The Wild Marquis Page 15

  Churchgoing had been frequent and compulsory in his childhood: the Royal Progress of the family and upper servants to the dark medieval parish church; the twice-daily household prayers in the gloomy, unadorned chapel his ancestors had carved from one of the older parts of the mansion. Cain couldn’t recall when the irony first struck him that the Godfreys, priding themselves on their godliness, drew their fortune from lands seized from a monastery and lived in a house resurrected from the ruins of an abbey.

  There was nothing remotely gloomy about the congregation at St. Martin that day. Light poured in from the huge window at the rear of the chancel, illuminating the soaring barrel-vaulted ceiling supported by slender white columns. The congregation was as cheerfully dressed as the huge flower arrangements surrounding the pulpit and altar. Hundreds of voices joined lustily in the Easter hymn.

  Cain surveyed the crowd, searching for a lady in black. He found her near the center, her black bonnet contrasting with his sister’s straw chip hat. Even at a distance, something in their mien told him that Juliana and Esther had become friendly during their surreptitious journey. The latter had been in a state of high excitement at being smuggled out through the mews to meet the carriage at the corner of Charles Street. Doubtless she’d regaled Juliana with the tale of her adventure. Now and then their eyes met over their shared hymnal. Esther’s expression could only be described as one of unholy glee, returned with equal warmth. Their mouths moved in unison, heads tilted back, both faces carefree, relishing the sheer pleasure of song.

  Regarding them, Cain caught something of their spirits, not caring exactly what inspired them. He felt a moment of pure happiness, so unusual as to startle, at being alive on a beautiful spring morning in the presence of the two people in the world who were, he realized, most dear to him. He wanted to squeeze through the crowd, stand between them with an arm around each, and share this moment with them. Then he’d take them both home and celebrate the day.

  Abruptly he turned toward the exit. His buoyant mood slipped away as he left the church. Keeping both Juliana and Esther was impossible and his newly found sense of responsibility made the necessary choice easy, if not painless. The course that had been nagging him could no longer be avoided.

  He was going to beard the dragon in her den.

  It was perhaps two hundred yards through the central garden to the other side of Berkeley Square. To Cain it felt like two hundred miles, while paradoxically the five-minute walk seemed to take five seconds.

  The house was deceptively modest given the influence wielded by its inhabitants. Lady Moberley, through a combination of her husband’s political career and her own forceful personality, had achieved a power in the ton equaled or exceeded by only a handful of other ladies. Cain had spoken to her just once in the years he’d lived in London. Taking a deep breath, he grasped the door knocker and gave it a sharp rap.

  Mel’s monarch of the week opened the door. Too short for the tsar, too tall for Napoleon, and too thin to be either Prinny or Louis XVIII. Cain favored the servant with a slightly derisive grin.

  “Is Her Ladyship at home?”

  The butler’s nose was high enough for all these monarchs rolled into a single master of the universe. “May I say who is calling?”

  Cain stared him down. “I believe you are aware of my identity.”

  The servant didn’t argue. “I shall inquire if Her Ladyship is receiving,” he said with a mere excuse for a bow, and left Cain alone in the hall, uncertain whether his aunt would admit him into her majestic presence.

  A painting caught his eye, a portrait of two young girls in white dresses by George Romney: Lady Moberley, his Aunt Augusta, and her younger sister, Maria. His mother.

  His parent had never, in his recollection, looked as carefree as the girl playing with a small fluffy dog. In his experience her companion had always been devotional not canine, a prayer book or volume of sermons ever at hand. She’d been pretty then. He fancied he saw something of Esther in her. Yet the artist had captured a certain weakness in her expression, especially when compared to the haughtier features of her elder sister. Augusta looked as though she couldn’t wait for Mr. Romney to put down his brush so she could snatch away their pet. Though not well acquainted with his aunt, who had visited Markley Chase but rarely, Cain recognized the middle-aged dragon in her youthful likeness.

