My Wicked Marquess

by Gaelen Foley

  Max smiled at his longtime servant in amused appreciation. “Good, then. For Lord knows, I shall have my work cut out for me.”

  “With the Edgecombes, sir?”

  “With the girl,” he said with a wince. “Afraid I’ve got some repair work to do.”

  “Already?” Dodsley asked indignantly.

  Max just sighed.

  Daphne did not leave the Strand for another half an hour. With her worried servants looking on, she paced anxiously, waiting for the magistrate’s men to return with word of her mysterious rescuer—at least to find out if the gang had murdered him.

  She was eager to learn his identity, but when the old watchman returned, he told her they had found no such person on the scene, just a dozen low thugs nursing bloody noses, bruised ribs, and a couple of nasty gashes.

  The other officers had made a few arrests for disorderly conduct, and had gone to haul their prisoners off before the magistrate; but in typical Bucket Lane style, no one admitted seeing anything.

  Nobody had anything to say.

  This news left Daphne even more distressed. While it might mean the lunatic lord had escaped, it could just as easily suggest that they had already killed him and stashed his body someplace. He had been so badly outnumbered.

  The officers had made a cursory search of the pub and the brothel’s first floor, but they could not scour the other buildings on that dark and dingy lane until they came back with a warrant. Even the Bucket Street gang had their rights.

  “I’m sure he must have got away, whoever he was,” William said with a worried glance from the driver’s seat of the gig as the three of them finally headed back to South Kensington on the green and pleasant outskirts of London.

  “The main point is, we did the right thing,” Wilhelmina chimed in.

  “Oh, what if he was killed?”

  “I should think, miss, that when a gentleman goes to a place like that, he must know what he’s in for, surely. He had no cause to provoke them like he did.”

  “I think he was trying to help us.” She turned to her maid in distress. “You know, to lure them off!”

  “I think so, too,” William admitted with a grim look. “Even foxed like that, a gentleman knows what he must do to help a lady.”

  “God!” Daphne whispered, sickened to think she might have got a man murdered today. Equally disturbing was the thought of what might have happened to them if he had not come stumbling out of that brothel when he did.

  “Now, miss, ye must have faith,” her footman offered stoutly when he saw her stricken face. “I know what our old mum would say—the angels looks after fools and drunks and children.”

  She gave him a look of gratitude, then she shook her head. “Still, I cannot help wondering who he was.”

  “Maybe he’ll be at the Edgecombe ball,” Wilhelmina spoke up with a simple shrug.

  Daphne suddenly stared at her.

  “Aye, if he is highborn, why not?” her brother agreed.

  Daphne absorbed this in wonder, but even as the notion filled her with wild thrill, she had no idea how she would react if she spotted that handsome maniac in the ballroom.

  The thought was so unsettling that she put it aside. “I implore you both to forgive me,” she said with a chastened glance from one twin to the other. “I had no right to risk your safety, no matter how noble the cause.”

  “Ah, ’tis no matter, miss. All’s well that ends well,” William said as the gig glided to a halt before the Starlings’ large stone villa.

  “Thank you. You both are so good to me. Um…” Daphne hesitated, turning back to them with a sudden afterthought. “There is no need to mention this, er, unfortunate incident to Lord or Lady Starling, is there?”

  The twins exchanged a firm but uneasy glance.

  “No, miss,” her maid replied. “But we will not go back there.” The stubborn looks on both their faces told her they meant business.

  Not overly surprised at this rebellion considering all she had asked of them already, Daphne dropped her gaze. “Fair enough.” She’d have to figure something out for next week.

  They all went inside, and were immediately engulfed in all the usual clamor of home: the pounding of the pianoforte as Sarah banged away dutifully at the keys, while Anna went romping down the corridor amid raucous laughter, tormenting the cat.

  Daphne’s stepsisters, the two young, coddled, boisterous Amazons, ages fourteen and twelve, were the products of the once-widowed Penelope’s previous marriage to a navy captain.

