A Dangerous Undertaking. Mary Nichols

       CHAPTER ONE

      THERE were two men in The White Hart inn, sitting in a corner with a bottle of wine between them. They did not appear to be enjoying it. One was tall, judging by the length of the buckskin breeches and leather top-boots which stuck out from under the table as he leaned back in his seat. His full-skirted coat with its large button-back cuffs was well cut and, though not exactly the height of fashion, certainly did not proclaim him as anything but a man of substance. He was surveying his companion under well-shaped brows, which at this moment were drawn down in a frown, spoiling what was otherwise a handsome face. He wore no make-up and had a clean-shaven, well-shaped jawline and thick dark hair which was unpowdered and tied back into the nape of his neck with a black ribbon. The light of the lantern hanging from the ceiling showed up glints of red-gold in it. His right hand, curling round the stem of his glass, was long-fingered and neatly manicured. He wore a large signet-ring but no other jewellery.

      His companion was of an age with him—twenty-six or thereabouts—but somewhat broader. His eyes were grey and he wore a lightly powdered brown wig with long side-curls. His mauve satin coat with its high stand collar was flamboyantly decorated with rows of pleated ribbon. He wore more jewellery than his friend—a cravat pin, a fob across his braided waistcoat and a quizzing-glass, as well as several rings. In London he would not have been considered over-dressed, but in this sleepy town he shone like a beacon. He grinned at his morose friend.

      ‘Cheer up, Roly, old fellow; you’ll turn the wine sour.’

      Roland, Lord Pargeter, smiled, and his rather taciturn countenance lightened, so that it was easy to see the charming man he could be if he chose. ‘It’s all very well for you, Charles; you haven’t got an insoluble obstacle in the path of your happiness.’

      ‘No, thank heaven, but then I don’t believe in witches and curses and nonsense like that.’

      ‘I wish it were nonsense. It’s been true for the last four generations, so my grandmother tells me, and that can surely not be coincidence.’

      ‘You know,’ Charles said slowly, ‘what you ought to do is marry.’

      Roland looked at his friend in exasperation. ‘Haven’t you listened to a word I’ve said? I have just finished telling you why I cannot do so.’

      ‘You have told me why you cannot wed Mistress Chalfont. What’s to stop you marrying someone else?’

      ‘I don’t want to.’

      ‘Yes, you do. Think about it, Roly. You cannot marry Susan because you care for her——’

      ‘I love her too much to——’

      ‘Don’t interrupt. So why not marry someone you do not care for? A complete stranger, in fact. It won’t be forever, will it? A year. What’s a year?’

      Roland looked thoughtful; it was just what his grandmother had said when she had warned him to choose his bride carefully. He had not told her of his intention towards Susan because the time had not seemed propitious, what with his father so recently dead and heaven knew what arrangements to be made about the inheritance. And he had been obliged to return to London to clear up certain financial matters and consolidate his position at court. He could not assume that because he had inherited the title and the estates he had also inherited his father’s position and privileges. Having secured those, at least for the time being, he was on his way back home. ‘No, I cannot. And who would have me in the circumstances?’

      ‘Oh, anyone,’ Charles said airily, waving his empty glass round the oak-panelled room. ‘You would be a very good catch. You ain’t bad-looking—at least not when you smile—and you’re not short of a penny or two. I reckon you would have no difficulty.’

      ‘It’s a mad idea.’

      ‘But growing on you, eh?’ Charles paused to look closely into his friend’s face. ‘If it meant happiness with Susan in the end…’

      ‘It would have to be someone desperate enough not to care why I married her. I don’t think I could pretend…’

      Charles grinned. ‘Not even a little?’

      ‘No.’ Roland paused, realising it was desperation which had led him to humour his friend, but the idea really was out of the question. ‘How could I live with someone for a year, face her over the dinner-table, talk to her, smile at her, knowing what I had done to her?’

      ‘You don’t have to, don’t you see? As soon as the wedding is over, you leave for London, say you have been called back to your regiment—after all, there is still trouble with the Jacobites—stay away the whole year. She will be happy enough playing lady of the manor here without you.’

      ‘I could not do it.’

      ‘Not even for Susan? If it were me, and it was the only way I could have Kate, I’d do it. I wouldn’t have any scruples at all.’

      ‘I am not you,’ Roland said, thinking of Susan as he had last seen her in September, waving goodbye to him from the steps of her father’s mansion in Derbyshire and calling out that she would see him in London in April, if not before. April, five months from now and a whole year after he had received that wound at Culloden, a year in which he had gone from being so badly wounded that he was not expected to live, back to full health, and it was all because of the devoted nursing he had received at her hands. Well, perhaps not all at her hands because there had been nurses and servants too, but she had been the one to sit with him hour after hour, reading to him and amusing him as he slowly recovered. It had been almost inevitable that they would fall in love. He had left her to return to his regiment in London, full of confidence that, when the time came to propose, she would accept and