Indiscreet

by Mary Balogh

Lord Rawleigh shrugged. “Perhaps,” he said. “The lure of town in the late spring is always strong. But perhaps not.”

  “Miss Eckert will be there,” Claude told him. It was a statement, not a question.

  “What is that to me?” he asked.

  “You were very fond of her,” his brother said. “You and I believed equally in love and romance, Rex. If you had not bought your commission and gone off fighting for so many years, you would have married as young as I did. You were badly hurt. Not just your pride or even just your heart. Your dreams and ideals were shattered, and for that I am sorry.”

  The viscount laughed rather harshly. “I grew up, Claude,” he said. “I learned that love and romance are for boys and very young men.”

  “And yet,” Claude said, “I am as old as you, Rex, give or take twenty minutes. Is what I still feel for Clarissa not love, then?”

  “I am sure it is,” the viscount said, chuckling and trying to lighten the tone of the conversation. “I would hate to get into one of our famous quarrels, Claude. We really have outgrown those, I hope.”

  “Copley would have none of Miss Eckert once she was free to marry him?” Claude said. “It amazes me that someone has not challenged him before now and blown his brains out. I even feared that you might do it.”

  “I was busy fighting another battle at the time,” Lord Rawleigh said. “Besides, I would not have had the right. Horatia released me from my obligation to her. And Copley has fought two duels, you know. He maimed both victims.”

  “Well,” his brother said, “I felt and feel sorry for the girl. I also hated her for what she had done to you. And continues to do.”

  “She wants me back,” the viscount said abruptly. “She has had the effrontery to send two discreet messages via her brother. I suppose life is not easy for her under the circumstances, but the last thing I need or want is to have her sniveling all over me in the middle of some ton squeeze or other. I could offer her only more humiliation.”

  “Ah,” Claude said sadly. “There is no chance of a reconciliation, then?”

  “Good Lord, no,” the viscount said.

  “I knew it, of course,” his brother said. “But I hoped. Oh, not necessarily for a reconciliation. But for some way out of the impasse you are in. I am afraid of one of two things for you.”

  Lord Rawleigh looked at him with raised eyebrows.

  “I am afraid,” Claude said, “that you will marry impulsively someone who cannot make you happy. Ellen, for example. She is a sweet girl, Rex. Truly. I have known her since she was a child. But she needs someone less—forbidding than you.”

  “Thank you,” the viscount said.

  His brother chuckled. “You are ten chronological years older than her,” he said, “and about thirty years older in experience.”

  “You need not fear,” Lord Rawleigh told him. “I am not about to marry your sister-in-law, impulsively or otherwise. What is your other fear?”

  “That you will not marry at all,” Claude said. “That you will merely allow your bitterness and cynicism to grow. It would be a shame. You have a great deal to offer by way of love, even if you do not realize it.”

  The viscount laughed. “We really have moved in opposite directions in the years since your marriage, Claude,” he said. “I no longer fit the image you have of me.”

  “Ah, but I am bound to your soul,” his brother said. “I do not need to be with you or living a similar life to yours to know you, Rex.”

  The conversation was becoming uncomfortably personal. And one-sided, of course. His brother could probe his private life to his heart’s content. But he did not have the same freedom. One could not discuss a brother’s marriage even if he was an identical twin. The viscount was glad of a diversion.

  They were taking a shortcut across a large meadow. So was someone else. At first it seemed that it was only a little dog, which came streaking toward them, barking furiously and seemingly with a death wish, since the two horses were giants in comparison to its size. But the wise dog did not come too close. It danced about at a safe distance, still barking its challenge.

  Toby!

  Where was she? Lord Rawleigh looked about and saw her approaching from the direction of a stile at the far side of the meadow. She was not hurrying. He guessed that she would have retreated if her dog had not betrayed her presence.

  “Ah, Mrs. Winters’s dog,” Claude said, “with Mrs. Winters herself not far behind.” He smiled and removed his hat and called out a greeting to her as she came closer.

  She was dressed in a simple, rather drab gray cloak with a plain blue bonnet to match the blue dress she had worn that morning. She smiled and curtsied to Claude after she had come closer—she seemed to know unerringly which of them was which. Her dog had called off the attack and sat beside her, tongue lolling, ears cocked to give the illusion of intelligent attention. She greeted Claude just as she had greeted him on their arrival at Bodley, the viscount thought wryly. With a sweep of the eyes she included him in the greeting.

  The viscount remembered, as she and Claude exchanged brief pleasantries and he looked silently on, that she had given him a blistering set-down this morning and that he had been unable to retaliate because Clarissa had interrupted them. She would have been an interesting mistress, he thought with faint regret. All the interest of their relationship would not have been confined to their bed.

  And then she was on her way again, her terrier loping off ahead of her. He touched his hat and inclined his head to her.

  “A beauty,” he said to Claude. “And she has been in residence here for five years, someone was saying? One wonders about the late Mr. Winters. Was he so good that he cannot be replaced? Or was he so bad that he will not be replaced?”

  “I hope you will exercise the proper care in seeing that she is not compromised,” his brother said.

  What the devil?

