The Misfit Marquess (10 page)

He pursed his lips. "Was she young?" he demanded.

"Very young. A child almost."

He frowned as he pulled on his other glove, and remained silent for three long beats. He looked up then, and pronounced once again, "Rubbish. You should not listen to servants' gossip, because it obviously gives you fancies. I have no doubt you merely saw a servant."

"With long, unbound red hair?" Elizabeth countered, both puzzled and intrigued by his denial. He had seen the ghost himself, or at least had come to believe there was something to the tales—he had said as much himself. Besides, he had betrayed himself, his denial, by knowing the creature was young in appearance. Yet now he was obviously intent on disallowing her claim. Why?

"I do not believe the woman was a ghost," she said, because it was true and because she meant to entice him into a revelation by one of her own.

Instead of being either annoyed or relieved by her comment, however, he cast her another narrowed-eyed glance. "You do not believe the dead come back to haunt us?"

"I did not say that. I think perhaps I do believe haunting is possible. What I meant was that I thought this woman was very real, not a ghost at all."

He crossed his hands behind his back abruptly, the riding crop still tucked beneath his arm. "Really? And why is that?"

"Because she looked very real. She did not float, she walked. I felt I could reach out and touch her. She appeared real."

He compressed his lips for a moment again, then nodded. "At least you make sensible observations."

That was an odd thing to say, but Elizabeth chose to point out the meaning behind his words. "So you do not believe she is a ghost either? But earlier you said you believed a spirit had been haunting this house for some time."

He gave a small sniff. "A poor choice of words perhaps."

"Or deliberate."

He frowned quickly, and yet he quirked his head as if in assent. "You say the oddest things," he said quietly. "You ever surprise me."

"I surprise you" She could have laughed. She said the oddest things? No, that shoe belonged on his foot. And yet there was something about him, this man both peculiar in look and deed, that made her feel almost compelled to tell all, to unburden her soul, to step out of the shadows of the lies she let him go on believing.

"Is that all?" he asked, sounding exasperated.

"Yes. I thought a ghost sufficient reason to summon someone," she answered tartly.

He snorted, a significantly disrespectful sound, and turned without bidding her good day.

"My lord." Her call stopped him from crossing the threshold. "Since it was you who came and not a servant, I do now have a question for you specifically."

"And that is?" There it was again, that patient tone that ought to be soothing, but which struck her as anything but.

"The man," she said, also with exaggerated patience, "the man who was attempting to steal the ring from my finger. How did he appear? Young? Old?"

He turned back to face her, and perhaps that was curiosity underneath his composed demeanor. "My age. Six-and-twenty. Perhaps thirty," he said promptly. "He had dark hair, I believe, although I only saw him in shadow."

"How was he dressed?"

"Quality clothing, I should say, with a good fit. I cannot tell you colors. It was not quite dawn when I saw him. Although I did think he would look more in place stumbling half drunk down a pub street in London, frankly, than on the road in our sleepy little village. He looked decidedly out of place."

She peered into Lord Greyleigh's face, striving to read between the stoic lines that made up the set of his features, unsuccessfully. "You did not know him?"

"No."

"Thank you." She nodded, dismissing the topic.

Lord Greyleigh was not done with it however. "Do you know who the man might be?" he asked. "Shall I have a warrant sworn out against him?"

Elizabeth shook her head at once, denying any desire for official intervention. "Even if I could say who it was, I would have to guess he believes me dead. You thought so, at first, or so the maid tells the story."

"Hmmm," was all he said. He studied her a moment, then gave her a quick parting bow and exited.

She ought to feel relieved that he had gone, taking his skepticism with him, but instead she felt as deflated as one of those newfangled balloons when its supply of hot air was denied. She had wanted to tell him more about her situation, she realized. She had wanted him to look at her with something other than doubt, something other than a suspicion as to her want of wits.

It would be folly if he had, if she had spoken of her past, of course. No one must know her identity. She must fade away. She must await a happier day, a day when she could return to a version of the life she had once known. To tell this man of her invalid marriage was to invite censure, and impediments to the only path she had left to her. No matter how uncomfortable she must become to do so, she would protect Lorraine's happiness.

Lorraine—how Elizabeth missed seeing her sister! It would be weeks if not months before they saw one another again. Elizabeth lay back against the bed's pillow and remembered the day Lorraine had first spoken of her beloved. . . .

"Broderick has asked me to marry him!" Lorraine had said, delight dancing in her eyes.

