The Savage Marquess by M.C. Beaton

long silence. Then a dust cart went past, the old horse pulling it clop-clopping over the cobbles, a blackbird sang in one of the plane trees in the square behind her, and next door a window shot up and a curious housemaid looked down.
    Lucinda hammered on the knocker again.
    She was just about to turn away when the door suddenly opened. Chumley stood on the step.
    “Yes, miss?” he asked politely, his eyes quickly taking in the respectability of Lucinda’s dress. They roamed behind her as if searching for an accompanying maid, and, finding none, came to rest on Lucinda’s face with a tinge of wariness mixed with severity.
    “I am come to call on Lord Rockingham,” said Lucinda.
    “It is very early in the day. I must ask the nature of your business with his lordship.”
    “A personal matter… of… of
great
importance.”
    “Your card, miss?”
    Lucinda fumbled in her reticule and took out one of her last, precious calling cards, turned it down at the corner to show she was calling in person, and handed it to Chumley.
    His eyes searched her face again. Chumley at last recognized Lucinda as the pretty lady his master had helped in the park.
    He hesitated only a moment. “Be so good as to enter, Miss Westerville.”
    Chumley ushered Lucinda into a gloomy hall and then held open a door leading off it. She found herself in a damp, musty saloon. Chumley bowed and closed the door behind her and then she could hear his footsteps mounting the stairs.
    She looked curiously about her. There were some fine chairs, quite modern judging by the fact that all had arms, the new style of lady’s and gentlemen’s dress allowing for such an addition, whereas the old-fashioned panniered gowns and coats with their skirts stiffened with whalebone had not. There was a William Kent bureau, surmounted by an eagle with one outstretched claw on which someone had hung a lady’s dusty garter. A backless sofa was placed in front of the fireplace. In front of it stood a sofa table, one of its open drawers revealing several well-thumbed packs of cards. The corners of the floor were still damp, as if the room had been recently scrubbed by a heavy hand and not allowed to air.
    Over the fireplace was an oil painting of a stern-faced woman leaning on a pillar, while thunder clouds piled in the sky behind her. She had a nasty little smile on her face.
    Lucinda nervously smoothed down her silk pelisse. The fact that the pale blue pelisse was one of Ismene’s, changed to fit her thinner figure, gave her a stab of guilt, and once more she wondered whether she was a weakling and a coward, running away to marry a rake.
    The door opened and the Marquess of Rockingham walked in. He could hardly be called a pretty sight. His thick black hair was tousled, he was unshaven, and his tall athletic body was wrapped in an Oriental dressing gown gaudily embroidered to the point of decadence. His bare feet were thrust into Turkish slippers. His green eyes were bloodshot. He had left Almack’s and had gone to a gambling hell. A long night’s drinking in a smoke-filled room had worked its usual ruin. He had had only a bare two hours’ sleep.
    He threw Lucinda a jaundiced look, strode over to the sofa and stretched out on it, clasped his hands behind his head, looked up at her, and said, “Well?”
    Lucinda looked down at him miserably. This was hardly a Sir Galahad. She doubted if the marquess had one chivalrous thought in his brain.
    “I have made a mistake,” she said quietly. “I must apologize for troubling you, my lord.”
    “Don’t be silly,” he snapped. “You have roused me at this unearthly hour for some reason, you have risked ruining your reputation by calling here, so you had better tell me what it’s all about. God, my tongue feels like a carpet.” He threw back his head and roared, “Chumley! Chumley! Where are you, you lazy hound?”
    The door opened and Chumley came in carrying a tray with a steaming pot of coffee and two cups.
    “As