171. The Marquis Wins (The Eternal Collection) Read online

  “Four weeks ago and you are here at Baden-Baden?”

  “That – is what I want to – explain to you.”

  “I am listening.”

  He thought as he spoke that this was certainly an unusual encounter at the casino, of all places.

  Despite himself he was curious as to what he was about to hear.

  Daniela then told her story in a very low voice.

  As she unravelled her remarkable tale, the Marquis listening realised that she was not only well educated but also most intelligent.

  She told him first how her mother had decided that she should complete her education at a Convent Finishing School in St. Cloud just outside Paris.

  Lady Seabrooke had been anxious, Daniela explained, that her daughter should speak languages fluently, especially French.

  “The world is growing smaller,” she had told her, “and people travel far more than they used to. So many of the English find themselves unable to communicate with anyone in a foreign country and just shout louder!”

  She had smiled and went on,

  “That is why, my dearest, I want you to become proficient both in French and Italian and, although it is an ugly language, to learn, a little German.”

  “I was happy at the school in St. Cloud,” Daniela said. “The nuns were very kind to us and we had the best teachers procurable anywhere in Paris.”

  The Marquis learned that a year ago quite unexpectedly her mother had died.

  It had happened so quickly that it was hard for Daniela to realise that she had lost someone she adored and her father was equally distraught.

  “I went back to England and stayed with Papa,” she told the Marquis, “but after I had been there for two months he insisted that I should finish my studies. I therefore went back to France.”

  The Marquis was listening and wondering how all this could possibly concern him.

  He found that Daniela’s soft musical voice had an almost hypnotic quality about it and he was therefore far more interested than he usually was in other people’s troubles.

  “After I left England,” Daniela said, “Papa came to Paris. He told me later that he had found our home – so empty without Mama that he felt he could – not bear it – any more. He rented a house in the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré.”

  She paused before she added,

  “It was very exciting to know that he was near me, but after he had been in Paris for – a month or so I became a – little worried.”

  There was silence for a moment as if she was trying to choose her words carefully.

  “Why?” the Marquis asked.

  “I felt,” Daniela replied, “that Papa, who had always lived a – quiet life as a country gentleman, was becoming – involved in the – gaieties of Paris that – Mama would not – have approved of.”

  “How could you know anything about them?” the Marquis asked somewhat cynically.

  “The girls at school had brothers who told them how much they – enjoyed the theatres and the restaurants. They also talked about the – beautiful ladies who were not – accepted in their – homes.”

  The Marquis saw as she spoke that Daniela’s eyes flickered and she looked away from him and he thought too that the colour rose in her cheeks.

  He knew only too well exactly what she was implying.

  He was doubtful if she had any idea of the exotic behaviour of women like Cora Pearl and the other famous courtesans.

  But stories of their fantastic appearance and extravagance had in some way percolated into her school.

  “When I saw Papa, ” Daniela went on, “which was usually about – once a week – he began to look – tired and different from how he had been when he was – at home in the country with our dogs, horses and, of course – Mama.”

  There was now a little sob in her voice.

  The Marquis realised that it was only with a tremendous effort at self-control that she was able to go on,

  “Then one day – when I was having – luncheon with Papa, a – lady arrived.”

  As she spoke, she was seeing again the door of the dining room open and Madame Esmé Blanc come into the room.

  She was not a pretty woman.

  At the same time Daniela had never seen anyone so smart in what she thought was a slightly overdressed and exaggerated manner, but undoubtedly what the French would call chic.

  She was not young and her face was rouged and powdered while her lips were very red.

  As she stared at the newcomer, Daniela was aware that her father had stiffened and there was a frown between his eyes as he asked,

  “What do you want, Esmé? I told you that my daughter would be with me today.”

  “I know that, Arthur,” Madame Blanc replied, “but I forgot my purse and, as I needed money, I was obliged to come back for it.”

  Daniela stared in astonishment.

  No one had mentioned to her that there was anybody staying in the house with her father. She had imagined he was living there alone.

  Madame Blanc approached the dining room table and stared at her in what she felt was an uncomfortable manner.

  “So this is your daughter who I have heard so much about!” she exclaimed. “I am very delighted, no enchanted, to meet her.”

  She spoke English with a slight accent and her last words were deliberately gushing.

  Daniela knew what she said was completely insincere. She was not delighted to meet her, but was in fact antagonistic.

  She had risen from her chair to hold out her hand.

  “How do you do, madame,” she said because she thought that it was polite.

  Madame Blanc had merely touched her hand with gloved fingers.

  “Now that I have seen you, I understand why your dear father, who is such a kind person, is so devoted to you,” she said.

  Lord Seabrooke had not moved, but only sat frowning, obviously disconcerted by Madame Blanc’s appearance.

  Now in a voice of authority that Daniela recognised he said,

  “That is enough, Esmé! You have satisfied your curiosity and I am sure that you have other things to do. ”

  “But of course, mon cher,” Madame Blanc replied, “and if I have annoyed you, I will apologise later this evening.”

