Miss Marianne's Disgrace

by Georgie Lee

  ‘Maybe what you need isn’t a new novel, but a rich wife.’ She slid him a brazen glance from beneath her long eyelashes, inviting him to come closer like a siren eager to dash him against the rocks. If she wrecked him, it would be no one’s fault but his own. He only hoped the destruction waited until he was done with his next novel.

  ‘I’m not so mercenary about marriage and not about to live off a wife, especially not after everything I’ve done to achieve what I have.’ He opened his hands to the room and the very house around them. ‘My request is nothing more than a business arrangement, not a ridiculous courting ruse.’

  ‘Good, because I have no interest in a husband.’ At least they held similar views on matrimony, though it saddened more than heartened him. She was alone and isolating herself further from the world. It wasn’t right. ‘I also have no desire to become the talk of the countryside because of this proposed arrangement and the attention my connection to a famous author might bring.’

  ‘Then we won’t tell anyone about it, beyond those who must absolutely know. My mother will act as chaperon.’

  ‘Even if we tried to keep it a secret, people will find out, they always do. Then what’ll happen? Lady Ellington has spent a great deal of time and effort trying to rebuild my reputation. She won’t throw it away by consenting to something as ridiculous as this.’

  * * *

  ‘I think it’s a lovely idea.’ Lady Ellington clapped her hands together, making her many gold bracelets jingle on her arm.

  ‘I do too,’ Mrs Steven concurred, exchanging a happy smile with her guest.

  Marianne gaped at them. They’ve all gone mad.

  ‘I don’t think you understand what he’s asking for?’ Marianne stuttered, still not sure what he’d requested. He wanted her to play for him on his marvellous Érard while he worked in the next room, to inspire him. It seemed simple, but it wasn’t and she was the only one who appeared to see it.

  ‘It would be lovely to have your music filling this dreary house,’ Mrs Stevens added. ‘All the dark wood and wrought iron is rather oppressive.’

  ‘Mother,’ Sir Warren groaned. He stood beside Marianne, Lancelot at his side.

  ‘It’s true. Miss Domville’s playing would cheer it up and give me something besides the workmen to listen to all day.’

  Sir Warren levelled his hand at his mother while pleading with Marianne, ‘See, I’m not the only one who needs your talent.’

  ‘I didn’t say I’d stay all day, or at all,’ Marianne reminded him, tripping over the word ‘need’. It was the second time he’d said it, but it didn’t make it any less awkward to hear than mangled French. People scorned her, they rarely needed her.

  ‘Nonsense, you spend hours at my pianoforte at home. Why not do it here?’ Lady Ellington steepled her fingers and touched them to her lips in amused scrutiny. ‘Say you will, my dear. I’d so love to have your beautiful compositions heard by others.’

  Marianne shook her head at Lady Ellington, warning her off further mention of the compositions. If she decided to play for Sir Warren, she certainly wouldn’t bring those. She refused to stumble through wrong notes and odd stanzas or reveal her failings, and a good measure of herself through her music while he sat in the next room. No, she wouldn’t come here and all she had to do was say so and it would end the matter, but the words wouldn’t come out. She’d stood firm against Madame de Badeau’s selection of suitors and the woman’s more demeaning demands. Why couldn’t she simply say ‘no’ to this?

  Because of Sir Warren. She studied him from the corner of her eye, hesitant to face him straight on. He stroked the top of the dog’s head, his ink-stained fingers ruffling the red fur. The relaxed gesture didn’t hide his eagerness for her answer or settle the anxiousness in his green eyes. His talent was his sanctuary, just like hers, and he was afraid of losing it. She understood. The summer Madame de Badeau had plucked her from the Smiths’ house and dropped her unprepared in London, Marianne’s fingers had grown stiff, the keys awkward beneath her hands. The beautiful notes which had always comforted her had faded under the pressure of Madame de Badeau’s screeching insults and the lecherous leers of her male visitors. The temporary loss of her talent had been more terrifying than when she’d left France with Madame de Badeau, then a stranger to her, or during her first few days with the Smiths. Without it, she was nothing.

