Marianne stared. ‘Me? Vennor should marry me? I can’t marry him,’ she stammered. ‘He’s my friend.’
‘He wants to be more than your friend, that much was plain today.’ Her mother pressed, ‘Surely you are not that naive, Marianne? He invited you to fix up his home. It’s on the same level as being invited to the family pile in the country. Everyone knows what that invitation means.’
‘Because he trusts me,’ Marianne argued against the notion. ‘You heard him today. He feels like an object of gossip. He doesn’t want people in his home who are looking to resurrect the old scandal.’
‘Trust is a desirable quality in a mate. Being a duke is no easy task. It would be a comfort to him to have a wife who knows him so well that a look can speak volumes, to have a wife who will have his back and stand at his side, who won’t have an affair or speak ill of him. Why not marry a friend? Who better to be all that to him than a girl he’s known all his life, who’s become a woman more than capable of running his home, raising his children and loving him as only a long-standing friend can?’
‘I cannot believe you’re suggesting that. We are friends,’ she repeated, fully aware that the phrase did not defeat any of her mother’s reasons, only fuelled them. ‘What about Lord Hayes?’
Her mother gave an elegant, one-shoulder shrug. ‘I didn’t say you wanted to marry Vennor. Goodness knows he’s got baggage to boot, with his reluctance to rejoin society, and who knows where he spends his time when he’s not working for Parliament? He’s buried himself in work so he doesn’t have to face his emotions and one of these days his dam will burst. He won’t be an easy husband for any woman.’
‘Then why tell me all these things?’ Marianne blurted out, feeling angry. What did her mother mean to suggest? One moment she was singing Vennor’s praises and the next she was maligning him, which in truth did surprise her. Vennor had always been her mother’s favourite of the four.
‘I’m merely telling you what Vennor is thinking.’ Her mother was unfazed by her outburst. ‘I’ve not brought three daughters to the altar without knowing what goes on in the heads of young men.’ She twirled the handle of her parasol thoughtfully, a little smile touching her lips, and Marianne could see a hint of the debutante she used to be. ‘Forewarned is forearmed, my dear. If you can anticipate the situation, nothing will surprise you. Vennor is thinking of courting you. If he decides to do so, you need to be ready.’
* * *
Vennor wanted to court her?
The thought chased her into the reading room at home. Marianne shut the door firmly behind her, but the idea followed her anyway. Perhaps if it were distasteful to her it would be easier to shut it out. But it wasn’t. It was a curious idea.
What would it be like to be courted by Vennor? What would change between them? Was it even possible for things to stay the same? If not, what would they lose? Would it be worth it? A kiss would change everything, she was fairly certain of that, and yet she wanted that kiss, wanted to know what his mouth would feel like against hers. Did all men kiss the same way? Would it feel the same as Hayes’s?
Hayes had kissed her once a few weeks ago after the art show at Somerset House. Perhaps she shouldn’t have allowed it, but she’d never had a real kiss, only a few rowdy pecks as the result of parlour games back home. It had been a chaste brush against her lips, hardly anything to cause a girl to be led into sin. If that was all there was to it, Marianne wondered what all the fuss was about. There had to be more.
Her sisters blushed happily whenever they discussed their husbands, but they wouldn’t tell her a thing, apparently preferring to keep it a secret between themselves. Thank goodness there were books, a highly invaluable resource for completing a young girl’s education if she knew where to look—and Marianne did. A back section at Hatchard’s had been quite enlightening.
Marianne opened the drawer in the reading table and took out her notebook along with a folded map of London. The idea that she might soon need to choose between Vennor and Hayes was a false dichotomy based on an equally false premise. Her mother saw only the two choices, both based on the assumption that she would marry at the end of the Season. Marianne spread the map out on the table and studied the red X’s. She knew differently. She didn’t have to choose marriage. She didn’t have to choose Vennor or Hayes. She could choose herself. If she found the Vigilante.
Some honest work was exactly what she needed. This was her calling—being a reporter, not a lady of the ton whose most useful writing skill was setting seating charts and menus.
