SLIGHTLY WICKED

by Mary Balogh

  “I thought I was dreaming,” she said in the throaty voice Claire Campbell had used.

  “No.”

  They stared at each other in the morning twilight, she with sleepy eyes, he feeling like a drowning man who is trying to convince himself that he is immersed in a mere teacup of water. He desperately wished there was a little more space between them. She was going to become physically aware of his perfidy any moment despite the presence of his breeches, which he had kept on for decency’s sake.

  And then she lifted one warm hand and feathered her fingers over his lips.

  “You are an amazingly kind man,” she said. “You promised me last night that all would be well, and you meant it, did you not?”

  He had also promised that she was safe from him. He was not at all sure he was going to be able to keep either promise.

  “I meant it,” he said.

  She moved her hand and replaced it with her lips.

  “Thank you,” she said. “A night’s sleep has made all the difference. I feel very safe now.”

  “If you only knew your peril,” he said, “you would start running down the road in your nightgown.”

  And then she smiled at him—showing her dimple. “I did not mean that sort of safety,” she said and touched her lips to his again.

  “Judith,” he said, “I am not made of stone.”

  “Neither am I,” she said. “You cannot know how much I have needed to be held and .. . well, held.”

  He was not sure even now that this was not an ungallant thing to do, that he was not merely taking advantage of her vulnerability. But he was not some sort of fleshless, bloodless superhero. God help him, he was a man.

  He closed his arms more tightly about her and opened his mouth over hers, pressing his tongue deep into the heat within. She made a sound of appreciation deep in her throat, one of her arms came about him, and he was finally lost.

  He turned her onto her back, tore at the buttons of his breeches, released himself without stopping to remove the garment, and pushed up her nightgown to the waist.

  “Judith,” he whispered to her as he came down on top of her, “are you sure you want this? Stop me if you do not. Stop me.”

  “Rannulf,” she whispered back. “Oh, Rannulf.”

  It was not an occasion for foreplay. She was obviously as ready as he was. He slid his hands beneath her, half lifted her from the mattress, and pressed deep into her.

  It felt curiously like a homecoming. He slid his hands free, lifted himself on his forearms, and looked down at her. She gazed back, her lips parted, her eyes heavy with sleep and desire, her hair spread all about her on the pillow and sheet.

  “I tried very hard not to let this happen,” he told her.

  “I know.” She smiled again. “I’ll never blame you. Not for anything.”

  He took her hands then, raised them and crossed them above her head, laced his fingers with hers, and lowered all his weight onto her. Her legs, he realized, were twined about his. He worked in her with deep, rhythmic strokes, reveling in her soft, wet heat encasing him, thankful for her initial relaxation, even more thankful for the way she took up his rhythm after a while, pulsing about him with inner muscles, drawing him toward what would be a powerful and powerfully satisfying climax.

  He moved his head and kissed her.

  “Come with me,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  It was the only time it had happened in his life, he realized, he and his woman cresting the tide of passion together, crying out together, descending into satiety and peace together. He felt blessed beyond words.

  He lifted himself off her, took her hand in his, and drifted off to sleep for a few minutes. When he opened his eyes again, it was to find that her head was turned toward him. She was looking at him with a half-smile. She looked flushed, contented, and utterly beautiful.

  “Well, that settles something,” he said, squeezing her hand. “After this business is all over and settled, we are getting married.”

  “No,” she said. “That was not entrapment, Rannulf.”

  His eyebrows snapped together in a frown.

  “What was it exactly?” he asked.

  “I am not sure,” she said. “There has been some ... madness between us in the last few days. I cannot presume to know why you wished to call on me yesterday morning, but I can guess. It would have been a dreadful mistake. I might have said yes, you see.”

  What the devil?

  “Saying yes would have been a mistake?”