  ‘Well, Miss Domville, what do you say?’ Sir Warren pressed, ending the long silence punctuated by the rough laughter of workmen overhead.

  Marianne turned the gold ring on her small finger. He didn’t need her. In time, his talent would return just like hers had when she and Madame de Badeau had settled into a tolerable hatred of one another. She should stop making herself so available or vulnerable to Sir Warren. It had already caused enough trouble and this was inviting more. She’d seen too much of gentlemen and their appetites at Madame de Badeau’s to trust Sir Warren’s motives to be purely innocent. However, he was offering her more than a tryst, fine dresses and a house in Mayfair, but a sense of purpose. To play for him was to use her music for something other than escaping the loneliness which swathed her, but to inspire a story, maybe even one better than Lady Matilda’s.

  It was dangerous and wrong to agree to this, but she’d caught the torment of his past in Lady Matilda’s tale, the one he’d been willing to put aside to protect her. Sir Warren wasn’t just overcoming his time in the Navy, but trying to excise it from his life. He couldn’t do it without his work and she couldn’t leave him to suffer without the thing which had sustained him through all his difficulties. It would make her as cruel and unfeeling as her mother and she’d vowed never to be like that witch.

  * * *

  Lady Ellington’s carriage pulled away from Priorton Abbey, leaving Sir Warren and Mrs Stevens standing in the drive. Marianne crossed her ankles beneath her dress, refusing to peer out of the back window at the man.

  What in heaven’s name did I just agree to?

  ‘I don’t know how this won’t result in a scandal.’

  ‘What if it does? We’ve weathered them before, we’ll weather them again.’ Her companion rarely fretted about stories, but she’d never been this cavalier either. It, and Lady Ellington smiling from across the carriage as if she’d just purchased a new diamond ring, made Marianne suspicious.

  ‘What are you about?’ Marianne demanded, not sure what to be more irked about, her inability to refuse Sir Warren’s request or Lady Ellington’s encouragement of it.

  ‘Nothing.’ Lady Ellington snapped open her fan and waved it in front of her face. The warm October day was a surprise after the previous cooler ones. ‘Except, I’ve always said your music shouldn’t be hidden away.’

  ‘Priorton Abbey isn’t a concert hall.’

  ‘But from here who knows where you may go? Perhaps to Paris now all this business with Napoleon is at an end, or even Vienna.’

  ‘Are you eager to be rid of me?’ Everyone else, especially the Smiths, had been quick to distance themselves from her when the scandal with Madame de Badeau had broken. At some point Lady Ellington and the Falconbridges would grow tired of shielding her too, especially if gossip about this silly arrangement between her and Sir Warren lit up the countryside.

  ‘Of course not, my dear. I adore you, but you need a life of your own, to have friends your age.’

  ‘Theresa is my age,’ though in reality she hadn’t seen her in quite some time. Theresa’s contentment made Marianne’s lack of it more stark and it was hard for her to be near her friend.

  ‘And I adore her, but she’s a wife and mother now. You need to be around other young people who wish to enjoy their time before those sorts of responsibilities come about, friends who will help you be frivolous once in a while instead of so serious. It won’t happen in my sitting room.’

  ‘But you think it’ll happen at P
riorton, with Sir Warren?’ With the medieval swords and armour hanging on the walls, frivolous was not a word she would use to describe the old priory.

  ‘No, he’s a touch too serious. I’ve read his books and some of his battle scenes are quite dreadful, but at thirty he is closer to your age than I am.’

  Marianne leaned back against the squabs and peered out of the carriage window. On a rise in the distance stood Falconbridge Manor. The light stone of its columns was stately against the forest of red-and-orange leaves behind it. This summer, Marianne had been more agitated than a sparrow hopping around a garden, bored with the endless quiet days. Lady Ellington was right, Welton Place was no longer enough. It didn’t mean Sir Warren was the answer to her dilemma, or she the answer to his, no matter what he might claim. The man was famous and the attention paid to him would magnify her notoriety when all she sought was to disappear into obscurity. A connection to her would also taint him.