  Poor Mother. She’d escaped an overbearing sister into the keeping of a dominating and cruel husband. Cain wondered, as he still occasionally did, if there was any point trying to reason with her. Probably not, he thought with a shudder. Not after their last bitter meeting.

  The King of the World returned and indicated in a voice rich with disapproval that Her Ladyship would, in fact, see him. Cain followed him up the stairs with a puddle of dread in the pit of his stomach. It felt almost like going home.

  “So, nephew. You have decided to call on me at last.”

  Lady Moberley didn’t rise at his entrance. She remained enthroned on a straight-backed chair, her considerable height enhanced by a turban in deep red velvet over crisp salt-and-pepper curls. She bade him approach with a wave of the hand and a sharp nod.

  Cain gave her his best bow. “You’ll forgive me, madam, for my neglect, but the last time I was in this house you told me you didn’t wish to see me again.”

  “Why would I wish to see a debauched wastrel?”

  The customary defensive irritation roiled through him. “I make no apology for my life.”

  “Well you should,” she replied harshly. “For eight years you have consorted with the lowest company and for the past three you have filled my sister’s house with servants I will only describe as irregular. I have too much discretion to name the occupation of the women who visit you, day and night.”

  “I would never have suspected you were so interested in my affairs. Do you spend your time looking out of your window across the square?”

  “There’s no need. Your associations are a scandal throughout London.”

  “What an unvaried and narrow view you hold of the bounds of our capital, madam. I assure you there are many in this town who find my behavior quite unexceptional.”

  The nostrils of Lady Moberley’s prominent nose stretched as though to exude fire. A sharp “hah!” said what she thought of those particular opinions.

  “My friends accept me as I am and I return their tolerance.” He felt his temper rise. This woman had spurned him when he came to her, alone and frightened, and aged only sixteen. “Had I been welcomed elsewhere perhaps I would have different friends.”

  “I said you could come back when you reformed your ways,” she sniffed.

  He stepped back a few paces and tried to calm down. He hadn’t come here to quarrel with her. For Esther’s sake he needed to control his resentment.

  “Well have you?” she barked. “Reformed?”

  “Not yet, but I hope to. That is why I have come to call on my aunt.”

  “Why?”

  Cain looked at her in silence for a few moments, not sure he could trust her. Yet if he didn’t, why was he here?

  “Esther is in London.”

  “Alone? Is my sister here?”

  Cain shook his head.

  “I thought not.” He detected a note of satisfaction in her voice and perhaps a softening in her attitude as she spoke. “Sit down. You’d better tell me the whole story.”

  She listened intently, interrupting to demand refinement of a detail here and there. When she heard of Lady Chase’s plan to wed her daughter to Mr. Ditchfield, those large nostrils widened again. This time Cain took comfort from Her Ladyship’s dangerous expression. She nodded approvingly when he reached his plan to win Esther’s guardianship.

  “I always suspected Maria was unbalanced,” she pronounced at the end of his recitation. “Now I am certain of it. You know, Chase”—for the first time she addressed him by name—“Maria was the prettier of the two of us. She made a better match, to a wealthier man of higher rank, but I n
ever envied her.”

  Something told Cain she spoke only part of the truth. There was a sisterly conflict he didn’t understand. Children tended to be oblivious to currents of strain between their elders. Certainly he’d never understood his own parents’ bond.

  His aunt shook off the moment of introspection, rose to her feet, and made her way to the bellpull with a good deal of energy. “There’s no time to be lost. We must get started.”

  Cain followed and stayed her hand. “Started with what?”

  “Why, your rehabilitation of course. I need Kentish.”

  “I assume Kentish is your butler. Before you summon him, or any other servant, I’d like to hear what you propose.”

  Lady Moberley gave an impatient snort, then began to speak briskly. “First, we must remove my niece from under your roof. You say no one knows she’s there? Good. She must stay here until we’ve cleaned out that Augean stable you inhabit.”

  “I assure you my house is very clean. You insult my servants.”

  “Don’t be absurd. No servant of decent character will share quarters with those you already have.”

