The Daring Deception E-Book

Barbara Cartland

• Herausgeber: Barbara Cartland Ebooks Ltd
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: The Eternal Collection
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 365

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Handsome and dashing, the Marquis of Melsonby finds himself bored by the attentions of Society beauties, especially those of the undeniably beautiful and irritatingly ardent, Lady Karen Russell, who is trying to blackmail him into marriage. Then, as he is caught in a fierce snowstorm and stuck for the night at a lowly wayside inn, Fate puts in his way a lovely young waif called 'Perdita Lydford', who throws herself on his mercy. She is on the run from her cruel would-be 'Guardian', Sir Gerbold Whitton, and with good reason. Not only does he beat her sadistically, he is totally bent on marrying her and her sizeable inheritance by force to pay for his large debts. Since they are both in the same boat, the Marquis and Perdita then begin their daring deception and dupe their respective pursuers with a fake marriage that appears on the surface to be legal. But Sir Gerbold is not so easily daunted and he tries again to abduct Perdita. Escaping on the Marquis's yacht to Morocco, poor Perdita is imperilled once more, 'out of the frying pan and into the fire', of a lecherous and murderous Sultan and his Harem, where she prays that love in the form of the Marquis can save her life and her virtue yet again.

Leseprobe

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1840

“What the devil am I to do?”

The Marquis of Melsonby spoke the words aloud and, as if to relieve his feelings, he picked up a large piece of wood and flung it on the already blazing fire.

Despite the leaping flames the room was still cold and draughty. He could hear the wind whistling and the beat of hailstones on the small diamond-paned windows.

‘What in God’s name can I do?’ he asked himself.

There was a knock at the door and it opened to reveal the portly figure of the landlord.

“Is there anythin’ else you’d wish, my Lord?” he murmured.

The Marquis was about to reply that there was nothing he needed when he changed his mind.

“Bring another bottle of wine.”

“Very good, my Lord.”

Alone, the Marquis staring at the flames thought he might as well get drunk, although he was aware that the only wine which was available was of poor quality and would doubtless give him a stinking headache in the morning.

But he could hardly contemplate a night alone with his thoughts. He walked restlessly across the room, his stocking feet making little sound on the creaking boards.

Since his boots, his heavy riding coat and his whipcord jacket were all downstairs being dried, he found himself shivering in his shirtsleeves and returned quickly to the warmth of the fireside.

It was typical of his bad luck, he thought, that he should have lost his way. Instead of reaching Baldock, where he had planned to spend the night at The George and Dragon, he had been forced to seek accommodation in this rough inn with nothing to recommend it save that at least it afforded shelter from the elements.

His horse had been practically dead-beat and he himself found it impossible to see with the snow and hail driving on his face as he rode over unknown countryside.

He had given orders that his phaeton, driven by his groom, should meet him at Baldock and had thought that the ride across country would not only exercise his body but perhaps also alleviate some of the torturous anxieties that beset his mind.

How could he have imagined for just one moment, he asked himself not once but one hundred times, that Karen could behave in such a way and place him in such an intolerable predicament?

The Marquis had grown accustomed to success with the fair sex. He would have been a fool, which he certainly was not, if he had not been aware that he was one of the most sought-after, admired and eligible bachelors in the whole country.

He had inherited a very proud title, he was extraordinarily wealthy and he was extremely handsome. But that was not all for he was a keen sportsman much liked by his fellow men, a notable rider and could drive a coach and four with a speed and accuracy which made him the most vaunted member of the Four-In-Hand Club.

It was because he was intelligent that the Marquis, despite his undoubted successes as a lover, had managed to avoid having an unsavoury reputation in Court circles.

Naturally women gossiped about him and, of course, there were husbands who spoke of him through gritted teeth and who swore that one day they would avenge themselves if their suspicions of him could be proved.

But otherwise the Marquis’s friends envied his prowess and admired his discretion where his affaires de coeur were concerned.

‘And now comes this bombshell,’ the Marquis thought furiously.

Because he had been so careful to behave in a circumspect manner he had never been involved nor had his name been coupled with that of a young girl.

He was well aware, as a matrimonial catch, that every ambitious Mama in London with a marriageable daughter would not only welcome him as a son-in-law but went out of her way to entice him into declaring himself. They had even on one or two occasions tried to trap him into a compromising position when he must in honour propose marriage.

