The Daring Deception

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1840“What the devil am I to do?” The Marquis of Melsonby spoke the words aloud and, as if to relieve his feelings, he picked up a large piece of wood and flung it on the already blazing fire. Despite the leaping flames the room was still cold and draughty. He could hear the wind whistling and the beat of hailstones on the small diamond-paned windows. ‘What in God’s name can I do?’ he asked himself. There was a knock at the door and it opened to reveal the portly figure of the landlord. “Is there anythin’ else you’d wish, my Lord?” he murmured. The Marquis was about to reply that there was nothing he needed when he changed his mind. “Bring another bottle of wine.” “Very good, my Lord.” Alone, the Marquis staring at the flames thought he might as well get drunk, although he was aware that the only wine which was available was of poor quality and would doubtless give him a stinking headache in the morning. But he could hardly contemplate a night alone with his thoughts. He walked restlessly across the room, his stocking feet making little sound on the creaking boards. Since his boots, his heavy riding coat and his whipcord jacket were all downstairs being dried, he found himself shivering in his shirtsleeves and returned quickly to the warmth of the fireside. It was typical of his bad luck, he thought, that he should have lost his way. Instead of reaching Baldock, where he had planned to spend the night at The George and Dragon, he had been forced to seek accommodation in this rough inn with nothing to recommend it save that at least it afforded shelter from the elements. His horse had been practically dead-beat and he himself found it impossible to see with the snow and hail driving on his face as he rode over unknown countryside. He had given orders that his phaeton, driven by his groom, should meet him at Baldock and had thought that the ride across country would not only exercise his body but perhaps also alleviate some of the torturous anxieties that beset his mind. How could he have imagined for just one moment, he asked himself not once but one hundred times, that Karen could behave in such a way and place him in such an intolerable predicament? The Marquis had grown accustomed to success with the fair s*x. He would have been a fool, which he certainly was not, if he had not been aware that he was one of the most sought-after, admired and eligible bachelors in the whole country. He had inherited a very proud title, he was extraordinarily wealthy and he was extremely handsome. But that was not all for he was a keen sportsman much liked by his fellow men, a notable rider and could drive a coach and four with a speed and accuracy which made him the most vaunted member of the Four-In-Hand Club. It was because he was intelligent that the Marquis, despite his undoubted successes as a lover, had managed to avoid having an unsavoury reputation in Court circles. Naturally women gossiped about him and, of course, there were husbands who spoke of him through gritted teeth and who swore that one day they would avenge themselves if their suspicions of him could be proved. But otherwise the Marquis’s friends envied his prowess and admired his discretion where his affaires de coeur were concerned. ‘And now comes this bombshell,’ the Marquis thought furiously. Because he had been so careful to behave in a circumspect manner he had never been involved nor had his name been coupled with that of a young girl. He was well aware, as a matrimonial catch, that every ambitious Mama in London with a marriageable daughter would not only welcome him as a son-in-law but went out of her way to entice him into declaring himself. They had even on one or two occasions tried to trap him into a compromising position when he must in honour propose marriage. The Marquis deftly and with some private amusement avoided the obvious tricks to lure him to the Altar. He had instead looked with some interest, and often with a desire that was immediately reciprocated, at women whose matrimonial status made it impossible for them to expect in return for their favours that he should offer them a Wedding ring. Lady Courtley had been his mistress for nearly a year. Her husband lived mostly abroad and had, it was understood, a vast dislike for the social life that his wife enjoyed. Sheila Courtley was not of the highest standing in the Beau Monde, but at least she was outwardly respectable and she and the Marquis were able to meet at a large number of private parties and entertainments that they were separately invited to. Sheila was dark, graceful and had a strange almost haunting beauty, which the Marquis appreciated. At times he even expressed his admiration in glowing terms. “You are very lovely,” he had said not long ago in that deep voice that women found irresistible, “so lovely, that I often tell myself how lucky I am that I can hold you in my arms and kiss those perfectly curved lips of yours.” “Kiss me again,” Sheila whispered. Then, throwing her arms round the Marquis’s neck, she exclaimed with a throb in her voice, “I love you! I love you! Oh, Ivon, you have no idea how much I love you.” It was only as the dawn was breaking over the housetops and his closed carriage drove him back through the empty streets towards Melsonby House in Grosvenor Square, that the Marquis found himself wondering if Sheila had any other topic of conversation save that of love. Frequently in the very early hours of the morning he found himself criticising not the perfection of her looks, but the emptiness of her brain. ‘But why should I want her to be intelligent?’ he asked himself. ‘I expect too much!’ Yet quite recently he had found it impossible not to notice how long and drawn out their dinners together seemed. He had almost admitted to being bored until the moment when they could go upstairs, when she would reach out her arms towards him and he could see the flicker of desire in her eyes almost before he himself was ready for it. The Marquis had a long enough experience of women to know that quite suddenly their society would begin to pall on him. And he would find himself yawning in their company. He would experience a sense of reluctance to accept their over-eager invitations. He thought that the reason was that they made the chase too easy. In fact his whole life was too easy. When he was being particularly imaginative, he longed to experience danger, to have to extricate himself from a tight corner and to know that the exhilaration of scoring a victory, whether it was physical or mental, over someone with whom he was well-matched. There had been occasions in the past when he had managed through his ability to speak foreign languages to be of service to the Government in an unofficial position. These had resulted in moments in France and again in Italy, when he had saved his life only by quick thinking followed by quick action. But those days were past. Since he had inherited the title, the Most Noble the Marquis of Melsonby, was no longer an unknown young man who could go galivanting unobserved about the Continent. Or even be able, as the Foreign Secretary had put it once with a smile, to listen discreetly at keyholes! But the Marquis knew in his heart that, as far as Sheila Courtley was concerned, he was growing restless. He had therefore been astounded and at the same time concerned when three days before he had received an urgent if somewhat incoherent note demanding his presence. It had at least served its purpose in that it had made him very curious and he had walked obediently into Lady Courtley’s sitting room late in the afternoon having only an hour earlier been handed her note in White’s Club. She was alone and she looked up eagerly as he was announced, observing the elegance of his appearance, the look of inquiry on his handsome face and appreciating the grace with which he crossed the room and raised her hand to his lips. “What is wrong, Sheila?” he inquired as the footman closed the door behind him and they were alone. It was then as he looked down at her lovely face that he realised that she was dressed in black. He had never seen her before in anything but the bright emerald greens, the peacock-blues, the pigeon-blood reds that became her dark beauty. As he waited for her answer, a sudden fear made him tense. Her fingers tightened on his. “George is dead!” “Dead!” the Marquis expostulated. “How?” “He died of a fever in Greece. His doctor has written to me. There are few details.” “I am sorry,” the Marquis said quietly. “It must have been a great shock to you.” “A shock, of course,” Lady Courtley agreed. Then she moved forward to lay her head against his shoulder. “You realise what this means, Ivon?” she asked in a low voice. It was with reluctance, but the Marquis knew it was expected of him, that he put his arm round her. “What does it mean?” he asked, telling himself as he spoke that he sounded like a silly schoolboy. “It means that I am – free!” Sheila Courtley whispered. Somehow he had extricated himself without making her any promises, somehow he had managed to convey to her that she must behave circumspectly. She must, he assured her, weep publicly for her dead husband and so be prepared to wait the conventional year before there could even be any thought of re-marriage. He had known as he left the house that he had to escape from her clinging arms either tactfully and with diplomacy, which he preferred, or eventually if she would not listen to him, brutally. He could not and would not marry Sheila Courtley! He could not spend the rest of his days listening to her banal remarks, knowing that there was nothing in that lovely head but a desire for social recognition, a craving for gossip and the admiration of men like himself who could be enticed and caught by her beauty. ‘But beauty fades,’ the Marquis told himself. In fact, as far as he was concerned, Sheila Courtley's beauty had already lost its appeal. Because he was embarrassed and because he blamed himself for having allowed what should have been a merely transient affair to continue for so long, he then decided to leave London. He had intended going to his own house, Mell Castle in Kent, but on leaving Lady Courtley he had run into Johnny Gerrard, a close friend with whom he had served in the Army and with whom he had many tastes in common. “Come to Quenton,” Johnny insisted. “The ducks have been flighting in with the bad weather. I have been meaning to ask you to come up and have a shot at them.” “I would like that,” the Marquis replied. “Thank you, Johnny. What I need at the moment is a breath of fresh air.” “Or should it be a fresh face,” Johnny asked knowingly. The Marquis had not replied. He had never discussed his love affairs with his friends, however intimate they might be. But he and Johnny had been together for so many years and they knew each other almost as if they were brothers so it was with some difficulty that the Marquis resisted the impulse to confide in his friend. He had thought that the party at Quenton would be entirely a masculine one. Johnny’s father, Lord Gerrard, was delighted to entertain his son’s friends on every occasion and his mother, frail and somewhat crippled with rheumatics, had always treated the Marquis as if he was one of her own family. It was however a surprise to find when he arrived at the huge house in Leicestershire that the Quentons had owned for five hundred years, that Lady Karen Russell was amongst the guests. Karen and the Marquis had spent several rapturous nights together three months earlier before she had left England for a visit to Spain. He had not known she was back and, when he walked into the big salon to see her standing at the far end, the Marquis had felt a glow of satisfaction at the sight of her.