  Unfortunately Cain knew she was correct. However much he valued his assorted band of reformed rogues, the ton would never see it his way.

  “I shall begin my preparations for bringing Esther out next year. I’ll have the clothing bills sent to you, of course. Then I shall make some calls. You may expect invitations to start arriving immediately and I expect you to accept them. With the season just beginning it couldn’t be better. You’ll have your choice of the latest crop of eligible young ladies.”

  “Eligible young ladies? Are you so sure their families will find me acceptable?”

  “A rich marquis is always acceptable.” She flicked away his objection with a sweep of an amethyst-embellished hand.

  Cain wished he felt her confidence. “Do you know why my father dismissed me from his house?” Fear gripped his stomach. He’d spent eight years dreading to hear the charge put into words.

  “My sister has told me of the rantings of that madman she married.”

  He felt a glimmer of hope. “Do you think my father was mad? I thought everyone respected him.”

  “I was never fond of Lord Chase. By the end of his life his pious gibbering had gone beyond the bounds of acceptability. I wasn’t alone in thinking him unreasonable in his treatment of you. If you seduced a maid or two you wouldn’t be the first, or the last.”

  “As it happens I never laid a finger on any woman, maid or otherwise.” He smiled, probably not a wise thing to do, but he couldn’t help it. The relief overwhelmed him. His aunt didn’t know.

  “From all accounts you’ve more than made up for it since,” she said tartly. “But if you mend your ways people will dismiss it as youthful indiscretion.

  “Then why, when I came to you a few weeks after I arrived in London, did you refuse to help me? ‘Debauched beyond the hope of rescue’ were, I believe, your words.”

  “My dear boy! You were living in a brothel! And it is only with the greatest reluctance that I bring myself to utter that word.”

  Bardsley and his father must have spread the tale. As far as he knew they were the only people who had recognized him during his three-week sojourn at Mrs. Rafferty’s. Of course the whores had thought it a fine joke to have a lord in their midst, and later the gossip had seeped upward via their customers. He hadn’t realized his aunt had known so soon.

  “I left soon afterward,” he said.

  “Yes, to become an actress’s kept plaything. A fine situation for one of your station.”

  As it happened, the small allowance Robinson, his man of business, had wrested from his father had meant he never took money from Lucinda Lambert, his first mistress. But essentially his aunt was correct: Lucinda paid all the expenses of the house they shared for a year.

  “There is no need for us to further visit the past,” Lady Moberley said. “There is too much to do. I shall speak to Kentish at once about engaging you some decent servants. And you may address me as Aunt Augusta.”

  Cain feared that pleasing Aunt Augusta would carry a heavy cost. Yet as an ally in his campaign to keep Esther, his aunt was invaluable. And his mother hadn’t even confided in her, her own sister.

  Lady Moberley had no idea that the late marquis had accused his son of incest, a transgression that would place him beyond the bounds of any decent society. Even a hint of such an abomination would condemn him. She didn’t know Lady Chase had threatened to tell the world if Cain went anywhere near his sister. If she didn’t know, perhaps no one did.

  Chapter 14

  Cain had given up everything that made life worth living. And that, he thought morosely as he concluded an endless meeting with old Robinson, was only a slight exaggeration.

  His aunt had him dancing attendance at every breakfast, ball, rout, or musicale the fashionable world could cram into two weeks. He’d long since lost count of how many.

  When he finally had a moment to himself, he couldn’t go to Sotheby’s and buy books because there was a two-week break in the auction. His home was no refuge. The Berkeley Square house was occupied by two rival camps of servants whose fragile truce threatened daily to erupt into violence. King Kentish and his minions had swept into Cain’s house and established what Lady Moberley pleased to call order. Cain refused to dismiss any of his staff until they had somewhere to go. And Robinson was taking an age to complete the purchase of the house he’d found for his former servants.