The Marquis deftly and with some private amusement avoided the obvious tricks to lure him to the Altar.

He had instead looked with some interest, and often with a desire that was immediately reciprocated, at women whose matrimonial status made it impossible for them to expect in return for their favours that he should offer them a Wedding ring.

Lady Courtley had been his mistress for nearly a year. Her husband lived mostly abroad and had, it was understood, a vast dislike for the social life that his wife enjoyed.

Sheila Courtley was not of the highest standing in the Beau Monde, but at least she was outwardly respectable and she and the Marquis were able to meet at a large number of private parties and entertainments that they were separately invited to.

Sheila was dark, graceful and had a strange almost haunting beauty, which the Marquis appreciated.

At times he even expressed his admiration in glowing terms.

“You are very lovely,” he had said not long ago in that deep voice that women found irresistible, “so lovely, that I often tell myself how lucky I am that I can hold you in my arms and kiss those perfectly curved lips of yours.”

“Kiss me again,” Sheila whispered.

Then, throwing her arms round the Marquis’s neck, she exclaimed with a throb in her voice,

“I love you! I love you! Oh, Ivon, you have no idea how much I love you.”

It was only as the dawn was breaking over the housetops and his closed carriage drove him back through the empty streets towards Melsonby House in Grosvenor Square, that the Marquis found himself wondering if Sheila had any other topic of conversation save that of love.

Frequently in the very early hours of the morning he found himself criticising not the perfection of her looks, but the emptiness of her brain.

‘But why should I want her to be intelligent?’ he asked himself. ‘I expect too much!’

Yet quite recently he had found it impossible not to notice how long and drawn out their dinners together seemed.

He had almost admitted to being bored until the moment when they could go upstairs, when she would reach out her arms towards him and he could see the flicker of desire in her eyes almost before he himself was ready for it.

The Marquis had a long enough experience of women to know that quite suddenly their society would begin to pall on him. And he would find himself yawning in their company. He would experience a sense of reluctance to accept their over-eager invitations.

He thought that the reason was that they made the chase too easy. In fact his whole life was too easy.

When he was being particularly imaginative, he longed to experience danger, to have to extricate himself from a tight corner and to know that the exhilaration of scoring a victory, whether it was physical or mental, over someone with whom he was well-matched.

There had been occasions in the past when he had managed through his ability to speak foreign languages to be of service to the Government in an unofficial position. These had resulted in moments in France and again in Italy, when he had saved his life only by quick thinking followed by quick action. But those days were past.

Since he had inherited the title, the Most Noble the Marquis of Melsonby, was no longer an unknown young man who could go galivanting unobserved about the Continent. Or even be able, as the Foreign Secretary had put it once with a smile, to listen discreetly at keyholes!

But the Marquis knew in his heart that, as far as Sheila Courtley was concerned, he was growing restless.

He had therefore been astounded and at the same time concerned when three days before he had received an urgent if somewhat incoherent note demanding his presence.

It had at least served its purpose in that it had made him very curious and he had walked obediently into Lady Courtley’s sitting room late in the afternoon having only an hour earlier been handed her note in White’s Club.

She was alone and she looked up eagerly as he was announced, observing the elegance of his appearance, the look of inquiry on his handsome face and appreciating the grace with which he crossed the room and raised her hand to his lips.

“What is wrong, Sheila?” he inquired as the footman closed the door behind him and they were alone.

It was then as he looked down at her lovely face that he realised that she was dressed in black. He had never seen her before in anything but the bright emerald greens, the peacock-blues, the pigeon-blood reds that became her dark beauty.

As he waited for her answer, a sudden fear made him tense.

Her fingers tightened on his.

“George is dead!”

“Dead!” the Marquis expostulated. “How?”

“He died of a fever in Greece. His doctor has written to me. There are few details.”

“I am sorry,” the Marquis said quietly. “It must have been a great shock to you.”

“A shock, of course,” Lady Courtley agreed.

Then she moved forward to lay her head against his shoulder.

“You realise what this means, Ivon?” she asked in a low voice.

It was with reluctance, but the Marquis knew it was expected of him, that he put his arm round her.

“What does it mean?” he asked, telling himself as he spoke that he sounded like a silly schoolboy.

