SLIGHTLY WICKED

by Mary Balogh

“Without any promise of change or excitement,” she said. “Most women live dull lives, whether they marry or grow old as I will do, dependent upon the charity of their wealthier relatives. This is the real me, Lord Rannulf. You are looking at her.”

  “Judith.” He strode toward her and possessed himself of her hand before she could even think of snatching it away.

  But he stopped abruptly, looked down at the ground between them, sighed audibly, and released her hand after squeezing it painfully tightly.

  “I do beg your pardon,” he said again, “for making you maudlin when just a short while ago I had you laughing. I must get back too, Miss Law. I daresay my grandmother is ready to return home. I’ll go around the hill and come at the front lawn from the side. You will go over the hill to the back of the house?”

  “Yes,” she said and watched him stride away without once looking back. Soon he was out of sight. She drew a deep breath and released it slowly. She really had not wanted to start knowing him as a person. She had not wanted to find anything likable about him. Her prospects were dreary enough without regret being added to them.

  Regret! Did she regret the answer she had given him three days ago, then? No, she did not. Of course she did not. He had made clear today the sort of woman who would suit him as a bride, and she did not qualify on any of the counts. Besides, when he married, it would be only for the purpose of producing sons to carry on his name. He would reserve all his charm, all his energy, all his passion for such women as the nonexistent Claire Campbell.

  No, she did not regret her decision. But her feet felt as heavy as her heart as she made her way back to the house.

  Chapter XI

  As usual Rannulf had been invited to go to Harewood the following afternoon, by which time some plan would have been devised for his entertainment and everyone else’s. However, fairly early in the morning a veritable cavalcade of carriages was seen to be approaching Grandmaison. The butler came to the morning room to warn Lady Beamish, who was at her escritoire, writing letters, and Rannulf, who was reading letters, one predictably short one from his friend Kit, the other a longer one from his sister Morgan.

  A footman was sent from the leading carriage to invite Lord Rannulf Bedwyn to join the Harewood party on a day’s excursion to a town eight miles away. But by the time he had knocked on the door, Rannulf was already in the hall and striding outside and able to receive the invitation at greater length from Miss Effingham herself, who had descended from the carriage with the Honorable Miss Lilian Warren and Sir Dudley Roy-Hill. The other three carriages were also emptying themselves of passengers, all of whom appeared to be in high spirits.

  Judith Law was not among them, Rannulf saw at a glance. Horace Effingham was.

  “You simply must come with us, Lord Rannulf,” Miss Effingham told him, stepping forward and stretching out both hands to him. “We are going to shop and spend all our money. And then we are going to take tea at the White Hart. It is very elegant.”

  Rannulf took both hands in his and bowed over them. She was looking very fetching indeed in a spring-green carriage dress and straw bonnet. Her big blue eyes sparkled in anticipation of a day of adventure. As far as Rannulf could see, Mrs. Hardinge, in the fourth carriage, was the only chaperon of the group.

  “We will grant you ten minutes to get ready, Bedwyn,” Effingham called cheerfully. “Not a moment longer.”

  “I have kept a place for you in my carriage,” Miss Effingham added, in no hurry to withdraw her hands from his, “though both Mr. Webster and Lord Braithwaite vied for it.”

  The day loomed mentally ahead of Rannulf. A couple of hours in the carriage both this morning and during the return trip—all in close company with his intended bride. A few hours shopping with her and taking tea seated beside her at the inn. And doubtless a return to Harewood afterward, where he would be seated beside her at dinner and maneuvered into turning the pages of her music or sitting beside her or partnering her at cards in the drawing room afterward.

  His grandmother and her mother would be ecstatic over the happy progress of the courtship.

  “I do beg your pardon.” He released the girl’s hands, clasped his own behind him, and smiled apologetically at her and the group at large. “But I have promised to spend today with my grandmother, planning the entertainments for tomorrow.” Tomorrow was the day of the garden party at Grandmaison, an occasion he had not spared a single thought for until now.

