The Making of a Marquess Page 11

“Indeed. I can hardly wait to have jurisdiction over this estate. Everything is merely adequate. Except for the extravagances my cousin has invested in for his own aggrandizement.”

  “If you cared so much, why did you not return earlier?”

  Her tart remark edged too close to home. Because—because he was hurt, because he was finally done with fashion, because he had made mistakes he couldn’t easily resolve. He’d faced all those uncomfortable truths and dealt with them. In many ways, he was not the same person who had fled the country nearly seven years ago. He chose not to tell her any of those reasons.

  “I had a new life, one I created myself. It owed nothing to anyone else. I needed to stay away to build that up. If Louis had managed the estate well, I daresay I would have stayed away. But he did not, and here I am.”

  They had found their way out of the maze, except for one hedge, which had grown uncomfortably high. He chose the temporary shelter to stop her questions in the most effective way he knew. Turning quickly, he drew her to him, his hands firmly around her waist. She stumbled and fell against his chest, but before she had a chance to recover her balance, he’d stolen a kiss.

  The touch of her lips energized him, gave him ideas that should certainly not be occurring to him here and now. He dared not linger, but savored the kiss, then lifted his lips, enjoying her expression of stunned amazement. In those few seconds, when he had taken her unawares, she’d revealed something. The way she’d clutched his shoulders and opened her mouth under his told him so much. She wanted him. Whether she wanted him as desperately as he did her remained to be seen.

  But he had experience on his side. She was an innocent.

  He would use any weapon he had to win this war, because he wanted her too badly to lose.

  Chapter 10

  Shaken by the swift kiss, Dorothea did her best to regain her composure. “You are a rake, then.”

  Ben seemed untouched by his move, except for a slight flush high on his cheekbones. “Only with you, my sweet.”

  With exaggerated courtesy he extended his arm, tacitly inviting her to lean on him. Either she spurned him or risked a stumble. She accepted his support with a murmured word of thanks.

  Under the fabric, his arm was as hard as iron. Ah, so he wasn’t unaffected. That was tension. Knowing the attraction was not only on her side reassured her a little. She let the endearment pass, or rather, put it in her personal treasury of memories.

  They strolled back in the direction of the house. The honey-colored stone reared above them, the windows glinting in the summer sunshine. A fine building, one that deserved better than it was getting. The far right of the upper stories was where Ben’s mother was rumored to live. Nothing had been heard or seen of her, bar a few shadowy movements, like the one she’d witnessed earlier. “Why do you not just ask your mother to identify you? After all, nobody can gainsay a mother.”

  Unexpectedly his arm tightened, clamping her hand against his side. “I am due to pay my daily visit. Won’t you accompany me?”

  The mild words did belie the strength he was using to hold her to him. “Of course,” she murmured. “Unless it would disturb her.”

  “I doubt that.” The bitterness in his voice surprised Dorothea. No rumors of a break in the relationship with his mother had appeared, and so likely they didn’t exist. Not even Louis had said anything about Lady Belstead. One would have thought he would use her evidence, unless he was afraid of a positive identification.

  Entering the house, Ben handed his cocked hat to a footman and waited until she had divested herself of her straw bergère and gloves. The day being fine, she had not bothered with a shawl or cloak. He waited until she checked her appearance in the mirror and patted a strand of hair back into place. She wore her hair in the regulation high knot and covered it with a small lace-edged cap. Everything was as it should be.

  Turning, she caught him gazing at her as if he really saw her. Unused to that reaction, Dorothea’s throat tightened, and she looked away, swallowing. Usually, nobody noticed her,. Here, though, Ben had brought her into the center of the gathering. If she rejected his proposal, she might become the subject of unpleasant gossip, but it wouldn’t last for long. Being found in his room when he was not there wasn’t the end of the world. She could recover from that.

  But not her reaction to him. Every time his brawny shoulders hove into view her heart missed a beat. Any woman would behave the same way. Of course they would.

