The Marquis Is Deceived by Barbara Cartland

Author:Barbara Cartland [Cartland, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Historical, General, Contemporary
ISBN: 9781782136866
Google: 8JadDQAAQBAJ
Amazon: 178213686X
Publisher: Barbara Cartland EBooks ltd
Published: 2015-07-01T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

The Marquis’s voice seemed to resonate throughout the room.

Silva could for the moment only look at him as if she was hypnotised. Then she blurted out the first thing that came into her mind.

“I locked – the door.”

The Marquis moved closer. “Against me?” he asked.

“I did not think that you would come – here tonight because – I said I was tired.”

The words came rather jerkily from her lip as she was feeling frightened. “As I have already pointed out,” the Marquis said quietly, “you are not Natalie. Then who are you?”

Silva drew in her breath.

“I am her cousin, Silva Hurst.”

“Her cousin!” the Marquis exclaimed. “And instead of Natalie, I have married you.”

Silva nodded her head miserably.

“But why?” he asked. “And, if there was to be a change of brides, the Duke should have informed me.”

Silva could not help shivering.

“If – my uncle had – known what was happening,” she said, “I think he would have – killed me.”

The Marquis was only too well aware of the Duke’s eagerness to have him as a son-in-law.

He therefore asked,

“So why was Natalie so reluctant to become my wife?”

“Because she is very much in love – with someone else,” Silva answered, “and the only thing she could do – was to run away with him.”

The Marquis was trying to understand what had happened.

“What you are saying to me,” he said, “is that your cousin, Natalie, has run away with the man she loves and, rather than disappoint your uncle, you then took her place without him knowing it.”

Silva thought that he had worked the scenario out rather cleverly.

“Yes, that is – what happened,” she said in a small voice, “but I hoped that you would not find out – until we were at sea.”

“And now that I have found out,” the Marquis said, “what am I supposed to do about it?”

Silva clasped her hands together and pushed back her hair which was shimmering in the candlelight.

“Please, oh please,” she pleaded, “don’t tell Uncle Harold until they are married. If you do, he may be able to stop them – and it would break Natalie’s heart.”

“If I do tell him,” the Marquis said slowly, “I will still find myself married to you.”

“That is – true,” Silva replied. “But, if you send me back to The Castle, because I have – deceived you, I don’t think that Uncle Harold will take me in again and I have – nowhere else to go.”

There was a distinctly pathetic note in her voice that the Marquis did not miss.

Unexpectedly he sat down on the end of the bed.

“Now suppose you explain in more detail what has happened. As you can imagine, I am finding it somewhat bewildering to find myself married to someone whom I had not expected and apparently deeply involved in a romantic drama.”

Because he spoke to her in a quiet and sympathetic way, Silva felt less frightened.

“Uncle Harold,” she replied, “told us that you just wanted a wife and actually it was the man who Natalie has run away with who suggested that I should take her place.

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