  “I suppose Clarissa was convinced that if she had not entered the music room at the precise moment she did,” he said irritably, “I would have had Mrs. Winters stretched back over the pianoforte with her skirts hoisted and her body mounted? I concede that the sight would have been a trifle embarrassing for her.”

  “You need not be vulgar,” his twin said.

  “Perhaps you should say that to your wife,” Lord Rawleigh said.

  “Have a care, Rex.” It seemed that perhaps one of their quarrels was brewing after all. “It was not wise to be alone with her even in broad daylight. But it is not only to this morning I refer. Did you visit Mrs. Winters last evening?”

  Lord Rawleigh shot him a look of pure shock. Denial sprang to his lips. But there was no point in lying to one’s twin. His nostrils flared. “How the devil did you know that?” he asked. “Has she lodged a complaint with the lord of the manor?”

  “I have eyes in my head,” his brother said, “and this link to your mind. Your burning wish to go walking after dark on a chilly evening in early spring did not quite ring true. I’ll not have it, Rex.”

  “You’ll— What the devil? What will you not have?” His heart was pounding with rage.

  “Village life, in case you had forgotten,” his brother said calmly—their quarrels had always been made more infuriating by the fact that the rage of one almost invariably aroused the opposite reaction in the other—“is impossible to live quite privately. I will not have her compromised. She is a lady, Rex. A mysterious lady, granted. She arrived here five years ago from goodness knows where and has proceeded to live a quiet and exemplary existence here ever since. No one knows anything of her background or anything of her late husband—including her feelings for him—beyond the fact that he was a Mr. Winters. But everything about her has proclaimed her the lady. I will not have her compromised.”

  “The devil,” the viscount said, his voice trembling with anger. “At an educated guess, Claude, I would say she has been of a
ge for several years. And therefore free to make her own decisions.”

  “And at another guess,” Claude said, “I would say you were rejected last night, Rex. You returned too early to have been successful. Mrs. Winters is a lady. And not at all in desperate circumstances. Her husband must have left her with a competence. And she has not lacked for suitors. It seems to be general knowledge that she has had and rejected at least two quite respectable offers—of marriage—since her arrival here.”

  “If she is such a lady,” the viscount said, “and if you are so certain she rejected me, then why the devil are you warning me off, Claude? You want her for yourself?”

  “If you want to get down from your horse,” his brother said with ominous calm, “I will gladly knock your head from your shoulders here and now, Rex.”

  “No need,” the viscount said curtly. “For that at least I am willing to apologize. It was a stupid thing to say to you of all people. Yes, she rejected me. Out of hand. I even thought her dog was going to attack me, but he seemed to think better of it. So all this lord-of-the-manor stuff was quite unnecessary.”

  “Except,” Claude said, “that I have felt your distraction, Rex. Ever since we returned to Bodley. And there was your unwise presence alone with her in the music room this morning and Clarissa’s consequent suspicion. I hope that in your arrogance you have not refused to take no for an answer. I warn you that if you compromise her, you will have made yourself a permanent enemy in me.”

  “That is supposed to have me trembling in my boots?” Lord Rawleigh asked, looking angrily and haughtily at his brother—at his conscience.

  “Yes,” Claude said. “Having the other half of yourself as your enemy will not be comfortable, Rex. Leave her alone. Surely you are not so depraved that celibacy for a few weeks will kill you. You have Eden and Nat and me for company and the ladies for social diversion. And Daphne. It seems wonderful enough to me for the three of us to be together for a few weeks.”

  “I will behave myself,” Lord Rawleigh promised, chuckling despite himself. “But you must admit she is deuced pretty, Claude. Not my type, of course, apart from the physical allure. She is a virtuous woman. I gather she spends her time doing good works—visiting the sick and elderly, teaching the children, and a thousand and one other things, all without asking for any reward. A bloody saint, in other words. Not my type at all.”

  “Good,” his brother said decisively, though he was unable to suppress an answering chuckle. “Now perhaps we should change the subject?”

  “She is good with children,” the viscount said. “Why the devil did Winters not give her some of her own, do you suppose? Do you think he might have been a doddering old fool? Or an impotent rake? The least a man can do when he takes a woman to wife is give her a child of her own if she dotes on them. If he were alive and in front of me right now, I would be sore put to it not to plant him a facer.”

  Mr. Adams looked at his twin in some amazement and some alarm. Perhaps he was wise to hold his peace and to change the subject as he had suggested a few moments before. But his brother showed no particular interest in any of the topics that were introduced and soon they lapsed into silence.

  She had taken him for Claude, the viscount was thinking. The smiles had been intended for Claude. Knowing that now, he could see that there had been nothing particularly flirtatious about the smiles. He felt a fool. An utter fool.

  And quite out of charity with Catherine Winters.

  Good Lord, he must be losing his touch. He had suffered nothing but frustration and humiliation at her hands. He had maneuvered a private visit with her last evening, believing that he did so in great secrecy and with admirable discretion. And yet Nat and Eden had been meeting him on his return with ribald comments on the speed with which he had concluded his business. And Claude had known where he went. And this morning Clarissa had drawn her own conclusions from the fact that he had lingered in the music room after Daphne and the children had left it.

