M. C. Beaton is the author of the hugely successful Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth series, as well as a quartet of Edwardian murder mysteries featuring heroine Lady Rose Summer, several Regency romance series and a stand-alone murder mystery, The Skeleton in the Closet – all published by Constable & Robinson. She left a full-time career in journalism to turn to writing, and now divides her time between the Cotswolds and Paris. Visit www.mcbeatonbooks.co.uk for more, or follow M. C. Beaton on Twitter: @mc_beaton.

Titles by M. C. Beaton

The Poor Relation

Lady Fortescue Steps Out • Miss Tonks Turns to Crime • Mrs Budley Falls from Grace

Sir Philip’s Folly • Colonel Sandhurst to the Rescue • Back in Society

A House for the Season

The Miser of Mayfair • Plain Jane • The Wicked Godmother

Rake’s Progress • The Adventuress • Rainbird’s Revenge

The Six Sisters

Minerva • The Taming of Annabelle • Deirdre and Desire

Daphne • Diana the Huntress • Frederica in Fashion

Edwardian Murder Mysteries

Snobbery with Violence • Hasty Death • Sick of Shadows

Our Lady of Pain

The Travelling Matchmaker

Emily Goes to Exeter • Belinda Goes to Bath • Penelope Goes to Portsmouth

Beatrice Goes to Brighton • Deborah Goes to Dover • Yvonne Goes to York

Edwardian Candlelight

Polly • Molly • Ginny • Tilly • Susie • Kitty • Daisy • Sally • Maggie • Poppy • Pretty Polly • Lucy • My Lords, Ladies and Marjorie

Regency Candlelight

Annabelle • Henrietta • Penelope

Regency Royal

The Westerby Inheritance • The Marquis Takes a Bride • Lady Anne’s Deception • Lady Margery’s Intrigue • The Savage Marquess • My Dear Duchess • The Highland Countess • Lady Lucy’s Lover • The Ghost and Lady Alice • Love and Lady Lovelace • Duke’s Diamonds • The Viscount’s Revenge • The Paper Princess • The Desirable Duchess • The Sins of Lady Dacey • The Dreadful Debutante • The Chocolate Debutante • The Loves of Lord Granton • Milady in Love • The Scandalous Marriage

Regency Scandal

His Lordship’s Pleasure • Her Grace’s Passion • The Scandalous Lady Wright

Regency Flame

Those Endearing Young Charms ? The Flirt • Lessons in Love • Regency Gold • Miss Fiona’s Fancy • The French Affair • To Dream of Love • A Marriage of Inconvenience • A Governess of Distinction • The Glitter of Gold

Regency Season

The Original Miss Honeyford • The Education of Miss Paterson • At the Sign of the Golden Pineapple • Sweet Masquerade ?The Constant Companion • Quadrille • The Perfect Gentleman • Dancing on the Wind • Ms. Davenport’s Christmas

The Waverly Women

The First Rebellion • Silken Bonds • The Love Match

Agatha Raisin

Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death • Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet

Agatha Raisin and the Potted Gardener • Agatha Raisin and the Walkers of Dembley

Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage • Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist

Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death • Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham

Agatha Raisin and the Witch of Wyckhadden

Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfam • Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell

Agatha Raisin and the Day the Floods Came

Agatha Raisin and the Curious Curate • Agatha Raisin and the Haunted House

Agatha Raisin and the Deadly Dance • Agatha Raisin and the Perfect Paragon

Agatha Raisin and Love, Lies and Liquor

Agatha Raisin and Kissing Christmas Goodbye

Agatha Raisin and a Spoonful of Poison • Agatha Raisin: There Goes the Bride

Agatha Raisin and the Busy Body • Agatha Raisin: As the Pig Turns

Agatha Raisin: Hiss and Hers • Agatha Raisin and the Christmas Crumble

Hamish Macbeth

Death of a Gossip • Death of a Cad • Death of an Outsider

Death of a Perfect Wife • Death of a Hussy • Death of a Snob

Death of a Prankster • Death of a Glutton • Death of a Travelling Man

Death of a Charming Man • Death of a Nag • Death of a Macho Man

Death of a Dentist • Death of a Scriptwriter • Death of an Addict

A Highland Christmas • Death of a Dustman • Death of a Celebrity

Death of a Village • Death of a Poison Pen • Death of a Bore

Death of a Dreamer • Death of a Maid • Death of a Gentle Lady

Death of a Witch • Death of a Valentine • Death of a Sweep

Death of a Kingfisher • Death of Yesterday

The Skeleton in the Closet

Also available

The Agatha Raisin Companion

Lady Margery’s Intrigue

M. C. Beaton

Constable & Robinson Ltd.

55–56 Russell Square

London WC1B 4HP

www.constablerobinson.com

First electronic edition published 2011

by RosettaBooks LLC, New York

This edition published in the UK by Canvas,

an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd., 2013

Copyright © M. C. Beaton, 1980

The right of M. C. Beaton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in

Publication Data is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-47210-134-1 (ebook)

Cover copyright © Constable & Robinson

CHAPTER ONE

“Only think, dear Amelia,” said Lady Margery Quennell, looking around the glittering throng which graced Almack’s Assembly Rooms. “After tonight, I will never have to endure another Wednesday night like this again.”

Lady Margery was seated next to her aunt, Lady Amelia Carroll, on that uncomfortable piece of furniture known as a rout chair, in the shadow of one of the pillars which supported the musicians’ gallery.

She raised her chicken-skin fan to her face to cover a yawn. “I told Papa it was no good sending me to London for season after season. I shall never ‘take,’ you know. And all this bores me so dreadfully.”

Lady Amelia gave her comfortable laugh. “Only think, dear Margery,” she whispered, “of all the young debutantes who cry and sob because they cannot enter the portals of Almack’s. Henry Luttrell wrote a vastly amusing poem about it. He said:

“All on that magic List depends;
Fame, fortune, fashion, lovers, friends;
’Tis that which gratifies or vexes
All ranks, all ages, and both sexes.
If once to Almack’s you belong,
Like monarchs you can do no wrong;
But banished thence on Wednesday night,
By Jove, you can do nothing right.”

Lady Margery gave a reluctant laugh. “Well, I am here, and still I can do nothing right!”

A ball and a supper were given at Almack’s once a week during the season; voucher-invitations were issued by the despotic partronesses, and girls new to the fashionable world wept and moaned if they were not on the list.

Lady Margery was aged twenty-three and had graced the rows of wallflowers for many a season, her choleric father, the Earl of Chelmswood, refusing to believe that his daughter was not a diamond of the first water.

She had just extracted a promise from him that never again should she have to waste money—which by rights should go to the maintenance of her home and estates—on the simply awful expense of a season.

“Won’t you miss it all a little bit?” queried her aunt curiously.

Lady Margery let her eyes roam over the ballroom. “Not in the slightest,” she whispered back. “Now if I were a gentleman, ’twould be a different matter. I could join the perpetual bachelors and have a marvelous time. Here come the top four prizes of the marriage mart.”

Four gentlemen were just entering the ballroom—Viscount Swanley, a fair and willowy youth; the Honorable Toby Sanderson, a bluff country squire; Mr. Freddie Jamieson, handsome in a dark way but never quite drunk and never quite sober; and the Marquess of Edgecombe.

It was the last who made Lady Margery’s pulses race although she knew the marquess to have the reputation of a hardened flirt. He was tall, with a languid grace which belied his athletic body. He wore his thick tawny hair unpowdered and longer than the current fashion dictated. He had a strong, very white, high-nosed, arrogant, masculine face. His eyes were of a startlingly vivid blue but were often veiled by heavy drooping lids and thick black lashes. His handsome face was marred by a perpetual air of boredom. Lady Margery had a sudden longing to see him smile.

