At Last Comes Love hq-3

by Mary Balogh

  She sat down shivering and remembering how the spreading of vicious and almost entirely untrue gossip had forced Kate into marrying Jasper two years ago.

  History was not about to repeat itself with her, was it?

  Oh, surely not! Such catastrophes did not happen twice within the same family.

  Whatever was she going to /do/?

  Duncan very much doubted that Miss Margaret Huxtable was a gossip – especially at her own expense and on the topic of her meeting with him. It must have been the military officer with the peculiar wet-sounding name and the red hair, then.

  For gossip there was.

  It was his mother who alerted him. She actually appeared at breakfast the morning after the Tindell ball, albeit well after Sir Graham had left for his club and just as Duncan himself was about to rise from the table. He knew she had been at the ball, though he had not been there long enough himself to see her. "Duncan," she said as she swept into the breakfast parlor, still clad in a dressing gown of a pale blue diaphanous material that billowed and wafted about her, though her hair had been immaculately styled and he suspected that her cheeks were rouged, "you are up already. I scarcely slept a wink all night. I feel quite haggard. But you were not in your room when we arrived home last night, you provoking man, and so there was no talking with you then. I did not hear you come home. It must have been at some unearthly hour. /Do/ tell me if it is true. Can it /possibly/ be? /Are/ you betrothed to the Earl of Merton's eldest sister? Without a word to your own mother? It would be a splendid match for you, my love. Your grandfather will be quite reconciled to you if it /is/ true. And that will be a very good thing as Graham has been grumbling and complaining, the silly man, that you will be living under his roof for the rest of our lives. Not that he does not love you in his own way, but … But speak up, do, Duncan, instead of sitting there silently as though there were nothing to tell. /Are/ you betrothed?" "In one word, Mama," he said, hiding his surprise and signaling the butler to fill his coffee cup again, "no. Not yet, anyway, and perhaps never. I danced with the lady once last evening, that is all." "That is /not/ all," his mother protested. "Miss Huxtable presented you to someone – I cannot for the life of me remember who – as her betrothed.

  Prue Talbot told me, and she never spreads stories unless they are accurate. Besides, /everyone/ was saying so." "Then, Mama," he said, getting to his feet after taking one sip of the fresh coffee, "you had no need to ask me, did you? You will excuse me? I ought to have been at Jackson's Boxing Salon twenty minutes ago." "It is /not/ true, then?" she asked, looking crestfallen. "Miss Huxtable was provoked into saying what she did," he said, "at my suggestion. I will be calling on her later today to discuss the matter." She looked befuddled but hopeful as she gazed at him and ignored the food on the plate before her. "But when did you /meet/ her, Duncan?" she asked. "That is what has been puzzling me all night, and I daresay it is puzzling Graham too, as he could suggest no answer when I asked him that very question. He would only grunt in that odious way of his. You have been in town only a few days. Now that I think of it, I do not believe Miss Huxtable has been here much longer. I do not remember seeing her before last evening, though I have seen her sisters everywhere and that very handsome brother of hers. Oh, /now/ I see! You met elsewhere and arranged to meet again here. You – " He took her hand in his and raised it to his lips. "Keep all this to yourself for a while, will you, Mama?" he asked.

  Though it was surely a pointless thing to ask, if the ballroom had been buzzing with the rumor last evening after he left. "But of course," she said. "You know that I am the soul of discretion, Duncan. I shall tell Graham what you have told me, of course, but we hold no secrets from each other." He went off to Jackson's. The first man he encountered there was Constantine Huxtable, and his initial suspicion that Con had been waiting there for him was soon confirmed. "Come and spar with me, Sherry," he said, but it was more an ultimatum than an affable invitation. "It will be my pleasure," Duncan said. "You look as if you are ready to punch my head in, though. Which, I must confess, is preferable to sparring with one of those fellows who like to prance about striking poses that they think make them look manly." Con did not laugh or even grin. He went on looking grim and a little white about the mouth.

  Con was Merton's cousin, Duncan remembered suddenly. He was Constantine /Huxtable/. One would not expect there to be much love lost between the two branches of the family, though, since Con had been the eldest son of the late earl and ought by rights to have inherited the title himself.

