The Marquis of Westmarch (31 page)

She went to sit now on the window-seat, with her back to the view, and refused to think about such things. Hugo was disgusting, she thought to herself as she watched him examine the ring; he was greedy, greedier than she was. She remembered quite how much she had always detested him, and feared him.

Longmaster raised his eyes, and said with dignified kindliness, “There will be any number of formalities to be attended to, you know, cousin.”

“Yes, but the Citizens will be delighted at the thought of my
going now that I have blood on my hands,” said Meriel quite naturally. “There will be no real difficulty, I’m persuaded.”

“But I have not a doubt that they will think me a most unworthy successor,” said Hugo in a plaintive voice, his manner suddenly changing. He lounged, and held up the ring between his thumb and forefinger. “Is this not rather dangerous, rather unwise, coz? Ought you indeed to desert your post, leaving it in such shocking hands as mine?”

“Do not talk to me like that,” Meriel replied.

There was a pause. Hugo swallowed, feeling irrational fear of his young cousin for the first time in his life. He put the ring in his lap, and drummed his fingers on the arms of his chair, as he seemed to remember Meriel uncharacteristically doing that day he came to ask her for the Wardenship.

“Forgive me, I am insufficiently grateful, am I not? But indeed, I must be grateful to you. It is only that was not just what I was expecting. Having an old wish granted has quite overset my nerves,” said Hugo. “My apologies — sincere apologies.”

It was the first unforced apology Meriel had ever had from him. She smiled unhappily, thinking of this, as she sat further back in the window. The light was behind her, and so Hugo could only see her outline. She said, having forgotten to mention it before, “Cousin, I hope that if you chance to hear from Juxon, you will undertake to pay him a pension of some sort.”

Hugo took snuff. “If you wish it, certainly. But I thought you quite detested him?”

“He ought not to be left to starve. For all his faults, he was not venal, and I should doubt he has enough to live on.”

Hugo said, “I presume you will remain in these apartments just for the present? Until matters are settled. It will present a very odd appearance if you remove yourself immediately to some other lodging — mine perhaps — will it not?”

“No, no,” she told him in a far more agitated voice than she had used hitherto. “You misunderstand, I’m going to Long-master Wood now, today. I shall be writing to you from there, and of course I’ll come back should my presence be formally required, though I shall not like it, but I’m leaving today.”

“Are you!” said Hugo, and she was thankful he said no more. “Meriel, I’m sorry.”

She got up again for the last time and walked across to the doors. “You and I have always been at outs, cousin, we are not at ease with each other. It would be best if we were to write, do you not think? I must go if I am to reach Fenmarket by nightfall, there’s too little moon to travel by.”

“Very well,” he replied, rising in his turn, and absently pushing the seal-ring on to his little finger. It was too small for his other fingers, Meriel noticed. “Your trunks are packed I take it?”

“A couple of portmanteaux. They’re already strapped on to my chaise. I hope you will not object to sending on the rest of my possessions — my driving-cattle and the curricle I’m obliged to leave here for now.”

“No.” Hugo went towards Meriel, and stood next to her, meaning to speak. He opened his mouth but said nothing.

A disturbing expression came into his eyes as he looked at her white face: Meriel saw amazement in them, and horrified wonder, and having often imagined such a look on others’ faces, she understood what it meant.

“Well?” she said in a low, cold, unwavering voice, thinking of the gun with which she could kill herself if, as she thought, Hugo like Philander was now able to see she was a female. To kill herself after being exposed by her cousin would not be cowardly: it would be right. She longed to do it. Her heart began to pound heavily against her ribs, but she looked down at her cousin with cool and hard and steady eyes under her undoubtedly womanly, butterfly eyebrows.

He turned away, guessing nothing. The moment had passed.

“Nothing,” he said. “No, nothing. You are a better man than I am, cousin!”

“No,” said Meriel, and did not smile, though she knew she had defeated him.

As she opened the doors Hugo called out, “Cousin! I shall be most happy to send on anything you wish to Longmaster Wood, pray inform me by letter. And I hope it will not be necessary for you to return, since you are so determined to go.” He hesitated. “Allow me to tell you quite how much I admire your sense of duty to Wychwood’s memory. Your great — grief is something with which I hope I can sympathise, and I promise that I shall do what I
can to prevent that kind of vulgar mocking gossip that — that some like to indulge in.”

She listened attentively to this speech. “Yes, the love of men is a fine thing, ain’t it?” she said. Meriel smiled then. She did not make the low bow to Hugo which was his due, now that he had her ring on his finger.

Turning, she walked out, through dining-chamber, withdrawing-room, antechamber and saloon, past footmen who pretended not to notice her, into the hallway where she took up her waiting hat and gloves, and down the outer staircase. She was hoping that this would be her last exit from those apartments, but knew that very likely it would not be.

“Marquis of Westmarch!” murmured Hugo in the bedchamber, staring at a portrait-crusted wall.

Down below, Meriel leant back for support against the base of a statue in Marquis’s Court, and pressed her hands into the stone as she choked down the emotion that was rising up from inside her.

She choked not only because she had committed murder, but because in all her years as Marquis, even at the end, she had never been a just and merciful autocrat, and a great captain of war. To be those two things had been her childhood’s ambition, and her father’s ambition for her.

Yet she had won a warrior’s victory, for in wronging Auriol, she had saved herself. Meriel looked up steadily at the great brass weathercock that surmounted her old apartments, moved her lips, and acknowledged that she could not have survived love and marriage for more than a month. She raised herself, and turned, and walked quickly on towards the stables under the gleaming evening sky.