  She smiled at Lord Seabrooke in what Daniela thought was a somewhat familiar manner.

  Turning with a flounce of her skirts she swept from the room leaving behind her an uncomfortable atmosphere and the scent of an exotic French perfume.

  As Daniela sat down again, her father said,

  “I should have told you that Madame Blanc is staying here for a few nights.”

  “Who is she, Papa?” Daniela asked. “I have not heard you speak of her.”

  “No,” Lord Seabrooke admitted vaguely. “I met her at a dinner party and she asked me if she could be my guest.”

  Daniela was aware the next week when she came out to luncheon with him again that Madame Blanc was still in the house.

  She found out quite by accident that the door of the bedroom next to her father’s was locked and had thought it strange.

  There was a pair of women’s hand gloves on the hall table beside those her father wore. And there was a sunshade amongst the umbrellas.

  She was aware too of an exotic perfume lingering on the cushions in the salon and in the passage into which the locked room opened.

  She found herself thinking about Madame Blanc and wondering how her father could find her interesting after he had been so happy and content with her mother.

  Their home had always seemed to be filled with laughter.

  She had seen him at her mother’s funeral, hollow-eyed and pale like a man stricken by a mortal blow.

  It seemed extraordinary that he should have found consolation, if that was the right word for it, so quickly.

  Then in the middle of the week she was told by one of the nuns that her father had arrived at the Convent and wanted to speak to her.

  She had gone hastily to the Mother S
uperior’s room to find him there looking, she thought, rather strange.

  “What is it, Papa? What is the – matter?” she asked.

  Then, as he did not answer, she asked,

  “You are not – going back to – England?”

  “No, not at the moment, but there is something I have to tell you.”

  She waited, but he was looking round the small sitting room with its Crucifix on the wall and a prie-Dieu in front of it.

  “I cannot talk to you here,” he said. “I have asked the Mother Superior if I can take you out to luncheon at a nearby restaurant and she has agreed.”

  Daniela’s eyes lit up.

  “Oh, Papa, how exciting! I shall feel that I am playing truant, but it will be thrilling to be with you.”

  “Hurry and put on your bonnet,” her father said sharply.

  She ran off to obey him, but she knew as she stepped into his carriage, which was waiting outside, that there was something very wrong.

  She thought then for the first time that she ought never to have left her father alone.

  When her mother had died, however much he might have protested, she should have stayed with him in England.

  Afterwards when she looked back it seemed to Daniela that she grew up at that moment.

  She ceased to be a child, doing whatever the grown-ups decreed, and began to think for herself.

  She had slipped her hand into her father’s.

  “Don’t look so worried, Papa,” she said. “I am here and, if you are going back to England, I will come with you and look after you as Mama would have done if she was still alive.”

  Her father’s fingers tightened so that she almost cried out at the pain of it.

  Then he exclaimed in an odd voice,

  “For God’s sake, Daniela, don’t talk like that!”

  She was somewhat startled and remained silent until the carriage drew up outside a small quiet restaurant.

  It was comfortable and expensive with only two other tables occupied.

  On her father’s insistence, they were given a table in an alcove that was almost like being alone in a small room.

  Her father studied the menu and as he did so Daniela watched him and saw that he was looking pale and drawn.

  It flashed through her mind that perhaps he was ill.

  Quite suddenly she felt afraid.

  When he had given their order and the waiter had withdrawn, she put out her hand to her father saying,

  “Please, Papa – tell me what has – upset you.”

  Then Lord Seabrooke, in a voice that did not sound like his own, said heavily,

  “I don’t know – how to tell you this, Daniela, but – I am married!”

  “M-married?” Daniela exclaimed.

  Whatever else she had expected, it had certainly not been this.

  “I-I don’t understand –”

  Her father was silent.

  Then he said,

  “Nor do I, but it happened when I did not know what I was – doing.”

  Daniela stared at him and he added,

  “Esmé Blanc, who you met although I expressly told her not to come near us, was determined from the start to marry me because I am a rich man.”

  Daniela made a little murmur of horror, but she did not interrupt and her father went on,

  “She begged me and pleaded with me, but I was adamant that no one, and I meant no one, should ever take your mother’s place.”

  There was an agony in her father’s voice as he spoke of her mother that made the tears come into Daniela’s eyes.

  “Besides that,” Lord Seabrooke continued, “I had no intention of giving you a stepmother, least of all a woman like Esmé Blanc!”

  Daniela looked at him in astonishment.

  “But she is a friend of yours, Papa. You had her to stay.”

  Lord Seabrooke drew in his breath.

  “I was lonely, dearest, as you can understand. The reason why I came to France was that I could not bear the emptiness of the rooms at home and expecting any minute the door to open and your mother to come in.”

  “I do understand that,” Daniela murmured, “and I should have stayed – with you.”

