The Offer

by Catherine Coulter

  It was either leave the room or strangle her. Charles motioned to a footman to refill Miss Elliott’s glass. That was it, he’d get her dead drunk. That should shut her up, maybe even send her to her bed with a headache. Dambler’s story that the viscount wanted to roam Yorkshire didn’t seem at all strange to him. He’d known Phillip since Eton. He’d always gone his own way. But in this instance, he thought it wildly unlikely that he was lying somewhere in the snow, lost and alone and freezing to death. Phillip wasn’t the type of man to lose himself anywhere, unless, of course, he wished it. He felt Teresa’s fingers tug at the sleeve of his exquisite coat that Gautier of Paris had fashioned exclusively for him.

  “Unfortunately you are a man, Charles, and thus you don’t wish to heed my warnings. I’m getting dire feelings about this. Very dire. Will you promise to send out a search party for Phillip in the morning?”

  Charles gently disengaged his sleeve. Her sharp fingernails had left a pucker in the soft velvet. His valet would have a fit. He began smoothing it out as he said, “Teresa, as long as this blizzard continues, it simply isn’t safe to send out anyone. They would themselves become lost within feet of the front gate. No, we must wait until the storm blows itself out, then if Phillip doesn’t come, we will search.” He looked at her lovely white throat. He pictured his fingers wrapped around that lovely white throat. He sighed, adopting a placating voice that worked each and every time with his mother. Whenever he used the voice, she called him her dear boy. “Come, there is nothing we can do now. Would you care for some cards? Perhaps some dancing?”

  She drank down more of his late father’s excellent champagne. A small smile played over his mouth. Actually, truth be told, he thought it more than likely that at this very moment, Phillip was probably quite at his ease in some inn or in a nearby residence, downing warm ale and seducing the prettiest girl about. Since Phillip had returned from the Peninsula, suffering a wound in his shoulder from the battle of Ciudad Rodrigo, he had adopted the attitude that discomfort of any sort was to be avoided at all costs. He saw her thump down another empty glass. What was he to do? To say? He’d try it another way. “Don’t forget, Teresa, that Phillip was a soldier. Even if he did find himself caught unawares in the blizzard, he would have the good sense not to continue on his way to Moreland. I’m certain he’s well protected from the elements. Were it possible, I would imagine his very good manners would dictate that he send me a message. However, the blizzard is an effective dampener of manners.” With a flash of inspiration, Charles realized what he had not said. “You know, wherever he is, I know that Phillip must be missing you terribly.”

  He was a genius. He had scored a perfect hit. She preened. Oh, Lord, he mustn’t forget to beg the absent viscount’s pardon tonight in his prayers.

  “Do you really think, Charles, that Phillip is just at this very moment pining for me, that he is—”

  Charles was saved by the appearance of Edgar Plummer, a marvelous guest in his newly revised opinion, and his sister, Margaret. Plummer was old as dirt but he was smart. He liked Charles and thus sought to save him. Mr. Plummer bowed over Teresa’s hand. “Allow an old man to tell you how very lovely you look this evening, Miss Elliott. Won’t you please play the pianoforte for us?”

  She refused three times, the seemingly accepted number of refusals to denote modesty, then allowed Mr. Plummer to lead her to the pianoforte at the end of the long drawing room.

  “Oh, goodness, Charlie, now we’re in for it. She’s going to play some more of her tedious French ballads. Just wait, I’ll wager she’ll dedicate them to poor Phillip.”

  Charles groaned. “Don’t say that, Margaret, she just might hear you.” He led his sister to a red brocade settee lovingly made for the family in the early part of the last century. “At last the lady is well occupied. Remind me to buy a Christmas present for Edgar. I will give him my favorite watch fob. Yes, that’s it. Watch fobs are excellent gifts.”

  “Was she bothering you again about Phillip?”

  “It’s her Greek chorus. I think Miss Elliott has matrimony in mind for Phillip. I did have the good sense not to tell her that the viscount is likely relieving his tedium during the storm in the arms of some Yorkshire beauty.”

  Margaret, in all seriousness, said low, “But where, Charlie? At some inn? I thought Phillip was more discriminating in his taste. A taproom wench?”