  But there was that asinine law to the effect that a man – or woman – was forever illegitimate if born out of wedlock, even if his mother and father later married. A couple of days or so later in Con's case. And so when the old earl had died, it was Con's sickly young brother who had inherited and then – after /his/ death – a second or third cousin. The present Merton.

  Miss Margaret Huxtable's brother, in fact.

  Now, why should Con care about Margaret Huxtable?

  He apparently did, though.

  He spoke again after they had stripped down to the waist and were in the ring, circling each other warily and taking preliminary jabs, testing the land, watching for weaknesses, looking for openings. "I cannot believe, Sherry," he said, "that you can be serious in your intention to marry Margaret. Why did you allow that story to spread last evening?" Duncan saw a clear path to his opponent's chin and headed through it with a right jab. But Con neatly deflected the blow and buried one of his own in Duncan's unprotected stomach.

  It hurt like the devil, and for a moment Duncan was winded. He would not show it, though. He was a little ashamed at finding himself so out of practice, if the truth were told. He hooked his left arm wide and dealt Con a blow to the side of his head.

  Con winced. "One does not either permit a story to spread or stop it from doing so once it has started," Duncan said. "Stories quickly develop a life of their own when there are people to begin them and people to believe them. This particular story did not even start up until after I had left the ball." They concentrated upon throwing punches at each other for several minutes. It became quickly obvious to Duncan that it was no friendly bout. "You are saying, then, that the story is untrue?" Con asked somewhat later, when the ferocity of their attack had abated and they were catching their breath before going back at it. "That I am betrothed to Miss Huxtable?" Duncan said. "Yes, it is. That she introduced me to a popinjay in a scarlet coat as her betrothed? No, it is not. That I offered her marriage? No, it is not. I was not there to hear the details of the story myself and so am not sure what it is exactly I am being called upon to confirm or deny." He spotted that same path to Con's chin again – there was a definite weakness in his defenses there – and this time he successfully planted a right upper cut, snapping Con's head back. But, as before, he had left his own defenses weak, and Con buried a fist in his midriff again.

  Duncan received it with a woof of expelled air and stepped in closer with both fists flying. Two fists flew back at him with equal ferocity.

  They pummeled each other for several more minutes without talking, until they were both sore and breathless and sweating and the strength was going from their arms. Eventually they backed off by unspoken assent, neither of them having succeeded in putting the other down. "I like you, Sherry," Con said, reaching for his towel. "I always did.

  It did not bother me that you ran off with Mrs. Turner instead of marrying /Miss/ Turner. A fellow's business is his own, and I assumed that you had your reasons for doing what you did. But this time your business is mine too." Duncan flexed his knuckles, though not with any intention of renewing their fight. They were looking red and even raw. "Miss Huxtable is your business?" he asked. "She is when someone is about to hurt her," Con said, "even if only her reputation. She has had a raw deal of a life, Sherry, as women all too often do. She was not quite eighteen when she promised her father on his deathbed that she would make a home for her brother and sisters until they were all grown up and settle
d in life. That was long before my own father and then Jon died and her brother inherited the title. They were poor. But she kept her promise anyway. Merton reached his majority and the youngest sister married just two years ago. She is free of the obligation, but she is no longer young. She has probably realized that if she does not marry soon she will have the unenviable life of a spinster for the rest of her days, and be rewarded for all she has done for her family by being eternally dependent upon them. I can see that she would be an easy prey to such as you." He spoke heatedly despite the fact that he was still half out of breath. "Such as me?" Duncan raised his eyebrows. "Mrs. Turner is dead," Con said. "So is your father, Sherry, and your grandfather is an old man. You have come to town, I presume, in order to choose a bride." "And if I have chosen Miss Huxtable," Duncan said, wrapping his towel about his shoulders and wiping his face with it, "it must be because I intend to /hurt/ her?" "Your notoriety itself will hurt her," Con said. "Leave her alone, Sherry. Choose someone less vulnerable." "But if the story of how she presented me to Frost – or was it Fog or Dew? /Dew/! That was it. If the story has spread, Con, and obviously it has," Duncan said, "will I not hurt her quite irreparably by withdrawing my offer now?" Con gazed stormily at him. "Damn you, Sherry." He scrubbed at his face and arms and chest with his towel and stalked off to retrieve his clothes. "Why did you have to choose Margaret of all people? If you marry her and hurt so much as a hair on her head, you will have me to answer to. /This/ was nothing." He jerked his head back in the direction of the ring. "This was mere sparring." "Are you going to White's by any chance?" Duncan asked. "If you are, I will walk with you." But going to White's brought him face-to-face with the Duke of Moreland, who had still been just Viscount Lyngate when Duncan had last frequented town. "Moreland." Duncan nodded affably to him and the blond young man who was with him, and would have proceeded on his way to the reading room to look at the morning papers if the duke had not stood quite deliberately in his way. "Sheringford," he said, frowning ferociously "I will have a word with you. My wife, if you did not know it, was the former Mrs. Hedley Dew and before that Miss Vanessa Huxtable. This is the Earl of Merton." Ah. So Moreland had a connection with both the Dews and the Huxtables, did he? Duncan sighed inwardly. He had not realized that.

