by Mary Balogh
“No,” she said, getting to her feet. “Hardly at all. We have a dinner to attend.”
“Now?” He laughed. “I am going to take you away from here tonight. We will return to London and then you will tell me where you wish to settle and I will have the arrangements made as swiftly as possible. You have done well. You have earned your future of comfort and security.”
“We have a dinner to attend,” she said firmly, “and a ball. Perhaps you are lacking in courage, my lord, but I am not. You ran away once and have never been able to outrun the demons or ghosts or whatever you may care to call them. You will not run again, I think, when you have taken a moment to consider.”
He gazed at her, his expression unreadable. He drew a deep breath at last. “And so to dinner, then, my little brown mouse,” he said. “But will you wear these for me? Will they hurt your neck?”
A string of pearls was lying across his palm. They were delicate and perfect and made her want to cry.
“They are a gift,” he said. “A thank you, if you will. A wedding gift, perhaps.”
“I will wear them,” she said, turning and dipping her head again so that he could clasp them about her neck. “They are beautiful.”
“But not nearly as lovely,” he said, “as their wearer.”
14
IT WAS NOT SO VERY DIFFICULT AFTER ALL TO GET through dinner, the marquess found. His grace behaved as he always did; so did he. That is, they were both reticent, formally correct and courteous. It had become second nature to him to hide all feeling so deep that no one else would suspect that it was there at all.
Except that his wife suspected it. She sat in her place at the foot of the table, quite dizzyingly beautiful, smiling, animated, flushed, bright-eyed—and gazing straight through the defenses that had held everyone at bay for years to understand that he was deeply disturbed by what had just happened. At least it seemed to him that she saw through his defenses. Perhaps it was fanciful thinking. And fanciful too to imagine that she looked with just as penetrating an understanding at his father—only to discover, surely, that there was nothing behind his grace’s facade. Only coldness and emptiness and even perhaps evil.
It was not even very difficult to stand in the receiving line just inside the ballroom later in the evening, greeting the guests as they arrived, presenting his marchioness to neighbors and acquaintances. It was not difficult, because although his father stood in the line too, she stood between them and was as animated, as charming, as beautiful as she had been in the dining room.
He found his mind counting back days as he smiled and bowed and made small talk with the arriving guests. But no matter how often he did the calculations he always arrived at the same conclusion. One week ago he had not even met Miss Charity Duncan. One week ago he had glanced through her letter of application and after some hesitation had set it on the pile of those to be given more serious consideration.
And now, just one week later, he was falling in love with her. The thought verbalized itself in his mind without any prior warning, and he pushed it impatiently away. He was no boy to be gulled by shallow emotion.
“I have never been so nervous in my life,” she said, smiling at him during a lull in arrivals.
He raised his eyebrows. He never would have guessed it. She looked as if she had been standing in receiving lines for years. “Not even on your arrival here, my lady?” he asked.
“Oh.” She laughed. “I was not nervous then. I was terrified.” But she would not exclude his grace from her conversation even though he had used her shamefully earlier in the evening. She turned and set a hand on his arm. “Will you sit, Father? No one will remark upon it if you do. Almost everyone must have arrived by now, and Anthony and I can greet the latecomers.” She spoke with a gentle concern that sounded almost affectionate.
As for himself, the marquess thought as, to his amazement, his father allowed himself to be led toward a vacant chair, he did not care what happened to the duke. He would not stay to concern himself with his father’s health or with Enfield affairs. Tomorrow he would be on his way back to London with his wife. He would see her settled comfortably in a home of her choice and then he would resume his old life just as if there had not been this disruption of a few days. And really that was all it had been—a few days.
They did not remain in the receiving line much longer. It was their duty to lead off the first set of country dances, and the guests would be impatient to begin. The ballroom at Enfield looked remarkably festive, the marquess was forced to admit, and far more architecturally splendid than most of the London ballrooms he knew. It was a betrothal ball that had been rapidly converted into a wedding ball. The flowers and ribbons and bows that decked the room were predominantly white. But then, of course, his grace was adept at arranging such things.
Did his wife dance? he wondered suddenly. But she surely would have said something to him if she did not. And indeed she danced the steps flawlessly and gracefully. Will, he saw, had led Lady Marie into this opening set. He had not spoken to the girl himself beyond the exchange of a few courtesies. But it did not seem to him that she was nursing a broken heart. He hoped not. He did not doubt that, like him, she was merely a victim of two despotic men who assumed that it was their right to organize the lives of their offspring down to the last detail. Perhaps now she would be given a little more choice of husband, though he doubted it.
His father, he noticed, was observing the proceedings like a king from his throne, his expression proud and unreadable, his complexion tinged with gray. But he would take no notice of that last fact, his son decided. A serious illness did not hinder his grace in the pursuit of evil. He remembered being so blindly furious just a few hours ago that he had tried to yank his mother’s necklet from his wife’s neck without pausing to undo the catch first. He had drawn blood from the back of her neck.
