Surrender to the Marquess

‘I couldn’t let her down, I thought,’ Lucian said grimly. ‘She was without her parents just as she was becoming a woman—I had to make things perfect for her. And I failed.’

‘Perfection is impossible. And besides, what about you? You were bereaved, too, you must have been swamped with responsibilities and decisions.’

‘It was my duty to cope, that I did know. I am a man and head of the family. My sister’s future, our honour, were in my hands.’

‘Honour and duty,’ Sara murmured. ‘And what about happiness?’

‘One thing my father taught me was that persons in our station in life should not expect personal happiness, although we might hope for it.’

‘I am so sorry,’ she blurted out. ‘Oh, don’t poker up at me!’

‘I do not need your pity,’ Lucian said, his voice frigid.

‘It was sympathy, you prickly man,’ she snapped back. Mrs Prewitt, the mayor’s wife, was watching them with raised eyebrows and Sara fixed a smile on her lips. ‘And it is rapidly evaporating,’ she added in honeyed tones. ‘Here comes Marguerite.’ Which was a good thing because she wanted to take him by those perfectly-cut lapels and shake him.

*

Fourteen shillings plus two pounds plus three pence four farthings plus…

Sara jammed her pen back into the inkwell and glared at the page in front of her. The previous week’s takings should be perfectly easy to total and reviewing sales and what needed re-ordering was simply a matter of routine. But last night’s concert kept intruding between her and the page and Sara found she was still brooding on Marguerite’s mysteriously good spirits and Lucian’s attitude. That, of course, was now no mystery at all.

Raised by a father with a rigid attitude to duty and then pitchforked into high position as a young man, where all he had to cling to was the imperative to live up to that upbringing, it was no wonder he had made a mull of understanding his sister. But it did not explain why such an intelligent man appeared incapable of learning from his mistakes.

The sound of the shop door bell and raised voices brought her to her feet, but a peep around the curtain showed that it was only Miss Denver, a nervous and voluble spinster who was being dealt with by Dot.

‘There, there, you sit down and I’ll fetch you a nice cup of tea, Miss Denver. Yes, it must have been a shock, but these poor fellows can’t help the way they look. Wounded in the war, I’ve no doubt…’

Miss Denver was still wittering on when Sara closed the account book and came out to the shop. ‘And in the circulating library of all places! I only went in to look at the new patterns for tatting in Ackermann’s Repository—and I found such a pretty one—and I said to that nice Mr Makepeace, you shouldn’t let such a…a Janus in to frighten decent ladies.’

Sara had a momentary fantasy of two-faced Greek gods inhabiting the circulating library. Lucian was the only god-like being around and he definitely only had one face, which was quite enough. She pulled herself together and went to distract Miss Denver before any of the other customers became totally exasperated with her. Last week she had been rabbiting on about the dangerous presence of gypsies on the heath—‘We’ll all be murdered in our beds…’—and had succumbed to strong hysterics when Dot had remarked that she welcomed the opportunity to buy a new supply of clothes’ pegs.

‘I have some charming new shades of cotton in. They might be just the thing for that pattern you found. You have such good taste, Miss Denver, you must tell me what you think of the colours…’

*

By the time the twittering had finally subsided, the accounts were straight and the orders written, Sara felt in need of some company that did not make demands, require direction, brood with dark sensuality or worry her. She made her excuses to Dot, went up the road to the circulating library and sank wearily on to the chair at the counter.

The lower part of the library was empty, save for the shop boy on hands and knees pursuing spiders out of corners with a feather duster. ‘James, say something soothing. I have just been dealing with the accounts for Indian ink, which would not tally, the inability of my paper suppliers to read what is written on an order and, worst of all, Miss Denver, who you sent to me in strong hysterics.’

James blushed as always when she used his first name, but leaned confidingly across the counter. ‘I am sorry and it is rather a problem. I am going to have to warn ladies before they go upstairs, after that nice Miss Dunton was in tears yesterday and now Miss Denver is so upset. But I cannot forbid the library to a gentleman whose manner and dress is perfectly acceptable, simply because he is scarred, poor fellow. So tragic, under the circumstances. What if it is an honourable war wound? I would never be able to live with myself if he was snubbed and insulted on my premises.’

‘No, of course not, poor man.’ Strange that Marguerite had not mentioned being reduced to tears when she said she had been to the library, but perhaps she had felt ashamed of her reaction, or it had simply been a result of her heightened sensibility.

‘May I be of assistance now you are here, Sa—? Er… Lady Sara?’ His ears had gone red, which meant, she guessed, that he had almost dared to use her first name in public.

‘Have you any new novels in? I want to lose myself in something thoroughly entertaining.’

‘Indeed yes. There is An Angel’s Form and a Devil’s Heart and Secrets in Every Mansion just come in, both from the Minerva Press. Or, if you are in a mind for something more unusual, there is this.’ He produced three volumes from under the desk. ‘To be honest, I would welcome your opinion as it seems rather dark in tone and possibly may alarm many of my readers. It is from a small press.’

‘Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus,’ Sara read and flipped through a few pages. ‘“I started from my sleep in horror; a cold dew covered my forehead…” I can see I am going to be reading this in broad daylight, James. But I will borrow it and both the novels you suggest. Could you have them sent round? I will go and see if I can wrest a copy of the Morning Post from the Colonel and immerse myself in what the society pages have to say.’

She really did want to see if there was a review of the latest theatrical productions, but she also wanted to show the unfortunate gentleman with the scars that not every woman would recoil from him in horror.

The stranger was sitting next to the window reading a newspaper, the strong light from behind throwing his face and figure into silhouette. Sara suspected the position was chosen deliberately, for it made it almost impossible to see his face in any detail. He was wearing an eyepatch, that she could tell, and he seemed quite young.

She settled down with the Morning Post, made a note of one production to avoid and one to see, if she did as she was inclined to and travelled up to London in a week or so.

*