  Charles grinned. He’d rather expected to shock her, but it was not to be. She’d been married to Sir Hugh Drakemore for nearly a year now and his shy, frequently tongue-tied little sister was now worldly and assertive. He quite liked the change in her. As for her husband, Sir Hugh still seemed the same—serious, quiet, studied in his reflections. Ah, but there had to be more, a lot more, just look at the change wrought in Margaret. “No, you’re right. That’s a problem. Phillip is very selective. Perhaps he is visiting one of our neighbors and it is a daughter or wife he is currently enjoying.”

  “No, Charlie, Phillip wouldn’t seduce a married woman.”

  “Now, how would you know that?”

  “He told me.”

  “Margaret, surely you’re jesting with me, surely—”

  “No, really. I asked him, you see, once about two years ago when I fancied myself in love with him. He was so nice. He knew exactly how I felt and he was very careful of my feelings. I had heard that he’d bedded Mrs. Stockton, the ambassador’s wife, and he hadn’t. As best he knew, he’d turned the lady down and out of spite she’d spread rumors that he’d seduced her. It angered him, Charlie. He said married ladies were no longer on the playing field.”

  Margaret, in love with Phillip? Charles had never guessed, never even speculated. “Come to think of it, I can’t think of a single married lady that Phillip has bedded. You no longer, er, feel this way toward Phillip, do you, Margaret?”

  “No, not after I met Hugh. One week with Hugh and every man I’d ever met faded out of my mind.”

  “Good.”

  “But you know, Charlie, I’ve often wondered why he has never married. I know for a fact how many lovely young ladies would gladly accept him.”

  “Now therein lies a tale. Have you ever met the Countess of Bufford?”

  Margaret cocked her head to one side, making the brown ringlets over her left ears fall to her shoulder. “Of course. She’s a leader among the ton. Mother dislikes her intensely, but she told me she is too powerful to cross, that I must always watch my back around her. I told Mother that she looks so lovely, so innocent, so guileless, but Mother just laughed and told me not to trust her. I know that Lord Bufford adores her. What does she have to do with Phillip?”

  “When she came out six years ago, she quickly earned herself the title of the Ice Maiden. She was endowed with both splendid beauty and wealth, and her instant success followed naturally from both of these facts together. Phillip was a young captain in the hussars, in London that spring because his father, the late viscount, had just died. Phillip was young, inexperienced in the ways of women like Elaine, and raw with grief from the death of his father.”

  “Good God, you don’t mean that Phillip fell in love with that awful woman?”

  Charles shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not certain exactly what it was he felt for Elaine, but I do know that he wanted her. Is that love? I don’t know, Margaret. Phillip was only twenty years old, a boy. And boys are prone to lust, no other way to put it. Ah, look, Edgar is pleading with Miss Elliott to continue her concert. Cross your fingers that he will succeed.”

  Miss Elliott broke out into another song, a doleful rendition of a French ballad of the last century. “At least she sings well,” Charles said.

  “Come, Charlie, tell me what happened.”

  9

  Charles eyed his sister thoughtfully, wondering why he had brought up the matter now, after so many years. Of course he knew why. After their good friend Rohan Carrington, Baron Mountvale, had married, Phillip had fallen into a funk. He’d said once to Charles last fall, “Rohan is ha
ppy. Happy. Can you believe it? And Susannah is happy as well. Just maybe sometimes there is something that is honest and good between a man and a woman.”

  Charles said now, “Very well, Margaret, but you must promise to keep this knowledge tucked under your chestnut hair. Most people know a little of what occurred, but not everything. Rohan Carrington is the only other one to know the whole of it.”

  “I promise, Charlie.”

  Miss Elliott hit a high F. A champagne goblet trembled on a nearby table.

  “Phillip asked Elaine to marry him and she agreed. The date was set for the following April, for no marriage could take place during Phillip’s year of mourning for his father. It is too long ago for you to recall it, but during the fall of 1809 there were many violent skirmishes on the Peninsula. Phillip felt it his duty to rejoin his regiment, over Elaine’s objections. I sometimes wonder,” Charles added, “how we all could have been so wrong. A bloody pack of fools we were. Phillip returned to London on leave in early February to resign his commission and set Dinwitty Manor in order for its new mistress. He had changed somewhat, I can remember thinking that, as if he had been catapulted too quickly into manhood. Remember, he was now only twenty-one years old.”

