A Marquess' Forbidden Desire (Steamy Historical Regency)

by Lucinda Nelson

  Chapter 13

  Lady Marianne Purcell, Daughter of the Baron of Westlake

  By the time Marianne returned to the drawing room, the mess was being cleaned up by another maid. She looked at Lord Blackwood. It was hard to imagine this gentleman being as mischievous as he had been in Bath.

  Becky had told her some wild stories about Julius. But this man looked reserved and had a countenance and posture well suited to his rank. A Marquess. And she had thought him a cheeky country lad.

  She would have balked at herself if she’d been alone.

  Then Marianne looked at Lord Redmond. She saw him and everything he’d done and said the last time they’d met in a new light. The necklace. The questions about dancing. And his eyes.

  Yes, more than anything it was his eyes that gave him away. She had not been imagining that color.

  It was him.

  Her heart trembled and her words froze in her throat. She felt like she was facing a ghost of her past.

  “Is Becky alright?” Julius asked, which gave everyone cause to stare at him. He had said her name. He caught his mistake quick enough and merely shrugged. “I do not know her surname,” he explained. “And I overheard Lady Marianne call her by Becky.”

  It was a fairly poor explanation, but it sufficed. Everyone could feel the tension in the room, even if many of them didn’t understand why it was there.

  “I am sure she is fine,” Eliza said, briskly. “Now, my Lord, you were saying?” She said to Lord Redmond. He blinked like he didn’t understand. Marianne was sure he hadn’t been saying anything at all. His lips parted, but he was looking at Marianne.

  It made her stomach drop to see them standing so close to one another.

  “Yes, well, Lord Blackwood why don’t you and I give the happy couple a moment alone? I could show you the library,” Marianne suggested. She was making a pressing face at him, as subtly as she could, to impact the importance of this upon him.

  Her mother chirped up. “What a splendid idea!”

  Marianne knew why the idea pleased her mother so much. Perhaps she could marry off both her daughters at once. Hit two birds with one stone.

  But Marianne didn’t have any romantic intentions with Julius. Not in the least. Though the Knight had thought him a good man, Marianne had not yet decided if she could trust him.

  “That would be wonderful,” Lord Blackwood answered.

  As they left the drawing room, Marianne could still feel eyes on the back of her head. Following her. It made her shiver.

  “My Lady,” Lord Blackwood said, politely, as if he was about to launch into a conversation about the gardens or something else equally tedious.

  But before he could speak, she turned and hushed him by putting a finger to her mouth.

  He looked aghast. Of course he did. A lady had just shushed him. Him, a Marquess. But Marianne knew him as a country boy in a mask, playing about like an imp, not the formidable man in front of her.

  He didn’t speak again until they reached the library. Marianne didn’t explain her intentions. She opened the door for him and he stepped inside, frowning at her. The moment his foot was over the line, she shut the door quickly behind him.

  Marianne expelled a breath and put her back against the door.

  She stood there for several moments, but heard nothing besides Lord Blackwood’s initial sound of surprise. Then nothing. No muttering. No sounds of interaction.

  After a few minutes, she frowned and put her ear to the door. Becky must be in there. If she wasn’t, Lord Blackwood would have tried to leave. But what could they possibly be doing?

  Recalling what they had been like with one another at the fair, she imagined that the pair of them were sizing each other up. But they didn’t have time for that.

  She waited a while longer, with her arms crossed over her chest, tapping her foot. It was dim in the hallway. So dim that she didn’t see the figure approaching her until he was practically inches away.

  Marianne nearly jumped out of her skin. To keep herself from being discovered, she covered her mouth with her hand to muffle the sound of her scream.

  “This is a rather strange circumstance to find you in,” the voice rumbled through the dark. A voice that she had recognized from the very first moment she’d arrived at his house. But she’d chosen to ignore the recognition, because she’d been frightened.

  Now she heard the notes of his velvet voice clear as day. The notes of her Knight.

  Not my Knight.

  Her lips parted to produce an explanation for why she was standing in the hallway, alone. But nothing came.

  “I expect that Lord Blackwood is in the library?” He had a calm face as he spoke, but his green eyes seemed to dance.

  She closed her mouth and nodded.

  “With Becky.”

  A shiver went down her spine, but her countenance didn’t change.

  “You know,” she whispered.

  He nodded slightly. “I do.”

  “How?”

  “I thought I knew who you were when I saw the necklace,” he explained. “But it was confirmed for me when I saw how Julius and the young maid reacted to seeing one another.”

  She swallowed.

  “So what is your plan?” He crossed his hands behind his back and took a step closer. A slither of light shining through a high window illuminated his face.

