A Marquess' Forbidden Desire (Steamy Historical Regency)

by Lucinda Nelson

  Despite the distance, she could see him smiling. Laughing. They walked for quite some time and she put her hand on his arm. She rested her cheek on his forehead.

  He gestured to a bench and they sat together, so close that Marianne could barely tell where he began and she ended. Their thighs were pressed against each other’s and she wrapped her arm about his. Clutching him close.

  Marianne had clutched him close like that before. On that little log in the woodland grove.

  Why did it feel as though her heart was in her feet?

  It was this tight, painful, plunging feeling which was made worse when he lay his cheek against the top of her head and closed his eyes.

  Marianne turned away and put her back against the wall beside the window. She felt a tear on her cheek.

  But what good was there in crying about it? Now that she knew who the Knight really was, she wondered if she knew him at all. He seemed so different now. A man of rank. A man of duty. Not the free, yet shy spirit she’d thought he was.

  She told herself that whatever feelings she had for him were surely unfounded. She had fallen in love with a man who didn’t exist.

  And she would shake herself free of that love however she could.

  That evening, she went downstairs after he’d left. Eliza sat by the window in the drawing room, beaming out at the garden. She was talking about his estate. About how grand it was. About how many servants he had. How she would be the envy of every woman.

  Marianne cleared her throat to announce her presence and her mother and father looked up at her from where they sat.

  “You should not be out of bed, my darling,” her father said, with a worried look.

  She smiled him to ease his worry. “I am quite well, father. But there is something I’d like to say.”

  “Then please say it, my dear.”

  Her mother gave her a cursory glance, as though she didn’t expect it to be of much interest. Until Marianne spoke to her. “Mother,” she said. “I would like you to find me a husband.”

  Her mother’s eyes went wide and she started to smile. Of course she’d mentioned this to Marianne before, but she clearly hadn’t expected her to take to the idea so quickly. She’d been so reclusive since her return from Bath, after all. In fact, she’d been evasive every time her mother had raised the subject.

  “Oh, my dear, a grand decision. I will begin the search immediately. There is a gentleman I have in mind, actually. I will invite him for tea.”

  Marianne nodded, but didn’t smile.

  “Very well,” she said. “I will go rest again now.”

  With that, she turned away. She should have felt happy. She knew this was what she needed.

  But she only felt awfully sad.

  ***

  Lord Redmond called almost every day after that. Every single day. At first, this seemed to thrill Eliza. She boasted that her fiancé was so smitten by her that he could not get enough.

  Marianne did her best to avoid her, when possible. Gentlemen had started visiting her. Many of whom were not her mother’s doing. Rather, they had heard from other gentlemen and ladies that she was looking for a husband and came of their own accord.

  It was flattering, of course, but Marianne didn’t feel entirely able to sustain an interest in any of them.

  A gentleman called Lord Brandon Fuller was coming to see her that morning, so she joined Eliza in the drawing room while she waited. She’d met Lord Fuller a few days earlier and he’d been sweet enough that she’d decided to see him again.

  “Hello, sister,” she said, as she stepped into the drawing room. But Eliza did not look as if she would be staying. She was wearing her coat and heading past Marianne, towards the door.

  Marianne frowned at her. “Is Lord Redmond not coming to see you today?”

  “Oh, I expect he is,” Eliza said, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “But I made plans to see some friends of mine. They will be green with envy, I’m sure.”

  Marianne followed her to the door. “Have you informed him?”

  “Don’t be silly,” Eliza retorted. “I needn’t inform him of my every move. He is not my keeper.”

  That wasn’t what Marianne had meant. She simply meant that he would turn up and find her gone. And certainly she could not pretend that she’d forgotten. He came everyday, after all.

  Before Marianne could say anything more, Eliza was out the door and on her way.

  She returned to the drawing room. She hoped that Lord Redmond would not be too upset. He did seem quite in love with Eliza, as of late. She wondered if that would make him feel better or worse in the face of her thoughtlessness.

  The house was quiet today. Her mother and father were visiting their aunt and with Eliza gone, Marianne felt quite calm. For the first time in what felt like months, she felt peaceful.

  She could shut everything out. Every noise. Every reminder of her circumstances. Yes, she wanted nothing more than that.

  Marianne went out into the gardens alone. She did not go to the bench, but sat instead on the grass beneath an oak tree. The shade of it kept the sun from getting in her eyes and a cool breeze passed her from time to time.

  She didn’t know how long she sat there for. She felt sleepy and happy, as if she could pretend that the world had fallen away.

