The Reluctant Marquess by Maggi Andersen Read Free Book Online

past midnight when she heard creaking on the stairs and footsteps pause outside her room. She lay ramrod straight in the bed. Hearing no more, her heart pounding, she rose and hurried to the door and leant against it, listening. A further scrape and a cough sounded very close. Footsteps shuffled away and she opened the door a crack.
    She thought she saw a ghostly white shape loom at the end of the corridor, but it might have been the bright moonlight.
    Fear sent her scuttling to Robert’s door. She tapped and called his name softly. She just wanted reassurance, then she would return to her own bed. He didn’t answer. The hairs stirring on the back of her neck, she boldly turned the handle and opened the door. The room was lit by moonlight, and the bed stood empty.
    Charity put her hand to her mouth. Where was he? Not with that chamber maid who made cow eyes at him, she hoped.
    It must have been him she heard. Feeling foolish she returned to her room and climbed back into bed.
    Robert strode up and down the cobbled courtyard in the cool air, his cheroot glowing in the dark. Being cramped in a carriage all day long didn’t suit his constitution. He grudgingly admitted that Charity’s lightness of spirit and her ability to cut through to the core of things made her company more pleasant than he expected. But he still felt thoroughly put out by what had been foisted on him. He yawned, hoping that stretching his legs would tire him. It was surprisingly difficult to sleep with the knowledge that his new wife was in bed a few steps away over the corridor. He should just go right in there and put this nonsense to an end. Deflower an unwilling virgin in an inn? What if she cried? She didn’t even have her maid to assist her.
    Robert shook his head, stamped out the cheroot and made his way back to his room. Life would be more peaceful if he bowed to her wishes. He eased his tight shoulders. Providing her demands were within reason.
    Charity rose feeling tired having managed only a few hours sleep. Might Robert have lain awake too and thought of her?
    She rather doubted it, for she found him looking fresh and eager to get home. Within hours they had reached the outskirts of the great metropolis. Misty fields where cows grazed were replaced by grim slums then streets of houses in a grey landscape. Rain slapped the carriage windows and black soot belched into the skies over London. The noise astonished her, from hawkers to barrow boys, to the general hubbub of a big city. Charity wrinkled her nose. The air was filled with the smell of wet horses and worse. Filthy water rushed down the open drains. A lady emptied a chamber pot from her window, and a man walking below jumped back and shook his fist at her.
    A coach and six passed them on its way out of London, its heavy wheels splashing through the puddles, slopping putrid water and sending pedestrians scattering. The streets were busy with peddlers shouting their wares and crowded shops selling all manner of things from oranges to birds in cages. There were ragged beggars on every corner and some were children which tore at her heart. Prostitutes too who gave Robert the eye when the carriage pulled up in the busy city traffic. The streets became cleaner, the houses more respectable. They drove along past a wide expanse of parkland, called Hyde Park and Robert pointed out Rotten Row where aristocrats and the gentry exercised their horses. The houses here were finer and well-dressed people crossed the street, paying the street sweeper to clear a path for them.
    “Where are we?” Charity asked rubbing at the misty window.
    “This is Mayfair,” Robert said leaning close. “So called from the annual fair in the days of Edward I.”
    “It seems very nice,” she murmured, aware of his breath warm on her nape.
    The carriage passed a grand mansion and turned into Curzon Street. They passed a chapel and a market, and pulled up in front of a white house of three-stories. A tall wall