Vennor might let you keep your writing. With him, it could be different.
The thought whispered around her head, gaining veracity with logic. Vennor already knew of her secret writing career and he encouraged it.
Realism’s arrow pierced the idea at its heart. Vennor encouraged her writing currently because it posed no risk to himself. Whether he approved or not, his Duchess couldn’t write a news column for a gentleman’s magazine. If someone found out, the scandal would be enormous. He would be shamed. No, being a duchess was the greatest cage of all. Society’s eyes would ever be on her just as they were on Vennor now. No wonder he chose seclusion.
The column! She’d nearly forgotten. It was due tomorrow. She needed to send it this afternoon so that it would be waiting for her editor in the morning. Marianne opened the drawer again and pulled it out. Thank goodness it was ready to go. The day had flown by working with Vennor. Her hand stilled as she folded the paper. Was it possible that was what was behind his request for her help? Had he thought to keep her too busy to pursue the Vigilante? He’d made no secret of his disapproval in that regard. She recalled feeling that there was more to his request than the answer he’d given her yesterday in the park. The possibility put her at war with herself.
How dare he sabotage her!
But no. It wasn’t sabotage. He cared for her, he was worried for her safety. He knew how much this meant to her, how much she was counting on this.
He thought the Vigilante should stay masked.
Even if it was sabotage, look at the lengths he was willing to go. He was willing to come out of his grief, to finally pack up the town house and make it his own. She knew what that meant to him and what it had cost him emotionally to do it. He’d been facing dragons today. She’d seen it in his face. Was he really willing to go that far just to keep her safe?
No matter his motives, she couldn’t allow it to stop her. She had to do this. Whether he meant to court her, or whether he meant to protect her, her best course of action was still trying to prove herself as a journalist, to give herself another choice besides marriage when the time came. She needed to find the Vigilante and she couldn’t do that sitting at home.
She stared at the map, tracing the X’s. He hadn’t been to the East Docks for a while. He was due for a visit. Maybe she would start there. She grimaced. It was the beginning of a plan, but it was not the whole plan. She couldn’t just wander the East Docks. She’d be no better or luckier than Angeline Mercer. She might be deader, though. Vennor’s concern wasn’t erroneous. It would be dangerous, but the Vigilante only came out at night. There were no daytime sightings of him reported, ever. She had no choice. She splayed her hands on the table. She would go tonight. There was no sense in delaying. Any night would be just as dangerous and she might not find him the first time out. If she needed more than one outing, she’d need all the time she could muster. While she was there, she would ask around about him. Perhaps he had a lair? He must go somewhere during the day? He didn’t stop existing at sunrise. If she were lucky, perhaps word of her search would reach him and he might come looking for her, which would make things all that much easier.
The thrill of the hunt started to thrum through her as she made a list of supplies and details. What to wear? She’d need a dark cloak, money for a hack and a weapon. She hadn’t acquired a pistol yet. She’d been counting on Vennor for tha
t, but there was no way now that he’d help her get a pistol knowing what she intended it for. She did have a small knife, though. It would have to do.
A little frisson of fear snaked down her back, mingling with the thrill, as the reality of what she proposed to do sank in. She was going to journey into the slums of London. At night. Alone. That was what a good reporter did, she told herself. If she meant to be a serious journalist, it meant taking serious chances. It was easy to write titbits for the society column. She only had to walk into ballrooms, which were safe, brightly lit and mostly populated by people she knew. She shook off her misgivings. This was exactly the test she needed. Was she cut out to be a serious journalist? Could she do the things that were required? If not, perhaps that was a sign that she should choose a more traditional path.
Satisfied with her list, she turned to her next task: subterfuge. She needed to elude Vennor, who was expecting her at the Gaspards’, and her parents who had their own plans this evening. Marianne glanced at the clock, it was nearly six. Vennor was planning to call for her in an hour and a half. She took out writing paper and scribbled hastily. It wouldn’t serve her purpose to have Vennor miss getting her note. The last thing she needed was for him to show up here and for her to be gone.