  “Yes.” She nodded. “Look at us, Rannulf. We are so far apart on the social scale that even in the best of circumstances a match between us would be considerably frowned upon. But these are not the best of circumstances. Even if Branwell did not steal all that jewelry and even if he and I can be cleared of all blame, he is still in disgrace, and we are still poor. I grew up in a country rectory, you in a duke’s mansion. I could never fit into your world, and you could never stoop to mine.”

  “Do you not believe in love as the great equalizer?” he asked. He could hardly believe that he, Rannulf Bedwyn, was actually asking such a question.

  “No.” She shook her head. “Besides, there is no real love. Only some liking, I believe, and some ... some lust.” Her eyes held his.

  “That was why this just happened?” he asked her. “It was just lust?”

  For the merest moment her glance wavered.

  “And liking,” she said. “We do like each other, do we not?”

  He sat up on the edge of the bed and buttoned up the flap of his breeches. “I do not usually bed women simply because I like them,” he said.

  “But there is also the lust,” she said. “The mutual lust. You found it hard to lie in bed with me, Rannulf, without touching me. I found it hard too. Lust is not something only men feel.”

  He did not know whether to be furiously angry or to laugh. If he could ever have predicted this conversation, it would have been with their roles reversed. He would have been the one carefully deflecting any suggestion that it had been a love encounter and not simply sex.

  “I take it we are done sleeping,” he said, getting to his feet. “Get dressed, Judith, while I see about hiring a carriage for the rest of our journey. And do not run away this time.” “I won’t,” she promised.

  It was late afternoon by the time they reached London. They had exchanged no more than a dozen sentences all day. Judith had had one more bleakness to add to all her other worries.

  She could not marry him. She had almost been seduced by madness a couple of days ago. It had seemed almost possible. But no longer. No, she could never marry him. Nevertheless she was glad the events of the past week had at least enabled her to like him and to admire his nobler qualities— and they were many. She was glad of this morning. She was glad she loved him. Her stolen dream had been restored to her and would surely sustain her for a lifetime once the pain was over. There was going to be pain, she knew.

  She had never been to London before. She knew it was large, but she had never dreamed that any urban area could be this large. It seemed to go on forever and ever. The streets were all lined with buildings and crowded with people and vehicles and the noises of wheels and horses and people shouting. Any wonder she might have felt was quickly submerged beneath terror.

  However was she going to find Branwell?

  She had, she supposed, expected that she would simply stop at some inn or other public building, ask for directions to his lodgings, and follow them without any trouble at all— and all within a few minutes of her arrival in London.

  “Does it ever end?” she asked foolishly.

  “London?” he said. “It is not my favorite place in the world. Unfortunately one sees the worst of it first. You will find Mayfair quieter and cleaner and more spacious than this.”

  “Is that the area where Branwell lives?” she asked. “Will we find him at home, do you suppose?”

  “Probably not,” he said. “Gentlemen do not usually s
pend much of their time in their rooms.”

  “I hope he comes home sometime this evening,” she said, all of yesterday’s anxiety returning in full force again. “Whatever will I do if he does not? Will his landlord allow me to wait in his rooms, do you think?”

  “He would probably have an apoplexy if you were even to suggest it,” he said. “It is not the thing for young ladies to call upon young gentlemen, accompanied only by another gentleman, you know.”

  “But I am his sister.” She looked at him in amazement.

  “I daresay,” he said, “landlords meet any number of sisters.”

  She stared at him, speechless for a minute.

  “What will I do if I cannot see him today?” she asked. “I cannot ask you to sit outside his rooms all night in the carriage. I—”

  “I am not taking you to his rooms,” he said. “I’ll go there alone some other time.”

  “What?” She looked at him in incomprehension.

  “I am taking you to my brother’s,” he said. “To Bedwyn House.”

  “To the Duke of Bewcastle’s?” She stared at him in horror.

  “Bewcastle and Alleyne may be the only ones in residence,” he said, “in which case I’ll have to think of somewhere else to take you—my Aunt Rochester’s probably, though she is something of a dragon and would have your head for breakfast if you did not stand up to her.”

