The Poor Relation

Margaret Chesney

Copyright © 2013 RosettaBooks LLC

For Margaret Donnelly

with love

CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

About the Author

Chapter One

Amaryllis Duvane stood patiently amid the noise and bustle of Exeter Exchange in London’s Strand and waited for Miss Agatha Warburton and Miss Cissie Warburton to complete their purchases.

A small bright memory fluttered through her head; a memory of coming here with her father in happier days, gazing in wonder at the beefeaters in their gaudy livery, at the bats, balls, kites, and hoops of the toyshop; sniffing the sugary smells from piles of Bath buns, blancmanges, jellies, tartlets, and sponge cakes; deafened by the roars and screeches from the famous Royal Menagerie of lions, tigers, monkeys, panthers, and birds.

And then the memory was gone as Amaryllis Duvane, a drab figure against all the kaleid-oscope of color about her, dragged her mind firmly back to the present.

Over the past eight years, since her father’s death and sadly reduced circumstances had forced her to live as a poor relation with her aunt, Lady Warburton, Amaryllis had found that happy memories only led to discontent and sadness.

She took the place of lady’s maid when the Warburton sisters, Agatha and Cissie, went shopping. The Warburtons had a whole army of servants, but these little duties were inflicted on Amaryllis to remind her of her place. Once she had been hailed as the most beautiful girl of the London Season and had become engaged to the Marquess of Merechester. Amaryllis had terminated her engagement after her father’s death, feeling sure the handsome and proud Marquess would not wish a penniless bride, but the Warburtons would have it that the Marquess had merely taken her in dislike.

Agatha and Cissie were aged nineteen years and twenty years respectively. They were extremely beautiful with their flaxen ringlets and wide blue eyes and plump little figures.

Although they had been very young indeed when Amaryllis had joined the Warburton household, both still remembered her glorious looks and air of breeding, and although they said loudly and often that dear Amaryllis was sadly gone off in looks, they would not admit, even to themselves, that she still had an air of indefinable charm and grace, and this unrecognized but nonetheless sharply felt envy caused them to humiliate her as often as they could.

They knew they had to hold their fire while shopping, or in any other public place.

James, the second footman, was also in attendance, standing a discreet distance away. The Warburton girls knew he was told to report their behavior to Lady Warburton. At home in their town house or at their country mansion, baiting Amaryllis was fair game provided no one outside the family and servants was there to see it.

Lady Warburton was fond of murmuring, “Poor Amaryllis. No one wanted her, you know, and my brother was a wastrel, though I should not speak ill of the dead.

“I simply had to take her in. Of course, I treat her as I do my own daughters. . . . Therefore, she did not want the myth of her magnanimity shattered by allowing her daughters to tease Amaryllis in public.

Amaryllis’s father, Sir James Duvane, had been a fat, cheerful man who doted on his only child. Lady Duvane had died when Amaryllis was ten years old. Sir James lavished fine gowns and presents on Amaryllis and seemed to have a bottomless source of money. But he had left a great many debts on his death, and all Amaryllis’s jewels and the family home had been sold to offset at least some of them.

She had resented the humiliating treatment handed out to her by the Warburtons and had made a push to stand on her own two feet shortly after she began residing with them.

Amaryllis had taken a post as governess to a Mrs. Anstruther, a severe matron with five small daughters. After several weeks of a quite horrible existence, Mr. Anstruther had tried to seduce her.

When his advances were repulsed, he had ordered his wife to turn her out without a character. That experience had quite broken Amaryllis’s spirit, and she had returned to the Warburtons. She found she could endure their behavior by adopting a meek and colorless manner and appearance. Her thick auburn hair was worn scraped back from her face—a once glowing face which had become thin and white. Her large gray eyes looked calmly out at the world, their expression mostly a well-trained blank.

The company was not fashionable enough to keep the girls in the shop for long, and Amaryllis knew they would soon tire of picking things up and squealing with delight and putting them down again if no marriage prospect was there to admire the performance.

Suddenly she sensed a ripple of interest running through the crowd about her. Cissie and Agatha were holding clockwork toys. In Cissie’s hand a little wooden ballerina went around and around while she goggled at someone behind Amaryllis.

Amaryllis half turned her head and stiffened as a familiar lazy voice behind her said, “Why on earth did you bring me here, Chalmers? I feel like a schoolboy on an outing, or some skinflint member of the ton looking for cheap servants’ presents.”

Although she had not heard that voice for eight years, Amaryllis recognized it as belonging to John, Marquess of Merechester.

There was a booth piled with a jumble of fans in front of her. In a dazed way, she reached out and picked one up and stared sightlessly down at it.

She could sense him passing very close to her. She spread the fan and held it up to her face, noticing with a sort of wonder that her hand was steady. She heard his voice again but could not distinguish the words. He had moved on farther into the ’Change.

Amaryllis cautiously lowered the fan and looked down the busy store. The Marquess towered over the other customers, his profile turned toward her.

Her heart gave a lurch. He was more handsome than she had remembered. His blue morning coat was stretched without a wrinkle across his broad shoulders. She saw that familiar arrogant nose and humorous curling mouth, the guinea-gold hair beneath his tall hat. He turned to his companion and said something, his lazy blue eyes under their heavy lids giving his face that sensuous look she remembered so well.

And then he looked full at her. Amaryllis blushed and raised the fan over her face, her heart beating hard.

“Are you buyin’ that fan, mum?” demanded the stallkeeper. “ ’And-painted, that is.”

“Yes,” said Amaryllis, fumbling in her reticule. “How much?”

“Sixpence, mum.”

That was about all the money Amaryllis had. She paid for the fan. Cissie and Agatha were shrieking with girlish laughter and rolling their eyes in the direction of the Marquess and his friend.

Amaryllis recognized his companion as Mr. Joseph Chalmers, the Marquess’s best friend. How strange to see them both after so long.

How strange that after all the London balls and parties, she should see him again for the first time in the tawdry surroundings of Exeter ’Change.

Cissie laughed loudly, her voice high and shrill. The Marquess winced slightly and said something to Mr. Chalmers, and then both strolled back toward Amaryllis, who hid her face again.

When she finally looked up, they had gone.

Cissie and Agatha were standing beside her, staring and pouting.

“You do look most odd, Ammy,” tittered Cissie, “hiding your face like that. What a common-looking fan! Did you not see that monstrous fine-looking gentleman? I wonder who he was.”

“Which gentleman?” asked Amaryllis, hearing her own voice peculiarly muffled by the thumping of her heart.

“The tall fair one with the blue coat and the Marseilles waistcoat.”

“I do not know who you mean,” said Amaryllis. “Are you both ready to go home?”

But the Misses Warburton felt they just had to step across the Strand to Ackermann’s Repository of Arts, plainly hoping to see the fine gentleman in the blue coat again.

To Amaryllis’s relief, there was no sign of the Marquess. To reveal his identity to the sisters would mean enduring hours of malicious questions. And he hadn’t even recognized her.

Amaryllis was still smarting under the humiliation of that.

She would have been content to spend some time looking through the prints, but Cissie and Agatha suddenly declared Ackermann’s to be as flat as a pancake.

“ ’Tis a pity you are so out of society, Ammy,” complained Agatha as they walked to the carriage with James, the footman, a step behind carrying their earlier purchases. “If you had been more in then you might have known the name of that gentleman who came into Exeter ’Change.”

“Begging your pardon, Miss Agatha,” came the voice of James, “would you be talking about the Marquess of Merechester or his friend, Mr. Chalmers?”

“What?” said the sisters in unison, stopping so suddenly that James nearly bumped into them. Two pairs of china-blue eyes stared at Amaryllis accusingly. “You knew who he was, Ammy,” said Cissie. “Though you have grown sadly plain, he must be still the same, because Mama said he was a handsome creature when he was engaged to you.”

“He must have changed, if it was he,” said Amaryllis quietly. “I did not recognize any gentleman at the ’Change who resembled the Marquess.”

“I think you are lying,” said Agatha. “Mama will find out.”

Amaryllis’s heart sank at the thought of the malice to come. But the Warburtons were to remove to the country tomorrow, so there would be small chance of meeting the Marquess again, and that was some comfort.

She should not have lied, but the feelings that had assailed her at the sight of him had quite overset her.

Memory, long kept rigorously at bay, came rushing back. All at once, she was back in the Yellow Saloon of her father’s home in Hanover Square. Everything was shrouded in holland covers and neatly stacked in lots waiting for the sound of the auctioneer’s hammer on the following day.

The Marquess arrived, answering her urgent summons. At twenty-two, he still retained a lot of the impetuosity and enthusiasm of his adolescence.

He was just beginning, however, to acquire some town bronze, and so he had come forward with a humorous look on his face, demanding, “Well, Amaryllis? No chaperon, I see.”

“I do not want anyone to hear what I have to say to you,” Amaryllis could still hear herself reply. She knew he had recently gained the title and lands belonging to the near-bankrupt estates of Merechester.

Although she was very much in love with him and knew he was fond of her, she knew he desperately needed the large dowry her late father had promised. Now the dowry was gone. It would be a dreadful thing to keep him to the engagement.

“I wish to end our engagement,” she said.

He made to take her hands, but she walked away from him and stood looking down into the empty hearth.

“May I ask why?” he asked, his voice unaccustomedly serious.

“I do not love you.”

The words fell like stones in the dim silence of the shuttered room.

“No, I am persuaded it can’t be that,” she heard him say. “Your home is going up for sale. You feel obliged to release me. But there is no need.”

“It is not that,” said Amaryllis. “Not that at all. I have seen the folly of arranged marriages. I do not wish to go on with it.”

“Amaryllis! Look at me!”

She turned about, keeping her face blank.

He searched her eyes intently, his own very blue and piercing. Amaryllis longed to throw herself into his arms. But he needed a rich wife, and he had never claimed to love her.

Since her father’s death, all she had heard was the importance of money and the ruin that faced any girl who did not have it.

Her best friend, Jenny Pierce, had pointed out that the Marquess would never forgive her for keeping him to his side of the bargain when she could not fulfill hers. Sometimes, in later years, it crossed Amaryllis’s mind that Jenny had been in love with the Marquess herself. She had certainly proved herself to be a fairweather friend; she had not once called on Amaryllis after the sale of the house and its effects.

“What will you do?” he asked, after he had turned a little way away as if what he had seen in her eyes had disappointed him.

Amaryllis, hurt beyond reason that he had so easily accepted her refusal, gave a brittle laugh and said with a wave of her hand, “Look for a rich husband. What else?”

He turned on his heel, and a moment later she heard the street door bang.

“Stop waving that cheap fan in my face,” complained Cissie, waking Amaryllis to the present.

Amaryllis blushed. Cissie’s eyes narrowed. “Oho, so that was not the Marquess of Merechester and yet you have suddenly learned to blush.”

Amaryllis said, “Only look, Cissie. There is a young lady with a bonnet exactly like that new one you bought last week.”

Cissie’s attention was thankfully diverted and Amaryllis was free to return to her thoughts. The Marquess had been richly dressed. Perhaps he was married.

But he could not be, for Lady Warburton would have read about it in the social columns and would most certainly have baited Amaryllis with the news.

The carriage jolted to a halt outside the Warburtons’ town house in Hanover Square. The autumn day was growing dark and a lamplighter was lighting the parish lamps, their puny flickering lights feebly dispelling a little of the smoky London gloom.

A cold wind sighed about the square.

The girls handed Amaryllis their fans and reticules and shawls, so nearly out of the public eye now that they did not have to mind how they treated her.

Amaryllis would have escaped to her room, but Agatha pinched her wrist and said in a threatening voice, “Come with me, Ammy. We are going to talk to Mama.”

Lady Warburton was in the drawing room. She was a hard-faced woman of quite amazing vulgarity, which all went to show that a line dating back to the Norman Conquest did not necessarily mean good breeding.

Her brother, Sir James Duvane, Amaryllis’s father, had been a bluff, cheerful man but always good ton. He had never been on very good terms with his sister, saying she was as pushing as a Cit.

She was a thin, fair-haired woman as tall and angular as her daughters were plump and short. Her eyes, once as blue as theirs, were now a faded, washed-out color. Her gown was very rich but made of magenta silk with scarlet stripes. Amaryllis often wondered if her aunt was color-blind.

“You’ll never guess what happened,” began Cissie, pushing Amaryllis forward. “Ammy here denies that the handsome beau we saw at Exeter ’Change was the Marquess of Merechester, although James said it was, and I think she is lying. Only see how agitated she is.”

“Had it been the Marquess of Merechester,” said Amaryllis, determined to lie as hard as possible, “then he would have recognized me.”

“Hardly,” drawled Lady Warburton, raking Amaryllis up and down with a cold, assessing stare. “But I am persuaded it was he, for rumor has it he has restored the Merechester estates and is worth fifty thousand pounds a year and has lately bought a house in town. We are to go to supper at Lady Dunbar’s tonight and I shall find out news of him. He is expected to be among the guests. He is a most desirable beau. Should I manage to invite him on a visit, I would have you know, Amaryllis, that I would not tolerate any effort on your part to reanimate his affections. Not that I think you could, but should you even try, it would be extremely embarrassing. There is nothing more distasteful than the sight of a poor relation who has forgot her place. You will not accompany us to the Dunbars. There is some fine sewing I wish completed.”

“It would be insufferable to be under the same roof with him,” said Amaryllis in a low voice.

“You have no say in the matter,” pointed out Lady Warburton, looking amused.

“Insufferable,” giggled Cissie. “When you said that, Ammy, you looked just like a sort of dowdy Mrs. Siddons.”

Amaryllis turned and ran from the room.

After a hearty bout of crying, Amaryllis felt better. She decided to take stock of the situation.

The Marquess would surely not accept any invitation from Lady Warburton. He had never liked her in the days when he was engaged to Amaryllis. Tomorrow they would all be back in the country and she need not dread running into him everywhere she went. At Patterns, the Warburton country home, she was not forced to endure so much of Cissie’s and Agatha’s company as she did in town. Lady Warburton entertained a great deal, and on most of those occasions, Amaryllis was expected to make herself scarce. If the guests, however, had known her father, then she was paraded before them as an example of Lady Warburton’s magnanimity. But this did not happen overmuch, since most of her late father’s friends did not like the Warburtons.

Lord Warburton had made his fortune in iron and steel and, it was believed, had purchased his barony, the profligate Prince of Wales being only too ready to accept any hard cash which came his way. Warburton was a coarse, brutal man who affected all the mannerisms of a Bond Street beau, having his stocky figure lashed into corsets and wearing collars so stiff and so high that they well deserved their nickname of “patricides.”

Despite his awful manners, he largely ignored Amaryllis and left the baiting of her to his wife and daughters.

Life stretched in front of Amaryllis in one long, bleak, stony road to the grave. But she felt it would be bearable if only she did not have to see the Marquess of Merechester again: did not have to look upon the love she had lost and was never, ever able to look forward to finding again.

On the three-day journey to Patterns, Amaryllis waited and listened for the sound of the Marquess’s name.

She knew he had been at the Dunbars, for Lady Warburton had told her so. But apart from that brief remark, no further reference had been made to him, and Amaryllis gratefully assumed he had been invited on a visit and had refused.

Although she had not known much happiness there, she was glad to see the tall, fantastic Tudor chimneys of Patterns rising above the trees. Sometimes she felt this country home was her only friend. Lord Warburton had bought it from an impoverished county family, lock, stock, and barrel. Being of a cheese-paring nature, he had done nothing to modernize it, and so the rooms were still filled with elegant furniture of the last century, reflecting the quiet good taste of the previous owners.

It was a long, rambling building of rose-colored, ivy-covered brick. Mullioned windows caught the setting sun as the Warburton carriage bowled up the drive.

Amaryllis made her way to her room, carrying her own trunk. If she had left it in the hall with the others, then one of the servants would have taken it up for her. But on some previous occasions, Cissie and Agatha had given orders that it was to be left there “until that lazy creature fetches it herself,” and so Amaryllis preferred not to give them any excuse for a display of spite.

The servants were cautiously kind to Amaryllis. Too overt a display of sympathy would result in dismissal, as had happened in the case of Lady Warburton’s last lady’s maid, who had been found guilty of dressing Amaryllis’s hair when she ought to be attending to her mistress.

Amaryllis was expected to clean her room herself, but busy hands had obviously been at work in her absence. The shabby furniture gleamed with polish, and someone had arranged a jug of wildflowers on the table beside the bed.

Tugging off her bonnet and unfastening her cloak, Amaryllis sat down in a chair by the window. With luck, she would be expected to take a tray in her room instead of joining the family for dinner.

This proved to be the case, and it began to seem that she was to be allowed the whole precious evening to herself. Solitude was a luxury after the constant presence of Cissie and Agatha which she had had to endure in London.

Hidden at the bottom of her trunk was a new novel, purchased out of her carefully hoarded store of pin money. She would stuff a blanket along the bottom of the door so that no telltale beam of light should shine out.

Lady Warburton did not approve of wasting candles after nine o’clock in the evening.

Amaryllis carefully put her small stock of shabby clothes away. In her closet were a few of the gowns from her original wardrobe. One of them was a white silk ballgown with a gauze overdress embroidered with silver thread. She had worn it to a ball long ago when the Marquess was her fiancé. She remembered the way his eyes had lit up as he had looked at her as she had descended the stairs wearing just that dress. The material was already turning yellowish.

Finally, Amaryllis sat down in front of the fire and luxuriously opened the new novel and began to slice the pages one by one. Sometimes she would cut the whole book first; at other times she would relish slitting open each page as she came to it, opening up each new section of the story.

There came a scratching at the door. She put down the book reluctantly and called, “Come in.”

James, the second footman, stood there, his mean little eyes flying to the book. He was one of the few servants Amaryllis disliked.

“Yes, James?” she demanded.

“My lady wishes to see you in the drawing room,” said James, lowering his white eyelashes in that mock-servile way he had.

“Very good, James. I will be with her directly.”

The footman’s eyes flickered again to the book. Amaryllis suppressed a sigh.

He would report to Lady Warburton that Miss Amaryllis had been reading a book instead of sewing, and that the book had looked like a novel. It was not yet nine o’clock, so at least she could not get into trouble for having her candle lit.

When James had left, Amaryllis adjusted the simple white muslin cap she habitually wore in the house on top of her severe hairstyle and tugged down the folds of her gray wool gown.

She tucked the novel under the mattress and laid a volume of sermons, which was roughly the same size, in its place.

Lady Warburton was alone in the drawing room, Cissie and Agatha having already retired for the night. James was bent over her as Amaryllis entered.

“Very good, James,” said Lady Warburton. “You did very well to tell me. Go upstairs to Miss Duvane’s room and fetch the book.”

James flashed Amaryllis an insolent look from his pale-green eyes and sidled obsequiously from the room.

“Now, Amaryllis,” began Lady Warburton, “I have something very important to discuss with you.

“The Marquess of Merechester was at the Dunbars, as I told you.”

“Yes?” said Amaryllis, her heart beginning to thud against her ribs.

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, my lady.” Amaryllis had been instructed to address Lady Warburton by her title at all times, unless they had guests, at which times she was to address her as “aunt.”

“Yes, and he was uncommon taken with Cissie. ’Tis said he is now looking for a wife, having made his fortune. Mr. Chalmers was also with him. They both accepted Lord Warburton’s invitation to stay. They will be arriving next week. Now, you are to do nothing, say nothing, to show to anyone that you were once on a more intimate footing with Merechester. I have invited several other guests. I need not remind you that your situation is vastly altered since the last time you saw Merechester.

“You are here only because of my charity. To do anything to put yourself forward in any way would displease me very much. Your livelihood depends on not displeasing me. Do you understand?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“You will have too much work to do to mingle much with the guests. Usually when people who knew my brother come to stay, I allow you to join the company, because I am softhearted to a fault. But Cissie’s future happiness is at stake, and I will not let anything mar that happiness. I brought several fashion magazines and lengths of material from London. I see no need to spend a vast amount of money on new modes for Cissie when you are perfectly capable of making them for her. You will await me in the morning room at eleven o’clock tomorrow, when I will give you your instructions.

“Now, you have oft said it was you who broke the engagement with Merecheeter. Come, now. Surely it was he who terminated it.”

“No, my lady,” said Amaryllis wearily. “But it was all so long ago, and it does not matter now.”

“See that it does not,” snapped Lady Warburton. She studied Amaryllis for several moments as if searching for vestiges of that lost and treacherous beauty. Then she smiled, as if satisfied with what she saw.

James came in, sulkily carrying a book.

“Now let us see how you waste your time and money,” said Lady Warburton, stretching out an imperious hand.

She turned over to the flyleaf and read, “The Sermons of Mr. Porteous.”

“Good heavens,” she exclaimed. “You should not be addling your brains with religion on a weekday. Sunday is the proper time for this sort of reading.” Lady Warburton privately thought God and all his angels a most uncomfortable group of individuals.

She shut the book with a snap and handed it to Amaryllis, holding it gingerly with her fingertips.

“Do not forget what I have told you,” she said.

Amaryllis curtsied and left the room. Lady Warburton’s voice as she admonished the footman floated after her. “If in the future you have something to tell me about her, James, please make sure it is something of importance.”

Her room looked the same when she entered, the wildflowers glowing in the candlelight and the fire crackling in the hearth. But it no longer seemed a refuge.

Next week would bring the Marquess of Merechester. She had loved him once, and Amaryllis was very much afraid that she loved him still.

Chapter Two

“I really don’t know why you accepted this invitation,” said Mr. Joseph Chalmers crossly to his friend the Marquess of Merechester. “You don’t like the Warburton woman, and now you tell me you don’t know if the shooting is good or not. It must be one of the daughters.”

“Perhaps,” said the Marquess idly, negotiating his team around a sharp corner with consummate ease. “It is time I married.”

“It’s time you had a bit of fun,” pointed out Mr. Chalmers, wrapping the bearskin rug more tightly about his legs and looking sourly across the bleak autumn fields. “All that slaving and sweating to put your land in good heart. Time to reward yourself.”

“I did not slave or sweat,” said the Marquess mildly. “I enjoyed the battle. What is your idea of fun? Drinking daffy or Blue Ruin and then knocking in the windows of some gentleman’s residence with your whip? Attending cockfights?”

“What about plays and balls and parties?”

“I did attend a few in the country.”

“The country,” said Mr. Chalmers in accents of loathing. “What’s to do in the country? Dancing on bumpy assembly-room, floors to the screeching of a local band, enduring hours of boring conversation from bucolic squires, looking out at trees and fields and birds.”

“What’s up with trees and fields and birds?”

“They’re not natural,” pointed out Mr. Chalmers. “Nature is so undisciplined, so un-tonnish.”

“True,” agreed his friend good-naturedly. “I have often noticed that birds and trees and animals do not know their place.”

“But to return to the purpose of this visit,” went on Mr. Chalmers. “There is something about that name Warburton.”

“I was once engaged to a Miss Amaryllis Duvane,” said the Marquess dryly. “Lady Warburton is her aunt.”

“Oh, I say, I am sorry. I had forgot. Jilted you, didn’t she?”

“Quite.”

“Whatever became of her? Sir James left her penniless.”

“I neither know nor care,” said the Marquess. “Miss Duvane informed me she had every intention of finding a rich husband. I have no doubt she has done so.”

“Did you not ask this Warburton female for news of Miss Duvane?”

“Not I. It is all past history. She has probably got a stable of brats by now.”

Mr. Chalmers cocked his head slightly at the Marquess’s bitter accents.

“Obviously it still rankles, my friend. So why this visit?”

“Because I am become mercenary,” said the Marquess coldly. “I have a mind to marry and have sons. The Warburton girls are pleasing enough and have large dowries apiece. I have no desire to see my estates return to the poverty-stricken state they were in when I inherited them. My tenants must no longer fear starvation. The price of wheat is unnaturally high at the moment. When the wars with Napoleon cease, then the price will drop, and we shall all be facing hard times.

“Any man who does not care for his lands and tenants is beneath contempt. I do not like London life much. I do not like to see wastrels squander their lands over the gaming tables at St. James’s.”

Mr. Chalmers stole a sidelong look at his friend, noticing the handsome face set in hard lines.

“I faith, you are grown stern, John,” he sighed. “Time was when we both delighted in frivolities.”

“We were young,” said the Marquess.

Mr. Chalmers fell silent. The Marquess was driving his traveling carriage himself, both men being seated on the box.

Mr. Chalmers was a bachelor, like the Marquess. They had not seen much of each other in recent years. Mr. Chalmers had been fighting with his regiment in Spain and had been invalided home the previous year with a ball in the leg. He still walked with a slight limp.

He was a pleasant-looking man with indeterminate features, good shoulders, and a broad chest. His appearance was marred by a pair of skinny legs of which he was deeply ashamed. He wore false wooden calves held in place by three pairs of stockings. He found himself increasingly uncomfortable in the Marquess’s presence. John had grown exceeding stern, he reflected. He still had the same lazy, charming manner, but it was a thin veneer over solid steel.

Everyone in society viewed marriage as a sort of business contract. It was extremely hard for a man to marry out of his class, but no member of the aristocracy looked askance at a female with a large dowry and a doubtful background. Love was something to be found outside marriage. But Mr. Chalmers could remember the Marquess when he was engaged to Miss Duvane. He remembered teasing him about Miss Duvane’s dowry and the Marquess saying with rare intensity, “If she had not a penny, I would still wed her.” Ah, well, changed days. It was disappointing, nonetheless, to see his friend’s warm nature changed to one of cold and calculating cynicism.

Ragged gray clouds tore across the sky above. The landscape was singularly treeless. The cultivated fields gave way to long, bleak stretches of moorland, dotted with round, black pools. A few sheep grazed among the tussocks of grass, and a chill wind sang over the grim landscape.

The road began to climb upward. The Marquess slowed his team at the top and pointed down to the left. “That must be Patterns,” he said.

In a small valley, they could just make out the smoke rising from tall Tudor chimneys above surrounding trees.

“Good,” said Mr. Chalmers. “I’m sharp set with all this cold, fresh air. Has it never occurred to you that Miss Duvane might be among the guests?”

“No,” said the Marquess shortly.

But as he said it, he knew he lied. Ever since he had seen the drab female companion with the Warburton girls in Exeter ’Change, he had been haunted by dreams of Amaryllis. By God! How he had loved her! And he had thought she held the same feelings for him.

But he would always remember her careless rejection of him. Well, he hoped she had found a rich husband and was as truly miserable as she deserved to be.

He would not admit to himself that the attraction of this visit was that Lady Warburton was related to her. By the time his carriage was bowling up the smooth drive to Patterns, the Marquess had convinced himself again that his sole motive in accepting the invitation was to add a rich dowry to his coffers. He enjoyed the cynicism of the thought. Women were cruel and merciless and calculating. Unfortunately, one could not start a family without one of the creatures. Therefore, it followed that a sensible man deserved to enrich himself by tying himself to one of them for life.

The only women whose company he enjoyed were the clever members of the demimonde who did not expect marriage and who were honestly and blatantly prepared to bestow their favors in return for money.

Usually, these cynical, bitter thoughts managed to comfort him, but somehow this time they did not. The warmth of his welcome from the Warburton family did little to dispel his gloom. His well-appointed rooms seemed like a prison, and he violently wished himself elsewhere. He had been briefly introduced to the other guests. There had been no Amaryllis Duvane, and that was a comfort, he told himself savagely.

Knowing that modes in the country could be as rigid as those demanded by Almack’s, he asked his valet to lay out his knee breeches and evening coat. As he tied his cravat in the Irish and allowed his valet to help him into his blue silk coat, he made up his mind to cut this now unwanted visit as short as possible.

Mr. Chalmers entered and surveyed his friend. “Very fine, John,” he commented. “You will break hearts.”

The Marquess’s hair shone like newly minted guineas in the light of two tall candles on the toilet table. His coat matched the intense blue of his eyes. His knee breeches hugged his muscular thighs without a wrinkle, and his clocked stockings showed a pair of legs which gave Mr. Chalmers a pang of sheer envy.

He surreptitiously stooped to make sure his wooden calves were securely fixed to the backs of his legs.

The Marquess ferreted around in his jewel box, picked out a diamond pin, and fixed it in his cravat. He chose several rings and slipped them on his long white fingers, then put an enameled snuffbox into the pocket in the tails of his coat.

Like the Marquess, Mr. Chalmers was gloomily planning to escape as soon as possible. It was not that he did not find his surroundings comfortable; it was more the aura of gloom that hung about his friend like a great black cloud that dismayed him.

