The Marquess Read online

  The Marquess

  Patricia Rice

  Book View Café Edition

  June 12, 2012

  ISBN: 978-1-61138-173-3

  Copyright © 1997 Patricia Rice

  www.bookviewcafe.com

  Prologue

  March 1816

  In the weak light of the carriage lanterns, Gavin Lawrence, Marquess of Effingham, pulled the hood of his billowing cloak more securely around his face and climbed from the aged vehicle into the pouring rain.

  Michael, the driver, leapt from his unprotected seat, following his passenger toward the lighted inn. “You could have taken the public coach,” he pointed out, arguing as no real servant would have done.

  “I could have flown in on vampire wings,” the marquess growled irascibly, with a distinctly foreign accent.

  Hugging his jug and lingering beneath the roof overhang, Tipplin’ Tom blanched. The nobility hadn’t risked their lives and their vehicles on the rutted path to this humble village in decades. The menacing black barouche and those terrifying words seemed portentous. Gulping, Tom scurried back to warn the tavern’s inhabitants.

  Unaware of their audience, Michael continued arguing vehemently. “This has gone far enough, Gavin! You’ve hid at sea these last years, nearly killing yourself to earn our passage. Now’s the time to assert yourself. You’re a highfalutin marquess over here! Just glare at the villagers and toss a few coins. They’ll bow at your feet.”

  “I don’t want anyone bowing at my feet. I don’t want the damned title. I want a roof over our heads and a chance to earn something besides wormy biscuits. What I do with myself the rest of the damned time is no one’s business but my own.”

  With the hood pulled low to disguise his features, the new marquess entered the dimly lit, low ceilinged tavern.

  As he stomped through the doorway, the inhabitants cowered in far corners. None came forward to greet them or offer ale.

  Scowling, Gavin glared at this reaction to his presence. They didn’t even know him, and already they acted as if he had three heads instead of just one slightly damaged one.

  He’d grown used to averted gazes in the dismal seaside taverns he’d frequented these last years. He’d learned to walk alone. He didn’t need these puling, ignorant villagers. He just needed directions.

  “And you wanted me to act the noble aristocrat?” he whispered to Michael, turning around to stalk back out.

  “Coward,” his driver returned disrespectfully. But he strode into the tavern to ask directions while Gavin retreated to the waiting carriage as had been his preference from the first.

  A little later, with a local driver perched upon the outside seat, the barouche returned to the road—just as the clouds opened and rain fell in torrents.

  Inside, Michael shook out his soaked hat. No one had bothered relighting the carriage lamps, and only their dark silhouettes were visible in the gloom.

  “You’ll need servants,” the slighter man answered Gavin’s silent protest about the new driver. “He’s a half-wit, but he knows how to find the manor.”

  Gavin made a choking noise that might almost be a rusty laugh. “An auspicious beginning: a half-wit for manservant. I like your thinking.”

  “If you mean to bury yourself out here in the middle of nowhere, I won’t be buried with you.”

  Gavin threw off his hood and nodded understandingly. “You’ll do as you wish, as always. When have I ever interfered?”

  Both of them could write volumes into the silence that followed, but they knew the words by heart and had no need of repeating them aloud or recording them for posterity. As the rain pounded and the carriage lurched and righted itself, they watched for the first sight of their new home.

  Soaked and overgrown evergreens brushed the carriage doors. The right forward wheel hit a deep hole, then propelled itself out by the sheer force of the blow. Gavin clung to his walking stick and winced. He suffered a suspicion that they traversed the drive to his inheritance.

  They rounded a curve and not even Michael’s vivid imagination could have conjured up the monstrosity looming before them. Silhouetted against the horizon, gabled roofs soared with medieval turrets, mixing with Roman arches atop a structure that sprawled across the hillside. Unused to English architecture, both men stared at the storybook fantasy as the carriage lurched to a halt.

  Concurring with Gavin’s unspoken thought, Michael whispered, “Do you think we’ll find a sleeping beauty inside?”

