A Ring From a Marquess

by Christine Merrill

  It did not matter. He might want her to be as sweet and innocent as she appeared on the day he finally found the right words to make her consider his proposal. But even if she was not, he would marry her the moment she agreed.

  And if she refused marriage? Then he would dispense with propriety, dazzle her with his rank and wealth, and seduce her, right there on the white velvet of the divan. When she had been loved near to insensibility, she would be much more agreeable to a permanent union. He would wear down her objections and he would have her and keep her.

  Generations of breeding informed him everything that was wrong with the situation at hand. He supposed it was the same for Margot, since she treated his advances as little more than playful banter. But common sense informed him, even louder, all the things that were right about such a marriage. He could talk to her. For when would he ever find another woman so perfect?

  Society could go hang. She made him happy. And by the smile that lit her face each time he walked in her door, the feeling was mutual. They were in love. They would marry. The rest was not important.

  His family was a concern, of course. But he cared no more for the duke’s opinion than he did for society. The plan was already in place that would win his mother to his side. Once they had married, and Margot had given up the shop to be his marchioness, her past would be forgotten.

  * * *

  He returned to his apartments with his head full of dreams, only to be dragged back to earth by his butler’s announcement. ‘Lord Arthur Standish is waiting for you in the drawing room, my lord.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Stephen’s first impulse had been to curse in response. His brother was quite good company, in the evenings when they were both the worse for drink. But in broad daylight, it was all too easy to see his flaws. To see him now would tarnish all the pleasure of his visit with Margot.

  As expected, he entered the drawing room to find Arthur sprawled in the best chair by the window, a large glass of brandy already to his lips. At the sight of his host, he paused to raise his drink in salute. ‘Hail the conquering hero, returned from Montague and de Bryun.’

  ‘Not Montague, any more,’ Stephen corrected, moving the brandy decanter to the other side of the room. ‘What do you know of my visits there?’

  ‘All of Bath knows of it by now, I am sure.’

  ‘And why is that?’ Stephen could guess the answer. He reached past his brother and opened the curtains wide to let in the morning sun.

  Arthur groaned at the sudden brightness, grabbed up a decorative pillow from the divan and disappeared behind it. ‘How does Bath know of you and the shop girl? I make sure to remark upon it whenever I have a chance.’ The empty brandy glass appeared from behind the cushion, waving as if a refill was expected.

  Stephen grabbed the pillow and tossed it across the room to fall beside the brandy bottle. ‘It is a wonder that anyone listens to you. You are so often in your cups that you are hardly a reliable witness.’

  The shaft of light that hit the younger man caused a shudder and a squint. ‘I only tell the story to those similarly inflicted.’ Then he grinned. ‘On holiday, it is not difficult to find people who overindulge in the evenings and then drink their weight in the pump room the next morning hoping for a cure.’

  Stephen grunted in response. He was on the verge of losing his temper, and with the excitement would come the stuttering. He fixed his brother with a warning glare.

  Arthur paid no attention to it, walking across the room towards the brandy. ‘But enough of my flaws. Let us discuss yours.’

  Stephen ignored both the drinking and the comment, but redoubled the intensity of his glare.

  ‘How is Miss de Bryun today? As beautiful as always, I assume?’

  ‘It is no concern of yours.’

  Arthur pursed his lips and gave a small nod, as if the statement was a confirmation of his suspicions. ‘Have you made her your mistress yet? Or does the rest of Bath still stand a chance with her?’

  ‘I have no intention of making her my mistress,’ Stephen said, though his body hummed softly at the suggestion. ‘And, no, to the second question as well. The lady is virtuous.’ He spoke the next slowly, so that Arthur might hear the warning. ‘You would do well to remember the fact yourself.’

  ‘All women begin as virgins,’ Arthur reminded him. ‘But it is easy enough to rectify. Perhaps I shall pay her a visit and discuss the matter.’

  This was quite enough. Stephen kept his tone low and menacing, then let each word drop slowly from his mouth, each clear and in the proper order. ‘You will regret it. I assure you.’

