”

“Not I.”

“Then how can you possibly know it is good news?”

“I have prayed for assistance,” said the curate with simple dignity. “I have been daily awaiting an answer to my prayers. I do not care for myself, but I care very deeply about your future, Lucinda.”

“It is your health that matters,” Lucinda said passionately. “I can look after myself.”

“Raise me up,” said Mr. Westerville, “and bring me my glass and we shall see what the earl has to say.”

Lucinda helped him to sit up against the pillows and then handed him a large magnifying glass. He fumbled for a long time with the seal before he got the letter open. But Lucinda was no longer excited about the possible contents of the letter. She was sure it contained some trivial request. She envied her father his simple faith but could not share it.

Mr. Westerville read the letter very carefully and then put it down on the worn quilt and looked up at his daughter with tears in his eyes. “God is good,” he said.

“I hope He has seen fit to send us some money,” said Lucinda tartly.

“Better than that,” said Mr. Westerville. “The earl wishes you to travel to London to be a companion to the Lady Ismene. No!” He raised a thin, transparent hand to check the outburst he saw on Lucinda’s lips. “I shall not be left uncared for. I am to be taken to Beechings, the earl’s home, during your absence and there attended by a London physician and given all care and comfort.”

Lucinda began to tremble. “You are sure? Oh, do let me see the letter, Papa.”

He handed it to her, closed his eyes, and moved his lips in prayer.

Lucinda scanned the contents quickly. It was indeed as her father had said, but there was more detail. The earl wished Lucinda to travel to London almost immediately and was sending his coach, which should arrive a week following the letter. During that week, his servants would move Mr. Westerville to Beechings.

“A week!” said Lucinda. “What about clothes? I have nothing grand enough for London.”

Her father stopped praying and opened his eyes. “I have no doubt they will furnish you with a wardrobe as befits your position. I have no more worries now.”

Lucinda leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “So why do you still pray?” she teased.

“I gave thanks,” said Mr. Westerville, “and then asked that you should be wed to a man worthy of you.”

“Prayers are not always answered,” Lucinda said.

“Yes, they are,” sighed Mr. Westerville. “Always. Although sometimes the answer is no. But I am sure there is a gentleman waiting for you in London, a gentleman of refinement and breeding and infinite kindness.…”

“Why does no one answer this damned bell,” roared the Marquess of Rockingham. “Oh, a pox on my curst head!”

“The staff all gave notice this morning, my lord,” said Chumley, his wooden-faced valet.

“What! Why? I pay them enough.”

“Your lordship was in your altitudes when you returned from Watier’s last night. You had unhitched one of your carriage horses and ridden it home, my lord.”

“So what’s the fuss?”

“Your lordship rode the animal in through the front door and up the staircase. The horse was unnerved and behaved accordingly. The resultant mess on the stairs gave the housekeeper the vapors. The housemaids went into hysterics. You dismounted and slapped two of them. You then collapsed on the landing and fell asleep. When two of the footmen lifted you up to carry you to bed, you awoke and attempted to throw one of them over the banisters. Before you left for Watier’s, you had a wild party here, attended by ladies of cracked reputation. I have this morning engaged two scrubbing women to clean up the worst of the mess, and after I have attended to your lordship, I shall call at an agency and employ more staff.”

“Oh, the deuce. Since when were servants so nice in their tastes?”

“It is the changing fashion,” said Chumley, stooping to pick up a soiled cravat. “I believe licentiousness and drunkenness are quite exploded.”

The marquess, who had picked up a hand mirror to study his ravaged face, threw it furiously at his valet, who fielded it with the dexterity of long practice.

But as the valet handed the mirror back to his master and turned away, the very stiffness of his back registered disapproval.

“Oh, the deuce,” said the marquess. “I didn’t try to hit you. But you are too free-spoken, Chumley.”

“I always have been,” said Chumley. “It is the only way I can cope with your lordship’s humors and stay in your employ.”

“You would have humors too, you nutcracker-faced martinet, if you drank as much as I. This little gathering I held here—very wild, was it?”

“The wildest, my lord.”

“It’s this damned ennui that plagues me. What a pesky, boring frivolity this London Season is.”

“Then may I suggest, my lord, we resume our travels and adventures? You are not out of sorts when you are not bored.”

“My adventures are over for the moment. I must find a wife.”

“My lord!”

“It is not unusual. I want sons.”

“Your lordship’s reputation is such that I fear your lordship will have to learn to court the ladies.”

“Fiddle! When did a rich and titled man have to court any of the creatures? Why, Lady Bessie Dunstable, the belle of two Seasons, has settled for that creaking old duke.”

“The duke is tranquil and manageable. I fear rumor has it that you frighten the fair sex.”

