The Wild Marquis

by Miranda Neville

  “I’ll wait up here until you’re finished,” he said, not giving up hope of his morning sport. The bed wasn’t that uncomfortable and he could take the unlumpy side.

  She turned from the chest of drawers where she’d been searching through her linens. “No,” she said, snatching his clothing from the floor and throwing it in his direction. “No one must suspect you’ve been here. I can’t risk it.”

  “Who are you expecting that is so important?”

  She managed to look self-conscious while attempting to step into a pair of drawers. “Mr. Gilbert. He wished to come before the auction today.”

  Gilbert. That prig.

  She pleaded with him as she tugged on her shift and worked on her front-fastening stays. “Please leave quickly. And be discreet about it. I hate to think what it would do to my reputation if you were seen leaving here.”

  “It may take me some time to find a hackney. Or I could send a linkboy for my carriage but I might have to wait half an hour or more.”

  “Could you hide around the corner?” she asked.

  “I suppose I could do that,” he said with a pout. “If it isn’t too chilly. Or raining.”

  He swung his legs over and sat naked on the edge of the bed. “Do you expect me to dress myself?”

  “Oh for God’s sake! I’ll help you.” She gave the laces on her corset a hasty tug, found his shirt and stockings, and flung them at him. “Can you at least manage these by yourself?”

  Her panic was changing to exasperation and he decided he’d tormented her enough. “Relax, my dear. I’m teasing you. Of course I’ll walk home. No one will find it odd to see me wandering around London in broad daylight wearing evening dress. And I don’t need your help getting dressed.”

  He could have told her he didn’t even employ a valet. He clothed himself, and Mel had found some “ladies” who knew how to keep a man’s wardrobe in good repair.

  “Fine,” she snapped.

  “Will I see you later?”

  “There’s nothing at the auction today that either of us wants.”

  “You wound me. I don’t just love you for your books.”

  “Very well,” she said with a harassed look. “Come at the end of the day, when I’m closing up.”

  The rap at the street door sounded barely ten minutes after Cain’s departure. Mr. Gilbert, it seemed, was a punctual man. Juliana opened the door to greet not Matthew Gilbert’s pleasantly refined face but Arthur Nutley’s fleshy one.

  “Arthur!” she exclaimed. She let him in out of the light drizzle, but grudgingly. His portly figure quivered as he wiped his feet on the doormat. She couldn’t help contrasting his appearance with Cain’s elegance. And wishing he’d leave. The presence of a respectable but undoubtedly common tradesman would hardly assist the image of refined scholarship she wished to project to Mr. Gilbert.

  “Good day, Juliana.”

  “What brings you here on such a dreary morning?” She suppressed her irritation and felt some compunction at her uncharitable thoughts. “Is all well?”

  “I am in good health, thank you. It is about you that I wish to speak.”

  There was something portentous in his tone. She hoped she wasn’t going to have to deal with a marriage proposal.

  “It’s kind of you to call. Won’t you come into the shop. I expect an important customer but I can give you a few minutes. If the matter isn’t urgent I’d rather wait.”

  “Chase?” The word came out in a hiss. “Is it Chase you expect?”

  Thank God! Cain must have got away from the neighborhood in time.

  “Are you seeing him again so soon after last night?”

  Juliana leaned against a bookcase, frozen with shock. Could Arthur possibly know?

  “That’s what I’ve come to talk about,” Arthur continued. “I know you came home in his carriage. Such intimacy can only damage your reputation.”

  She relaxed slightly. If Arthur knew exactly how far her “intimacy” with the marquis had progressed, he would surely have opened with that accusation. “Lord Chase was kind enough to offer his escort home from an evening party,” she said cautiously.

  Arthur’s frown deepened. “It would have been wiser not to accept. Word reached me early this morning that his carriage was seen at your door at an advanced hour.”

  One of her neighbors, likely the butcher’s busybody wife, must have seen it. It wouldn’t take long for the news to travel a few hundred yards to the Strand.