  He had to listen to Robinson grumbling about the cost. Of establishing a fund so that, through Mel, he could continue to aid her former sisters in frailty. Of paying the lawyers preparing Esther’s guardianship petition. And of settling his sister’s clothing bills. Finally he ordered the old bleater to sell out of the funds if necessary and do as he was told.

  The worst of it was, he didn’t even see much of Esther. Aunt Moberley had her niece as busy with dress fittings, dancing, and deportment lessons as Cain was with ton events.

  He’d rebelled the previous day and told his aunt he’d be tied up with business all day. Finally he was free to indulge himself. As his carriage left the City and entered the Strand, he directed his coachman to a small bookshop in St. Martin’s Lane.

  Juliana came from the back of the shop to greet him, Quarto at her heels. The dog wasn’t pleased to see him. He indicated his displeasure by biting the tassel off Cain’s Hessian boot. Cain wasn’t bothered. Attending to the repair would give his new valet something to do.

  Juliana, on the other hand, seemed delighted, almost as happy as he was to see her. Her Cupid’s bow smile matched the narrow strip of sunlight filtering through the window, revealing swirling dust motes that danced and echoed his new mood. Cain had met, conversed, and danced with numerous ladies in the past week, all of them gowned, jeweled, and coiffed as finely as Bond Street could provide. None of them held a candle to Juliana Cassandra Merton in her widow’s weeds. She was, quite simply, the loveliest woman he knew. And alone in the shop. Apart from the dog.

  No! He beat back his unruly thoughts and fixed his eye on the baleful canine flopped at his feet.

  “Since the creature is a monster of ingratitude toward the man who saved him from a life hunting rats in the East End, I hope he is at least performing his allotted task and disturbing any intruders.”

  She laughed. “I haven’t heard anything amiss downstairs since he came. But he’s certainly disturbed me.” The look she gave the bulldog was indignant yet affectionate.

  “What happened?” Cain found himself hungry for news of even her trivial activities.

  “Last night I was awoken by a weight on top of me. I wondered what it was.” To his pleasure she blushed absolutely scarlet.

  “I felt warm breath in my ear.”

  “Do tell more.”

  “Then a huge wet tongue all over my face.” She shot a look of mock irritation at his laugh. “He just wouldn’t go away until I paid attention.”

 
“We males can be like that.”

  “I lit my candle and discovered the wretched animal had been chewing a book. I thought I’d trained him to understand that books are not toys, but he relapsed. So I dragged him into the kitchen and shut the door.”

  “The animal is supposed to guard the shop. That’s where he should have been.”

  “But it’s cold down there at night.”

  Cain rolled his eyes. She was hopeless. The supposedly hardened tradeswoman brought down by a hideous beast. “To punish him you shut him in a room with food?”

  “There wasn’t any food.”

  Of course not. By God, the woman needed a keeper. He raised both hands and eyebrows in exasperation.

  “Then,” she continued, “just as I was going back to sleep, he started barking and scratching at the door. I let him howl for a while.”

  “Your neighbors must have enjoyed that.”

  “I read somewhere that it’s good to let infants cry until it’s time to feed them, to teach them a routine. I thought maybe it would work the same way with dogs.” She seemed quite serious.

  “And did it?”

  “No. Finally I couldn’t bear it and let him out of the kitchen. And do you know what?” she asked indignantly. “He wanted to go for a walk. At three o’clock in the morning!”

  “Uh, Juliana. I’ve never owned a dog but I do know they need to go outside from time to time. To take care of things.”

  “Oh no. It wasn’t that kind of noise. I know that one. This was his ‘walkies’ noise.”

  “And I suppose you took him out in the London streets in the middle of the night, despite the fact the animal is clearly incompetent when it comes to protection.”

  “No, I was firm with him.”

  “Oh, well done.”

  She looked sheepish. “He ended up sleeping on my bed, but,” she concluded, “I didn’t let him lick me again.”

  Cain stopped trying to suppress his mirth and she gave up any pretense of annoyance. They joined in a bout of laughter and he felt better than he’d done in days. He’d have liked to embrace her, not lustfully—at least not entirely—but to show his affection.