“You haven’t told Frances,” she said, and lifted her eyes to his. “Will you?”
He shook his head. “No. She is unhappy enough without the hurt of your false friendship.”
“Oh, the friendship was real enough,” she said ruefully. “But one must live.” She descended one step.
“If you don’t comply with my conditions,” he said coldly, “I will be compelled to tell her. Don’t force me to do that.”
She laughed. “My dear Torridon, I have never been able to force or even persuade you into anything.” She turned back to him consideringly. “How strange. I believe you actually do love her.”
Then she sailed down the rest of the steps and climbed into the waiting chaise. Torridon took his son back inside.
Chapter Eleven
Ariadne got as far as the next coastal town of Whalen before rage overtook her utterly.
She had never taken well to being told what to do, particularly when it contradicted what she wished to do. And that he of all people should compel her to leave his wife alone, as if Ariadne Marshall were some vulgar lover instead of the only friend who indulged Frances’s love of mischief…
In any case, that was simply the last straw, the insult added to the injury of defeating her. How dared he enter her rooms and simply take the rubies? She could not even have him punished for it, since the rooms were his wife’s and the rubies his. Damn him, they must have been in his pocket when he approached her and Frances at dinner that night!
Wretched man. Are you on this earth merely to thwart and torment me?
And to think she had once come close to loving him. She had thought him elusive, suspected him of using her own tactics of not appearing to care in order to encourage notice, interest, obsession. But she had been wrong. He really hadn’t noticed her and he had had no interest in her whatsoever. It was Frances who had claimed all his attention.
And still did. He was protecting Frances from her and from any hurt she might feel if she learned the truth, that her friend had stolen from her, had let her suffer all that anxiety over losing the rubies. She had even let Frances dress as a boy and walk alone into the sailors’ tavern. Actually, Ariadne would have liked to be there for that adventure.
But still, she had been punished. The moment she had discovered the rubies were gone from her bedside cabinet had been equal, surely, to Frances’s horror. She had yelled at Lawson and only just stopped short of accusing the hotel staff. She couldn’t accuse anyone when she shouldn’t have had them anyway.
Torridon had had her defeated and sewn up, and now she was dismissed like a servant who tippled at her master’s port. By him. He always had to find some new way to get under her skin.
“Damn him,” she whispered.
“I beg your pardon, ma’am?” Lawson inquired.
Ariadne ignored her. There is a way. There has to be a way. I will not lose. And God help me, I need the money.
She had an appointment. But one day would surely not matter… especially if she was successful. Her breath caught. She stared at Lawson, then abruptly knocked on the roof to make the driver stop. “Tell them to take us to the most respectable inn in the town and pay them off.”
*
After their walk, Frances followed Maria to her new bedchamber.
“This used to be Grandmama’s chamber,” Frances recalled.
“Gervaise and Dawn said I could pick whichever I wanted,” Maria said defensively. “As you and Serena both did.”
“Of course. It wasn’t a criticism. I like the room much better now. It’s lighter and brighter—like you!” Frances sat on the bed, admiring the hangings and the ornaments. “I can’t believe you are sixteen already. You must be looking forward to your London season next year.”
Maria fiddled a little nervously with the curtain. “Of course.”
“I suppose Eleanor will be able to present you at court by then. And I shall make sure I am there to dance at your coming-out ball. Serena must come, too.”
“Oh, don’t, Frances.” Maria swung on her, much too agitated for the conversation. “Why must I always do what you and Serena did? Why is it all laid out for me?”
“I suppose it’s what ladies of our class do. We have a little fun while attracting the most suitable husband. Like it or not, that is the most comfortable life for us and our families. Beyond that, your life will be what you make it.”
Of course, Frances herself hadn’t done such a terribly good job of that, so far, but she had at least produced Jamie. However, that did not make her a shining example for her confused little sister.
“Don’t you like the idea anymore?” she asked Maria. “You used to.”
“I was a silly little girl,” Maria whispered.
“So, what do you want now?” Frances pursued.
Maria shook her head. “I don’t know. I never expected it to be this complicated.”
Frances stood and went to stand beside her at the window. “Is the complication anything to do with the handsome young officer I saw you with in Blackhaven?”
Maria’s gaze flew to her face. “You saw us?”
Frances nodded.
“Then you recognized him among the men on the terrace at the ball?”
Frances nodded again.
“I thought he was perfect,” Maria whispered. “Brave and handsome and deeply in love with me.”
“Even the best have feet of clay. Why does he not call on us at the castle? Why the secret assignations?”
“Because they’re—” Maria began impetuously, and broke off.
“More fun?” Frances guessed.
Maria looked away.
“I can’t choose who you care for,” Frances said. “No one can. But for what it’s worth, if I were you, I would think less of a man who got in quite such a state in my family home. I would think even less of a man who would not brave my brother or even my mother for me.”
Maria closed her eyes. Frances guessed she had been trying very hard not to think less of him for these reasons recently, and not entirely succeeding.
Frances took her sister’s hand. “You’re bored, aren’t you?”