And he remembered the day of his mother’s funeral. He had returned from his vigorous ride, weary from the emotions and grief of the previous days, to find his father waiting in his rooms. For one moment—or perhaps for the mere fraction of a moment—his heart had leapt with something like gladness as he thought his father had come to share his grief. And then he had seen the topaz necklet in his father’s hand.
In the pattern of the dance, he and his wife passed each other, back to back. “Smile, my lord,” she said. “It is by far the best revenge.”
And then they were back in their separate lines, performing other figures of the dance, unable to exchange anything more than looks. She was still smiling, an expression that involved her whole face and appeared to reach back far into her eyes. Perhaps, he thought in some surprise, she wore a mask as impenetrable as his own. Could she really be feeling as happy as she looked? She had been horribly shamed earlier, in front of his whole family. She had been given a precious gift and accepted into the family, so to speak, by the Duke of Withingsby himself. And then her husband had arrived, talked to her coldly in front of them all, torn the gift from about her neck, and abandoned her in her embarrassment and humiliation so that he might have his moment of confrontation with his grace.
It was Charles who had offered her comfort first. And for once—the only time during the days he had known her—she had lost her quiet self-possession. She had sagged against Charles, her breathing labored.
Yet now she had come to face his family again rather than run away as she had had the opportunity to do—it had been his full intent to take her away. She had faced them, not with anger or cold dignity or righteous recriminations, but with smiles and charm and grace. With a dignity worthy of a duchess—or of a marchioness maybe.
For his sake? Was she doing this for him? Because she had made a bargain with him and was determined to earn the generous settlement that would be hers for the rest of her life? Or was she doing it for herself? To show them all that she was not ashamed of who she was, that she could be more the person of true gentility than the best of them?
He really was falling in love
with her. This time he allowed the thought to remain in his conscious mind. They crossed in front of each other in the middle of the set and he smiled at her.
“It is certainly something you should do more often,” she said before she moved out of earshot again. “It is a deadly weapon.”
She was referring to his smile, he thought after a moment of incomprehension. She was flirting with him. But even as his pulses quickened involuntarily, he knew that she was not. She was playing a part and she was doing it magnificently well. She was drawing admiring eyes despite the relative simplicity of her appearance—or perhaps because of it. She looked fresh and new and innocent and …
And the sooner he got her settled to a comfortable life of her own, the sooner he could retreat to the life that was familiar to him. The safe life. He did not want to be unsafe again. There was too much pain.
He bowed in the line of gentlemen and she curtsied in the line of ladies to signal the end of the set. He took her hand on his and led her toward Claudia.
“I will wish for the honor of your hand for the waltz after supper, my love,” he said, relishing the chance to use the endearment. He bowed to her and raised her hand to his lips while Claudia looked on with a smile. “You will reserve it for me?”
“A waltz?” she said. “Oh, yes. But I cannot think my hand will be so in demand, my lord, that you need to reserve the set with me.”
There was no chance for further conversation. Sir John Symonds, Claudia’s eldest brother, had arrived to solicit the hand of the Marchioness of Staunton for the quadrille that was to follow.
She looked endearingly startled, her husband saw.
CHARITY HAD MADE a discovery during the ball—two, actually. The one was that the Marchioness of Staunton was a very important person indeed and more gentlemen wished to dance with her than there were sets in the evening. She amused herself with wondering how many of the same gentlemen would even notice her existence if she could suddenly appear at the ball as the person she had been just the week before—and clad in her gray silk.
The other discovery was of far greater significance and she longed to discuss it with someone, but Claudia, her obvious choice of confidant, was always in company with other people between sets, and so was she, Charity, for that matter.
Charles had eyes for Lady Marie Lucas. And Lady Marie Lucas had eyes for Charles. They danced the second set together and watched each other covertly during every set that followed it—all of which each of them danced with other partners. At supper they sat close enough to exchange some conversation even though they were not supper partners.
They were just perfect for each other. All of Charity’s maternal and matchmaking instincts came to the fore. Penny, she thought, would recognize the gleam in her eye and begin to protest—she tried to hide the gleam in her eye. They were close in age, they were both beautiful people, and they were probably friends. Had not she heard that the Earl of Tillden had brought his family to Enfield a number of times over the years? Charles and Marie had probably been playmates. He was three years older than she. He had probably been her hero. And he had probably been protective of her. She wondered when childhood friendship had blossomed into love. And she wondered too if the Earl of Tillden would countenance a match between his only daughter and the youngest son of a duke—a mere cavalry lieutenant.
She had been woolgathering at the supper table and was not giving her partner the attention that was his due. She was brought back to the present when she met her husband’s eyes across the room. He looked his usual cold, arrogant self, staring at her with pursed lips and hooded eyes. But he did not deceive her for a moment. The incident with the topaz necklet had shaken him dreadfully—far more than it had her. It had shaken him to the very roots, exposing wounds that he had covered over and hidden from sight for so long that doubtless he had thought them long healed.
And there was her father-in-law, sitting with the Earl of Tillden and two ladies whose identities she had forgotten, with the identical haughty, shuttered look on his face. How foolish human nature was sometimes. But she was back to woolgathering. She smiled and turned her attention to the conversation at her table.