"Oh, Lorraine, I am so happy for you!" Elizabeth had said in reply, her hands seeking and holding her sister's, to physically share in the exciting revelation. They stood in their bedchamber, hiding their excited girlish whispers behind a closed door. Papa was newly remarried, but despite the passage of only two short weeks since the wedding, the girls had already learned their new stepmama would not tolerate what she called "giggling and gossiping."

"Has he asked Papa for your hand?" Elizabeth asked.

"Well, no," Lorraine blushed. "He has yet to speak of his intentions with his own family, and he wishes to do that first, you know."

Elizabeth tried to hide her disapproval behind a wrinkling of her nose. "His family?" She tried to make it sound like a gentle reproof.

"You know they are very aware of consequence."

Elizabeth began to reply, but Lorraine forestalled her.

"I know you care little for matters of prestige, Elizabeth, but Broderick's family does. You must agree I am hardly the catch of the Season, even though you love me and think otherwise. I am almost five-and-twenty, and I am sure his family cannot help but wonder what is wrong with me that I have not yet married! And you know the sad state of our dowry portions, and Papa is a mere knight whereas Broderick stands to become the next Viscount Mulland. And our new stepmama,"—Lorraine lowered her voice even further, for fear the lady in question would overhear—"well, she is not of the best ton, is she? If he did not care for me, Broderick could look well above my station for a wife. We must be sensitive to his family's tolerance of the connection. He needs to bring them to acceptance slowly, and then he will feel free to speak with Papa." Lorraine spoke with a quiet confidence that took some of the bite from her words.

Still, Elizabeth grumbled, "I should think he would expect them to love the woman he chose, regardless."

"And so he does. But there is no need for haste."

"I suppose not," Elizabeth had grudgingly agreed, because the joy that had radiated from her sister's face was all the further persuasion she had required to believe in a happy future for her sister.

It had been, after a fashion, Broderick Mainworthy, one day to be the Viscount Mulland, who had created Elizabeth's woes. He had done so by moving forward in his courtship of Lorraine with achingly slow discretion. While three-quarters of a year drained away, he had held Lorraine's hand in secret, and whispered words of devotion that made Elizabeth's sister float upon a cloud of bliss. But it had been his inability to publicly commit to the socially inferior Lorraine that had finally driven Elizabeth into her grandly foolish debacle.

Her debacle—little more than a moment's decision, now turned into a lifetime's regret.

Elizabeth could not look back on her decision without wincing. She supposed some part of her had known, even then, that things had moved far too quickly for good judgment to be any part of the matter.

The night Radford Barnes had proposed an elopement, she had known him but fourteen days—two weeks. It was folly, utter folly to believe anything he had said after so short an acquaintance! Yet, although the logical part of her mind had known better, Elizabeth had listened to Radford's declaration of undying affection, and one day later had consented to elope with him. Three nights later she had sneaked out her papa's front door to Radford's waiting carriage, and there had been no turning back from that moment on.

Had she believed herself in love? Looking back, it was difficult to conceive she might have been capable of such determined blindness—or name it what it really was, stupidity. How could anyone love another after a mere fortnight's acquaintance? Attraction had existed. Oh yes, she had been attracted to the darkly handsome, slightly dissipated-appearing fa$ade of Radford Barnes. But which young, single female of her acquaintance was not? His presence in a room had eclipsed all others. There was something dangerous about him, something exciting and headstrong and enticing—or had that only been true for Elizabeth? Had she willed it to be true?

The truth was, she had required a beau. No, a husband. Marriage had been an escape, she saw that now.

So she'd had to delude herself into believing she loved Mr. Barnes—Radford—and what of that? Most people did not marry for love, but for security and the mutual exchange of advantages. She had done no more than most of the females she knew.

But, no, she could not lie to herself, not anymore. Unlike her counterparts, she had been decisive, hasty, and doggedly determined to plunge into obvious folly—marriage to a stranger. Marriage without guarantees, without an investigation into facts, marriage without any safeguards. If she had fallen, she had deserved to, for it had been through her own actions that she had come to stand upon the precipice.

In her own defense, it had all seemed so clear. If she eloped she would no longer have to live under the disapproving eye of her father's new wife, Francine. Her stepmama would certainly not approve of an elopement, even if she would be keenly happy to have at least one of her stepdaughters out of the house. It was not that Francine was an evil woman . . . but she was not Mama, two years dead. And Francine did not love her husband's children, nor graciously share "her" home with them.