“It means that I am – free!” Sheila Courtley whispered.

Somehow he had extricated himself without making her any promises, somehow he had managed to convey to her that she must behave circumspectly. She must, he assured her, weep publicly for her dead husband and so be prepared to wait the conventional year before there could even be any thought of re-marriage.

He had known as he left the house that he had to escape from her clinging arms either tactfully and with diplomacy, which he preferred, or eventually if she would not listen to him, brutally.

He could not and would not marry Sheila Courtley! He could not spend the rest of his days listening to her banal remarks, knowing that there was nothing in that lovely head but a desire for social recognition, a craving for gossip and the admiration of men like himself who could be enticed and caught by her beauty.

‘But beauty fades,’ the Marquis told himself.

In fact, as far as he was concerned, Sheila Courtley's beauty had already lost its appeal.

Because he was embarrassed and because he blamed himself for having allowed what should have been a merely transient affair to continue for so long, he then decided to leave London.

He had intended going to his own house, Mell Castle in Kent, but on leaving Lady Courtley he had run into Johnny Gerrard, a close friend with whom he had served in the Army and with whom he had many tastes in common.

“Come to Quenton,” Johnny insisted. “The ducks have been flighting in with the bad weather. I have been meaning to ask you to come up and have a shot at them.”

“I would like that,” the Marquis replied. “Thank you, Johnny. What I need at the moment is a breath of fresh air.”

“Or should it be a fresh face,” Johnny asked knowingly.

The Marquis had not replied. He had never discussed his love affairs with his friends, however intimate they might be. But he and Johnny had been together for so many years and they knew each other almost as if they were brothers so it was with some difficulty that the Marquis resisted the impulse to confide in his friend.

He had thought that the party at Quenton would be entirely a masculine one. Johnny’s father, Lord Gerrard, was delighted to entertain his son’s friends on every occasion and his mother, frail and somewhat crippled with rheumatics, had always treated the Marquis as if he was one of her own family.

It was however a surprise to find when he arrived at the huge house in Leicestershire that the Quentons had owned for five hundred years, that Lady Karen Russell was amongst the guests.

Karen and the Marquis had spent several rapturous nights together three months earlier before she had left England for a visit to Spain. He had not known she was back and, when he walked into the big salon to see her standing at the far end, the Marquis had felt a glow of satisfaction at the sight of her.

It was not surprising because Lady Karen was extremely beautiful. She was dark and had an almost Madonna-like serenity about her face, which, as the Marquis himself well knew, was intriguingly belied by the voluptuous passions that could be aroused by any man who appealed to her.

A widow since the age of nineteen, Karen Russell had become the toast of St. James’s and one of the most acclaimed beauties of the Court. It was said that Queen Victoria disliked her, but that was merely gossip and it was indeed not surprising that almost every woman was jealous not only of Lady Karen’s beauty but of her undoubted successes.

“There is not a man whose heart does not beat quicker when she enters the room,” one jealous wife had exclaimed with venom in her voice.

The Marquis had overheard what she said and had thought that unlike most statements of the kind this one was indeed true. He had pursued Karen determinedly, knowing that she was engaged in a clandestine love affair with an influential Statesman. It had added spice to the chase to realise that he could seduce her away as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

They had met at the same house party. The Statesman had been called to Windsor and the rest had been just a repetition of a dozen of the Marquis’s easy conquests. But in some way Karen had been different.

He had never known a woman respond so ardently to his love-making. He had never before known anyone who with the face of a Saint could become a devouring demon in the secret darkness of a double bed.

It had been exhilarating and exciting and at the same time without really putting it into words, the Marquis had realised that Karen was dangerous. He was to learn how dangerous on his second night at Quenton.

There were two other women in the party and perhaps on another occasion they might have seemed attractive or even interesting, but they faded into complete insignificance beside Karen.

She had come downstairs to dinner wearing a dress of gold-speckled yellow gauze that seemed to give her not the spring-like look that one might expect, but something Oriental, seductive and vaguely improper.

Her waist was tiny above dozens of rustling petticoats which held out the glittering skirts of her gown. Her décolletage was very low and revealed the curves of her small breasts. There was a huge necklace of topaz and diamonds round her throat, her wrists were weighed down with topazes and there were huge rings of the same stone on her hands.

