by Mary Balogh
"And that is the most important thing to you, is it not?" she said.
"But of course." He smiled down at her. "It has been hard-won. Such a reputation does not come overnight, you know—if you will pardon my choice of words. But we must be on our way. Luncheon awaits us. And a certain upstairs chambermaid awaits me perhaps. And did you know that Serena is to ride over tomorrow? With or without her husband? I begin to like life in the country more and more.''
He raised his eyebrow, and his eyes laughed at her. Diana turned away in order to resist the temptation to slap him. There had been such amity between them—tenderness almost —just a few minutes before. And now, even before she could remind herself of what he was, he was doing it for her.
"I have the feeling," he said as they came up to their horses, "that I would be inviting a painful smack if I were to take you by the waist to lift you into the saddle, Diana. Though it is a very enticing waist, I would have you know. Set your boot on my hands, then, and I will toss you up."
He grinned at her when she was in the sidesaddle and arranging her skirt about her.
"Of course," he said, "your ankles are also very enticing, Diana. As I remembered from a previous occasion."
She took up the reins in some annoyance and gave her horse the signal to start even before the marquess had mounted his own horse. She had never in her life known anyone so very deliberately exasperating. Did he want her to hate him? He was doing very well if that were his aim. She could be his friend. She had felt very much his friend as they had sat and talked in the courtyard. But he did not want her as a friend. Of course. He wanted her as a temporary mistress.
"You're quite adorable when you're angry, Diana," the Marquess of Kenwood said in his bedroom voice from close beside her.
* * *
The next time Lord Kenwood showed the upstairs maid from his room, it was Bridget he encountered, not Diana. It was the morning after the visit to the castle, and he was in rather a hurry to change his coat and disappear from the house before Serena Huntingdon arrived. He had already taken the stairs two at a time from the breakfast parlor.
The maid was making up his bed. Carter, of course, was nowhere in sight, having already turned his master out for the morning an hour before.
"Good morning, my sweet," he said absently and disappeared into his dressing room. For some reason it seemed very important to him to get himself outside and possibly down by the river among the trees before any visitors put in an appearance.
"Did your lordship call?" the girl asked a minute later from the doorway.
The marquess looked at her reflection in the mirror and wondered if the girl had an original thought in her head. Probably not.
"I did not," he said, "but I seem to be having much the same problem as on another occasion. You may hold my coat for me if you wish."
She did so and again seemed to find it necessary afterward to circle around in front of him and pat his lapels into place.
"However would I have managed without you?" he said, cupping her chin with one hand and smiling down at her. The girl blushed and lowered her lashes. "Now, are you as ready to leave here as I am? I am in the devil of a hurry, more's the pity."
"Your room is all tidy, your lordship," she said, bobbing a curtsy and preceding him to the door.
He reached around her to open it and prepared to follow her out into the corridor. But she turned back to him.
"If there is anything else you want, your, lordship," she said, peering up at him through her lashes, "you have only to ring. At any time."
"I think you have given me good enough service for this morning, my sweet," he said, leaning down by pure reflex to kiss her on the lips. He felt almost as if someone had laid a cold palm against his neck. He had promised himself that he would not do that again in so public a place. It would be just his ill fortune if Diana were coming down the corridor.
She was not, he saw in one surreptitious glance ahead and over his shoulder. But her maid had just come out of her room and stood with one hand still on the doorknob, blushing scarlet.
Devil take it, would he never learn?
"Bridget," he said, smiling his most charming smile and sauntering toward her, "I haven't seen you in an age. Have you been in any carriages on any muddy roads lately?"
She was flustered and red, and looked as if she would have liked the floor to open up and swallow her. "We haven't had any rain, your lordship," she said. "And I haven't been in no carriages on account of my lady staying here."
And what the devil was he doing? the marquess wondered, standing before her, his hands clasped behind his back, a smile plastered on his face, not knowing what he was going to say next. Had he really approached her with the idea of protesting his innocence, of assuring her that there had been nothing in that kiss, that the maid had merely helped him on with his coat?
Had he quite taken leave of his senses? Had he been about to try to justify himself to a mere maid?
He bowed. "I will not keep you, my dear," he said. "Unlike us mortals who have nothing to do all day long but pursue frivolity, I am sure you have a hundred and one tasks to perform."
"Y-yes, your lordship," Bridget said. "I do have to be busy, for sure."
And when he had almost extricated himself from that delightful encounter, Lord Kenwood found, it was only to discover that Ernie was striding down the hallway, frowning in a manner that had become habitual with him since their arrival at Rotherham Hall.
