Eleanor & the Marquis by Jane Wilby

Author:Jane Wilby [Wilby, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mills & Boon
Published: 1976-12-31T13:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

Her Grace was surveying her nephew severely. Eleanor and Beatrix, seated on the sofa in the drawing-room, had glanced up on his entry a moment after the butler had announced him. Looking particularly splendid in his many-caped riding coat, and with his hair immaculately dressed in the style known as the Vanity Cut, his lordship’s appearance brought a stifled gasp of admiration to Beatrix’s lips.

“Isn’t he grand?” she whispered.

“Hush!” warned Eleanor as the Dowager began to speak.

“You two children—run along. I desire to have a private talk with my nephew.”

Rising instantly, the cousins glanced at one another, and then at the Marquis who, having strolled unconcernedly over to a table on which stood a decanter and several glasses, was now pouring out two drinks.

“May we take a walk?” asked Eleanor, her eyes following his lordship as he crossed the room to hand a glass of sherry to his aunt.

“Don’t go far, and don’t get yourselves tired. By rights you should both be resting, for we have a long evening ahead of us.”

“The party at Carlton House,” said Beatrix excitedly. “I do hope my lord Keddleston will be there!”

“Your flirtations are beginning to bore me, child,” complained her Grace. “You came here to make a brilliant alliance, not to get yourself a bad name by flirting with every Sprig of Fashion in the city!”

Beatrix merely grinned, but behind her hand, and then turned to follow her cousin from the room.

“What do you suppose he’s done to upset her?” Beatrix said, coming to a halt in the corridor a yard or two from the closed door of the drawing-room. “My, but she looks furiously angry.”

Eleanor merely shrugged her shoulders.

“I couldn’t even make a guess, Beatrix. Are you coming fora stroll?”

“No ...” Beatrix nevertheless fell into step beside her cousin. “I want to hear what’s going on.”

“You!” Eleanor stopped now, abruptly, and faced her cousin. “What did you say?” she demanded.

“I want to listen,” replied Beatrix unashamedly.

A heavy frown settled upon Eleanor’s forehead.

“You cannot be serious,” she said severely. “No nice person listens to other people’s conversation.”

“Sometimes,” returned Beatrix, “I am not at all a nice person.”

“Come,” urged Eleanor with a hint of impatience, “let us take that stroll.”

“I’m going to listen,” returned Beatrix obstinately. “If we go into the other drawing room, and slide back a small panel by the fireplace, we can hear everything that’s being said between the Marquis and her Grace.”

A gasp of incredulity was Eleanor’s only response for a full thirty seconds.

“You mean—you have listened before?”

Beatrix said yes, she had.

“It’s because I know that something odd is going on,” she explained, quite unperturbed by the expression of utter disbelief that had settled on her cousin’s face. “My aunt is up to something, Eleanor. Haven’t you realized this before now—and with your acute brain, too? She’s made you the rage—”

“Beatrix, please stop this nonsense,” implored Eleanor. “There isn’t anything strange going on—”

“You fibber! I’m sure that you know very well that there is! I’m going—I’ve wasted enough time,

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