  He was so much more in control of himself here. At the fair, he’d seemed shy. Now, he looked the part of a Marquess. She wondered how both Lord Blackwood and Lord Redmond could be such different men in Bath. Which made her wonder if she was different too.

  When he spoke again, she realized she hadn’t answered. “Is Becky persuading him not to reveal you to me?”

  Again, she did not speak. Her back was aligned with the wood of the door. The hallway felt so terribly silent when he wasn’t speaking. Not a creak. Not a whisper.

  “I imagine he would have agreed,” Lord Redmond mused. “It would suit everyone’s purposes to leave the mystery a mystery.”

  “Then you did not want to know the truth?”

  His brow crinkled as if this question was tricky to answer. “I did,” he said, slowly. “Though I recognized that the truth could be problematic.”

  Problematic. That was an understatement.

  “You will not break the engagement. Will you, my Lord?”

  His features were so nuanced, his expression so complicated, that she couldn’t figure out what he was feeling. Before she could press further, her body suddenly fell back.

  She let out a yelp.

  “My Lady!” Becky gasped.

  Her body hit the ground with a thud. And she was left staring up at two faces. Lord Blackwood’s and Becky’s. They’d opened the door.

  Marianne felt a hand in hers, pulling her to her feet. The world spun and she found herself flush with Lord Redmond. “Are you alright?” He said, urgently. He put his hand against the back of her head, cupping it. “You hit your head.”

  She felt a little dazed and it took her a moment to feel the pang in her skull. “I did?”

  “You did, my Lady.” Becky came to her side as she said this and cradled each of her elbows, ready to support her if she needed. Her presence forced Lord Redmond to release her.

  She missed his hold the moment it was gone.

  “What is this?” A voice came from the hallway. Eliza, sounding a little hysterical.

  Marianne took a step away from Lord Redmond, but the sudden motion made her head spin. The movement wound up being extremely counterproductive, because Lord Redmond reached out to steady her again. Getting closer.

  “She fell, my Lady,” Becky said, quickly.

  “Yes, quite suddenly,” Lord Blackwood added.

  “What did she trip on?” Eliza asked, in her typically sharp voice, made high-pitched by her anxiety regarding her fiancé being found so close to her younger, less shrewish sister.

  “On a book,” Lord Blackwood said, before Marianne could muster a
convincing answer. Her brain felt like it had slowed. And just like that, he produced a book, in a show of sleight of hand that was quite remarkable. It was as if he’d picked it up long before Eliza had arrived on the scene.

  And Marianne was suddenly extremely thankful for him.

  “Lord Redmond and Lord Blackwood were helping me,” she mumbled. Lord Redmond was still holding her arm to steady her, frowning in concern.

  “I thought you were going to the restroom,” Eliza remarked, with a suspicious look at her fiancé.

  “I was,” he answered. “But I heard the thud and came to see that no one was injured.”

  “She is fine,” Eliza said, between grit teeth.

  “Yes,” Marianne confirmed. “I am fine.”

  “You hit your head hard. Perhaps we should call a doctor.”

  “No, no,” she answered, with a shake of her head. The motion made it hurt a great deal. “Rest is all I need. If I could just lie down.”

  Her mother emerged on the stairs then, with father by her side. He’d just returned from his business in town.

  “What is this?” Her mother asked and stepped directly between Lord Redmond and Marianne so that she could look at her daughter’s face.

  “She took a fall,” Lord Blackwood said.

  “She looks well enough,” her mother said, dismissively. “Shall we go back downstairs?”

  “Are you blind?” Her father cut in, in a voice that was unusually heated. He had such a gentle temperament, but was clearly losing his patience. This surprised his wife, who stuttered out a shocked sound in response. She moved aside when her father stepped towards her. He cupped her cheeks. “She is pale.”

  “I believe we should call a doctor,” Lord Redmond said again.

  “A man of sense,” her father said, as he stroked his thumb across Marianne’s cheek.

  It felt good having her father there. So good. Her eyelids were heavy and she was smiling softly. “Hello, father,” she murmured.

  “Yes…” her father said, frowning. “We definitely need a doctor.”

  “I will call on one immediately,” Lord Redmond said. And then he was gone, which made Marianne frown. She felt drunk.

  “Oh no,” she said.

  “What is it, my Lady?” Becky asked. She was stood beside her still.

  Marianne’s head lolled towards her and she smiled sadly. “The Knight is gone.”

  Chapter 14

  Lord Alexander Anthony Redmond, Marquess of Riversdale

  Just as he’d suspected, Lady Marianne was concussed. The doctor recommended bed rest for a couple of days and advised against causing her any stress. Alexander had assaulted the poor doctor with questions, until Julius had quietly remarked that he was taking perhaps too keen an interest in the sister of his fiancé.