The company was assembled in the drawing room. Apart from the Misses Warburton, no other young females were present. There were some members of the local county and a colorless female who sat with her sewing in the corner.

Poor relation, thought the Marquess grimly. Every good family should have one.

He was standing chatting easily to Sir Gareth Evans, a local magistrate, who was discoursing on the ramifications of the game laws, when he became aware that there seemed to be a certain suppressed and malicious excitement about the Warburton girls. Their eyes kept darting from him to the colorless female in the corner.

The butler announced dinner. The ladies went first, two by two, in order of precedence, with the gentlemen following, Lord Warburton and the Marquess taking the lead.

Something made the Marquess turn his head just as he was about to leave the drawing room. The drab companion or poor relation or whatever she was was obviously not expected to join the company. She was sitting, her head bent over her sewing, in a chair by the window.

As if conscious of his gaze, she looked up and then lowered her eyes quickly.

The Marquess went on out of the room with Lord Warburton, his mind racing. For one mad moment, he had thought that sad creature was Amaryllis. He conjured up a memory of Amaryllis in happier times, her auburn hair glowing above her beautiful face, her charm and vitality, and shook his head as if to shake away the sudden pain caused by this image.

The house party consisted of eight guests including himself and Mr. Chalmers.

The dining room was decorated in pastel green with some fine Adam medallions on the walls. Portraits of the previous, now dispossessed, owner’s family gazed down at the guests. The Marquess wondered if Warburton passed them off as his own.

He was seated on Lady Warburton’s right with Lady Evans on his left. Cissie and Agatha were at the center of the table. He could not hear what they were saying, but he admired their looks. Both were exquisitely dressed, their gowns having been cut to emphasize their generous bosoms and mitigate the thickness of their waistlines.

The meal was exceedingly ornate, and every dish appeared to be in disguise. There were puddings in the form of fowls, fresh cod dressed as salad, and celery like oysters.

Lady Evans, it transpired, was a Bostonian and only lately married, Sir Gareth being her third husband. She declared herself shocked that so much festivity should exist on Saturday evening, informing the Marquess sternly that it was considered a holy time in New England. With a severe glance at the magnificence of the Marquess’s evening dress, she went on to expound the virtues of democratic costume.

She informed the Marquess that in Washington, the Speaker of the House sat in his chair of office wigless and ungowned, and that in summer, the dignitaries of that growing metropolis contented themselves by wearing a white roundabout, a sort of cotton jacket, sans neckcloth, sans stockings, and sometimes sans waistcoat. This did cause a certain amount of controversy, she added, some of the old guard lamenting the sloppiness of government fashion.

“Well,” said the Marquess pacifically, “Mr. Talleyrand did point out that nothing is settled in America, not even the climate.”

Lady Evans laughed. “Fashion has become a political matter. The barbers are all adherents of the Federalists because their leaders wear long queues and powder, whereas the Whigs wear short hair or small queues tied carelessly with a ribbon. When Madison was nominated, a barber burst out, saying to a friend of mine, ‘The country is doomed; what Presidents we might have, sir! Just look at Dagget of Connecticut, or Stockton of New Jersey! What queues they have got, sir! But this little Jim Madison, with a queue no bigger than a pipestem! Sir, it is enough to make a man forswear his country.’ ”

The Marquess looked amused and began to ply Lady Evans with questions about America. When she was talking about her home country, Lady Evans’s normally severe expression relaxed. The Marquess judged that she found English society strange and decadent. She had been in England only since her marriage a year before.

The English approach to religious worship particularly confused her, society paying lip service to a sort of deism illustrated by the vicar of St. James’s in Piccadilly mentioning Jesus Christ at a Christmas service but hurriedly going on to assure his congregation that His name should not be brought up again until the following Christmas.

The Marquess reluctantly realized that Lady Warburton was trying to get his attention.

“My daughters were in high alt at your coming, Lord Merechester,” said Lady Warburton.

“I am flattered,” he replied. Should he ask her about Amaryllis? Or was it better to remain in ignorance?

“We plan to have a little impromptu dance after dinner. Perhaps you will favor us with your company, my lord,” went on Lady Warburton. “There will be cards, of course.”

“I do not dance,” said the Marquess, suddenly irritable. Archness did not become Lady Warburton.

She looked singularly put out. “But we have hired musicians especially for the occasion,” complained Lady Warburton. “We have gone to great expense.”

The Marquess surveyed her steadily. She flushed angrily and added, “Not that I am trying to blackmail you. . . .

“No, my dear lady, I should most certainly hope not,” said the Marquess.

He turned his shoulder and addressed Lady Evans. “How goes the building of Washington?” he asked. “I hear Pennsylvania Avenue is about the only thing they have that can be called a street.”

Lady Warburton looked daggers at his handsome profile. Every penny she spent she regarded as a sort of business investment. She quickly added up the cost of the entertainment, the cost of the girls’ gowns—thank heavens Amaryllis was so clever with her needle!—the cost of the food and the small orchestra. But she could hardly compel the Marquess of Merechester to enjoy himself.

Cissie and Agatha kept rolling their blue eyes in the Marquess’s direction in too obvious a way. She must speak to them about that.

She had cruelly told Amaryllis to wait in the drawing room until the guests had finished dinner. It would do her good to starve a little, she thought, in case Amaryllis should be too much encouraged by food and wine to forget her place, not realizing that at that moment, Amaryllis was tucking into a selection of choice viands, served to her on a tray in the drawing room by the more sympathetic members of the Warburton staff.

Lady Warburton’s busy mind raced on. Amaryllis was undoubtedly an accomplished pianist and singer and would normally be called upon to entertain the company at some point during the evening. But perhaps it would not be a good idea to allow her to star in any way.

After the madeira and ice cream, Lady Warburton rose to lead the ladies to the drawing room, frowing down the table at her husband as a signal that he was not to encourage the gentlemen to linger over their wine.

Lady Warburton had almost made up her mind to send Amaryllis upstairs for the rest of the evening, but the sight of the girl’s quiet and subdued appearance and her busy fingers working at her sewing made her change her mind. Amaryllis Duvane was no longer any threat. One had only to look at the superb beauty and youth of Cissie and Agatha.

Lady Evans made a move as if to join Amaryllis, then changed her mind. Amaryllis had not been introduced to anyone, and so Lady Evans decided she must be some sort of upper servant.

Cissie and Agatha sat and yawned listlessly. Apart from Lady Evans, the two other female guests were a Mrs. Johnston, a Scottish lady of uncertain years, and Mrs. Giles-Denton, whose husband, also one of the guests, was the local Master of Foxhounds.

The gentlemen joined them, and Agatha and Cissie brightened immediately. Apart from the Marquess, Mr. Chalmers, Mr. Giles-Denton, and Sir Gareth-Evans, the remaining member of the male party was the vicar, the Reverend Peter Bascomb.

The Marquess was increasingly annoyed with Lady Warburton for arranging her “impromptu dance.” For the only people who looked as if they might be expected to dance were the Warburton girls and himself and Joseph Chalmers. It was matchmaking at its most blatant.

Almost against his will, he began to make his way to where the mysterious poor relation sat bowed over her sewing. Lady Warburton moved in front of him as the orchestra started to play.

The drawing room opened at the far end into a saloon, where the carpet had been rolled up and the floor french-chalked.

“Cannot I persuade you to change your mind, Lord Merechester?” asked Lady Warburton with a smile which bared all her teeth. “I am sadly short of young gentlemen, I am afraid, and Cissie will be quite devastated if you do not favor her with a dance.”

The Marquess looked over Lady Warburton’s turbaned head and saw with delight that the elderly vicar was leading Cissie into a set. Sir Gareth and Lady Evans had joined them; Joseph Chalmers was escorting Agatha, and Lord Warburton was lumbering forward with Mrs. Johnston.

“It seems as if I shall not be needed, ma’am,” smiled the Marquess. Lady Warburton followed his amused gaze and cast a venomous look at the vicar which put that poor man’s living in immediate jeopardy.

James, the footman, chose that moment to stumble with a tray of cakes, and Lady Warburton strode forward to issue a reprimand.

The Marquess put up his quizzing glass and surveyed the dancers. Cissie smiled bewitchingly at him and lost her place in the set.

Embarrassed, he turned away, and his eyes fell on the silent figure of the companion.

He walked toward her.

“You do not care to join the festivities?” he asked, watching Amaryllis’s busy fingers.

“No, my lord.”

Her voice was barely above a whisper.

“What is the nature of your position in this household, ma’am?” he asked, suddenly wishing she would look up.

“I am a relative, my lord.”

“Lord Merechester!” Lady Warburton’s voice sounded shrill. “I would like your opinion on a snuffbox my husband purchased the other day.”

The Marquess kept his gaze fixed on Amaryllis’s bent head.

“You have not introduced me to this lady, Lady Warburton,” he said.

Lady Warburton gave a bark of laughter. “I would have thought an introduction was hardly necessary.”

He looked at the silent figure of the poor relation, his gaze suddenly sharp. She had stopped sewing and was nervously spreading the material out over her knee.

With a sort of wonder, he said, almost under his breath, “It can’t be . . . Amaryllis.”

She looked up. He stared down at the thin, pinched white face, at the large gray eyes which had once sparkled with life and youth and were now carefully blank.

“My Lord Merechester,” said Amaryllis, “forgive me for not rising to welcome you, but my sewing is too arranged . . .”

“Of course,” he interrupted quickly. He turned and caught Lady Warburton’s avid stare.

“Excuse us, my lady,” he said firmly. Lady Warburton flushed and walked away.

He pulled up a chair and sat down next to Amaryllis. The orchestra was playing a jaunty tune. He had sometimes sat with her thus in the old days at a ball, content to watch her beautiful face, content to think she loved him and that he was the most fortunate of men.

“How is this?” he asked harshly. “You did not find your rich husband?”

“No,” said Amaryllis, fleetingly raising her eyes to his.

“And so this is what you have come to,” he said savagely. “The poor relation. Have you no pride? Could you not do better than this?”

“No, my lord,” said Amaryllis with apparent calm. “I tried to find employ, but it did not serve. I had no alternative.”

“Except me,” he said bitterly. “And you prefer this existence to marriage to me? At times I plagued myself with thoughts that perhaps you had really loved me and had only released me from the engagement because of mistaken pride. But no woman with pride could endure this life. I am glad. You deserve it.”

Amaryllis winced.

“Look at yourself! Jaded, worn-out, old before your time. The perpetual spinster in the chimney corner. An unpaid servant.”

“Stop!” Amaryllis looked at him blindly.

“Why should I stop? This is the last time I shall speak to you during this visit, ma’am, and I intend to make the most of it. I have decided to do what you should have done . . . as you swore you would do. I am here to find myself a rich partner for marriage. One of the Warburton girls will do. I do not much care which one.”

“You have changed,” said Amaryllis in a low voice. “I do not like to see you like this.”

“My dear poor relation. It is not your place to voice your dislikes. I am no longer the poor Marquess of Merechester, I am extremely rich–”

“And extremely pompous,” flashed Amaryllis, goaded beyond belief.

She glared at him, anger lending color to her cheeks and fire to her eyes.

At that moment, the dance finished and Agatha and Cissie came bouncing up. Everything about them bounced, from their plump bosoms to their fat, glossy ringlets.

“Ammy,” cried Cissie. “Run and fetch my fan this instant, you lazy thing. Dear Lord Merechester. Mama says you will not dance. Cannot we persuade you?”

The Marquess had stood up at the sisters’ arrival. Behind him, Amaryllis hurriedly got to her feet and slipped quietly from the room.

“Only such beauty as yours could persuade me,” laughed the Marquess, although his laughter did not reach his eyes.

With Agatha on one arm and Cissie on the other, he strolled toward the saloon, where the orchestra was preparing to play the next dance.

Amaryllis left her sewing basket in her room and then wrapped herself warmly in a cloak and made her way downstairs and slipped out a back door into the grounds. She knew that Lady Warburton would come looking for her at the first opportunity, and she did not feel she could face her.

She had no intention of looking for Cissie’s fan. Cissie would have forgotten about it already.

Her heart was beating hard, and there was a suffocating lump in her throat.

Hoarfrost glittered on the grass, and a small, cold moon rode in the black night sky above.

Amaryllis sat down on a marble bench and tried to marshal her thoughts.

How much he had changed! He had grown cold and pompous and cruel. What else did he expect her to do? Where did he expect her to go? If there had been any alternative, then she would have taken it.

“But would you?” asked the small voice of her conscience.

Her first attempt at independence had been so disastrous that she had been only too glad to return to the Warburtons. But might she not have tried again?

Then she had been young and pretty. Now that she was older and had lost her looks, would not some family or seminary be happy to hire her as governess?

The Marquess’s jeering cruelty had been hurtful in the extreme, but it had ignited a spark of rebellion.

She rose and began to pace nervously up and down the lawns, the edges of her long cloak beginning to glitter with frost where it trailed over the icy grass.

There was a burst of laughter, and she realized the windows of the saloon were close at hand.

She climbed a flight of worn, mossy steps to the long terrace which ran along the back of the house.

There was a slight gap of light at one long window where the heavy curtains did not quite meet.

Drawn like a moth to the candle flame, she walked forward and looked in.

How gay everyone looked!

The Marquess danced down the set with a radiant and laughing Cissie on his arm. She said something to him, and he looked down at her with that lazy smile of his.

Amaryllis clenched and unclenched her fingers. Before, although she had resented the Warburtons’ shabby treatment, she had never envied them. But now she envied Cissie and Agatha from the bottom of her heart. Oh, to be able to wear pretty clothes and to laugh and dance as she once had done.

The dance ended. The Marquess raised Cissie’s hand to his lips, and she dimpled up at him.

We never even kissed, thought Amaryllis in a sort of sad wonder. How little we really knew of each other.

Somehow their lovemaking had been confined to warm glances and pressures of the hand. Although she had accepted the fact he was marrying her for her dowry, she had begun to hope his feelings toward her were changing to love. She remembered sitting out with him at balls, enclosed in their own private world where every remark was a caress and every glance a kiss.

Why should he now be so bitter? He had never loved her. Had he loved her, then he would never have let her go so easily.

All the regard and affection she had thought he held in his heart for her had merely been the result of her own imagination. And she was better off without him, she told herself angrily. Much better. Only see how haughty and cruel and stern he had become.

He was flirting with Cissie with practiced ease, but there was something almost contemptuous in his manner.

I don’t care a fig for him anymore, thought Amaryllis, turning away from the window.

She walked away across the lawns, away from the music, and Cissie’s high-pitched laughter.

The ache at her heart would not go away.

But perhaps it was anger that made her walk straighter than she had done in years and push a stray lock of hair back from her face with an unconsciously graceful feminine movement of her hand.

Chapter Three

The next day, a vast pall of tedium settled over the lady guests. The men had gone out shooting after an enormous breakfast, leaving the ladies to sit around gossiping, yawning, or writing letters at spindly-legged tables.

Without the gentlemen, no one felt like being witty. Cissie and Agatha repeatedly sent for Amaryllis, but she was reported absent from her room, and so they did not even have their customary diversion of tormenting Amaryllis to while away the time.

Amaryllis was in the kitchens. The housekeeper, Mrs. Abber, had begged her for her help. One of the maids had scorched a pair of new linen sheets with an overhot iron, and Mrs. Abber shuddered to think what would happen when Lady Warburton next inspected the linen room.

Mrs. Abber had often turned to Amaryllis for advice. Amaryllis was the only member of the household who actually used the library, and she could be counted on to find remedies for nearly every household ill from the stock of knowledge she had acquired through extensive reading.

And so Amaryllis in apron and cap was busy preparing a mixture from half a pint of vinegar, two ounces of fuller’s earth, one ounce of dried fowls’ dung, half an ounce of soap, and the juice of two large onions.

“Are you sure this will work, Miss Duvane?” asked Mrs. Abber anxiously, peering into the bubbling mess on the kitchen stove.

“It smells terrible, does it not?” said Amaryllis. “But it does work. Our old housekeeper used it. And I found it highly recommended in a housekeeping book in the library. Now, I think it is ready. See, it has quite boiled down to a paste. We spread the paste on the scorched area and leave it to dry, and then have the laundry maids wash it several times. Lady Warburton is not likely to pay us a visit? Perhaps we should have used the laundry room, Mrs. Abber.”

“No, miss, her ladyship hardly ever visits the kitchens except about once a month to make sure there has been no pilfering. Very strict is her ladyship, but then I do not need to tell you that, miss.”

“It does smell horrible,” said Amaryllis, wrinkling her nose. “Get one of the maids to take the sheets to the laundry room now. If James should come in, he is sure to tell Lady Warburton.”

“That James,” said Mrs. Abber darkly. “Second footman, be blowed! More like first-class sneak.” One of the maids bundled up the paste-covered sheets and carried them off.

When she had left, Mrs. Abber turned back to Amaryllis. “I hear my lady has great hopes of a match between Cissie and this Lord Merechester,” said Mrs. Abber, looking steadfastly at a corner of the kitchen table.

“Oh, muffins!” cried Amaryllis, deliberately changing the subject. The kitchen boy was toasting muffins in front of the fire and piling them neatly on a plate ready to be carried upstairs for tea. “I do love toasted muffins.”

“Then you shall have some,” smiled Mrs. Abber. “I shall send a tray to your room.”

Amaryllis looked around the bright, friendly kitchen. “Couldn’t I stay here and eat them . . . just once?” she pleaded.

“ ’Twouldn’t be fitting, miss. You may join me in my parlor, if you wish.”

“James has been sent out on an errand,” put in the cook, Mrs. Palmer. “No one’s going to say anything if miss would like to stay.”

And so Amaryllis settled down to toasted muffins dripping with butter, crumpets, and seed cake. Then she helped cook roll the pastry, getting flour on her nose and over her dress and apron. The kitchen was warm and cheerful and full of bustle as servants came and went. The big fire crackled away merrily while a boy turned a sheep on the spit.

Most of the meals were cooked in closed, coal-burning stoves, but large roasts were still turned over the open fire, just as they had been roasted in the centuries before.

Mrs. Abber left to supervise the stillroom. She had unfortunately forgotten the predilection of county gentlemen for invading the kitchens after a day’s shooting.

And so Amaryllis, flushed and floury, was found by the Marquess of Merechester and the rest of the gentlemen as they erupted into the kitchens by way of the back door.

Lord Warburton fortunately did not even see Amaryllis but muttered something about going upstairs to eject an unwelcome caller. The servants pinned smiles on their faces and looked as if it were a great honor to entertain the upstairs party at the servants’ table when, in fact, every one of them wished their aristocratic visitors a mile away. Even such a small house party as this meant extra work and long hours. Now precious time had to be found to make special cakes and brew tea and decant wine.

Amaryllis moved over to the kitchen sink and tipped some water into a basin and washed her hands. She hoped the cook would not bring her to the attention of the guests.

Game bags were unpacked and birds taken away to be hung. Sir Gareth and Mr. Giles-Denton eventually went off arm in arm. The Marquess and Mr. Chalmers sat down at a corner of the kitchen table. Amaryllis half turned around and stole a look at them. The Marquess was wearing an old plush game coat and leather breeches and boots with dark tops. He was lounging back in his chair, one foot up on the bar of the next chair and his hands thrust into his pockets.

“I’m glad Warburton is such a dreadful shot,” he was saying. “I really cannot approve of the senseless slaughter of game. ‘Don’t kill what you don’t mean to eat’ is my motto. But Warburton was banging away like a madman. He nearly bagged Sir Gareth. I suppose we had better join the ladies. This visit was not a good idea.”

“And Miss Duvane is in residence after all,” said Mr. Chalmers slyly. “Still twang the old heartstrings, does she?”

“Don’t be vulgar,” said the Marquess, taking his hands out of his pockets and helping himself to hot muffins. “She is a ghost of the girl I knew, and a very faded one at that.”

The cook, Mrs. Palmer, bridled. The Quality, she knew, were apt to go on as if the servants were deaf, but they had no right to discuss poor little Miss Duvane and she not a foot away from them.

Amaryllis was carefully beginning to edge quietly from the kitchen when Mrs. Palmer said loudly, “Thank you for your help, Miss Duvane.”

The Marquess looked up quickly, and his hard blue gaze raked over Amaryllis from the dab of flour on her nose to the serviceable half boots on her feet.

“Do join us, Miss Duvane,” he said in a bored voice.

“No thank you, my lord,” said Amaryllis, bobbing a curtsy. “I am sure you will enjoy your discussion of me so much better when I am absent.”

“No doubt,” he said indifferently. “Tell me, Chalmers, have you hunted this country before? Evans says we may go out tomorrow if the ground is not too hard.”

Amaryllis stalked out of the kitchen, her legs trembling.

“Not like you to be so rude,” mumbled Mr. Chalmers. “I mean, she’s obviously not treated very well here.”

“She would be treated better, I am persuaded, if she did not set out to make a deliberate martyr of herself,” rejoined the Marquess acidly. “Creeping about the kitchens like a scullion!”

“Well, I ain’t staying here in this house much longer if the very sight of her is going to turn you so nasty,” said Mr. Chalmers hotly.

“I apologize. Let us forget about her. Do you think Miss Cissie will suit me as a bride?”

“Giggles an awful lot, don’t she?”

“They all do, dear boy,” said the Marquess wearily. “They all do.”

Upstairs, Lord Warburton was trying to speed an unwanted guest on his way. The guest was an impoverished Irish peer named Arthur Donnelly. Lord Donnelly had once been a favored guest at the Warburton residence, but that was when they thought he had money and before they realized he was an Irish peer, although only someone as stupid as Lord Warburton would think anyone with a name like Donnelly was anything else.

He was a slim, engaging man in his thirties with an open, fresh, handsome face and a pair of laughing blue eyes. Occasionally he returned to his native shores to wring some money out of his ungrateful tenants, but since they were courageous and stubborn as well as being quite terribly poor, he usually got only enough out of them to cover the cost of his visit. He had learned to use his pleasing manner and appearance to keep himself well housed and fed by inviting himself to house parties and staying as long as possible.

He had, however, outstayed his welcome at many of the noble houses around the south of England and so had started to begin at the beginning again by sponging off the Warburtons.

For all his brutal and boorish manner, Lord Warburton did not excel in the genteel art of speeding the thick-skinned, unwanted guest on his way, and so he had already spent a great deal of time humming and hawing and talking about lack of beds and uncongenial company, all of which fell on apparently deaf ears.

By the time it had occurred to Lord Warburton that he should have left this delicate matter to his wife, he found that he had somehow agreed to let the irritating Irish peer stay. He comforted himself with the thought that neither of his daughters had ever shown the slightest interest in Donnelly.

Lord Warburton then went in search of his wife to break the unwelcome news to her.

She turned frosty eyes on her blustering lord. “I have enough to do housing and feeding Amaryllis without having another penniless sponger thrust upon me. He may stay one night, but you will tell him at breakfast that he must pack and leave immediately. I will not have Lord Merechester’s courtship of Cissie spoiled in any way.”

“Don’t see how something that don’t exist can be spoiled,” muttered Lord Warburton.

“Nonsense! He was quite enchanted with her last night. He finally recognized Amaryllis and did not like what he saw one little bit. We must give a ball while Merechester is here. It will be very rushed, but I think I can get most of the county to come. No one who is anyone is in London in November.”

“You’d best ask some young people,” pointed out her husband.

“Merechester is not exactly young. He is quite middle-aged in fact.”

“He’s around thirty, which ain’t exactly his dotage. But it would seem odd if you had only the older people of the county present.”

“I am well aware of that,” snapped Lady Warburton. “Fortunately there are no girls for miles around who can hope to compete with Cissie and Agatha.”

“I don’t know. Have you never wondered, my love, why it is they do not seem precisely to take? They’ve both had one Season already and no one showed any signs of coming up to the mark.”

“They are very young and hard to please,” said his wife with an indulgent smile. “Their manners are perhaps a trifle too playful and sprightly.”

“Well, don’t underrate Amaryllis. ‘Member young Sir Jerry Struthers? Handsome chap, and Agatha and Cissie seemed interested in him. Very. But he spent a lot of the time on calls sitting in the corner cozing with Amaryllis, and when you became aware of the fact and kept Amaryllis away during his future calls . . . well, he stopped callin’.”

“He was sorry for her. You refined too much upon it. Her very drabness makes her a good foil for our girls’ beauty and youth. Merechester has certainly taken her in dislike. Mark my words, he won’t even look in her direction again.”

Such seemed to be the case that evening. Amaryllis appeared dutifully in the drawing room before dinner wearing an old drab brown dress. She had removed her cap, and her hair was scraped back so tightly from her face that it made it look thinner than ever. Her eyelids had a bruised look. Lady Warburton was so pleased at the miserable picture Amaryllis presented that she graciously told the butler to lay a place at table for Miss Duvane.

Lady Warburton noticed with satisfaction that the Marquess looked only once at Amaryllis during dinner and then quickly glanced away as if what he saw offended his fastidious eye.

The Bostonian Lady Evans found Amaryllis’s status a great puzzle. Who was this female who was servant one moment and guest the next?

Amaryllis was seated next to Sir Gareth with Mr. Chalmers on her other side. She was a good listener, and Sir Gareth blossomed forth in conversation. Then Mr. Chalmers politely engaged her attention by reminding her that it was some time since they had last met.

He told her he had been at the wars and was startled at her knowledge of the Peninsular campaigns, since most ladies seemed totally unaware that they were even at war with France.

Mr. Chalmers found he was beginning to enjoy himself. He had not realized until he began talking into Amaryllis’s sympathetic ear how much he missed his regiment. After some time, he could not help thinking that there was still a rare beauty in Amaryllis which was apparent when one studied her closely. The bruised color of her eyelids, probably caused by a sleepless night, made her large gray eyes look even larger. Her lashes, he noticed, were very long and thick. Her movements were graceful and delicate. If she wore her hair in a more fashionable style, he thought, by Jove, she could still break hearts.

His gaze became admiring. Lord Donnelly was chattering away with his usual Irish charm, but his eyes were busy. He was wondering whether to try his hand with one of the Warburton girls.

He had no mind to marry, but a large dowry was certainly a temptation. His roving eye fell on Amaryllis. Interesting woman. In repose, she looked quite the country mouse, the resident spinster. When she was animated, a sort of shadow of great beauty fell upon her face like sunlight on still, dark water.

The ladies retired and the gentlemen settled down to discuss the day’s sport. Lord Donnelly told several very long, very amusing, and quite fictitious stories of shooting parties he had known, with the result that the gentlemen were quite a long time in joining the ladies.

Lady Warburton was not amused, as was shown by her decidedly frosty face when the gentlemen at last arrived in the drawing room. She put their delay—quite rightly—down to the pernicious influence of Lord Donnelly.

Cissie and Agatha had been pouting and yawning before their arrival and had just begun on their favorite sport of baiting Amaryllis and were loath to give it up.

Mrs. Johnston had drunk more wine than was good for her and from being a quiet, reticent Scottish lady she became extremely garrulous. She plumped herself down on the sofa beside Lady Warburton and began to expound on the iniquities of the Englishman’s overt prejudice against members of her race.

“Goodness, it is hot,” said Cissie, ogling the Marquess. “Ammy, do run and fetch my fan, and do it this time. I asked you last night but I declare the years are making you deaf.”

Amaryllis rose hurriedly to her feet. “Now there’s the prettiest fan you ever did see,” cried Lord Donnelly, picking up a chicken-skin fan from a side table. “Would this be the one you are wanting, Miss Cissie?”

“That is your fan, Cissie,” said Amaryllis quietly.

“I don’t want this one,” said Cissie pettishly. “You are so lazy, Ammy. Run up to my room this minute and fetch the green one with the spangles.”

Amaryllis made to leave, but the Marquess held up his hand.

“Have your servants all fallen sick of the plague, Lady Warburton?” he asked in a clear, carrying voice.

Lady Warburton, who had just managed to extricate herself from Mrs. Johnston, came hurrying up.

“No, Merechester, of course not. What is it you wish?”

“ ’Tis not I, but your daughter who wishes a fan brought from her room. Miss Duvane has been ordered to fetch it. Since Miss Duvane is not a servant, I can only assume she is being ordered about thus because you are sadly understaffed.”

“Cissie was teasing, of course,” said Lady Warburton with a sweet smile at her eldest. “I am sure you can do without that particular fan, my darling. Amaryllis, there is no need for you to stand around looking helpless. I am sure the company would appreciate some music.”

