The Savage Marquess Read Free Page B

they paid no attention.”
    “You should have tried shouting your orders from the front of your troops and not the back,” said the marquess nastily. “I suppose you are come to dun me.”
    Mr. Carter flushed. “You always credit me with the worst motives. I am come—”
    “Stow it,” said the marquess rudely. “How much?”
    “Five thousand pounds,” bleated Mr. Carter. He shrank back in his chair, prepared to endure the blast of his formidable cousin’s wrath. The sum was actually two thousand and he hoped to placate the marquess by eventually seeming to settle for a lesser sum.
    But to his surprise, the marquess strode over to his desk, sat down, and began to write.
    “Do you mean you are going to lend me the money?” squeaked Mr. Carter.
    “I am giving it to you, as you have no intention of paying it back. I may as well start off respectably married rather than having a cousin in the Fleet.”
    Sheer shock forced Mr. Carter to leap to his feet. “Married! You! Who is the lady?”
    “I don’t know,” grumbled the marquess, busily writing. “Does it matter?”
    Mr. Carter let out a slow breath. Perhaps all hope was not lost. He tittered nervously. “You cannot just get married like that.”
    “Oh, yes I can. I’ll marry the first suitable female who’ll have me. As long as she can breed, of course.”
    This was too much. Mr. Carter sank slowly back down into his chair, pulled a Chinese fan from his pocket, and began to fan himself vigorously.
    “Children,” he moaned.
    “Lots and lots,” said the marquess cheerfully, sanding the draft and holding it out. “Now, take this and run or I may change my mind.”
    Mr. Carter clutched the chair back for support as he stood up again. He took the draft in his little pink hands, delicately stained with cochineal.
    Then he tucked it away in the tails of his bottle-green coat. “I say, coz, that means I won’t be your heir.”
    “You never really were,” said the marquess. “I always planned to marry before I reached my dotage.”
    “But you are already too old. You are thirty-five.”
    The marquess sighed. “Give me back that draft, Zeus.”
    “No need for that. My wretched tongue. Apologize most humbly.”
    “Then good-bye.”
    “I give you good day, coz.” Mr. Carter made a magnificent leg, almost touching his kneecap with his nose and then straightening up with many flourishes of a heavily scented handkerchief.
    A sudden pain stabbed behind the marquess’s eye. He picked up the inkwell and threw it. Mr. Carter darted out and shut the door just as the heavy brass inkwell struck it.
    He walked a little way away from the marquess’s town house, his heart beating hard. He had been so sure the marquess would have killed himself on some of his adventures or have drunk himself to death. Marriage!
    He could only hope that no woman would take the wicked marquess as husband.

2
    As the Earl of Clifton’s traveling carriage turned into Grosvenor Square, Lucinda began to feel sick with apprehension. So much depended on this post. It had been wonderful to see her father accommodated in a sunny room at Beechings and surrounded with every attention and comfort. She must do nothing to jeopardize this marvelous opportunity.
    She must not let Mrs. Glossop’s parting words sound in her ears—but sound they still did as the carriage rolled to a stop in front of an imposing mansion. “Ismene will soon send you packing,” Mrs. Glossop had said. “She always was a spoilt, willful thing. You are a new toy, Lucinda, and she will soon tire of you.”
    Lucinda wearily climbed down from the carriage, feeling stiff and shaky after the journey. She was ushered into a large hall with a black-and-white-tiled floor by a stately butler. The butler in turn summoned the housekeeper, remarking that the family was not at home, and he did not know when they were due to return.
    Following the housekeeper up the staircase, Lucinda could not help wishing that Ismene, who knew