  Dropping his gaze from the outrageous roofline to the more mundane elements of land and foundation, Gavin shook his head. “If we do, she’s covered in thorns, and I’m too damned tired to hack my way through.” With a sigh, he kicked open the coach door, ignoring the etiquette of allowing his newly hired servant to unlatch it for him.

  Instead of hitting a paved drive, his boot sank in foot-deep mud.

  Torn from a long-rotted trellis, a rose cane swung out and snatched his hood.

  In all that vast monstrous exterior, not a single light flickered to welcome them home.

  * * * *

  Later, staring into a fire created from a particularly odious bric-a-brac shelf and a kitchen stool, Gavin morosely contemplated the inheritance for which he’d spent these last years earning passage to England in a style that wouldn’t shame his unknown family.

  The estate solicitors had informed him that he possessed female cousins of some sort. He’d notified the solicitors of the date of his arrival so he did not arrive unannounced. Not only had his unknown and unacknowledged family departed the estate before he arrived, they’d taken with them every servant and every sign of life. What remained was a deteriorating shell of a house requiring more wealth than he possessed.

  Kicking at an elegantly carved and extremely filthy wing chair beside the fireplace, Gavin wondered how long the place had lain empty. Michael’s comment about finding a sleeping beauty didn’t seem far off the mark.

  Filth coated every surface. Vines had crept in through windows. So far, he’d not discovered any evidence of leaking roofs or cracked walls, but the night was young and the rooms were dark. No doubt mice scuttled about in the walls and wind blew down chimneys. For this he’d bought a new suit of clothes and a carriage. He’d have better invested his limited resources in return passage.

  On the far side of the room, with firelight gleaming off his auburn hair, Michael wandered the towering library, staring at the elaborately carved moldings layered in cobwebs and the dusty thick oak paneling of the walls. Books filled the shelves, and by the light of a candle, he pulled them off randomly, dusting them off and examining their contents.

  Gavin could tell from his soft exclamations that he thought the place a treasure trove, but Michael had never been the practical type. One couldn’t eat books.

  “In the morning, we’ll survey the lands,” Gavin said aloud, although he might as well talk to himself. Michael had no interest in land. “It’s early enough in the year to put in a crop. The solicitor’s letter said the main estate had no mortgage.”

  “The solicitor’s letter said the estate had no funds,” Michael reminded him vaguely, lost in a tome of ancient origin.

  The solicitor’s letter had left Gavin more than underwhelmed. Merely noting the firm had spent some years locating the closest heir to the title, it announced Gavin Lawrence as the eighth Marquess of Effingham and the heir to Arinmede Manor, as the prior marquess left only a female descendant. The letter invited him to visit at his convenience.

  Gavin had known then that he couldn’t expect much. He had only to look to his father and grandfather to know the Lawrences of Arinmede and Effingham had little going for them beyond charm and good looks. But through the years of war, in the aftermath of disaster, Gavin had clung to that fooli
sh letter. He had a family in England, a titled family and a home.

  Until the letter’s arrival, he’d thought his father a liar. He knew his father to be a liar. But apparently he hadn’t lied about his origins. The solicitor’s letter proved that much.

  The solicitor’s letter hadn’t lied any more than his father about the family inheritance. It had just left out a few pertinent facts.

  He had spent these last years captaining ships and trading in foreign ports so he could earn enough money to put him right back where he was before, bankrupt and without family, except now he was faced with a foreign country and strangers with odd habits who knew nothing of him. He would have been farther ahead if he’d stayed in the States.

  Glancing up at the coat of arms engraved in the wood above the fireplace, Gavin lifted his glass in salute to his long line of ancestors. At least this time, they’d left him a roof over his head.

  Chapter One

  May 1817

  Flames shot through the lower windows and licked at the eaves of the sprawling ducal mansion. Smoke billowed in thick black clouds blending with the night sky. Women garbed only in cotton nightclothes hugged each other in horror and screamed hysterically from the lawn as a beam crashed in the interior.