Chapter Seven
The note arrived just as he was finishing his preparations for the evening. Vennor lifted his chin, letting his valet tie his cravat. He was more than a little disappointed by the news. He’d been looking forward to the Gaspards’ with Marianne and listening to her arguments as to why he should host a ball. He wasn’t going to do it. She was not changing his mind on this, but it would be entertaining to watch her try. That wasn’t the only disappointment, though. The larger disappointment was that she’d chosen to attend the Mayfield rout with Lord Hayes instead.
His valet finished the work and stuck a sapphire stickpin into the snowy folds and stepped back. Vennor approved the work with a quick, absent-minded nod, his thoughts on Lord Hayes. It was the Hayes part that bothered him about Marianne’s note. She’d chosen the Viscount over him after their little duel in the hall over the ball. He could still see that challenging smile she’d tossed him and how her eyes had said this is not over. But suddenly, four hours later, it was. It wasn’t like her to change her mind, not when they had unfinished business and she was not besotted with Hayes. He’d seen them together. She was cordial with Hayes, but nothing more. Had she been pressured into it by her parents? Had something happened?
Vennor fingered the note. Had she picked up on the spark between them and decided it was best to establish some distance? Perhaps she’d even divined his thoughts this afternoon. But even that rang false. Marianne never ran from a fight or from awkwardness. If she had divined his thoughts, she would confront him. He could see her now on the Gaspards’ dance floor, asking in the middle of the waltz, ‘Ven, did you mean to kiss me today?’ with the same bluntness she’d enquired whether he liked girls. The scene made him chuckle even as it set off warning bells. Something was definitely afoot. That decided it. He took his silk hat and swordstick from his valet. ‘Appleby, send word to the coachman, there’s been a change of plans.’
He would attend the Mayfields’ instead, if for no other reason than to assure himself Marianne was fine.
* * *
She wasn’t at the Mayfield rout. It seemed she’d changed her plans yet again. For a girl who never changed her mind, changing it twice in one night seemed highly irregular. Vennor took two tours of the ballroom just to be sure before he felt forced to approach Hayes, a man who seemed determined to view him as a rival. Hayes informed him in clipped tones that indicated his own disappointment at her absence and his disapproval of Vennor’s presence—or perhaps it was Vennor’s search for Marianne that upset him—that Miss Treleven had decided to stay in for the evening due to a headache.
A headache made no sense at all to Vennor. If she was unwell, why tell him she’d decided to attend the Mayfield ball? Why not just tell him she was staying in? Because Hayes would believe the headache scenario and he wouldn’t. Marianne hadn’t had a headache a day in her life. She was the healthiest person Vennor knew. Of course, he didn’t bother to mention it to Hayes, who was already prickly enough.
Vennor excused himself and made another circuit of the ballroom, stopping to make small talk here and there, all the while his mind running through Marianne’s messages. They were clearly hiding something. Why had she wanted he and Hayes to think she was somewhere different? Why was such subterfuge necessary? Was she working on something for her column? But that made little sense, too. Coming to balls was her work; it was where she got her information and the Gaspard and Mayfield balls were well attended. She’d easily have material for a week from any one of them.
A worried nugget began to form. Had she gone after the Vigilante? Was she even now out in the streets of London, hunting him? The thought sent a new kind of terror through him. Marianne was adventurous and brave, but that didn’t mean she was street savvy. He began to move through the crowd, his pace quicker now, fuelled by concern. He didn’t want to think of the trouble she could get into: drunks, pimps, brothel-snatchers, cutpurses.
His thoughts were sprinting ahead of him. Did she know enough to leave her jewellery at home? Had she dressed appropriately or had she gone out in a white ballgown, thinking to convince her parents she was actually at the Gaspards’ with him? Oh, good Lord! Her parents thought she was with him! Jock Treleven would kill him if anything happened to her.