  “It’s too late now,” Lord Seabrooke said. “This woman has got her way and, although I can hardly believe it myself, she is my wife!”

  “But – how could you have – asked her to – marry you?” Daniela quizzed him hesitantly.

  “I swear to you, and you know I always tell you the truth, I did not ask her to marry me. I had no intention of marrying her, and she is not a woman I would inflict on you as a stepmother.”

  He spoke so violently that Daniela looked at him again in astonishment.

  “Then how – how did it – happen?”

  “I don’t remember anything about it. We had dinner and some of her friends were there, none of whom I would introduce to you. After the dinner was over I remember nothing!”

  “Nothing?” Daniela questioned.

  “Nothing until I woke up in bed the next morning and was shown the Marriage Licence signed by the Parson who married us at a small Church in Montmartre.”

  “It is – legal?” Daniela asked.

  “Esmé Blanc had arranged the formalities which must take place in France at the Mairie. A friend of hers impersonated me and signed my name.”

  “B-but – Papa – !”

  Daniela could only exclaim in horror at what she had just heard.

  After a moment she said as her father did not speak,

  “But surely. Papa, in those – circumstances, it must be – illegal?”

  “I would have to prove it in the French Courts,” Lord Seabrooke replied. “It would be a long drawn-out case and the details would be reported in every newspaper both here and in England!”

  Daniela drew in her breath.

  She knew how the scandal would hurt and humiliate her father.

  And she realised without him telling her how appalling it would be for him to have to admit that he had allowed a woman like Esmé Blanc to stay with him in his house.

  And anyway, because he was English, he might not win his case.

  There was a long pause before she said in a whisper,

  “What are – you going to – do about it, Papa?”

  “I don’t know,” Lord Seabrooke replied, “but I wanted you, my precious daughter, to know the truth.”

  As Daniela repeated to the Marquis his last words, she was almost choked by tears.

  As if she was ashamed of her lack of control, she looked away from him and after a moment without speaking he passed her his fine linen handkerchief.

  She took it and wiped her eyes.

  As she did so, he thought that never in his life had he heard such an extraordinary and at the same time intriguing tale.

  Because of the way she told it he could almost see the drama of it unfolding in front of his eyes.

  He recognised that he wanted to hear just what had happened after that.

  He found himself hoping, which was unlike his usual indifference to anything that occurred, that they would not be interrupted.

  Daniela, having wiped her eyes, sat with his handkerchief between her fingers, staring into the darkness.

  “What happened next?” the Marquis asked her.

  There was a long silence before Daniela replied,

  “Papa – was killed in a – d-duel!”

  Chapter Two

  “A duel?” the Marquis exclaimed.

  He was thinking as he spoke that it was the last thing he would have expected of Lord Seabrooke.

  He remembered as Daniela was talking that he had met her father once in the Jockey Club at Newmarket and on another occasion it had been at White’s Club in London.

  He had seemed a quiet middle-aged man, good-looking and with a presence which, as Daniela had described it, was that of a country gentleman.

  Duels were forbidden in England, but took place secretly, although they were more common in Fr
ance, usually between the extravagant rather flamboyant young Frenchmen who were over-emotional about their mistresses.

  The Marquis would never have debased himself by being involved in one of these duels.

  They occurred at a certain spot in the Bois de Boulogne and were continually lampooned in the French Press.

  Because he realised that Daniela was looking depressed, he said quietly,

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “I don’t – know – exactly,” she replied, “but I am sure it was – something to do – with Madame Blanc.”

  She gave a little sob before she went on,

  “Whatever the reason, Papa’s opponent was – a man who is – notorious for having – fought dozens of duels and for always being – victorious.”

  “And your father was killed!” the Marquis exclaimed.

  This was something that very rarely happened. Usually the worst any man could expect from fighting in a duel was a bullet through the arm, which might result in his running a high temperature. He would also have to wear his arm in a sling for the next two or three weeks.

  “It took me – some time,” Daniela was saying in a very low voice, “to find out what – occurred. Finally I learnt that Papa’s valet who was devoted to him had been present.”

  She gave another sob as she went on,

  “When the Referee called out ‘ten’, the duellers turned, Papa fired – into the air and at the – same time – faced his – opponent.”

  The Marquis stared at her in astonishment.

  If that had been a deliberate gesture, then Lord Seabrooke had meant to die.

  “The – bullet,” Daniela continued, “entered Papa’s – chest near the heart and, when he was – taken back to the house, he – he died that – night.”

  It was almost impossible for her to say the words, but she managed it.

  Then with what the Marquis thought was admirable courage she wiped her eyes and without waiting for him to speak said,

  “When I was – told what – had happened, I found it – hard to – believe that Papa had – really left me.

  “I can understand that,” the Marquis said sympathetically.

  “The Mother Superior – herself took me – into Paris and I knew when she met my stepmother that she – disapproved of her.”

  The Marquis thought that this was not surprising, but he did not say so.