The Marquis who Hated Women

Chapter One ~ 1853-2

He had not thought of them until the January wind blowing down the Mews made him shiver and he felt frost in the air against his bare forehead.

Shangarry would have seen both objects in the hall and undoubtedly he would be discussing with his wife at the moment how they could be turned to their advantage.

The Marquis gritted his teeth angrily.

Why, he asked himself, had he not been more suspicious when Inez Shangarry had told him so glibly that her husband would be away from London that evening?

“Patrick is going to visit some friends at Epsom,” she had said. “He wants to look at their horses and it will be too late for him to return tonight since it is dark so early.”

It had seemed quite a plausible story at the time. But now the Marquis told himself that he must have been extremely stupid to think that any man who cared for his wife would leave her alone in London when he must have been aware who her escort would be in his absence.

‘I underestimated my own reputation,’ he told himself, ‘which is something I do not do as a rule.’

There was nothing he could do about it now, but as he walked on he thought with fury of his hat and evening cloak with its red satin lining reposing on a mahogany chair in the narrow unimpressive hall.

He remembered how, when they came back from the restaurant where they had dined in a private room so that they would not be seen together, their desire for each other leaping like a flame had made Inez hurry him upstairs without even stopping in the drawing room for the usual glass of wine.

Now he thought that he could distinctly remember her saying, ‘leave your things there,’ and almost automatically he had put down his hat and swung his cloak from his shoulders.

Then she had led the way upstairs, her full skirts moving seductively against the banisters with her neck and shoulders gleaming white in the dim lowered gaslights.

‘I deserve everything that comes to me,’ the Marquis said savagely to himself. ‘At my age and with my experience I should have learnt to trust no one, let alone a woman!’

His self-accusation did not make him feel any warmer and he moved more briskly, coming to the end of the Mews and turning into another street where the houses faced onto the pavement.

He had not gone more than a few yards when suddenly something fell at his feet with a thud and instinctively he jumped backwards, knowing that if the object had hit him on the head it would have laid him out.

He looked down and saw that it was a valise, an elegant expensive valise such as ladies carried when they travelled in a coach or a railway carriage.

The Marquis stared at it in surprise. Then, as he raised his head to look at where it had come from, he heard a voice crying out,

“Help! Help!”

He looked up and saw to his astonishment that just above his head a woman was swinging on a rope.

Her full skirts billowed out and they seemed to keep her suspended in mid-air.

Then he realised that her predicament lay in the fact that the rope was not long enough. It did not reach the ground and was short by at least six feet.

“Help!” she called again. “Help!”

Without thinking what he was doing, the Marquis stepped forward to reach up his arms and clasping her above the ankles he held her steady.

He realised that she was very light and, having a firm grip on her, he called out,

“You can let go now, I will not let you fall.”

She must have obeyed him, for he felt her bend over to try to put her hands on his shoulders and he let her slide slowly down, holding her finally round the waist until her feet were on the ground.

As he did so he realised that she was dressed expensively in silk and she had on her a faint fresh scent that reminded him of spring flowers.

Then, as he released her, she started to smooth her skirts into place and pull down the sleeves of the tight-fitting jacket she wore.

“Thank – you,” she stammered. “I was afraid the rope – would not be long enough, but I had to – take a chance.”

“What has happened to the gentleman who should be assisting you to elope?” the Marquis asked with an amused note in his voice. “Surely he should be here by now?”

“It is nothing like that!” she replied sharply.

Now, by the light of the moon, he could see that she was very young, only a girl, and, when the wind lifted the brim of her bonnet, he could see a small pointed face and what he thought were very large eyes.

“You are not eloping?” he enquired.

“No, of course not! I am running away from a man, not to one! If you want to know – the truth, I hate men! I hate all of them!”

The Marquis laughed and, when she looked at him in surprise, he explained,

“That is a sentiment I have just been expressing to myself, except that in my case I was hating women.”

She did not appear to be interested in his explanation, but bent down to pick up her valise.

It was almost too heavy for her, but she took hold of it with both hands and there was something so immature about her figure that the Marquis said,

“If you are intent on running away alone, I should think again. You will not be able to manage without someone to look after you. So be a good girl, go home and think it over. I don’t suppose that things are as bad as you suspect.”

“I have no intention of doing that.”

“Then doubtless it is my duty to make you,” the Marquis replied.

She gave a little cry and dropped the valise, this time on the edge of his foot. Then, before he could realise what was happening, she was running down the road away from him, moving with a swiftness that made her skirts fly out behind her.

“Stop!” the Marquis shouted. “It’s nothing to do with me. Stop, I tell you!”

He picked up the valise preparatory to running after her, but at that moment he saw someone emerge from the shadows at the end of the street and he heard the girl give a cry of fear.