  ‘Why would a man like Sir Warren, whose livelihood depends on the good opinion of everyone, want to entangle himself in all my scandals?’

  ‘Because he’s taken an interest in you.’

  Marianne fingered the manuscript resting in her lap, refusing to entertain the hope Lady Ellington’s observation sparked inside her. The day she decided she wanted a man it would be for a sensible reason like companionship or a travelling partner, not for something as foolhardy as desire. ‘Because he thinks I can benefit him, or he wants my money like Lord Bolton and all the rest. It’s the only reason any man would risk tying himself to me.’

  ‘My dear, you think you’re an expert on gentlemen from your time in London, but I assure you, you’ve learned all the wrong things from all the wrong sorts.’

  She wondered what sort Sir Warren was. He’d been no different in admiring her breasts than any other man, simply more discreet about it. She adjusted the fine silk covering her generous cleavage, for the first time thankful she wasn’t one of those flat-chested women she saw near the walls at dances. When his eyes had flicked down, she’d wanted to remove the chemisette and not smack him for his insolence. It wasn’t her usual reaction.

  ‘Even if I go there every day, what you’re hoping for won’t happen. He made sure to tell me he isn’t interested in marrying.’ His announcement had bothered her as much as her inability to refuse his request. Was it marriage he was against, or just marriage to her?

  ‘You can’t believe everything a man says,’ Lady Ellington dismissed with a wave of her bejewelled hand. ‘Randall was quite adamant about never marrying and now he and Cecelia are happily wed.’

  Lord and Lady Falconbridge had fallen in love in their youth. Despite a separation of ten years and the entire Atlantic ocean, they’d found one another again, thanks, in no small part, to Lady Ellington’s involvement. Now, it appeared the Dowager Countess was attempting to throw Marianne and Sir Warren together. If so, she was wasting her time. Marianne didn’t share her companion’s faith in love. For all the poets’ writings about motherly love, Madame de Badeau hadn’t been able to conjure up enough concern to even admit to being Marianne’s mother, much less care for her. She doubted any sweeping ardour would change Sir Warren’s stance on matrimony, not while he was struggling to save his house and his career, unless landing a rich wife was his intention, but she was sure it wasn’t. Despite the outrageousness of his suggestion, nothing he’d told her today had been false, unlike all the ‘confidences’ Lord Bolton had tried to share with her, most of which had been in his breeches.

  ‘Sir Warren may not be interested in marriage, but he must know a number of young gentlemen who are. It is to your benefit to become better acquainted with him.’

  Marianne wasn’t so convinced, but if Lady Ellington saw an advantage to this arrangement, then perhaps Marianne should too. This could be her chance to at last capture something of the normal life every other young lady in the county enjoyed, assuming their time together didn’t create more problems for them both. It might, depending on whose notoriety more powerfully influenced whose.

  She opened and closed her gloved fingers, wishing she were home and at the keyboard. She needed the calm of the ivory to better view this situation clearly. Sir Warren had cajoled her into this arrangement with flattery and a small measure of guilt. It didn’t mean she’d allow herself to believe there was anything more to the arrangement than his need to write another book. She’d play for him, uphold her end of the agreement and nothing more. After all, once he realised she was a liability rather than an asset, he’d drop her like a hot stone. His loss of interest would sting less if she maintained her distance.

  Chapter Five

  Marianne finished the Mozart and began a Haydn. She glanced over her shoulder at the open door between the music room and Sir Warren’s study, wondering if he was listening. No one else was. As fast as Mrs Stevens had ushered Marianne in to the Érard this morning, she’d rushed out, pleading all sorts of responsibilities while assuring Marianne she’d be down the hall listening.

  Shirking her chaperon duties is more like it.