  Miss Effingham’s face fell and she pouted prettily at him. “But anyone can plan a garden party,” she said. “I am sure your grandmama will spare you when she knows where we are going and that we have all come deliberately out of our way in order to invite you.”

  “I am honored that you have done so,” he said. “But I really cannot break a promise. Have a pleasant day.”

  “I will go and speak to Lady Beamish myself,” Miss Effingham said, brightening. “She will spare you if I ask.”

  “Thank you,” he said firmly, “but no. I simply cannot leave today. Allow me to hand you back into your carriage, Miss Effingham.”

  She looked openly dejected and he felt a moment’s pang of remorse. He had doubtless ruined her day. But even as she placed her hand in his and arched him a look that he could not immediately interpret, she called out along the terrace.

  “Lord Braithwaite,” she called gaily, “you may sit up here with me after all. It seemed only polite to reserve a place for Lord Rannulf, did it not, but he is unable to come.”

  Rannulf was amused to observe, as he stood back after handing her in and waited politely for the cavalcade to resume its journey, that she did not once look at him again but smiled dazzlingly at Braithwaite, placed a hand on his sleeve, and proceeded to converse animatedly with him.

  The silly chit was trying to make him jealous, he thought as he made his way back into the house. His grandmother was just coming into the hall.

  “Rannulf?” she said. “They are leaving without you?”

  “They have a full day’s excursion planned,” he said, hurrying toward her and drawing her arm through his. She would not use a cane, but he knew that she often needed to lean on something as she walked. “I did not wish to leave you that long.”

  “Oh, nonsense, my boy,” she said. “However do you think I manage when you are not here—which is most of the time?”

  He led her in the direction of the stairs, assuming she was retiring to her own apartments. He reduced the length of his stride to fit hers.

  “Have I been a disappointment to you, Grandmama?” he asked her. “Not going into the church as a career. Not coming here more often even though it is years since you named me as your heir? Not showing any interest in my future inheritance?”

  She looked at him sharply as they climbed. He noticed how she had to take each stair separately, her left foot leading each time.

  “What has brought on this crisis of conscience?” she asked him.

  He was not sure. The talk with Judith Law yesterday, maybe. The things she had said about the idleness of gentlemen, his own admission that he had not done his duty, as Wulf and Aidan had. He had refused to become a clergyman. But he had done nothing else instead. He was no better than that jackanapes, Branwell Law, except that he had the money with which to live an idle life. He was twenty-eight years old and bored and directionless, the accumulation of his life’s wisdom leading him only to the cynical conclusion that life was meaningless.

  Had he ever tried to give life meaning?

  He answered his grandmother’s question with one of his own. “Have you ever wished,” he asked, “that I would come here more often, take an interest in the house and estate, learn how they work, perhaps oversee them and reduce your responsibilities? Get to know your neighbors? Become an active member of this community?”

  She was rather breathless when they reached the top of the stairs. He paused to give her a chance to catch her breath.

  “Yes to all your questions, Rannulf,” she said. “Now, would you c
are to tell me what this is all about?”

  “I am considering matrimony, am I not?” he said.

  “Yes, of course.” She preceded him into her private sitting room and motioned him toward a chair after he had helped seat her in her own. “And so the prospect is awakening your latent sense of responsibility, as I had hoped it would. She is a sweet little thing, is she not? Rather more flighty and frivolous than I realized, but nothing that time and a little maturity will not erase. You feel an affection for her, Rannulf?”

  He considered lying outright. But affection was not a prerequisite for the marriage he had promised to consider.

  “That will come in time, Grandmama,” he said. “She is everything you say.”

  “And yet,” she said, frowning, “you have just rejected the chance to spend a whole day in her company.”

  “I rather thought,” he said, “that I might search out your steward, Grandmama, and see if he has the time to take me around the home farm and explain a thing or two to me. I am remarkably ignorant about such matters.”