More important, if Elizabeth eloped, there was the matter of her dowry, for no self-respecting father would award a dowry to the scoundrel who eloped with his daughter. That Elizabeth would deliberately make the choice to surrender her dowry seemed opposed to basic logic, until one considered that her portion then could be transferred to the remaining daughter, to Lorraine. Mr. Broderick Mainworthy's family could only look upon a doubled dowry with an approving eye. They were of the kind of wealth that did not question sudden discreet increases in value; only the increase itself, not its origin, would concern them.

And Elizabeth had blithely believed she would not need her dowry. Radford was wealthy, or so Elizabeth had judged from his up-to-the-rig equipage, clothing, and gentleman's apartment at Albany in Piccadilly. She had heard the odd grumble or two about Mr. Radford Barnes, yes. Nothing of consequence, nothing that she couldn't blame upon jealousy on the part of other gentlemen, those not quite so gifted with that essence called flash, nor so glib of tongue, as her soon-to-be-spouse.

Yes, an elopement had seemed the very thing to create happiness all the way around, and Elizabeth had thought herself daring and clever.

If only it had turned out to be an elopement in fact and not just a fiction!

But no, she did not really wish for that either, not truthfully. To be legally bonded to Radford Barnes was a fate she could not wish upon the foulest harridan London ever produced, let alone on herself. Not even to save her reputation.

Of course, she had to admit to herself. Radford had not offered to marry her in truth once it was revealed the ceremony had been a false one. so the point was moot.

She had already determined her reputation was irredeemable, and that she must disappear from sight, so there was no value in looking back, except to know to avoid a similar stupidity in the future. Yes, she must learn from her grievous mistake.

No man. she vowed to herself yet once more, would ever again find Elizabeth Hatton susceptible to sweet words or honeyed promises.

Not that she was in danger of any man coming near enough to offer such sweet nothings, she thought wryly as she settled back upon the bed Lord Greyleigh had provided her. Only look at her situation: there was no man in sight, for one certainly could not count Lord Greyleigh, her scarcely tolerant host, as a potential suitor. Even if she wanted a suitor, which was impossible in the situation, Greyleigh would not be the man to fill those shoes. Even though, a quiet and unwelcome little interior voice whispered. Lord Greyleigh was handsome enough to make a girl's heart turn somersaults.

"He is odd-looking." Elizabeth said aloud, as though to deny her own traitorous thoughts. Then she scowled, because someone's appearance, she now knew to her sorrow, was a very hollow reason for accepting or rejecting that person. "He is just plain odd. period." she next said, but even though she spoke the truth, the words did not sit well on her tongue.

Had she learned anything from her mistakes? Her judgment of men had proven to be atrocious. She would be a fool to trust ever again to her intuition, for look how far afield it had led her already! If she were to feel guilty for maligning Lord Greyleigh's character, she would have to feel guilty for maligning all men. Papa had married a shrew; Lorraine's beau might never kick over the traces in which his family held him in check; and Radford had been especially appalling—and she had once made herself believe she could love him. If that was not proof of her lack of perception, what was?

She leaned back against the headboard and closed her eyes. She tried to empty her mind of all distressing thoughts, but truth was she had little else to think on. She recounted every distress that had come her way—only to have her eyes snap open when she realized, in sudden clarity, that all of them had taken place before she had entered Lord Greyleigh's home.

Other than seeing a strange woman who might or might not be a ghost, her situation had done nothing but improve since she had been brought into this house. Her foot was under a doctor's care, Radford had presumably given up pursuing her because he believed she had perished, and she had decided upon how to direct her future. That anonymous future she needed looked not only possible, but entirely obtainable.

It was coincidence, of course, this sudden turning up of her luck. But she could not quite escape a nagging sensation that, for all his oddities, Lord Greyleigh had not quite proven himself of the mold from which Elizabeth considered all men must be made.

But Lord Greyleigh was considered to be at least an eccentric, if not a madman. Given his reputation, it was not odd that he stepped outside the realm of normal behavior. She must keep that in mind. She must remember that because he was different did not mean she ought to forget the lesson already learned: she did not understand men, and she could not trust them to do what was best for her.

Chapter 9

Late that afternoon, Gideon looked across his desk to where Elizabeth was ensconced in one of his large library chairs. She wore a gown that had been his mother's, stored these two months past. Mama's gown had proven too voluminous for Elizabeth, so that she had been obliged to pin a fichu at the neckline for modesty's sake.