  All eyes turned with despair and helplessness to the slender female materializing in an upper-story window. Fire ate at the old wood just below her. Smoke nearly concealed her as she lowered another bundle of valued possessions to the ground.

  “The woman’s mad as a hatter,” an auburn-haired footman exclaimed in disbelief as the servants dived to sort through the rescued valuables.

  Dillian ignored the new servant’s comment as the falling blanket gave her an idea. Even as someone handed her the rescued bag of coins representing all her worldly goods—outside her father’s useless papers—her mind returned to the blanket.

  Blanche played the role of martyred heroine well, but Dillian had no intention of allowing her best friend, cousin, and employer to die a heroine’s death. She had no intention of allowing her to die at all.

  “Grab a corner of that blanket!” she yelled to the footman and the burly butler. “Hold it out flat so Lady Blanche can jump!”

  A wail of joy replaced cries of distress as people grasped Dillian’s idea. When the lady next appeared in the upper-story window, they had the sturdy blanket spread between the fingers of a dozen servants yelling, “Jump!”

  Dillian’s stomach knotted in fear as Lady Blanche hesitated. Fire had already destroyed the old wooden stairs, trapping Blanche in the upper stories. Flames had charred all the downstairs windows and worked its way through the centuries-old floorboards.

  Only Blanche’s quickness had seen the household roused and sent to safety, but she hadn’t been quick enough to save herself. Blanche had always been too good for this world, seeing to others before she saw to herself. Selfishness was not a concept Blanche understood. Sometimes, it made Dillian want to scream. Right now she could scale that wall and wring her cousin’s neck.

  “Jump, Blanche! Now!” she shouted over the roar of fire and hysteria.

  For a brief instant through the swirl of smoke, Dillian saw Blanche turn despairing eyes in her direction. Then the wind caught the flame and sent it flying upward.

  Screams pierced the night air as the figure in long blond tresses disappeared behind the inferno.

  The blazing figure leaping from the upper window was barely recognizable when it finally soared in the direction of the blanket. Shaking hands lowered the net to the ground.

  Tears rolled down the cheeks of the liveried footman as he smothered flaming night-clothes with the blanket. Auburn hair gleaming like the fire behind him, he lifted Blanche gently, and a path opened through the crowd.

  Hysterical shrieks died to quiet sobs.

  Refusing to resign herself to the inevitable, Dillian fought her way through the crowd to follow him.

  Blanche couldn’t die. She would slit her own throat and stake herself in a lion’s den before she would let Blanche die.

  And if Dillian discovered Neville responsible for that fire, she would throw the grand and glorious young duke into the lion’s mouth ahead of her.

  * * * *

  Clinging to the rear postilion of the black barouche where she hid in darkness, Dillian shivered in equal parts fear and cold. After more than an hour on the road, the vehicle had turned down a rutted, overgrown drive.

  Why had the footman stolen Blanche from the physician’s care? Was the footman in the duke’s employ? Where was he taking her? Dillian had hoped to a better physician, but that dream had crashed with their race into the empty countryside.

  Taking a curve at a reckless rate, the carriage tilted, and she grasped the rail in white-knuckled terror, not seeing the edifice looming ahead until the vehicle rumbled straight for it.

  She widened her eyes in disbelief at the gothic monstrosity silhouetted against the starlit sky, like some fable from a storybook. Nothing else was visible. Not a single light glowed in the whole of that black sprawling monolith. Where in the devil was the madman taking them?

  Already so terrified she could scarcely unbend her fingers from the rail, Dillian felt the carriage roll to a stop at this unwelcoming edifice. As the driver leapt down and pounded on a massive oak door, she glanced around for a hiding place.

  She found no lack of concealment in the rambling thorns and untrimmed shrubbery at the base of the mansion. She had only to concern herself with keeping her gown from being torn from her back.

