The Marquis Takes a Bride Read Online Free PDF Page B

exclaimed in awe. “I’ve never seen so much cursed ivy in my life. Never! Like living in a damned great tree. Are you sure there’s brickwork under all that?”
    “Yes,” said the Marquis, climbing down to join him. “Lord Charles likes the ivy. He says it keeps out the drafts.”
    The Marquis and Perry had arrived on the day before the wedding to stay at Runbury Manor as houseguests.
    He knocked loudly on the door. There was a long silence and then the slow shuffling sound of footsteps.
    The door creaked open and Perry stared at the elderly footman in his ancient livery.
    “It’s like one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s romances,” he whispered to Chemmy as they followed the aged retainer across the dark hall. “Is it haunted?”
    “Only by a pack of elderly dogs,” smiled the Marquis.
    They were ushered into the Blue Saloon.
    “I shall inform my lord of your arrival,” said the footman before creaking his way out.
    Both friends stood and looked around them. The house was very quiet. The sunlight struggled through the ivy leaves and dirty glass to waver and dance and the spindly furniture and the army of whirring and ticking clocks. Several dogs snored and yelped in their sleep. A draft blew under the door and sent great tufts and balls of dog hair rolling gently about the room.
    There was a sour smell of drains and dog. The Marquis struggled with the catch of one of the windows and succeeded in prying it open, letting in all the heavy, hot smells of summer to banish the older scents of the stuffy room.
    “I shall catch the cholera or the typhoid,” said Perry gloomily. “I only hope the maids of honor are pretty.”
    “It’s a very quiet wedding,” said the Marquis. “But for your sake, Perry, I hope there are some pretty faces around.”
    The Marquis dismissed two of the dogs from the chairs and motioned his friend to be seated.
    Perry sat in his usual pose, right on the edge of his chair, and plugged his mouth with the knob of his cane.
    The English countryside was enjoying a rare heat-wave. Perry ran a finger along the inside of his cravat and wondered how his friend could look so cool.
    The starch of his own cravat was losing a battle with the heat and his leather breeches were beginning to feel as if they had mysteriously shrunk.
    “It’s not fair,” he burst out, saying as usual what was uppermost in his mind. “We manage to stop powdering our hair because of the price of flour and then, just as we’re getting comfortable again, Brummell invents the starched cravat, and there we are, cornflowered up to the ears! Don’t the heat bother you?”
    “It does,” said the Marquis. “I would like a large cool bath… if they
have
baths in this establishment.”
    “I doubt it,” said Perry gloomily. “What I want to know is… do
people
live here? I mean, is
anyone
going to come? The place is as quiet as a tomb and just about as busy.”
    As if in contradiction an explosion sounded from a distance, followed by a high feminine scream. Both men jumped to their feet and stared at each other. Then there was the sound of light, rapid footsteps and the double doors opened to reveal Lady Priscilla. Her cap was askew, her face flushed, and her dress was running with a nasty, sticky, brown stuff.
    Perry thought for one awful moment that her ladyship had crawled out of the drains.
    “My brandied peaches,” she wailed. “Oh, it’s the
heat
. They were fermenting nicely and then…
bang!
The whole jar exploded over me. And I did so want to have brandied peaches for the wedding breakfast.”
    The Marquis drew up a chair, decanting an old dog from it as he did so, and Lady Priscilla sank into it gratefully, dripping peach juice and brandy on the floor.
    “May I present my friend, Mr. Peregrine Deighton,” said the Marquis.
    “No, you can’t. Not now,” said Lady Priscilla vaguely. “Have you seen Jennie?
She
will know what to do.”
    “I’m here, Grandmama,” said a light voice from the doorway. Jennie