Amaryllis went quietly over to the pianoforte. Lord Donnelly with a wicked look in his eye followed her over and volunteered to turn the music. “And if you can find a good Irish ballad, ma’am,” he said cheerfully, “I will raise my voice in song.”

Amaryllis began to play “Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms,” the song that Tom Moore had written about poor Kitty Packenham, who had waited so long to marry the Duke of Wellington.

Agatha tittered as the last golden note of Lord Donnelly’s Irish tenor voice faded away. “I think ‘dear ruin’ is an apt description of our Ammy, do you not, Cissie?” Cissie screamed with laughter and glanced up at the Marquess to see if he appreciated the joke, but the Marquess was watching Lord Donnelly bending over Amaryllis with an unreadable expression on his face.

Amaryllis and Lord Donnelly then sang a duet, their voices harmonizing beautifully. Lord Donnelly was flirting quite outrageously with Amaryllis.

He had correctly summed up her position in the household and knew that any attention paid to her would cause mischief, and Lord Donnelly loved mischief. He knew it might also make the Warburton girls interested in him, since both seemed to be inordinately jealous of the quiet Miss Duvane.

Desperate to turn the masculine attention from Amaryllis, Cissie waited impatiently until the duet was finished and cried, “The saloon is still ready for dancing, Mama. Ammy can play for us.”

Lord Donnelly added his voice to Cissie’s pleas. He considered the time now ripe for a little judicious flirtation with the Warburton girls.

Lady Warburton gave her approval.

The Marquess was glad of the addition of the ebullient Lord Donnelly to the party. With Mr. Chalmers partnering Agatha and Lord Donnelly partnering Cissie, he did not feel obliged to dance.

He found Lady Evans at his elbow. “Tell me, Lord Merechester,” she said, “whether it is customary to use a poor female relative as a sort of drudge. I find that Miss Duvane is Lady Warburton’s niece. I assume she must be poor or they would not dare to use her thus. Do you think she minds? She is so quiet.”

“I think Miss Duvane allows herself to be bullied,” said the Marquess, raising his quizzing glass and glaring at Amaryllis’s slender back. “Miss Duvane shows a sad want of spirit. That attitude postively encourages bullying.”

“Indeed! But should Miss Duvane make any sort of stand, they might turn her out of doors.”

“They would not dare,” he said coldly, lowering his glass. “Such behavior would cause a scandal and it would be accounted very bad ton.”

“Life in England is very different from life in America.”

“Come, ma’am. That I do not believe. You must have your poor relations in Boston, living on their relatives’ charity as they do here.”

“We are all equal.”

“Now, now,” he teased, “you know that is not true. On the contrary, I hear you suffer for it. You do not feel it right to have servants and so you do not know how to treat them. The servants feel the equal of their masters and are therefore discontented and do their work badly. Pretending you do not have inequality in fact creates a great degree of discontent.”

“Perhaps what you say may be true, but I consider the treatment of Miss Duvane, whether merited or not, vulgar in the extreme, and such a thing would not happen in Boston.”

“You may have the right of it,” conceded the Marquess.

“And furthermore,” went on Lady Evans, “I do not think Miss Duvane realizes that the Warburtons would not dare turn her out.”

“Then why don’t you tell her?”

“Oh, I shall, my lord. I shall indeed.”

Sir Gareth came up to claim his wife’s hand for the next dance.

The Marquess strolled forward and stood behind Amaryllis. She sensed his presence immediately and found it very hard to concentrate on the music.

At the end of the next dance, Lord Donnelly came bouncing up. “Faith, your hands must be tired, Miss Duvane, but it so happens I can beat out a tune. Now off with his lordship here and tread a measure. If you dance as well as you play, you will be a delight to watch.”

“I do not wish to dance,” said the Marquess, beginning to walk away.

“Then what do you do?” demanded Lord Donnelly with cheerful insolence. “Do you play the pianoforte?”

“Yes,” said the Marquess curtly, over his shoulder.

“Now, isn’t that splendid?” beamed Lord Donnelly, his blue eyes twinkling. “Lord Merechester is going to play so that Miss Duvane and I can show you all how to waltz.”

“I do not think I should allow such a dance to be performed in this house,” said Lady Warburton severely. “It has not yet been sanctioned by Almack’s.”

“Hasn’t had the papal blessing, heh?” grinned Lord Donnelly. “And there are your daughters itching to try, ma’am.”

“Oh, yes, Mama!” cried Cissie. “Do let us try. Lord Donnelly can show us the steps.” She cast a languishing look on Lord Donnelly. He was so much fun, and the Marquess was turning out to be dreadfully dull.

“There you are. Come along, Miss Duvane. We’ll show ’em.”

“I do not know the steps either,” said Amaryllis, longing to escape.

“Faith, you just follow me. Lord Merechester will play.”

“Oh, very well,” said the Marquess crossly.

He sat down and began to play a very fast waltz tune. Lord Donnelly cast him a wicked look and swung Amaryllis into the steps of the dance, whirling her around at a great rate.

Mr. Chalmers watched with some amusement. A lock of Amaryllis’s hair had escaped from its pins and was curling riotously down onto her shoulder. Her face was flushed. Lord Donnelly bent his head and said something, and she laughed up at him, her face glowing with color. The Marquess’s long fingers hit a discord. “I cannot play anymore,” he said, staring so accusingly at the keyboard that Mr. Chalmers fought down an unmanly desire to giggle.

Agatha quickly said she did not want to dance anymore, and Cissie flashed a look to her mother for help.

Lady Warburton promptly moved into action. She drew Amaryllis aside and said a few well chosen words in that lady’s ear. Amaryllis hurriedly pinned up the stray lock and almost scurried over to her usual corner by the window, opened her workbasket, and took out a piece of sewing.

The Marquess watched her with thinly veiled contempt. Lord Donnelly, obviously feeling he had stirred things up enough for one evening, settled down to wooing Agatha.

The Marquess decided impatiently that if he was going to propose to one of the Warburton girls, he had better start somewhere. Of course, he could simply announce he was taking his leave on the morrow, and then he could escape from this distasteful situation. But he wanted an heir. And one young girl was pretty much like another. Women were the lesser breed. They had weak, inferior minds, but one had to be careful to pretend one actually believed them to be rational thinking humans and listen to their silly prattle as if it were all of world-shaking importance.

He settled down to flirt expertly with Cissie and, unfortunately, succeeded better then he knew. For Cissie fell suddenly and desperately in love with him.

Well content, Lady Warburton studied her daughters. Agatha, of course, must be warned again not to get on too intimate a footing with Lord Donnelly. But Cissie was doing very well, very well indeed.

It was a pity that Amaryllis had put herself forward so much, but all that had done was to give Lord Merechester a further disgust of her.

Lady Evans drew a chair up next to Amaryllis and said in a low voice. “My dear Miss Duvane, you must excuse me for being so familiar, but you should not allow your relatives to treat you so shabbily. I agree with Lord Merechester. It is not necessary.”

“Lord Merechester,” said Amaryllis, stabbing a needle into the silk on her lap, “is blessed with a title and a fortune. I am completely dependent on my aunt for a roof over my head.”

“Ah, but they would not dare turn you out, and so Lord Merechester told me. He said that Lady Warburton would be too frightened of the scandal that would cause.”

Amaryllis put down her sewing and looked at Lady Evans’s angular and kindly face with sudden intensity. “Do you believe that?”

“Yes, I think his lordship has the right of it. Sir Gareth says, if you will forgive me speaking plain, that one would never think Lady Warburton came from such an old family. Only look at her gown!”

Lady Warburton was wearing a purple silk gown with a great deal of tucks and gores and flounces. It was ornamented around the skirt with green sequins stitched in the form of baskets of flowers.

“She is as insecure in her social position as any mushroom. The censure of the world is what she dreads most. Lord Merechester says they bully you simply because you let them.”

“Lord Merechester has been very busy on the subject of my affairs,” said Amaryllis crossly.

“He can be very harsh and was quite rude about my country. I think he is a very proud, cold man, but he talks quite a lot of horse sense.”

“My lord was not always thus,” said Amaryllis, picking up her sewing again.

“Odso?” Lady Evans looked at her curiously. “You knew him before?”

“Once,” said Amaryllis. “He is much changed.”

Lady Evans looked as if she wanted to pursue the subject, but Amaryllis began to ask her questions about Boston, and the homesick Lady Evans eagerly replied and, for the moment, forgot about the Marquess of Merechester.

The next day had too hard a frost to go out hunting. Cissie and Agatha pronounced they would like to visit the nearby town of Caddam to buy ribbons. The other ladies looked out at the chilling cold and elected to stay home.

Amaryllis was summoned to accompany Cissie and Agatha.

She hesitated, turning over in her mind what Lady Evans had said. But now did not seem quite the time to begin rebelling, and she ruefully admitted to herself she had not yet the courage to do so.

Nonetheless, she dressed her hair in a more fashionable style than she had worn it in several years, brushing out her curls until fiery little sparks of light shone in her auburn hair.

Over her wool gown, she put on a blue velvet fur-lined cloak, one of the few remaining items from her once well-stocked wardrobe. On her curls, she balanced a smart blue velvet hat. It was almost as good as it had been on the day she had bought it, since she had not dared wear it before lest it excite the malice of the Warburton sisters.

Cissie and Agatha glared at her as if they wanted to tell her to go and change, but the guests were present and Lord Donnelly was generous in his compliments on Amaryllis’s appearance.

It transpired that the Marquess of Merechester had already left to visit an old friend in a neighboring county and was not expected back to dinner.

James, the second footman, was laid up with a severe cold and an inflammation of the ear. Mrs. Palmer had whispered to Amaryllis that he had no doubt got it from listening at keyholes.

And so another footman, Harry, was to attend them. To Cissie and Agatha this meant they could be as rude to Amaryllis in public as they liked.

She was spared their spite on the journey into Caddam, however, since the sisters were tired after their exertions of the night before and the journey was accomplished in silence.

Once they were let loose in the shops, they recovered their spirits, and it was Ammy do this and Ammy do that and Oh, you are so stupid.”

Amaryllis bore it all with her customary stoic calm until, in the middle of the haberdashery, Cissie called out, “Do come here and help me, Ammy, and stop gawking there dreaming of Merechester. If you don’t already know he dislikes you immensely then you are a bigger widgeon than I thought.”

Agatha gave a delighted titter of laughter. Harry, the footman, stared woodenly ahead.

Amaryllis took a half step forward and then stopped, her face flaming.

“Behave yourself, miss,” she said in a level voice, “and mind your manners. Vulgar malice ill becomes you.”

“How dare you speak to me like that!” gasped Cissie. “Pinch her, Agatha!”

“Now, ladies,” said the storekeeper anxiously, “no squabbling, please.”

“Know your place, my good man,” snapped Cissie, wild with temper. “I am Lord Warburton’s daughter.”

“Then I shall inform his lordship of your behavior,” said the shopkeeper stoutly. He turned to Amaryllis. “Do take your young ladies away, miss. They are upsetting my other customers.”

“Well,” gasped Agatha, flouncing out. “We shall never shop here again.”

Both sisters, heads held high, climbed into the carriage. But as Amaryllis made to climb in after them, Cissie gave her such a vicious push that she would have fallen back on the pavement if Harry, the footman, had not caught her.

“You can walk and cool that temper of yours, Ammy,” shouted Cissie, slamming the carriage door.

The footman rapped on the glass of the window, and Cissie jerked it down impatiently.

“It’s nigh six mile to home, begging your pardon,” he said.

“I would rather walk,” said Amaryllis firmly, “than endure the company of such spoiled little girls a moment longer.”

She turned and marched off down the High Street, hearing Cissie’s jeers ringing out behind her.

Amaryllis was thankful that her sudden urge to appear more fashionable had not prompted her to discard her boots in favor of thin slippers.

It was going to be a very long, very cold walk home.

Chapter Four

The Marquess of Merechester sat looking out at the passing countryside as his well-sprung traveling carriage cushioned him against the bumps of the country roads.

The friend on whom he had called had turned out to be one of those unfashionable people who abhor blood sports and prefer to spend their winters in London, and so, after having been served a cold collation by the housekeeper, he found there was nothing else to do but return to Patterns.

His conscience was beginning to trouble him. It was beginning to nag louder and louder, telling him that his behavior to Amaryllis had been that of a total boor.

He decided to try to be pleasant to her on his return and then take his leave on the following morning. Marriage with one of the Warburton girls was sheer madness. Either girl would drive him insane with boredom within a week.

His coachman was driving; the Marquess was allowing himself the rare luxury of traveling inside. Usually he preferred to take the reins himself, but he found he had no spirit for driving, as he felt cold and dispirited.

Despite the rugs in the carriage and the hot brick under his feet, the cold of the bleak moorland stretching out on either side seemed to permeate his very soul.

There had not been any sun to melt the frost, and the day was bitter cold. The sky was leaden gray, and he wondered if it would snow.

November was an early month for snow. Usually blizzards did not strike the south of England until after Christmas. But of late years, the weather had been more erratic than he could ever remember, and the harvests had been quite dreadful. Prudent gambling on the Stock Exchange and careful implementation of all the latest discoveries in agriculture had meant that he had made money where so many landowners had lost it.

He noticed the coach was beginning to slow and poked open the trap in the roof with his cane and demanded to know what was amiss.

“Female up ahead, my lord,” came his coachman’s answering shout. “Looks like one of the young ladies from Patterns.”

“Then stop by all means,” called the Marquess. The coach lumbered to a halt, and the Marquess opened the door and jumped down.

Miss Amaryllis Duvane stood beside the road, half-turned toward the coach.

“What on earth are you doing walking miles from home in this freezing weather?” demanded the Marquess testily.

“I had a certain altercation with Miss Cissie Warburton,” said Amaryllis. “There is no need to concern yourself about me, my lord. I am perfectly well, and able to walk home.”

“Don’t be silly,” he snapped. “Get into the carriage immediately.”

Amaryllis looked about to protest, and then, with an infinitesimal shrug, she climbed in.

The exercise had brought a fine color to her cheeks and a sparkle to her gray eyes. Her hair curled under her smart bonnet, framing her face. She looked heart-wrenchingly like that young Amaryllis who had told him so cruelly all those years ago that she did not love him.

“I am sure there was no need for you to martyr yourself in this way,” he said crossly, as the carriage gave a jolt preparatory to moving forward.

“The Misses Warburton were insufferable,” said Amaryllis in a tight voice. “I must find some way to leave Patterns. I failed in the position as governess when I was young and pretty. But I have been thinking that now I am of maturer years and have lost my looks, it should surely be easier for me to find employ.”

“What happened the first time?” he asked curiously. “Did you not suit?”

“The gentleman of the house tried to force his attentions on me,” said Amaryllis, taking off her gloves and smoothing them nervously on her lap. “I was turned off without a character. I was glad to return to the Warburtons and very grateful to them for quite some time. I had nowhere else to go.”

“What of that rich husband you meant to marry.”

“I did not find him,” said Amaryllis quietly. “Did you enjoy your visit, my lord?”

“No. I went to call on Jimmy Carruthers, an old friend. He was not in residence, so here I am.”

The coach hit something on the road and gave a great bounce. Amaryllis struck her head on the roof and then fell across the Marquess’s knees. She hurriedly straightened up and adjusted her bonnet as the Marquess jerked down the window and asked what had happened.

The coachman replied gloomily that the roads were the worst he had encountered. Approaching Patterns from the opposite direction to the London road was a different kettle of fish, he explained. This road had hardly been maintained at all and was full of loose rocks and potholes.

“Go cautiously then,” said the Marquess, putting up the glass and sinking back in his seat. “Are you all right?” he asked Amaryllis. She was breathing quickly and there was a high color in her cheeks. That sudden contact with him had upset her. She was suffering more from a jolt to the emotions than from any jolt to the body.

“Yes, quite all right,” she said in a strained voice.

An awkward silence fell between them. The coach lurched and swayed dangerously. Amaryllis clutched tightly onto the strap for fear of falling against him again.

Every inch of her body was conscious of his nearness. He lounged back against the carriage seat with his long booted legs stretched out in front of him.

Suddenly there was an enormous grinding, a thump, and a sound of splintering wood. The Marquess clutched Amaryllis as the coach heeled over.

The door on his side shot open, and with a great splintering and crashing and alarmed cries from the box, the whole coach crashed over on its side, catapulting Amaryllis and the Marquess through the door and into the deep ditch by the side of the road as the great bulk of the traveling carriage crashed down on top of them.

Bruised and battered, Amaryllis lay very still in the ditch. The total darkness was frightening.

She began to wonder if she had died, the blackness was so absolute.

And then she felt a hand at her waist and the Marquess’s voice very near saying, “Are you there? Amaryllis! For God’s sake, say something!”

“I’m here,” she said, her voice sounding strange in her own ears. “I think I’m all right. I’m frightened to move. Are we crushed by the coach?”

“No. We are lucky. The ditch is deep. The coach is on top of us but fortunately not lying on us. All we have to do is wait until help comes, unless that coachman of mine has broken his neck.”

“My lord?” came the coachman’s voice from somewhere outside. “Oh, my lord, where are you?”

“We’re under the carriage . . . in the ditch,” called the Marquess. “No broken bones, I hope?”

“Just scratched, my lord, and fair shook about. Them here roads are a disgrace. John-groom is cutting the traces. The horses came to no harm that I can see. We’ll ride to Patterns and fetch help.”

“Go to it!” called the Marquess. “But hurry, man, or we shall both be dead of the cold.”

They lay and listened until they heard the sound of horses’ hooves fading in the distance as the groom and the coachman rode on to Patterns.

“Try to move,” said the Marquess to Amaryllis. “Make sure you have not broken any bones.”

Amaryllis moved cautiously, first her arms and then her legs. “I seem to be intact,” she sighed thankfully. “What of you, my lord?”

“The same.”

There was a silence. She could feel the slight warmth of his breath on her cheek and realized he was lying close to her.

After a few moments, the cold seeping up from the frost-covered ground made her begin to shiver all over.

“You had best edge close to me,” said the Marquess, “or you will die from cold.”

“It is not seemly, my lord, that—”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake! Have some sense. Are you going to die of the ague because of a rigid observance of the conventions?”

He wriggled toward her as he spoke and managed to get his arms around her in the confined space. Soon they were lying pressed together as close as lovers.

He could feel her slim body against his own. She had lost a great deal of weight since the days when they had been affianced, he thought. But she still used the same soap with that elusive flower perfume. He could smell it from her hair.

He had a longing to ask her why she had rejected him. But he knew if he received the same reply as before, he would still be hurt beyond belief.

He felt her body tremble against his and rubbed her back. “Still cold?” he asked softly.

“Yes,” she whispered, although she knew it was not the cold that was making her tremble.

“Patterns is quite close,” he said at her ear. “Help will be here any moment.”

“Tell me what you have been doing these past years,” she said. “It will pass the time until they arrive.”

And so with a tremendous effort of will, he wrenched his mind away from the seductive feel of her body and the smell of her hair, and told her about the terrible state in which he had first found the estates of Merechester. He spoke of the farming innovations he had introduced and of the bitter, black disappointment of the first bad harvest.

“After that,” he said, “we began to come about. I took a chance and speculated with the little I had on the Stock Exchange, and it paid off. It was hard taking that money and putting it into more investments, knowing I was taking a great risk. But it worked again. Gradually I was able to repair the fencing, the roads, the tenants’ cottages. I am proud to say that Merechester itself is now well on the way to becoming a model village. And you? What of you? How were you able to endure the Warburtons for so long?”

“It was not so bad at first,” sighed Amaryllis. “The girls were still young and had a governess to bully. She was dismissed, poor thing, a year before their Season. Cissie is the elder, but Lady Warburton wanted them both brought out at the same time. I did hope they would get married during their Season and then that would leave me with only Lady Warburton to cope with. They are both exceedingly pretty, but for some reason, they did not ‘take.’ And so here I am.”

“In my arms again.”

“Where I should not be,” she said with a note of sadness in her voice. “Listen! Someone is coming.”

The pounding of horses’ hooves reverberated on the road and in the ground under them.

The coachman’s voice sounded suddenly very near. “Blacksmith from Patterns is just on his way, my lord,” he called. “He’s got a winch and will have the coach off you in a trice. Are you and miss all right?”

“Yes, but very cold,” said the Marquess.

They lay very still, clasped together, hearing the bustle and noise and exclamations as more help arrived on the scene.

“I shall be leaving shortly,” said the Marquess. “Do you know that during our engagement I never even held you as intimately as this?”

“No,” whispered Amaryllis.

“Nor did I kiss you . . . like this.”

His mouth found hers in the darkness. His lips pressed suddenly and savagely down on her own, setting her body on fire and her senses reeling.

He freed her mouth just as the coach above their heads began to move. He gave her a little push and edged himself away.

“I should not have done that, Amaryllis,” he said harshly. “There is no future for us.”

“No,” echoed Amaryllis bleakly. “No future in the world.”

With a great creaking, the coach was raised and bleak daylight flooded down on them. Hands stretched down to help them to their feet.

As the coachman told the servants at Patterns later, “My lord seemed to take the whole thing in his stride, but poor little Miss Duvane was white and shaking like she’d seen a ghost.”

Lady Warburton was furious. Harry, the footman, had reported her daughters’ conduct to the butler, Mr. Giles. Mr. Giles had felt it his duty to inform her ladyship. Then had come the news of how the Marquess had met Miss Duvane walking home and then how they had both been trapped under the carriage.

Amaryllis would have been summoned to the drawing room for a dressing-down the minute she arrived home had not the Marquess of Merechester insisted she should be allowed to go straight to her room and straight to bed.

Lady Warburton, charging into Amaryllis’s bedroom to have it out with her, was further forestalled by the presence of Lady Evans, who was sitting beside Amaryllis’s bed, reading quietly.

When her temper had abated by dint of giving both her daughters a tongue-lashing, Lady Warburton calmed down enough to take stock of the situation. There had been a certain something between the Marquess and Amaryllis when they had arrived back together. Although they did not look at each other and the Marquess seemed as haughty and indifferent as ever, he had stepped in to make sure Amaryllis was promptly taken care of, and later he had been heard telling Mr. Chalmers that she had behaved very bravely.

Lady Warburton decided to worry. She could not turn Amaryllis out. She had boasted for so long about her own generosity in giving the girl a home. Girl? Hardly. Amaryllis was now a lady of mature years.

Thinking over the various men who at one time or another had had some interest in Amaryllis, Lady Warburton now regretted she had not encouraged any of them. She should have married her off long ago.

Mr. Chalmers would not make any approach to Amaryllis. She was the ex-fiancée of his best friend. Besides, he was possessed of a considerable fortune, and it would do very well if he would fix his affections on Agatha.

Lord Donnelly strode through the hall, whistling blithely, and Lady Warburton gave an exclamation of disgust and marched across the drawing room and closed the door.

Donnelly would have to go, and she would need to see to the dispatching of him herself.

Amazing that Warburton, who could be so brutal in business and who had a title of his own, had not the strength to rid his home of one impoverished Irish peer.

All that Irish wastrel was after was a soft bed and money as well. If he ran true to form, he would start fleecing the guests at her card parties.

And then there was the ball to arrange. Lady Warburton was not of a romantic or impractical turn of mind except when it came to her daughters.

She had indulged in many rosy fantasies where Lord Warburton held up his arms for silence in the middle of the ball and announced the engagement of Cissie to the Marquess of Merechester. Possibly even a double engagement with Agatha becoming affianced to Mr. Chalmers.

But now there was the problem of Amaryllis. Why couldn’t it have been Cissie who had been trapped under that wretched carriage? And what had Amaryllis and the Marquess done while they were down there in the darkness?

Like most people with practically no interest at all in the joys of sex, Lady Warburton often assumed the rest of the world to be plagued with deep, dark French lusts, the French epitomizing everything that was base and carnal. Everyone knew the French were fornicators, and the vicar had nearly lost his living by preaching about forgiven sinners going to heaven. Shocking! Imagine going up there and finding that holy place polluted with chattering and leering Frogs! Much more comforting to think of them being toasted in hell.

Her mind turned back to the problem of Donnelly. A picture of Donnelly singing a duet with Amaryllis came into her mind just as her husband lumbered into the room.

“The girls seem determined to make a saint out of Amaryllis,” he grumbled. “Why on earth did they force her to walk home? It’s the talk of the servants’ hall.

“Evidently Cissie pushed her so hard as she was trying to get into the carriage that she nearly fell. Cannot they be more discreet?”

“It was not Cissie’s fault,” said his wife hotly. She was already regretting her outburst of temper. “Poor Cissie and Agatha are more sinned against than sinning. Amaryllis’s manner is enough to try the patience of a saint. She was most insolent to them . . . and in public, too. I do not like the feeling that I sense has sprung up between that wretched woman and Merechester since the accident.”

“Didn’t notice,” grumbled Lord Warburton. “Seems as indifferent to her as ever.”

“I want to be sure,” said his wife fretfully. “I do not like to see good money wasted. First there’s this house party, and then there’s the expense of the ball. And I must get rid of Donnelly, since you seem quite unable to do it.”

“He don’t listen, that’s why. He’s a leech!” said Lord Warburton. “Best get his quittance from you. That sort of thing comes easier to a woman.”

Lady Warburton frowned down at her long, polished fingernails. “Donnelly is in need of money, I suppose?”

“As usual.”

“Perhaps,” she said, looking up, “It might be an idea to give him some.”

“What? You’ve got windmills in your attic.”

“Don’t be vulgar. I am speaking sense. The trouble with you is you don’t listen, Warburton. It is one of the many, many, many irritating things about you.”

“What do you mean, many irritating things about me?”

“Dear me.” Lady Warburton yawned delicately. “Do you wish me to list them all?”

The strains of “Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms” sung in a pleasant Irish tenor floated under the door.

They listened in grim silence.

“And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart

Would entwine itself verdantly still.”

There is nothing like a good strong resentment against a third party for soothing the most savage of marital breasts.

Lord and Lady Warburton exchanged glances of shared dislike and contempt for the caroling Irish peer.

“I was about to suggest something,” said Lady Warburton.

Lord Warburton had already forgotten their argument as he had so quickly forgotten the thousands that had preceded this latest one.

“About Donnelly?”

“Yes, about Donnelly.”

“Tell me, my love.”

“I keep thinking how wonderful it would be if Donnelly pretended to be in love with Amaryllis. He could even go so far as to propose marriage. At the moment, Merechester’s treatment of her has hurt her. She would do anything to get away from us,” added Lady Warburton with a certain complacency.

She enjoyed having Amaryllis at her mercy, and the fact that Amaryllis was unhappy gave that feeling of power an added fillip. Lady Warburton was not a particularly wicked woman; only a very forceful, energetic, and stupid one whose natural outlets had been warped by pride and a furtive consumption of patent medicines.

“If,” she went on, “Amaryllis thought marriage to Donnelly would get her away from here, then she would accept him.”

“But if he is not going to marry her, I don’t see the point,” said Lord Warburton irritably.

“Oh, you are so stupid. An Amaryllis taken up with the attentions of Donnelly is an Amaryllis who would have no time for sweet dalliance with Merechester.”

“But how is this to be achieved? We cannot command Donnelly to woo Amaryllis.”

“Oh, yes, we can . . . if we are paying him to do it.”

The sun of understanding dispersed the gloomy mists of Lord Warburton’s indifferent intelligence.

“By George!” he said, slapping his knee. “You are a downy one, Lady Warburton. Very downy.”

Lady Warburton smiled smugly. “Will I speak to him, or will you?”

“You, definitely, you,” said her lord hurriedly.

Lord Donnelly quickly slipped the silver snuffbox back onto the table as Lady Warburton swept into the Yellow Saloon. He had just been about to transfer it to the pocket in his tails.

Lady Warburton stopped and gazed at the snuffbox so intently that Lord Donnelly thought he could almost see a dotted line stretching from her pale cold eyes to where it lay on the table.

Then she suddenly smiled at him, a magnificent smile, revealing strong yellow teeth.

“Pray be seated, my lord,” she said smoothly. “I have a business proposition to put to you. . . .

Stripped to the waist, the Marquess of Merechester studied himself in the looking glass. There was a large purple-and-yellow bruise across his ribs to the left, and a red and angry mark like the map of Africa across his right.

But nothing had been broken.

His valet came in quietly and started to warm his master’s cambric shirt in front of the fire.

The Marquess sat down at the toilet table and began to pare his nails.

What on earth had made him kiss Amaryllis? He could only remember his own violent and passionate reaction to the feel of her body against his and to the softness of her lips. He now could not remember if she had responded to him.

