The Wicked Marquess Read online

  Sinbad had had a thousand mistresses, she reminded herself. He was probably accustomed to ladies swooning over him. What did one do with so many lovers? Was the lovely Lady Cecilia number one thousand or one thousand and one?

  He propped one broad shoulder against the wall. “Well?”

  “Is it true that you have had a thousand mistresses?” She was a pig-widgeon. “I should not have asked that.”

  “No, you should not, but somehow I’m not surprised.” If Benedict was offended by her presumption, no sign of it crossed his face. “Surely you didn’t lure me into the alcove to discuss my amatory feats.”

  Had she lured him here? Nonie’s strictures echoed in Miranda’s ears. A well-brought-up young lady must not allow herself to be alone with a gentleman lest it give rise to the suspicion that something untoward transpired.

  Dissonances issued from the music room, the musicians having resumed the execution of their art. “I expect that you have kissed a great number of ladies, my lord.”

  An indefinable emotion flicked across Benedict’s features. “I expect I have.”

  If only she hadn’t claimed no interest in flirtation. A rakehell would go about the business in a very different manner than the Mr. Cartwrights of the world. “It’s not that I’ve never been kissed because no one wanted to kiss me. Lots of people have wanted to kiss me, but I didn’t want to kiss them.”

  He arched one dark eyebrow. “I can attest to that.”

  One strand of silky dark hair had come loose from its ribbon. Miranda squelched an impulse to raise her hand and brush it back from his cheek. She moved closer to him. “Would you like to kiss me, my lord?”

  His other eyebrow rose. Miranda was encouraged. She doubted it was easy to surprise individuals of Sinbad’s bent.

  He did not rush to embrace her. “I am not yet so depraved as to take advantage of an innocent, no matter how outrageously she behaves.”

  Benedict didn’t want to kiss her. Miranda supposed she was too young. Heaven knew she was too young for anything else, except to hand over her fortune to some unknown man and bear his children and afterward occupy herself with domestic matters while her husband spent her money chasing foxes and mistresses and buying expensive horseflesh, at least until she fell in love and eloped with some rogue who would then abandon her, the kind of gentleman one might feel passionate about not being the kind of gentleman who lingered long after his initial interest lapsed.

  Here stood just that sort of gentleman. Miranda touched his sleeve. “Everyone warns me against rakehells. But no one will tell me just what it is that a rakehell does that is so bad.”

  Benedict murmured something under his breath. She could not be certain, but Miranda thought he might have cursed. Then he tucked a knuckle under her chin and tilted up her face. “Rakehells are unscrupulous fellows who take advantage of unwary young women. Like so.”

  His lips brushed across hers, gently, before he released her and stepped back. “My apologies, Miss Russell. I should never have done that.”

  Miranda touched her fingers to her lips. Her first kiss had been all too brief. And now the blasted man said he was sorry. She pushed past him and out of the alcove.

  Chapter Six

  Through the busy London streets rattled a splendid high-perch phaeton, elegantly decorated and suspended by an amazing number of springs, some of which reached as far as the leather brake. It was a spanking turn-out, drawn by proper high-bred ‘uns, as could only be expected of an acknowledged top sawyer with four-in-hand. As the phaeton passed by, any number of Lord Baird’s acquaintance sought to catch his attention. They failed.

  The marquess was deep in conversation with his conscience. In defense of recent actions, he pointed out that he was an adventurer whose travels had been curtailed. Conscience countered that despoiling innocents was not the sort of adventure Sinbad had hitherto craved. Fortunate that the lacquered wood settee had been so uninviting. Benedict and his conscience agreed that he was more wicked than either of them had previously realized.

  True, he had fortified himself with a generous libation before presenting himself at Lady Underhill’s musicale, with the result that Miranda had put him in mind of a certain adventure in which Sinbad had acquired a slave-girl like a shining moon, but that was no good excuse. She should have slapped his face, boxed his ears, at the very least assaulted him with her hatpin. Instead, she had stood staring at him, dazed.

  She was so painfully, poignantly young. Were Miss Russell in his charge – and Benedict was profoundly grateful that she was not – the little temptress would be kept on a short leash. Confined to bread and water in her room. Turned over his knee.