She glittered as she crossed the room and her eyes which were green, flecked with gold, seemed to glitter too as she looked up at the Marquis. He saw a flicker of desire deep within them and knew that she deliberately provoked him with her parted lips and the soft touch of her hand.

They played cards after dinner and Karen gave him little glances from under her dark eyelashes which were an invitation in themselves. Then, as they said ‘goodnight’, he felt the pressure of her fingers and heard her whisper,

“The last door at the end of the corridor.”

There was no chance, the Marquis knew, of their being discovered. Lady Gerrard had retired to bed early and his friend, Johnny, and the other bachelors in the party were sleeping in a different wing. He and Karen and a married couple were the only ones sleeping in the centre rooms.

Karen was waiting for him. The only light in the room came from the two large silver candelabra on either side of the draped bed. She was lying back against the pillows, her long dark hair trailing over the lace-edged sheets with her nakedness barely concealed by the transparency of her nightgown.

She held out her arms to him and there was no need for words. He felt her eagerness, her desire and passion go to his head like wine.

‘To be with Karen is almost like being drunk,’ he had thought. ‘One ceases to think and one’s whole body becomes just an aching furnace of fire, which can be assuaged only by the touch and feel of her,’

It was nearly dawn before the Marquis went back to his own room and it seemed to him that he had slept only for a few minutes before he was awakened by his valet drawing back the curtains.

He enjoyed an excellent day’s shooting. He was a crack shot and he accounted for more than half the bag, which in itself was satisfactory. He came back to the house tired and hungry to find Karen giving him sidelong glances and knowing full well what she expected of him.

‘Well, tonight she will be disappointed,’ the Marquis told himself, ‘I am too tired.’

It was a most pleasant tiredness he thought at dinner, as one well-cooked dish followed another and the wine from Lord Gerrard’s cellars would have been the envy of anyone.

After dinner he refused to play cards and seated himself comfortably in a chair by the fireside. He talked for a little while to Lady Gerrard and then when she retired to bed found his head nodding.

The air had been deliciously crisp and frosty and they had walked a long way. He had the comfortable feeling of a man who was about to fall asleep from sheer physical exhaustion.

“I think we are all tired,” he heard Johnny say, just as his eyes were closing. “What about an early night?”

There was a murmur of consent and the Marquis rose to his feet.

“You must have walked us well over ten miles today, Johnny,” he said.

“But it was worth it, was it not ?” his friend asked, “and I have never seen anyone shoot better than you, Ivon. Your last right and left of mallard was a classic.”

“Thank you,” the Marquis smiled, “you flatter me.”

“It is true,” Johnny insisted. “I hope to give you some more sport tomorrow, but I cannot promise that the bag will be as big as today. You have made a new record for Quenton.”

They said ‘goodnight’ to the ladies and the Marquis felt Karen press his hand. Almost imperceptibly he shook his head.

His valet was waiting to help him undress. He climbed into the big comfortable bed with a feeling of almost sensuous delight. It was very warm and he was very sleepy.

He was in fact almost unconscious when he heard the door open.

He woke with the quick alertness of a man who has known danger. Then in the darkness he heard the key turn in the lock.

There was no question of who was there. There was the heavy exotic fragrance of a scent that reminded him of the East and of tuberoses, there was the soft sinuous warmth of a body close to his, of passionate lips seeking his mouth and her eager hands that swept away his tiredness as if he drank a glass of champagne.

There was no need for words, Karen lit a fire within him.

Very much later, as he lay back against the pillows, the Marquis heard her say,

“You are a very exciting person, Ivon. How soon can we be married?”

For a moment the Marquis thought that he could not have heard her correctly. Then, as he was suddenly rigid, she said softly,

“You must know I mean to marry you.”

It seemed to the Marquis in that very moment as if his thoughts swept into a chaotic whirlwind over which he had no control.

Karen – Karen Russell – was proposing to him! Taking it all for granted that he would marry her. Karen with her beautiful serene face. Karen passionately and fiercely demanding like an untamed tiger. Karen flirting, beguiling and enticing. Not only himself but other men.

It was only years of training that prevented the Marquis crying out his refusal. He knew that never in his wildest imaginations had he envisaged Karen Russell as the Chatelaine of Mell Castle.

This was not what he wanted as a wife, although what he did want he was not sure.