  The gown was the least of her worries as she pried her fingers free and darted into the bushes. The worst of her fear centered on the helpless occupant of the carriage. She need only focus on Blanche and all else seemed trivial.

  The insistent shouts and knocks of the carriage driver on the massive doors of the manor brought a creaking groan of aging wood. Beyond terror now, Dillian watched in astonishment as a tall lean figure materialized in the opening, the folds of his cloak flapping in the cold spring wind as he listened to the driver’s hushed arguments. Not until this grim specter loped down the stone stairs to remove Blanche from the carriage did Dillian realize her peril.

  As the black creature carried Blanche through the gaping maw of the gothic cavern, Dillian realized she would have to enter after him.

  * * * *

  The eighth Marquess of Effingham didn’t notice the slight shadow slipping in the open door behind him as he carried his sleeping burden into the manor. He’d lived with shadows long enough to welcome their privacy.

  He cursed under his breath as the doddering clock on the landing struck eleven chimes and one expiring whistle. He cursed the clock, cursed the purloined coach, cursed its driver who now raced up the dust-coated stairway ahead of him. He cursed the stairs as he climbed them carrying the helpless bundle in his arms. He cursed the generations of Effinghams who had sunk all their spare capital into expanding this hideous architecture into a gothic village one needed a horse and carriage to traverse.

  He hadn’t begun to exhaust his extensive repertoire of curses when he saw Michael disappear down the entire length of the hallway and enter the farthest room. At times like these he suspected Michael of seeking subtle revenge for the differences in their heritages, but he knew Michael too well to believe that for long. His appearance here now with this unconscious woman meant he’d embarked on another of his harebrained adventures.

  Were it not for the fact that his brother had a heart wider than his chest, the marquess would have turned around and gone back to the carriage. He and Michael had been through too much together, however, for Gavin to disregard his brother’s summons.

  Besides, Michael acted as Gavin’s eyes and ears to the outside world, so the marquess indulged his idiosyncrasies. The old war wound in his side ached as he carried his light burden to the end of the hall. The woman wore a voluminous nightshift that trailed on the floor and a nightcap that left her long blond hair falling over his arm. In this unlit hallway, Gavin coul
dn’t see more than that.

  She stirred as he reached the room where Michael already knelt at the fireplace. Laying her down on one of the few whole mattresses left in the house, the marquess relinquished his burden and strode toward the window to pull back the draperies.

  “Don’t!” Michael warned, turning from his task. “Light might endanger her eyes. It’s freezing in here. Where’s the coal?”

  Gavin swung around to confront his adopted brother. Dragged from his slumbers by Michael’s knocks, he wore only the breeches and stockings he’d fallen asleep in. The cloak and hood he had pulled around him before answering the door served both as blanket for warmth and protection from prying eyes. His voice was cold when he spoke.

  “It’s May. I haven’t bought coal. I wasn’t expecting guests.”

  “You have one now. I’ll find some firewood.”

  Cloaked, Gavin remained in the shadows as Michael departed, watching as the woman on the bed stirred. She would no doubt waken soon. He’d known Michael to go for firewood and disappear for weeks. The marquess wondered if it cost anything to commit a relative to Bedlam.

  The soft moans from the bed tore at what remained of his softer insides, but he could do nothing. He didn’t dare light a candle or lamp—even should he have one—to examine the extent of her injuries.

  Gavin sighed with relief when he heard Michael’s footsteps pounding down the hall. His bloody aristocratic stockinged toes had practically frozen to the floor while waiting. Gavin had half a mind to slip out through the secret passage and leave Michael to his patient, but then he might never get his questions answered.

  Michael carried a candle and a coal scuttle filled with wood chips and kindling when he returned. Holding the candlestick high, he searched the darkened corners until he found his brother’s frozen shadow. “Damn you, Gavin, she’s waking. Help me make her comfortable.”

  “You think she might be comfortable clinging to the ceiling and screaming?” Gavin asked dryly, not moving from the shadows as Michael arranged his fuel in the fireplace.