The voice of her aunt broke into her thoughts. “There’s Edgecombe,” whispered Lady Amelia, waving her long ostrich-feather fan under Margery’s nose. “He is reported to be paying court to little Miss Clarence—the latest belle, you know.” Her fan tickled Margery’s nose and Margery burst out in an awful sneeze and then gave her infectious laugh.

“Take that… that… thing away from under my nose, Amelia. I declare it’s seen almost as many seasons as I.”

At that moment, the marquess looked across the room and caught a glimpse of Lady Margery’s face, animated with laughter. He found himself wondering who she was and turned to his friend, Freddie Jamieson.

“Freddie! Who is that girl over there under the musicians’ gallery. The one seated next to that plump lady?”

Freddie tried to focus his bleary eyes and failed. He took out his quizzing glass and held it so far in front of him that the marquess thought, for one awful minute, he was going to fall over.

“Oh, that!” he said finally. “That’s Lady Margery Quennell. Surely you have heard about her. Dreadful old father of hers drags her up to London, season after season, hoping someone will marry her. Poor girl! You’ve only to look at her to see why they won’t. ’Course, the family’s got precious little money either.”

“She has a lovely smile,” said the marquess, studying the interesting Lady Margery for the first time.

He saw a very small girl—she must have been only about five feet tall—dressed in an unfashionable gown of a hideous shade of puce. She had a neat figure and an attractive pair of gray eyes, but she had wispy, sandy hair and a thin white face.

It was not that she was precisely unattractive, he decided. It was simply that the girl positively radiated boredom. He had a sudden impulse to discover what the plain Lady Margery would look like when she was animated.

“He’s coming this way,” hissed Lady Amelia.

“Who? What?” demanded Lady Margery, whose mind had been busy with the repairs to her home—so busy that she had completely forgotten that she was at Almack’s.

“The Marquess of Edgecombe!” muttered Amelia. “Smile!”

But Lady Margery was looking up into the handsome face of the marquess with all the enthusiasm with which the hare watches the approach of the weasel.

Then the marquess was bowing before her, his hand on his heart, and begging Aunt Amelia’s permission to lead Margery into the waltz. She stood up. She dropped her fan. He bent to pick it up at the same time as she did and they banged their heads together. Lady Margery blushed and apologized. He held out his arms to lead her into the steps of the waltz and, to his horror, she collapsed headlong into them. Lady Margery had been sitting against the wall for so long that her foot had gone to sleep. Again she blushed and apologized, and the marquess cursed himself for being such a fool as to patronize plain wallflowers.

It was then that Lady Margery found her courage. To dance with the Marquess of Edgecombe was the same as dancing with Mr. Brummell—it was one of the highest social accolades. And Lady Margery was feminine and human enough to crave for just a little social success on her last night.

The marquess was thankful for small mercies. The small lady in his arms danced divinely, although so far he had only managed to look down on the top of her head.

She suddenly raised her eyes to his and smiled. Really, the little thing was quite fetching when she was animated! He plunged into conversation.

“Are you enjoying your season, Lady Margery?”

“Yes,” she replied dutifully, and then added truthfully, “At least I am enjoying it now. I mean I am enjoying the fact that this is my last season, and after tonight I may never have to endure a ball or rout or breakfast or turtle dinner ever again.”

The blue eyes mocked her. “You disappoint me, Lady Margery. I had hoped you were enjoying yourself now because you were dancing with me.”

“Oh, I am,” said Margery. “It is such social prestige to be seen dancing with the Marquess of Edgecombe that I am sure I am the envy of every other lady.”

“And that is the only reason you are enjoying your dance? Not because you are in my arms?”

“You must not flirt with me, my lord,” said Margery gently. “I am not practiced in the art, you see.”

“I could teach you,” said the marquess lightly, wondering why he was behaving so badly.