  Marianne allowed herself one small, guilty pleasure. A pleasure that she only permitted herself to indulge in when she was entirely alone.

  She thought of the Knight. Just the Knight. Not Lord Redmond. When she thought of him, the daydream became complicated. But when she only thought of her Knight, kissing her as they danced, all was well inside her head.

  “Lady Purcell.”

  She opened her eyes. And there he was. Unmasked, but the very same.

  “Lord Redmond,” she said. She made to stand so that she could greet him properly but he put his hand in a gesture indicating that she should remain seated. “Please do not stand on my behalf.”

  With that, she sank back into the ground with her back against the tree’s trunk. “Would you care to sit?” She wondered.

  He did. It was a strange sight. To see a man of his station lowering himself to sit on the bare earth against a tree.

  They were silent for some time and yet her solitude was gone. There was so much tension in her that it made her muscles ache a little.

  “You are well?” He said.

  “I am.”

  “As am I.”

  They both nodded to themselves. It was almost… awkward.

  “Eliza is not here,” she informed him, perhaps not so delicately as she should have. So she added, “I am sorry you are disappointed.”

  “I am not disappointed,” he said, to which she replied with only silence. He did not ask her where Eliza had gone or why she had not informed him in advance, to save him the wasted trip.

  “Were you looking for her in the gardens?”

  “No,” he said. “One of the staff told me she had gone.”

  “Oh.”

  “I was looking for you, in truth.”

  Her heart gave a little stutter. “And why is that, my Lord?”

  At last, Lord Redmond turned his head and fixed her with his deep green stare. “We shared something, you and I, in a fantasy.”

  She held her breath.

  “And I am not the sort of man who will let things lie unspoken. I do not want there to be tension between us, especially if we are to be family. I want to clear the air.”

  “What is there to be said?” Marianne answered. She was standing, looking away from him. She started pacing around the tree, running her hand along the bark as she went. She couldn’t bear to sit still, with him staring at her.

  “Plenty.” He stood too and followed her around the trunk at a similar pace.

  “You are to be married to my sister. And I am happy for you both. As you said, it was a fantasy.”

  “Yes, but-”

  “We are not the same people as we were at the fair.”


  “Lady Purcell,” he persisted, but she would not allow him to get a word in. She was walking around the tree faster, feeling him try to keep pace with her.

  “This is who we are truly,” she said. She felt him reach for her to catch her arm, but miss by a centimeter. She moved faster and faster and so did he.

  “So what does it matter what happened before?” She went on. “It wasn’t real.”

  She thought he was going to catch her. But he didn’t. Marianne knew she was being absurd. Circling a tree. But he was just as absurd for pursuing her. She had not expected him to, but when he had she’d felt this urge to run. To match his chase by fleeing.

  She threw a look back over her shoulder, but he wasn’t there.

  And then she walked right into his chest.

  He’d doubled back to catch her off-guard and now held each of her arms in his hands. They were each breathing heavily. “It was real in its own way,” he said, breathlessly. “As you and I both know. I have not come to wipe it from reality. I have come to ask if we might be friends.”

  Friends.

  Friends when his touch made her skin feel like it was on fire. Friends when his breath was like syrup and she wanted to kiss it from his lips. Friends when she loved the man he’d been at the fair and struggled to separate Lord Redmond from the Knight on a daily basis.

  She swallowed.

  Before she could answer, a servant announced himself. Lord Redmond dropped his hands abruptly and took a step away. “My Lady,” the servant said. “We have just received word that Lord Fuller will not be visiting today, on account of the sudden death of his great aunt. He sends his apologies.”

  Lord Fuller. She had forgotten Lord Fuller. Blinking, she put even more distance between herself and Lord Redmond and said, “Send word back that we are terribly sorry for his loss. Send flowers to the Fullers too.”

  The servant nodded, bowed and left.

  Leaving Lord Redmond and Marianne alone again.

  “Who is Lord Fuller?” Lord Redmond asked. Marianne could see that he was watching the servant walk away, with a frown.

  “A gentleman my mother hopes will make me a proposition of marriage.”

  His expression changed. Became less controlled. “And will you accept this proposition?”

  Marianne sighed. She felt tired. And this was a weighted question indeed. Her head still hurt from time to time, from her recent injury.

  “I do not know,” she answered, honestly. “He seems to be a good man, but I do not know him well enough to say whether I’d like him to be my husband just yet.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “You were saying that you wanted to be friends?” Marianne reminded him. She started walking back towards the house and he fell into step beside her.

  “Yes,” he said, though his voice was a little stiffer than before. “Yes, I would like that.”