  “The end of the world must be coming,” she said. “I never thought I would live to see the day.”

  “You will not think me presumptuous, then?” he asked her.

  “My dear boy.” She leaned forward in her chair. “I have dreamed of seeing you not only a married man and a father in my lifetime, but also a grown up, mature, happy man. You have been a lovable boy for as long as I have known you, but you are twenty-eight years old.”

  He got to his feet. “I’ll go mend my ways, then,” he said, grinning at her, “and leave you to rest.”

  There was a new spring in his step as he made his way back downstairs. It amazed him that he had not thought of this before but had been content to idle away his life at Lindsey Hall, which was Bewcastle’s home, not his, and wherever else he could expect to derive a few days or weeks of amusement.

  And yet for years he had known that he would eventually be a landowner. There was much to do, much to learn if, when the time came, he was going to be able to give to the land as well as take from it.

  Yet it was all to be done with Julianne Effingham at his side. His mind shied away from the prospect. He would think of that another time.

  Judith would have liked to join the shopping excursion, especially when Branwell specifically asked her. But when Aunt Effingham intervened quite firmly to declare that she needed her niece at home, she made no objection. She had no money to spend anyway, and shopping was no fun if one could not buy even the most trivial bauble to show for the day. Besides, Horace had been quick to second Bran’s invitation. And if she went, she would have to look at Julianne and Lord Rannulf Bedwyn chattering and laughing together all day long.

  She did not love him. But she was lonely and depressed, and foolishly—ah, foolishly—she had tasted another sort of life altogether ... with him. She could not help remembering. Her body remembered, particularly during the times when her guard was most effectively down. She was starting to wake at night, her body aching for what it would never know again.

  On the whole she was quite content to spend her day writing a pile of invitations to next week’s grand ball and delivering some of them herself in the village, walking all the way there and back since the gig had not been offered her, and then cutting flowers from the kitchen garden and arranging them in fresh bouquets for each of the day rooms. She spent an hour in the drawing room, sorting through a bag of her aunt’s embroidery threads, which had become horribly tangled together, patiently separating them and winding them into soft silken skeins. Twice she had to interrupt the task, once to run upstairs for her grandmother’s handkerchief and again to bring down the dish of bonbons Grandmama particularly liked.

  But her grandmother was at least good company. For as long as Aunt Effingham was not with them, they chattered brightly on an endless number of topics. Grandmama loved to tell stories about Judith’s grandfather, whom Judith had never known, though she was seven years old when he died. They both chuckled over anecdotes from home Judith told purely for her amusement, like the one of the whole village chasing madly after an escaped piglet through the churchyard and rectory garden until Papa had stepped outside from his study, fixed the poor, terrified animal with his most severe clerical look, and stopped it in its tracks.

  And then the butler interrupted them.

  “I beg your pardon, ma’am,” he said, looking from one to the other of them, apparently not knowing quite which of them to address, “but there is a, ah, person in the hall insisting upon speaking with Mr. Law. He refuses to believe that the young gentleman is not here.”

  “He wishes to speak with Branwell?” Judith asked. “But who is he?”

  “You had better show him in here, Gibbs,” her grandmother said. “Though why he would not believe you I do not know.”

  “No.” Judith got to her feet. “I’ll go see what he wants.”

  The man standing in the hall was turning his hat around and around in his hand and looking uncomfortable. His age and his manner of dress immediately disabused Judith of any notion that he might be a friend of Bran’s who was in the same part of the country and had decided to pay him a surprise call.

  “May I help you?” she asked him. “Mr. Law is my brother.”

  “Is he, miss?” The man bowed to her. “But I need to see the gentleman in person. I have something to deliver into his own hands. His sister’s will not do. Send him to me if you will.”

  “He is not here,” Judith said. “He is gone for the day. But Mr. Gibbs has already told you that, I believe.”

