The Fictitious Marquis Read online

  "Go on with you, then." A French glove yanking the carpet away from Jamie's face identified the speaker as the formerly silent coachman. "I am not meaning to carry your meat and bones a second time. Go on. Moses will show you."

  Moses, he peered into the darkness and guessed, would be the sour-faced butler waiting beside the carriage.

  Jamie untangled himself from the carpet, stepped outside, and, mindful of the pristine splendor of Moses' uniform, rather self-consciously dusted himself off. After two months of starvation rations, the prison-gray shirt and pants that once had been only a single size too large, now necessitated Jamie's holding his trousers up by the waist, lest they slip down. He wasn't wearing any shoes, and his feet were covered with sewage and filth.

  Moses, clearly, was far from impressed.

  It was too dark now for Jamie to make out every detail of his new residence. He did notice a splendid arch of sweet-smelling ivy growing over the front door, past the iron balconies that decorated every window of the house. Each window was constructed out of a dozen individual panes of glass.

  And for Jamie, who'd made do for seven and twenty years with oiled paper to keep out the wind and cold, it were those many panes of glass that finally obligated him stop and think about exactly what sort of bargain he had agreed to.

  Miss Highsmith may have only driven him a few miles from Jamie's old home in St. Giles, but she might as well have flapped her arms and carried him to the wilds of Africa, for all of Jamie's familiarity with her way of life.

  And now he had three months in which to learn it well enough to fool a duke. Or else return to London.

  And the noose.

  2

  Julia Highsmith waited until she had locked the bedroom door behind her, removed her capote and demicornette, and splashed her face with two handfuls of cold water from the basin before she allowed herself the luxury of shaking so violently that she needed to clutch onto the table or risk collapsing. The cold water stung her face, dripping down Julia's cheeks and chin to form minuscule damp circles upon her chemisette. Her heart pounded against her rib cage, sending the lace and silk rose flounces of her bodice bouncing in rhythm. She squeezed both hands into fists. The intense trembling painfully forced her fingernails into her palms.

  She had never bought a man before.

  And not just any man. A convict.

  Truly, such was not the manner in which Julia had, at sunup, intended to spend her day.

  Over breakfast of pineapple in cream with Aunt Salome, the most strenuous topic of conversation had revolved about the Philharmonic Society's finally allowing vocal items to be performed at their concerts, and the shocking rumors of Princess Caroline locking Her Royal Highness Princess Charlotte into a bedroom with Captain Hesse—"The duke of York's illegitimate son, that chap is, you mark my words," Salome swore—and telling her young daughter to amuse herself.

  Miriam's letter arrived midway through their meal, carried not by mail coach, but by an out-of-breath French courier who apparently knew no English beyond "pence, quid, shilling," and obviously assumed standing about expectantly with one palm facing upwards to be a universal hint of remuneration.

  Salome handed the boy a few coins, and ordered Cook to fix him a plate in the kitchen. She slit the top of Miriam's envelope with a silver and pearl opener, carefully unfolding the much-wrinkled pages and smoothing them out against the dining room table's edge before preparing to read out loud. Julia, always interested in her cousin's letters, filled as they inevitably were with the latest gossip and fashions sweeping France, eagerly pushed away her plate and leaned forwards, elbows resting on the table, her ebony eyes sparkling in anticipation.

  Equally as interested in hearing what her daughter had to say, Salome began reading Miriam's letter in her usual, buoyant tones, rushing through the perfunctory salutations and inquiries about the household's health, to reach the far more interesting middle. Only this time, instead of pressing the letter to her chest and smiling mischievously at Julia over the top of the paper, keeping her in delicious suspense before revealing just what sort of new French intrigue Miriam had disclosed, Salome stopped short, head jerking still as if coming in contact with an actual, physical barrier.

  She knitted her brows, reading the paragraph again for confirmation, and then a third time in disbelief. Her eyes grew wide. She inhaled sharply, forgetting momentarily to exhale.