  “Really, Arthur,” she said, annoyance gaining the upper hand over fear. “I don’t know who has taken it upon themselves to report my private affairs, but I’d prefer they minded their own. I can assure you,” she added with a straight face, “Lord Chase behaved like a perfect gentleman.”

  “I know you better than to suspect you would allow otherwise. But it is not the first time His Lordship has called in the evening. Word will spread.”

  Unfortunately he spoke the truth. The community of merchants in the West End of London was every bit as tight-knit and gossipy as a small village, or the world of their upper-class patrons.

  Arthur hadn’t finished, of course. “The morals of successful tradesmen are not those of the aristocracy. I am aware that you were born to better things but you have chosen to make your life among us. Close relations with a nobleman of ill repute are unacceptable.”

  Juliana detected a threat in the statement. Arthur was hinting that should her reputation suffer from her association with Cain, he would no longer want to know her, let alone wed her. Well, there was one positive effect, she thought dryly.

  “It’s only business,” she said, attempting to mollify him, if only for the sake of her reputation in the neighborhood. “And most advantageous. I don’t intend any indiscretion.”

  Arthur accepted her statement as a sign of remorse and, unfortunately, took her hand in his own pudgy one. “As a woman, you are liable to make errors, and I am happy to be able to enlighten you. Delicacy has prevented me from retelling all of the marquis’s sins but perhaps it is better you should know. It pains me to inform you that the man resided for a while in a brothel.” The last word was uttered in a whisper.

  “My understanding is that he was very young.”

  “And since then he has maintained a string of mistresses,” Arthur added, clearly taken aback at her calm reaction to his revelation.

  “Shocking, I am sure, but surely common among young noblemen.”

  “Worst of all, he comes from one of the great families famous for piety and moral rectitude. I am not privy to the details but I have heard his late father, who was revered by all, dismissed him from his house for unspeakable acts of moral turpitude.”

  If by “unspeakable acts” he meant pleasuring a woman in bed, Juliana was in favor of them. But she couldn’t dismiss the warnings out of hand. As Arthur had pointed out, she had chosen to make her life among his kind and needed to live by their standards. The trouble was she couldn’t summon up the requisite indignation about Cain’s immorality. If she truly belonged to the merchant class she would think like a member of it. Which meant perhaps that she didn’t belong.

  She’d never really belonged anywhere.

  Matthew Gilbert entered the back room and added three more volumes to the already substantial pile of purchases.

  “May I offer you tea?” Juliana asked. “I took the opportunity of a quiet moment to run upstairs and boil a kettle.”

  Mr. Gilbert sank into a chair. “Thank you,” he said gratefully. “Your establishment is busy. Visitors require so much attention. It’s why I don’t maintain a shop but prefer to see people privately.”

  Juliana poured them both tea without mentioning that the morning’s half-dozen customers, all of whom she’d met the night before, were a delightful surprise. “Sugar?”

  “Please.” He took the offered cup and smiled with distinct approval. Juliana knew she looked her best today. For whatever reason she’d decided to forgo the unflattering bonnet-style cap. Instead
she wore a delicate lacy affair that merely perched on top of the head, her Sunday best from the days when Joseph was alive. She’d inserted enough pins that her hair had survived the morning without descending from its simple knot.

  “I’d like to show you my collection, but of course you can’t call at my house alone. My lady visitors are always chaperoned.” Gilbert disdained words such as stock and customer. A gentleman bookseller was as much an aberration as a female one.

  “How did you find yourself in our profession?” she asked, upgrading it from a mere trade.

  “After I came down from Cambridge I was employed as secretary to Sir Humphrey Warburton.” She nodded. Warburton was an important collector as well as a prominent Member of Parliament. “I found myself spending most of my time in the library, and in the end he took on another man to do his parliamentary work. I found book collecting much more engaging than politics. I discovered a certain talent for bibliophilia and as time went by I acted for some of Sir Humphrey’s fellow collectors, particularly after the Duke of Roxburghe’s sale.”