  “I am not going to the Duke of Bewcastle’s,” she said, aghast. “I came here to find Branwell.”

  “And find him we will,” he said, “if indeed he came to London. But you are in London now, Judith. This is the height of impropriety, our riding alone together in a carriage without any maid or chaperon. But it will be the last such impropriety while you are here. I have my reputation to think about, you know.”

  “How absurd,” she said. “How absolutely absurd. If you will not take me to Bran, then set me down and I will find my own way there.”

  He looked maddeningly cool. He was slightly slouched down in the seat, one booted foot propped against the seat opposite. And he had the gall to grin at her.

  “You are afraid,” he said. “Afraid of facing Bewcastle.”

  “I am not.” She was mortally afraid.

  “Liar.”

  The carriage lurched to a halt as she was drawing breath to make a sharp retort. She glanced beyond the window and realized that they were indeed in a quieter, grander part of London. There were tall, stately buildings on her side of the carriage, a small park on the other, more buildings beyond it. It must be one of London’s squares! The door opened and the coachman busied himself setting down the steps.

  “This is Bedwyn House?” she asked.

  He merely grinned at her again, vaulted out of the carriage, and reached up a hand to help her out.

  She was wearing a shapeless cotton dress that had been folded inside her bag all day yesterday and worn inside a carriage all day today. She had not brushed or replaited her hair since this morning. It had been squashed beneath her bonnet all day. She must look an absolute fright. Besides all of which she was Judith Law from the rectory at Beaconsfield, fugitive and suspected thief, on her way to meet a duke.

  The door was open by the time she alighted from the carriage. A moment later a very stately looking butler was informing Lord Rannulf that his grace was indeed at home and was in the drawing room. He led the way up a grand staircase. Judith thought her knees might well have buckled under her if she had not just been called a liar when she had claimed not to be afraid and if Rannulf’s hand had not been beneath one of her elbows.

  A footman opened a set of huge double doors as they appeared at the top of the staircase, and the butler stepped between them.

  “Lord Rannulf Bedwyn, your grace,” he announced. His eyes had alit on Judith downstairs for one brief moment but had not drifted her way since.

  Horror of horrors, Judith saw as she was led through the doors, the room had more than one occupant. There were four to be exact, two men and two women.

  “Ralf, old fellow,” one of the men said, jumping immediately to his feet, “are you back already? Did you escape Grandmama’s clutches intact yet again?” He stopped abruptly when he saw Judith.

  He was a tall, slender, dark, remarkably handsome young man, only his prominent nose identifying him as Rannulf’s brother. One of the ladies, a very young, very beautiful one, looked very much like him. The other lady was fair, like Rannulf, with long, curly hair worn loose. Like him she was dark-complexioned and dark-browed and big-nosed.

  They were fleeting impressions. Judith studiously kept her eyes from the other man, who was just then rising to his feet. Even without looking at him she could sense that he was the duke.

  “Rannulf?” he said with soft hauteur, sending shivers of apprehension along Judith’s spine.

  She looked at him to find that he was looking directly back at her, his eyebrows raised, a quizzing glass in one long-fingered hand and half raised to his eye. He was dark and slender like the younger brother, with the family nose and eyes of such a pale gray that it might be more accurate to describe them as silver. His face was cold and haughty, apparently without any humanity. He looked, in fact, much as Judith had expected him to look. He was, after all, the Duke of Bewcastle.

  “I have the honor of presenting Miss Judith Law,” Rannulf said, his hand tightening about her elbow. “My sisters, Miss Law—Freyja and Morgan. And my brothers, Bewcastle and Alleyne.”

  The ladies looked at her with haughty disdain, Judith thought as she curtsied. The younger brother was looking her over slowly with pursed lips, obvious appreciation in his eyes.

  “Miss Law,” he said. “This is a pleasure.”

  “Ma’am,” the duke said more distantly. His eyes had moved to his brother. “Doubtless you left Miss Law’s maid downstairs, Rannulf?”