  "What is it, Salome?" Julia half rose from the chair, reaching for her aunt. "Are you ill?"

  Ever since her doctor had diagnosed Salome's heart condition a few years earlier, Julia lived in constant fear that her aunt's every gasp was a symptom requiring immediate medical attention.

  Salome shook her head, wordlessly sliding Miriam's letter across the sleekly polished table for Julia to read.

  She snatched it up instantly, skimming the cream stationery, searching for the sentence or phrase that had so devastated Salome.

  She located it quickly enough. How could anyone help but miss it, when the entire letter proved no more than a desperate cry for rescue. Stunned, Julia sat back down in her chair, swallowing hard and looking up at Salome. She said, "We must help her."

  "Yes. Yes, I will go immediately to France. Perhaps—"

  "You will do no such thing." Julia caught the harshness in her tone, and guiltily tempered it, remembering that she was, after all, the younger of the two, and possessed no business lecturing her aunt as if she were a child. Salome Weiss was as aware as anyone of her doctor's edict, restricting traveling time to absolutely no more than an hour at a stretch. It was for that reason alone that, in the last few years, Miriam and her child had been the ones making the annual visit from France to England, and not the other way around. Softening, Julia explained, "You know you would never survive such a long journey, Salome. And what good could it do Miriam to have you fall ill on the way?"

  They both knew the truth of Julia's words, although it took nearly an hour more for Salome to feel fully persuaded.

  Finally, in an uncharacteristic burst of anger, she told Julia, "What a curse old age is. In my mind, I feel no older than when Miriam was still a child. And yet here I sit, useless."

  "You are not useless. You may not be able to physically rescue Miriam. But you can help me think of an alternate plan."

  Her aunt, shoulders slumped, forehead resting upon the palm of one hand, did not even bother to look up when she answered tonelessly, "There is nothing we can do."

  "There must be." Julia drummed her fingernails on the table's edge, pecking out an obscure Rossini march, and insisted, "There simply must be some way. We are her only chance."

  For over an hour, while the tea in their cups grew first lukewarm, then cold, then thoroughly undrinkable, Julia and Salome twisted their brains, attempting to squeeze any viable plot for saving Miriam and her little daughter, Alexia, from the fates promised them. Unfortunately, even as the maids were entering to clear the table, giving up any hope of Julia and Salome finishing their breakfasts, the best plan either one could imagine was the one least likely to be carried out. Because in order to see it through, they would need a great deal of money.

  Julia pounded her fist in frustration against the table, feeling for all the world like a knight ready to ride out and do battle, only to realize he had no knowledge which way lay the front. "If only I might somehow convince Uncle Collin to part with the inheritance Papa left me."

  "Not until you are married, and that's a fact."

  "Then I shall go out and get married." Julia crossed her arms against her chest, digging both elbows into her stomach, the perfect picture of unstoppable determination. "He shall have to pass on my money then."

  Despite the gravity of their situation, Salome could not help a brief smile at the child's impetuousness. Gently, she reminded, "It calls for a groom, as well as a bride, to make a wedding."

  "London is crawling with basket scramblers and gazetted fortune hunters in Dun territory who would leap at a chance for a well-breeched life,
in exchange for marriage to me, and a moratorium against asking too many questions."

  Salome shook her head. "I would pray you to remember the most important provision of your father's testament. Not only must you marry in order to receive the monies promised, but you must marry a man your uncle deems suitable. The duke of Alamain would never agree to a rolled-up suitor who hasn't a feather to fly with, and, on that count, at least, I must wholeheartedly agree with him. I will not allow you to step into a lifetime of misery with a pink of fancy, point-non-plus Cyprian who cares not a bit for your happiness. It would be too dangerous. For all of us."

  Grasping her aunt's unspoken meaning, Julia swore, "I could keep it a secret from him. As Mama did from me all those years."

  "And, in the end, the lying killed your mother, the same way that it might now kill my Miriam."

