“Do you really mean that?” he enquired.
The Marquis nodded.
“I am bored.”
There was no obvious reply to that and again there was silence as they drove on.
Peregrine was thinking that it was typical of the Marquis to be so ruthless and make a decision that most men in his position would find it hard to implement.
But the Marquis was very blunt and, if he was bored, then whoever was boring him would be shown the door and there would be no appeal against his decision to finish either a love affair or a friendship. And immediately.
“Does Isobel know this?” Peregrine asked at length.
“I have not yet told her in so many words,” the Marquis replied, “though I intend to do so when the opportunity arises. But I believe that she must have some inkling, as we have not seen each other for over a week.”
Peregrine remembered seeing a groom in Sidley livery delivering a letter at the Marquis’s house when he had been with him that morning.
He was certain that Lady Isobel would be very voluble on paper if she could not have the chance of saying what she thought in person.
Suddenly he saw storm clouds ahead and only hoped that he would not be involved in them.
Then, as if he knew that this was the moment when he must tell the Marquis what was on his mind and what had been worrying him considerably all day, he said,
“Are you ready to hear something that will annoy you?”
The way he spoke rather than what he said made the Marquis look at him sharply.
“Does it concern Isobel?”
“No, it has nothing to do with her,” Peregrine said quickly. “It is something I feel that I have to tell you and I have been waiting for a propitious moment.”
“Which you think is now?”
“I suppose it is as good a time as any,” Peregrine said a little ruefully. “As a matter of fact I was remembering that in the old days Kings cut off the heads of messengers who brought them bad news.”
The Marquis laughed.
“Is that what you are afraid will happen to you?”
“At least for the moment your hands are engaged with the reins!” Peregrine replied.
The Marquis laughed again.
“I will not hit you, you fool, whatever you tell me, and now you have aroused my curiosity I am naturally speculating as to what it can be.”
“It concerns Branscombe.”
The Marquis groaned.
“I am trying to forget him before I have to see his smug face at the dinner tonight.”
“According to him, Her Majesty admires him enormously and thinks that he looks just as a gentleman should.”
“God help us!” the Marquis ejaculated. “And incidentally Branscombe does not consider himself a gentleman but a Nobleman, which entitles him to be more self-satisfied, more blown up with his own importance and bumptious than he is already!”
“It’s a pity we cannot tell him so,” Peregrine laughed.
“What are you going to tell me about him that I don’t know already?”
“I will be surprised if you do!” Peregrine remarked. “You are aware that the Queen is anxious that those who are in attendance at Court should be ‘properly and respectably’ married?”
“The Princess Lieven told me,” the Marquis replied, “that the Queen said, ‘we want all those dear people who are closest to the King to be as happy and compatible as we are’.”|
The way the Marquis mimicked the Queen’s voice made it sound sickly sentimental and Peregrine said quickly,
“Be careful, Linden, or Her Majesty will have you up the aisle before you are aware of it!”
“I assure you that she will do nothing of the sort!” the Marquis retorted. “I have no hesitation in declaring that I have no intention of marrying any woman before I wish to do so, even if I am sent to the Tower for disobeying the Royal Command!”
“That I can well believe,” Peregrine smiled, “but Branscombe has agreed with the Queen that it is an excellent idea and has already mentioned privately to one or two people the name of the woman he intends to marry.”
The way Peregrine spoke told the Marquis that what he was saying was significant and, because he knew it was expected of him, he asked,
“I presume you intend to tell me who the unfortunate female is?”
“The Princess Lieven told me in confidence because she claimed that she was too frightened to tell you herself,” Peregrine replied, “that Branscombe intends to marry your Ward as soon as she arrives in England.”
The expression in the Marquis’s face was one of sheer astonishment.
“My Ward!” he exclaimed. “Who the devil – ?”
He stopped.
“You cannot mean Mirabelle?”
“Exactly! Mirabelle Chester!”
“But the girl is still at school. She has seen nothing of the world and is not arriving in England for another month.”
“That is true,” Peregrine agreed, “but naturally people have been talking about her.”
“By which you mean,” the Marquis said sharply, “that they have been talking about her fortune!”
“As usual you have hit the nail on the head!”
The Marquis gave an exclamation that was almost an oath.
“You are not telling me that Branscombe needs money!”
“The Princess told me again in confidence,” Peregrine replied, “that he has secretly been looking for an heiress for some considerable time. Apparently he said to someone who reported it to the Princess that, much as he disliked you, he could not deny that the Chester blood was nearly compatible with his own!”
The Marquis exploded.
“Nearly, indeed!”
“When he heard of the extent of your Ward’s fortune,” Peregrine went on, “he decided that she is exactly what he needs.”
The Marquis’s lips tightened before he asked,
“But for Heaven’s sake why?”
“I gathered from the Princess’s rather garbled explanation that he found on his father’s death that the old Earl had not left him all he expected.”