  “They always say that, though,” the man said. “But it usually isn’t true. I’ll not be avoided, miss. I’ll see him sooner or later. You tell him that. I’ll wait till he comes.”

  Whatever for? she wondered. And why the persistence almost to the point of rudeness? However had he found Bran here? But she was not entirely foolish. She felt a prickle of apprehension.

  “Then you must wait in the kitchen,” she said. “If Mr. Gibbs will allow you there, that is.”

  “Follow me,” the butler said, looking along his nose at the visitor as if he were a particularly nasty worm.

  Judith looked after them, frowning, and then returned to the drawing room. But she could hear the sound of horses and carriages even before she had a chance to sit down again, and crossed to the window to look out. Yes, they had returned, far earlier than she had expected.

  “They are back already?” Her grandmother’s surprise echoed her own.

  “Yes,” Judith said. “They have made good time.” They would not have had to make the detour to Grandmaison on the return journey, of course. They would have brought Lord Rannulf with them. Despite herself she found that she was leaning closer to the window to catch a glimpse of him as he descended from the carriage. But it was Lord Braithwaite who handed Julianne out, and they were followed by Miss Warren and Sir Dudley Roy-Hill. Aunt Effingham had gone outside to greet them.

  “What did that man want with Branwell?” her grandmother asked.

  “I have no idea,” Judith said. “He is waiting to see him personally.”

  “I daresay he is a friend,” her grandmother said.

  Judith did not disabuse her. A moment later the drawing room door was flung open and Julianne hurried inside, looking cross and tight-lipped, her mother on her heels. Aunt Effingham closed the door behind her. Presumably, all the guests had gone straight to their rooms to freshen up after the day out.

  “He could not come,” Julianne said, her voice brittle and overloud. “He had promised to stay with Lady Beamish. But he would not let me persuade her to release him from his promise. He would not come. He does not like me. He is not going to offer for me. Oh, Mama, whatever will I do! I must have him. I will simply die if I have to settle for anyone inferior.”

  “You are home very early, Julianne,” Grandmama commented. “Whatever is wrong?”

  “There were no shops worth looking in,” Julianne said petulantly. �
�All their wares look shabby after those on display in even the least fashionable shops in London. Yet everyone dragged about wanting to linger everywhere and exclaim in wonder at everything. I was fatigued to death within an hour. And whoever said the White Hart is elegant has clearly seen nothing that is. We had to wait ten whole minutes for warm tea and stale cakes. And if Hannah and Theresa tell you that theirs were hot and fresh, Mama, then they are lying. It was such a stupid idea to go there today. I am sure you had a divine day in comparison to mine, Judith.”

  Judith understood that it was Lord Rannulf’s refusal to join the expedition that had doomed it to certain failure. Why had he refused to go?

  “Of course he likes you, dearest,” Aunt Effingham said soothingly. “Lady Beamish has been quite particular in promoting a match between the two of you, and Lord Rannulf has been most attentive. If he could not go with you today, you can be sure there was a good reason. You must not show that you are upset with him. Tomorrow is the day of the garden party at Grandmaison, and you know that we have been invited to stay for dinner too. All will be well tomorrow, as you will see. You must be your natural pretty, charming self, my love. No man is ever caught with a lady’s anger.”

  “I bought two bonnets, though I do not like one of them above half,” Julianne said, somewhat mollified, it seemed. “And the other is not a style that becomes me well, I fear. I bought some lengths of ribbon too. I could not decide which color I liked best so bought a length of each. Though really there was no color there that I really liked at all.” She sighed deeply. “What an insipid day!”

  Her grandmother decided at that point to withdraw to her own rooms, and Judith helped her to her feet and accompanied her there.

  “These earrings pinch me,” her grandmother said, pulling one off as they approached her room and wincing. “I always forget which ones do. But everything in my jewelry box is in such a jumble that I put my hand in and pull out whatever is closest to the top. I must push these to the bottom.”