  “There is no such person,” Rannulf said, releasing her arm. “Miss Law ran away from Harewood Grange near Grandmaison after being accused of robbing her own grandmother, and I rode after her. We have to find her brother, who may have the jewels but probably does not. In the meantime she must stay here. I am delighted to find that Freyja and Morgan have come up from Lindsey Hall so that I don’t have to take her to Aunt Rochester’s.”

  “Oh, I say,” Lord Alleyne said. “Cloak and dagger stuff, Ralf? How splendid!”

  “Miss Law,” the Duke of Bewcastle said, his voice so soft and cold that she was surprised the air did not freeze into icicles about his head, “welcome to Bedwyn House.”

  Chapter XX

  “Doubtless,” Wulfric, Duke of Bewcastle said, one hand spread elegantly about the bowl of his brandy glass, the other loosely holding the handle of his quizzing glass, “you are about to explain, Rannulf, why I am playing host to a suspected jewel thief, who also happens to be young, female, and unchaperoned?”

  “And also well above the ordinary in the looks department,” Alleyne added, grinning. “There you probably have explanation enough, Wulf.”

  Bewcastle had invited Rannulf to follow him to the library after the housekeeper had been summoned to show Judith to a guest room. Such invitations were rarely issued for purely social purposes. Alleyne had come along too, uninvited. His eldest brother ignored him now and focused his languid attention on Rannulf—though the pose was deceptive. He was, as usual, keen-eyed.

  “She is Judith Law, niece of Sir George Effingham, Grandmama’s neighbor,” Rannulf explained. “She was living there at Harewood Grange as a sort of companion to Lady Effingham’s mother, her own grandmother. There has been a house party there for the past two weeks. Miss Law’s brother was a guest—a young jackanapes who lives a life of expensive idleness, well beyond the means provided him by his father, a country rector. My guess is that the family is very close to being ruined.”

  “Miss Law, then,” Wulfric said after sipping his brandy, “was a poor relation at Harewood. Her brother is up to his neck in debt. And their grandmother owns—or owned— expensive jewels.”


  “They disappeared during a ball,” Rannulf said. “So did Branwell Law. And one piece of jewelry as well as an empty velvet bag that usually held the most expensive jewels were found in Miss Law’s room.”

  “Incriminating indeed,” Wulfric said softly, raising his eyebrows.

  “Too incriminating,” Rannulf said. “Even the rawest of amateurs could have done better.”

  “Oh, I say,” Alleyne said cheerfully, “someone set them up for a fall. Some dastardly villain. Do you have any idea who, Ralf?”

  The duke turned toward him, his glass halfway to his eye. “We will not turn this into a farcical melodrama if you please, Alleyne,” he said.

  “But he is almost right,” Rannulf told him. “Horace Effingham, Sir George’s son, tried to force himself on Miss Law during a garden party at Grandmaison a week or so ago. He would have succeeded too if I had not happened along just in time and given him a bit of a thrashing. On the night of the ball he attempted revenge by almost trapping me into compromising his sister and being forced to offer for her— Miss Law saved me from that fate. It was during the same ball that young Law abruptly left Harewood and Mrs. Law’s jewels disappeared.”

  “Splendid stuff,” Alleyne said. “And while all that excitement was going on in Leicestershire, I have been stuck here shepherding Morgan about to see all the famous sights.”

  Wulfric had released his hold on his quizzing glass. He was pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and middle finger, his eyes closed.

  “And so Miss Law ran away and you followed after,” he said. “When was that, Rannulf?”

  “Yesterday,” his brother said.

  “Ah.” Wulfric removed his hand and opened his eyes. “And dare one ask where you stayed last night?”

  “At a posting inn.” Rannulf’s eyes narrowed. “Look, Wulf, if this is an interrogation into my—”

  His brother held up his hand and Rannulf fell silent. One tended to do that with Wulf, he thought, irritated with himself. A single gesture—even the simple raising of an eyebrow would do it—and Bewcastle commanded his world.