  “Anna, where’s Papa?” she called after the younger girl, now dangling poor Whiskers.

  “Upstairs!”

  Daphne nodded, then paused, glanced in the parlor on her way, where footman Davis’s labors were evident in the newly rearranged furniture. Her eyes widened suddenly as she saw Mama’s old pianoforte now positioned on the wrong wall. Sarah stopped playing and looked over. “I hate this song! It’s too hard! What are you staring at?”

  “Your mother moved the piano,” she said softly.

  “What do you care? You never play it anymore.” Sarah huffed and changed to an easier piece, then resumed her banging.

  Daphne shook her head and moved on. Maybe she’d have been better off marrying Albert, if it meant getting out of this madhouse. She parted ways with the Willies in the entrance hall as they all went about their business.

  Still shaken up by their brush with danger, Daphne longed for a moment of her father’s company. He always made her feel calmer, and she wanted to let him know she was back. He was not in his cluttered library, so she sought him upstairs, moving lightly as she took off her bonnet and gloves.

  As she neared the master chamber on the upper floor, however, she slowed her pace with a sinking feeling, already hearing Penelope browbeating Papa again through their cracked bedroom door.

  Once more, it seemed Daphne’s refusal of Albert was the cause of their marital strife. She winced, knowing she had made her peaceable father’s life more difficult.

  “Honestly, George, you are too sentimental by half! When is she going to grow up? All little birdies have to leave the nest eventually!”

  “My dear woman, why do you work yourself into these tizzies? You know that I require a tranquil household.”

  “Oh, George, you’ve got to do something about her!”

  “Do what, dear?” he countered wearily.

  “Find the girl a husband! If you don’t, I will!”

  “You already tried that, Pen. I don’t think it warrants a repeat,” he said archly.

  “Well, it will take a fearless gentleman indeed to brave her scorn after her latest refusal! That’s three suitors now she’s rejected!”

  Oh, you can’t even count those other two, Daphne thought with a scowl as she leaned quietly against the wall outside their bedroom—not eavesdropping, mind you, just waiting for the right moment to make her presence known.

  “George, you’ve heard the talk. People are beginning to say she is a jilt.”

  “You mustn’t listen to gossip, my dear. When the right fellow comes along, she’ll know. We all will know.”

  “I hope you’re right, or she is going to end up a spinster.”

  “Nonsense. She is far too beautiful for that.”

  Oh, Papa. Daphne fought a smile and leaned her head against the wall, still grateful to him from the depths of her soul for not forcing her to marry Albert in spite of Penelope’s pressure.

  Penelope had all but accepted Albert’s offer on her behalf, but thankfully, Daphne’s frantic arguments over the match had roused her vague and distant papa from his waking slumber for once. At last, he had heard her plea not to be handed over to that spoiled cad.

  Good old George, Lord Starling, had ambled over to White’s, his club and second home whenever he needed to escape the drama of an all-female residence, and had quietly taken Lord Albert Carew’s measure for himself.

  Papa had returned promptly with his judgment. It was rare for him to make a show o
f strength, but when he did, he was as immovable as Gibraltar: “No. I will not have my daughter tied to that shallow, empty-headed coxcomb. I am sorry, Penelope. He will not do. Not for my little girl.”

  Daphne had been overjoyed, and had hugged her father tearfully. Having spoken, Papa retreated once more into his pleasant, unassailable fog.

  As for Penelope, losing her little game had sharpened her spite. To be sure, she had made her husband pay for it every day since then.

  “Try not to show so much favoritism, George,” she said in withering reproach. “My daughters might not be as pretty yet as your golden girl, but they will blossom in due course. Lud, you’re lucky you married me before you had spoiled Daphne entirely,” she added. “You already indulge her far too much as it is.”

  He does not. Glancing discreetly through the angle of the open door, she caught a glimpse of her stepmother pacing. Penelope Higgins Peckworth Starling was a woman of formidable energies, capable of doing many things at once.