She had been very quiet and shaken on the road home. He must stop thinking about her. No doubt she had become one of those warped spinsters who encourage bullying and would shrink at any possibility of escape from the Warburtons.

His valet heated up the curling tongs on a small spirit stove. “No, I don’t need my hair curled,” said the Marquess over his shoulder. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Roberts.”

Roberts sighed. The Marquess’s hair curled naturally, it was true. But Roberts considered a gentleman of the ton should go to the dinner table with his hair crimped and frizzled and pomaded. He often thought of looking for a new position. There was too little excitement in working for the Marquess.

Roberts envied his friend Mr. Dexter, who worked for young Lord Bartlett. Lord Bartlett required all the art a first-class valet could supply. His thin hair required two hours work of an evening, Mr. Dexter had boasted. His corsets were of the finest, and it took the strength of two footmen to lash him into them. He wore paint. He wore buckram wadding. He scented his handkerchiefs. Now, with someone like that, thought Roberts enviously, the hours would fly past. Mr. Dexter had said it sometimes took all day to prepare his master for the evening, and half the night to unpin, unbutton, and unprepare him for bed.

The Marquess’s broad shoulders owed nothing to padding, he did not wear paint, and, horror of horrors, he preferred to blacken his boots himself.

The Marquess refused furthermore to experiment with new shopkeepers.

He bought his hats from Lock’s, his snuff from Fribourg & Treyer, his hair powder—which he wore very rarely—from Delcroix’s, and his boots from Mitchell’s in Bond Street, and, of course, his coats were tailored by Mr. Weston of Old Bond Street.

In fact, the Marquess was no advertisement for the valeting skills of Mr. Roberts. He even kept the secret of his boot blacking to himself—or so Mr. Roberts thought. He had begged his noble master many a time for the blacking recipe. Did he add champagne, like Brummell? Some said half a pint of honey did the trick. But the Marquess would smile tolerantly and say: “I have told you many a time, Roberts, that I use Waring’s blacking, a great deal of spit and polish, and a lack of hysteria.” But Roberts would not believe him. That black mirrorlike gloss must come from some magic ingredient.

Armored in impeccable tailoring, clean linen, and the best jewels from his collection, the Marquess went downstairs prepared to be aloofly polite and kind to Amaryllis and to tell Lady Warburton, whom he privately damned as being as “vulgar as Oxford Street,” that he must take his leave on the morrow.

Amaryllis was sitting quietly in her accustomed corner. She looked as drab as ever, her temporary fashionable rebellion having died out. She felt she would surely be in disgrace for having the insolence to lie under a carriage with the Marquess of Merechester, and was nervously awaiting reprisals.

The fact that Lady Warburton had been singularly quiet on the subject Amaryllis gratefully put down to the fact that Lord Donnelly had elected to sit next to her and thread her needles and choose her silks.

Then Lady Evans appeared on her other side, also armed with sewing, and asked for Amaryllis’s help in choosing colors.

The Marquess was talking easily to Cissie, who was looking up at him adoringly. Although he did not look at Amaryllis, he could hear the rattle of Lord Donnelly’s voice as he talked to her. He found himself becoming more and more irritated by Lord Donnelly’s bantering manner.

Mr. and Mrs. Giles-Denton had joined the party about Amaryllis, and he could hear them asking about the accident.

“I do wish they would not fuss over Ammy so,” pouted Cissie. “There was no need for her to walk, but she is sadly inclined to go off into fits of the sulks at the slightest provocation.”

“Indeed?” said the Marquess acidly. “And she was not provoked in any way?”

“Of course not,” said Cissie hotly. “You do me a grave injustice.”

“My apologies,” rejoined the Marquess smoothly. “Anger brings color to your cheeks and a sparkle to your fine eyes, Miss Cissie. You should become angry more often.”

“There are other emotions, sweeter emotions, which can produce the same effect, my lord,” said Cissie, lowering her eyelashes.

“You are right,” replied the Marquess, raising her hand to his lip s. “A bottle of burgundy can produce quite the same sparkle.”

Cissie tittered with laughter, and, seeing that he had finished with kissing her hand, snatched it away and gave him a playful slap on the wrist with her fan. Until she hit it, he had not been aware that his wrist must have been bruised in the accident. He winced and glared at her, gave a small bow, and walked off to speak to Mr. Chalmers.

Cissie promptly followed him, and so, when he was about to begin discussing his proposed leavetaking with his friend, he found to his annoyance that Cissie was at his elbow.

Amaryllis, left alone again with Lord Donnelly, watched this bit of byplay with emotions which ranged from burning jealousy when the Marquess kissed Cissie’s hand to amusement when she was snubbed.

“I wish you would look at me like that,” said Lord Donnelly in a low voice.

Amaryllis looked at him in surprise. “I do not understand you, my lord.”

“You watch Merechester with such interest, and yet those beautiful eyes of yours just seem to slide off me. You are all set to break my heart.”

Amaryllis laughed, a surprisingly enchanting, rippling laugh. “I do not think you have a heart to break, Lord Donnelly. I think it an extremely flexible organ.”

“I thought so myself until I met you,” he said urgently. He tried to take her hand, but Amaryllis edged a little away from him on her seat.

Lord Donnelly cursed himself for a clumsy fool. He was going too fast, too soon. The girl was starved for a bit of gaiety. The frivolous approach was best.

“Now you’re the sort of lady who thinks that love does not exist,” he said in a bantering tone.

“I believe it does,” replied Amaryllis cautiously, “but so many people seem able to think themselves into that state, and quite often because they wish to gain money from it.”

Lord Donnelly all at once looked as if some older, sharper, more cunning person were peering out at her from behind his bright eyes.

Then his face became relaxed and boyish again as he said easily. “Oh, true love exists for sure, and even in this hardhearted society of ours. Did you hear tell of Lord Oxford?”

“Yes,” said Amaryllis, “I—”

But Lord Donnelly went on regardless. “ ’Tis written that when folks went to dinner with him, he would only whisper so that even the person sitting next to him could not distinguish what was said. And at precisely the same time, every evening, no matter who was present at the dinner table, he would join his forehead to his mistress’s—and she forty, brick-faced and with black teeth—and he would sit like that for a quarter of an hour without speaking.”

“That is not called love,” said Amaryllis firmly. “That is called madness.”

“And isn’t love madness?”

“It is indeed,” said Sir Gareth-Evans who had come back to join them.

At that moment, the butler announced dinner.

Amaryllis found herself next to Lord Donnelly with Mr. Giles-Denton on her other side.

Amaryllis was at first startled and then amused by Lord Donnelly’s tremendous enthusiasm for eating. He managed to devour great helpings of everything from the thick grouse soup removed by crimped cod and oyster sauce, through the lark puddings and cold game pie, into the partridges removed by plum pudding, and was still going strong when it came to snipe removed by charlotte glacée.

Most of her conversation was with Mr. Giles-Denton, since Lord Donnelly was obviously too busy to talk. At last, even Lord Donnelly’s appetite began to show signs of flagging, and he ate only two apricot tartlets and a bowl of champagne jelly to finish up the meal.

“That’s better,” sighed Lord Donnelly. “There’s nothing better than a fine woman at one’s side and a fine meal inside.”

Amaryllis stole a glance at the flatness of Lord Donnelly’s waistcoat. Where did he put such masses of food?

Trained in the fasthanded ways of the Warburton household, Amaryllis had eaten sparingly. She knew the dishes would be taken away to the kitchens to be refurbished and disguised so that they might be served up again at the next meal.

In every other household that Amaryllis had known, the servants ate the same food as then-masters. But the Warburtons made the servants cook and eat plain fare.

“The gentlemen are thinking of going out with the hunt tomorrow, Miss Duvane,” said Lord Donnelly. “But I’m not a hunting man,” he lied, “Come driving with me.”

“Yes,” said Amaryllis, and then immediately wondered why she had accepted.

“You make me the happiest of men.”

“You will find me very tiresome company,” said Amaryllis firmly. “I feel perhaps I should not go driving with you tomorrow. I have a great deal of work to do. Cissie’s ballgown must be ready in time.”

“Faith, with all the money the Warburtons have, you’d think they would be able to order one from town,” said Lord Donnelly loudly.

Lady Warburton caught that remark but pretended not to hear.

“And what will you be wearing yourself, Miss Duvane?” asked Lord Donnelly. “Or is that by way of being a state secret?”

“No secret at all, my lord,” Amaryllis privately wondered whether she was going to be allowed to attend the ball. Then she wondered whether the Marquess meant to stay for it.

“Then what is it to be?”

“Oh, my gown? I really do not know. It is not a secret. Simply that I have not made up my mind,” said Amaryllis, wrenching her attention back to Lord Donnelly with an effort.

Lord Donnelly sighed. He had always prided himself on his charm. It seemed to have very little effect on Amaryllis.

Lady Warburton rose as a signal that the ladies were to retire.

No sooner were they in the drawing room than she called Amaryllis aside.

This is it, thought Amaryllis. The lecture begins.

But Lady Warburton seemed in an abstracted mood and began quite mildly by telling Amaryllis that one of her husband’s young relatives was coming to stay. “You remember her?” said Lady Warburton. “Felicia Gaskell. Plain little thing with no conversation.”

“Did not she marry?” asked Amaryllis.

“She was engaged to Mr. Leigh, a rich City man, but she cried off.”

“Miss Gaskell must be only twenty-two,” said Amaryllis. “I think we last saw her when she came on a visit six years ago.” She remembered Miss Gaskell as a quiet, mousy little girl, scared of her own shadow.

“I wish you to take care of her,” said Lady Warburton. “She is very shy. It is understandable why she has not yet married. Even although she has a good dowry, her looks are obviously not enough to attract a desirable parti.”

Lady Warburton moved away to talk to Lady Evans. Amaryllis found she was looking forward to the idea of taking care of Felicia Gaskell. Perhaps they might become friends. A shy, modest girl would be a pleasant change after the brash spite of the Warburton girls.

The gentlemen entered the room. Lord Donnelly immediately suggested cards, received an enigmatic look from Lady Warburton, muttered, “I forgot,” and came to sit next to Amaryllis.

Oho! thought Amaryllis suddenly. He is being brought to heel. Lord Donnelly has been ordered to flirt with me. Now, why? Merechester, of course. Lady Warburton is frightened that he pays me too much attention. She has no need. Only see how taken he appears to be with Cissie.

But after talking to Cissie for only a few moments, the Marquess wandered over toward where Amaryllis sat with Lord Donnelly.

Lord Donnelly rolled his eyes in mock resignation.

“Just when I think I’ve got the fairest lady that ever was all to myself, sure, if there isn’t some other fellow promptly arrives on the scene and tries to take her away from me.”

Amaryllis reflected that Lord Donnelly adopted an Irish brogue only when he was at his most insincere.

“I merely wanted to ascertain that Miss Duvane had fully recovered from her accident,” said the Marquess, very stiffly on his stiffs.

“Yes, thank you, my lord.”

The Marquess sat down on the other side of Amaryllis and frowned at the work spread out on her lap.

“Must you always sew?” he demanded. “Does not this house have a seamstress?”

“I do not mind being thus employed,” said Amaryllis. “Time would lie heavy on my hands had I nothing to do.”

“And this is something you are making for yourself?”

“No, my lord, it is a ballgown for Miss Cissie.”

The Marquess opened his mouth to say he would not be present at the ball, that he was leaving in the morning. He felt strangely reluctant to do so and wondered why. He stared down while he pondered the question, and his eye noticed Lord Donnelly’s small foot moving gently toward Amaryllis’s foot. He could surely not. . . but he did!

Under the Marquess’s cold, blue, accusing stare, Lord Donnelly gently pressed Amaryllis’s foot. She started and firmly drew her foot away.

The Marquess took out his quizzing glass, carefully polished it, and put it to his eye and stared at Lord Donnelly.

“I fear Miss Duvane has suffered enough torments today,” he said acidly, “without having her foot trodden on.”

“Did I do that?” Lord Donnelly raised his hands in mock horror. “You should have said something, Miss Duvane. What must you think of me? Sure, I never could sit still. Always shuffling my feet, I am.”

“It does not matter,” said Amaryllis in a stifled voice.

“Ammy!” Cissie came up and stood looking daggers at her. “Run up to my room and fetch my vinaigrette. I feel faint.”

The Marquess signaled to a footman. “Give your orders to a servant, Miss Cissie,” he said. “Miss Duvane is in no condition after her accident to go running about the house.”

Cissie pouted. “But Ammy always fetches things for me. She knows just where to find them.”

“We’ll see if this footman cannot find it just as well.” The Marquess sent the footman off to look for the vinaigrette. He rose politely to his feet, as did Lord Donnelly, for Cissie remained standing in front of them, shifting restlessly from foot to foot.

“I’m bored,” she said petulantly. “Come and walk with me, Lord Merechester.”

“Alas, I cannot,” he smiled. “I have injured my back. Now Donnelly here would be delighted to escort so fair a lady.”

He cocked an eye at Lord Donnelly, who smiled engagingly back. “Now if aches and pains aren’t in the wind. Here’s my poor old foot got a twinge of the gout.”

Amaryllis flushed miserably. There was a looking glass opposite, mirroring the scene.

Cissie, in blue silk, looked enchanting, if bad-tempered; the Marquess, elegant and handsome; Lord Donnelly, charming in a wicked kind of way. And then there she was in the middle, subdued and drab, and stuck with two gentlemen who did not want to leave her side, Lord Donnelly because, she was firmly convinced he was being paid to pay court to her, and Lord Merechester out of sheer contrariness.

“I will walk with you, Cissie,” said Amaryllis quietly. She put aside her work. Cissie looked mutinous, but she took Amaryllis’s arm and contented herself by pinching her hard on the back of her hand.

“Oooh!” whispered Cissie. “If Mama had not told Agatha and me to leave you alone for a bit, I would take you outside and pull your hair, you trollop. Since you are not marriageable, these gentlemen must have decided you are fast. I declare I am ashamed of you, Ammy,” said Cissie, fanning herself vigorously. “The way you are throwing yourself at Merechester’s head is disgusting, and so I shall tell Mama.”

“Don’t clutch my arm, Cissie, and stop talking fustian,” said Amaryllis in a low voice. “You are jealous.”

“Of a dowdy like you?”

“Of a dowdy like me,” repeated Amaryllis firmly. “And you have no reason. The gentlemen were paying attention to me only to make you jealous.” Amaryllis had become expert over the years at placating Cissie.

Cissie looked young and uncertain and almost likable. “Do you think so? Oh, Ammy, how clever of you to think of that. Of course, no man would look at you with me and Agatha about.” This last was actually said with such cheerful sincerity that it almost robbed the remark of its insult.

Agatha came sauntering up. “Why are you so cozy with Ammy all of a sudden? She has been attracting all the men. It must be because—”

“It’s because they’re trying to make us jealous!” said Cissie triumphantly. Agatha went off into giggles and flashed a killing look at Mr. Chalmers, who was talking to Mrs. Giles-Denton. “Send Ammy back to her sewing then,” laughed Agatha. “Now I know what they are up to, it doesn’t matter one whit.”

Amaryllis sat down again and picked up her sewing. “Now what did you say, I wonder,” mused the Marquess, “to put those young ladies in such high spirits?”

“Faith, Miss Duvane could put anyone in high spirits,” said Lord Donnelly with heavy gallantry.

“Gentlemen, I have the headache, and I see everyone is getting ready to play cards. If you will excuse me. I find I cannot carry on a conversation this evening. Perhaps if I could concentrate on my work,” pleaded Amaryllis.

The Marquess gave Amaryllis a look of outrage which would have been amusing had she not been in love with him. He had come to know his worth since he had added money to his peerage. He was used to being fawned on. No female had ever sent him away.

“Well, that’s it, Merechester.” Lord Donnelly got to his feet. “We’ve got our marching orders.” He strolled toward the card table with a gleam in his eye. A frozen look from Lady Warburton stopped him in his tracks, and he cast a quizzical look over his shoulder.

The Marquess of Merechester had not moved. He was still sitting beside Amaryllis, his long legs stretched out in front of him, playing with the lid of his snuffbox.

“You are forgetting your duties, Donnelly,” hissed Lady Warburton.

“Not I.” Lord Donnelly’s hands twitched as he saw the packs of cards. “In fact, I’m making great progress. Miss Duvane has promised to go driving with me tomorrow. She says she wants me to keep her away from Merechester. I thought I would leave them alone for a bit, for Merechester is making himself obnoxious and it will give the dear lady a true disgust of him.”

“Very well,” said Lady Warburton. “But remember our arrangement.”

“What arrangement, Mama?” cried Cissie in a loud voice.

Her mother quelled her with a glance. “Lord Donnelly is to give your papa the benefit of his advice. We intend purchasing new horses.”

“There is no need to keep me company,” Amaryllis was saying to Lord Merechester. “I think the others expect you to join them.”

“Chalmers is there,” he said. “He can suffer for me. I am leaving on the morrow.”

Amaryllis’s heart took a steep plunge. She carefully threaded a length of silk.

“I wish you a safe journey, my lord, and Godspeed.”

“Before I go,” he said, turning his gaze to her, “I wish to make sure that you do not intend to go on being Cinderella to the Warburtons’ ugly sisters.”

“Hardly ugly, my lord.”

“Their souls are ugly.”

“As I told you,” said Amaryllis, “I plan to advertise for a position. I think I look the part of governess more than I did before.”

“You most certainly do. Are you to be allowed to dance at this ball?”

“Yes, I think so. If anyone asks me.”

“If you continue to uglify yourself, then the matter is in doubt.”

“You presume too much on our former acquaintance, my lord. I am not in the way of receiving insults from gentlemen, despite my hag-ridden appearance.”

“I am sorry,” he said stiffly. “But you are infuriating. I do not like to see you thus . . . cringing and beaten and cowed by a pair of silly, selfish girls.”

“You seem to have persuaded Lady Evans,” said Amaryllis evenly, “that the Warburtons would not dare throw me out if I make a stand. I believed it when she spoke to me. But it is very hard to be bold and brave when you are a woman and have no money. I am a parasite. I depend on them for my food and board. I am quite well able to deal with the girls. Your constant close scrutiny of my behavior embarrasses me.”

“Do you have any feeling for me at all?” he asked harshly.

The truthful answer to that, thought Amaryllis sadly, was, “I never stopped loving you.”

Instead, she heard herself say, “We have not had much time to renew our acquaintance, my lord. I had quite forgotten you until your arrival.”

There it was, thought the Marquess grimly. He had vowed he would not give her the chance to hurt him, and yet she had just done so. And why should this drab, this nobody, this antidote that was Amaryllis Duvane have the power to hurt him?

“Considering I held you in my arms and kissed your not unwilling lips this very afternoon, I thought you might have formed some sort of opinion of me,” he said, studying her face.

“The circumstances were not ordinary. It was cold. I’m afraid under such conditions I might have let anyone kiss me.”

“Donnelly?”

“Yes, even Lord Donnelly.”

“If you were not so prim and spinsterish-looking,” he said, getting to his feet, “I would say you had the soul of a Cyprian. Fortunately, your appearance will protect you from any further excesses of civility.”

Amaryliss watched him go, a lump in her throat and tears sparkling on the edge of her long eyelashes.

Now all she wanted was to see the last of him. All the hurts and insults the Warburtons could think up were as nothing to the hurt she was enduring.

Chapter Five

Next morning, Amaryllis had made up her mind to stay in her room until the Marquess had left. By eleven o’clock, she decided it safe to go down to the dining room in search of breakfast.

Snow was beginning to fall outside; lazy, big, lacy flakes, dropping down from a leaden sky. There was not even a breath of wind, and the large flakes sometimes seemed to hang motionless in the frigid air.

Outside in the park, the deer were nuzzling at the bales of hay, put down for their winter fodder.

Amaryllis hesitated outside the dining room, listening intently for the sound of voices, but the door was very thick.

She pushed it open and went in. Her heart sank. The Marquess and Mr. Chalmers, Lady Evans and Sir Gareth, Lady Warburton and Cissie were all eating away busily.

For a man about to take his leave, the Marquess looked remarkably unhurried. At least Lord Donnelly was obviously still in his bed, and Amaryllis was glad to be spared his brand of forced gallantry.

Amaryllis walked over to the sideboard, which was laden with cold joints, collared and potted meats, cold game, veal and ham pies, game and rumpsteak pies, and dishes of mackerel, whiting, herring, dried haddock, mutton chops, rump steak, broiled sheep’s kidneys, sausages, bacon, and eggs. She selected a mutton chop and an egg, and went to sit quietly next to Lady Evans.

“I am trying to persuade Sir Gareth to leave directly after the ball,” said Lady Evans to Amaryllis. “I do not find this a very comfortable establishment. I wonder you continue to live here, Miss Duvane. You are not very well treated.”

Amaryllis gave a little sigh. “What alternative would you suggest?”

“Oh, you must get married,” said Lady Evans comfortably. “There is no other career for a woman. Sir Gareth is my third husband.”

Amaryllis wondered whether to point out that most ladies with large dowries seemed to be able to marry as many times as they wished, but decided at the last moment that it would sound vulgar and would also imply that Lady Evans’s sole attraction was her wealth.

“Now Lord Donnelly seemed quite taken with you,” went on Lady Evans. “I really do not know what is so awful about being an Irish peer.”

Because they are famous for their lack of money, thought Amaryllis. Money, money, money. ’Tis money makes the world go round. Though I speak with the tongue of men and of angels and have not money, I am become as sounding brass. I sometimes wake up in the night, dear Lady Evans—so ran Amaryllis’s thoughts—and think of bags and bags of money. Money seems to mean everything in this society; love and laughter and freedom.

Aloud she said, “Lord Donnelly appeared to win a great deal at cards.”

“Yes, my poor husband was complaining bitterly of being fleeced, but you know how men are. If they are winning, then they persuade themselves it is because of their great intelligence and skill; if they are losing, they start muttering suspiciously that their opponent’s luck is deuced odd.”

“There’s a carriage drawing up,” said Amaryllis, looking out the window to where a handsome equipage could be seen rolling to a stop at the front of the house. “That must be Miss Gaskell, a young relative on Lord Warburton’s side of the family. I have not seen her this age.”

“Is she like Cissie and Agatha?”

“No. As I remember, she is very quiet and shy.”

“Well, that’s a mercy,” said Lady Evans, spearing a kidney. “I think a touch of the birch rod when they were younger might have cured Cissie and Agatha of their insolence. They have been sadly indulged.”

“Yes,” agreed Amaryllis. “But sometimes I cannot help but be sorry for them. They are very rarely happy.”

“Indeed? It strikes me they often have quite a deal of fun at someone else’s expense,” said Lady Evans dryly. “Only look at them now. I cannot hear what they are saying, but I am sure they are telling Mr. Chalmers many malicious stories about plain Miss Gaskell.”

“Perhaps she is not plain anymore,” said Amaryllis.

“In any case,” said Lady Evans, “it will give them someone else to bully.”

“Miss Gaskell,” announced the butler. The men got to their feet.

Everyone stared.

“Oh, I say,” muttered Lady Evans, the first to recover. “This is setting the cat among the pigeons.”

It was hard to recognize the little plain schoolgirl that had been Miss Gaskell in the raving beauty now facing them.

Her lank brown hair had become glossy chestnut, and it rioted about her rosy heart-shaped face. She was wearing a blue velvet Witzchoura mantle trimmed with fur. On her glossy curls was a capote, that smart bonnet with the soft crown and stiff brim which so prettily framed the face. The butler helped her out of her mantle, revealing to the company a deep-bosomed figure in an India muslin gown of palest pink.

Lady Warburton performed the introductions in a sort of dazed way.

“I am tewwibly hungwy,” said Miss Gaskell in a soft voice. “Now where shall I sit?”

Her large pansy eyes fastened on the Marquess. That fool of a butler, noticed Lady Warburton, grinding her teeth, was putting the minx next to Merechester. And how had Felicia Gaskell come by that babyish lisp?

Lady Warburton sat down again and glared balefully at Felicia, who was fluttering her eyelashes, first at the Marquess and then at Mr. Chalmers. Lady Warburton noticed with added rage that both gentlemen looked bewitched.

“Did you travel alone, Miss Gaskell?” the Marquess was asking.

“Oh, yeth,” lisped that lady. “Except for my dragon, and she don’t count.” She waved a dimpled little hand in the direction of an elderly companion who sat grimly by the window.

The Marquess rose and made a bow in the direction of the companion. “Won’t you introduce me?” he asked.

“Oh, yeth, sowwy,” grinned Miss Gaskell. “That’s Miss Jawwett.”

Miss Jarret dropped a curtsy and sat down again, her back as stiff as a ramrod.

The Marquess suddenly wondered whether the Warburton girls had a lady’s maid or whether Amaryllis was expected to fill that post as well as the one of seamstress.

“You will not have much of the gentlemen’s company after breakfast,” said Lady Warburton. “They are going hunting, and Lord Merechester is leaving us.”

“I could not possibly travel in this weather, ma’am,” said the Marquess smoothly. “It has started to snow quite heavily. I am afraid you must endure my company a little longer.”

Mr. Giles-Denton cleared his throat. “As M.F.H., I feel that the weather is too inclement to take hounds out today. Harrumph!” He beamed on Felicia’s pretty face, and his wife looked daggers at him.

“Spwendid!” cried Felicia, clapping her hands. “I must see Amaryllis. I have so much to tell her. Where is she?”

“I am here, Felicia,” said Amaryllis.

Felicia leaned forward and looked down the table, her eyes growing larger and larger.

“I would never have recognized you,” she said, forgetting to lisp. “What happened, dear Amaryllis? Have you been ill?”

“No, Felicia,” said Amaryllis. “I am become old.”

Felicia leaned back in her chair. “Poor Amaryllis,” she sighed to the Marquess. “And not mawwied. Oh!” she blushed in pretty confusion. “I had forgot. You were . . .”

“Quite,” said the Marquess. “More coffee, Miss Felicia?”

“Yes, pwease. I need some after that shock.”

Amaryllis tried to concentrate on her breakfast and switch her mind away from Felicia’s prattle. What a change in the girl. Before, she had hardly had a word to say.

But try as she would, Amaryllis could not help watching the Marquess out of the corner of her eye. From looking indulgent and amused, his look changed to that age-old, predatory, sensual expression that the male adopts when he is beginning to become strongly attracted to some female.

Amaryllis stood up and went to the urn on the sideboard to get another cup of coffee. She had never noticed before how many looking glasses there were at Patterns. There was one behind the sideboard, mirroring her white, pinched face. Behind her in the old greenish glass swam the radiant face of Felicia. She was leaning on one elbow and looking up at the Marquess in a flirtatious way from under her eyelashes.

Amaryllis decided against having more coffee. She had a sudden urge to escape.

She went up to her room and looked out at the park with sad eyes.

The snow was falling thickly. Her window overlooked the gardens at the east side, which were gently sloping, terraced and parterred, and laid out in symmetrical geometric shapes, the whole being planted with evergreens and hedged in clipped yew.

Statues by Jan Van Nost held up their stone arms to the falling snow.

Amaryllis felt immeasurably weary. At least she could not be expected to go driving with Lord Donnelly. At last she rose and went to a small writing desk and began to work on the draft of an advertisement. After staring at the blank sheet of parchment for a long time, she began to write, “Plain, uninteresting spinster with broken heart desires post as governess to one small sickly child. Willing to go anywhere at short notice. Any wages, however small, will be gratefully accepted.”

She sighed and tore it up and began to work on the proper draft. There came a scratching at the door.

“Come in,” called Amaryllis, sliding the paper under the blotter.

Lord Donnelly strolled into the room, leaving the door punctiliously open.

“What’s this I hear about the fair charmer belowstairs?” he said.

“Miss Felicia Gaskell,” said Amaryllis repressively, “has turned into a diamond of the first water. Pray go and see for yourself. If you are come to tell me we shall not be driving today, I quite understand. It would be madness to go out in this weather.”

“Then let’s be mad,” said Lord Donnelly. His eyes were very Irish, thought Amaryllis. Blue with a black iris and thick curling black lashes; mischievous and alert.

“I don’t feel like being mad,” sighed Amaryllis, walking to the window and standing with her back to him.

“No? Well, I do. Think of it, Miss Duvane. The snow is not very heavy, and we can trot on down to the town and have some refreshment and talk nonsense and you can forget all about the Warburtons for a couple of hours.”

Amaryllis stood very still. “Lady Warburton would object,” said Amaryllis over her shoulder at last. “If I do not work harder, then Cissie’s ballgown will not be ready.”