  “Yes, a veritable young lad for a gentleman and a spinster for a lady. Grossly unfair.”

  “That’s as may be but not to the point.”

  “Do you know, Charles, I have sometimes thought that Phillip’s eyes mirror his deepest thoughts. I’ve seen laughter in his eyes when there was none about his mouth, and sadness too. I’ve never known what to make of it.”

  Charles had no idea what she was talking about. Better yet, he didn’t want to know. He said, “I’ll never forget the night he came to my lodgings on Half Moon Street, vilely drunk, his face so white and set that I thought he’d been in a battle with the devil himself. I was scared to death.” Charles spoke more slowly now as he remembered Phillip’s young face, his mouth flattened in bitter humiliation, his eyes cold and dead, mirroring his disillusion. He could still hear his voice, cold as ice. “Elaine wants to wed now, Charlie, not in April as we had planned.”

  Charles had stared at his friend. What to say to that? Phillip was so young. None of his friends wanted him to wed. He said carefully, “Is it that she missed you more than you had believed? Surely this is a good sign.”

  Phillip’s laugh was low and mean. “Miss me? God, that’s a rare jest. Give me a glass of brandy, Charles, and be quick about it.”

  Silently, Charles moved to the sideboard, poured brandy from the crystal decanter, and handed it to his friend. Phillip tipped the brandy down his throat and, with a growl of fury, hurled the empty glass toward the grate, where it shattered.

  Charles was now seriously frightened. “Dear God, Phillip, what happened? What’s wrong with you?”

  The viscount raised his eyes and said in a voice so flat and soft that Charles had to lean close to make out his words, “Elaine—my Ice Maiden—is pregnant, my friend. It took me quite a while to pry it out of her. Rest assured that I’m not the father.”

  Charles reeled back on his heels. “But who?”

  “Exactly my question to dear Elaine, which, of course, she tearfully refused to answer. It wasn’t very noble of me, but I waited patiently, then followed her. There is no doubt in my mind that the father of her child is her wastrel cousin, Roger.” Phillip paused a moment, his eyes turning hard. “Of course he will never know the sex of his child, for I am going to kill him.”

  Charles sucked in his breath. Of a certainty he had seen Elaine much in her cousin’s company, but he was, after all, part of her family. To the eyes of the polite world, there had been nothing questionable about her behavior.

  “What do you intend to do about Elaine?”

  “That panting little bitch?” He began to laugh, furiously wild laughter. “If she is an ice maiden, Charles, I ask you, what is every other lady? Well, my friend, I’ll tell you what they are—sluts who have no honor, who will part their thighs to the closest male of their acquaintance. I thank God that I have seen the truth in time to escape. Never will I fall into such a trap again.”

  Charles shook the viscount’s shoulders. “You’re drunk as a loon, Phillip, and you don’t know what you’re saying. Come to bed. We’ll decide what is to be done on the morrow, when you’ve a clear head and your wits about you.”

  “No, Charles. What must be done will be done now, tonight. I am off to kill that bastard, Roger. You will act as my second?”

  “But the scandal, Phillip. Have you thought of what this would do to your mother? To Elaine’s family? My God, man, you’re the Viscount Derencourt.”

  Phillip regarded Charles for a brief moment, then said softly, “If I do not have my honor, Charles, I have nothing. Most likely, all of society will damn me to hell.” He rose and shrugged into his greatcoat. “I’m not too drunk to get it done. Are you coming, Charles?”

  Margaret was shaking. That such a thing could happen appalled her.

  “There’s more, isn’t there, Charlie? You’ve trusted me thus far, please, you must tell me the rest of it.”

  “Needless to say, I accompanied Phillip to Roger Travers’s lodging. Both he and his valet were gone. I remember that his housekeeper, a nervous little scarecrow of a woman, showed Phillip a note written by Roger saying that he’d left on an extended visit to the Continent. As you know, Margaret, there was no scandal. As for Elaine, obviously, she rid herself of the child. It is my opinion that she must have harmed herself irrevocably, for she has never borne Bufford an heir. Phillip left immediately for the Peninsula. It was Elaine who inserted a retraction of their engagement in the Gazette. The following June, she married Bufford. The rest, my dear Margaret, you know.”