  Benedict groaned at the image. He hadn’t been so addled since his first opera dancer – and what the devil was her name? That he failed to remember was further proof of his unfitness to hobnob with innocents. Yes, and he had avoided innocents altogether until recently when Fate tumbled one right into his arms. Benedict alternated between wanting to see Miranda again so that he might apologize and wishing to avoid her like the plague, thereby keeping temptation out of both their paths.

  She might well have nothing to do with him after their last encounter. It would be no more than he deserved. Best that she marry quickly and thus be removed from harm’s way, thereby soon becoming available for the sort of games favored by bored members of the ton. Benedict immediately wanted to thrash the hypothetical bridegroom who would rob the child of her illusions and transform her into another bored young wife.

  Not to Bond Street did Lord Baird venture, nor Oxford Street or St. James’s. White’s Club would not today be graced by his presence, or the tailor Weston in Conduit Street, or the boot maker Hoby, who was a Methodist minister in private practice; nor even his man of business, with whom Benedict spent much time going over matters relating to his various properties. The marquess and his ruminations were headed into an older part of town.

  Skillfully he guided his team through the narrow twisting streets, drew them to a halt at last in front of a grand old Jacobean house that had an air of having lived long and seen much and by the present day being unimpressed. Benedict climbed down from his high seat and handed the reins to his groom.

  The massive front door swung open. A white-wigged, liveried manservant inclined his head. “Madam is in her tantrums again today, my lord.”

  A wealth of meaning lay behind those few words. Wiggins had been in the employ of Lady Darby for as long as Benedict could recall. He handed the servant his tall flat-crowned beaver hat, climbed the heavy oak staircase, entered a bedchamber crammed with a great deal of dark and heavy furniture fashioned in the Gothic style. The casement windows were shrouded with crimson draperies that had faded with age, as had the carpet on the floor and the slight figure in the huge four-post bed. Her sunken features were camouflaged by paint, powder and rouge; and dwarfed by a tall powdered wig.

  She glowered at him. “I distinctly recall telling the demned servants that I wasn’t home to callers.”

  Benedict opened the fusty, faded draperies. The room smelled of medications, feline urine, and decaying human flesh. “Are you quacking yourself again, Odette?”

  “Pish tush!” she retorted. “‘Tis that plaguey medico. Behold me dosed with Pills of Hermodactils and Pills of Erphorbium. I’ve even had Oil of Hazel Nuts with me in my bath. Bruised snails and pyrites mixed with honey didn’t do the trick, so I have Ungentum Anodynum — oil of white lilies and oil of dill and oil of sweet almond combined with duck’s grease and hen’s grease and chamomile, if you care to know – applied to my knee. If that don’t work, the quacksalver threatens me with an enema of snail water mixed with turpentine. Demned tedious, this business of growing old.” Lady Darby arranged herself more comfortably among the bedclothes, in the process disturbing the various books, papers, bonbons and bottles by which she was surrounded, as well as the cream-colored cat that dozed on a pillow by her head. This disobliging black-masked creature was deemed a manifestation of the
archfiend by every member of the household save its mistress, who called the demon ‘Chimlin’ and hung jewels round its neck.

  The cat slitted its blue eyes at Benedict, who had brought it back with him from his travels, a perfect example of appearances deceiving, for he had been so misled by crossed eyes and a kinked tail as to name it ‘cute’.

  Odette flicked open her snuffbox. “About time you showed your phiz around here, boy. I’d begun to think you was waiting for me to cock up my toes.”

  Benedict drew a carved chair closer to the bed. “You are far too stubborn to stick your spoon in the wall, Odette.”

  Lady Darby snorted. She was secretly glad to see her nephew — or grandnephew, if truth be admitted – but would not tell him that. “What’s to be done with the whelp?” she inquired of the room at large. “Mayhap he means to insure my long life by refusing to marry because he knows I shan’t go to my maker until the succession is ensured.”

  Benedict refrained from pointing out that he had married, once, at his aunt’s insistence. It had not ended well. “I already have an heir.”