Maria nodded. “I don’t want to be in the schoolroom anymore. I’m not a child. Gideon never looked on me as a child. And yet, I have to wait a whole year to do anything!”
“No, you don’t. There are lots of things you can do in London before you come out! And besides that, I would love you to stay with us in Scotland. Maybe just you for a little, while the others brave the new governess Mama has lined up in London.”
Maria’s eyes brightened, then faded. “Maybe,” she said uncertainly.
Frances raised her brows in obvious surprise. “You would rather just stay here? For him? If I were you, I would make him work a little harder for your forgiveness.”
“Maybe he has suffered enough,” Maria muttered. “Someone hit him at the ball, you know, bruised his cheek.”
“Yes, that was Torridon.”
Maria blanched. “Torridon? But why?”
“Because he, or the company he kept, insulted you, your little sisters, and me.”
Maria leaned her back against the wall, then slid down it until she sat on the floor with her knees under her chin, exactly like the child she did not wish to be.
“You think Gideon should have done that,” she said in a small, hard voice. “Stopped them insulting us. Don’t you?”
“I don’t think he was in any state to deal with his friends or points of honor. To be frank, Maria, I don’t like to think of you alone with him at all.”
“Oh, but he is not like that as a rule,” Maria assured her. “It was the wine and he has promised me he has given it up.”
“Well, I would make him prove it. While I enjoyed the fun of a London season.”
Maria regarded her unhappily. “But what if you had met Torridon when you were sixteen? Would you have been so much in favor of waiting then?”
“Good question.” Considering it, Frances knelt besid
e her sister. “I don’t know that I would. But when I was sixteen, Torridon was already a seasoned officer in Wellington’s army. I expect he was wild and reckless. But I know he would never have behaved other than as a gentleman. And whatever the excitement of his presence, I would always have felt pleasurably safe. No one would have dared insult me or my little sisters.”
She began the speech to make her sister think, to show her how she would be throwing herself away on someone like this lightweight Gideon. But she found she was speaking the truth with a wistful, almost dreamy air. Every word was true. There had never been a thrill like meeting Alan, loving Alan…
Realizing Maria was staring at her, she pulled herself back together. “We all make mistakes—Serena and I made lots! I think it’s how we learn. But I would really hate for you to make the kind of mistake that you couldn’t ever recover from, one that could only lead to unhappiness. If Gideon loves you as you deserve, he will always be there, and he will be glad to meet your family.” Not disgrace you. With difficulty, she swallowed the last back, wise enough to realize that she would make more of an impression on Maria if she didn’t feel compelled to defend her so-called love.
Frances rose to her feet.
“Have you told Mama?” Maria blurted.
“No. And I won’t unless I think you’re in danger. Don’t put yourself in danger, Maria. Men can hurt more than your feelings.”
Maria jumped up and hugged her fiercely. “I’m glad you’re back,” she said and released her.
Frances was touched, but as she left to go to her own chamber, she knew Maria was only half-convinced. Part of her was still set on self-destruction, through boredom or unhappiness or both. Frances knew she would have to watch her carefully. It was as well she had come home.
*
Lord and Lady Wickenden arrived at the castle late in the afternoon, bringing with them both their baby and their nursemaid. Gillie, whom Frances had known all her life, glowed with health and happiness, and Wickenden, although he kept his sardonic humor, seemed to have lost that edge of unhappiness that had made him slightly dangerous. Not that he had ever shown Frances anything other than careless kindness, even extracting her from the odd scrape she had got herself into during her first season. But now he made no effort to hide his pride in his tiny son, and Frances felt rather pleased that she had played her part in bringing him and Gillie together last year.
“How much everything has changed in one year,” Serena said as she stood with Frances and Gillie, gazing down upon the babies. “If you were even expecting little Jamie then, no one knew it. I was engaged to someone else entirely, and no one thought you, Gillie, would catch the biggest prize on the marriage mart. And now, here we are, all married with children!” Serena placed her hand over her still perfectly flat stomach. “Or at least in a happy condition.”
“So much has happened,” Frances agreed. And yet most of it had passed her by. She had a son, the most monumental event in her life. But it almost seemed that the rest of her life had stopped. Until this last couple of weeks.
“I wish we had time for Tamar to paint us all together,” Serena said ruefully. “And then I could have taken the picture with me to remind me.”
“Serena, you’re not going to another country,” Frances said. “You will be visited—more than you like, I dare say! And you will come back. It’s your condition affecting your mood. You know you are not really sad to be going to Tamar’s home. You will be in your element, arranging things just as you want them. You have no interfering mother-in-law and you already know his siblings, don’t you?”
She wished immediately that she hadn’t blurted out the mother-in-law part, but Serena didn’t appear to notice, perhaps taking it as a reference to their own mother and Eleanor.
“Yes, I know most of them,” Serena admitted. “Apart from Julian, who is Rupert’s heir until I produce a son! Sylvester is fun, though shockingly dissipated for one so young. I shall take him in hand. Christianne is sweet and kind and lives in London. And Anna… well, I liked Anna, but she is in Europe, and I suspect secretly helping Britain’s interests in the coming peace.”