His mama had been as fair as Gideon was himself. He remembered the gown Elizabeth now wore, because he had never thought it suited Mama's coloring. It was a vibrant green silk, a rich emerald. It was most unsuitable for Elizabeth's place in life, a young unmarried woman presumably only a few years out of the schoolroom. It was, however, eminently suitable for her coloring, setting off her dark hair and flattering her brown eyes in the same way that in summer leaves flatter a forest. Although the fichu somewhat detracted from the lie of the gown, Elizabeth still managed to look quite fetching.

Gideon frowned at the word "fetching" and turned his attention back to the estate books before him on his desk.

Only to look up at her again two minutes later when she gave a small laugh.

"Oh, yes, I know that one well," she said, holding a book aloft. "An Appointed Meeting, " she stated, reading the title. "The meeting being between Sir Francis Drake and Queen Elizabeth, I recall. My sister first read it aloud to me, and I adored it. I have read it many times since. I might do so again if I cannot find a book that I have not yet read."

Gideon turned back to his account books and tried to focus on the columns of numbers there despite sudden distracting thoughts of ships full of gold sailing back to England and her queen, also named Elizabeth.

Scattered around his guest were stacks of books taken from Gideon's shelves by two attentive footmen, Biggins and Simons by name. Biggins did the fetching, while Simons helped the lady sort the books into piles of "no" and "possibly." The latter was the better job for Simons, since he had lost the two primary fingers on his left hand from a firearm explosion while he was fighting as a common soldier against Napoleon. He was strong of arm, for lifting and hauling, but naturally not as dextrous of hand as was Biggins. Elizabeth had made no comment about Simons' loss, but she had either accidentally—or deftly—given him the job better suited to his abilities.

Gideon played with the feathered end of the quill, contemplating the thought that Elizabeth's mental state seemed less fragile than Mama's had been—but then again it was difficult to remember Mama as a younger, less disturbed woman. Age had not wrought any kind changes with Mama, only taking her deeper and deeper into her delusions. Perhaps she had once also seemed as composed as this woman seemed at times.

The footmen consulted again with the lady, seeking her opinion, and then Biggins went to retrieve yet more volumes for her review.

"I have read that one before, too," Elizabeth said of the binding Simons showed her. She accepted the book, saving him from having to transfer it to his marred left hand, and put the rejected book on a growing pile near her knee. With her other hand she reached for the next book the footman handed her. "Oh yes, that one, too."

She had read quite a few of them, Gideon noted—or so she said. She was either a bit of a bluestocking or else she was simply making wild claims.

He suspected the latter.

Curious, that. There were not many females of his acquaintances who not only liked to read, but who would readily admit to that scholarly pursuit. Granted, his shelves did not offer much in the way of Greek or Latin tomes. Most of Gideon's inherited library consisted of dreadfully dry religious tracts, tales of travel almost as dusty, and a daunting profusion of Minerva Press novels. Mama had cared for the latter in her younger days, and Papa had cared for books only as decoration of his library. Still, there was the occasional volume of poems, treatises on farming practices, and recent popular reading that Gideon had added to the collection, and most of those presented to Elizabeth she claimed to have already read.

"Collection of the Essential Works of John Gay" She read another title aloud, and Gideon noted she placed it in her "no" pile.

"Am I to take it you have read John Gay?" Gideon scoffed.

"I have." She gave him a curious look, one that suggested she bordered on being insulted.

"Quote me something by him then. Anything at all that you recall," Gideon said, not bothering to hide his skepticism.

She gave him an arch look. "If the heart of a man is deprest with cares," she recited with the slow dawning of a superior little smile in her eyes, "The mist is dispell'd when a woman appears.' That is from The Beggar's Opera."

"So it is," Gideon agreed, blinking away his surprise. "Thank you," he murmured, and ungraciously turned his attention back to his account books.

"Now here is something I have not seen before," she said, and Gideon had to credit her for not sounding smug. He glanced up from his work once more, despite an interior command not to keep allowing her activities to distract him, and saw she had a Minerva Press volume in her hands.

"The Serpent's Tooth." Elizabeth read the title aloud. "It is surely about ungrateful children, do you not think?" she asked the room in general.

Gideon frowned at the pages before him, realizing he had yet again lost his place. He would have to start the sums all over again.