  ‘Threatening me?’ Arthur laughed.

  Stephen responded with a grim smile and silence. It was usually enough to set his opponent out of sorts and rendering a hasty apology. But when the man in question was Arthur, there were no guarantees.

  ‘If our father cannot scare me into behaving, then you stand no chance at all. Now, to the matter at hand. You are far too concerned with this girl, Stephen. I quite understand the attraction. She is a beauty. But if you do not have an understanding with her, to be so possessive of her makes no sense. It is not as if you can marry her, after all.’

  His impending marriage was not Arthur’s business. The comment was not worthy of a response. But silence no longer served to smooth the conversational road. The lack of denial gave away far too much of his future plan.

  Arthur noticed it and very nearly dropped his glass in surprise. ‘That is not what you intend, is it? You mean to marry her? His Grace will never approve.’

  ‘His Grace can be damned,’ Stephen said. Those words, though inappropriate for the scion of the family, never came with difficulty.

  ‘Well, think of the rest of us then,’ Arthur said, looking mildly horrified. ‘It will embarrass the entire family if you run off and marry a shop girl. You cannot make someone like that the next Duchess of Larchmont.’

  ‘She is not a shop girl,’ Stephen said, a little too sharply. ‘She owns the establishment. A different class from us, certainly, but hardly a menial. And once we are married, she will not have a need to keep shop.’ He had more than enough money to keep her in jewellery of her own. ‘Her sister married a Felkirk,’ he added. Once the shop was closed, they would play up the connection to the Duke of Bellston and the marriage would not seem so remarkable.

  But Arthur was still so shocked that he put down his glass and gave his full attention to the conversation. ‘You truly are serious.’ His brother was shaking his head in disbelief. ‘You really mean to do it? I understand that you do not listen to Father. The pair of you loathe each other. And what am I but to be ignored? But think of our sister. Her reputation will suffer for this.’

  ‘Her father is Larchmont,’ Stephen said, frowning at the mention of their father. ‘If she survives that, what harm will my marriage do her?’

  ‘What of Mother? You will break her heart over this.’

  ‘I most certainly will not,’ Stephen said. ‘Louisa and Margot will be like sisters, once I’ve introduced them. And I have just the thing to placate Mother.’ He reached into his pocket for the jewellery box.

  Arthur looked even more shocked. ‘You got the duchess a gift from your ladybird’s shop?’

  ‘She is not my ladybird,’ Stephen said, struggling to maintain his patience. ‘And this is not some idle trinket.’ He opened the box and produced the necklace. ‘It is a replacement for the Larchmont rubies. And it is one of Margot’s own creations.’ He offered it to his brother, still quite pleased with the result. ‘If you do not tell me the thing is magnificent, then you are a liar and I have no time for you. Margot is amazingly talented. I will not hear otherwise.’

  Arthur was silent for a moment, then nodded in agreement. ‘It is a beautiful thing, to be sure. I am sure Mother would appreciate it.’

  ‘Would?’ This doubtful answer sounded almost like his brother meant to add a ‘but’ to the sentence.

  Arthur did not speak for a moment, but took the neckl
ace to the window, squinting again in the brightness, before his eyes adjusted. ‘How familiar were you with the necklace that was stolen?’

  ‘Enough to have this made,’ Stephen replied. ‘It is not as if I spent my youth fishing in Mother’s jewel casket, as Louisa did.’ He glanced at the necklace in his brother’s hands. ‘It is close enough, is it not? The stones seem about the right weight. The pearls are new, of course. And the setting is lighter. Still, it is as impressive as the original.’

  Arthur gave him a worried look. ‘That is not what I mean. I saw the insurance report. It had a description of the stones. There is a flaw in the main one, right near the corner.’ He held the necklace up to the light again and the sunlight cast a blood-red shadow through the ruby and on to the floor. ‘And this has one as well.’ He looked back at Stephen again, sombre this time. ‘This is not a close match, Brother. This is the same stone.’