  She nodded. “We can be friends, my Lord, if it pleases you.”

  “And does it please you?”

  She didn’t know and she wouldn’t lie to him. She looked at him and said, quietly, “I’m not sure yet, my Lord. In truth, I was left reeling after returning from Bath. I am not sure I have quite accepted that you were my Knight.”

  My Knight.

  It was a slip of the tongue, but it was too late to take back.

  “Reeling?” He echoed.

  She knew it could have many meanings and she was comfortable with that ambiguity. She didn’t want him to know that she’d been heartbroken, but she didn’t want him to think she hadn’t cared either.

  “It was a unique experience for me,” she explained, as vaguely as she could.

  “As it was for me.”

  As they walked, she smiled a little. “Isn’t it strange that we both hid our true selves for the very same reasons?”

  He smiled, but it looked almost bitter. “Very strange indeed. Can you imagine what might have happened if we’d been honest?”

  She lost her smile and looked at his face. He looked back at her and they both stopped walking.

  If they’d been honest… what would have happened? Could they have ever gone further? Been married? They were well-suited to each other in terms of rank.

  And if a Marquess had propositioned her, she was sure her mother would have allowed her to marry before Eliza. Despite her mother’s past stubbornness on that score.

  “Who knows what might have happened?” She said, in an empty voice. “Perhaps nothing would have changed.”

  “Perhaps,” he said, and nothing else.

  Chapter 15

  Lord Alexander Anthony Redmond, Marquess of Riversdale

  He’d been trying. Truly trying. He came everyday to see Eliza, taking her for walks around the garden. He assured himself that if her sister was so wonderful, Eliza must be cut from the same cloth.

  The apple did not fall far from the tree, in his experience.

  But he had not taken into account a crucial piece of information. Marianne and Eliza’s parents could not be more different.

  So while it seemed that Marianne may not have fallen far from her father’s tree, she had fallen very far indeed from her mother’s.

  Unfortunately, Eliza had not. In time he learned that the mother of the two sisters could be embittered, cold, self-absorbed and materialistic.

  She often smiled at him in such a way that she almost looked manic. It was like she didn’t know how to smile.

  But with Marianne and her husband, the Baroness was sharp and unforgiving. Alexander observed this in tense silence. It was on the tip of his tongue to say something. He had to. But etiquette kept him from doing so.

  He was a guest in their home.

  So he watched Marianne’s face. She was unflinching. She must be terribly used to being treated in such a way. So much so that it didn’t even seem to bother her.

  Worst of all, Eliza was just the same as her mother. And though their father seemed to be a true gentleman, with a kind temperament, he was so rarely around to support Marianne. Which left her to the whims of her sister and mother.

  Still, he tried to love Eliza. He told himself that her eagerness to make a good impression on him was making her insincere and it was backfiring. Underneath all those layers of materialism and vanity, there had to be some sweetness in her.

  “Are you nervous about the marriage?” Alexander asked, rather candidly, as they walked one afternoon.

  “Nervous?” Eliza shook her head. “Not in the least. Why should I be? I’m excited for it all to start.”

  He smiled. “What excites you most?”

  “The balls we’ll throw. The dances. The estate. I honestly couldn’t choose which excites me most.” She didn’t ask him what excited him most. At this point, nothing really did.

  But as he walked with her each day he would smile and laugh where appropriate. There was always a little stiffness in his lips, but he did his best not to let it show.

  After one particularly tiresome afternoon spent with her, he went to see Julius.

  “You look in a sour mood?” He remarked. He was lying across a sofa with his feet propped up on a stool. He was slouched back, reading the paper. He hadn’t even looked up at Alexander, but he’d known by the sound of his sudden entrance.

  “She is the most tiresome shrew I’ve ever known!” The words gushed out of him in a rush.

  Julius did not put his newspaper down. He peered over the top of it at Alexander, who stood with a heaving chest. Not from exertion, but from rage.

  “I suppose you are not talking about Lady Marianne.”

  Just hearing her name made his stomach do a flip. “This is about Lady Eliza.”

  “The gem of the Purcell family? What could she have possibly done to upset you?” His voice was thick with sarcasm, which Alexander didn’t appreciate.

  “For a start, she does not stop talking. And when she is talking, which is always, all she speaks of is the house and the grounds and dances and the stables.” He expelled an abrupt breath. �
��She has not asked me one question about myself, Julius.”

  His friend shook his head. The paper crinkled in his hands as he folded it and lay it down in his lap. “What did you expect? Did you think your father would choose an angel for you?”

  “I expected him to take into consideration her character, at the very least.”