"How is the world treating you, Ernie, my boy?" he asked, clapping a hand on the other's shoulder. "I have been missing you in the last few days. I was becoming used to finding you just to the rear of my right or left shoulder. You are in love?"
"In love?" Lord Crensford waited until Bridget had disappeared from view and turned indignantly to his relative. "Is it not enough that you pursue the mistress, Jack? Must you seduce the servant too?"
"Bridget?" the Marquess of Kenwood said with a sigh. "She wouldn't have me, Ernie. I might as well save my efforts. There is a certain sort of buxom, wholesome English country lass who is quite immune to all the jaded seductions of the upper classes. Bridget is one of them. I should probably find a hatchet buried in my skull if I persisted. Or rather, someone else would probably find a hatchet buried in my
skull. You did not answer my question. Are you in love?"
"With whom?" Lord Crensford asked scornfully.
Lord Kenwood raised his eyes skyward. "Why, with the delectable little dancer," he said. "Never tell me you don't have an eye for her, Ernie. She certainly has an eye and a half for you."
"Do you speak of Miss Wickenham?" Lord Crensford asked. "Are you out of your mind, Jack? In love with that hoyden? The girl has no behavior at all."
"Oh, she has behavior all right," the marquess said, steering his relative along to the head of the staircase. "But, I take it, it is behavior that you object to, Ernie. You were too busy playing your violin to observe the dance?"
"I was not," Lord Crensford said. "And that is precisely what I mean. No young lady of any sensibility would dream of dancing like that in company."
Lord Kenwood raised both eyebrows. "I thought it rather splendid,'' he said. ' 'I begin to hope the poor girl does escape your clutches, Ernie. You would probably keep her chained to your wrist if you married her."
"Married her!" Lord Crensford said with a shudder. "But listen, Jack, this isn't why I wanted to talk with you. I want to know what is happening with Diana."
"Why don't you ask her?" the marquess said, glancing to the front doors as they reached the foot of the stairs.
"You know what I mean," Lord Crensford said. "She told me I need not protect her any longer. But she doesn't know you, Jack, and she certainly does not know why you are here. You haven't won that wager, have you? I swear I'll kill you if you have."
"Under the circumstances," the marquess said, "I think I would be wise to say merely that I have no comment."
"Does that mean yes?" Lord Crensford's hands h
ad formed into fists at his sides.
"It means that I have no comment," the marquess said.
"I know you did not come back with Clarence and the others yesterday morning," Lord Crensford said. "I know that you lured Diana off to the castle with you. What happened there, Jack?"
Lord Kenwood smiled at him. "What do you think happened, Ernie?" he asked. "There are certain occasions in life when the imagination is far more interesting than real fact. What do you think happened?"
"I think she probably slapped your face and told you to take yourself off," Lord Crensford said.
"Well then." The marquess continued to smile. "You did not need to ask, did you?"
"But did she?"
"What do you think?" The marquess raised his eyebrows.
"Jack, I am warning you ..."
But Lord Crensford's threat was interrupted by a knock on the outer door. The marquess closed his eyes briefly and watched as a footman opened the door to admit Lady Huntingdon, who was looking particularly lovely in a royal blue riding habit, different from the one she had worn the day before.
"My lord," she said in her low voice, walking toward Lord Crensford with one elegant hand extended. "I came to assure your mama that Frederick and I will indeed attend her dinner and ball two days hence. I am afraid my husband was unable to accompany me."
Lord Crensford bowed over her hand.
"And Jack." She extended both hands to him and looked at him through half-closed eyelids. "You shall take me outside walking after I have paid my respects to the countess. I am sure she and the other members of the family are far too busy preparing for the ball to spend more than a few minutes with visitors."
The Marquess of Kenwood lifted her hands one at a time to his lips and smiled down at her. "Serena," he said. "I was quite unable to swallow a bite at breakfast this morning knowing that you were coming here."
"I don't believe you for a moment," she said, patting his waistcoat with one hand and turning back to Lord Crensford.
The marquess found himself strolling with her through the greenhouses half an hour later. She hung on his arm and made no pretense whatsoever of examining the plants.
"How dull life is in the country, darling," she said. "Do you not find it so?"
He considered. "No, as a matter of fact,'' he said.' 'I find fresh air quite invigorating."
"Oh, nonsense," she said, tapping him sharply on the hand. "You know you do not care a fig for fresh air."
"I don't, then," he said agreeably.
"We could distract each other for a week," she said into his ear.
"So we could," he said, "if we felt so inclined."
She drew him to a halt and looked consideringly up at him. "What is it?" she asked. "You were never slow to accept an invitation, Jack."
"Was I not?" he said. "Let me see. What is it? You are married, my dear. That must be it."
"Darling!" she said, and laughed. "That has never deterred you before."