He only knew that he had no intention of marrying her. No intention of being saddled with this tempestuous, wild and permissive creature for the rest of his life.

He desired her and he found that to make love to her was an experience that he had not enjoyed with many other women. But as his wife, no! This was not the woman who should take his mother’s place or the woman who should bear his children.

As if Karen sensed his hesitation and his reluctance, she gave a little laugh.

“I want you,” she said simply. “You are most desirable and I want you. We shall deal well together.”

“I doubt that,” the Marquis managed to reply in a steady unemotional voice. “You see, Karen, I am not the marrying kind.”

“But you will marry me!” she answered and he could feel the iron determination beneath the words.

“No,” he replied lightly. “You are far too exciting and exotic a creature to be placed in a cage. You should be free for all men to enjoy. It would be a crime against nature to confine you to one insignificant husband!”

“I am not asking for an insignificant husband,” she replied softly. “I am asking for you! I shall grace your table, Ivon, I shall wear the family jewels with an elegance they have never had before and, most of all, I shall keep you enraptured with me.”

She turned towards him as she spoke and he felt her lips seeking his. He had a feeling that if he kissed her again he would drown in her voluptuous hunger.

She was insatiable. She was a woman who would leech off a man until he was nothing but a pale shadow of himself, without personality and eventually without character.

She was a vampire, concerned only with the desires of her body and she wanted little or nothing from those who admired her except a passion to equal her own.

The Marquis turned his head aside.

“I think, Karen, this is hardly the moment to discuss anything so serious as marriage,” he said. “Go back to your room. We will talk about it on another occasion.”

“There is no need for that,” Karen replied. “I have told you that I want you. When you return to London, you can talk to Papa. He will be delighted to accept you as a son-in-law.”

The Marquis was quite certain that this was the truth.

The Earl of Dunstable had been deeply worried about his daughter for quite some years. Chamberlain to Queen Victoria he lived in dread that there should be a scandal because of Karen’s irresponsible behaviour.

That she should be married to anyone of the Marquis of Melsonby’s consequence would indeed be an answer to his most fervent prayers.

The Marquis sat up in the bed.

“Go to your room, Karen,” he said firmly. “I am not going to discuss such matters now, when we are both tired. But I have already told you I have no wish to be married.”

“Then it would be very unfortunate, would it not,” Karen said slowly, “if I told Papa the truth.”

“Would it surprise him?” the Marquis asked with a hint of laughter in his voice. “He must now have some idea that you are not still wearing the willow for your long forgotten husband!”

“No, indeed, Papa would not think anything so nonsensical,” Karen replied. “But if I told him that I was to have a baby, he would be exceedingly perturbed!”

“A baby!” the Marquis’s voice vibrated into the darkness. “It is not true. And if it is, it is not mine.”

Karen laughed. It was a low laugh of sheer amusement.

“All men are the same,” she said. “One can frighten them so easily.”

“You mean you are not with child?” the Marquis asked sharply.

“Of course not,” she replied, “but Papa would not question it if I did tell him that I was having one. The result of three delightful nights that we spent together before I went abroad. Nearly three months ago, Ivon. It is just about the right time for me to be sure that I am not mistaken.”

There was a silence and then the Marquis asked her,

“Are you blackmailing me, Karen?”

“What a horrible word,” she replied. “No indeed, my dear Ivon, I am only telling you to accept the inevitable with a good grace. I want you! I love you!”

“You don’t know the meaning of the word love,” the Marquis commented.

“Then what I am offering you is a very good substitute,” she replied. “I do find you as desirable as you find me. What more could any man or woman ask of marriage?”

“What indeed,” he remarked bitterly.

“And so, my dear Ivon, when we return to London, I shall tell Papa that you wish to speak to him and we can be married, now let me see, in April as soon as the Season starts. I shall make an entrancing bride, even though it is my second journey up the Aisle! And you will be a breathtakingly handsome bridegroom.”

Karen had risen as she spoke and the Marquis heard the rustle of her wrapper as she slipped her arms into it. Then she moved across the room in the darkness with an assurance that made him think that this was not the first time she had visited this particular bedroom at Quenton.

He heard her unlock the door and turn the handle.

“Good night, dear, dear Ivon,” she said, “my husband to be!”