  She was small and dark-haired, in her early fifties, but the strain of her existence as a navy wife before she had married Papa was written in the lines on her tense face, pursed mouth, and the excitable temper reflected in her always worried, darting eyes.

  Daphne often wondered if part of Captain Peckworth’s fighting spirit had remained behind in his widow, for she certainly ran a tight ship and loved giving orders, but one wrong word could flare up a war.

  Sometimes Daphne felt sorry for her, because it was plain that Penelope had never really settled into her new, vastly raised station as a viscountess. Some in Society might make her feel unworthy, but her lower birth had never mattered to Papa.

  As a couple, the two could not have been more opposite. Papa was as easygoing as Penelope was high-strung.

  An English gentleman down to his fingertips, Viscount Starling was so secure in his well-aged title and considerable fortune that he had never been particularly impressed by others’ rank or wealth, or put off by the lack of either. He took people as they came, and had taught Daphne to do likewise.

  “Truly, George, I shall never understand why you did not insist that she marry Lord Albert! Think of the advantage he could have brought to our family! He is a second son—if the elder brother dies, she might have had a chance to be a duchess!”

  “Penelope, for heaven’s sake! Young Holyfield may not look much of a duke, but certainly, he is alive and well.”

  “Alive, yes, but I’d hardly call him well. Poor, frail, pasty little poppet. I swear he is consumptive! I’m sure Lord Albert would have made a far more splendid duke than his elder brother, in any case. Oh, but it’s past worrying over now. The chance is lost!”

  “The chance to have my daughter profit by some poor fellow’s death?” Lord Starling asked dryly at his second wife’s dramatics. “Come, Penelope. Daphne saw through that arrogant buffoon from the start, and now that Lord Albert has shown his true colors, spreading these rumors about her, I applaud my daughter’s wisdom all the more.”

  “The rumors—oh, George!—you aren’t thinking of calling him out?” Penelope declared with a sudden gasp.

  Daphne’s eyes widened.

  “Woman, don’t be daft!” he said dismissively. “I’m much too old for that. Besides, no Starling lord has ever engaged in silly duels.”

  “Good! I just hope you will not rue the way you have let her run wild.”

  “Wild?” he echoed in a quizzical tone. “My Daphne? The girl does not have a wild bone in her body. Daphne is a lady, through and through.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Penelope snapped. “You reproach me because I never went to a finishing school!”

  “No, no—”

  “Just because I am not as highborn as your first wife does not make me or my daughters count for less—”

  “My dear, I meant nothing of the kind!”

  “Well, if by ‘a lady’ you are referring to your daughter’s expensive mode of life, I cannot disagree with you on that point. We cannot afford her, George! We have to find the girl a rich husband who can pay for all these ball gowns and party dresses, theater gowns and fripperies and modistes! And then there is her charity! She gives half of our money away to the poor!”

  “Now, now, there you go, exaggerating again. It’s only gold, anyway.”

  “Only gold?” she cried, aghast. “Oh, but you have never known poverty, George.” She let out a sudden sob, and it sounded surprisingly genuine. “I know that we will end up in the poorhouse!”

  “Tut, tut, my dear, there is no need for tears.” Through the doorway, Daphne saw her gray-haired papa go over to his wife and embrace her fondly. “I know you suffered much after Captain Peckworth died, but those days are long behind you now. I promise, you and the girls are quite safe. Come, now. I told you not to worry. Markets go down, but they always go back up again. We will be just fine.”

  “Yes, I know, but—oh, my nerves cannot take it, George! Truly, they cannot!”

  “Let me send for one of the servants to bring you some tea.”

  “They’re all useless.” Penelope sniffled. “Very well.”

  Realizing her father was about to come out of the room, Daphne swiftly withdrew into her own chamber a few doors down the hallway. Embarrassed by their discussion of her, she waited there until he had passed. After all, she did not wish to be accused of spying.