He took a deep breath, and let it out in an audible sigh as he wondered for the hundredth time why he did not simply hire a secretary to do this tedious estate work for him. Other men left estate affairs to their men of business—but other men ended in bankruptcy or debtor's prison. Not Gideon. Not with a houseful of dependents relying on him and his ability to remain solvent. That was why he watched over his own books.

If only some of those dependents were not immediately in this room and disturbing his thinking, Gideon thought sourly.

He was almost relieved when his butler, Frick, stepped in at that moment, interrupting the resumption of his calculations. "The post, my lord," Frick informed him, bringing the same into the room on a silver salver.

Gideon removed the single missive, and Frick bowed himself out, but not before inquiring if Miss Elizabeth required anything for her comfort and nodding to a request for tea. Gideon looked up at that, disgruntled by the obvious indication that she meant to linger here a while longer. Maybe he should leave, for he certainly was not getting much accomplished with Elizabeth in the room. She was a dratted distraction.

"Is your letter from someone you care to hear from?" The distraction spoke yet again.

Gideon glanced at the handwriting in which his name had been penned on the outside of the folded missive. "Benjamin," he answered curtly.

"Benjamin?" Elizabeth echoed, quite evidently content to make idle conversation.

Gideon sighed, but in all fairness he could hardly blame her; time could be a heavy weight on the shoulders of an invalid. In some minds time was a flexible thing, not a straight line ruthlessly ticked away second by second. In some minds, one day could go on and on, revisited, relived for years, or never ending. Mama, in her later days, had returned in her mind to her youth, so far lost to reality that she could not even think how to don the clothes in her wardrobe, for they no longer had the shape or purpose of the clothing she had worn as a girl forty years earlier.

Elizabeth continued to look at Gideon with a question in her gaze.

"Benjamin is my brother," he explained. "I have two. Benjamin is younger by two years, and Sebastian by five."

"You have no sisters?"

"None. And you?" He gave her a level gaze, and hoped he had not allowed his interest to visibly sharpen.

She parted her lips, then closed them deliberately. He would swear she was perfectly aware he had meant to trap her into a confession of her past. She might be of the nervous sort, but she was not stupid.

"I cannot say," was her reply.

"You do not know?" he queried sharply, now not bothering to hide his keen interest. "Or you will not say?"

"I cannot say," she reported. She turned her gaze down to the book she cracked open in her lap, her mouth set in a firm line.

"Could you say, if I promised to do nothing to find your family?"

She glanced up sharply. "Do you promise that?"

It would be easy to lie, but some sense of honor or correctness held his tongue. "Of course not. Your family has a right to know where you are—"

Putting the book under her arm, Elizabeth turned her attention to the nearest footman. "I would like to be returned to my room, please. At once."

"You are running away," Gideon said with surprise, and wondered if he meant from their conversation or from her past.

"No," Elizabeth said, nodding as Simons brought the usual chair for her to transfer into. "I am running toward something, Lord Greyleigh." She hesitated, then looked back at him. She squared her shoulders. "I do wish you would not ask me questions. If you will insist on doing so, I will have to leave this house at once, no matter what the doctor cautions."

He stared at her, not so much angered as shocked. It wasn't her apparent lucidity that shocked him, nor her demands to remain unquestioned, but the stark anguish sitting in the back of her eyes. She tried to hide it, tried to stare him down haughtily, but Gideon had looked too many times into despondent eyes not to recognize the agony he saw now.

The footmen glanced between the lady and their master, clearly at a loss as to whether or not they should proceed. Elizabeth did not signal them, her attention wholly fixed on Gideon.

She had been through some terrible ordeal—he could see that as clearly as he could see by the rapid rise and fall of her bosom that her breath had quickened in agitation. Or perhaps the ordeal was something that lived in her brain, torturing her, making her unable to cope with the world around her.

It did not really matter which. Sane or mad, she was a soul in pain—lost, wandering, afraid.

She surely feared that her refusals to speak would cause him to cast her out, before her enfeebled body was able to withstand the risk. She feared her future swung on this moment, and she waited with bated breath to learn her fate. He knew it as clearly as if she had spoken. He had looked into fear-filled eyes a hundred, a thousand times, and despite his strictest intentions to safeguard his own soul, found himself succumbing to the plea he sensed now from her.

"Come back in a few minutes," Gideon said in a rough voice to the footmen, who withdrew at once. When they had gone, Gideon turned back to Elizabeth.