“You weren’t working on it now, were you? What’s a couple of hours? Come along, Miss Duvane, let’s throw open the gates of your genteel prison.”

“I would need a chaperon. We would need to travel in a closed carriage.”

“Ah, there now, you’re beginning to see sense. But we can dispense with the conventions for once. Am I the sort of gentleman, think you, to take advantage of the situation? It’s only a bit of company I’m wanting.”

Amaryllis bit her lip. She did not find Lord Donnelly attractive, and she was sure Lady Warburton was paying him for his courtship, but, on the other hand, if she stayed, she would shortly be summoned to the drawing room to show Lady Warburton her work in front of the curious eyes of Felicia Gaskell, those wide, beautiful eyes that had so quickly found a way to the Marquess of Merechester’s flinty heart.

She remembered his asking, “Do you have any feeling for me at all?” and her heart gave a lurch. He would not have asked that, surely, had he not retained some affection for her. But he had accused her of uglifying herself. He had said all those cruel things.

“Come now,” said Lord Donnelly, coming to stand behind her. “What about a little drive, just to Caddam and back?”

“Amaryllis!” Lady Warburton’s voice sounded from the door. She pinned a wintry smile on her face at the sight of Lord Donnelly.

“The very person I was hoping to see,” said Lord Donnelly cheerfully. “I was just trying to persuade Miss Duvane here to take a drive with me, the snow not being so bad outside as it looks from inside. Now Miss Duvane says we would have to have a chaperon, but I say it’s all right, she can trust me. It’s only a little drive to Caddam.”

Lady Warburton thought furiously. It seemed insane to pay Donnelly to court Amaryllis now that Merechester seemed smitten by Felicia. On the other hand, Lady Warburton felt sure a sharp little talk with Felicia would soon put a stop to that young lady’s game, and Amaryllis was always an unknown and therefore dangerous quantity.

“Of course you must go, Amaryllis,” said Lady Warburton. “It will bring some color to your cheeks. I have some shopping I wish you to do for me in Caddam.”

Amaryllis resigned herself to her fate, and in a bare half hour’s time, she was seated next to Lord Donnelly in one of the Warburtons’ carriages with the coachman grumbling audibly on the box.

Lord Donnelly whistled jauntily and looked out of the carriage window at the fast-falling snow. He felt each bump in the badly maintained road with satisfaction. He had whispered his plan to Lady Warburton before leaving. If the snow kept falling heavily then there would be no chance of their returning to Patterns. They would rack up for the night at the Green Man, Caddam’s hostelry, and he would contrive to imply on his return that he had enjoyed Miss Duvane’s favors.

Lady Warburton had pretended to be shocked, but Lord Donnelly knew she was secretly pleased. Lady Warburton had, in fact, been estimating the amount of money Amaryllis saved her in unpaid labor.

A disgraced and humiliated Amaryllis would be only too glad to settle down for life at Patterns. She had been splendidly biddable after her unfortunate sortie into governessing.

Lady Warburton and her daughters shared the same lady’s maid, an arrangement made possible only because Amaryllis did all the mending and sewing.

Amaryllis was only too glad to see the wheels of the carriage putting an expanse of white distance between herself and Patterns. She had dressed her hair in a simple but elegant style under a close bonnet embellished with a long ostrich feather. Lady Warburton had looked at it, opened her mouth to say something, and then obviously decided to wait until a more opportune moment.

Amaryllis decided to forget all about the Marquess and simply make up her mind to enjoy herself. She had heard Lord Donnelly described as a prime horseman and trusted his judgment when it came to carrying her safely to Caddam and back.

He paid her many compliments on the journey, talking in such a light, bantering way that Amaryllis’s eyes began to shine and the cold air brought a flattering pink bloom to her cheeks.

Lord Donnelly studied her covertly while talking flattering nonsense with the ease of long practice. There was definitely something about Amaryllis Duvane, he decided.

It wasn’t all there to show like the china-doll beauty of the Warburton girls. You seemed rather to discover different things about her each time you looked. There were her eyes, of course, her finest feature, large and clear and gray without a speck of blue. Then her hair, once it was brushed free from its usually tight prison, was a fascinating auburn with little fiery lights. She was too thin, but she had a well-rounded bosom and a trim waist, and her ankles were quite delicious.

Her voice was low and melodious. At one time, he gathered from bits of gossip, she had been accounted the most beautiful girl in London. He found it easy to believe. The way she deftly parried his compliments showed the sophistication of practice.

He had a momentary pang of regret at the cruelty of what he was about to do. But it soon disappeared. He had received a handsome sum of money from Lady Warburton with the promise of more should he make sure that Merechester would take a dislike to the girl that would last him a lifetime.

He noticed as they neared Merechester that the snow was slackening off, but he had enough money to bribe the coachman to back his tale that it was impossible to return until the following day.

Or the day after, he thought, watching Amaryllis’s glowing face.

They alighted at the Green Man. Lord Donnelly wanted to book a private parlor where they could later have some refreshment, but Amaryllis said firmly it would not be proper, and that they should take something in the public dining room. Since the stagecoaches stopped at the Green Man, there would be plenty of other ladies there as well.

Lord Donnelly cheerfully accompanied her while she made the purchases for Lady Warburton. The day was very dark and cold, and the shops of the small town looked cheerful with their bright candles and colored jumble of goods.

At last they returned to the inn to take tea, and Lord Donnelly muttered an excuse about seeing to the horses and went into the tap in search of the coachman.

This burly individual was just raising a glass of shrub to his lips when Lord Donnelly smoothly told him that Lady Warburton had sent instructions that the coachman was to return with the carriage to Patterns.

“Now why should I do that, me lord?” said the coachman. “What about miss? If I goes back now, there’s no saying I’ll be able to return to fetch her.”

“I’m just passing along orders,” said Lord Donnelly, handing the man a couple of coins.

The coachman, Jim Mason, looked thoughtfully at Lord Donnelly’s ingenuous face. He didn’t like the sound of this. He was one of the servants who admired Amaryllis, and he had not approved of her traveling without a chaperon.

Nonetheless, it was hard to find jobs, especially if he got turned off without a character, which Lady Warburton would most certainly do if he disobeyed orders. Best take the money and wonder what to do on the road home.

He touched his hat. “Very good, m’lord.”

Lord Donnelly went back to Amaryllis, well satisfied.

The Marquess of Merechester relaxed on a sofa in the Yellow Saloon and basked in the warmth of a roaring log fire and in the warmth of all the pretty attentions that the enchanting Felicia was bestowing on him.

He was very much at his ease and was glad he had decided to stay. This was what had been missing from his life, the company of a pretty, undemanding girl.

He found her lisping prattle soothing to his ears. Her eyes were quite beautiful, he reflected. “And so I was engaged to be mawwied,” Felicia was saying, “to some howwid old man in the City because my parents told me it was the wight thing to do, but at the last moment, I told them I couldn’t bear him and I would kill myself if I had to go thwough with it.”

“A terrible loss to the world,” murmured the Marquess, amused.

“I like elegant men, like yourself,” cooed Felicia. “Now why does Cissie keep glaring at me in that awful way? No wonder poor Amaryllis is so awful-looking. Anyone would become hagged having to look at Cissie and Agatha for years.”

The Marquess shifted restlessly. “Where is Miss Duvane?” he asked.

“She has gone out dwiving with that Lord Donnelly. In this weather!”

The Marquess sat very still, staring at the fire.

“She has no doubt taken a chaperon,” he said at last.

“Oh, no. Isn’t it shocking? Not even a maid. But Lady Warburton has asked Amaryllis to do all sorts of shopping, so no doubt she thinks all that work will keep her out of trouble.”

The Marquess felt suddenly restless. The snow was falling very thickly and the light was fading fast. Only a few candles had been lit in the saloon, little pools of yellow light leaving great expanses of black shadow in the corners.

The wind was beginning to rise.

“That will be her returning now,” said Felicia as the sound of horses’ hooves muffled by the snow came from outside.

The Marquess rose and crossed to the window and looked out. Distorted by the mullioned glass, he could make out the bulk of a coach. Instead of coming to the front door it swung off in the direction of the stables.

The Marquess frowned. He went across the hall and opened the green baize door and made his way down to the kitchens. He walked past the startled servants and seized an old cloak from a peg at the back door, swung it over his head, and made his way across to the stables with a biting wind slashing into his face.

“My lord!” exclaimed the coachman. “What brings you out in this weather? I barely made it home.”

“What is your name?” demanded the Marquess, sliding the cloak down onto his shoulders.

“Mason, an’ it please my lord. Jim Mason.”

“What happened? Did you bring Miss Duvane back with you?”

“No, my lord,” said the coachman, looking miserable. “Lord Donnelly told me Lady Warburton had sent instructions I was to return with the coach, immediate-like. It’s not my place to argue, my lord, but I don’t see how Miss Duvane is going to get back tonight.”

“I will see Lady Warburton later,” said the Marquess. “Tell one of the grooms to have my hunter saddled up and brought into the stable yard.” He fished in his pocket and drew out a coin. A slightly malicious look lit up the Marquess’s blue eyes. “I see no need in telling Lady Warburton that I am going out, do you?”

“No, my lord,” said the coachman, cheerfully pocketing money for the second time that day. “I hope I don’t be speaking out of turn, my lord, but I find it mortal strange that my lady should leave Miss Duvane in the company of a gentleman and them without a chaperon. But do you think you will make Caddam? The weather’s mortal bad.”

“I have ridden in worse,” said the Marquess, turning on his heel.

In under fifteen minutes, he was back in the stable yard, booted and spurred and wrapped up warmly in a drab benjamin.

He would manage to reach Caddam with luck before nightfall. He debated whether to take a groom with him or not and then decided it would be better not to. He felt sure some attempt was being made to compromise Amaryllis, and the fewer witnesses to it, the better.

Lord Donnelly eyed Amaryllis Duvane across a table in the public dining room with a somewhat pettish look.

He thought she was very stubborn. When he had told her that they would have to stay the night, she had not answered but had promptly gone out to try to hire some sort of equipage.

He had not minded that, being comfortable in the conviction that no one was going to let his horses go out in this weather.

He had promptly gone to see the landlord and had bespoke a couple of rooms and a private parlor. But Miss Duvane on her return had refused point-blank to leave the dining room. She would sit downstairs all night if necessary, she had said, looking once more like a severe spinster.

They had eaten quite a good meal and Lord Donnelly had drunk a great deal of wine. At last his good humor returned and he decided it would at least set some tongues wagging if he flirted with Amaryllis.

He tried to take her hand. She snatched it away and said, “Please stop making a cake of yourself,” in such ringing tones that a silence fell and everyone looked at them.

It was only a momentary setback. Lord Donnelly returned to the attack by leering at her over his glass and blowing smacking kisses in her direction.

Amaryllis surveyed him with wide, sad eyes. Then she suddenly smiled at him, a dazzling, bewitching smile that changed her whole face.

“I am so silly,” she said. “I fear I have left my reticule on that table in the hall. Could you fetch it for me, my lord? I am too fatigued to move.”

“Of course,” Lord Donnelly leaped to his feet, reflecting that a man would do anything for a smile like that.

After some time he came back. “I’m afraid someone must have taken it,” he said. “The landlord didn’t remember even seeing it.”

“Oh, you must forgive me,” laughed Amaryllis. Again that bewitching smile. “I found it under my chair. Do sit down, my lord. I have ordered another bottle of wine. I really think, you know, that it would be all right if we were to retire for the night. I do not think I can sit up much longer.”

“There’s a sensible girl,” grinned Lord Donnelly.

“I have poured a glass of wine for you,” said Amaryllis sweetly. “Shall we drink a toast?”

“Yes, my sweeting. What shall it be?”

“To love and fortune,” said Amaryllis, raising her glass.

“To love and fortune,” he echoed, draining the contents of his own glass in one gulp.

“Faith, that’s powerful wine,” he said. “I took a look out of the door of the inn when I was searching for your reticule, and it’s a terrible storm that’s blowing. Here we are together, all the same. Don’t tell this Irishman that life does . . . does . . . does not have its . . . comp . . .” Thump.

Lord Donnelly’s head hit the table with a heavy sound. Amaryllis sat very still. Then she leaned over and prized up one eyelid and let it fall. She slid the bottle of Lady Warburton’s laudanum, with which she had liberally dosed Lord Donnelly’s drink, from her pocket into her reticule.

The landlord came up, looking worried.

“Are you and my lord going to make use of your rooms, Miss Duvane?” he asked. “There’s a stagecoach full of people stranded by the storm out in the yard.”

“Give our rooms away,” said Amaryllis. “As you can see, Lord Donnelly will not wake until morning, and I feel sure someone will yet arrive from Patterns to take me home.”

“Very well, miss,” said the landlord, “but I don’t see how anyone could possibly get through.”

He went off, and soon the dining room began to fill with weary travelers from the stagecoach.

Some of them cast curious looks at the lady seated opposite the gentleman who was asleep with his head on the table.

Well, that’s that, thought Amaryllis. My reputation, for what it’s worth, is safe. Half of the town has been in and out of here, and the landlord will surely gossip tomorrow to everyone about how I sat up all night. I wish I had a book with me to pass the time.

One by one, the travelers finished their meal and went up to bed.

Amaryllis sat on, listening to the wind howling in the chimney.

There was a sign over the fireplace with the legend, “Drink here/The best beare.”

It was a joke in the town that the landlord, when asked to correct the spelling, declined to doso. “Half my custom,” he explained, “is made up of folk who come in just on purpose to ask me if it is my own bruin.”

Amaryllis picked up her glass of wine and moved over to a high-backed settee by the fire.

She did not for a moment believe that Lady Warburton had had any part in this obvious plot to compromise her. But the way in which she, Amaryllis, was treated by the Warburtons had obviously led Lord Donnelly to the conclusion that he could enjoy himself at her expense without having to marry her afterward.

Had she brought all this upon herself by her craven behavior in front of the Warburtons? Was the Marquess right when he accused her of inviting bullying?

And had the Marquess kissed her and held her under the wrecked carriage because he, too, thought he could demand and take favors without even having to pay for them by proposing marriage?

The door to the dining room opened behind her, and the candle flames danced in the sudden draft. She did not stand up to find out who the newcomer was. She only hoped it was not some garrulous traveler. Like most coaching inns, the Green Man stayed open all night.

She realized the top of her bonnet was showing above the settle. Whoever it was would know the dining room was not empty.

The newcomer walked purposefully forward and came and stood in front of her.

The Marquess of Merechester looked thoughtfully down at her. “Where’s Donnelly?” he asked.

“John!” exclaimed Amaryllis, startled into using his Christian name. “What brought you here? And in this weather?”

“Where’s Donnelly?” he repeated.

“Over there,” said Amaryllis, waving a hand toward the shadowy depths of the dining room.

The Marquess picked up a candle from the mantel and walked across to where Lord Donnelly lay with his head on the table.

He grasped him by the hair and jerked his head up and then let it fall back again with a crash.

“Dead drunk,” he remarked, returning to the fire.

Amaryllis watched him nervously as he removed his benjamin, sending down a small flurry of snow to melt on the hearth.

“I am afraid it was all my fault,” she said in a low voice. “He sent the carriage away, saying that Lady Warburton had requested it, but I did not believe him. He had bespoke two rooms. I felt he was trying to compromise me.

“I am sure Lady Warburton paid him to flirt with me, but I feel he had exceeded his orders. I insisted on staying here. He began to become overwarm in his attentions, so I drugged his wine.”

“Did you, indeed! What with?”

“Laudanum. I was asked by Lady Warburton to get her a bottle, along with any number of patent medicines.”

The landlord came in, carrying a tray with a jug of hot water, a bottle of brandy, a bottle of rum, nutmegs, lemons, and sugar.

He put it down on a small table and then carried the table over and placed it in front of the fire.

“Just as you ordered, my lord,” he said. “Would you need anything else?”

“Not at the moment,” replied the Marquess. “Leave us. I’ll mix the punch myself.”

The landlord bowed his way out, and the Marquess sat down on the settle facing Amaryllis.

“Aren’t you going to take me home?” she asked, as he began to remove his ice-caked boots.

“Don’t be silly,” he said. “In this weather? I took hours getting here and twice near got buried in a drift, and another time lost my way. If I had brought a carriage, then I would never have got through.”

He removed his curly-brimmed beaver, or the sodden mess that remained of it, and looked at it ruefully. Then he balanced it on top of the poker and propped the poker up on the hearth. The snow had soaked through his coat to his blue jacket, so he took that off as well and hung it on a corner of the high-backed settle.

Attired now in a shirt, striped waistcoat, leather breeches, and stockings, he turned his attention to the punch. Half a pint of brandy, half a pint of rum, quarter of a pound of sugar, half a teaspoon of nutmeg, and a pint of boiling water. First he rubbed the sugar loaves over the lemon until they were yellow from the rind, and then he put the sugar in the punchbowl and added lemon juice before pouring in the boiling water and then adding the rum and brandy.

Totally absorbed in his task, he stirred the ingredients thoroughly until a savory steam arose in the air. He ladled out a glass and silently handed it to Amaryllis. Then he served himself.

“What brought you here?” asked Amaryllis, wondering nervously how the punch was going to mix with the wine already in her stomach.

“You, of course,” he said, raising his thin eyebrows in surprise. “I am not in the habit of plunging into a blizzard simply to sample the delights of a country town.”

“How did you find out? Did Lady Warburton tell you?”

“Not she. Miss Felicia Gaskell, she of the delightful lisp, informed me you had gone off to Caddam with Lord Donnelly, without so much as a maid as chaperon.

“I saw the carriage returning and going straight to the stables, and so I questioned the excellent coachman, who told me Lady Warburton had summoned the carriage back.

“That left you stranded with Lord Donnelly. I have some traces of lingering affection for you and did not want to see you forced to marry a penniless Irishman of doubtful morals. And so here I am. Perhaps I have the wrong picture. You went off quite cheerfully with Lord Donnelly, and, when you left, the snow was already falling fast. Mayhap you did not want to be rescued?”

Amaryllis removed her bonnet and laid it on the settle beside her. “Don’t talk fustian,” she said wearily. “Lord Donnelly was most insistent, and Lady Warburton wished me to obtain some purchases for her. Lord Donnelly assured me there would be no difficulty in getting here and getting back.”

“Well, perhaps the poor idiot is in love with you. He has barely left your side since he arrived.”

He refilled Amaryllis’s glass.

“I do not think Lord Donnelly cares for me one whit,” said Amaryllis, feeling warm and sleepy from the effects of the warm punch and the roaring fire. “I think Lady Warburton paid him to court me.”

“So you have already pointed out. A gothic notion,” he said scornfully. “Why would she do that?”

“In case your feelings toward me were reanimated. She wants you for Cissie.”

“My feelings . . . ? She must have windmills in her attic.”

“There is no need to sneer,” said Amaryllis. “Lady Warburton is very ambitious where her daughters are concerned.”

“Now, let me look at his clearly,” he said, leaning his head back against the wood of the settle and looking at her from under heavy lids. “Instead of this deep, dark plot, do you think perhaps that Lord Donnelly has simply misunderstood your position in the household? You behave more like an upper servant—and look more like one—than a relative of the Warburtons. Perhaps he decided you would be easy game? Perhaps you led him to believe so?”

Amaryllis rose to her feet. “If I have to walk home to escape you and your insults, I will do so.”

“Sit down. I was merely thinking aloud.”

“Then don’t,” snapped Amaryllis, although she returned to her seat. “You accuse me of false humility, of adopting a meek, cringing manner. But have you considered what a shock my father’s death was to me? Have you considered the humiliation of not being able to hold a position as governess? You say Lady Warburton would not turn me out. I think if Cissie’s happiness is involved, she most certainly will. At times, I wonder whether she is sane.”

“Odso? Addled her wits with patent medicines?”

“I don’t know,” said Amaryllis sadly. “She must be ill in some way to enjoy tormenting me.”

“As you must be ill in some way to enjoy being tormented. Where is your courage? You dismissed me from your life without so much as a blink of remorse.”

“That was not so. It was extremely painful for me.”

“So painful,” he sneered, “that you did not pause to think you might be inflicting pain on me.”

“Had you loved me, then I would not have left you,” said Amaryllis. “As it was . . . well, it was well known you needed a rich wife.”

“Strange, and I not in the least aware of it. You came to this marvelous conclusion all by yourself?”

“Jenny Pierce said it was so, and she appeared to have my best interests at heart.”

“She had me at heart, you silly widgeon. I would guess you have not seen dearest friend Jenny for years.”

“No. So I was right,” said Amaryllis, half to herself. “Jenny was jealous.”

“Very. But to return to this fascinating subject of love. You decided I did not love you. You, of course, did not love me . . . ?”

He leaned forward, studying her face intently.

“If that was the case,” sighed Amaryllis, putting a hand up to her forehead, “there is nothing for us to worry about now. It is history.”

“But history can be fascinating. Nothing in the world is new except arrangement. One can learn a lot from history.”

How handsome he looks, thought Amaryllis with a sudden pain at her heart. The firelight flickered on the strong planes of his face, on the sleepy-lidded eyes which gave him that sensual look, and on the mouth which had so recently kissed her in the darkness of a weedy ditch.

A low snore sounded from Lord Donnelly.

“What are we to do?” asked Amaryllis, taking another glass of punch without thinking.

“About Donnelly?”

“For a start.”

“That is easily remedied.” He got to his feet and went out of the room. Some moments later he returned with two grinning ostlers. They picked up Lord Donnelly’s sleeping body and carried him from the room. The Marquess closed the door behind them and sat down again.

“What will they do with him? I gave away our rooms.”

“I neither know nor care. I simply told them to take him away and put him somewhere for the rest of the night.

“I asked the landlord to bring sandwiches. If you drink much more, you might fall asleep, and I have no mind to sit with only myself for company.”

“We are going to sit here all night?”

“Why not? That is what you were going to do.”

“Without a chaperon!”

“The landlord will be coming and going, and before dawn ever lights up the sky, some of the guests will be downstairs, taking breakfast, and hoping to proceed on their journey.”

“You are not overly concerned for my welfare,” murmured Amaryllis, feeling sleepy again. “Do you not expect me to have the vapors?”

“Strangely enough, no. I think you are not at all missish and that you have a great deal of stamina.”

He watched her as she sat in the firelight. Her eyes looked enormous, almost black in the flickering light.

The landlord came in and placed a plate of sandwiches in front of them.

“Still blowing hard?” asked the Marquess.

“Yes, my lord. I’m right sorry for miss here that I took the rooms Lord Donnelly ordered. I don’t see as how you are going to get away. The storm’s even worse.”

“We shall manage,” smiled the Marquess. “What of yourself, landlord? Do you never sleep?”

“I get my boy to take over on afternoons, my lord, when things is quiet. Not often we have a whole houseful like this. Stagecoach people come in for ten minutes and out again, normally, that is.”

“Eat something,” urged the Marquess, after the landlord had left.

Amaryllis realized she was very hungry. She had been too upset to make much of dinner earlier.

He sat quietly, not bothering to speak. He turned his wet coat this way and that in front of the fire, and then filled a plate with sandwiches and began to eat.

Amaryllis finished her last sandwich and smothered a tremendous yawn.

He stood up and came over and sat down next to her. She eyed him uneasily. His undress upset her. He had unwound his cravat and his shirt was open, showing the strong column of his throat.

“Sleep,” he ordered abruptly, putting an arm about her and giving her a little pull so that she fell against his shoulder. She struggled feebly, immediately aware of the hard strength of his arm and the heat from his body.

But she was so very tired. The room danced in front of her eyes. A log fell in the fireplace, sending flames shooting up the chimney and shadows flying up across the blackened beams of the low ceiling.

She fell into a heavy sleep, awakening blearily at dawn as the dining room was filled with the sound of clattering plates and voices exclaiming over the ferocity of the storm.

The Marquess had both arms around her, cradling her against his shoulder. Her eyelids fell again. Somehow she did not care what the other guests thought. She felt warm and protected.

When she woke again, the dining room was once again empty and the Marquess was fast asleep. She glanced up at his face, noticing the faint golden stubble on his chin.

She stayed where she was, very still, frightened to wake him, wanting this closeness to last as long as possible. While he slept, she could imagine he loved her. He murmured something and held her closer, and she felt an agonizing wave of emotion coursing through her body, half sweetness, half pain.

She turned her face into his chest and then reached up and kissed his neck at the opening of his shirt.

The arms around her suddenly became like iron bands.

A strong hand forced her chin up. She looked up at him with wide eyes, her mouth soft and vulnerable. His heavy lids lifted, and she was held motionless by his intense blue gaze.

His mouth came down on her own, very gently, moving softly over her lips, seeking out a response, and finding it in the way her body was molded tightly against his own, and by the glint of tears at the corner of her closed lids.

“Don’t cry, sweeting,” he whispered. “A kiss, nothing more. No great commitment. Only a kiss in an inn in a storm.”

This time his mouth was harder and more demanding. Her senses were floating way, spinning away, taking the inn and the snow and Lord Donnelly with it, leaving her on a hot dry plain of burning emotion, anchored by his lips. All her senses, all her frustrated love, all her passion, all her memories rushed up into her lips, and he made a small sound in the back of his throat and his hand moved to her breast.

“Changing to rain, my lord,” came the landlord’s cheerful voice from the door.

The Marquess put Amaryllis from him gently. She was glad they had been screened from the landlord’s view by the high back of the settle.

“I was wondering, my lord, Miss Duvane, whether you would like to make free of my quarters. My missus has put out hot water and towels. If Miss Duvane would care to follow me first.”

“How very kind of you,” said Amaryllis, standing up, deliberately not looking at the Marquess and yet aware of his gaze on her with every nerve of her body.

The landlord led her through to his own quarters at the back of the inn on the ground floor and into his bedroom, where his wife was waiting. She showed Amaryllis over to the washstand, handed her a large huckaback towel and soap, and then left her.

Amaryllis stripped off and washed herself down, by standing in the flowered washbasin. She hated putting the same underwear back on again, but there was no help for it.

Two tall candles were lit on the toilet table, for the day was very dark and great buffets of wind and rain hurled against the window.

Her face looked back at her from the glass. She looked much younger and more vulnerable, and her mouth was swollen.

She unpinned her hair and brushed it down about her shoulders, and then, on impulse, deftly put it up in one of the Grecian styles she had worn it in when she was a debutante. The effect was startling, turning her from a prim spinster to a sophisticated lady. She threaded a black silk ribbon from her reticule through her auburn curls to hold the style in place. A pot of rouge lay on the toilet table. She moistened her finger and ran it across the little cake of powder and then carefully applied some color to each cheek. There were shadows of fatigue like bruises under her eyes, but she did not look at all like the Amaryllis the Warburtons had come to know.

There was great speculation in the Warburton household over what had become of the Marquess of Merechester. The coachman and stable staff had remained silent, but James, the second footman, said that he had seen his lordship riding off hell-for-leather in the middle of the storm.

Cissie tossed her curls. “I wonder what Felicia said to give him such a fright,” she said.

Felicia raised her delicate eyebrows and looked around the gentlemen as if to say, “Do you see what a cat she is?”

“I only told him Amaryllis had gone off with Lord Donnelly without a chaperon,” she said.

Lady Warburton bit her lip. It had been stupid of Donnelly to send back the carriage, claiming it was on her orders.

“I don’t think Lord Merechester went to Caddam to see Amaryllis at all,” said Agatha hotly. “Why should he? He was engaged to her once, but he can’t stand the sight of her now.”

“Hold your impertinent tongue, miss,” scolded Lady Evans.

Lady Warburton bridled. “If you do not mind, Lady Evans,” she said, “I will correct my daughter’s behavior myself should I deem it necessary. Amaryllis has always been a strange girl. I let her go with Lord Donnelly because I thought it a kindness, she seemed so smitten by the young man. Merechester has no doubt gone to visit friends in the neighborhood.”

“But if Amaryllis has spent the night with Lord Donnelly, she will have to marry him,” said Agatha gleefully.

“That may be the case,” said Lord Warburton. “Amaryllis Duvane is a respectable female, and we cannot have her reputation besmirched.”

“You are altogether too nice with regard to Miss Duvane all of a sudden,” said Lady Evans. “Had you been concerned at the right moment, then you would not have let her set out on such a hazardous journey.”

“She is old enough to know her own mind,” snapped Lady Warburton. “All this harsh criticism is affecting my poor nerves badly. Agatha, give me that green bottle.”

Lady Warburton poured herself out a large tablespoonful, drank it down, shuddered, and then smiled around the room.

