Marianne

'At whist? I know – for several hours, I believe.'

'That is so. We played and Francis lost.'

The girl's lovely mouth curved in faint scorn. Was that all? She thought she knew what the American had in mind. A mere matter of money.

'I do not see how that concerns me. If my husband has lost, then he will pay, of course.'

'He has paid, but that is not all. Will you pay, also?'

'What do you mean?'

'That Lord Cranmere has lost not only everything that he possessed, which was little enough, but also all the dowry you have brought him—'

'What!' Marianne had gone very pale.

'He has lost your fortune, your lands placed in his keeping, and the house itself with all that it contains – and more besides!' Beaufort spoke with a contained fury that frightened Marianne. She stood up but her legs refused to bear her and she had to lean on the arms of her chair. Everything seemed plunged into confusion, she felt as though she was going mad. Even the solid walls of her room seemed to be swaying and lurching wildly.

She had often heard her aunt and the abbé de Chazay discussing, in shocked whispers, the extraordinary passion for gambling which possessed the youth of England, the endless, hectic gaming parties at which fortunes changed hands, the absurd bets on the most improbable things for the sake of which men were willing to stake even their lives. But it had never occurred to her that Francis, so calm and aristocratic, with his extraordinary self possession, might indulge in such follies. It was not true! It could not be true! It was not possible.

She favoured Beaufort with a glance of biting contempt.

'You are lying,' she said as calmly as she could. 'My husband is incapable of such a thing!'

'How do you know? For how long have you known the man you married today?'

'My aunt knew him from a child. That is enough for me.'

'Who can claim to know what moves a woman's heart? I imagine Lady Selton was ignorant of Francis Cranmere's passion for gaming. At all events,' the American went on in a harder voice, 'I have not lied to you. Your husband has just lost all that you possess – and more besides.'

Marianne heard him with growing annoyance. She disliked his easy manner and the steady gaze of his blue eyes but his last words awoke an echo in her mind.

'That is the second time you have said that. I do not understand. What do you mean with your "and more besides" ?'

Jason Beaufort did not reply at once. He could feel the young girl's nerve stretched taught as a bow string, perhaps at that limit of tension that comes before the breaking point. But she had weathered one storm and he liked that. It pleased him to have a worthy opponent.

'Well, why don't you answer me?' Marianne said cuttingly. 'Are you afraid, suddenly, or are you searching for some suitable lie?'

'I was merely wondering,' the American said gently, 'how you were going to take the remainder of what I have to – shall I say, confide.'

'Say what you like, but say it quickly!'

'After Lord Cranmere had lost everything, when he had nothing left to stake, he lost his temper and volunteered to win back all he had lost at one go. He proposed to stake, against all his former property, something infinitely more precious than all…'

He paused again, hesitating to say the words which, in the presence of those clear eyes, seemed suddenly out of all proportion monstrous. And Marianne's throat was so dry with fear that she could find no voice to bid him go on. Her 'what?' was scarcely more than a whisper.

'You,' Beaufort answered quietly.

One single little syllable but it seared into Marianne like a shot from a pistol fired at point blank range. For a moment, she thought that she was going to faint. She stepped back, and back again in an instinctive search for support, groping behind her until her icy hand met the warm, comforting stone fireplace. Now, she knew she was going mad – unless it were he, this insolent creature, he were the madman. But he seemed so cool, so self assured, while she seemed to be falling headlong… A wave of sick disgust swept over her. At least the walls of the house were there, certain and solid under her hands, to lean on otherwise she would have been sure that this was some nightmare. She flung her thoughts in Beaufort's face:

'Either I am mad, sir, or you are. Am I a slave to be sold or bartered at will? Even supposing Lord Cranmere to have been so vile or so rash as to stake the property placed in his keeping today, even then, he can only lose what belongs to him – and I do not belong to him!' The savagery in her tone startled the American.

'In the eyes of the law,' he said, and his voice was more gentle than ever, 'you do belong to him. And let me make it clear, it was not you yourself, or your life he staked, but only this one night. It is this night which now belongs to me. The loss of that vast stake made it my privilege to come to you here, in place of your husband – to exercise his rights.'

No, this was too much! Who had ever heard of such a thing? Not even the abominable Lovelace, the persecutor of the unhappy Clarissa Harlowe whose adventures Marianne had read not long before, would ever have dared to suggest anything so improper! With what sort of creature did this impudent foreigner think he had to do? Marianne drew herself up to her full height and racked her memory with childish fury for some of the more vulgar and incomprehensible insults overheard in the stable yard. She felt as though they would relieve her feelings mightily. When, inevitably, nothing came to mind she was obliged to be content with pointing imperiously at the door.

'Go,' was all she said.

Instead of obeying, Jason Beaufort swung round and gripped the back of a chair, resting one knee on the seat. Marianne saw the knuckles of the brown hand whiten.

'No,' he answered coolly. Then, his eyes held by the pale graceful figure and by the disturbing recollection of the form half-seen not long before, he went on: 'Listen, and try to hear me out without losing your temper. You don't love that pompous selfish fop, you cannot love him?'

'I am not obliged to discuss my feelings with you – and I ask you once again to go.'

The American's jaw tightened. So this chit thought she could impose on him with her queenly airs. Furious with himself, more than with her, he took refuge in anger.

'So much the worse for you!' he said grimly. 'At all events, he's lost you. No woman can go on loving a man who could gamble away her first night of love – not unless she had sunk as low as he. By his consent, you are mine for this full night. Come with me – come away with me – use this night he has relinquished to gain your own freedom! I'll not touch you but I'll take you with me, to my own country, out of his reach – I will make you happy – There before us is the sea to divide you forever from a man unworthy of you—'

'And unite me with another, at least equally unworthy!' Marianne retorted. Gradually, as he became more feverishly urgent, she had been recovering her self possession. For the first time in her life she was discovering power over a man, sufficient at least to disturb this disagreeable American. She gave way to the perfectly natural temptation to abuse it.

'If the chivalrous feelings you possess towards me are genuine sir, then you may prove it very simply…'

Halted abruptly in the midst of his wholly unpremeditated outburst of feeling, Jason Beaufort asked curtly:

'How?'

'By returning the house, land and property which you have acquired by such dubious means. They have been in Lord Cranmere's possession for too short a time for him to have any right to dispose of them. Then, yes, I might think of you not merely without anger but even with friendship. As for my being yours, even for an hour, I think you can scarcely have imagined it?'

A gleam of anger showed in the American's eyes. His hawk-like features seemed to become even harder. He turned his back abruptly, perhaps to shut out the seductive vision of the child woman who had seemed so innocent but was now exhibiting an alarming self possession.