The Savage Marquess by M.C. Beaton Read Free Book Online Page B

something to take her mind away from the horrors of her present situation. She used the back stairs, not wanting to meet the earl, who she knew had stayed behind. The door to the library led off a small landing on the back stairs. A door to the earl’s study led from the same landing, the door being opposite the library door. Most rooms in the large mansion had two entrances, one for the servants and one for the masters. She gently put her hand on the knob of the library door. And then she heard the earl’s voice coming from behind the study door. He was speaking to a visitor.
    “So you see, Cartwright,” the earl was saying, “I have nothing against this Miss Westerville myself, but my lady and Ismene are going to make life hell for me until I get rid of her. Ismene came back from her ride in the park and insisted I send Miss Westerville packing by the end of the week.”
    His voice became louder as he approached the door. Lucinda opened the library door and darted inside, her heart beating hard.
    So it was soon to be all over. At the end of the week, she would leave London—but that would mean her father would have to leave the care of Beechings. Hot tears began to run down her cheeks. She must do something. If only someone would help her.
    Being her father’s daughter, she began to pray for guidance. But when she had finished her prayers, an idea struck her—a solution—and she trembled, for such an idea could only have come from Lucifer himself.
    She fled from the library to escape the voice in her head. She collected Ismene’s novel, the one she had been reading to her, from her room and forced herself to read the adventures of surely one of the most tiresome heroines in English literature.
    Had Ismene summoned Lucinda on her return from the opera, Lucinda might then have tried to change her mistress’s mind about dismissing her. But Ismene did not.
    So when Lucinda awoke early the next morning, that wretched voice was there, and louder, urging her on.
    “All you have to do,” it wheedled, “is to ask the Marquess of Rockingham to marry you. No one wants him. No one wants you. A match made in heaven.”
    “All
right
,” said Lucinda, answering the inner nagging voice. “’Fore George! I’ll do it!”

4
    Lucinda’s courage almost deserted her as she walked to Berkeley Square. It was a lovely late-spring morning. The streets were quiet and deserted. An egg-shell-blue sky stretched overhead. Thin lines of smoke were beginning to climb up from the chimneys. Soon London would be covered by its usual ceiling of thin smoke. But for that moment the air seemed to have blown all the way from the country, scented with lilac and early roses.
    She had memorized the marquess’s address, she realized, the minute Kennedy had mentioned it, almost as if such an outrageous idea had been at the back of her mind from the minute she had first heard of the Savage Marquess’s search for a wife.
    Lucinda walked twice around the square until the thought of her ailing father stiffened her spine and gave her courage. Rockingham might just laugh at her. But Ismene would not rise until about two in the afternoon and so her job as companion would still be waiting.
    She marched to the marquess’s town house and stood on the doorstep, looking up at the building.
    Her courage deserted her again. Am I merely full of self-pity? wondered Lucinda. I am clothed and fed and my father is taken care of. With a little cunning, I could surely manage Ismene’s moods. She changes from moment to moment, and although she has told her father she wants quit of me, she could be made to change her mind. A little judicious flattery, a little fawning,
that
is all that is required. But then the thought of Ismene and everything about her personality filled Lucinda with revulsion.
    Choking back a little sob of fright, like the noise a child makes when waking from a bad dream, she seized the knocker and performed a vigorous tattoo on it.
    There was a