“Strange,” mused Mr. Chalmers, “her medicine bottle looks exactly like a gin bottle.”

Tempers were frayed among the Warburton family and their housebound guests. Greasy raindrops streamed down the windows, and the wind moaned like a banshee around the old house.

Lord Warburton strode up and down, his hands behind his back. “If this thaw keeps up, they should be home this evening.”

“Not they,” said Mr. Giles-Denton. “The roads will be quagmires. London road will be all right, of course. If they think to make a detour.”

“They’ll need to hire some sort of carriage,” said Mr. Chalmers reasonably. “Three people won’t get far on Merechester’s horse.”

Lady Warburton had recourse to the green bottle again. This time she didn’t use the spoon but turned her back on the company and swigged a great mouthful directly from the bottle.

She began to want someone to blame for this. The thought of Merechester and Amaryllis in the intimacy of a snowbound inn made her grind her teeth. She hoped Donnelly could be trusted to keep them apart.

She felt a rare spasm of rage against Cissie. Why couldn’t the silly minx watch that wretched tongue of hers?

“If Amaryllis doesn’t hurry back, then I won’t have anything to wear for the ball,” mourned Cissie.

“Then wear one of your old gowns,” said her mother testily. “Lord knows you have enough of them, not that it has done you any good either. No matter how finely we dress you, you always manage to alienate any gentleman who comes within your orbit.”

There was an embarrassed silence. Cissie burst into noisy tears and fled from the room. Conscience-stricken, Lady Warburton ran after her.

It took quite an hour to soothe her daughter’s injured feelings. But one thing was made plain to Lady Warburton. Cissie was in love with Merechester.

And what Cissie wanted, Cissie would get.

Chapter Six

Amaryllis entered the dining room with a suffocating feeling of excitement. She had been turning over all the things he had said. She remembered he had said her rejection of him had caused him pain.

And he had kissed her.

In Amaryllis’s world, the warm pressure of a handclasp was tantamount to a proposal of marriage.

But the Marquess was not alone. Lord Donnelly was seated opposite him in front of the fire.

Lord Donnelly jumped to his feet as Amaryllis entered the dining room. “Miss Duvane!” he cried. “My humble apologies. I must have been exhausted to fall asleep like that. Please say you forgive me.”

“Your apology is accepted,” said Amaryllis, wishing him miles away.

The Marquess rose to his feet and announced he was going to the landlord’s quarters to shave and wash.

Amaryllis did not want to be left alone with Lord Donnelly, but it seemed she had no choice.

“You are looking very beautiful,” said Lord Donnelly, turning his frank, friendly gaze on her. Privately, he noticed the bloom on her cheek, the fashionable hairstyle, and the swollen lips. Something had to be done quickly.

As she sat opposite him, he leaned forward in a confiding way. “Sure, it’s miserable I am that I forsook you,” he said. “I hope you were not . . . er . . . embarrassed. Merechester has a wild reputation with the ladies.”

“Oh,” said Amaryllis frostily. “Do you think we shall be able to travel today, my lord?”

“Yes, a bit of a reputation,” went on Lord Donnelly, deliberately ignoring her question. “You see, he needs must always go and make the ladies fall in love with him, and rumor has it he becomes overwarm in his attentions, so much so that the fair damsels think he had marriage in mind. Why, the man’s nearly been up to the altar with a shotgun in his back.”

“I don’t want to discuss Lord Merechester,” said Amaryllis in a thin voice.

Lord Donnelly saw his remark had hit home. “I’ll go around to the stables and see what the lads say about the roads,” he said. He wanted Amaryllis to be left alone with these new thoughts about Lord Merechester’s infidelity.

Amaryllis sat quietly after he had left, feeling very small and lost. Because she did not think much of herself and had become used to being called a drab, she easily jumped to the conclusion that the Marquess’s lovemaking had meant nothing to him.

By the time the Marquess returned, the glow had gone from her eyes and she sat very still by the fire.

“Are you ready to leave?” he asked.

“How can we?” asked Amaryllis. “Lord Donnelly has gone to find out the state of the roads, but the road that leads from here to Patterns must be a sea of mud.”

“Probably,” he said, picking up his now dry coat and shrugging himself into it. “But if we take my horse, we can go the long way around by the London road. The stagecoach driver sent riders up ahead, and they report the road to be in fair condition.”

“Perhaps we should wait,” ventured Amaryllis. “Lord Donnelly should return any moment.”

“All the more reason to leave,” he remarked, putting on his benjamin and cramming his beaver hat on his head.

He picked up Amaryllis’s cloak and silently held it out to her. He put it around her shoulders and then bent his head and gently kissed the back of her neck.

“Don’t do that!” Amaryllis jerked away as if she had been stung. “I do not like casual, meaningless caresses.”

“And you so expert at giving and receiving them.” His blue eyes were blazing with fury as she turned around.

“My lord,” said Amaryllis, her voice holding an infuriating note of weary patience, “please leave me here. I can look after myself.”

“I think not,” he said harshly. “Who knows? You might start accepting casual, meaningless caresses from Donnelly.”

Amaryllis thought furiously. There was either the agony of going home with him, or the irritation of staying with Lord Donnelly. Lord Donnelly had proved himself to be a villain. Lord Merechester’s behavior was only open to doubt.

So she went meekly enough with him out of the inn. The landlord’s wife supplied Amaryllis with a calash to cover her bonnet, and wooden pattens to cover her feet.

“Where is the carriage?” asked Amaryllis, looking about the dismal scene of the inn yard. Sheets of rain were pockmarking the puddles. Beyond the inn yard, the road had turned into a river, rushing between crumbling banks of snow.

“No carriage,” he said. “We both take my horse. You’ll have to ride pillion.”

Amaryllis quailed. They would both be soaked to the skin before they had gone even a yard.

“Come along,” he said. “The coach has already left, and if the great, overladen, cumbersome thing can get through, then so can we.”

The ostler led the Marquess’s hunter forward. He sprang lightly into the saddle and then edged his horse over to the mounting block.

Amaryllis climbed onto the pillion in front of him. He put an arm around her waist and they set off out of the inn yard.

Lord Donnelly came running out of the inn and shouted something after them. Amaryllis pretended not to hear, and the Marquess did not turn his head.

They were two miles out on the London road, and both were drenched to the skin, when they came across the stagecoach travelers, making their way on foot back to Caddam.

“The coach overturned,” yelled one man. “Best not go on. The road gets worse.”

“We’ll manage,” called the Marquess.

The horse moved on through the white-and-black world of melting snow and roaring water, passing the sad bulk of the overturned coach. Small streams had turned to torrents which swept across the road, and twice they had to dismount and lead the horse.

“Is there another town hereabouts?” said the Marquess at last.

“There’s a village,” replied Amaryllis. “Totten.”

“Does it have an inn?”

“A small one called the King’s Head.”

“Is it far?”

“I don’t know,” said Amaryllis, looking around desperately. It was like traveling through a waterfall. The wind was rising again, and great buffets of icy rain drove into her face. “I cannot get my bearings. Everything looks different. . . what I can see of it.”

The horse stumbled, and the Marquess reined in and dismounted, “The animal is tired,” he said. “I will walk. Gather up the reins.”

The sky was growing darker as the early winter night began to settle in.

And then, all at once, a blurred huddle of buildings loomed up through the gathering dusk.

“That must be Totten,” shouted Amaryllis, above the roar of the rain.

“Thank God,” he called. “At which end of the village is the inn?”

“The far end,” said Amaryllis bitterly.

“It would be. But we must dry ourselves and get warm or we will both die of chills.”

They plodded silently past thatch-covered houses.

Candle flames appeared like yellow smears behind the thick glass of the cottage windows. A dog ran across the road, and the horse swerved and stumbled.

“There’s the inn,” called the Marquess.

Amaryllis peered through the rain. The King’s Head seemed smaller and dingier than Amaryllis remembered. She had once stopped there with Agatha and Cissie on a summer’s day. It had seemed very pretty then with its wattled walls and thick thatch.

Outside the inn, the Marquess held up his arms and Amaryllis fell into them, frozen and stiff and sore. There was a stitch in her side from having ridden sidesaddle, and she felt the skin on her leg which had been next to the saddle was rubbed raw.

“Let us go indoors quickly,” she shivered.

“Not until my poor Brutus has been rubbed down and fed,” said the Marquess, patting his weary horse.

“And I suppose I could drop from cold simply because the horse must come first,” said Amaryllis made pettish by cold and exhaustion.

“No one is asking you to help,” he said curtly. “Go into the inn and explain our predicament and see if the landlord can lend us any dry clothes.”

“No, I’ll come to the stables with you.”

“Why?”

“I will find it difficult to explain to the landlord what we are doing together.”

“Fustian! The weather is explanation enough.”

“I can’t!” said Amaryllis, near to tears.

“I confess to a sudden sympathy for Lady Warburton,” he said nastily. “Are you usually this useless?”

“I am not used to standing in the middle of nowhere, soaked to the skin, being harangued by an unfeeling brute,” screamed Amaryllis, suddenly beside herself with rage.

“If I were an unfeeling brute, I would not have walked all this way and let you ride.”

“You did not consider my comfort. You only thought about Brutus.”

“Well, you must admit that of the two of you, he is the more worthy of consideration. I can do without you in an emergency. I cannot do without him.”

The door of the inn opened and a head and an arm holding a lantern appeared.

“What’s to do?” called a voice.

“Stranded travelers,” called the Marquess. “Where are your stables?”

“Wait till I get my coat,” came the reply.

The head and lantern disappeared.

“Don’t stand there with your teeth chattering,” said the Marquess. “Go into the inn.”

“No,” said Amaryllis stubbornly.

“Of all the useless, spoiled females, I have ever met. . . Ah, landlord. We are sore in need of warmth and dry clothes if you can help us.”

The landlord was a small, wizened man with bandy legs. He held up the lantern and looked at them suspiciously.

“I’ll need to ask you who you are,” he said. “Got caught before by a gentleman of the High Toby.”

“I,” said Amaryllis savagely, “am Miss Duvane from Patterns, and this is the Marquess of Merechester. We have been trying to make our way home. We are bone-tired and freezing, and all you can do is stand there like a great lummox and accuse us of being highwaymen. It. . . it’s t-too m-much.” And with that, the overwrought Amaryllis burst into tears.

“Now, then,” said the landlord. “We do have to make sure in an out-of-the-way place like this. Come with me, my lord, and I’ll show you the stables. Please go into the inn, miss, and I’ll be back directly.”

“And do try to pull yourself together,” snapped the Marquess. “Blubbering like a baby will not help the situation one whit.”

Mad with rage, Amaryllis kicked him in the shins, the iron ring on the sole of her pattens making a satisfying thwack.

“Vixen!” He seized her by the shoulders and shook her till her teeth rattled.

“Oh, please don’t, miss, my lord,” begged the landlord. “ ’Tain’t no use you argyfying and getting wetter and colder.”

Amaryllis stalked off into the inn, and the Marquess followed the landlord around to the stables.

To Amaryllis’s relief, the landlord’s wife, Mrs. Fletcher, recognized her, and clucked in motherly dismay over her wretched state.

The little inn boasted only three bedrooms, which were fortunately all empty. Mrs. Fletcher led Amaryllis up to one of them.

It was very small and dark and smelled of damp and dry rot. The old beams were so low they almost grazed Amaryllis’s head. Mrs. Fletcher lit a couple of tallow candles and then the fire. Her daughter, a thin, white-faced creature, came in carrying two cans of hot water.

“Sit by the fire, miss,” said the landlord’s wife, “and I’ll see what I can find you to wear. I know it’s not fitting, but a servant girl we had ups and offs with a traveler, and left her duds behind. My clothes are too big for you, and Beth,” jerking her head at her daughter, “ain’t got but the one gown for winter and two for summer.”

“Anything will do,” said Amaryllis wearily. The fire was smoking dreadfully and seemed to do nothing to dispel the damp chill of the room.

When Mrs. Fletcher came back with an armful of clothes, Amaryllis indicated the fire. “Does it always smoke so much?”

“Only when the wind’s in the east,” said Mrs. Fletcher. “Any other direction and that fireplace is the best in the county. When you are dressed, my husband is going to serve you and my lord with a meal in the coffee room, us not having a dining room.”

“Thank you,” said Amaryllis, waiting for her to leave so that she could change into dry clothes.

Mrs. Fletcher hesitated in the doorway, pleating her apron in her work-roughened hands.

“Would you and my lord be eloping, miss?” she said.

“Good heavens, no!” said Amaryllis, looking as bad-tempered and glacial as Lady Warburton. “What on earth gave you such a non-sensical idea?”

“I’m right sorry, miss, but we do get couples from time to time, and there’s always trouble.” Mrs. Fletcher leaned one plump shoulder against the doorjamb, and showed all the signs of one about to settle down to a good gossip.

“I do mind,” she said, “squire’s daughter over at Three Elms what eloped with Johnny Mercer. They hired this chaise and got Joey Duddle, the postillion, to drive them, promising him something extra should he get them up the Gretna Road. But Joey had forgotten to wear his nightcap the night before, and the cold he got as a result made him deaf. He had prime animals harnessed up and he was scampering away at record speed with the young couple in the back, satisfied that no one could catch ’em now. Well, there was a crash and a crack and a scream from the lady. The bolt connecting forewheels with body had snapped—and the chaise fell forward in the middle of the road. Johnny Mercer was screaming blue murder, but that deaf postillion heard not a word and cantered forward until he drew up at the next posting inn with nothing but a forecarriage and a young lady’s trunk behind him. By the time he hurried back, the young lady’s family had arrived on the scene and the elopement was over.”

Amaryllis shivered and Mrs. Fletcher laughed heartily. “The people we’ve had here. Five month ago, a pretty gentleman had dinner here, roasted chicken and bottle o’ wine. After dinner, he went out into the yard and rode away. He hadn’t paid his reckoning, so my Jem took out his horse and rode after him and caught him at a place called Two Bridges, and he says, ‘I believe, sir, you forgot to pay.’

“ ‘Oh, dear, I believe I did,’ says the gentleman, putting his hand in his pocket as if for money. But he pulled out a pistol, which he claps to Mr. Fletcher’s breast, saying he would shoot him if he didn’t deliver up his horse and his money. Which my Jem did, never being one to argue with a pistol.”

Mrs. Fletcher gave a fat chuckle, met the steely glare in Amaryllis’s eyes, and backed off hastily, shutting the door behind her.

Amaryllis sighed with relief. She stripped off her wet clothes and scrubbed herself as hard as she could with a rough towel until her skin was glowing.

The borrowed underwear was yellow and darned but spotlessly clean and smelling of lavender. The gown was a serving maid’s one, being of print cotton with a low-cut, laced bodice, the loose high-waisted fashions of the Regency having not yet reached the lower orders.

She brushed her damp hair after rubbing it with a towel.

The cotton gown was a shade tight on her, which meant that the absconding servant girl must have been very thin indeed. But after loosening the lacing on the bodice, she found it fitted her pretty comfortably.

She could not help but wonder, however, as she studied her reflection in the glass, how servant girls should be allowed to wear such provocative costumes.

The stiffened bodice pushed up her breasts into two globes, the top halves of which peeped above the low neckline. The skirt was short, well above the ankle. She pushed her feet in their borrowed woolen stockings into a pair of clumsy buckled shoes which were a whole size too big for her, and with her wet clothes over her arm, clumped off downstairs.

She found her way to the kitchen first. Mrs. Fletcher took the clothes from her, promising to have them washed and dried by morning.

“Morning!” exclaimed Amaryllis. “Oh, no, Mrs. Fletcher. We shall not be staying the night. If you could please clean the mud off them and iron them dry as quickly as possible. We must reach Patterns tonight.”

“Begging your pardon, miss, but I don’t see as how you can, the roads being that bad.”

“I will speak to my lord,” said Amaryllis firmly. It would be ridiculous indeed if the Marquess had ridden through the storm to save her being compromised, only to compromise her himself.

The inn parlor was small and cozy, with a roaring fire and two candles in flat sticks on the table casting a pool of light over the small table which had been set for dinner.

Dinner was a simple affair of roast chicken, squab pie, cold ham, and woodcock, with apple pie and jam tartlets to follow.

The Marquess was silent and withdrawn. He wore an odd assortment of clothes: a frieze shirt thrust into old black knee breeches, woolen stockings, and heavy shoes. He had a belcher handkerchief knotted about his throat and a green cord coat with many pockets, much the worse for wear.

His drying hair gleamed gold in the candlelight.

At last he finished his meal and pushed his chair back slightly from the table.

“If you will excuse me, my lord,” said Amaryllis, “I will go and see if my clothes are ready.”

“Why worry?” he said, raising his eyes to hers. “You look very fetching in that servant’s gown. You have charms that are better displayed than they normally are.”

Amaryllis put a protective hand up to her half-exposed breasts, wishing she had a fichu. “We cannot stay here. We must be on our way.”

“I’m afraid not.” The Marquess poured himself a glass of wine, and twisting the stem in his fingers, studied the effect of the candlelight reflected in the wine.

“But I will be compromised after all!” exclaimed Amaryllis.

“Not you,” he said dryly. “Lady Warburton will go out of her way to believe the best of things so that I may fall unsmirched into the loving arms of Cissie.”

“But it is not just a question of Cissie,” said Amaryllis. “What of the other guests at Patterns?”

“Staying in separate rooms in a public inn hardly counts as a night of sin, Amaryllis. Do you want to marry me?”

No, thought Amaryllis sadly. You don’t want me.

Aloud she said, “That is out of the question.”

Was it a trick of the light, or did his face suddenly look set and stern?

“In that case,” he said quietly, “you should be glad I am not using the situation to force you to marry me.”

Amaryllis felt weary and dispirited. Although he was still sitting opposite, he seemed to have withdrawn miles away from her.

“I think I will retire,” she said, rising to her feet, “since we are to spend the night here.”

He waved a hand in dismissal, but did not look up.

Amaryllis walked to the door and stood with her hand hesitantly on the knob.

“Goodnight, my lord,” she said.

Still he did not reply, and with a heavy heart she went up to her damp, uncomfortable room. There was a leak in the roof, and water popped and plonked onto a corner of the floor. She stood an empty water jug under it, but the noise changed to a maddening ping, and she found she could not sleep. The wind had died down, but she could still hear the roar and chuckle of the water in the gutters.

At last she fell into an uneasy sleep and dreamed of highwaymen, hearing shouts and screams and men cursing. She awoke at dawn, feeling as if she had not slept at all.

She pushed open the casement window and looked out. The rain had stopped, and the day was sad and mournful and gray. Dead leaves lay in brown sodden heaps, and the soaked thatch of the cottages dripped onto the village street.

There was a smell of frying bacon. Amaryllis dressed in the servant’s clothes and made her way downstairs.

At the foot of the stairs stood Mrs. Fletcher, twisting her apron in her hands and looking the picture of misery. Beside her stood the landlord, cursing fluently. Facing them was the Marquess, his face tired and grim.

“What’s amiss?” cried Amaryllis, hurrying down the stairs.

Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher began to speak at once, but the Marquess held up his hand for silence and turned to Amaryllis.

“Thieves came in the night,” he said, “and broke into the stables. They have not only taken the landlord’s horse but my horse as well.”

“Oh!” Amaryllis put her hand to her mouth in dismay. “What are we to do?”

“Walk,” he said. “At least it is not raining, and we should soon be home. By my reckoning, we are only ten miles across country from Patterns.”

“Then someone could possibly be sent with a message?”

“No. I think we are both rested enough. Ten miles is not so far. Whoever took my horse will not get very far, since he will not allow anyone to ride him but me. But if he succeeded in throwing his rider, then he would probably gallop in the direction of Patterns. Come, get your clothes from Mrs. Fletcher and let us away.”

“We will take breakfast first?”

“Of course,” said the Marquess curtly. “God, I am weary of this adventure.”

Amaryllis flinched, but he was staring moodily out the open inn door at the drab grayness of the morning.

After she had changed into her own clothes and had eaten a large breakfast, Amaryllis was beginning to feel more cheerful, although she was still sore and tired from her journey of the day before.

The Marquess sat by the fire in the parlor, polishing his riding boots until Amaryllis thought he would never be done. At last, he seemed satisfied with their gloss. He drew them on and adjusted the cravat.

Amaryllis pulled on her cloak, but left the ruin of her bonnet behind.

They walked together along the village street in silence. Fallen golden leaves from a row of elm trees covered the road. Once they were beyond the village, a slight fog veiled the woods beside the road in a purple mist. Some of the oaks still had half their foliage, and their leaves were in autumn shades of bronze and brown. Yellow bracken glowed in ferny clumps, and the air was spiced with the smell of wet leaves. The morning was gray and misty and perfectly still.

“I wonder you did not try to buy a horse from someone in the village,” ventured Amaryllis, her voice sounding unnaturally loud in all the still quiet of the wet countryside.

“I paid our shot at the inn last night,” said the Marquess, “and I am sadly out of pocket. Had I had the money, I would have thought twice about buying any of the broken-down hacks the village had to offer in order to ride a mere ten miles.”

They walked along in silence again. Amaryllis found she was already tired. Her boots were dry after their soaking, but the leather was hard and tough and a sharp bit on the upper was cutting into the top of her foot.

She found it hard to keep up with the Marquess’s long strides. At last she gasped, “Oh, please do slow down.”

He slackened his pace. “I am sorry,” he said in a tone of voice which suggested he was not sorry at all.

“Oh, damn and blast!” he said suddenly.

“What is it?”

The Marquess stopped and pointed over to their left. They had taken a narrow country lane which led out of the village, Mr. Fletcher having given them instructions as to how to reach Patterns by the quickest way. She followed his pointing finger.

The trees at the side of the road had thinned out. Across the fields, sliding toward them, was a great high bank of gray fog.

“Perhaps a wind will spring up,” suggested Amaryllis nervously, “and blow it away before it reaches us.”

“We cannot depend on that. Here! Take my arm. You must try to walk more quickly.”

Amaryllis groaned, but she took his arm and they set off briskly down the road.

After they had gone a little way, the trees closed in on either side again. Although it was still early morning, the day was growing increasingly dark, but so far the country lane stretched out in front of them, free of fog.

“Perhaps we will make it,” said the Marquess more cheerfully. “We must have walked a couple of miles at least.”

They turned a bend in the lane and looked in front of them in dismay.

Like some great beast waiting to pounce, the fog bank bulked large in the middle of the road, and even as they watched, it started to roll toward them.

There was something uncanny about its approach. One minute, the trees stretched their branches up to the gray sky on either side of them, the birds chirped plaintively, and water gurgled in a ditch beside the road. The next, they were enveloped in a thick blanket of fog. The birds fell silent, the trees disappeared from view, and even the water seemed to fall silent.

For a while, there was something dreamlike about all this gray silence. Amaryllis was content to walk at the Marquess’s side in a world in which no past or future seemed to exist. She glanced up, noticing his relaxed expression, and wondered whether he was feeling the same.

At last he spoke. “I have an idea we have missed our turning. Only see how rough and narrow this road has become. I fear it is going to disappear at any moment. Can you recognize anything? Any landmark?”

Amaryllis shook her head. “The mist changes everything. If I was here before, then it would have been in summer. My feet hurt rather badly,” she added.

He put his arm about her and gave her a quick hug. “You are a Trojan,” he said warmly. “I am sorry I was so harsh with you back at the inn. I am sure we have only a little way to go.”

As if to mock his words, the road, which had been growing rougher and narrower by the minute, ended up against a stone wall.

The Marquess cursed softly under his breath. “Well, let us hope this is the wall of someone’s property,” he said cheerfully. They walked along through tall, wet grass, following the line of the wall.

“I think this might by Patterns,” Amaryllis was just beginning to say, when the mist thinned slightly and a building loomed up in front of them.

“A lodge!” said the Marquess.

They walked quickly forward until they could see it was indeed a lodge, standing behind tall iron gates.

“The south lodge,” laughed Amaryllis. “We are home!” Then her laughter died as a feeling of dread took over. Lady Warburton would undoubtedly blame her for everything, from the inclement weather to the Marquess of Merechester’s missing horse.

The lodgekeeper was out in the grounds somewhere, and so they had to face the final mile’s walk home. A little breeze sprang up and the mist began to shift and change. Soon it became tinged with a yellow color as the sun somewhere high above tried to shine through.

The mist snaked around the boles of the trees in long trailing wreaths. The wind grew stronger, and, all at once, the great bank of fog shredded and dispersed and a cold blue winter sky stretched above their heads.

When the great bulk of Patterns came into view, the Marquess stopped and turned to face Amaryllis. He placed his hands on her shoulders and looked down into her upturned face.

“I think you had better marry me, Amaryllis,” he said quietly.

She flushed and looked down.

“You said there was no reason why I should,” she mumbled. “You said . . .”

“Oh, I said, I said. I am asking you to marry me, girl. Yes or no?”

She looked up at him again, her wide gray eyes almost black. “Do you love me?” she asked.

“Ah, so you demand everything,” he said, his voice holding a mocking edge. “And if I said yes?”

“There are no ifs and buts in love,” sighed Amaryllis. “You have answered my question. There is no need to marry me, sir. Lady Warburton will be only too ready to believe the best.”

He walked on so rapidly that she had to scamper after him to catch up.

“After all,” she panted breathlessly, “you are practiced in the art of making ladies fall in love with you.”

“On the contrary,” he snapped, slowing his step. “I am practiced in the art of making sure they don’t. Who put such a goosish notion in your head?”

“Lord Donnelly.”

“And one must always believe people like Lord Donnelly, must one not? The only person you will not believe on the subject of me is myself. It is in Donnelly’s interests to woo your attention away from me. Oh, why are we arguing? I am sick to death of this whole business.”

Amaryllis felt tears pricking behind her eyelids. Why was he so harsh with her? If he had taken her in his arms and said he loved her, there would be no happier woman in the whole of England. She suddenly realized how deathly tired she was.

They parted silently in the great hall of Patterns. Dimly, Amaryllis heard the servants’ exclamations of dismay over her appearance. Kind hands helped her up to her room. A bath was carried in and clean clothes laid out.

At last, washed and changed into fresh linen and a clean gown, Amaryllis received a summons to go to the drawing room, where Lady Warburton was waiting for her.

She took one step in the direction of the door, and then turned about and fell face downward on the bed and down into the welcome depths of sleep, into a deep dark world where the Marquess’s mocking voice could not trouble her, nor the spite of Lady Warburton come to plague her.

Chapter Seven

Lady Warburton held a council of war with her husband. Lord Warburton was, for once, in almost as spleenish a temper as his wife. He felt as if he were about to choke, but fashion decreed that one must suffer to be beautiful, and usually Lord Warburton suffered its dictates nobly, but this day he felt a longing to throw away his starched cravat, his high-starched collar, his corsets, and his paint and take several long, deep breaths.

Her ladyship had had recourse to the medicine bottle several times since the arrival of Amaryllis and the Marquess. Lord Merechester had given instructions with such a possessive air about him that Lady Warburton feared the worst and Cissie had gone into strong hysterics, howling that Amaryllis had stolen Merechester from her.

“I have sent out all the invitations for this wretched ball,” fumed Lady Warburton, striding up and down in a flounced muslin gown of eye-searing emerald green. “I do not want to see good money wasted on a celebration of Amaryllis Duvane’s engagement. Donnelly said Merechester seemed much taken with her.”

“It’s all your fault,” said her lord gloomily. “If you had not had the harebrained idea of letting her go off in the middle of a snowstorm with Donnelly, then Merechester’s wretched chivalrous instincts would have remained dormant. Instead of ill-treating Amaryllis and making a martyr of her, it might be better if you appeared to spoil her. Then he would not need to keep springing to her defense.”

“How dare you accuse me!” gasped Lady Warburton. “I have to make all the decisions. I . . .”

Fortunately for Lord Warburton, Lord Donnelly chose that moment to enter the room.

“You!” exclaimed Lady Warburton, casting him a look of loathing.

“And won’t you be glad to see me after you’ve heard the news,” grinned Lord Donnelly, sauntering into the room and sinking into an armchair and thrusting his booted legs out in front of him.

Lady Warburton came to stand over him. “Out with it,” she said wrathfully.

Lord Donnelly thrust his hands in his breeches pockets and smiled up at her. “Now, if I haven’t just been congratulating Merechester on his engagement to Miss Duvane.”

“What!”

“And didn’t he just stare down that long nose of his and say, ‘There is no engagement, nor is there any reason for one. Miss Duvane and I were adequately chaperoned throughout our adventures.’ ”

Lady Warburton sank down suddenly in a chair opposite him.