“He will marry her over my dead body!” the Marquis exclaimed. “As Mirabelle’s Guardian, I would never give my permission for her to marry Branscombe.”
There was silence.
Then Peregrine said,
“You will have to give substantial grounds for your refusal.”
The Marquis did not answer for a moment, but his friend knew by the expression on his face that he was realising it would be very difficult for any Guardian to refuse the Earl of Branscombe as a suitor.
Whatever might be felt about him privately, publicly he was the holder of a great and honoured title, the possessor of an estate that, like his ancestors, was part of the history of England and he certainly enjoyed the favour of both the King and the Queen.
The Marquis had already considered his responsibilities towards the daughter of his first cousin.
Edward Chester, who had died two years ago, had been one of those brilliant but restless people, who was only happy when he was exploring strange parts of the world or risking his life quite unnecessarily in adventures that would have appalled more cautious men.
Although his travels had been often extremely uncomfortable and dangerous, in the course of them he had become enormously wealthy.
Someone who had befriended him had left him shares in a gold mine that had suddenly borne fruit and in another part of the world land he had written off as a dead loss had become valuable overnight when oil was found on it.
Perhaps because he was not particularly interested in stocks and shares, those he had bought in a haphazard fashion always seemed to boom the minute he acquired them.
When he was killed, as everybody expected he would be, attempting to cross a range of mountains that were considered impassable, his daughter, Mirabelle, found herself to be the possessor of a huge fortune and a Guardian to administer it for her whom she had never eve
n seen.
Mirabelle’s mother had been half-Italian and, when Edward Chester had left on his last expedition from which he never returned, he had deposited his wife and daughter in Italy.
It was unlikely that the letter which had been despatched to him telling him of his wife’s death had ever reached him and the Marquis had learned, first of Mrs. Chester’s death and then of his cousin Edward’s within a month of each other.
All this had happened last summer and, while he was wondering what he should do, he had received a letter from Mirabelle’s aunt who she was staying with in Italy.
The Contessa told him that as her niece was attending an excellent school in Rome, she thought it would be a mistake for her to come to England until she was out of mourning.
The Marquis had agreed.
“Next year when she is eighteen,” he had told Peregrine, “she can be presented to the Queen and I have plenty of relatives who will be only too pleased to chaperone her.”
“Are you also going to sit on the dais with all the Dowagers?” Peregrine had teased.
“I am not going to do anything except fight off the fortune-hunters,” the Marquis replied. “By God, Peregrine, do you know how much this girl owns?”
When he heard the answer to this question, Peregrine agreed with the Marquis that it was far too much for one young woman and would undoubtedly result in all the wasters swarming around her like hornets.
“I am going to marry her off to the first decent man who comes along and then I shall be free of the responsibility, the Marquis said. “Because I was fond of Edward, eccentric though he was, I will not let his daughter be imposed on by one of those titled ne’er-do-wells, who think all a rich woman wants from them is a coronet.”
Those sentiments were extremely laudable, Peregrine was thinking now. At the same time, nobody could say that the Earl of Branscombe was a ne’er-do-well and had nothing to offer except a title.
Peregrine was aware that the Marquis was determined that he would not inflict a man he loathed and despised on the daughter of his cousin for whom he had had an affection.
But it was going to be extremely difficult to think of a plausible refusal that would not result in the Earl causing a scandal by immediately calling him out.
William IV had expressly forbidden duelling, but where there was a will there was a way and in certain circumstances gentlemen could, if they wished, settle their differences by the time-honoured method of firing at each other without there being any scandal.
It was difficult to know who, if such a duel did take place, would be the winner, but it was something that Peregrine knew must be prevented at all costs.
Aloud he said,
“I know exactly what you are feeling, Linden, but if Branscombe has set his heart on marrying your Ward it is going to be damned difficult to prevent him from doing so.”
The Marquis’s lips tightened before he said,
“It is just like his impertinence to say that he is going to marry any woman without having the politeness to ask her first!”
“He knows only too well that no girl would refuse him,” Peregrine replied. “The Earl of Branscombe, the highest in the land, the King’s favourite! It would be a Fairytale come true!”
“Except that you and I know under all that tinsel he is not Prince Charming or ever likely to be.”
Peregrine nodded.
“Do you remember Rosie?”
The Marquis did not reply, but they were both thinking of the little dancer whom the Earl had deliberately seduced away from the Marquis when he was out of London attending a Race Meeting in the North.
On his return he found that the Earl had installed her in a far larger house than he had provided for her, with now four horses instead of two for her carriage and her jewellery was dazzling.
Knowing that it was a deliberate way of scoring off him, the Marquis had been annoyed, but, because he had been too clever to show his annoyance, the Earl did not have the satisfaction out of the episode that he had expected.
In fact the Marquis had said openly in the Club, knowing it would be repeated, that he was extremely grateful to the Earl for relieving him of a young woman who he had already found had a very small repertoire and none of it worth repeating.