  “Merry-begotten brats don’t count!” snapped Lady Darby, somewhat unfairly, because Benedict had no bastard children, at least that she knew of, at least to date. “I won’t see the title go to a country clod.”

  “You are quick to condemn him. The man is a stranger. He may be far more civilized than I.”

  “‘Twouldn’t take much. ‘Sinbad,’ forsooth! You could be a pagan with all that hair.” Not that Odette misliked his appearance. Lady Darby had also been a sinner once. She paused to enjoy a pinch of snuff.

  “You needn’t be in amours with your bride,” she added, more calmly, after she had sneezed. “I don’t expect that you’ll go on happy as two pickpockets at a fair. I do expect that you’ll get yourself offspring. ‘Tisn’t like you don’t know how to go about the business. Apropos of which, I hear the gull-gropers have got their talons fast in your peculiar.”

  Marvelous how Odette managed to keep her thumb on the pulse of scandal even while confined to her bed. “Perhaps I should wed Ceci,” Benedict countered. “Since you are so determined that I take a wife.”

  Lady Darby dropped her snuffbox, thereby disturbing Chimlin, who hissed a protest. “Are you mad? Dance the feather-bed jig with anyone you please, but you’ll not make that tart your marchioness. The hussy would play you false.”

  “Calm yourself. I spoke in jest.” Weary as he might be of his aunt’s scolding, Benedict disliked even more to see her upset.

  Odette fumbled for her vinaigrette among the formidable array of fortifying salts and tonics that marched across a nearby table, inhaled deeply before applying herself once more to the ticklish task of instilling the current marquess with a consciousness of his superior social standing and his obligations to his rank. Jest as she might about the matter, Lady Darby genuinely feared that she would be called to pay her debt to nature before she contrived to see Benedict safely tied-up, and alternately that he would grow restless with his life of leisure and set out adventuring again. “You didn’t expect to inherit, but you did inherit, and the title must be assured. Aye, and well you know it. You’re by no means the fool your conduct implies.”

  Benedict recalled a certain recent instance of his conduct. “I’m not so sure of that.”

  Something in his tone caught his aunt’s attention. It sounded oddly like remorse. “I don’t expect you to become a paragon of virtue. Of course you’ll keep a bit of muslin, or two, or ten. Tell me of your expeditions. Have you found any misses that may suit?”

  All this talk of marriage reminded Benedict of other recent comments he’d heard on the subject. Miss Russell might be the only young lady in all London who shared his antipathy to the wedded state.

  Percy Pettigrew had mentioned some ancient scandal. If anyone knew ancient scandal, it would be Odette, who in her heyday had caused more than a few controversies of her own. “The misses are a uniformly boring lot. Next you will tell me that I shouldn’t expect to find excitement in the marriage mart, and I will remind you yet again that I’m not searching for a bride. It’s no use trying to stare me out of countenance, Odette. You won’t bend me to your will.”

  Lady Darby was briefly silent. Her gaze fell upon the story she had been reading when her nephew entered the room. She couldn’t blame the lad for not wanting to marry some ninny like the betwattled heroine who, beset by all manner of peril, managed in every instance to set her foot wrong. If that silly story was any indication of how the younger generation was going on, things were in a sorry state.

  Benedict picked up a medicine bottle from the bedside table. “I’ve recently met one young lady who isn’t in the common way, not that I intend to marry her, so don’t elevate your hopes. What can you tell me about the Russell family?”

  As she lived, he was a scamp, a rogue, a rascal; and Odette loved him dearly, which was quite beside the point. “Russell,” she repeated. “Describe the chit.”

  How to describe Miranda? Benedict discarded most of the adjectives that came to mind. “Honey hair. Violet eyes. A taking little thing. I’m told she has a fortune. Her uncle has brought her from the country to see her wed.”

  Did he affect more nonchalance, he would be a wooden block. “Who’s the uncle?” Odette inquired.

  Benedict set down the bottle. “Symington.”

  “Symington?” Despite her gout, Odette sat bolt upright. “God’s blood! The gel must be Caroline’s daughter.”

  Benedict wished his aunt might be a trifle more forthcoming. “Caroline?”