“They are an interesting family,” Gillie exclaimed. “You will thrive among them, Serena. We all have our own lives now, but we are not so far apart either.”
“I know.” Serena smiled. “Blackhaven has become like the center of the universe. All the people who are to dine with us tonight met here and married here, for the most part, and all in the last year. They all have their own lives, too, and yet here they are back in Blackhaven. If they ever left!”
Frances didn’t really know the other guests, apart from Kate Grant and Dax, a little. And Mrs. Benedict, she reminded herself, who had once been Miss Grey, her little sisters’ governess. But she wasn’t sure she wished to be subjected to an evening of deliriously happy married couples. It would, surely, only draw attention to the unhappiness of her own marriage.
However, since she could not change things, she resolved simply to enjoy the company, and went to change for dinner.
When she opened the bedchamber door, she was stupidly stunned to find her husband there, bare-chested, reaching for the clean shirt on the bed.
Her stomach dived and she almost closed the door again, but her entry had been too impetuous, and he had already seen her. She would not run away. She sailed into the room as though the sight of his semi-naked torso meant nothing to her.
“You look surprised to see me,” he said, unhurriedly pulling his shirt over his head.
“I suppose I am. It has been a long time since we shared a bedchamber.”
“I am looking forward to sharing this one.”
With his shirt hanging loose, and his hair tousled, he looked gloriously rumpled, almost as he had used to look after making love to her. The memory caused her whole body to flush, which annoyed her excessively.
“Why?” she snapped, stalking to the wardrobe. “What has changed in the few days since I left Torridon?”
“Nothing.” His eyes were wary and yet avid as they followed her movements. “Do you imagine I did not want to share your bed?”
She paused, her blue evening gown over her arm, and stared at him. “Was there a guard on my door? Was someone placed mysteriously over you as the earl and master of Torridon? No. So, yes, that is exactly what I imagine.”
He walked toward her, a deep frown tugging down his brow. “I am not so brutal that I would endanger you or the baby with my demands. Nor would I inflict myself upon you while you recover from the birth.”
She gave a skeptical laugh, shaken by his nearness as he halted in front of her, and determined not to betray the fact. “Why, how noble of you, my lord. But I do not need your excuses any more than I need your attentions. I have given you an heir. And now you have my permission,” she added, pointing, “to sleep in the dressing room.”
“Jamie’s cradle is in there,” he said, taking the dress from her shocked arms, “and I have no intention of joining him.”
“Ring for the maid, if you please,” she said breathlessly.
“I don’t please.” Deliberately, he threw the dress toward the bed where it landed in a heap of silk.
She stepped back in panic, but he followed, and his arms went around her. An instant later, she felt his fingers unlacing her gown. “What are you doing?”
“Undressing you. I have a notion to be your maid for the evening.” He turned her, gently, to make his job easier. She stood rigid, trying not to feel the thrill of his fingers brushing her back. “I believed that if I loved you while you carried our child, I could harm you both.”
“I find it hard to imagine a man of your experience would believe such arrant rubbish.”
“I do not discuss such intimacies with my married friends,” he said dryly.
She twisted her head around to stare up at him. “Then with whom?”
For a moment he was silent. “It was my mother’s advice,” he said reluctantly. “She also told me I should leave
you alone for at least six months after the birth.”
“Did she also tell you not to discuss the matter with your wife?”
For the first time that she could remember, color seeped into his cheeks. “No. That was my decision. I knew you would never deny me your bed.”
The day dress fell around her feet. In her stays and stockings, she faced away from him once more. It seemed easier that way. “And you imagined I would be happier if you took your pleasure elsewhere?”
His big, tender hands closed over her shoulders, drawing her back against him. “I take pleasure in no one else. I never did, since meeting you, and I never will.”
She closed her eyes, longing to believe him. But she no longer knew him. She had never known him. Besides, his words were ambiguous. He could have tumbled any number of women in the last year without any great or true pleasure, just to relieve the itch of unspecific lust.
His lips brushed the sensitive skin joining her neck and shoulder, and her breath shuddered in pleasure. But she forced herself to remain rigid in his hold.
He stepped back, drawing her by the hand to the bed. “Am I to understand that you would have welcomed my… presence?”
“Of course,” she managed. “As you said yourself, I would never deny you my bed.”
“Except tonight, apparently.” He dropped the pale underdress over her head and she thrust her arms through it. He began to fasten the laces. “Would you rather I were the Russian?”
“You are the Russian,” she said indignantly.
He reached for the blue gown. “And you were ‘Mrs. Alan.’ We were both pretending. Is there really such a difference?”
“You were testing me!”
He turned her to face the looking glass and drew the pins from her hair. “No. I was trying to give you the fun I so foolishly denied you over the last year.”
Their eyes met in the glass. She could not breathe.
And then a knock at the door made her jump. She had the feeling Torridon was about to tell whoever it was to go to the devil. He had that look in his eyes as he opened his mouth, and it thrilled her.
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