  "No," Julia said. "I will not let that happen. Somehow, I will find a man to marry, and I will claim my inheritance. And I will do so in the three months' time that Miriam has left."

  "It would necessitate a man of immense charm and wit to convince your uncle that he is worthy of your hand in marriage, and that a swift and speedy wedding is indeed for the best. The duke is no fool. I have not yet met a gentleman in the beau monde capable of charming a Banbury tale past Collin Highsmith."

  Nevertheless, Julia insisted on drilling her aunt about every available—and needy—gentleman of the ton she had ever come in contact with, seriously considering every possibility, only to eventually come to the same realization about each of them. Those who might prove willing to enter into a sham marriage under such circumstances would never appear worthy enough for the duke, and those who might pass his stringent inspection had no reason for tying themselves down to a wife they barely knew.

  Exasperated, Julia exclaimed, "If only we were in a fairy story where I might sketch the perfect candidate and watch him come to life off a piece of paper."

  Salome soothingly stroked her niece's hair, assuring Julia that she had done all she could, and that Miriam and Alexia now lay in God's hands. But Julia refused to be appeased so easily.

  Pleading multiple household obligations, Salome excused herself, rising from the table, and leaving the dining room. She clutched Miriam's letter to her bosom as if the folded sheets of paper were the absent girl herself, petting them gently with one hand, and sighing painfully.

  Yet, because she knew her niece ever so well, as upset as she was, Salome took the time to pause at the door and warn, "Promise me that you will not, the minute I disappear from sight, rush off and commit some impetuous atrocity that we shall both regret in the more lucid light of day."

  Sincerely, Julia replied, "I cannot think of a single atrocity to commit at this moment."

  "Good. Let us hope that it remains so."

  Julia watched her aunt go, convinced that somewhere, somehow, there was an exit to their dilemma. Hoping that a change of topic might prod her thoughts into a more productive direction, Julia reached for the newspaper Moses had long ago lain beside the now absolutely frigid teapot, and unenthusiastically began to read.

  She knew, of course, that the Examiner was not exactly the sort of newspaper a young lady of her ilk should be reading. But she found its crusading editorials, with their unapologetically liberal slant, a great deal more entertaining than the repetitive drivel to be found in the Morning Post, or the Entertaining Companion for the Fair Sex.

  Making the newspaper an even more illicit, and consequently exciting, read, was the knowledge that its publisher, Leigh Hunt, had, for the past two years, served a prison sentence for the crime of writing ill against the regent. Julia wondered if it were that experience that now prompted Mr. Hunt to join Mr. Jeremy Bentham in his quest for English prison reform, and she read their successive article on the topic with a great deal of curiosity.

  While the initial paragraph was interesting enough, asserting that in no other European country were there so many offenses on the statute book, including stealing five shillings from a shop, that demanded the death penalty, it were the remainder of the piece that captured Julia's attention.

  In a self-righteous fervor, Leigh Hunt expounded at length on the basic unfairness of the English class system, bringing as example a young, unnamed convict he'd met and gotten to know during the brief time when their jail sentences overlapped.

  For nearly a full page of newspaper, Leigh Hunt went on and on, raving of the fellow's native intelligence, charm, and innate goodness, insisting that, had the poor soul been born of a different class, he might have been prime minister, rather than a convict. Surely, a young man capable of wooing nearly one hundred young ladies out of their admittedly meager dowries was a young man of talent and promise. Surely, he deserved more than the noose that now awaited him at Newgate prison?

  It proved not at all difficult for Julia to pry the anonymous charmer's Christian name out of Leigh Hunt. As soon as Julia confessed a similar interest in prison reform—as well as a passionate fondness for the Examiner and the writings of Leigh Hunt in particular—the gentleman was more than happy to provide Miss Highsmith with further information. Almost as happy as the magistrate who'd sentenced Jeremy Lowell was to accept Julia's bribe in exchange for setting Jamie free.