“But did he not seem to have formed a tendre for her?”

“Not he,” grinned Lord Donnelly. “I said I envied his being alone with the fair Amaryllis for so long and he said coldly, ‘It was to me simply as if I were escorting a female relative, something which is well beyond the grasp of your vulgar mind.’ ”

“But my poor Cissie may still be without hope. He no doubt plans to leave immediately.”

“Now, if that isn’t what I’ve just put to him. ‘Patterns is bad luck for you, Merechester,’ that I said. ‘You’ll be anxious to be shot of the place.’ ”

“To which he replied?”

“To which his lordship, the most high and mighty Marquess of Merechester, replied, ‘I shall leave after the ball.’ There!”

“You have done well to elicit such information,” said Lady Warburton grudgingly. “Now you must play your part. Amaryllis will no doubt be hurt that he has not proposed to her. You must do all in your power to capture her affections. Once Merechester is engaged to Cissie, you may take your leave.”

“With a suitable token of your undying gratitude,” murmured Lord Donnelly.

“You will be well taken care of,” grumbled Lord Warburton, “as long as you play your part.”

“But,” added Lady Warburton, fixing the grinning, lounging Lord Donnelly with a glacial eye, “we will see this evening how matters stand between Amaryllis and Merechester.”

Matters between Amaryllis and Merechester proved to be, on the face of it, everything that Lady Warburton could wish. At first, they had chatted politely to each other, and Amaryllis was looking prettier than she had any right to look. She was wearing a fine white cotton gown with a small woven check pattern in lilac. It had long sleeves with Dorset buttons on the cuff. It was one of the gowns from her debutante wardrobe, skillfully redesigned with Amaryllis’s clever needle.

It had been originally a day gown, but she had cut out the high neck and changed it into a low-necked evening gown. She wore a gold locket around her neck suspended on a lilac silk ribbon. Her hair was washed and brushed and threaded with lilac ribbon. The shadows of fatigue under her eyes served to make them look enormous. The loose, shining curls of her hairstyle softened the thinness of her face.

She and the Marquess had been talking pleasantly enough about their various aches and pains following their recent exertions when the Marquess had suddenly remarked, “Do not let me detain you. You no doubt have had enough of my company. I think Miss Cissie looks most charmingly this evening.”

And Amaryllis had simply pinned a social smile on her face and walked away. The Marquess glared after her, then he went to join Cissie and set himself out to please so much that he had quite obviously forgotten all about his remark that he did not deliberately set out to break hearts.

Lord Donnelly almost leaped to Amaryllis’s side. She was so hurt by the Marquess’s blatant flirtation that she encouraged the Irish peer’s advances, and the more she encouraged them, the more the Marquess flirted with Cissie and the better pleased the whole Warburton family became. Sharp-eyed Lady Evans decided that the Marquess and Amaryllis were in love with each other, wondered whether to do anything about it, and almost decided to have a word with Amaryllis, but she then decided that she might run up against another of these peculiar English taboos, and would merely find herself snubbed for her pains.

The Giles-Dentons, like the Evanses, were quite reconciled to their fate. Both couples had planned to leave. But first the bad weather had kept them and then Lady Warburton had insisted they could not think of leaving before the ball.

Miss Felicia Gaskell looked absurdly surprised to see all the attention the Marquess was paying Cissie, but she quickly rallied and turned her full battery of charms on Mr. Chalmers.

Unhappiness was making Amaryllis brave at last. She no longer cared what the Warburtons thought of her. Anger lent a sparkle to her eye and color to her cheeks.

At one point Lady Warburton drew her aside and said that a seamstress had been engaged to finish Cissie’s ballgown. “You work too hard, my dear,” she said, smiling on the startled Amaryllis. Amaryllis put this sudden rush of affection down to Lady Warburton’s very understandable pleasure in the Marquess of Merechester’s behavior.

To Amaryllis’s surprise, Lady Warburton continued to be pleasant during the following days, despite the Marquess’s erratic behavior. Sometimes he would spend practically a whole day with Felicia Gaskell, and then would promptly turn his attention to Cissie in the evening.

Other times, he would turn his charm on Agatha, who would promptly stop her battle with Felicia for Mr. Chalmer’s affections and bask in the glory of her sister’s envy.

But as the day of the ball drew nearer, the Marquess spent more and more time out of doors, hunting and shooting, not returning home until dusk.

Amaryllis began imperceptibly to thaw toward Lord Donnelly. He was unfailingly good-humored. His very pursuit of her—although Amaryllis was still sure he was being paid for his services—was balm to her injured soul.

His proposal of marriage, nonetheless, came as a surprise.

The Marquess and the other men of the house party, with the exception of Lord Donnelly, had gone out shooting. It was the day before the ball. Amaryllis, now that she had no longer any sewing to do for the Warburton sisters, was quietly engaged in refurbishing her own ballgown. It was possible to mend the loose stitches in the silver thread embroidery of the gauze overdress. But the white had turned sadly yellow. Perhaps it might be possible to dye it. The other females of the house party were in their rooms, and so Amaryllis was alone when Lord Donnelly found her.

“Faith, I am in luck,” he said, coming to sit beside her. Outside, the day was dark with great, ragged clouds flying across the sky. An apple-wood fire crackled cheerfully on the hearth, and a bowl of potpourri sent all the faint, warm smells of summer past drifting about the room.

“I’ve been anxious to have a word with you in private, Miss Duvane . . . or may I call you Amaryllis?”

“No, you may not,” replied Amaryllis calmly. “It would occasion comment.”

“Not if we were engaged to be married, it wouldn’t.”

Amaryllis let her sewing lie on her lap and turned her clear gaze on him. She was feeling better than she had felt since her return from her adventures. She had schooled herself to believe that the Marquess cared nothing for her, and with that hope gone, she was once more able to face the world with a certain serenity. The fact that Lord Donnelly had gone down on one knee in front of her filled her with a strong desire to giggle.

“Is this a proposal?” she asked.

Lord Donnelly put his hand on his heart. “It would make me the happiest of men if you would accept my hand in marriage.”

“And a trifle richer?” said Amaryllis, smiling down at him.

“I do not know what you mean. Ah, yes, I would certainly consider myself rich if you would become my bride.”

“That is not what I meant, Lord Donnelly, and well you know it. I am persuaded that Lady Warburton has promised you a certain amount of money to pay court to me.”

Lord Donnelly blinked. He kept a smile pinned on his face while his brain worked furiously. She could not possibly have guessed anything. She must have overheard something.

He rose to his feet, pulled his chair close to her, sat down, and smiled at her ruefully.

“Well, I may as well admit the truth,” he said. “The Warburtons did suggest they might express their generosity suitably if I kept your attention to my fair self. Now, what is a gentleman who would take money for such a thing doing proposing marriage? In truth, Miss Duvane, I have always lived on my wits, and it seemed easy money, and a pleasure into the bargain. But I did not expect my feelings to become seriously involved, but that they did. Perhaps a man such as I has no right to be offering such a poor marriage portion to a gently bred lady such as yourself. But love does not heed these matters. My heart is yours to do with as you will.”

This last was said with such sincerity that Amaryllis was almost tempted to believe him, and Lord Donnelly was almost tempted to believe his words himself.

Amaryllis remained silent, looking at her hands lying among the piles of silver gauze on her lap.

“I think we should forget all about your proposal,” said Amaryllis at last.

“I assume you have to engage my affections and attention until Lord Merechester leaves?”

Lord Donnelly nodded.

“In that case, we will continue to play your game. We can at least be friends. I . . . I am very much in need of a friend.”

She looked almost pleadingly at Lord Donnelly, and for a moment his not very active conscience gave him a sudden jolt. He wondered fleetingly what it would be like to be married to Amaryllis, to lead a straight and honest life. They could manage on the little income from his estates. By George! They could pay a bit more attention to his lands. But the thought of all the hard work and discomfort this would entail sent all the rosy dreams of respectability flying from Lord Donnelly’s brain.

“Of course we are friends,” he said, taking Amaryllis’s hands in a fervent clasp. She gently disengaged herself, wondering why it was that for a few moments he had seemed almost endearing, almost someone she could learn to love, and why he should so quickly revert to his usual air of frivolous cunning.

But Lord Donnelly was not the only one who could change. At that moment Amaryllis heard the sounds of the gentlemen returning from their day of shooting and turned a bewitching smile on Lord Donnelly.

“Now why do you not care for blood sports, my lord?” she asked brightly.

“Well, I do and I don’t,” rejoined Lord Donnelly, fighting down a sudden recurrence of that wish for respectability which her smile had engendered. “It brings to mind a tale of going out one winter’s day. . . .

His voice went on, and Amaryllis smiled and pretended to listen. She was carefully practicing the role which she knew she must play until the Marquess left.

When the company assembled that evening for dinner, even Lady Evans was persuaded that Miss Duvane was much taken by Lord Donnelly. Cissie and Agatha had been warned not to “tease” Amaryllis until Lord Merechester’s departure, and both watched sourly as a new and beautiful Amaryllis flirted quite disgracefully with that useless Irish peer.

Mr. Chalmers worried about his friend the Marquess, who, he felt sure, was about to contract some awful mésalliance with one of the Warburton girls, and all because he was still in love with Amaryllis Duvane, although it would take a friend such as himself to realize the fact. Certainly to the company in general, even to the sharp-eyed Lady Evans, the Marquess seemed completely at ease. First Felicia was the glad receiver of his attentions, then Cissie, and then Agatha.

Felicia was beginning to become quite cross with him, for no sooner had she succeeded in charming Mr. Chalmers than the Marquess would be at her elbow to distract her and to raise her hopes again.

“Was he always such a tewwible flirt?” she asked Amaryllis crossly.

“I cannot remember,” said Amaryllis. She looked across the drawing room to where the Marquess was sitting beside Cissie.

At that moment, he looked at her, and she felt trapped by the steady blue gaze. Her color rose, and she dropped her eyes.

“Well, there you are!” said Felicia crossly. “Now he is even flirting with you . . . of all people.”

“Why me of all people?”

“You haven’t even got a dowry,” said Felicia, fanning herself so vigorously that the candle flames on a branch of candles on a table at her elbow streamed sideways. “Of course, you look very well, but that is a disadvantage in your position.” Felicia was not troubling to lisp, since no gentlemen were in earshot. Her pretty face had a hard, rather mean look.

“If you were to marry Donnelly, then everyone would heave a sigh of relief. Nobody wants him and nobody wants you, if you take my meaning.”

“The only thing I understand,” said Amaryllis equably, “is that you have become a spiteful cat, and you already have little pouting lines about your mouth.”

Mr. Chalmers wandered over, and Felicia quickly said, “So dear Amaryllis, you must realize I am ever concerned for your welfare. Having such charges as Cissie and Agatha must be very taxing. Why, Mr. Chalmers! You must not interrupt our female confidences.”

“Then I shall take myself off.”

“Naughty man! I shall walk with you a little, just to tease you.” Felicia arose, shaking out her skirts. “You must not ask for every dance at the ball, Mr. Chalmers.”

“Good lady, you malign me,” he laughed. “I was under the impression I had not even asked for one!”

Something unlovely flickered in the depths of Felicia’s eyes and then was quickly gone.

“Let us sing for the company.” Amaryllis found Lord Donnelly beside her. She hesitated a little. Playing the piano while others danced was a welcome escape from care. Performing with a gentleman for the entertainment of the company was something else. Playing the piano meant sitting with her back to the room, absorbed in the music. Singing meant facing them all—meant facing the Marquess. But then it would be a way of showing him she didn’t care about his flirtations.

“Pray silence!” cried Lord Donnelly. “Miss Duvane and I will sing for you.”

Amaryllis flushed as all eyes were turned upon them. Then she realized one of them would have to play the accompaniment, and she sat down on the piano stool, glad to escape from all those stares.

But Lady Evans came up and volunteered to play, and so that was that.

They began to sing some familiar ballads, Amaryllis’s voice faltering at first, then growing stronger. She saw the Marquess lean forward and murmur something in Cissie’s ear, and Cissie laughed and blushed. Defiantly, Amaryllis turned and smiled up at Lord Donnelly. He smiled back and took her hands in a strong clasp. Amaryllis deliberately allowed herself to become lost in the music. She pretended she was singing love songs with the Marquess. Her color was heightened, her voice throbbed with emotion. Lord Donnelly had too much of the actor in him to let such a splendid opportunity of showing off go by. His voice blended with that of Amaryllis, and he sang his heart out.

When they finished, there was a long silence and then a loud burst of applause. Even Cissie and Agatha applauded warmly. Only the Marquess seemed displeased, and his very displeasure made the Warburtons even warmer in their praise.

“I really don’t think we have anything to worry about, Warburton,” said Lady Warburton complacently. “Donnelly is behaving beautifully.”

“He may even take her off our hands,” whispered Lord Warburton.

Lady Warburton frowned. Amaryllis had proved very useful. She did not want to lose her. But then, Donnelly, she was sure, was only earning his keep. Who could look at Amaryllis when faced with the fair beauty of Cissie and Agatha?

Amaryllis was glad to retreat to a chair in the corner of the room. Lady Evans joined her and talked pleasantly and easily of this and that. She asked Amaryllis for an account of her adventures, and Amaryllis briefly outlined the hardships of trying to get back to Patterns.

“Your troubles are over, nonetheless,” said Lady Evans with an arch look. “I think Lord Donnelly’s intentions are become serious.”

“Perhaps,” said Amaryllis. She looked at Lady Evans’s kind face and had a sudden longing to confide all her fears and insecurities and lost love.

But she dismissed the thought almost as soon as it was formed. How sad it would sound! A woman of her mature years pining after a handsome Marquess who, quite obviously, did not care a rap for her.

Unaware of her sad scrutiny, Lord Merechester laughed and chatted with his female admirers. He was surrounded by Felicia, Cissie, and Agatha, Felicia having abandoned Mr. Chalmers. He was flirting expertly with first one and then the other. Candlelight shone in the burnished gold of his hair. His lazy, caressing blue gaze lingered on each female face in his small court as if privately assuring each one that she was the one he really wanted.

And then he glanced briefly at Amaryllis, a quick, hard, searching glance.

Amaryllis felt a lump rising in her throat. Lord Donnelly was approaching. She felt she could not bear any more of his Irish gallantry. She mumbled an apology to Lady Evans and quickly left the room.

She stood in the great shadowy hall and heaved a sigh of relief.

Behind her came Lady Warburton’s voice, sharp and shrill, sounding through the thick panels of the door. “I trust Amaryllis has not retired so early.”

If I go to my room, thought Amaryllis, she will no doubt send for me.

She ran lightly up the stairs and turned off on the first landing to the left and pushed open the door of the Yellow Room.

The Yellow Room was hardly ever used by the Warburton family, although it had obviously been a favorite sitting room of the previous owners of Patterns.

All the oldest and best-loved pieces of furniture had found their way here, from the mossgreen velvet chairs from the Elizabethan period to the battered oak armchair which had felt the weight of Charles I, and had a small engraved plaque on one of its arms to say so.

The William and Mary oval gate-legged table held a pretty selection of Chinese famille-rose pink plates, and on top of the Dutch tallboy stood a huge stoneware jar of T’zu Chou ware. The faded yellow wallpaper dated from the chinoiserie vogue of the previous century.

Amaryllis lit two large oil lamps and sat down.

To her annoyance the door opened and James, the second footman, walked into the room.

“Yes, James?” demanded Amaryllis, looking at the footman with dislike.

“I was wondering whether miss would care for the fire to be lit,” said James with an ingratiating smile.

He must watch all my movements, thought Amaryllis. Aloud she said, “Yes, please light the fire. The room is cold.”

James bent to his task. “Does my lady know you are here?” he asked over his shoulder.

Amaryllis pretended not to hear, and after repeating his question and getting no reply, James slouched off.

He slid silently down the stairs, wondering whether to trouble to report Amaryllis’s whereabouts to Lady Warburton. Miss Duvane had been in favor of late, and he had correspondingly found himself out of favor. There was gossip in the kitchens, of course, about how Lady Warburton hoped to catch the Marquess of Merechester for one of her daughters, and how she hoped Amaryllis Duvane would not stand in the way of such a plot. But there was talk also of how interested in Miss Duvane Lord Donnelly had become. James’s musings were interrupted by the Marquess of Merechester, who had come quietly into the hall from the drawing room.

“Where is Miss Duvane?” he demanded. “Has she retired for the night?”

“No, my lord,” said James with a servile smirk. “Miss Duvane is in the Yellow Room.” James felt he was getting back at Lady Warburton by supplying this information.

The Marquess seemed to stand lost in thought for a very long time.

“Where is the Yellow Room?” he asked at last.

“I will take you there, my lord.”

The Marquess looked sharply at James, not liking the tinge of malice in the man’s voice.

“Simply tell me where to go,” he said abruptly. “I will find my way.”

James gave him instructions and then watched eagerly as the Marquess’s elegantly tailored back disappeared into the shadows of the first landing.

Amaryllis sat in the golden glow of the oil lamps in the Yellow Room lost in fantasies. The door would open and the Marquess would be standing there, smiling at her. He would say he loved her. He would take her in his arms. They would walk away from the Warburtons and never, ever would she have to see them again.

When he opened the door and walked in, for one brief, glorious second it was as if her dream had come to life. But then she noticed the hardness of his eyes and the firm line of his mouth.

He stood by the fireplace, one arm leaning along the mantelpiece, and gazed down into the flames of the small fire.

Firelight played on his cheekbones, on the heavy droop of his lids, and stern lines at the corner of his mouth.

A log fell forward in the fire, and an ormolu clock ticked busily away on a table in the far corner.

“There is certainly something about you, Amaryllis Duvane,” he said slowly. “I cannot remember having behaved like such a coxcomb in my life before.”

“You seemed to be enjoying yourself,” ventured Amaryllis.

“No, I was not. I was performing for your benefit. And much good it did me.”

“Perhaps we have both been behaving out of character,” said Amaryllis. “Poor Mrs. Fletcher at the inn only wanted to gossip to me and pass the time of day, and I simply sat there and glared at her until she took herself off.”

“The fact remains, I have stayed too long,” he sighed, straightening up. He looked at her as she sat by the fire, noticing the beauty of her large eyes shadowed by the shining weight of her auburn hair. It seemed hard now to think he had once not even recognized her.

“You will leave before the ball?” Amaryllis clasped her hands tightly in her lap.

“No,” he said slowly. “Will you dance with me, Amaryllis?”

“I would dance with you gladly, only I shudder to think of Lady Warburton’s wrath.”

“I will protect you from the Warburtons.”

“Now, how on earth can you do that when you will not be here?” smiled Amaryllis, although her voice trembled a little. She did not care whether he was angry with her or not. She wanted to savor this short time in which she had him all to herself. Even now, James might be bending over Lady Warburton, whispering the intelligence that Miss Duvane was closeted with the Marquess of Merechester.

He did not reply to her question but studied her face intently.

“Why do you look at me so?” asked Amaryllis, becoming uncomfortable under his steady blue gaze.

“I am searching for . . .” he began.

But Cissie’s voice sounded faintly from the hall below. “Amaryllis, where are you?”

Amaryllis stiffened. “They will find us,” she whispered.

He looked thoughtfully at the door and then crossed the room and locked it and pocketed the key. “No one will find us until I have finished speaking to you,” he said. “There is something I must ask you. I have not asked you directly since we met again, because my pride feared a rebuff. Now I want your honest answer. Why did you end our engagement?”

She gave a little sigh. “I see no reason to hide the truth from you now,” she said in a low voice. “I am a victim of my own wretched pride. I was sure you had become engaged to me because you thought I would make a suitable bride. You had never talked of love or pretended to love me. When Father died, it meant I no longer had a dowry, and I knew you needed that money badly to restore your estates. I thought if I told you the truth, that I . . . cared for you, you would feel honor-bound to marry me, and so I decided to pretend I was looking for a rich husband. I did not think your feelings would be seriously affected.

“I was young and silly and shattered by the death of my father. I only wanted to do what I thought was right.”

“Amaryllis!” came Cissie’s voice, stronger now.

Both ignored it.

“I turned all our conversations over and over in my mind,” said the Marquess. “I have always prided myself on my perception. But perhaps love is blind. Why do you think, my dear Amaryllis, that I should propose to you a second time and risk a rebuff—one that I most certainly received?”

“I thought—I thought you felt you had compromised me.”

“But I had already made it very plain that I did not consider that to be the case.”

Tears gathered and sparkled on Amaryllis’s long eyelashes. “Then I cannot reply to your question. Perhaps it was because you did not appear to love me.”

“I did not think a lady in your awkward position would expect love as well as a title and money. Will you always demand so much?”

Amaryllis took a deep breath and threw all her pride to the winds. “I think to be married to someone one loves and to know there is no expectation of love in return would be . . . quite dreadful.”

He pulled her to her feet and held her by the shoulders. “Look into my eyes, Amaryllis Duvane, and tell me what you see.”

His eyes were very dark blue, very intense, blazing with emotion.

“Say it,” she whispered.

“Love,” he said, putting his arms about her and holding her gently. “I love you with all my heart. I realized when you left the drawing room this evening, taking all the light with you, that we had both been fools. We had been telling each other we loved each other in so many ways. Will you marry me?”

“Yes, John.”

He gave her a little shake. “Let us leave tomorrow.”

“No. It would be too cruel. Let Cissie and Agatha enjoy their ball. Then we will leave.”

“You must pay forfeit. Now, what have I dont to take the light from your eyes?”

Amaryllis laid her head against his chest. “I am not experienced in the arts of making love.”

“I should hope not,” he laughed, turning her blushing face up to his. “Few people have the luck to be experienced in the arts of love: many are experienced in the arts of lust, but that is quite another thing. Why did you sing so wonderfully with Donnelly tonight?”

“I was singing to you.”

“Kiss me, my minx.”

She shly raised her lips to his, feeling the warmth of his mouth covering her own, feeling his arms tightening about her body, and then she was swept away by a tide of sensations, half pain, half pleasure; half dreading further intimacies, and half begging for them with choked little noises in the back of her throat. Trapped by his moving caressing mouth and clever hands and by her own burning passion, Amaryllis returned kiss for kiss.

Finally he drew back, and Amaryllis, shocked at herself more than at him, frowned. “I do not like the expertise you show in kissing ladies, John,” she said.

“I am not, on the other hand, expert at love,” he said huskily. “For I have loved only you.”

He swung her up in his arms and settled himself in the armchair with her seated on his lap. “To think of all the opportunities we missed on our adventures,” he sighed.

“Your horse, Brutus!” exclaimed Amaryllis, sitting up and pushing a stray curl back behind one ear.

“Safely in the stables, my love, and none the worse for his adventures,” he said, drawing her back against his chest. “I knew he would not let anyone else ride him.”

“I am glad. You know, John, I wish I had been with you to help you in the beginning when you were trying to restore your estates.”

“We are together now. That is all that matters.” He drew a heavy emerald ring from his middle finger and slid it onto the fourth finger of her left hand and then laughed as it slid off again. “Keep it in any case, my sweeting, until I can get you a proper ring. Will you dance every dance with me tomorrow?”

“No. I will behave quietly and properly. I am a coward. When we leave, I want it to be as quietly as possible, without any terrible scenes or rows.”

“So be it. I am a coward myself. But, just for now, you are all mine, and we are wasting valuable time talking when I might be kissing you.”

He traced the line of her mouth with one fingertip, watching the quick rise and fall of her bosom, and the tide of heat beginning to rise in her face.

Then he began to kiss her quite savagely. The old armchair gave a protesting creak as he moved her down onto the hearthrug in front of the fire and covered her soft, pliant body with his own hard, muscular one, sending them both spinning off onto a sea of passion. It was quite some time before Amaryllis began to realize that she was cooking down one side, freezing down the other, and that his lordship felt as if he weighed a ton.

She wrinkled up her nose. “What is that funny smell, John?”

He gave an anguished yelp and twisted about. “My foot was nearly in the fire, my love,” he grinned. “What you smell is scorched leather. This is most unseemly, my dear, for the sad fact is I cannot keep my hands off you. We will go no further until we reach our marraige bed. I have waited so long for you, I can wait a little longer.” He stood up and raised her to her feet, catching her quickly as she stumbled and fell against him.

“What is the matter, dear Amaryllis?”

“My leg has gone to sleep,” giggled Amaryllis. “You are so very heavy.”

“Comfort is what we need,” he said. “Passionate lovemaking in ditches and on hard floors is ridiculous. We are two mature people who are perfectly capable of governing their mad passions. So I will show you how much in control of myself I am by kissing you very chastely . . . thus. Oh, Amaryllis, you seduce my senses. . . .

It was an hour later when Amaryllis made her dizzy way to her room. She was so happy, she was almost frightened. But after the ball, they would leave, together. Nothing could happen now to spoil her happiness. All she had to do was to wait for a very short time and play her part, and then she would be able to bid the Warburton family goodbye.

Chapter Eight

Amaryllis rose early and carried her ballgown, which she found still lying on a chair in the drawing room, down to the kitchens to ask Mrs. Abber, the housekeeper, and Mrs. Palmer, the cook, for their help and advice.

Both women shook their heads over the yellowish silk.

“You should have brought this to me days ago, Miss Duvane,” said Mrs. Abber. “It’s too late to try to dye or whiten the material now.” She turned the silver gauze over thoughtfully. “Now, if this gauze were to be gold, it would make that yellow color of the silk underneath look natural. I think there’s an old dress in one of the attics, a bit outmoded, but it has the prettiest gold overdress you ever did see. I’ll get one of the maids to bring it to you.”

Amaryllis returned to her room. In a short time, a maid came in bearing the dress from the attics. The underdress had a damp stain from the corner of the trunk in which it had been packed, but the gold overdress was beautiful, made of thin gauze with delicate embroidery of gold thread. There was a heavy gold brocade stole to go with it.

She got to work immediately, only stopping to eat a light meal from a tray brought to her room. To her relief, neither Cissie nor Agatha came to find out what she was up to. No doubt they were content to have the Marquess to themselves. Much as Amaryllis longed to see him, she was frightened that her love would show on her face, that Lady Warburton would ban her from attending the ball.

Amaryllis did not finish dressing and preparing herself for the ball until after the rest of the house party were assembled in the drawing room. The other guests were to arrive after dinner.

The Marquess looked happier than his friend Mr. Chalmers could ever remember. Mr. Chalmers kept noticing the way his eyes kept straying to the door.

He himself was wondering whether he should consider courting Felicia. She looked so enchanting in transparent pink muslin that he was able to forget all his previous doubts about her. Cissie and Agatha, too, were in full bloom, their fair ringlets shining gold.

Lady Warburton was wearing a heavy purple velvet gown with red embroidery. There was a red velvet turban on her head which exactly matched the color of her nose. Mr. Chalmers thought her ladyship must have been drinking freely from her green medicine bottle.

The family and house guests were to have a light dinner at six, for supper would be served during the ball.

The door of the drawing room opened and Amaryllis walked in. The Marquess caught his breath, Lord Donnelly gave a gasp, and Mr. Chalmers found himself thinking idiotically, And then a lady walked in.

For Amaryllis immediately made the Warburtons and Felicia look common. As clever Mrs. Abber had guessed, the gold overdress made the yellow silk look as if it were meant to be that color. Amaryllis’s hair was dressed in a riot of curls, threaded with gold ribbon. Her cheeks were pink and her large eyes sparkled. She did not once look in the Marquess’s direction. Lady Warburton fought down her initial displeasure because she judged Amaryllis was sparkling because the silly widgeon had fallen in love with Donnelly.

Since Cissie and Agatha were seated on either side of the Marquess at dinner and since dinner did not last very long, being confined to a mere three courses, no one had any opportunity to sense the strong undercurrent between the Marquess and Miss Amaryllis Duvane.

Even once the ball had begun and some fifty other guests had joined the party, it looked as if the evening was going to be a success from Lady Warburton’s point of view. During the first dance, Cissie was partnered by the Marquess and Agatha by Mr. Chalmers.

Amaryllis was partnered by Lord Donnelly.

The ball might have passed without anyone’s noticing anything at all between Amaryllis and the Marquess. But sheer happiness made her laugh at all Lord Donnelly’s mildest jokes. Her large eyes shone; she danced beautifully and flirted expertly and was soon surrounded by a court of admirers. Lord Donnelly began to feel it might be a good idea if he married her after all.

And the Marquess of Merechester grew jealous. His good humor fled.

Sensing something was in the air, Mr. Chalmer’s eyes roamed from one to the other, causing Felicia to say pettishly, “One would think you were in love with that old maid, Amaryllis.”