  “That must have been thrilling. I wish I had been there. The Tarleton sale promises to be just as remarkable.”

  “I recall many happy hours in Sir Humphrey’s library, talking about books with his friends. I have tried to emulate the atmosphere in my own house. I hope you will join one of my gatherings. When other ladies are present of course.”

  “I’d enjoy that. I have my own memories of such conversations, with my guardian Mr. Fitterbourne and Mr. Birch.”

  “Mr. Birch of Salisbury? An excellent bookman. I was sorry to hear of his passing. I understand your late husband was employed as his assistant.”

  “When Mr. Birch’s nephew elected to take over the business Joseph decided to set up his own establishment.” She didn’t add that he couldn’t have done it without her fortune.

  Gilbert held out his cup to be refilled and regarded her earnestly. “I would like to assist you now that you are alone in the world. Sir Henry Tarleton feels the same way.”

  Juliana looked down and made a play of stirring her tea. Surely she didn’t imagine that he was looking at her with more than impersonal sympathy. “I can’t imagine why,” she said. “You must be aware of the former rivalry, indeed enmity, between my guardian and Sir Thomas Tarleton.”

  “I believe Sir Henry wishes to make recompense for his uncle’s past behavior. In fact it was he who suggested you might take on his representation. Have you given it any further thought?”

  “I would be honored. But I feel my first commitment is to Lord Chase.”

  Gilbert appeared displeased.

  “But I will speak to Sir Henry and see how far his requirements conflict with Lord Chase’s,” she added quickly.

  “As I said before, it would be very much to your advantage. He will be a contender for some important items.” He lowered his voice. “Including the Burgundy Hours.”

  “Really, how remarkable,” she said blandly.

  “So you see, my dear Mrs. Merton, you stand to do much better with Tarleton than buying a few plays with indelicate titles for the marquis.” He’d apparently been paying more attention to her purchases than he’d previously admitted. “And let me be frank. Further association with Chase can only damage your standing, perhaps even your reputation. I know well of what I speak. A lady on her own cannot be too careful.”

  Gilbert was sending her the same message as Arthur had done: leave Chase alone or suffer the consequences. And Gilbert’s warning carried far more weight. He was at the peak of her chosen profession.

  She couldn’t help but be flattered, of course. If she read him correctly, the gentleman bookseller was cautiously expressing interest in a closer relationship. Who would have thought that two men would be interested in marrying Joseph Merton’s humble widow?

  Inwardly she sighed, and wondered whether the princes in fairy tales had been so inclined to dominate their princesses. Not that Arthur was prince material. Neither could she imagine the staid Mr. Gilbert riding around on a white charger and fighting dragons.

  Cain looked the part. But he’d pretty much admitted he was no prince. For a start, he had no interest in matrimony. On the other hand he didn’t insist on telling a woman what to do. And he made her feel awfully good.

  As he drove around town, Cain pondered his unprecedented shortage of lust the previous night. Never, as far as he could recall, had he not been ready for a second, indeed a third, helping. In his distant youth, let loose in a brothel that seemed like heaven to a sixteen-year-old lad, he’d been up for six or seven. And the friendly whores, like angels to his innocent eyes, had been willing to oblige. Once he learned the ugly truth about their lives his amours had been conducted in more decorous circumstances, though with equal enthusiasm.

  It wasn’t as though he didn’t want Juliana. He wanted her very much. Thankfully this morning’s exchange, though frustrating, had relieved his anxiety that he had been struck with premature senility.

  Dwelling on his family threatened his unabashed pursuit of pleasure. Perhaps he should abandon this notion of finding a way to change his mother’s mind. His childhood had been joyless enough. Why would he want it back?

  It wasn’t as though he was making much progress. Yes, he’d discovered Tarleton was a blackmailer. The collector must have learned, or at least suspected, that the famous lost manuscript belonged to the Godfrey family. He must have come to the Abbey and used some threatened scandal to make the late marquis sell him, or give him, the Burgundy Hours. The event might even have hastened Cain’s father’s descent into insanity.