  He gestured for her to climb the broad, carpet-covered stone steps. She mounted the curved staircase to the first floor, then to the next, where he indicated she should walk to her right, to the only door that lay in front of them. A footman stood on guard, one she had never noticed before. He bowed to Ben and opened the door for him to walk through.

  A quiet room met them. The curtains were half drawn over the windows, dimming the bright summer day. Furniture was arranged deliberately and formally. The pieces were old, giving the room an air of stateliness absent in other parts of the house. Perhaps Lady Belstead preferred it that way. A hush, a quiet reverence hung over them.

  Tension tightened her nerves and the hairs on the back of her neck rose to attention, prickling her skin. “Come,” he said softly. “My mother will be in her boudoir at this hour. Or in bed.”

  In bed? “Then should we go?”

  He shook his head. “She receives people in her bed sometimes.”

  Some people saw visitors in their bedrooms, but in bed? She did not think so. But she said nothing as he led the way to a door at the other end of the quiet room. After tapping on the woodwork, he pushed it open. “Mama?”

  He held the door for her.

  This room was as dimly lit as the one before it, but as she entered, a wall of heat hit her. The fire was lit and blazing in the hearth. Before it, in a high-backed chair that resembled a throne, sat a woman. The marchioness. Technically, since Ben had been married, the dowager.

  Dorothea had seen the lady before in very different circumstances, but not like this, not so intimate. She sank into the required curtsy.

  “Mama, this is Miss Dorothea Rowland, the sister of the Viscount Sandigate.”

  Why did he introduce her like that, when they’d met before? As if this was the first time?

  “Mama?” the marchioness said in a thready voice.

  Ben sighed.

  A woman entered the room, a personal maid. Hatchet-faced, she wore a plain green gown, a lacy apron over the front, the kind ladies wore as fashion rather than for any practical reason. Dorothea rose from her curtsy, since nobody took notice of it.

  “My lord.” The woman dropped a brief curtsy before going to her mistress’s side. “Her ladyship is having a quiet day.”

  “Good morning, Miss Sullivan. I thought Mama would like to meet my bride-to-be,” Ben said calmly.

  Before Dorothea could protest, the marchioness broke in. “Tom! Where have you been? I have been wanting to say something to you this age.”

  A significant pause ensued, before he said, “No, Mama, it’s Ben. Your son, not your husband.”

  “Please don’t contradict her, my lord,” the maid put in. “It will distress her. She is not in the best of moods today.”

  Ben nodded. “Very well.” He addressed his mother once more. “We find you in good health, ma’am?”

  Obviously not. The marchioness thought Ben was his father? Why would she think that? Dorothea stepped back, her heart thumping too fast. Something was very wrong here. She’d imagined the marchioness frail, in poor health, but the illness was in her mind.

  “I am well,” the marchioness said, sounding every inch the bored aristocrat. But her eyes, so much like her son’s, bore a distant look. She did not rest her attention on anything for long, her gaze darting from one thing to another. “I want to talk to you about our son, Tom. You ignore Benedict, when he does everything he can to
bring the title into disrepute. We must deal with him, Tom. Soon.”

  Ben sighed and closed his eyes. “Yes, Amelia. We will handle him.”

  He turned and held out his hand to Dorothea. Silently, without demur, she took it and let him lead her from the room.

  The marchioness shouted after them. “Come back! I mean it, Tom! You will not ignore me again; I will kill myself first!”

  Dorothea stopped. Ben did not. If she had not begun to walk again, he would have dragged her. His hand held hers too tightly for her to free herself. As they left, the woman behind them screamed out her late husband’s name, followed by a torrent of abuse, using language that would have made a sailor blush. This was terrible, horrible. The marchioness was undoubtedly mad.

  At the door to the suite, Dorothea glanced back, catching sight of the scene. The maid was attending to her mistress, holding her hands, soothing her in quiet tones as the woman’s cries died down to a faint whimper. The tantrum was over, leaving a broken woman.