  And yet he did not even have the satisfaction of having enjoyed some success.

  The damned country. One’s life was no longer one’s own once one ventured beyond the confines of town.

  One thing was certain. Mrs. Catherine Winters might rest assured that her virtue was safe from him forever after. He was going to stay as far away from her as possible for the remainder of his stay at Bodley.

  6

  THE sun was shining persistently through the curtains onto her bed. It was early, she knew, and chilly beyond the bedcovers. But it was going to be as lovely a day as yesterday had been. And she was clearly going to have no more sleep. She stretched and then dived her arms back beneath the covers. Not that she had slept particularly well at all during the last few nights. She decided to get up and take an early walk with Toby. Some children were coming later in the morning for a reading lesson.

  Toby appeared in her bedchamber as she was washing and dressing. He was wagging his tail slowly.

  “You may stand there looking eager,” she told him. “I am not even going to whisper the W-word until I am opening the door to leave or I will have you prancing all about me so that I cannot move without tripping over you. Give me a moment.”

  But Toby, it seemed, knew the W-letter quite as well as he knew the walk word. His tail became a madly waving pendulum, he whined with excitement, and then he began the anticipated prancing, dancing in circles all about Catherine and taking little rushing steps in the direction of the stairs as if to hurry her along.

  She laughed.

  A few weeks, she thought as she strode along the village street a short while later and smiled and waved to Mr. Hardwick, the innkeeper, who was personally sweeping the pavement before his doors. The house party could not possibly last beyond a few weeks at the longest, and one of those weeks was just about over. They were bound to return to town for the Season, Viscount Rawleigh and his friends. They were all fashionable gentlemen, after all, and there was not much to keep them here. It was true that Mrs. Adams was trying to push a match between the viscount and Miss Hudson, but there really was not much for the other two gentlemen. There was Miss Lipton. That was all.

  No, there was nothing to keep them. She knew the viscount was not interested in Miss Hudson.

  If she could hold out for another few weeks—and really she had no choice in the matter, did she?—then everything would return to normal and she would be at peace again. She would not have to fear every time she set foot over her doorstep that she was going to run into him.

  “No, not that way, Toby,” she called as her dog turned confidently onto the driveway to Bodley. That was the route she usually took, branching off the driveway through the trees before she came in sight of the house. There was no question of trespassing. Mr. Adams liked to have the villagers make free with his park. There was a tacit understanding, of course, that they would not stroll too close to the house and thus encroach upon the privacy of the family. But this morning she strode on along the country lane that was bordered on one side by the moss-covered wall of the park.

  She had directed all her energies during the past five years into making a new and meaningful life for herself. It had not been easy. Her life before had been so different. . . . She had quelled all needs in herself beyond the need to live on. She had not even particularly wanted to do that at the beginning.

  Other needs had not been persistent through the five years. She had had company, occupation, a home that she loved. For the past year she had had Toby. She had not been tempted at all by the two offers of marriage she had received, one three years ago, the other just last year, though she had respected both gentlemen and either would have been good to her. She had felt no desire for marriage. No need for it.

  And yet now, suddenly, she felt needs she had not felt burdened with since she was a girl. Except that they were entirely different, of course. As a girl, she had known nothing about the desires of the flesh. Sh
e had felt only the need for romance, for the admiration of a handsome gentleman, for marriage. She had been so innocent. Dangerously innocent.

  The cravings she had felt for the last few days alarmed her. They were purely physical. Simply put, they were the cravings for a man. For a man’s body touching hers and caressing hers. For a man’s body inside hers. For an end to the emptiness and the loneliness.

  The new cravings alarmed her because she had no good memories of intimacy. Only the opposite. She would never have expected to want it ever again.

  And she was not lonely. Or if she was, then loneliness was the price one paid for independence and self-respect and peace of mind. It was a small price to pay. And it was not loneliness that she felt but aloneness. There was a difference. The aloneness could be alleviated by visits to her numerous friends and neighbors.

  But she was afraid that she would not be able to continue to deceive herself. She was afraid that she was about to realize her own loneliness. She was realizing it already.

  And all because of one arrogant, insolent man. A man who had sat in her kitchen two evenings ago suggesting that she become his mistress. A man who had tempted her despite her outrage. A man who had almost compromised her yesterday and who, before being taken away by Mrs. Adams, had raked her with his eyes, mentally removing clothes as he did so.

  A man she wanted.

  The admission horrified her.

  And then Toby, who had been loping across a nearby field, exploring, came dashing back toward the lane, barking exuberantly. There were three horsemen approaching from a distance. This early in the morning? Her heart sank. Was there no safe time during which to enjoy a solitary walk?

  From a distance, one of the riders might have been Mr. Adams. But she knew it was not he. For one thing, he was riding with Mr. Gascoigne and Lord Pelham. There was no chance of changing direction so that she would not meet them. There was a wall on one side of her, an open field on the other. Besides, just like yesterday, Toby was streaking along the lane to meet them, David facing three Goliaths with foolhardy bravado.