Free Tilly by M.C. Beaton Page A

bride.
    Tilly had been used to a large staff of servants at Jeebles, so the formidable array of faces did not daunt her. The marquess noticed that she said the correct thing to each member of his staff and that nagging feeling of guilt about leaving her so soon returned to plague him.
    But when Tilly arrived in the long drawing room with its gilded walls and painted ceiling, wearing a suit of a mannish cut, in a shocking shade of pink that argued violently with her hair, he fortified himself from the decanter and became more determined than ever to make his escape.
    Tilly chattered happily about a visit from the housekeeper, Mrs. Judd, who had promised to take her on a tour of the mansion on the morrow.
    The marquess put down his glass with a little click.
    “Tilly, my dear,” he said, “I must leave for Paris this very evening.”
    All animation disappeared from Tilly’sface. The thunder rumbled outside and a vivid flash of lightning flared in the darkening room.
    “Business?” asked Tilly, her own voice sounding harsh and strange in her ears.
    “Yes, business.”
    “Then… I cannot keep you.”
    “No.”
    They sat in silence, Tilly’s heartbroken, the Marquess’s embarrassed, while outside the full fury of the storm burst over the mansion.
    “You can’t travel in this weather,” said Tilly at last.
    “I must.”
    Tilly could feel the weak and treacherous tears forming at the back of her eyes. She was to be a wife in name only, after all. The other half of the business contract.
    She rose stiffly, as if her whole body were in pain. The exuberant schoolgirl enthusiasm had gone from her voice. “Then I beg you to excuse me,” she said. “I must lie down.”
    The marquess crossed the long room and held the door open for her. She walked past him to the staircase, where she paused with her hand on the carved bannister and looked back.
    Again the marquess had the odd feeling that Tilly was two women. A beautiful ghostseemed to move wraithlike in the dim and shadowy hall in front of Tilly’s face, in front of Tilly’s wide, pain-filled eyes.
    Then she turned and walked slowly up the staircase, her head held high.
    “We have a bargain, haven’t we?” The marquess suddenly called out. “Haven’t we?”
    But only the sound of tumbling and crashing thunder came in reply.

CHAPTER FIVE
    On the following day, when the fireworks of the storm had given way to damp drizzle, the county called at Chennington in droves to pay their respects to the new bride, only to be told that “my lady was indisposed.” Where, then, was my lord? “Indisposed also,” said his lordship’s venerable butler, Masters. The servants had taken an immediate liking to Tilly and felt their beloved master was behaving shamefully.
    So the county turned their carriages around and trotted off down the drive under the great dripping trees. But they talked and they speculated.
    On the third day after the marquess’s departure the blow fell in the servants’ hall. Mr. Masters read the social columns in one of the lower orders of newspapers. In a hushed voice, he read the offending paragraph out tothe cook, Mrs. Comfrey. Over a glass of blackberry brandy, the cook subsequently read the news to the housekeeper, Mrs. Judd, and the three gathered in the housekeeper’s cosy parlor that evening for a council of war.
    “It doesn’t make sense,” said Mr. Masters. “I’ve known his lordship since he was a boy and I’d never have dreamed he would do anything like this. His lordship has always been the soul of kindness and consideration.”
    “That trollop! And a foreigner too!” cried Mrs. Judd, clutching the newspaper to her black bombazine bosom.
    “Here, let’s have a proper look at it, then,” said the cook, reaching out a chubby red hand and taking the newspaper. “You only read it to me.”
    Her steel-rimmed spectacles perched on the end of her stubby nose, the cook traced the print with her finger and read aloud:
    “Strange Wedding