The Marquis had sat up for a long time without moving. It seemed to him as if he was in a trap from which there was no escape. He was well aware that Karen, having once made up her mind, would not swerve from her determination to marry him and there was in fact little he could do about it.

If, as she had threatened, she told Lord Dunstable that she was with child and that the father refused to marry her, Lord Dunstable would undoubtedly go to the Queen.

The gay roistering days of the Regency were over. The easy acceptance of loose morals countenanced by William IV, who had ten illegitimate children, was now well forgotten in the new strait-laced respectable regime of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

In 1850 the slightest breath of scandal was frowned on and Society ladies eager to follow Queen Victoria’s lead could, the Marquis knew, make things very uncomfortable for him.

He could defy them. He could tell the whole lot to go to the devil. But he knew, if he was honest with himself, that he would dislike not being invited by the great hostesses, not being sought after by Statesmen and Politicians and not being acclaimed a sportsman and a man of honour by his friends.

And yet to be married to Karen, knowing her for what she was, would be, he thought, to walk barefooted into Hell. He could not imagine what his private life would be like once she was his wife,

She might be enraptured with him now, but he knew enough of her reputation and her past to realise that her lovers succeeded each other in quick succession.

She had a man’s attitude towards possession, she must satisfy a passionate desire but once the urgency of it was past she would forget that the moment ever existed.

Any woman, even Sheila Courtley, would be preferable as his wife to Karen Russell.

*

When his valet called him in the morning, the Marquis gave orders for his clothes to be packed. He had driven his own phaeton to Quenton, but a groom had ridden one of his best horses there. The Marquis preferred to exercise on his own horseflesh.

He now decided to ride some of the way home. He felt that only by moving fast could he put the greatest possible distance between himself and Karen.

“I have to get back to London,” he told his friend Johnny. “I wish I could have stayed for another day’s shooting but only last night I remembered a very important engagement.”

“Male or female?” Johnny smiled.

“Male! Entirely male,” the Marquis replied with a firmness that made his friend glance at him in surprise.

He would have been even more surprised if he had learnt that the Marquis, riding across country, was exclaiming under his breath against the whole female sex.

“Damn them! A man would be well rid of the whole cursed lot of them!” he vowed.

And his horse’s hoofs pounding across the hard ground seemed to repeat, over and over again,

“Damn them! Damn them!”

‘I am a rat in a trap,’ the Marquis told himself. ‘I am a fox that is cornered by the hounds and I cannot escape!’

He had ridden on blindly, trusting his own instincts to find his way to Baldock. He would have done so without too much trouble had it not been that the weather had worsened until driving snow, sleet and hail had made it impossible to see more than a yard in front of his face.

He struggled ahead until he realised it was hopeless and was thankful to find an unknown inn, The King’s Head, although it proved to be just as its exterior suggested.

The information from his landlord that he was still five miles from Baldock had been no consolation for an extremely badly cooked dinner, for a draughty room and a suspicion that the bed was none too clean.

However, there was nothing to be done about it and the Marquis was more concerned with his private affairs than with his comforts.

‘God Almighty! What can I do?’ he asked himself after the landlord had brought another bottle of wine and withdrawn, wishing him a pleasant night.

Looking at the bottle set on the table by the fireside, the Marquis had no desire to sample it. He knew exactly how it would taste, just as he knew only too well the unhappiness and the frustration that lay ahead of him in the future.

How could he have been such a fool as not to realise what Karen was like? How could he not have anticipated that she would want to keep him permanently at her side, simply because the advantages to her of such a marriage were obvious.

‘It is not often I underestimate myself,’ the Marquis thought with a bitter twist to his lips.

He threw himself down on the armchair in front of the fire. He wondered despairingly if he should go abroad but knew that to exile himself from his estates, from his sport and from his friends, was too great a penalty to pay even to avoid marriage. A marriage with Karen!

‘The Devil take it! If any man should have to pay for his sins, I shall pay for mine. I wish I could never again see another woman in the whole of my life.’

He closed his eyes and, as he did so, he heard the door open. He did not turn his head as he supposed that it was the landlord.

But when he heard the door closing very quietly followed by a soft rustle, he turned in astonishment to see that a woman had entered his room.

She was very small and there was snow on the shoulders of her dark blue riding habit and the scarf she wore over her head was soaked.

