In the Arms of a Marquess(79)

The girl was stunning—shining raven hair, ivory skin, wide deep eyes the color of evergreen leaves that matched her modest round gown. Only the barest hint of care-worn corners at her lips and on her brow revealed her mean origins. Nevertheless, she was most definitely a girl, not over seventeen. Tavy’s nostrils flared. She could not meet Marcus’s gaze.

“I am so pleased to meet you, Tabitha,” she said, “and so enormously glad to have this final justification for not marrying your protector.”

“Octavia—”

“Marcus, I really do not imagine there is anything you could say that would alter my opinion of this situation. Nevertheless, I must ask you for the particulars, however distasteful I suspect I will find them. You see, I trust Abha with rather more than my life, and he seems to have thought it important for me not only to know you have a mistress, but also why.” She pressed her palms to her burning cheeks.

“Will she reveal us, Marcus?” The girl lifted an angel’s gaze, filled with devotion. She shifted it to Tavy and whispered, “Please, miss, do not tell him.”

“I daresay I should be affronted that there seems to be someone else to whom you would not wish this—” Tavy gestured about her. “—situation to be revealed.”

“Octavia, I cannot beg your pardon enough.”

“Do not beg anything, Marcus. Just tell me about the blackmailer.”

“She knows Mr. Sheeble?” The girl clutched Marcus’s arm, and real fear shone in her gorgeous eyes.

“Tabitha, I must speak with this lady alone.” He disentangled her lily fingers and urged her back into the bedchamber. “I will be with you again shortly,” he added softly.

The girl’s gaze eased with a look of such honest affection, Tavy’s breath caught. Marcus patted her hand and shut the door behind her.

“Allow me to don more fitting—”

“That will not be necessary,” Tavy said hastily. “I have already seen quite a bit more than your feet, so the cow is already out of the barn, as it were. And frankly I do not wish to be here any longer than absolutely necessary.”

He frowned. “What do you wish to know?”

“Who is Sheeble?”

“A sailor and thief. As I told you before, his business is in dirty cargo which he seeks to sell at great profit.”

“What is this girl to him?”

His gaze skittered away.

“Marcus?”

Face stiff, he uttered, “His insurance.”

“I do not know why the men of my acquaintance should be so fond today of speaking in riddles,” Tavy said with an understated sigh.

“He has threatened to send her where he sends the others if I do not assist him as I have before. He insists that I continue to do his bidding whenever he wishes.”

Tavy’s stomach clenched. “The others?”

“Girls. English girls.”

“Where does he send them, Marcus?”

“To the East Indies. Where else?”

Abha’s soft shoes shifted upon the floor.

“You are aiding a man who sells English girls into prostitution so that you can retain hold of your own?” Tavy could not mask her disgust.

A spark lit in Marcus’s eyes. “They are intended as wives for English soldiers and minor Company officials, so that the men will not resort to taking native brides. But—” He halted.

“But?”

He shook his head, his mouth an implacable line.

“You will not tell me more, I see, so I can only imagine the worst.” Tavy folded her trembling hands. “Marcus, was I or my family ever in danger?”

He hesitated, then shook his head.

“Well then, I am sorry for you.” She turned, and this time Abha stepped aside to allow her passage.

“She is not what you believe,” Marcus said in a low voice. “I am not.”

A dull ache lodged in Tavy’s chest. Who was she to throw stones at him for loving the wrong person, or at the girl for imagining in him her rescuer? At Tabitha’s age, she had done the same.

“No. I can see that,” she said quietly. “Why don’t you take her to safety? To the countryside?”

“Her mother and young sisters are here. She will not leave them.”

“Even to be a lord’s mistress with a house of her own?”

He nodded.

“Then you are fortunate to have met with such a loyal heart, I think.”

Marcus’s brow drew down. Tavy walked out of the flat. At the carriage, she finally met Abha’s gaze.

“I am still not certain why you did this. I am both grateful and angry with you for it. But I wanted to know the truth, so I have no one to blame but myself. Still, I feel rather peculiar and think it would be best if we did not see each other again today.”

He bowed and stepped back.

When Tavy reached home, she went to her bedchamber and instructed her maid that if asked, she was to say that her mistress had a megrim. She did have one, in any case, as well as a horrible suspicion as to the reason she had made a project of Marcus’s blackmailer weeks earlier.

A knock came at the door and it opened.

“Octavia?” Alethea queried in a voice far too lively for Tavy’s confused state at the present. “Lady Fitzwarren has arrived and— Oh, goodness, your face! What has happened?”