The Youngest Dowager: A Regency romance(68)

‘I am not expected.’

‘Then I will enquire if Madam is at home.’ The man bowed and disappeared upstairs, leaving Marcus standing in the hall. Spurred by curiosity and unease, he tried one of the door handles, but it was locked, as were all the others he turned before he heard the sound of the butler’s return.

‘This way, my lord. Madam Hall will see you now.’

Marcus followed the man up the curving staircase, along a heavily draped corridor and up to a pair of imposing double doors. The silence in the house was eerie, oppressive, as though the building was smothered in cloth.

‘The Earl of Longminster, madam,’ the butler announced, before closing the doors to leave Marcus alone in the Salon with its one occupant.

The woman who rose as he entered was tall, brown-haired, modestly attired and almost motherly in appearance until he looked into her hard brown eyes. Whatever he had been expecting it was not this woman, dressed in a plain but beautifully tailored gown without a single item of jewellery.

‘Please be seated, my lord.’ She waved him to a seat and resumed her own beside a low table.

‘You appear to know my name, madam, although I did not send in my card. Can I assume it is because you were acquainted with my late cousin?’ He was in no mood for small-talk and pretend niceties. The hair on the back of his neck prickled and he wanted nothing more than to be out of this house. How people enjoyed themselves erotically was none of his business. If it was entered into willingly on both sides, that was fine, but the thought that anyone might be coerced into enduring pain and humiliation made him furious.

‘Indeed. The resemblance is very great.’ Her voice was accentless and flat, without any emotional colour.

‘In outward appearance only, I can assure you, madam.’

She smiled slightly and without warmth. She was fiddling with something on the table beside her but he found himself held, both fascinated and repelled, by that hard brown gaze.

‘To what do I owe the honour of your visit, my lord?’

‘Some answers. What is the nature of this house?’

‘You are very blunt. This house exists for gentlemen who have an interest in, shall we say, the arts of discipline?’

‘In giving it or receiving it?’

‘Both, my lord,’ she replied calmly. ‘In which direction does your own interest lie?’

‘In neither,’ he said shortly. ‘And my cousin?’

‘Oh, in giving it, undoubtedly.’ Her fingers continued to toy with the object on the table. ‘His lordship’s tastes were very clear.’

Marcus looked down and saw with a frisson of distaste that what she was touching was a riding crop, a beautifully made piece of plaited leather with an ivory handle. His appalled gaze came back to hers and she smiled tightly. ‘Exactly so, my lord,’ she said, as though in reply to an unasked question.

Suddenly Marcus could see nothing but the image of Marissa’s stricken face on the day he had lost his temper with Nicci over her dalliance with Mr Ashforde. He had been holding his riding crop, had brought it lashing down onto the polished table-top…

He felt ill at the memory, repulsed by the thought of what it had represented to Marissa and filled with the overwhelming desire to lock his hands around this woman’s neck, choke the poisonous life out of her and free any inhabitants of this place who were not there of their own free will.

He got abruptly to his feet: the atmosphere of the bordello seemed to be invading his pores, seeping into the fabric of his clothing. He had to get out. ‘Madam.’ Without waiting for her to ring he wrenched open the doors and ran down the steps into the clean fresh air and daylight of the street.



Marissa, uncharacteristically furious, bottled up her temper until she was home once again. Matthews, still flushed at his temerity, stood before her in the Salon, not meeting her eyes.

‘Well, Matthews. I hope you have a good explanation for gainsaying my instructions in such a manner.’

The under-butler met her angry eyes and sought for the words. ‘I did not think it was his lordship.’

‘Rubbish! I am not blind. Tell me the truth.’

‘Well,’ he said, clearly improvising wildly, ‘It is not a very salubrious area. I did not think we should stop.’

‘Nonsense. It was nothing to do with the street. It was the house, was it not? Tell me, what is that house?’

‘I have no idea, my lady.’ Matthews was not used to lying, and was not good at it.

‘Matthews,’ Marissa began, dangerously quiet, ‘If you do not tell me the truth, I shall go out, find a hackney carriage and go there myself.’ Normally it would never have crossed her mind to wonder what Marcus was about. But Matthews’s reaction had been so extreme she could not leave it now.

‘No, my lady, you cannot do that!’ He was obviously appalled.

‘Well, then?’

Matthews went even redder, shuffled his feet and blurted out, ‘It is a house of ill repute, my lady.’

‘Oh.’ Marissa was taken aback. She did not like the idea of Marcus visiting such a place, but she was realist enough to know that men did these things – and he owed her no loyalty now she had broken the engagement. She looked at the under-butler again and saw that he was looking almost shiftily relieved. There was more to it than a simple bawdy house. If that was all it was even Matthews could have come up with a convincing response. A gentleman’s club, a gaming house, my lady, was all he would have needed to say and she would have dropped the subject instantly.