  ‘The one that was stolen?’ The necklace in question had been gone for almost two months. It was his mother’s sadness at the loss that had brought this idea into his head.

  ‘Taken from the house in Derbyshire,’ his brother agreed. ‘Strangely enough, the stones found their way into the hands of your Miss de Bryun. If I were a suspicious man, I would think that you had given them to her.’

  ‘Of all the cheek.’ Family connections did not give Arthur the right to hurl insults about over something that had to be an innocent mistake.

  His brother held up a hand in apology. ‘I know that it was not you. Someone sold them to her. If she is responsible for the buying and selling in that shop, she must know the source and, therefore, the thief. It is quite a coincidence that she sells them back to the very family that lost them, is it not?’

  ‘Only that, I am sure.’ If Arthur was right about the origin of the stones, it was beyond strange. Margot claimed to choose her stock with care. There was nothing in her manner to suggest that she might be guilty of trading in stolen goods. And that the family’s own jewels should find their way home without some comment from her… ‘She knows nothing of my family,’ he said, relieved to have found the flaw in Arthur’s logic.

  His brother responded to this with sceptical silence. ‘Do you really suppose that is true? Many people in Bath know who you are, Stephen. You cannot think that a marquess travels unnoticed by society.’

  ‘I make no effort to trade upon the title.’ But neither did he act like an ordinary gentleman. When he was not speaking directly with Margot, he behaved just as his father did: as though the rest of the world was far beneath his dignity.

  ‘Surely someone must have remarked upon seeing you there,’ his brother said quite reasonably. ‘You said yourself that her sister is connected to Bellston.’

  He had seen the sister more than once and she had acknowledged him as if she knew perfectly well who he was. Had he expected her to remain mum on the identity of the man visiting her shop? She must have told her sister. ‘Even if she knows who I am…’

  ‘Then it is still an amazing coincidence that she put these very stones back into your hands. How much did she charge you for them, I wonder?’

  A small fortune. But considering the reason for the necklace, he had not thought twice. ‘I was the one who requested rubies,’ he said. But a clever criminal might have led him to the idea before he’d even noticed.

  ‘I suspect she had a good laugh about it, once you were gone from the shop,’ his brother replied gently, placing one hand on his shoulder and returning the necklace to him with the other.

  ‘She would not.’ She would not dare. If he did not allow the Duke of Larchmont to make sport at his expense, he certainly would not take it from a Bath shopkeeper.

  Or there might be an explanation. There had to be. If not, he had been behaving like a mooncalf over a heartless jade. And all because she had not laughed in his face when he spoke.

  Arthur continued, unaware of his darkening mood. ‘Well, in any case, thank God we discovered the ruse before you had given this to Mother. She would have recognised the stones immediately, I am sure. And Father…’

  He did not need to finish. They both knew what would have happened. His father would have proclaimed that his heir was an idiot, just as he did every time they met. It was why they no longer spoke.

  ‘If what you say is true, Larchmont will never hear of it.’ If Margot de Bryun proved false, he would see that she was punished, as she deserved. Then he would distract himself with any number of females who were too awed by his rank and temper to comment upon his flaws. The whole mess would be buried and forgotten before his parents arrived later in the month so that the duke could take the waters for his gout.

  ‘Let me handle this,’ Arthur said, his voice still soft with understanding. ‘We will show the stones to an enquiry agent. If I am right, than he can go to the shop and take her into custody.’

  ‘Certainly not.’ Perhaps the girl had made a fool of him. Or perhaps there was still some perfectly innocent explanation for the reappearance of the stones. But if there was a decision to be made, he would do it himself. His heart was not so tender that it needed coddling. Nor would he endure, for another moment, the pitying look his wastrel brother was giving him now.

  He glared back at Arthur until he felt his brother yield, as a dog might when it saw a wolf. Then he spoke. ‘I will take the stones to your enquiry agent, so they might be identified. Then I will deal with the shopkeeper.’

