The Marquis Is Trapped Read Online Free PDF

years, knew that he must never under any circumstances impart information about his Master’s movements without his permission.
    If Isobel asked any questions, he was sure that she would receive answers that would give her no knowledge of what he was doing.
    Once he was at sea, it would be impossible for her to follow him.
    The Marquis reckoned, as the carriage drove down Piccadilly, that he had had a very narrow escape.
    But he was not yet completely out of the woods.
    Once again he was asking himself how on earth he could have been so foolish or so blind.
    Why had he not suspected Isobel’s intentions from the very first moment he made love to her?
    ‘I will have to be extremely careful in the future,’ the Marquis vowed.
    From now onwards, widows as well as debutantes were definitely taboo.
    He arrived at Marlborough House just a little earlier than the other guests and the door was smartly opened by a Scottish ghillie in Highland dress who knew him.
    “Good day, my Lord,” he welcomed him in a strong accent.  “It’s good to see your Lordship again.”
    A powdered footman in a bright scarlet coat took the Marquis’s hat and a page in a dark blue coat and black trousers then led the Marquis up to the first floor.
    The Prince of Wales was waiting for him in a room panelled in walnut with tall windows overlooking Pall Mall and greeted him warmly.
    “I have been wanting to have a word with you for some time, Oliver, but we always seem to be surrounded by beautiful women who demand our full attention!”
    The Marquis did not answer and after a moment the Prince gave him a sharp look.
    Then he enquired,
    “I don’t wish to be impertinent, but are you happy?  Isobel Heywood told me the last time she dined here how much she loves you and begged me to help her.”
    The Marquis thought this was quite a familiar move by many women, as they were well aware that the Prince of Wales always wanted to be told a secret before anyone else – whether it concerned love, marriage or a question of money and he liked his friends to ask for his assistance.
    The Marquis realised that this was the result of being treated so badly by his mother, the Queen, who deliberately excluded him from any of the decisions that concerned the Government or the Empire.
    He was not even permitted to scrutinise the reports submitted by the Foreign Office, although he had been a great success on his visits to France and to other countries in Europe.
    The Prince was frustrated because he was given no position except that of Heir to the Throne.
    It was thus not surprising that he spent his time chasing and possessing beautiful women and had therefore gained the reputation of being a roué .
    Because the Marquis knew it would please him, he replied,
    “I have been hoping for a chance, sir, of confiding in you, because I am in a most difficult position.”
    The Prince of Wales was immediately alert.
    “In what way, Oliver?”
    “I suspect,” he murmured choosing his words most carefully, “that Isobel Heywood wishes to marry me.”
    The Prince raised his eyebrows.
    “ Marry you !” he exclaimed.  “I had not thought of that.  I know she is in love with you, because she told me so.”
    “I find her very attractive,” the Marquis conceded.  “But, as Your Royal Highness knows, I have no wish to be married.  In fact I have a horror of it!”
    The Prince gave a little laugh.
    “That is not surprising.  But you are too handsome, too rich and too grand, my dear Oliver, for any woman not to think you are the ripest plum she could pick off a tree!”
    “I am indeed flattered and honoured.  At the same time I have no intention of ‘settling down,’ as my relatives call it, and marrying some woman I have no wish to spend the rest of my life with, simply so that she can present me with an heir.”
    “I understand, my dear boy, exactly what you are saying, but you will have to marry sooner or later.”
    “ Later is the better word, sir, and, as