The Marquis Is Trapped Read Free Page A

– ‘ betrothed .’
    The Marquis had soon become conscious that every ambitious mother was after him as a matrimonial catch.
    He received innumerable invitations from hostesses he had never met for balls, dinner parties and soirées of every description.
    His secretary had learnt to refuse them on sight, but they still came piling into the letterbox day after day.
    When the Marquis attended a ball, which was often, he took great care to dance only with married ladies.
    Wearing their tiaras, they smiled at him invitingly as soon as he arrived in the ballroom.
    It was their invitations he accepted, despite those which came regularly to him from Marlborough House.
    The Prince of Wales liked young gentlemen who were handsome and influential.
    He himself had set the fashion for the first time for a gentleman to have an affaire-de-coeur openly with a lady of his own class.
    ‘The Jersey Lily’ as she was called, had opened new paths in the Social world that had always been sealed in the past.  Once Princess Alexandra had accepted Mrs. Langtry, it was quite impossible for anyone else in Society to ignore her.
    It made things, the Marquis considered, very much easier in some ways, but it certainly meant that the husband in question was always made to look a complete fool.
    ‘I will not allow that to happen to me,’ the Marquis determined.
    Then he wondered if he would be able to prevent it.
    Unless a man married a woman so unattractive that no one else would waste any time on her, it was impossible to ensure that when he was away from home someone else was not taking his place at his table and in his bed.
    On his twenty-sixth birthday the Marquis had given a party at his ancestral home in the country, Kexley Place, and a great number of his relatives had come to stay.
    Almost all of them had asked him at some time or another when he intended to be married.
    He had refused to argue about it, merely saying,
    “When it suits me – and that will not be for a very long time.”
    “But, Oliver,” they protested hotly, you have to have a son.  Do you realise the Marquisate will end completely if you do not produce an heir?”
    “I wonder if that will matter one way or another,” he had replied provocatively.
    He had then received loud screeches of horror from every relative to whom he said it.
    When he visited London, he had thought he would feel uncomfortable at taking another man’s place where his wife was concerned.
    But somehow it was impossible not to be attracted by an invitation in two intriguing eyes.
    He found himself again and again walking home at the break of dawn having enjoyed yet another rapturous encounter with a beauty whose husband was conveniently away in the country.
    ‘It is wrong!  It is wrong!’ the Marquis said to himself on countless occasions.
    At the same time he knew he would be lonely if he went home early to an empty house.
    The best alternative was someone sweet, warm and gentle nestling against his body, telling him endlessly how much she loved him.
    It was clearly something no man had the strength to refuse.
    Now, as the Marquis walked upstairs, he was faced with a different problem that he knew could be dynamite in Isobel’s hands.
    He thought again how foolish he had been not to realise that Isobel harboured a genuine affection for him as well as being exceedingly ambitious socially.
    He had not really considered it of any particular consequence, but he was now aware that she desired a more significant title than the one her husband had given her.
    He had fully recognised, although it did not really concern him, that she was irritated when Duchesses and Countesses took precedence to her at dinner parties.
    She was seldom seated on the right of the host and, looking back, the Marquis could remember little incidents when a lady with a superior title would sweep past her or speak to her in a condescending manner.
    It was all part of the Social game, which he thought was somewhat laughable