  But Cain had no clue what knowledge Tarleton possessed to hold over the late Lord Chase’s head. And not a single idea how to find it.

  As for Esther, she was better off at home. Life at Markley Chase might not be enjoyable, but his sister was safe and well cared for. Their mother had always loved her daughter best.

  Meanwhile Cain had a brand-new mistress who was in crying need of better living quarters, a new wardrobe, and his own intimate attention.

  Not certain how Juliana defined “the end of day,” Cain settled on four o’clock. He’d meant to wait till five but hadn’t the patience. Thankfully she was alone. She came to meet him in the front room, looking good enough to eat, despite the resumption of her widow’s weeds.

  He couldn’t wait to get beneath them again.

  The new cap was an improvement. If this evidence of a relaxed sartorial standard could be laid at his door, he looked forward to extending his influence.

  He found her averted eyes endearing. Shyness the day after wasn’t the normal reaction of his bedmates. Most of them had been professional, or at least bold.

  “Not here.” She dodged his attempt at an embrace. “The butcher’s wife across the road is always spying on me.”

  He glanced over his shoulder at the grimy windows and turned back with a quizzical look. “She won’t be able to see a thing.”

  “I think she can see through stone walls.”

  Placing his hand on the small of her back he nudged her toward the back room, and she allowed herself to be guided. He turned her to face him and caressed her shoulders and collarbones, sensing the delicate bone structure beneath the unforgiving black cloth. He watched as her mossy green eyes, which had been wary, even troubled, grew soft under his gaze. Her lips parted.

  “I missed you today,” he whispered against her mouth. And felt her tongue emerge like a timid fawn to taste him.

  Invitation enough. Drawing her close he accepted her summons to a deep, satisfying kiss. Any lingering fear of impotence was dispersed by his own reaction.

  “Let’s go upstairs,” he murmured.

  She pulled back, eyes wide. “At this hour?”

  As far as he was concerned the hour had nothing to do with it. Juliana still had a lot to learn.

  “Yes, now. You were beautiful last night and a repetition can’t come too soon for me.”

  “Someone could come in at any moment
. I’ve had lots of customers today.” She didn’t move from his embrace but he sensed her mental withdrawal.

  “Very well, later,” he said. “When we return.”

  “Are we going somewhere?”

  “I have a surprise for you.”

  Her face lit up. “Is there a book you want me to see?”

  Juliana’s mind tended to run in a certain direction. Right now it traveled a whole different road from his own.

  “That wasn’t what I had in mind,” he whispered, his lips against her ear. “Are you sure we can’t go upstairs?” His breath and tongue followed the words, delivered with the sensual urgency that had seduced scores of women.

  She pulled away from his contact, though an increase in her rate of breathing told him she wasn’t unaffected. “Customers,” she said wildly. “Paying customers.”

  Definitely not unaffected.

  “When can we leave?” he asked.

  “Why don’t you tell me where you want to take me?”

  “Not very far. You’ll be able to walk there in ten minutes. I found the ideal place—convenient for you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Since you don’t want to wait for your surprise, I’ll tell you. I’ve found you a house.”

  “A house? What for?” She sounded bewildered.

  “To live in of course.”

  “But I live here.”

  “I’m offering you something much better. Wouldn’t you like to live in a warm, spacious, comfortable house?”

  Juliana appeared to be speechless. With delight, he hoped.

  “And with servants to look after you,” he continued. “You shouldn’t have to cook and clean for yourself.”

  She didn’t seem delighted. “I do very well as I am.”

  “But your rooms are horrid. You can’t wish to live in such a pokey little place.”

  “I’m sorry they don’t please you but they are all I can afford,” she said stiffly.

  “Of course I would settle all the bills. You don’t need to work at all unless you want to. Put on your bonnet and let’s go.”