  After a moment, she leaned her forehead against the closed door, not knowing what to think about Penelope’s claims that they were running short of funds.

  She knew her father had lost money in the great stock market plunge that had caught all London off guard right after the Battle of Waterloo, but he kept saying everything was fine, so why was she left feeling guilty?

  If Papa wasn’t going to come out and be honest with the family about their situation, then what was she to do? Read his mind? He was her father, and she had been raised to accept his word as law. If Papa said everything was fine, then she would take him at his word.

  If it was not—if there was a problem—then he had better speak up in plain English. He knows that I don’t play these sorts of games.

  In any case, it was no great mystery whom she intended to marry, anyway—Jonathon White, her dearest friend—when she was good and ready, and not one minute sooner.

  Jono and she had been as inseparable as the two Willies were since they both were knee-high to a bumblebee.

  Now that they were grown, it was true that Jonathon cared a bit too much for fashion and could not arrive on time at an event to save his life, but he was always droll and agreeable, a nice-looking fellow with beautiful manners and a dashing sense of style. Like Papa, he would never duel.

  Above all, he was much too smart ever to try to tell Daphne Starling what to do. On the contrary, he had been content to follow her lead and to obey her wiser-headed orders since they were five years old.

  Most importantly of all, unlike Albert, Jono knew she was a human being. He treated her with respect, and in turn, she trusted him implicitly. They were two peas in a pod.

  She had been keeping a little distance from Jonathon lately, however, merely to keep him out of the line of fire of the Carew brothers.

  With a sigh, she turned and leaned her back against the door. At once, across the bedchamber, she saw her delicious new white ball gown hanging on the door peg of her closet in anticipation of the Edgecombe ball.

  She gazed at it for a long moment.

  It had just returned from the modiste’s shop with the final alterations. The sight of it reminded her afresh of the coming confrontation with Albert.

  The Edgecombe ball tomorrow night would be the first time since she had refused his offer of marriage that they would have to face each other publicly.

  She had it on good information that he was going to be there. Daphne intended to have a word with the cad and hopefully put a stop for once and for all to his petty carping against her good name. She was not looking forward to this.

  It was
not her way to become embroiled in ugly public fights with anyone, but enough was enough.

  He was making a fool of himself in all this, and really, what did he want her to do?

  For heaven’s sake, she had tried to make the disappointment easier on him. Out of courtesy to him, and for modesty’s sake, she had stayed out of Society for a whole fortnight after his frankly embarrassing proposal.

  The horrid fop had barely looked at her throughout the ordeal, watching himself coyly in the mirror behind the sofa where she had sat, smiling at himself in the reflection, that golden-haired beau of the ton.

  Daphne had nearly gagged on his attempt to kiss her, but somehow she had found the words to decline so great an honor. He had not taken it well. In fact, he had promised that she would be sorry before storming out.

  After that, she had been careful to avoid running into him in Town. But no longer would she stand by and let him keep working to turn people against her.

  But if tomorrow night was, indeed, to be battle, she had chosen her armor well. The exquisite, simple gown was made of the most tender crepe silk that she had ever touched, and it fit perfectly.

  With all eyes on her—and not for the reasons a girl might hope—she knew that she would need to look impeccable. Appearances were all that mattered to Society, anyway, and in this gown, she could be confident that at least she’d look her best.

  Beyond the perfect dress, she had no real strategy in mind but to be her usual easygoing self and show the ton that she was fine and everything was normal.

  If Albert gave her any trouble, she knew she need not even make a scene. A few subtle comments delivered with a smile should be enough, she trusted, to cast his backbiting in a whole new, foolish light.

  All was not lost. She was confident she could still turn her situation around. Admittedly, it was ironic to find herself in this position after she had been so conscientious about her behavior all her life.

  In honor of her mother’s memory, she had tried at all times to conduct herself like the perfect lady.

  Fortunately, she had faith that some good always came from even the most difficult challenges. For example, this whole episode was a valuable lesson in finding out who her real friends were.