  “That horrible bitch. Goodness, I should like to challenge her to a duel.”

  Charles took his sister’s small hand into his. “What’s really strange is that Elaine hates Phillip. She knows he has never said a word about what happened, but it seems that she can’t remain civil around him. I know she tells tales about things he’s supposedly done. Now, I know that you will guard this secret. Phillip would wring my neck if he knew I’d told you.”

  “It’s because of Elaine that he’s never married?”

  Charles was silent for several moments, gazing toward Teresa, who had displayed herself charmingly at the pianoforte. “Perhaps such an experience would shape the lives of some men, embitter them, make them hate and distrust women, but not Phillip. He’s much too perceptive a man to allow Elaine’s despicable behavior to jade his view of the entire female sex. I at least hope to heaven that it’s true.”

  “But why hasn’t he married?”

  “I’m not married either, Margaret, and Phillip and I are the same age, twenty-six. Goodness, woman, give us time. We’ve just begun to ripen, as Rohan Carrington says.”

  “What else does Rohan say?”

  “Ladies ripen early. They must either wait for the boys to ripen or pluck the older ones.”

  “Yes, that makes sense,” Margaret said, and punched her brother’s arm. “But will either of you ever marry, Charlie?”

  “I believe I shall be a bachelor, Margaret. As for Phillip, I can only say that he is a very careful man. Only time will tell.”

  “I’m so very happy. Marriage is amazing. I just never considered that there were so many things I was missing. There is so much more to life when there is another who cares about you and wants to make you happy. I just want you to know what it’s like. Do reconsider, Charlie, do.”

  “I’ll think about it. Promise me you won’t tease Phillip. You won’t make any veiled references to anything I’ve told you.”

  “I’m trustworthy, Charlie. I promise.”

  Charles’s attention was drawn to the sound of Miss Elliott’s raised voice. “No, I have no wish to play whist,” he heard her say to the dowager Countess of Mowbray. “Viscount Derencourt is my partner and I shall wait for him before I play.”

  Ch
arles said, “Actually, Lady Mowbray is very lucky. Teresa is a disaster at whist. I had the misfortune to partner her once. She trumped my ace of spades. I wanted to wring her neck. I remember that Phillip was watching. He just laughed.”

  “Another ice maiden, I think,” Margaret said, patted her brother’s arm, and took herself off to partner the countess in whist.

  10

  She whispered against the hollow of his throat, “Please, build up the fire, it is so very cold.”

  Phillip pulled Sabrina’s body more tightly against him. He felt her low cracked breathing against his neck; he felt the pain each of those breaths cost her. Hair had worked its way loose from the braid he’d fashioned for her, tickling his nose, curling around his jaw. He smoothed her hair, moving his head slightly on the pillow. She followed, even closer now, trying to get inside him, he thought, to find his warmth and burrow into it. Her hands were clutching at his shirt, her legs pressing as hard as she could against his. He felt desire for her. It had happened before when he’d stripped off her clothes, when he’d bathed her. It didn’t matter. He again ignored it. He was a man, not a randy boy. He treated it like any other discomfort that couldn’t be changed, he controlled it, focusing on Lucius, remembering how he’d held his brother, just as he was holding Sabrina now, letting his heat flow into his body. But unlike Lucius, Sabrina was very small. He knew he must be nearly smothering her, covering nearly all of her, and what his body didn’t touch, his large hands did. He rubbed his chin very lightly against the top of her head. He had no intention ever again of leaving London during future Christmas holidays. Then he realized if he hadn’t been here, in this particular spot, she would have died. He didn’t want her to die. He realized more than anything he wanted to see her smile, see life in those incredible violet eyes of hers, hear her speak, not necessarily telling him important things, just occasional thoughts she had. It didn’t matter. He just wanted her well. He kissed her again. No, no more complaining. He’d never believed in an outside force that changed men’s lives for no good reason, hurling them in an entirely new direction. No, he’d always reckoned that a man was master of his own destiny, until something he himself set into motion, be it wise or stupid, changed the course of his life. Well, maybe he’d been wrong. Fate had flung him into Sabrina’s path and he’d accepted the responsibility of her. He wondered how much further his life would now change as a result.