“Well, I shall behave prettily for just as long as it is necessary to find me a bride. Does that suit you?”

“Your liaison with Mrs. Deauville is well known, my lord. Mrs. Deauville is good
ton.
Society expects you to marry her sooner or later.”

“Then society is quite mad. Maria Deauville amuses me, but she would not be faithful to me for a twelvemonth were she married to me.”

Chumbley began to strop a razor. “Your lordship’s cousin, the Honorable Zeus Carter, is waiting below.”

“Why did you not tell me sooner? Not that I am interested in seeing the weakling.”

“I feared the intelligence would put your lordship in a passion had I divulged it first thing this morning,” said Chumley, advancing on his master with hot towels. “I can tell him you are not at home.”

“No, I may as well see him. I wonder what brings him to London. His regiment is in Portugal.”

The Honorable Zeus waited impatiently in the library downstairs. He had been a lusty baby, a fact that had prompted his doting parents to bless him with the name of Zeus. But he had grown up tall and weedy and effeminate. He was the marquess’s heir. He paced up and down the library, occasionally pausing to narrow his eyes and imagine what the room would look like redecorated to his own taste. The way Rockingham was going on, he could not live very long.

He studied his rouged face in the glass over the fireplace. It was, he thought, twisting his head from side to side, an aristocratic and noble face, marked with faint lines of sensitivity. Such a face should not be exposed to the burning sun of the Peninsula, and such delicate shell-like ears should not be abused by the roar of cannon. He had sold out of his regiment. Now he was in need of funds. He had had to exit from his lodgings by the back door, as the duns were camped out at the front.

Goodness, this room was like a pigsty! One of Rockingham’s notorious parties, no doubt. A red silk garter hung from the chandelier and a scanty lace shift was draped around a bust of Plato above the door. He wondered idly how it had got up there.

He rang the bell impatiently, but no one answered. He peered around the door into the shadowy hall and called, “Wine, I say! Where’s the decanter?” But only silence answered his call. Rockingham’s servants must have given notice, apart from that stiff martinet of a valet, who stuck by his master through thick and thin.

Mr. Carter slumped petulantly into a chair and closed his eyes. In no time at all, he was fast asleep.

After half an hour, he came slowly awake, sensing someone was looming over him. He opened his eyes wide, under short stubby lashes darkened with lampblack, and stared up.

The saturnine face of the Marquess of Rockingham looked down at him.

“Greetings, coz,” said Mr. Carter, struggling upright. “How goes the world?”

“Tolerably well,” said the marquess curtly. “What brings you here?”

“To make sure you are in good health.”

The marquess looked at his cousin cynically. He had odd green eyes, like the eyes of a cat. Apart from purplish bruises under those eyes, Mr. Carter noticed with a now-familiar twinge of disappointment that his cousin looked remarkably fit. His linen was impeccable, his tailoring excellent enough to make even Brummell envious, and his cravat was a miracle of starch and sculptured folds. His hair shone with all the healthy blue-black sheen of a male blackbird’s plumage. His long, strong legs, encased in skintight pantaloons, owed nothing to padding or false calves. Mr. Carter looked sadly down at his own legs and then muttered under his breath. One of his false wooden calves had slipped. He petulantly jerked the harness that held it up under his stocking back into place.

“Well, as you can see, I am still alive, so take yourself off,” said the marquess, breaking the silence. “Why aren’t you with your regiment?”

“I sold out.”

“Indeed!”

“I am not cut out for a soldier’s life. The men were disgracefully undisciplined. When I shouted, ‘Charge!’ they paid no attention.”

“You should have tried shouting your orders from the front of your troops and not the back,” said the marquess nastily. “I suppose you are come to dun me.”

Mr. Carter flushed. “You always credit me with the worst motives. I am come—”

“Stow it,” said the marquess rudely. “How much?”

“Five thousand pounds,” bleated Mr. Carter. He shrank back in his chair, prepared to endure the blast of his formidable cousin’s wrath. The sum was actually two thousand and he hoped to placate the marquess by eventually seeming to settle for a lesser sum.

But to his surprise, the marquess strode over to his desk, sat down, and began to write.

“Do you mean you are going to lend me the money?” squeaked Mr. Carter.

“I am giving it to you, as you have no intention of paying it back. I may as well start off respectably married rather than having a cousin in the Fleet.”

Sheer shock forced Mr. Carter to leap to his feet. “Married! You! Who is the lady?”

“I don’t know,” grumbled the marquess, busily writing. “Does it matter?”

Mr. Carter let out a slow breath. Perhaps all hope was not lost. He tittered nervously. “You cannot just get married like that.”

“Oh, yes I can. I’ll marry the first suitable female who’ll have me. As long as she can breed, of course.”