  They walked out of the apartments before Dorothea realized that tears were pouring down her face.

  Ben took her to a small antechamber nearby. He closed the door, but she was too distressed to cavil. Nor did she object when Ben took her into his arms and held her until her shaking stopped and the tears dried. When he gave her his handkerchief, she dabbed at her face.

  Ben spoke softly. “I’m sorry. I should have sent word before we visited. Her volatility is increasing.”

  “What is wrong with her? Is she mad?”

  When she pulled away, he released her, but indicated a small sofa set under the window. She took a seat and he joined her, laying his arm across the back of the sofa in a protective gesture she appreciated. Not too familiar, but enough to offer her comfort. Really, she should be giving it to him. When she returned his handkerchief, he thrust it in his coat pocket.

  “No, she is not mad. Not precisely. It is more accurate to say she is senile.” Removing his arm, he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “It started before I left, but that was no more than bouts of forgetfulness. Occasionally she called me by my father’s name, but people put it down to absentmindedness. Nobody thought much about it.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “You see why neither Louis nor I want to bring her into our dispute. She lives quietly, and we put it about that she is ill, that is all, nothing specific. But she is fit and healthy and she could live for years. Those apartments have a private stairwell that leads into a small courtyard. There’s a garden, where she spends much of her time. She is happy, except for the few occasions when she knows she is missing something important, or when, as you just saw, she becomes distressed or loses her temper.”

  His voice was steady. Too steady, as if he was holding his emotions in check.

  “Yes, I saw that. She seemed puzzled, even when she called you by your father’s name.”

  He nodded and kept his head bowed. “I should not have put you through that, but yesterday she was in a good mood. She even recognized me without anyone prompting her.”

  They remained silent for a few moments. “I have never met anyone with that...condition.”

  “Neither have I. I’m told my father’s grandmother was the same, but she was eighty when she grew too forgetful to be on her own. My mother is sixty, far too soon for senility. It is much more than that. Nobody can explain what caused it, or how we can stop it. Louis sought medical advice, and they bled her and fastened her in restraints. Louis sent them away. I can be grateful to him for that, at least.”

  “Oh, the poor lady!”

  Turning back to her, he laid his hand over hers, but the look in his eyes, the bleakness, told her he needed the comfort more than she did. She clasped his hand. “Thank you for trusting me. Obviously, you have kept your mother’s condition from society, and I will respect that.”

  “I know you will. Thank you for coming with me.”

  “You must find visiting her very hard. I would, if I were in the same situation.”

  “I do. But I see her every day, while I’m here. When I distress her, as happened today, I leave. That is the only thing that calms her down. Martha, her maid, takes care of her, and Wright, the footman at the door, is employed for her use alone. She has a maid assigned to her rooms, and nobody else is allowed in.”

  Before they’d entered those apartments, Dorothea had doubted his ability to feel any depth of emotion since his return. He’d expended it all before he left. But no, he merely pushed his emotions under his calm exterior.

  Her heart went out to mother and son. “I am so sorry.”

  Abruptly he got to his feet. “We should go. I appreciate your discretion and your sympathy. For the most part, she is happy. Apart from today. It is only the people around her who are distressed on her behalf.”

  Chapter 11

  After leaving Dorothea at the door of her chamber, Ben took a long walk in the grounds. He ranged way beyond the formal park and up to the model farm, which was supposed to act as an experimental facility, displaying the best of modern innovations and testing them out for viability. He found a run-down, dilapidated house and a few starving animals living in filth.

  So many small and large abandonments infuriated him. Good management would mend all of them. He would have his work cut out for him, but with Dorothea by his side, he could achieve it. His planned one-year stay might have to change to two, but he could run his shipping business from here. He had hand-selected a number of trustworthy, competent managers. Although, he would miss it. The company he’d inherited through his late wife had been the seed that formed the basis of what he’d built.