Moving quickly and holding on to the valise, which was actually quite heavy, the Marquis hurried to where the girl who had run away from him was struggling.

He saw that it was with one of the ragged men who hung about the streets at all times of the day and night in the hope of earning a few pence for holding a horse or doubtless, if the opportunity arose, of picking a pocket.

“I’ve got ’er, Guv’nor. I’ll, ’old on to ’er,” the man said as the Marquis approached.

“Let me go! How dare you touch me!” the girl was shouting furiously, pulling and trying to free her hand, which the man was holding with both of his.

“Let her go,” the Marquis ordered in a tone of authority.

He took a coin from his pocket and threw it onto the ground.

“Now be off with you!”

The man bent down to snatch up the coin and did as he was told.

As the girl stood rubbing her wrists, the Marquis said quietly,

“There is no need to run away from me. What you do is not my business, but I think you see already that there are certain pitfalls for young women who move about the streets alone at this time of the night.”

“I had hoped to find – a Hackney carriage.”

“There might be one in Grosvenor Square,” the Marquis suggested. “That is where I am going and if you wish I will carry your valise for you.”

“Thank you,” the girl said. “I thought that there might have been a hansom on the rank in Berkeley Square.”

She paused and then added,

“As a matter of fact – I have never been in a hansom. That would be an adventure in itself!”

“If you are looking for adventure,” the Marquis said, “I can think of less dangerous ones than walking about London in the middle of the night.”

“I am not doing it for pleasure,” she retorted sharply. “I have to escape. If I stay – ”

She stopped speaking, as if she felt that she was being too confiding and they walked on in silence.

The wind that met them round the corner of Carlos Place made the Marquis shiver and he realised that his companion was shivering too.

“Surely you should have brought a cloak with you?” he asked.

“I have a shawl in my valise,” she answered, “but it would not have been easy to come down the rope – with anything over my shoulders.”

“No, of course not,” he agreed. “It is a somewhat uncomfortable way of leaving one’s residence.”

“The night-footman sits in the hall,” the girl said as if she thought that he was being very dense, “and I thought if I tried to let myself out by the kitchen door one of the servants would hear me. Another footman sleeps in the pantry.”

“I can understand your predicament.”

She heard the laughter in his voice and said angrily,

“It may seem amusing to you, but I have had to think this out very carefully and, when I thought that you were going to upset all my plans, I naturally had to run away.”

“Naturally,” the Marquis agreed.

“Now all I want is a Hackney carriage.”

‘Where do you want to go?” the Marquis enquired. “The cabmen are usually unwilling to drive far at this time of the night”

“I am going to Egypt”

“To Egypt?” The Marquis repeated the word in astonishment.

“I am going to find my father.”

“And you really intend to travel there alone?”

“There is no one to go with me,” she answered, “and I must catch a very early train to Southampton before my uncle finds out that I have disappeared.”

The Marquis turned to look at her in surprise. As he did so, his own predicament suddenly came to his mind and he envisaged a possible solution.

His yacht lay at Southampton and, if he left London before Shangarry could call on him to return his hat and cloak and ask the explanation for their presence in his house, it would mean that he was definitely ‘off the hook’.

He followed up his train of thought and it seemed quite clear to him that once he was away from England the Shangarrys would have to find some other fool to pay their bills.

It would undoubtedly be impossible for them to await his return if their creditors were as pressing as he had been led to believe.

That, he thought with a sense of triumph, was exactly what he would do.

He would take his yacht at once to the Mediterranean, as he had intended to do anyway in a month or so.

No one would be surprised. Shooting was over, there was too much frost for hunting and the fact that he left London in January would not invite a query as to his reason for doing so.

What was more, the Marquis told himself, it would definitely be a score off Inez Shangarry and her crooked scheming!

‘Damnit all, that is what I will do,’ he said beneath his breath and then remembered that he was not alone.

“Did you say something?” his companion asked.

“Only to myself,” he replied.

They had reached Grosvenor Square by this time and, when the Marquis looked at the place near the garden where there was usually a line of Hackney carriages drawn by tired underfed horses, there was not one to be seen.

“I suppose really it is – too late at night,” the girl beside him said nervously.

“I am afraid it is,” the Marquis agreed. “But I have a suggestion to make, which you might find helpful.”

“What is that?” she asked.

“I intend leaving London myself this morning. It happens that I also shall be leaving from Southampton and I have to find out about the trains.”

He stopped as he spoke, having reached his house, to continue,

“The direct line, as I expect you know, is from Nine Elms, the Station before Clapham Junction. If you would like to wait while I look the trains up in Bradshaws, I daresay my footmen will be able to procure a Hackney carriage, which will take you to the Station.”