The waltz she had promised to reserve for her husband came directly after supper. There had never been waltzes at any of the assemblies at home, but Philip had learned the steps elsewhere and had come home and demonstrated them, first with her and then with Penny and finally with Mary. They had all made very merry with the foolish dance. And she had dreamed ever since of waltzing in a real ballroom with a real partner—brothers did not qualify as real partners. Her husband, on the other hand, was as real as any partner could be.
“I know the steps of the waltz,” she told him as they took their places on the floor, “but I have never danced it. I hope I will not disgrace you and trip all over your toes or mine.”
“You will merely provide me with an excuse for holding you closer,” he said.
She wished she had not developed the annoying habit of blushing hotly at the merest suggestion of a compliment. She had done it earlier when he had made that grossly flattering remark about the relative beauty of the pearl necklace and its wearer. She did it again now. There was something in his eyes—a slight drooping of the eyelids. She recognized the look, actually. She had learned something last night about sexual tension.
“I shall try not to make it necessary,” she said.
His face remained immobile. But his eyes smiled. It was a wicked, knee-weakening expression. She should, she thought very much too late, have allowed him to hurry her back to London as he had wanted to do earlier.
She need not have worried about the dance. After the first few faltering steps she picked up the rhythm of the waltz without any trouble at all. How could she not do so when she had such a superb partner? He twirled her about the perimeter of the ballroom and she could almost imagine that her feet did not touch the floor. She had never in her life felt so exhilarated, she was sure. And not just exhilarated. His eyes held hers, breaking contact only occasionally to roam over her face and her shoulders. And that strange smile lingered there. Those very dark eyes of his had lost their disturbing opaque quality again.
“Has anyone reserved the next set with you?” he asked when she was beginning to feel regret at the knowledge that the set must be almost at an end.
She shook her head. She had not missed a single set, but apart from this one, none had been reserved ahead of time.
“Then you will remain with me,” he said. “And since at Enfield strict rules of etiquette must be observed and I dare not dance a third set even with my wife, we will go outside, my lady. We will stroll down to the lake. Unless you are reluctant to drag yourself from the festivities for half an hour, that is.”
Her first foolish thought was that it would be quite improper to be alone with him. For she knew from long experience when a gentleman merely wanted to take a little air with the lady of his choice and when he hoped to take more than just a little air. The Marquess of Staunton intended to take liberties with her person.
Her second foolish thought was that she was afraid to let him kiss her. It was extremely foolish in light of what they had done together in the privacy of his bed the night before—three separate times—and in light of the fact that she was his wife. But somehow, strangely—she would not at all have been able to explain the feeling—there was something vastly different about lying with her husband and walking out into the moonlight with him while a ball was in progress. Walking out was infinitely more dangerous.
And every bit as tempting.
And just as impossible to resist.
“Fresh air and a stroll will be very pleasant, my lord,” she said.
That smile in his eyes took on a dimension of true amusement. “You look,” he said, “as if you are agreeing to attend your own execution.”
“Oh,” she said and felt her blush return with full heat. He knew that she knew he was taking her outside to kiss her. She glanced at his mouth. She
had felt it once—at their wedding—coming to rest lightly beside her own mouth. It had shocked her to her toenails. What would it feel like directly against her own? It was very silly to feel breathless when she had received his body right inside her own four times in all.
But a kiss was different. She felt breathless. And the music was coming to an end. Yes, there was no doubt about it. The dance had finished.
THEY WOULD STAY for dinner and for the ball, she had said. They would not run away. They would stay and show his family a thing or two about courage. Well, they had stayed, and even his grace would have to agree that all had gone smoothly enough. The ball was a grand success. It could almost compare to a London squeeze. He doubted that anyone had refused the invitation.
The point had been made. Tomorrow he would return to London and set his own life and his wife’s in order—separately. Tonight was done with as far as he was concerned. Tomorrow had not yet come. Between the two times there was now, tonight. He had not yet decided if he would invite her to his bed again. He wanted her, of course. He guessed it would take some time for his sexual craving for her to die. He would have to work on it. But he would just as soon resist the temptation to have her tonight. If he had her once, he would want her again, and each time he would be in danger of impregnating her.
He wanted something different out of tonight. Something—he could not think of a word to describe what he wanted. Actually, there was a word but he was unwilling to use it even in his own mind. He wanted some warmth, some human closeness, some tenderness, some—romance. There, the word had come unbidden. He wanted a little romance. He mocked himself with both the word and the feeling it evoked in him. But it was what he wanted.
And so he invited her to walk to the lake with him after their waltz. He saw in her eyes that she understood him perfectly. He found it somewhat disturbing that within just a few days she had developed the uncanny knack of getting into his head with him as no one else had since the days when Will had been his closest crony. And even Will had not been so unerring in his understanding. He also saw in her eyes, of course, the mirror of his own feelings. She too wanted some romance tonight. It was an alarming realization. He should have run a mile from it. He should have danced with someone else and turned her over to another partner. He should have decided quite firmly to go to his bedchamber at the end of the ball and lock his door.
