The Marquis Is Trapped Read Free Page B

and in many ways quite idiotic.
    Yet to a woman it mattered – and he knew now that it mattered to Isobel.
    If she were married to him, she would ascend a great number of steps higher up the Social ladder.
    Now he was confronted with the vexed question as to whether he would marry her or not.
    The Marquis was startled by his own feelings of revulsion at the thought.
    If he ever married it would not be to a woman who would be unfaithful to him, nor one who wanted him more for his title and his money than for himself.
    Yet, he asked, was it possible there was any woman in the world to whom these two things did not matter?”
    And anyway he was very determined to marry only when he was really in love.
    ‘I suppose,’ he pressed on in his mind, ‘I am just expecting too much of life as it is lived in this dimension or should one say in the Beau Monde .  Women want Social status and money.  They know the more beautiful they are, the more they are likely to achieve it.’
    Then, almost fiercely, as if he felt threatened, the Marquis vowed,
    ‘But not where I am concerned!’
    He turned towards the window and pulled back the curtain sharply as if he was slamming a door – and then he climbed into bed and blew out the candles.
    Although he was tired, he did not fall asleep.
    Instead he was wondering what he should do about Isobel.  He was certainly used to the curtain coming down on his love affairs unexpectedly.
    How was he going to tell her that their affaire-de-coeur was at an end?
    At this moment he had no wish to see her again and most of all he did not wish to even discuss, as he knew she would insist, whether or not they should be married.
    It would be embarrassing for him and also he was not certain as to how she would take the idea of their affair closing down so abruptly.
    Some women he left had wept copious tears.
    Some had written pleading letters.
    Just one or two had accepted the silence between them as something that could not be altered and made no comment of any sort.
    Later in the morning, his secretary, as was usual in such situations, would despatch a large bouquet of orchids or roses to Isobel.
    There would be no card or letter with it, because it was the Marquis’s sense of protection not to put anything in writing.
    He had never written love letters, as he knew how dangerous they could be if a husband became suspicious about his wife’s behaviour.
    Isobel would receive her orchids, but she would not be aware that they marked the end of an affair that she had hoped would end in marriage.
    Still, she would be expecting him for dinner.
    If not tonight, then the night after or the night after that.
    But what would come after that?  If she did not hear directly from him, she would then undoubtedly demand an explanation.
    ‘I have to do something,’ the Marquis reflected.
    Then an idea came to him.
    Foster had told him casually yesterday morning, when he was writing his letters, that the alterations ordered for his yacht had been completed.
    “As the Captain thought your Lordship would like to see them,” Mr. Foster had continued, “he is bringing The Neptune up the River Thames and will moor it just above Westminster Bridge.”
    The Marquis had nodded and then he had continued dictating a letter about some other issue.
    Now he remembered that his yacht would be close by and the Captain would be waiting for his inspection.
    ‘Perhaps I will sail away,’ he pondered and then he wondered where he should go.
    Almost as if he was being prompted, he recalled that amongst his correspondence yesterday morning was a letter that he had not expected.
    It was from an old friend of his father’s, the Earl of Darendell, who had written to him from Scotland saying,
    “ Dear Kexley,
    “I have seen your name mentioned a few times in the Social columns of the newspapers and realise that you have been back in England for some time.
    As you will doubtless remember, I was a very close friend of your father’s for