"Has it not?" he said. "Hm. Perhaps it is the rather disconcerting presence of this large family around me."
"And you don't care a fig for family," she said.
"Oh, there you are wrong, Serena," he said, and touched a finger to the end of her nose. "Very wrong. One frown from the countess and I would take a year to recover from the dismals."
"It always was well nigh impossible to get any sense out of you, Jack," she said. "Have you ever said anything to anyone that you really meant?"
His eyes widened mockingly. "But of course," he said. "Would a gentleman tell lies, Serena?"
"You exasperating man!" she said, removing her arm from his and placing her hands on his shoulders. "But you always were irresistible, Jack. I did not even realize until I saw you yesterday how much I have missed you. Kiss me."
He kissed her.
"Jack!" she said, pulling back her head eventually. "I asked you to kiss me, not to rest your lips against mine."
He grinned at her. "It has been over for two years, my dear," he said. "I very rarely go backward in time."
"What?" she said, her hands still on his shoulders. "Rejection? It is not very often that I suffer rejection, darling. There is someone else, is there, to brighten these weeks for you? I might have guessed it. Mrs. Ingram, I suppose. Though she is said to be very proper, Jack. She was a parson's wife. Not your type at all. And I never knew you to reject one woman merely because you already had another in tow."
"Ah," he said, his eyes laughing down into hers, "but I am growing older, Serena. I have passed my thirtieth birthday since we last met. The accumulation of thirty years and more can do dreadful things to a man's energies, you know."
"Obviously," she said, removing her hands and straightening up. "Next you will be telling me that you plan to marry, darling. And set up your nursery."
''Hardly,'' he said. "I think you know my feelings on those topics."
"Well," she said, turning to finger a velvety leaf of the plant at her side, "this has been an interesting visit. And to think of all the agonies of conscience I have suffered since yesterday morning at the prospect of being unfaithful to poor Frederick."
"You, Serena?" The marquess laughed outright. "With a conscience? Times certainly must have changed." . She shrugged and turned to the door. "You may take me to the stables," she said. "It is time I returned home. But you must dance with me at the ball, Jack. Twice. You always were divine to dance with."
"Twice it is," he said. "I shall pine and languish until the time comes."
"I shall not," she said. "You must not think that you would have been anything more than a temporary diversion, Jack."
''With you, Serena,'' he said,' 'I would not have dreamed of thinking any such thing."
14
Diana had not been strictly honest with Bridget. She had come home from her ride to the castle with the Marquess of Kenwood her mind and her emotions in a turmoil. And because guilt was the predominant emotion, she had lashed out at the marquess, not to his face, but to her maid, who had come to her room to help her change for luncheon.
It was not entirely Bridget's fault, then, that the following day, when she arrived for the same purpose, she was the bringer of unwelcome tidings.
"Oooh, mum," she said, "I shall be glad to see the back of that man, I shall. Thinks he should be treated like a lord in the kitchen, he does, just because he's servant to the most fashionable gentleman in London—his words, mum, not mine. I could tell him a thing or two, I could. I could tell him that my mistress is the prettiest lady in all of England. But it isn't worth tangling with the likes of him, it isn't."
"You are quite right, Bridget," Diana said soothingly, stepping free of her riding skirt and undoing the buttons of her blouse. "Sometimes there is more dignity in saying nothing than in arguing with someone who is unable to mink reasonably."
"Anyway," Bridget said, "he don't have an enviable job, mum. Who would want to be man to his lordship?"
Silence greeted this opinion as the silk blouse slid down Diana's arms and into her maid's hands. But silence rarely deterred Bridget. She was always ready to fill it.
"Shocking goings-on, mum," she continued, "though I should keep my mouth shut and not say nothing, him being my betters and all."
"Has Lord Kenwood done something to upset you?" Diana asked, turning her back on Bridget so that the maid could button the muslin dress she had put on.
"He tried to sweet-talk me this morning, mum," Bridget said indignantly. "He stood outside this very room, he did, bowing and smiling and asking me how I did just as if I was any lady. I didn't know where to put myself mum, I was that flustered. But I wasn't having none of it neither. I'm not as foolish as that Betsy."
"Betsy?"
"One of the upstairs maids, mum," Bridget said. "Always in his room she is. And kissing him outside his door this very morning, the brazen hussy. I would die a thousand deaths, mum, before I would behave like that."
"I suppose that is her business," Diana said primly. "And his lordsh
ip's."
"Yes, mum." But Bridget had worked herself into an irrepressible state of indignation. "And then that lady right after he kissed the maid and sweet-talked me. It's none of my business; you are quite right mum. But her a married lady and all."