  Returning to the house, he came in by the side door into the modest black-and-white tiled hall used by the staff and people returning from the stables. One of the quieter entrances that he knew better than the grand halls at the front and back of the house. His mother had discovered them too. She wouldn’t know them now.

  As always, he forcibly turned his thoughts away from the memory of the woman upstairs, who lived, but had lost everything that made her his mother. Visiting her distressed him, but at least Louis had ensured she was properly taken care of, and he had not used her to justify his depredations on the estate.

  Receiving the letters from Hal that outlined the slow deterioration of his mother’s mind had almost broken him. Of both his parents, he’d been closest to her, but now she didn’t even recognize him. It seemed a symbol of what he was going through now, with his own cousin denying him. Of course, Louis knew who he was, but rejecting his identity had not drawn him closer to the cousin he’d grown up with, only the resentful man he’d become.

  He asked a footman to have his valet sent up so he could change for dinner, and climbed the staircase. He turned away. His rooms were on the other side of the house, where, his mother had said, she couldn’t hear the noise which gave her a headache. She had constantly complained of his boisterousness, claiming he kept her awake at night. So Ben, with Louis and William when they’d been visiting, had taken to the outdoors, a place of constant amusement and wonder.

  And somewhere they could forget who they were, and how they were to behave, away from the rules they were supposed to live by.

  A woman turned the corner, periwinkle silk skirts rustling, fine lace at her elbows. Honoria.

  Ben prepared to nod and walk past, but she dropped a curtsy, which was foolish, but she did it anyway. He had to stop and return the courtesy. “Mrs. Thorpe.”

  “Oh, dear me, Ben, we were never so formal. Why start now?” Flicking out her fan, she waved it before her face. “The day is far too warm for formality.” She peered over the top of her fan at him in a way he well remembered. “We missed you, Ben.”

  He refrained from snorting and masked his reaction of incredulity. “Indeed. So much that you want to take my title from me?”

  She shrugged and close
d her fan with a snap. “We’re alone now. I believe you. I know you too well. More muscle and a rougher complexion does not change the man you are. I remember some things very well.” She met his gaze. “Like your kiss.”

  He lifted his head. At some point she’d moved closer to him, giving their encounter an unwelcome sense of intimacy. “Why did you do it, Honoria? Why did you set Louis and me against each other?”

  It had hurt, that they fought over a woman, Honoria especially. Unknown to either of the men, she had flirted with both, made promises to both. Agreed to Ben’s marriage proposal when she was already involved with Louis. Hedging her bets, one might say. Neither man knew she had promised herself to the other, and when the affair had come to a head, they had exploded.

  “I wanted you.” She moved closer. Ben fought his instinct to step back. “You know that. But with you gone, what could I do? My reputation was tarnished. I could not repudiate Louis.”

  “Are you saying you did not love him?”

  “How could I? I had already given my heart to you.”

  She was lying. Why would she bother with Louis if she did not love him? Ben had been the prize, the one all the ladies had set their sights on. He was the heir to a great title, Louis merely the cousin. Or had she meant to make him jealous?

  One reason made sense of it all. Was she already with child when Ben had proposed to her?

  With a seductive rustle of silk, she moved closer. Her golden hair was curled becomingly, a lock drifting across the soft skin of her shoulder when she moved. Every inch of her was designed to entice.

  And yet Ben was not enticed.

  Honoria loved Honoria, and she would do her very best to ensure the well-being of her first and only love. Leading the cousins on had fed her sense of importance, had given her a triumph she could trumpet to her friends. She probably wanted Ben as a husband and Louis as a lover. That had not worked out for her.

  Such a pity.

  “To both of us.” The night he’d discovered that, in the middle of a prestigious coffeehouse, he’d nearly caused a riot by drawing his sword and demanding that Louis fight him then and there. They had been drinking, laughing, the world at their feet. Then split apart, because of this woman.