She stood staring at him and, as she was standing at the other side of the room, it was difficult to see what she was like.

Then she said in a small soft frightened voice,

“Can – you hide – me? Please will you – hide me?”

The Marquis rose slowly to his feet.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I am escaping,” she answered, “and they are after – me. I have not much time. They will realise – I have come here. My horse can go no – further.”

The Marquis moved towards her and saw that she was young, much younger than he had supposed at his first glance.

“What are you running away from?” he asked. “School?”

“No, indeed,” she replied. “But from the – man that styles himself my Guardian.”

“Your Guardian,” the Marquis repeated.

He looked down at her face as he spoke and realised that she was in fact very frightened. He saw too that her habit was splattered with mud. There was mud on her cheeks and there was a white look around her mouth, which told him that she was extremely cold.

“Come near the fire,” he suggested.

“No, I dare not,” she answered. “He will be here at any moment – he will search the inn – and if he forces me to go back with him – he will beat me again – ”

“Beat you?” the Marquis asked.

“Yes, indeed – he has beaten me cruelly – to make me – do as he wished.”

There was a throb of terror in her voice that made the Marquis half-believe that she was telling the truth.

“Perhaps you deserved it,” he remarked.

She looked at him uncertainly and then, with a swift movement he had not anticipated, she slipped off her riding jacket and turned her back.

She was wearing a white garment that was cut very low, almost as if it was an evening gown. And on her bare skin there were deep weals crossing and recrossing each other. They were purple and bleeding. Below on the white muslin there were congealed blood stains so that the garment above the waist was dyed crimson.

“Good God!” the Marquis expostulated. “Who could have done such a thing to you?”

“The man I spoke about,” answered the girl.

She pulled her coat back around her shoulders. Even as she spoke there was the sound of voices below.

“He is – here!” she said in a whisper. “He has – arrived. I thought he would not be – long, I could hear them – just behind me.”

“Where have you put your horse?” the Marquis asked.

“I have hidden him in a cowshed. They may not find him tonight,” the girl replied.

The voices were growing louder and there was a sound of footsteps on the uncarpeted wooden stairs.

“He is – coming! He is – coming!” she whispered and the Marquis thought that he had never before seen such terror on a woman’s face.

Quickly he made up his mind.

“I will hide you,” he said, “but God knows, if they do discover us, we shall both be in trouble!”

“Shall I get in the wardrobe?” she asked, looking at a huge carved wooden cupboard which stood at the far end of the room.

The Marquis was about to consent and then, from past experience he knew that it was too obvious a hiding place.

“Behind the window curtain,” he said curtly, “and don’t make a sound.”

She sped across the room, while the Marquis went to the wardrobe and took the key from it. He went back to the fireside and, laying the key on the table next to the bottle of wine, he threw himself into the chair and filled his glass.

There was a knock on the door.

“Come in.”

The door opened.

“What the devil do you want?” he asked and his voice was slurred and thick and that of a man who had been drinking.

“I beg your pardon, my Lord, but there be a gentleman ’ere who wishes to speak with you.”

“Tell him it is too late, I have retired,” the Marquis replied.

“You must excuse my intrusion,” a voice came and, pushing past the landlord, a man came into the room.

He was tall, dark and might have been good-looking had it not been that his eyes were too close together and there was a hard twist about his mouth, which was somehow repulsive. He was still wearing his hat, but now at the sight of the Marquis he removed it slowly from his head, revealing dark hair that was touched with grey at the temples.

“What do you want?” the Marquis asked, lolling back in the chair, the glass of wine held so negligently in his hand that the wine was in danger of slopping onto the floor.

“I hope you will excuse me, my Lord,” the man replied. “I am Sir Gerbold Whitton. The landlord here informs me you have but shortly arrived.”

“So what has that got to do with you?” the Marquis asked in the truculent tone of a man who resents being questioned.

“It is just that I would ask you two things,” Sir Gerbold replied. “First, if on your journey here, you had sight of a girl riding a horse and secondly whether she has entered this room since your arrival?”

He glanced as he spoke towards the big wardrobe at the far end of the room.

“I don’t know what the Hell you are talking about,” the Marquis said. “I am tired, I want to get to sleep.”

“I appreciate that,” Sir Gerbold replied, “but it has been a bad night for travelling. That is why I am certain, my Lord, that you would have noticed any other traveller.”