  Lady Darby sank back among her pillows. “I’m surprised you don’t remember. Caroline Russell made a dreadful scandal, with the help of Black Jack Quarles. ‘Twould have been about the same time as you was head over heels in amours with that little opera-dancer – what was her name, Amalie?”

  Already nettled by his aunt’s incessant carping on the subject of matrimony, Benedict was further irritated by her ability to remember the name he had forgot. He saluted her withered cheek and took his leave.

  Chapter Seven

  Miss Russell and her companion were on a shopping expedition. A footman trailed behind. Nonie was eager to visit the stores in Oxford Street, for though she might be purse-pinched she still enjoyed gazing at the wares; Miranda and the footman were more interested in The Happy Family, a large cage on a wheelbarrow in which were housed two cats, two dogs, a rat, a monkey and some birds, all dwelling together and performing tricks in perfect amity. Miranda had to be persuaded against visiting Berry’s wine-shop in St. James’s Street, there to weigh herself on the great scale in the window; and the footman had to be pried away from a puppet-show. At length the ladies entered Ackerman’s print shop, in the Strand. There they encountered Mr. Atchison, who had a great deal to say on the subject of aquatint engraving and hand-colored plates. Nonie was polite, and Miranda considerably less so.

  “Why have you taken that poor young man in such disfavor?” asked Nonie, after they returned to the noisy street.

  Miranda wrinkled her nose, less at mention of her suitor than at the smell of the town, which had strong overtones of horse manure. “You’ll not persuade me that you don’t find him a dead bore.”

  “But I don’t. I enjoy his conversation. He has a wide-ranging curiosity and a fine intellect.”

  Miranda glanced at her reflection in a shop window. She wore a spencer of lilac sarcenet, a walking dress of white muslin with a gathered flounce above the hem, and a tucked silk bonnet with lace fills and a ribbon knot. She hardly expected to encounter Sinbad in the shops, but it paid to be prepared.

  What had they been discussing? Ah. “Then you may marry Mr. Atchison, since you like him so well.”

  “It’s not me the man is dangling after!” Nonie protested. “I trust you jest.”

  Miranda seldom jested. Now that she considered the situation, Mr. Atchison might suit Nonie very well. “You’ve been going on about what a paragon he is. And you have been telling
me that it’s unnatural for a young woman not to be eager to wed.”

  “I’m hardly a young woman,” Nonie replied repressively. “It isn’t the same thing.”

  “Why not?” Once Miranda took a notion into a head, it was not easily cast out. “We can just as easily find a husband for you as for me.”

  From what Nonie had seen of husbands, she wasn’t sure she wanted one. “You are absurd, Miranda. I had my season, and I didn’t take. Unlike yourself, I never had much to recommend me, neither looks nor wealth.”

  “It isn’t true that you have no looks!” Nonie’s plain muslin gown was set off quite nicely by the yellow straw bonnet and amber-toned Paisley shawl that Miranda had insisted she borrow. “You could be very pretty if you made a push. Moreover, if a gentleman truly loved you, he wouldn’t regard your lack of wealth.”

  She was an old ewe dressed lamb-fashion, Nonie thought unhappily. And Miranda was amazingly naïve.

  Which misapprehension to challenge first? “I am too old for Mr. Atchison,” Nonie pointed out.

  “Fiddlestick!” retorted Miranda. “Thirty isn’t as old as all that. Nor is Mr. Atchison so very young. I can’t imagine that when you made your come-out you didn’t catch the eye of some gentleman.”

  Naturally, Miranda could not imagine it. No gentleman in Miranda’s vicinity could keep his eyes off her. “So I did.”

  “Yet here you are. What happened?”

  Nonie disliked to remember. “His parents couldn’t approve of the match.”

  “So what if they didn’t?” persisted Miranda, puzzled. “You could have run off to Gretna Green.”

  Nonie disliked even more to hear her charge speak so blithely of runaway marriages. “And I would consequently have been ruined! Eloping was never an option, at any rate. He dared not defy his parents lest they disown him. I perfectly understood his decision to break off our connection. Romantic as is the notion, one cannot live on love.”