  Marianne brought her fingers down hard on the low notes. She hardly needed anyone hovering over her since Sir Warren had yet to make his appearance. If it wasn’t for the jingle of Lancelot’s collar whenever the dog scratched himself she wouldn’t even know Sir Warren was in the next room, much less the house.

  She slid her fingers along the keys and into the treble clef.

  Good. I’m here for us to work, not to converse.

  Except he was the only one working. She was playing pieces she could perform in her sleep while her own compositions remained neglected at home. For all the effort Sir Warren was making to find inspiration, she hoped he was getting it. She still wasn’t certain what she was gaining from the bargain other than a reason to leave Welton Place every day.

  Playing two higher notes, she leaned back on the bench again, trying once more to see around the corner into the other room. All she caught was the wall of bookcases and the spiral staircase leading up to the balcony.

  ‘Are you looking for me?’

  Years of practice kept her from missing the next succession of notes. She turned the other way to catch Sir Warren striding in through the main door, the dog trotting beside him, smacking his jaws as if just roused from sleep.

  She trilled the keys faster before forcing herself to slow down, but she couldn’t stop watching his approach. He moved with the erect discipline of an officer, his gait steady and smooth. He was without his coat again and a glimpse of his smooth chest was just visible beneath the open V of his shirt under his loose cravat. She peered at it, trying to see if his chest held the same hint of a seaman’s tan which graced his face and the backs of his hands. She wondered what his darker skin would look like against the lighter skin of her thighs or her stomach.

  ‘Why did you sneak up on me?’ she retorted, playing the bass notes hard, as rattled by her lurid turn of thoughts as his unannounced arrival.

  ‘I didn’t sneak up. I walked in.’ He stood beside the piano and rested his elbow on the corner near the stand. She wrinkled her nose at how the weight of his body changed the tone of the piece. It made it deeper when it was supposed to be much lighter. He straightened off the instrument. ‘You don’t want me to listen?’

  She shrugged, never losing the pace of the concerto. ‘You may if you like.’

  ‘Good.’ He leaned on the case again and she frowned. She’d have to stand over him the next time he wrote and see how he liked it. She would if it didn’t mean inhaling the thick, woody scent clinging to him and the linen sleeves of his shirt.

  She glanced at his ink-smudged hands lying on the Erard, thinking she should be scandalised by his lack of proper dress, but she wasn’t. She wondered if this was some inward failing, or simply having spent too much time at Madame de Badeau’s where the gentlemen hadn’t held back from making themselv
es comfortable and asking her to do the same.

  The dog left his master’s side and trotted forward to sit beside her and rest his head on her leg, weighing it down as she worked the pedals. She jiggled her knee, trying to dislodge him but he wouldn’t move.

  ‘I’m glad you didn’t change your mind.’ Sir Warren’s full lips curled up a touch with amusement as he watched her struggle with the dog. He snapped his fingers and pointed at the floor. The dog’s eyebrows shifted as it looked from him to her and ignored his owner. ‘I was afraid you would.’

  ‘I tried to, but Lady Ellington hustled me into the carriage with so much chatter I could barely get a word in edgewise.’ She finished her piece and pushed against the dog, trying to make it shoo, but it leaned harder against her. The animal’s stubbornness frustrated her as much as Sir Warren standing so close and the way her heart raced because of it. If her being here bothered Sir Warren, it didn’t show. He was calm and relaxed in his stance and it helped soothe the unease she usually experienced around anyone outside the Falconbridge family. She gave up struggling with the dog and stroked its head, making it close its eyes. She was here to make friends with Sir Warren. It did her no good to be cross with his pet, or him. ‘Have you made progress with your novel today?’

  ‘Not as much as I would have liked. You will come back tomorrow, won’t you?’

  She was as shocked by Sir Warren’s desire to be near her as Lancelot’s. He was a famous writer, an accomplished man who’d built himself up from a common surgeon to baronet through his own hard work. There was no reason for him to be so concerned about her, yet he was. It flattered and terrified her all at once. It was time to place some distance between them. ‘I will return. Not for you, but for the Érard.’