  Merton inclined his head and looked grim. He was a handsome lad and a slender one, but Duncan's practiced eye registered the fact that it would be a mistake to assume that he was therefore a weakling. That youthful physique looked very well honed indeed, and the face had character. "Ah, Merton, well met," Duncan said. "You are just the man I would have been seeking out later today." He had not thought of doing so until this very moment actually. It was a while since he had made any formal marriage offer. But though Margaret Huxtable must be several years older than this brother she had brought up almost single-handed, it was surely the decent thing to do to meet formally with him to discuss marriage settlements and all the other business surrounding an impending marriage offer. "Later today is a little /too/ late, is it not," Merton asked him curtly, "when the question has already been asked and answered and word spread among half the /ton/? And announced in the morning paper?" "Announced in the paper?" Duncan asked in astonishment. "More or less," Merton said. "On the gossip page, anyway." Extraordinary. And it /must/ have been the military officer with the weak chin. No one else could have seen him and Miss Huxtable talking with each other and thought of spreading the rumor that they were /betrothed/. Duncan would not mind having a word or two with Major Dew.

  How was Miss Huxtable holding up this morning? he wondered. Were circumstances playing into his hands and almost forcing her into accepting him? If the /ton/ believed that she was betrothed to him – and clearly it did, or /would/ once it had read the papers this morning – she would cause herself some embarrassment if she cried off. On the other hand, marrying him was going to bring her scandal. He was not the /ton/'s favorite son.

  Miss Margaret Huxtable, it seemed, had trapped herself somewhere between the devil and the deep blue sea. "I would have said no a thousand times over," Merton said while Moreland loomed, silent and menacing, "if you had done all this properly and spoken with me privately first. I would /still/ say no if the answer were mine to give. Unfortunately, Meg is not subject to my will. She is her own person and can answer for herself. I do not like you, Sheringford." Duncan raised his eyebrows. "As far as I remember," he said, "we met for the first time a few moments ago, Merton. You form impressions with great haste." "I do not like men," Merton said, "who abandon their brides to private heartache and public scorn and run off with lawfully married ladies instead. I do not like such men at all especially when they are contemplating marriage to one of my sisters. And I do not need any prolonged acquaintance to form such an opinion." Duncan inclined his head. "We are beginning to attract attention," Moreland said.

  The hall was large enough and wide enough that they were in no danger of blocking the progress of other gentlemen as they arrived or left. But heads were indeed turning their way – and no wonder if the Tindell ballroom had been as abuzz with gossip as Duncan imagined it must have been – and if the gossip writer had made as juicy a morsel of the story as gossip writers usually did. And now here was he, the notorious Lord Sheringford, in company with Miss Huxtable's brother and brother-in-law, all of them looking as solemn as if they were attending a funeral. Yes, of course they were attracting attention. "I promised Miss Huxtable last evening," Duncan said, "that I would call upon her at Merton House this afternoon. If I may, Merton, I will speak with you there first." Merton nodded stiffly, and Duncan bowed to the two gentlemen and went on his way.

  He would have left White's without having gone farther than the reception hall, but sheer pride prevented him from crawling away now.

