LITMIR.BIZ

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      The scandal of the nobleman’s marriage to his own bailiff’s ward had both shocked and delighted the people of the four villages. Despite his terrible reputation, it was still unthinkable that a man of his background should marry a girl who was after all little more than a servant. “Quite beyond the pale, my dear!”

      Beatrice’s own sympathies lay with the unfortunate girl who had married him, for surely she must have been desperate to do such a thing?

      A sudden thought struck Beatrice—could it have been the Marquis’s wife who had screamed? She glanced at the brooding, menacing shape of the Abbey and crossed herself superstitiously. What could he have been doing to her to make her scream like that?

      “No, no,” she whispered. “It could not have been her—nor any woman. It was an animal, only an animal.”

      He was said to be in love…after years of wickedness and debauchery!

      Even a man of the Marquis’s calibre could not be capable of hurting the woman he loved—or could he?

      Beatrice tucked her head down against the wind and began to run. Perhaps it was her anxiety to leave the grounds of the Abbey that made her careless? It was certain that she did not see or hear the pounding hooves of the great horse until it came rushing at her out of the darkness. She was directly in its path and had to throw herself aside to avoid being knocked over.

      Her action led to her stumbling and, having the breath knocked from her body by the force of her fall, she could only continue to lie where she was as the rider galloped by, seemingly unaware or uncaring of the fact that he had almost ridden her down.

      Beatrice caught only a glimpse of him as he passed, but she knew it was the wicked Marquis himself, riding as if the devil were after him. He was a big man, wrapped about by a black cloak, his iron-grey hair straggling and unkempt about his shoulders. An ugly creature by all accounts, his features thickened and coarsened by his excesses—though she herself had never caught more than a fleeting glimpse of him. He was a bruising rider, and she had sometimes seen him in the distance on her walks—but they were not acquainted. The Roade family did not move in his circles, nor he in theirs.

      “That was not well done of you, sir,” Beatrice murmured as he and his horse disappeared into the darkness.

      She rose to her feet a little unsteadily, her usual composure seriously disturbed by what had happened that night. It was certain that the Marquis was in a black mood, perhaps drunk, as the gossips said he often was. Beatrice shuddered as she thought of the young woman who had married him the previous year. How terrible to be trapped in marriage with such a monster!

      What could have possessed her to do such a thing?

      Beatrice had never met the young Marchioness, or even seen her out walking. As far as Beatrice knew, no one had seen much of her since the wedding. People said she hardly left the Abbey—some said she was too ashamed, some murmured of her being kept a prisoner by her wicked husband, others that she was ill…and there was little to wonder at in that, married to such a brute!

      She could only have married him for his money. Everyone said it, and Beatrice was sure it must be the truth—but had the Marquis been the richest man in England, she would not have married such a monster!

      Beatrice had stopped shaking. She resumed her walk at a more sensible pace, keeping her head up so that she was aware of what was in front of her. There was little to be heard but the howl of the wind, which was eerie and unpleasant.

      She would be glad to be home!

      “You’re soaked to the skin, my love,” Nan said, fussing over her the moment she entered her father’s house. “We have been on the look for you this past hour or more. Whatever do you mean by worrying your poor father so?”

      They progressed to the parlour, Beatrice having left her sodden cloak in the hall. She moved closer to the fire, holding her hands to the flames until she had stopped shivering, then went over to the large oak and upholstered Knole settee, carefully moving her aunt’s embroidery before sitting down.

      “Have I worried Papa?” Beatrice thought it improbable. Her father would most likely be in his study, working on one of his inventions—the marvellous, wholly useless objects he was forever wasting his time on, which he believed were going to restore his fortune one day. “I think you were worried, Nan. Poor, dear Papa can hardly have noticed. Now, if I were not here for dinner—then he might begin to worry. Especially if it meant waiting for his meal.”

      “Beatrice!” Nan scolded. “Now that is unkind in you. I know your humour, my dear—but it sounds harsh in a young woman to be so cynical. It is little wonder that…” She broke off, biting her lip as she saw the look in her darling’s eyes.

      “Yes, I know I have driven them all away—all my suitors,” Beatrice said ruefully. “I really should have taken Squire Rush, shouldn’t I? He has three thousand a year, I dare say…but he has buried three wives and that brood of his was really too much!”

      “There were others,” her aunt said. Mrs Nancy Willow was a widow in her early forties: a plump, comfortable, loving woman, who was extremely fond of her eldest niece. She had come to her brother’s house only after her husband (a soldier turned adventurer) had died of a fever. She sometimes thought it would have been better if she had been there before her lovely but slightly bird-brained sister-in-law had died, but she and Eddie had been in India at the time. “I understand there was a suitable admirer once…”

      “And who told you that, aunt?”

      Nan frowned. Beatrice rarely called her “aunt’ in just that way: she was clearly touching on a sore place.

      “Well, well, it doesn’t matter,” she said. “But should another suitable young man come along…”

      “I could not leave Papa,” Beatrice said at once. “Besides, it will not happen. I am nearly at my last prayers.”

      “Now that you are not!” Nan said. “You have many qualities, Beatrice. A discerning man would know that the minute he laid eyes on you…”

      “…and fall instantly in love with me?” Beatrice said, amused by her aunt’s romantic notions. “Only find me this suitor, Nan dearest—and, if he is not too dim-witted, which I think he may have to be, I will engage to do my best to snare him.”

      “You and your wicked, wicked tongue,” her aunt said, smiling even as she shook her head. “And as for not being able to leave your papa—you know that is not so. You were obliged to give up all thoughts of marriage when your mama fell ill. To have left your father then would have been careless in you—but my brother has been kind enough to offer me a home for the rest of my life…”

      “Unless you receive an offer of marriage, Nan!”

      Her aunt pulled a wry face. “I could not be tempted. I am comfortable here, and here I shall stay. Since it does not take two of us to run this house, you are free to do as you wish…”

      “Yes, I see that it makes a difference…” Beatrice looked serious. “It might be better if I started to look for a position…Papa’s funds are limited, and since…”

      “He would never hear of it, and nor should I,” declared Nan roundly. “If anyone should look elsewhere, it must be me.”

      “No!” Beatrice spoke quickly. She had been afraid her aunt would take that attitude, which was why she had not spoken her thoughts aloud before this. “You do not understand, Nan. I am not speaking of hiring myself out as a governess or a companion…I would only leave here if I could go back to Mrs Guarding’s school as a teacher.”

      Her aunt stared at her, eyes narrowing. “Is that why you have been so long this afternoon?”

      “No, indeed, for I have not yet spoken to Mrs Guarding about my idea. I went to see Ghislaine de Champlain, who, as I told you, is the French mistress there. We spent some time talking, and then had tea together in her room, which overlooks the river. It really was most pleasant.”

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