“I? Nonsense,” rejoined Mr. Chalmers, privately reflecting that spite did quite awful things to Felicia’s pretty face and that he must have been mad even to consider marrying her.

“Oh, oh,” he said under his breath, for a waltz had just been announced and the Marquess of Merechester was striding purposefully in the direction of Miss Amaryllis Duvane.

“My dance, I think,” he said glaring awfully on Amaryllis’s court of admirers.

“Do you think this is wise, John?” whispered Amaryllis as he led her onto the floor.

“I think it is very wise,” he said, glowering at her. “You are my fiancée, and I am tired of skulking in the corner while you flirt shamelessly with every idiot at this cursed ball.”

Amaryllis opened her mouth to say something angry, but the waltz had begun and he had put a strong arm about her waist, and his touch brought a rush of remembered passion coursing through her veins.

The ballroom disappeared in a blur as he swung her around in his arms.

Lady Warburton stood under the musicians’ gallery and watched, as if turned to stone. She saw the soft light in the Marquess’s eyes as he looked down at Amaryllis, saw him bend his fair head to murmur something, saw Amaryllis blush. The dance ended, and for a moment the Marquess and Amaryllis were lost to view as couples promenaded and chatted before the next dance.

And then Lady Warburton saw Lord Donnelly walk toward a tall curtained embrasure of one of the bays of windows. He raised his hand and lifted the curtain. For one brief moment, Lady Warburton was afforded an excellent view of Amaryllis Duvane being ruthlessly kissed by the Marquess of Merechester before Lord Donnelly flushed and left the curtain drop.

“Well,” came the voice of her husband in her ear, “that is very much that.”

“Get Donnelly,” hissed Lady Warburton, “and bring him to the drawing room.”

For once Lord Donnelly proved to be as angry as the Warburtons. He had been dazzled by Amaryllis, he had almost made up his mind he was in love with the vixen, only to find her panting in Merechester’s arms.

“What are you going to do about it?” snapped Lady Warburton, gripping her fan so hard the sticks snapped.

“It’s not the Middle Ages,” said Lord Donnelly sulkily. “I can’t kill her.”

“I could,” said Lady Warburton viciously. “My poor, poor Cissie. This will break her heart.”

For once, Lord Warburton took over.

“Look here, Donnelly,” he growled. “I’ve sunk a mort o’ money in this ball. It won’t hurt me to pay more. There’s a small fortune for you if you get rid of Amaryllis Duvane. Take her away tomorrow and marry her, ruin her, or lose her for all I care. But it must be made to look as if she’s jilted Merechester again. Do you think he knows her handwriting?”

Lord Donnelly shrugged. “I would guess if he ever did, he’s forgotten. She won’t come willingly. What have you in mind?”

“Go back and continue to flirt with her as if you don’t know there’s anything going on,” he said slowly. “Then tomorrow we’ll waylay the maid with her morning tea and put a good measure of laudanum in it. James will help get her out the back way.

“You, my dear, must write a note to Merechester supposedly from Amaryllis telling him you were only playing with his affections and it’s Donnelly you love. As for you, Donnelly, I’ll pay you half now and you can come back and claim the other half when you have shown us that we need never see Amaryllis Duvane again.”

“Or, on the other hand,” said Lady Warburton smoothly, “if we are to see her again, she is to return in a suitably humble and grateful frame of mind.”

“It’s easily done,” grinned Lord Donnelly. “But what a minx that is! Here’s my poor self almost on the point of doing the honorable thing. There’s nothing to it, provided you keep James quiet, put the landanum in her tea, and make sure that note sounds convincing.”

The three conspirators returned to the ballroom.

Amaryllis and the Marquess, reassured of their love for each other, had laughingly agreed to play their parts until the morning, and Lord Donnelly found Amaryllis more than ready to flirt with him. Cissie had noticed nothing amiss and was proudly led into supper by the Marquess.

At last the ball was over and Amaryllis was free to return to her room and dream. Cissie and Agatha were well pleased with the ball, and Cissie chattered sleepily to her mother as she was being made ready for bed about how enamored of her the Marquess had seemed.

Lady Warburton smiled indulgently and privately vowed to stay awake for what was left of the night to compose a suitable letter to Lord Merechester.

Amaryllis felt she had been asleep only an hour when she was awakened by the jangle of the curtain rings as the curtains were drawn back to reveal a cold, frosty morning.

James, the footman, set a tray beside the bed.

“What are you doing here?” demanded Amaryllis crossly. “Where is Betty?”

Betty was the housemaid who usually brought Amaryllis her morning tea.

“Betty’s got the cold, miss,” said James, “but she prepared your tea herself and hopes you will drink it, because it is a special brew.”

“Very well,” said Amaryllis. “What time is it?”

“Seven o’clock, miss.”

“Seven o’clock!” exclaimed Amaryllis. “Do you not think you could have let me lie a little longer, since I did not go to bed until five?”

“Lady Warburton is anxious to see you as soon as you are dressed, Miss Duvane,” said James, sidling toward the door in that furtive way of his.

“Oh, very well,” said Amaryllis crossly. Then the full beauty of the day flooded in on her. This was the day she would leave the Warburtons forever.

James went out and quietly closed the door.

Amaryllis sat up in bed and sipped the tea, grimacing a little at the taste. Betty must indeed be ill to put so much sugar in it.

Suddenly, she began to feel dizzy and ill. Her limbs felt like lead. Her last thought as she tried to struggle out of bed was that the tea had been poisoned.

After half an hour had passed, Lady Warburton came cautiously into the room. It took her another half hour to get Amaryllis’s limp form into clothes and bonnet. Then she put her head around the door and summoned Lord Donnelly, who was waiting in the passage.

Lord Donnelly had elected to carry Amaryllis down the backstairs himself, not trusting James to do the job properly, and saying since Amaryllis weighed practically nothing, he would not need any help.

He slung her over his shoulder. James was sent on ahead to make sure the stairs were empty.

Lord Donnelly carried her easily down the stairs. He had just got outside the side door with her when Mr. and Mrs. Giles-Denton, who were addicted to early-morning walks, turned a corner of the building. Before they noticed him, Lord Donnelly had placed Amaryllis’s feet on the ground, had clasped her in his arms, and was to all intents and purposes kissing her passionately.

“Dear me,” said Mrs. Giles-Denton, appalled. She and her husband promptly turned about and escaped from this shocking scene as fast as they could.

“Good,” muttered Lord Donnelly. “They’ll tell Merechester. Now he’ll have to believe she went willingly.”

The Marquess of Merechester reread the note signed “Amaryllis Duvane.” It had been a very clever piece of work on the part of Lady Warburton and had been the result of several drafts.

“Dear John,” he read, “By the time you receive this, I shall have left with Lord Donnelly. We are eloping. I am sorry I misled you as to the nature of my Affections. I was sorry for you and did not want to hurt your pride again. But I cannot go on with this Pretense and yet I am too ashamed of myself to stay. Please forgive me. Amaryllis Duvane.”

He rose grimly and went downstairs, the note crushed in his hand. It could not be true. It must be some plot of the Warburtons.

Mr. and Mrs. Giles-Denton were in the hall, taking off their coats. “I do not understand the fast behavior of young ladies these days,” said Mrs. Giles-Denton, catching sight of the Marquess. “Hugging and kissing outside the backstairs for all to see. Disgraceful!”

“Servants must be allowed some sort of life,” said the Marquess, making to move past.

“No servant, Merechester,” said Mr. Giles-Denton, “but people of a quality who ought to know better—that Lord Donnelly and Miss Duvane.”

The Marquess turned quite white.

Lady Warburton swept into the hall, clutching a carefully dampened handkerchief in one hand and a letter in the other.

“This is terrible,” she cried. “Amaryllis has left me a letter to say she has eloped with Donnelly.”

“There was no reason for her to elope,” said Mrs. Giles-Denton. “She is not some silly young girl but a mature woman, well past the age of folly.”

“There was every reason,” said Lord Warburton heavily. He came up to join the group and put a heavy hand on the Marquess’s shoulder as if arresting him. “This is a sad blow. They have taken all my poor wife’s jewelry.”

Lady Warburton looked at her husband in open-mouthed admiration. Before this, she had never credited the man with having any imagination at all.

The Marquess turned on his heel and strode away. Lady Evans and Sir Gareth came down the stairs demanding to know the reason for all the fuss.

Into Amaryllis’s bedroom strode the Marquess. He opened the closet. All her clothes hung on their hangers. He jerked open the drawers of a bureau and frowned down at the neatly ironed and darned underthings. The bed was unmade, and a cup and saucer lay on the floor beside the bed where they had fallen. He slowly picked up the cup and sniffed at the dregs, his face suddenly sharp with anxiety.

He ran lightly down the backstairs and turned off into the kitchens. “Who took up Miss Duvane’s tea this morning?” he asked the cook, Mrs. Palmer.

A housemaid bobbed a curtsy and said that James, the footman, had insisted on taking it up, and since she had so much work with the extra house guests, she had let him do it.

“Get James!” ordered the Marquess, no longer looking handsome and elegant but large and threatening. Servants scurried this way and that, but all reported failure. James was nowhere to be found.

The Marquess made his way back to the hall, where everyone was now assembled.

Felicia threw herself at him, screaming, “Wasn’t it howwible of Amaryllis?” Cissie and Agatha also clutched at him, howling out the iniquities of Amaryllis Duvane.

The Marquess shook them off.

“I have reason to believe that Miss Duvane was drugged and taken forcibly from this house.”

A babble of voices greeted this. “Nonsense!” said Lady Warburton, louder than the rest.

The Marquess threw her a look of contempt and shouldered past them all to the door.

“Where are you going?” shrieked Felicia and Cissie in chorus.

“I am going to find my fiancée,” he said quietly, “and no matter what has happened to her, I am going to marry her. I will see you in court, Warburton.”

He marched out and slammed the door on the shrieks and exclamations.

Joseph Chalmers came running after him. “Is there anything I can do, John?” he asked.

“Yes,” said the Marquess, “find that footman, James, and thrash the life out of him until he tells the truth. He had a hand in this plot.”

When his hunter was saddled up, he set off down the drive of Patterns at full gallop.

He only slowed his pace when he was well out on the road. The Warburton coachman had told him that Lady Warburton’s light traveling carriage was missing, although no one had seen it leave. He would not find them, thought the Marquess, if he continued to ride madly off in what might well prove to be the wrong direction.

By dint of asking and questioning everyone he came across, he found a light traveling carriage had been seen heading for the London road.

A farmer told him if he cut across the fields to the west, he could take miles off the journey. Hoping the good-natured farmer had not misled him, the Marquess set off across the fields, his large hunter, Brutus, taking the fences and walls as if following hounds.

At the first toll on the London road, he got news of them. A gentleman driving a traveling carriage with closed curtains had passed an hour before.

The Marquess thanked the tollkeeper and rode grimly on. He would have continued headlong on the London road had not prudence caused him to slow and ask a farm laborer sitting on a wall by the side of the road for news of the carriage.

After an agonizingly long time, the laborer creaked into speech and gave the information that a traveling carriage had swung off from the London road at the crossroads and had headed toward the town of Bannington.

Tossing him a coin, the Marquess set off again. He had ridden many miles, and his horse was tired. It was late afternoon, and the winter’s day was growing dark. But if his poor Brutus was flagging, then it meant that Donnelly’s horses would be tiring as well, and he would no doubt be searching for an out-of-the-way posting house to change his team.

A noisy yellow sunset was lighting up the underside of great purple clouds, heralding a stormy night ahead. Twilight was already playing tricks with the Marquess’s tired eyes. At times he would spur on his horse to greater efforts, sure that he saw a carriage ahead, only to find it was a large rock or an overturned cart.

Gradually houses began to appear on either side of the road, rushlight and candlelight flickering in the gathering dusk. With a great sigh, a cold wind rushed across the barren winter fields, sending brown and yellow leaves spiraling down on the road in front of him.

And then all at once, around a bend in the narrow road, stood a posting house called the Prince of Wales.

It was a small hostelry, but looked well-kept and prosperous with its red brick walls and gleaming white shutters.

An ostler came running up.

“Has a traveling carriage stopped here recently?” asked the Marquess. “A carriage driven by a gentleman with a young lady inside?”

“Yes, sir,” said the ostler. “The lady was mortal sick. The gentleman was all for changing the horses and going ahead, but Mr. Chisholm, that’s landlord, that is, he said it would be a crime to force the lady to go on without rest.”

“Take my horse to the stables,” said the Marquess, dismounting, “and see that he is rubbed down and fed and watered.”

The ostler led the tired horse away to the stables, and the Marquess strode into the inn, his hunting crop held in his hand.

Mr. Chisholm, the landlord, recognizing a member of the Quality, bowed low and began a lengthy catalogue of the amenities and menu of his establishment.

The Marquess cut the catalogue short by holding up his hand for silence.

“A lady has been brought to this inn against her will,” he snapped. “Where is she?”

The landlord stood with his mouth open and then vouchsafed that a lady was in the best bedroom upstairs and the gentleman who had brought her was in the tap.

The Marquess walked into the tap with the landlord at his heels.

Lord Donnelly was lounging by an open window, tankard in hand, looking dreamily out at the inn garden. He had decided that when Amaryllis was fully recovered, he would tell her the truth. That way she could not return to Patterns. The idea of having an attractive female companion with him on his future adventures appealed to him strongly. Of course, she would be angry and furious, but what else could she do? The idea that Amaryllis might take the lot of them to court never crossed his mind. Women were the weaker sex and would no more dream of taking a matter to law than they would of running for Parliament.

It was pleasant in the inn, listening to the soft burr of the local people’s voices and the crackling of the fire. The air was growing chill, and he was just debating whether to close the window when his Celtic mind sensed an air of menace directly behind him.

Lord Donnelly twisted his head and saw the large bulk of the Marquess of Merechester looming in the doorway of the tap.

He gave him one startled look and then dived headfirst through the window, tumbling over on the ground like an acrobat and plunging into the darkness of a small wood beside the inn.

The Marquess leaped through the window after him, but as he was broader in the chest than Lord Donnelly and his shoulders became stuck in the window frame in the process, valuable time was lost.

The Marquess returned shortly, knowing it would be almost impossible to find Donnelly in the dark. He asked to be shown to Amaryllis’s room while the landlord sent for the parish constable and organized a search party.

The landlord’s wife, Mrs. Chisholm, whispered to him as she led him up the narrow inn stairs, “I looked in on the lady, my lord, a little while ago and she was sleeping like a lamb.”

“If she is still asleep, I won’t disturb her,” said the Marquess, “but I must assure myself that all is well with her before I join the search for that villain.” The Marquess had already given the landlord and his wife a brief outline of the plot against Amaryllis.

He went into the low-ceilinged bedroom. Mrs. Chisholm left, closing the door behind her.

Amaryllis lay asleep on top of the bed. The Marquess pulled up a chair to the head of the bed and studied her sleeping face. There was a faint pink in her cheeks, and she seemed to have suffered no ill effects from whatever drug had been given her.

But rage against Donnelly consumed him. He was about to leave and join the search party when Amaryllis suddenly opened her eyes. She looked for a long moment at the Marquess in a dazed kind of way, and then memory came flooding back.

“John!” she cried, struggling to sit up against the pillows.

He sat on the edge of the bed and cradled her in his arms.

“I feel dizzy,” said Amaryllis faintly, putting a hand to her head. “Oh, there was something in the tea. Then Lord Donnelly was bending over me in some carriage. I tried to stay awake. I tried to scream but no sound came out. He. . . he laughed and said I might as well get accustomed to the sight of him, because he was taking me away. Then I think I must have fainted.”

“It is all right now,” murmured the Marquess. “Your morning tea was drugged. The Warburtons are behind this. Donnelly escaped. You must let me go, my love, for I mean to thrash that scoundrel.”

Amaryllis clutched at him. “Don’t stay away too long,” she begged. “What if he should return while you are absent?”

“I will post a man outside your door, my sweeting.” He kissed her mouth very gently.

Amaryllis watched him go. Fear kept her awake for some time after he had left, but then the lingering effects of the drug began to affect her and she plunged once more into a deep sleep.

The Marquess and the search party scoured the woods and the surrounding roads and fields throughout the night, but could find no trace of Lord Donnelly.

Unable to sleep, the Marquess, in company with the local magistrate and two of the parish constables, traveled to Patterns.

The house guests had left. There were only the Warburtons to deal with. They were very convincing in their shock and amazement that they could be accused of such gothic behavior as arranging for the drugging of Amaryllis Duvane and her subsequent abduction by Lord Donnelly. Lady Warburton was magnificent. Tears trembling on her lashes, she produced her empty jewel box, explaining that she had had every reason to call the authorities herself but had not done so out of fondness and concern for Amaryllis.

The cup which had held Amaryllis’s morning tea had been washed clean. James, the second footman, was absent, but it was explained he had been given his annual leave to go and visit his family.

It was unfortunate for the Marquess that while the Warburtons were being questioned, Mr. and Mrs. Giles-Denton should take that moment to call, since they lived nearby, to find out if there was any news of the missing culprits.

Out came the whole story of the passionately embracing couple. But was it not the case, asked the Marquess desperately, of Lord Donnelly holding an unconscious female in his arms and appearing to kiss her? Was not Miss Duvane wearing a bonnet, and did not that bonnet shield most of her face?

But Mrs. Giles-Denton held strong views on the immorality of the new generation and insisted that Miss Duvane had been all too wide awake at the time.

And so the Marquess found at last that the authorities believed Amaryllis Duvane to be a thief who had had a lucky escape from justice. In soothing voices they advised the Marquess that it would be better to forget the whole thing.

In vain did the Marquess plead Amaryllis’s innocence.

He returned at last to the inn, where Amaryllis was now dressed and waiting in an upstairs parlor. She listened in dismay as he described what had happened at Patterns.

“And the worst of it is,” he ended, “Donnelly has escaped scot-free.”

“Bad people never escape, John,” said Amaryllis. “They punish themselves in the end.”

“Nonsense,” he said, made rude and cross by frustration and fatigue. “The Warburtons will go on with their stupid bullying ways, and, having got away with this, next time they will do something worse. And the same might be said in Donnelly’s case.”

“But we have each other,” pleaded Amaryllis. “No one can come between us now.”

He gave a reluctant smile and folded her tightly in his arms. “I am ungrateful, my sweeting,” he said. “Let Donnelly and Warburton go to the devil. We will be married by special license. I am taking you to my aunt.

“My servants are below with my carriage. They also collected your belongings, and, I may add, poor Joseph Chalmers, who had just removed to the inn at Caddam.”

Amaryllis looked up at him anxiously. “And you will not continue to thirst for revenge? There does not seem to be much we can do now.”

“No, of course not,” he smiled. But there was certain hardness behind his blue eyes which worried Amaryllis.

Four weeks had passed since Amaryllis Duvane had been dragged from Patterns.

The Warburtons were resident in Bath. Lord Warburton was suffering from gout and was bad-temperedly drinking sulphurous water daily in the Pump Room in the hopes of a cure.

The Warburtons had rented an elegant residence in the Royal Crescent, Lord Warburton having been convinced that the clean air high above the city might do something as well as its waters to alleviate his gout.

Cissie and Agatha were in seventh heaven. Since they were as yet unknown to many of the gentlemen, they were much admired by many for their blond beauty. Their pushing and common manners which had given London society such a disgust of them had not been too much in evidence as yet.

Lady Warburton had discovered a new range of patent medicines in the apothecaries’ shops and was happily inflicting as much damage on her brain and liver as she could.

So it could be said that the Warburtons were a tolerably happy family, and Amaryllis Duvane was seemingly wrong in her forecast that the Warburtons’ sins would find them out.

Since no mention had appeared in the press of any marriage between Amaryllis Duvane and the Marquess of Merechester, Cissie and Agatha often speculated with malicious pleasure that the Marquess had quickly grown tired of Amaryllis and that she was leading a miserable and ruined existence somewhere or another.

The fact was that Amaryllis and her Marquess were already married. The Marquess had arranged that they would be married again after their honeymoon with all due pomp and circumstance in St. George’s, Hanover Square. He planned to insert a notice to that effect as soon as their honeymoon was over.

And then one bright, wintry morning while the Warburton family were seated in their drawing room in Royal Crescent, looking out of the city and planning their day’s amusement, Lord Donnelly was announced.

With one sharp command, Lady Warburton sent Cissie and Agatha scurrying from the room.

Both Lord and Lady Warburton sat very still and upright in their chairs as Lord Donnelly sauntered in.

“I’ve come for the rest of my money,” he grinned.

“You’ll get not a penny out of me,” growled Lady Warburton, reaching for the bell. “You were told to keep Amaryllis Duvane away from Merechester, but you did not take her far enough, and she fell into Merechester’s arms.”

“Ah, but amn’t I here to tell you that’s not the case,” said Lord Donnelly, sitting down in the most comfortable chair in the room and stretching out his legs. “You see, I told his lordship that I had . . . er . . . enjoyed Miss Duvane’s favors, and didn’t he just cast her off and not believe a word the poor girl said. He’s a hard man and as stiff as a poker.

“Well, after a bit he writes me a letter and says he is mortal sorry he lost his chance with Miss Cissie, who was everything Miss Duvane was not, and didn’t I write back and tell him I was sure a generous family like yourselves would be ready to forgive and forget.” He cocked his head on one side and surveyed the startled Warburtons. “I told him, of course, that you’d found your jewels and that the theft was all a hum.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” said Lord Warburton testily. “But you’d better show me that letter from Merechester.”

“I have it right here,” said Lord Donnelly, fishing in a capacious pocket and hoping Lady Warburton would not consider he was as much a forger of letters as she was herself.

It was as well for Lord Donnelly that neither of the Warburtons could spell properly, otherwise they might have been startled at the Marquess of Merechester’s idea of English.

Lord Warburton put down the letter and pursed his lips. “Well, it seems we have misjudged your skill, Donnelly,” he said, “but the affair is over and done with. You have been paid enough.”

Lord Donnelly’s face grew hard and crafty. “Is that the truth?” he said softly. “I was always a great one for the truth, and so, truth to tell, my conscience has been troubling me badly. I think I’ll just stroll down and talk to the watch. As you say, it’s over and done with, and so perhaps it would be only fair if the world knew the truth about how sadly poor Miss Duvane has been tricked.”

About half an hour later, Lord Donnelly left the Warburtons’ house with a sizable sum of money in his pocket. He felt on top of the world and was quite amazed at his own cleverness. As the days had passed, and no announcement of any marriage between the Marquess and Amaryllis had appeared, he had decided to gamble on the Warburtons’ being as ignorant as he was himself as to what had become of Amaryllis.

Whistling a tune, he left the Royal Crescent and strolled down Brock Street, turned into Gay Street, and into the nearest tavern.

After a couple of bottles of burgundy to celebrate his newfound wealth, he felt no end of a buck, and decided to make his way to the Parade Gardens down by the river and ogle all the pretty girls.

The sun sparkled on the water and on the fashionable crowd strolling in the gardens.

He ambled along the Grand Parade, tilting his hat at a jaunty angle and looking out through the arches at the tumbling, glittering weir below Pulteney Bridge.

In truth, he was feeling a trifle fuddled with the wine he had drunk, and so his first idea when he saw the Marquess of Merechester and Amaryllis Duvane coming toward him was that his eyes were playing him tricks.

The Marquess had decided to bring Amaryllis to Bath because he was persuaded she needed building up after her ordeal. Amaryllis was touched by this, feeling that were he beside her, it didn’t matter where in the world she went. The only cloud to mar her happiness was the fact that she feared the Marquess still thirsted for revenge. At times, he would be awkward and abrupt in his manner. He would always apologize charmingly. He was a passionate and experienced lover, and yet, at times, it seemed as if his mind was elsewhere.

Amaryllis was as horrified at the sight of Lord Donnelly as Lord Donnelly was horrified at the sight of her and her husband.

Like Lord Donnelly, Amaryllis thought she was imagining things and looked up into her husband’s face for reassurance. What she saw there was enough to convince her that the man standing staring at them was indeed Lord Donnelly. For the Marquess was glaring at him with a sort of savage glee.

Lord Donnelly began to back away, a nervous smile on his face.

The Marquess plunged forward.

Lord Donnelly gave a yelp like a dog hit by a carriage wheel and vaulted over the wall and down into the shallow water above the weir. He began to wade across.

The Marquess pulled off his boots.

“No!” screamed Amaryllis, clutching his arm. “Let him go!”

The Marquess thrust her roughly aside as if unaware who she was. He vaulted lightly over the wall and down into the water. Lord Donnelly tried to speed his steps, but the rocks under his feet were slippery, and the tug of the water as it rushed to the weir made him overbalance. He lunged to his feet for the second time. His hair was seized in a strong grasp, and the Marquess of Merechester said in a nasty sort of silky voice. “Now, Donnelly.”

Lord Donnelly wrenched his slippery, wet hair out of the Marquess’s grasp and with a reluctant grin put up his fists. Crowds gathered along either side of the river. Voices cried, “A mill! A mill!” One enterprising buck promptly opened a betting book. Odds were in favor of Donnelly, who was taking up a professional boxing stance, despite the fact that he was waist-deep in water.

He ducked and feinted with his fists. “Come along, Merechester,” he sneered. “Go to it.”

The Marquess studied him for a few moments without moving. Then his fist shot out and caught Lord Donnelly full on the point of the chin. It was a magnificent blow with all the power of weeks of fury and frustration behind it.

Lord Donnelly, staggered, fell over the weir and sank like a stone. With an exclamation of disgust, the Marquess plunged after him.

The crowd on the banks on either side watched breathlessly. But there was no sign of Lord Donnelly surfacing. The Marquess swam and dived and swam and dived in the icy water, but of Lord Donnelly there was no trace. Men were already putting out in boats to help in the search. The search continued all day and through half of the night. After bathing and changing, the Marquess returned with Amaryllis to the banks of the river and watched as men with boats and grappling hooks searched from bank to bank, their search carrying them farther and farther down the stream.

“Well, that’s that,” said the Marquess at last. “Now to deal with all the questions. I am afraid he must be dead, but I cannot feel in the slightest bit sorry, although I only meant to teach him a lesson.”

During the subsequent investigations, the whole scandal of the Warburtons came out. Again the Warburtons nearly got away with it, but this time, James, the footman, frightened out of his wits by the way things were going, feared his own arrest and went to the authorities and told them the whole plot. Bath was thrilled at the scandal. Lady Warburton, who cared more for appearances than anything in the world, was held up to shame and ridicule. Weary of the publicity, the Marquess decided not to press charges.

Amaryllis and her husband left Bath as quickly as they could to take up their new married life together. A shadow seemed to have left their marriage.

“Don’t you ever feel guilty,” whispered Amaryllis as she lay in his arms one night, “about Lord Donnelly?”

“No, my love,” he said cheerfully. “Not in the slightest. As far as we know he had not yet committed murder, but I am persuaded, with that rogue, it would only have been a matter of time.”

He then kissed her so passionately that she began to tremble in his arms. The ghost of Lord Donnelly whirled away in the darkness and returned to plague them no more.

The Laird of Craigmore cast a fond eye on his two pretty daughters. He did not know yet which one of them this fine London lord preferred, but he was sure it would only be a matter of time before there was an engagement in the family. It was an amazing piece of luck that such a handsome, well-bred gentleman had lost his way and had come to stay at Ardmore Castle before returning south.

They were all seated in the tower room of the castle while the Laird planned a day’s fishing on the loch to entertain his guest.

“The loch is very deep,” said the laird anxiously. “I hope you are able to swim. We had a young guest here who fell from one of the boats during a squall and was drowned before we could get to him. Can you swim?”

“Like a fish,” grinned Lord Donnelly, raising his glass of fine burgundy and stretching his feet toward the fire.

“Like a damned fish.”

About the Author

M.C. Beaton is the pen name of bestselling novelist Marion Chesney. She is a prolific writer of historical romances and small village mysteries. Born in Scotland, the author began her writing career as a fiction buyer for a Glasgow bookstore and has worked as a theater critic, newspaper reporter, and editor.

The author has written under various names, most notably as M.C. Beaton for her Hamish Macbeth and Agatha Raisin series. She also has written under the names Sarah Chester, Helen Crampton, Ann Fairfax, Marion Gibbons, Jennie Tremaine, and Charlotte Ward.

The author lived in the United States, but now splits her time between the Cotswolds, England and Paris, France.

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Copyright Page

Dedication Page

CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

About the Author