  Besides, he wanted to read what had been written about him in the papers. He proceeded upstairs, where he was greeted by a number of gentlemen. Indeed some of the greetings were jovial and even raucous and accompanied by much back-slapping. Among a certain crowd, it seemed, he had established himself as one devil of a fine fellow.

  And then he read the description of himself as a jilt and a wife-stealer.

  Both perfectly true.

  And he read that he had been presented to the friend who had come to the rescue of Miss Huxtable as her betrothed.

  It was indeed Dew who had betrayed her, then. /Again/.

  Duncan would definitely want a word with that particular military officer.

  There was, he learned before leaving the club after an early luncheon, a wager written into the betting book on whether or not he would abandon /this/ bride at the altar. The odds were heavily in favor of his doing so.

  And this afternoon he would be making Miss Margaret Huxtable a formal marriage offer, which she might well feel compelled to accept now. He would be left with thirteen days in which to present her to his grandfather and arrange a wedding by special license.

  His freedom was going to be bought – /if/ she accepted him, that was – at a high price.

  Though freedom was not the issue, was it?

  Toby was.

  6

  MARGARET'S first instinct after seeing the paper was to retreat to her room, crawl back into bed, and pull the covers up over her head. Perhaps by the time she emerged the whole sorry episode would be ancient news and someone would have murdered his grandmother or married his scullery maid or ridden naked along Rotten Row or done something equally startling with which to distract the fickle attention of the /ton/.

  The /ton/ could not be seriously interested, surely, in the fact that a dull, aging spinster had lied to a man who had once spurned her love by telling him she was betrothed to a villainous, wife-stealing rake?

  But, oh, dear, when put that way, the facts really did sound intriguing, even to her.

  Creeping off back to bed would solve nothing, she decided. She would go out instead. She would call on Vanessa, and perhaps together they would go to Katherine's, and the three of them would share a good l
augh over last evening and the silly story in the paper this morning.

  It was a good thing they all had a good sense of humor.

  But was any of this /funny/?

  She would dearly like to have a word with Crispin Dew, Margaret thought.

  More than a word. She would like to give him a good tongue-lashing about now. It was true that it was she who had told the lie, but why had he spread the story about when she had /told/ him no one else knew yet, even her family? Had it been done out of sheer spite? But /why/?

  It was as if her wish conjured him. A footman came into the breakfast parlor at that moment to inform the butler, who informed Margaret, that a Major Dew had asked to see Miss Huxtable and had been shown into the visitors' parlor.

  Margaret followed the butler there and swept past him after he had opened the door for her.

  Crispin, in uniform, was standing before the empty fireplace, looking smart and imposing and decidedly uncomfortable – as well he might. He bowed to her. "Meg – " he began. "I want an explanation," she demanded, glaring at him. "Do you hate me so much, Crispin? But /why/ do you hate me? What have I ever done to deserve it?" "My God, Meg," he said, taking a step toward her and looking at her, aghast, "I do not hate you. I have always adored you. You must know that." Her head snapped back as if he had struck her. "/Adored/ me?" she said with scorn. "/Have/ you?" "You are thinking of Teresa," he said. "I can explain that, Meg." "So can I," she said. "An imbecile could explain it. But I am not interested in hearing your explanation. Why did you betray me last evening?" "Betray?" he said. "That is a harsh judgment, Meg. You /are/ betrothed to Sheringford, are you not? You told me so yourself – both in Hyde Park and at the ball." "And on /both/ occasions," she said, "I told you that no announcement had yet been made, that even my family had not been told. It did not occur to me to swear you to secrecy. I trusted to your discretion and your honor." He winced visibly. "I was concerned about you, Meg," he said. "I was talking with Vanessa and Moreland when you left the dance floor to sit in that alcove with Sheringford. Moreland explained who he was and wondered who had dared introduce him to you. You could not possibly know that he was not a suitable acquaintance, he said. That worried your sister, and she would have gone to you herself if Moreland had not advised against it. I went instead. I hoped to draw you away from him without creating any sort of scene – I thought perhaps you would welcome a chance to escape if you already knew about him or would be grateful once you learned the truth.