  The entire exercise took less than a day.

  Julia barely had time to think about what she was doing, so preoccupied was she with actually doing it. And, if truth be confessed, she rather feared granting any thought to her actions, reluctant to come face-to-face with the audacity and multiple hazards of her endeavor.

  She'd never even taken a thorough look at the man until the moment he crawled out of her carriage and stared up at Julia's home as if she'd delivered him to heaven.

  Jamie Lowell must have stood twice her height, with each arm and thigh the size of a small cannon. Granted, he was dreadfully thin. Julia had been able to count every rib through the tatters of his prison uniform. But put some food in his stomach, and what was to stop Mr. Lowell from murdering them all in their beds and absconding with the family silver?

  He certainly looked as if he harbored a temper. Julia supposed it was the red hair. And the jutting features that so reminded her of a hungry bird of prey.

  The magistrate had told her Jamie was seven and twenty years of age. But there was something in his eyes, an exhaustion, that made him appear nearly a decade older.

  She needed to handle him very carefully. Tell him too little, and he wouldn't know enough to carry out his purpose. Tell him too much, and she risked losing control of the situation all together.

  But the decision over when and how much to tell Jamie Lowell would necessarily come later.

  Currently, Julia stood wrestling with the much more immediate dilemma of what exactly she might tell her Aunt Salome.

  Much to her credit, Salome neither swooned, nor screamed, nor emitted any other sound she would have been perfectly justified to emit upon learning what Julia had done.

  Instead, the older woman merely cocked her head and told her niece, "You know, of course, my darling, that this is not quite the same as those stray cats you so liked to bring home as a child."

  An image of Jamie Lowell at the back door mewing for a saucer of milk made Julia smile, but she suppressed it. "Yes, Salome."

  "This, I suppose, is what comes of letting an impressionable girl read the Examiner. My dear, what were you thinking?"

  Truthfully, Julia replied, "I was thinking of Miriam. A man who charmed over one hundred ladies and Mr. Leigh Hunt and Mr. Jeremy Bentham, surely such a man should be able to do the same with my Uncle Collin. He already has all the tools necessary. And I can quickly teach him the finer points of acting a gentleman."

  "Regardless of the esteemed Mr. Hunt's opinion on the matter, it will certainly take a great deal more time than a few hours to turn braff and scaff of Mr. Lowell's kind into a gentleman. Just where do you plan to accomplish this changing of a sow's ear into a silk purse, Julia?"

  "Why, here, of course. Where els
e could I set him?"

  Salome stared at her niece as if Julia had, on the spot, gone all about in the head. "Have you run mad, my dear? What if someone were to drop by for a visit or for tea during the day? What would we tell them? Why, the gossip alone would scandalize us beyond all repair. As your chaperon, I simply cannot allow such a thing."

  "We can keep him in his room."

  "Like a rabid animal? Now, that's simply cruel, Julia." Salome brought her palms together, tapping the thumbs thoughtfully against her lips, and softly asked, "How much of our situation do you intend to reveal for this man?"

  "As little as he needs to know in order to serve his purpose."

  "And have you given any thought to what might happen if, somehow, he were to learn more than he should?"

  "How can he? You and I are certainly not going to tell him. And no one else knows of it, except for Moses and some staff."

  The older woman pursed her lips, dropping her shoulders and sighing deeply. "I have lived with a fear of discovery for most of my life, Julia. I would have given anything to spare you a similar existence. This man is a danger to us. We simply may not take such a risk. You can understand that, can't you?"

  She put out an arm to pat her niece on the shoulder, but the girl petulantly pulled away, glaring at her aunt with a combination of stubborn anger and little-girl pleading.

  Julia did seem ever so proud of her plot, so pleased that she might help Miriam and Alexia. Salome shook her head, recognizing in Julia the same loyalty and doggedness that had checkered her late mother. Whenever either one painted that look of utter determination upon her features, the opposing party might as well pack up their objections and give in. The battle was already lost.