  Chapter Three

  Margot stared out the window of the shop, leaning her elbows on the glass case in front of her. She would never have allowed such slack behaviour from the people in her employ. But they were not as dejected as she was, after another day alone in the shop.

  Lord Fanworth had not come yesterday, as he had promised when their conversation had been interrupted. She’d hoped he’d at least visit long enough to tell her how the necklace had been received. She liked to be told that her designs made others happy.

  Of course, if the happiness meant that her Stephen Standish was currently entwined in the arms of some ruby-bedazzled Cyprian, she was not so sure she wanted to know. It was foolish of her to be so obsessed with a man who spent so much of his time buying jewellery for his lovers. But to her, the time they spent together, just talking, was more valuable than anything he had purchased at her shop. Surely he must realise that true affection could not be bought with rubies.

  Once again, the worrisome thought occurred to her. Her sister and Mr Pratchet were right. He had seduced her mind, convincing her that she was more important to him than the other women he courted. On the day he finally asked for her body, she would give herself freely, without a second thought. It would be the death of her reputation, if they were not very discreet. But to refuse would mean that she would never know his touch. To imagine such a future was intolerable.

  Of course, it might be the only alternative available. He had not come yesterday. Today was almost through and there had been no sign of him, either. One more day and it would be longer than any interruption since the first day he had found her. How long could one stay in bed? It was another question she did not want an answer to. If he gave even a hint of what he had been doing, it would surely make her cross. Assuming he came back at all.

  Perhaps these visits meant nothing to him. Or perhaps their interaction was becoming too expensive. The ruby necklace had been very dear. Even the pockets of a marquess must have some limit to their depth. But he must realise he did not need to make a purchase to command her attention. She would have happily poured out the wine and invited him to sit and rest himself. Anything to have him here, for even a few minutes, to lighten her spirit and ease the passing of the day.

  It was not as if she did not enjoy her shop. But at some point in the last month, she had come to think of the marquess as a part of her day. His absence was like coming to the tea tray and finding the pot empty.

  Not quite. At least one knew that there would be more hot water and a few leaves left in the bottom of the tin. But
suppose India ceased to exist and there were to be no more tea ever? Or, worse yet, that the tea had simply gone back to London, or to somewhere even further?

  Or to someone else?

  It was all the more troublesome that she could not share her fears with those around her. Her sister would remark that it served her right for growing accustomed to those unnatural visits. Mr Pratchet would inform her that it was for the best. Even now, she could sense him lingering in the doorway of the workroom, trying to catch her attention.

  She turned and caught him squarely in her gaze. ‘Is there something I might help you with, Mr Pratchet?’

  ‘If you are not too busy.’ He glanced behind him, as if to indicate that their discussion was better unheard by the small group of customers already in the shop.

  She sighed and walked towards him into the back room, shutting the door behind her.

  When he was sure that he could not be heard, he announced, ‘The Marquess of Fanworth has not visited in almost a week.’

  ‘Only two days,’ she said, without thinking.

  His eyebrows rose. ‘It is a great relief to me that he seems to be losing interest. If he returns, you must not encourage him. People will talk.’

  ‘I must not encourage him?’ Margot laughed. ‘He is a customer, Mr Pratchet. I certainly hope people talk about his presence here. If people of a certain class notice that we get regular trade from the son of the duke, they will come here as well.’ And if, just once, he should give one of her pieces to a member of his family, rather than wasting them on opera dancers, there was no telling how much trade might result.

  ‘I do not like it, all the same.’ There was something in Pratchet’s tone that was more than concern for a vulnerable young woman. This sounded rather like jealousy.

  Oh dear.

  It was happening again, just as it had with Mr Perkins and Mr Jonas. He was becoming too familiar. He was acting as if he had any right to control her personal behaviour, as if she were just some woman and not the person who paid his salary. If it was not nipped in the bud immediately, she would be placing an ad for a new goldsmith within the week. ‘I fail to see what your opinion has to do with the workings of this shop,’ she said, using a voice that should remind him of his place.