The Marquis Is Trapped by Barbara Cartland

you to marry and produce an heir.  How can you do anything else when you have so much to be responsible for?”
    “My family, like all other families, always concern themselves with matters that are not their business.”
    She laughed and again it was a discordant sound.
    “To put it very simply, you are not married and you intend not to be – ”
    The Marquis so wanted to tell her to mind her own business, but knew it would be rude.
    Instead he parried,
    “I would presume that is obvious.”
    “I find it hard to believe.  Even here in the North of Scotland we know all about your success with some of the most beautiful women in London.  Someone was telling me the other day about one of your conquests.  Now what was her name?  I am almost sure she was called Isobel!”
    The Marquis so wished that he could tell her to shut up, but he merely smiled.
    “If you want a list of the most beautiful women in London, I will gladly supply it.  Without any photographs, which unfortunately I have not brought with me, it would be difficult for you to realise how gorgeous some of them really are.”
    The way he spoke and the look in his eyes told the Countess he had drawn swords with her.
    He had, in fact, declared war.
    She gave a little laugh and rose to her feet.
    “You must tell me more another time.  Now I must obey my husband and find some Scottish beauties.  It will not be easy, but I would hate you to be disappointed – ”
    She walked from the room as she finished speaking.
    As the door closed behind her, the Earl remarked,
    “I had no idea you had met my wife before, Oliver, but I was, of course, very fond of your father and when she suggested I should invite you to stay here, it made me feel it was something I should have done long ago.”
    “I am so grateful, my Lord, for the invitation and I am looking forward to your salmon fishing.”
    “Let’s hope they don’t elude you and Celina will be able to show you the best pools on the river.  She is more experienced than any of the ghillies.”
    When the Marquis went upstairs to dress for dinner, he was thinking hard.
    If he had known he would meet Lady Benson under another name, he would not have come and he was quite certain she despised him for the way he had spurned her all those years ago.
    It seemed strange therefore that she had encouraged her husband to invite him to Darendell for the fishing.
    It was unfortunate that she should be here to spoil the peace and quiet that he was looking for after his escape from Isobel.
    From what she had just said, he suspected that one of her London friends had talked about him and she knew far more than he wanted her to know.
    There was, however, nothing he could do about it now and it was of little use to worry much over something that had happened so long ago.
    After all he had been very young and inexperienced at the time and it would have been far easier to accept her advances than to refuse them.
    Yet at that age and because she was married to an elderly man, he had thought of her as a much older woman.
    That was until the moment in the conservatory.
    Looking back now he remembered vaguely hearing that Sir Gerald Benson had died after an accident on his Racecourse – apparently his horse had fallen at a fence and rolled on its rider.
    By the time this had happened he had ceased to see anything of Peter and therefore he had not been particularly concerned.
    Sir Gerald’s death, however, had left his wife free to marry someone else.
    The Marquis could well understand, as she was still fairly attractive, the Earl of Darendell being captivated by her, while she had undoubtedly desired his title.
    The Marquis was thinking out the whole sequence of events, almost as if he was putting a puzzle together and he wondered if she really hated him for having refused her advances so long ago.
    It was, as far as he was concerned, an event he had almost forgotten and he supposed that now he would laugh at the idea of avoiding