“I saw no one,” the Marquis answered slowly.

“And since you have been – ?”

Sir Gerbold stopped speaking. He had seen the key on the table beside the bottle of wine.

“I am sure you will not mind,” he went on, after a moment’s pause, “if I satisfy myself by looking in the wardrobe. I think I see the key beside you.”

“Wardrobe? What wardrobe?” the Marquis asked. “Oh that! There is nothing there, I can assure you. I searched it myself as it is just the sort of place that robbers hide in.”

“I would like to assure myself that there are no robbers there at the moment.”

“I tell you there is no one,” the Marquis retorted. “Are you doubting my word?”

“No, indeed,” Sir Gerbold replied in the genial tone of a man who is determined to be pleasant whatever the circumstances. “But I wish to prove that you are not mistaken.”

There was silence for a moment and then the Marquis said,

“Are you a betting man?”

Sir Gerbold looked surprised.

“What do you mean by that?

“I will wager you, five, no ten sovereigns, if you have it on you, that there is nothing that you are looking for in that wardrobe.”

Sir Gerbold hesitated and glanced again at the key.

“I will take your bet,” he said curtly.

“Then let us see the colour of your money,” the Marquis suggested, drawing some coins from his breeches pocket and throwing them on the table.

Reluctantly Sir Gerbold put his hand into the inside pocket of his jacket and drew out a case. From it he selected two five-pound notes and set them down on the table and, as he did so, there was an eagerness about him that could not quite be disguised.

He picked up the key.

He went across the room, his heavy riding boots noisy on the uncarpeted boards, inserted the key in the wardrobe, turned it and flung open the door.

He stared and then peered into the corners.

“Nothing there,” the Marquis chuckled. “You lose your bet, sir, and now goodnight.”

Sir Gerbold looked round the room and his eyes lighted on the heavy dark curtains that covered the windows. He had taken a step towards it, when he heard the Marquis say,

“And now get out!”

He looked back towards the fireplace to see the Marquis standing up, a pistol in his hand.

“I have had enough of you and your damned impudence,” he said drunkenly. “Get out or I swear I will blow a hole through you!”

“You are being extraordinarily offensive,” Sir Gerbold said, but his voice was uncertain.

“Get out!” the Marquis repeated angrily. “I will not have people walking about over the bedroom I have paid for, accusing me of being a liar. You wish to fight, sir? I will fight you, but at the moment I want my room to myself.”

Sir Gerbold retreated towards the door.

“Go on! Get out!” the Marquis repeated in the voice of a drunken man who had suddenly lost his temper.

He lurched towards Sir Gerbold as he spoke, who went from the room slamming the door behind him.

The Marquis turned the key noisily and rammed home the bolt.

“Damned impertinence!” he said in a voice that he knew would be heard outside.

He turned to see the girl come from between the curtains and quickly put his fingers to his lips.

He walked back towards the fireplace and she followed him on tiptoe. They both waited without speaking until they heard Sir Gerbold’s heavy footsteps going down the stairs.

Then breathless and shaking, she said,

“Thank you – how can I ever – thank you? You have – saved me!”

CHAPTER TWO

“Not yet,” the Marquis replied speaking very quietly. “You will have to leave the inn and he will be here watching for you.”

He looked at the girl as he spoke and realised that she was shivering with cold and fear. It must, he realised, have been extremely draughty behind the curtains covering the window.

“Come to the fire,” he said, “and, when you are feeling warmer and better, we can make plans.”

He went towards a small table as he spoke and picked up the glass of wine he had been holding in his hand when Sir Gerbold entered the room.

“I regret you will have to use my glass,” he said with a faint smile. “This is not a notably luxurious hostelry.”

“I don’t – need any – thank you,” the girl answered, but her teeth chattered as she spoke.

“It will warm you,” the Marquis suggested and added firmly, “Drink some of it.”

As if she was obedient to the command in his voice, she took the glass and raised it to her lips.

After a few sips she set it down on the table and sank onto her knees in front of the fire, holding out her cold hands to the flames. The Marquis looked down at her bent head with its wet chiffon scarf.

“You had best dry your clothes,” he said, “Even if you evade capture by your Guardian, you are running more risk at the moment of dying of pneumonia.”