At the kerb he gestured for his carriage. ‘The Treleven town house, on Curzon. All haste,’ he instructed. He hoped he would find her at home with a good explanation for her lies. But the Treleven town house was dark when he arrived. It didn’t stop him from hopping out and knocking on the door. Servants would know where the family had gone. Sir Jock and his wife were at a musicale, they informed him, and Miss Treleven was spending the night with a friend.
That confirmed it. He sank back against the squabs of the seats. Marianne was abroad in London. Alone. Where would she go? She could be anywhere and he could not be everywhere. Vigilante or not, he was only one man. He didn’t know what was worse, Marianne wandering the whore grounds of Covent Garden or the crime-riddled lanes of the East Docks where throats were slit nightly. The danger ratio decided it. There were at least constabulary in Covent Garden at this time of night. She had the chance of having help there if she ran into trouble. There’d be no help at the docks.
The East Docks it was. He called instructions to the coachman and began to transform. He reached under the seat and pulled out a box for his valuables. He undid his cufflinks, slipped off his gold signet ring and removed his carefully placed sapphire stickpin from his cravat. He took inventory. Had he missed anything? No. Good. Now, what assets did he have? He did not have his usual hidden knife. The Vigilante never went out unarmed. Tonight, the unplanned foray left him feeling naked. What he did have was his short sword sheathed inside his walking stick and his fists. They would have to be enough. There was no time to go back to the town house or to his cache on the docks. He’d lost enough time already at the Mayfields’. Every moment he delayed put Marianne at risk.
He fingered the black silk in his pocket. He didn’t want to wear the mask. He was dressed in evening clothes and a person of discernment would be bound to think the Vigilante a gentleman with his swordstick and his apparel. It could imperil his identity, but wearing the mask might be the only way to protect her. It would certainly be easier to locate her. People would talk to the Vigilante one way or another. The Vigilante could put out word that she was not to be harmed. As long as he wasn’t too late. Please, dear Lord, he thought fervently, don’t let me be too late.
* * *
She’d never been out this late alone before. Marianne pulled her hood a little closer around her face and her hand gripped the handle of the little knife in her pocket. The feel of the smooth hilt offered reassurance as she skirt
ed a muddy pool and tried to ignore the tell-tale smell of faeces and rotten food coming from an alley. She focused on the next step; she needed to make enquiries. She couldn’t go randomly through the streets simply hoping to find him. She would stop in at the taverns and ask.
The first tavern was a dimly lit place that smelled of unwashed humanity. Marianne stepped inside and nearly gagged. She was not the only woman present, but she was the only one not draped over a man or two. No matter. She knew what to do. Shoulders back, head up. Walk with purpose and no one would bother her. No one interfered with a woman on a mission. But that only made her more conspicuous as she strode up to the bar. The barkeep was a heavy-jowled man with a scar on his cheek. He gave her a long, slow perusal as he dried a mug, but said nothing.
Marianne slid two coins across the scarred counter. ‘I am looking for information about where to find the Vigilante,’ she said in her best authoritative tone.
‘You and everyone else.’ He spat on to the floor, his small eyes fixed on her as she fought the urge to flinch. But she didn’t dare show any weakness, not in a place like this. ‘Nobody knows where he comes from, or where he goes. Nobody knows where he’s going to be or when.’ He spat again. ‘Keeps the bosses on their toes, he does.’
‘Does he have informants? People who can contact him? How does he know where to be?’ Marianne pressed, the instinctive interviewer in her rising to the fore. ‘Surely there’s a way to reach him. Can I leave a message for him?’
The barkeep reached for another mug to dry. ‘You can leave a message at the Vigilante’s Post down on the docks. Not here, though. He doesn’t exactly hobnob with anyone. He’s put some of these fellas out of work. Can’t say he’s entirely popular with everyone in these parts.’ He guffawed. ‘I can see by the look on your face you hadn’t thought of that.’ He nodded towards the table by the window. ‘Every one of those boyos over there would like to slit his throat. He’s cost them jobs working for the bosses collecting dues.’
The Confessions of the Duke of Newlyn Page 6