  When Alexander reluctantly agreed to leave, Julius already had a lecture prepared.

  “How did you know?”

  “I saw how you and Becky reacted to seeing one another. It was clear you had met before.”

  Julius nodded.

  “She tried to convince you not to tell me?” Alexander said.

  “She did.”

  “And would you have agreed?”

  Julius looked over at his friend and expelled a slow breath. “I would have, for your own good.”

  This pricked at Alexander’s anger. He knew it was unreasonable, but the prospect of not knowing the truth of Lady Marianne’s identity was a terrible one. “For my own good,” he echoed, curtly.

  “Yes, for your own damn good. Did you see yourself today, Alexander? You are a poor actor.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your worry for Lady Marianne was blatant. And… intense.”

  “I could not hide such a thing. I would worry for anyone,” Alexander retorted.

  “Not as you did for her. There was more to it than mere kindness for your fiancé’s sister. You cannot deny that.”

  No, he could not. Nor could he deny that he hadn’t stopped worrying about Lady Marianne since they’d left.

  “This is why I did not want to tell you,” Julius said, as he shook his head. “Your marriage is at risk now. Which means that your father’s approval is at risk too. Something I’ve never known you to risk before. Could you bear a lifetime of his disappointment?”

  He hadn’t been able to bear a childhood spent disappointing him. “I have no intention of calling off the marriage.”

  “Good,” Julius said. “It would be unwise and your fiancé has done you no wrong.”

  Alexander grimaced at the thought of his fiancé. “But do you not think her…” He couldn’t find the words.

  “Yes,” Julius answered anyway. “She can be…” He couldn’t find the words either, so he left the sentence unfinished. “But she is rightly intimidated by Lady Marianne.”

  Alexander looked at his friend. “So you are not impervious to Lady Marianne’s charms,” he said, with a tiny lick of jealousy hidden in his voice.

  Julius shrugged. “I’m not blind or deaf. She is sweet and fair. But she is of no interest to me, if that is what worries you.”

  “Why should that worry me? She is not mine.”

  Julius rolled his eyes at Alexander’s blatant pretense, but did not push him any further on the subject.

  They rode back to Julius’, where Alexander spent the night, to avoid having to go home to his parents. They would surely assault him with questions he didn’t have the energy or capacity to answer at that time.

  He couldn’t sleep that night. He thought of Lady Marianne. The Fairy Queen. The girl he couldn’t have. The younger sister to his fiancé.

  He had not hit his head as she had, but he might as well have. Because his head was full of hallucinations and illusions. Of what might have come of them if they’d only been honest about their true selves.

  Perhaps he would be marrying her instead.

  ***

  Lady Marianne Purcell, Daughter of the Baron of Westlake

  “I fear that I might have been acting peculiar yesterday, after hitting my head,” Marianne said. She was feeling a great deal better and sitting up in bed the following drinking some tea.

  Becky sat beside her bed.

  “Nothing too strange,” Becky remarked, though she did not look at her directly.

  “You hesitated,” Marianne said, with a wrinkled brow. “What did I say?”

  “There were… a few things,” she said, rather slowly.

  “Well?”

  “It is not worth mentioning, my Lady.”

  “Becky.”

  Having been pushed to do so, Becky recounted what Marianne had said when Lord Redmond left. She also told her that she’d said a few other things in the presence of Eliza, which might give her sister good cause for suspicion. Apparently, she’d said, “Handsome, ever so handsome,” several times. She’d also babbled a little about masks.

  “She questioned me,” Becky said. “But I assured her that it was only your injury, making you imagine things. When she pushed for more, I told her that you’d been reading fairytales as of late, about fairies and knights.”

  “And did that convince her?” Marianne asked, anxiously.

  “It seemed to.”

  She supposed it would convince her. After all, Eliza thought her a stupid child. Of course she would expect her to be reading fairytales. Marianne did not mind that, because she did enjoy fairytales and she did not think that that made her stupid or childish.

  She appreciated freedom. And there was freedom in those stories.

  “Thank you, Becky,” she said.

  She remained in bed for the rest of the day, but the following day she could stand it no longer. She rose and went to the window in the morning, because she longed to be outside. But the doctor had recommended she stay put for at least two days.

  So she watched the cherry blossom catch on the breeze from her window and imagined what it would smell like. How cool the wind was and how it would feel against her cheek.


  She felt ever so restless.

  Marianne was about to turn away from the window, because it was far too tempting. But then she saw two people walking in the gardens.

  It was strange that she recognized Lord Redmond before she recognized her sister. She’d known him for so little time and known Eliza for all her life. But her eyes fixed on him alone.