“I am unteachable,” said Margery sadly. “This is my third season, you know. My father refuses to admit that I will not ‘take,’ so he gives me one year of peace in the country and then insists on putting me through the mill again. I have become quite fond of my little chair over there, and perhaps when I am dead they will put a little placque on it saying, ‘Lady Margery Quennell sat here. And sat. And sat.’”

“Had I noticed you before, Lady Margery,” he said, executing a neat pirouette, “you would not have been left sitting.”

“How very kind of you to say so, especially since you only pay court to beauties.”

“And I still do,” he said, smiling down at her in such a way that she felt a wrench at her heart. She began to feel quite breathless and was glad when the dance came to an end.

“Allow me to take you in to supper,” said the marquess, surprising himself and Lady Margery. “I have dined already, and the food is quite dreadful here, but then I shall have a little more time in your company.”

She put her head on one side rather like an inquisitive kitten and surveyed her tall escort. “Now, you are being kind,” she said. “And you did not strike me as being a particularly kind man.”

“How can you tell what people are like from just looking at them?” he asked, amused, as he escorted her to the supper room and surveyed the array of curling sandwiches and unexciting cakes.

“I have ample time to study people, you know, since I ‘sit out’ so much at balls and parties.”

“Let us test your powers of deduction while we pretend to eat. What do you think of my friend Viscount Swanley, for example?”

Again Margery tilted her head to one side. “Let me see, Viscount Swanley—Lord Peregrine. Yes, I have noticed him. I would say he was a pleasant young man, good company, not much of a sportsman, and probably writes poetry in secret.”

“Now that is too good,” laughed the marquess. “Someone must have told you about the poetry although it is Perry’s carefully guarded secret. Now what about Toby Sanderson?”

“Oh, very much the country squire and sportsman. Gambles too much and would bet on anything. Terrified of women which is why he is still a bachelor. Pays court only to beauties, knowing he has no hope of marrying one.”

“Bravo! And what about me, my cynic?”

Everyone was furtively watching them. Lady Margery was enjoying the very heady novelty of knowing that she was a success.

“A bit of the poet, a bit of the sportsman, a bit of the lover, and very much the cynic. Never married because… because he was very disappointed in love at an early age and has privately despised women ever since.”

“Lady Margery!”

But Margery was carried away and had almost forgotten who she was talking to. “He will probably marry eventually, but only to secure an heir, and he will marry the Beauty of the Season as a matter of form. He—”

“Allow me to escort you back to your aunt.”

The marquess’s voice was like ice and his eyes were blazing with anger. Lady Margery stared at him in dismay. The animation slowly left her face and the sparkle went from her eyes. A plain and colorless Lady Margery was escorted back into the ballroom by the marquess, who gave her a slight bow and left.

Margery longed to tell her aunt of her wretched social error, but she was not to be allowed an opportunity until much later. Where the marquess led, the fashionable world followed, and everyone wanted to see what the marquess had found so amusing and fascinating in plain Lady Margery. Her dance card was quickly filled. She was a great success. Determined to show the haughty marquess that he had not crushed her, she sparkled and flirted and laughed as never before, while Lady Amelia looked on in amazement.

“What a marvelous evening!” exclaimed Lady Amelia finally, as they stood on the steps of Almack’s and waited for their carriage.

It was a beautiful spring night, clear and warm, with the scent of limes from the park mingling with the less attractive smells of whale oil from the parish lamps.

“And how marvelous of the Marquess of Edgecombe to bring you into fashion. What a pity you shall not have an opportunity to see him again.”

“A pity!” snapped Margery, near to tears. “It’s a blessing!”

How could she tell her aunt that, until now, she had been able to endure the boredom of the social round because she was heart-free?

She was furious with the handsome marquess for having made her heart beat faster, and furious at herself for having childishly annoyed him and driven him away.

Her stockings were coming down and her shawl had become entangled in the beads of her necklace.

She felt dowdier and plainer than she had ever done in her life before.

She never wanted to see the Marquess of Edgecombe again!