What he had not expected was that his and the Earl’s animosity towards each other had ended the girl’s career.
Because he was annoyed by the Marquis’s reaction, the Earl had deliberately taken his revenge on her.
He had not only deprived her of everything he had given her, which was against all the rules of such liaisons, but he had gone out of his way to see that she was dismissed from the theatre and that she was unable to find an engagement elsewhere.
She had come to see the Marquis in desperation because she was actually almost starving.
She had been afraid that he would punish her for the way she had treated him and she had appealed to him only as a last resort.
The Marquis had not only been extremely generous, but had found her an engagement in a touring company playing the larger towns in the Provinces in a show that had eventually come to London.
He was no longer interested in her as a woman and he would not have stooped to pick up the Earl’s leavings, but she had thanked him for his kindness with tears in her eyes.
The Marquis had merely added another notch on the tally he was marking up against his enemy.
Now he said with an urgent note in his voice,
“What am I to do, Peregrine? You have to help me over this.”
“I want to,” Peregrine replied, “but how can we set about it?”
“We could, of course, write to the Contessa and ask her to keep Mirabelle in Italy and not let her come to London this Season.”
“Surely that will only be postponing the evil hour? And if Branscombe has made up his mind to marry her, he might even go out to Rome.”
The Marquis drove on and they must have covered nearly half-an-hour before he asked,
“There must be something we can do!”
“Only find him another heiress!” Peregrine replied. “And there are not many girls about as rich as Mirabelle Chester.”
“I know,” the Marquis agreed, “and, although I have not seen her since she was a baby, I am told that she is pretty and has a sweet nature.”
“I don’t suppose that Branscombe is particularly interested in her nature,” Peregrine said cynically.
“I have to stop this marriage,” the Marquis snapped.
“If Edward was alive, he would whisk her off to the top of the Himalayas or across the Gobi Desert. But personally I should be unable to look after myself in such outlandish places, let alone a young girl!”
“There must be something we can do,” Peregrine repeated. “There must be other heiresses in London waiting to make their curtseys to the Queen.”
“If there was anyone outstanding, we would have heard about her,” the Marquis said, “and certainly the Princess Lieven would know. There is not a piece of gossip in circulation small enough to escape her sharp ears!”
“Shall we ask her?” Peregrine suggested.
“For God’s sake, no!” the Marquis exclaimed. “I swear Branscombe shall not marry my Ward, but you know as well as I do that she would not be able to resist telling him that I had said so, which would make him more determined than ever.”
“I don’t suppose that anything will stop him,” Peregrine said, “not if he really wants money. And if it comes to that, who does not except you?”
“We are talking about Mirabelle,” the Marquis said, as if he felt that he must keep to the point. “I suppose I could persuade her to say that she would not accept him.”
“That is all very well,” Peregrine said, “but you know perfectly well that all your relatives would think it a splendid match. Among the available eligible bachelors, compared to Branscombe, there is no one as suitable except yourself and you can hardly marry your own Ward.”
“You are right abou
t that,” the Marquis said. “Besides I have no intention of marrying anyone, especially not an unfledged schoolgirl.”
“Then we are back to where we started,” Peregrine said, “with Branscombe the villain or the hero of the piece, whichever way you like to look at him and the heroine, young, unsophisticated, sweet and innocent, with no idea of what she is in for, as she walks into the arena!”
He spoke dramatically, expecting the Marquis to laugh.
Instead he said sharply,
“Say that again!”
“Say what?”
“What you said just now. It gave me an idea!”
“I said, ‘with Brans – ’”
“No, not him. What you said about the girl.”
“I said, ‘and the heroine, young, unsophisticated, sweet and innocent’,” Peregrine repeated slowly.
“That is it!” the Marquis exclaimed. “That is it! And Branscombe has never seen her!”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s obvious. All we have to do is to find a young, unsophisticated, sweet and innocent girl to take the place of my Ward. Branscombe will propose to her because she is rich. But it does not have to be Mirabelle! He will only think it is her.”
“Are you suggesting that you produce a fake Mirabelle,” Peregrine asked, “and palm her off on Branscombe as your Ward?”
“Exactly!” the Marquis said. “That is what I intend to do! If he can cheat me and my horses out of winning the Derby Stakes, I can cheat him when it comes to his winning his future wife!”
“You may have an idea there,” Peregrine conceded, “but who do you have in mind?”
“I have no one at the moment,” the Marquis replied, “but we are going to find this ‘young, unsophisticated, sweet and innocent girl’ and we are going to groom her secretly in our own stables, so to speak, until we think she is ready for the matrimonial stakes, which Branscombe thinks is going to be a walkover!”
“But who will she be?” Peregrine asked.
“That is the crux of the joke,” the Marquis said. “I will tell you exactly who she will be.”
From Hell to Heaven Page 2