Dark Angel / Lord Carew's Bride

by Mary Balogh

  And yet it might have if they had had characters that were more compatible. She knew that it was possible to be comfortable with a man and to find it easy both to talk and to listen to him. But Lionel was not that man.

  She loved him but he was not yet her friend. Perhaps it was as well, she thought. Making him her friend would give her a goal to work toward after her marriage. One always needed goals in order to give purpose to life.

  Viscount Kersey was on the terrace with Samantha and a group of other people. It seemed to Jennifer as if they all turned to watch her progress across the lawn from the orchard. And it seemed to her now, when it was too late, that after all it had been indiscreet to go just there.

  The Earl of Thornhill did not linger when he had returned her to Lionel’s side. But he took his leave in such a way as to embarrass her deeply, though she was sure that had not been his intention. He took her right hand in both his, gazed at her with intent eyes, as she remembered his doing that first afternoon in the park, and spoke quietly, but quite loudly enough for the whole group to hear since they had all fallen silent at their approach.

  “Thank you, Miss Winwood,” he said, “for the pleasure of your company.”

  The words were quite innocuous. They were meant to be. They were merely a courtesy, the type of words any gentleman could be expected to say to any lady after he had danced with her or walked with her. And yet somehow they came out sounding alarmingly intimate. Or perhaps it was just that she was feeling guilty at what had almost happened again, Jennifer thought, and was hearing his words with the ears of guilt. His words made it sound as if they had been very much alone together and very pleased with each other’s company. She had to stop herself from turning to the gathered company to explain that he had not meant his words that way at all.

  And then to make matters worse—though it was a gesture as innocent as the words had been—he raised her hand to his lips. She wished he had not kept his eyes on hers as he did so. And she wished he had not kept her hand there for what seemed like several seconds. He meant nothing by it, of course, but—oh, but she was afraid that that would not be obvious to all those who watched. To Lionel in particular.

  The earl walked away without a word to Lord Kersey or Samantha or any of the others. She felt the discourtesy and was surprised by it and disappointed in him. She did not watch to see where he went. She smiled at her betrothed and felt horribly uncomfortable.

  “You were very brave to have gone walking with the Earl of Thornhill, Miss Winwood,” Miss Simons said, wide-eyed. “My maid told me, and she had it on the most reliable authority, that he was forced to run away to the Continent with his stepmother when his father discovered them together in compromising circumstances.”

  “Claudia!” Her brother’s voice cut across hers like a whip, so that she had the grace to blush even as she giggled.

  “Well, it is true,” she muttered.

  “I see that tea is being served,” Samantha said gaily. “I am starved. Shall we lead the way, Jenny? I am not shy.” She laughed as she linked her arm through her cousin’s and led her away to the tables, which a long line of footmen had just laden with platefuls of various appetizing-looking foods.

  8

  WHAT DID MISS SIMONS MEAN,” JENNIFER ASKED, her voice low, her eyes directed at the grass before her feet, “when she said that he fled to the Continent after being caught in a compromising situation with his stepmother?” She blushed at her own words, but Lionel had started it, taking her off to walk alone when they had scarcely even started their tea. He had told her coldly that he was extremely displeased with her behavior.

  “The question is an improper one,” Viscount Kersey said, “coming from a young lady I have been led to expect to be well bred. But I believe Miss Simons’s words spoke for themselves.”

  She was silent for a moment, digesting his words, anger warring in her with guilt. How dare he scold her as if she were a child, one part of her mind thought. And how dare he suggest in that cold voice that she was ill bred. And then the other part of her mind reminded her that she had once let the Earl of Thornhill kiss her and that perhaps she would have allowed it again this afternoon if he had cared to press the point. Yet another part of her felt like crying. The spring was not proceeding at all as she had expected.

  “But he took her to the Continent with him?” She could not leave it alone. She had to know. Perhaps in knowing she would finally be able to shake herself free of the totally unwilling attraction she felt toward the earl. Not that it could really be called that. How could she feel an attraction to him when all her love was given to Lionel? “He took his stepmother? Without his father? Or was it after the death of his father?”

  “It was before his father’s death,” Lord Kersey said, his words clipped. “It was the probable cause of his father’s death. He fled with the countess because she was in no fit condition to be seen by decent people in this country. There. Are you satisfied?”

  There was a buzzing in her head and a coldness in her nostrils. No. She would not believe it. She must have misunderstood what Lionel had said. The earl had done … that with his own stepmother? He had caused her to be with child? And had taken her away for her confinement? And … and then what?

  “Where is she now?” Her voice was a whisper.

  He laughed. But when she looked at him, she saw that he was sneering, an expression that marred his good looks. She frowned and looked away again.

  “Abandoned, of course,” he said. “He grew tired of her and came home alone.”

  “Oh.”

  They had walked all the way to the bank of the river, she saw. There was one couple out in a boat, no doubt enjoying the luxury of being together while everyone was at tea. There was no one else on the bank.

  “So you see,” Viscount Kersey said, “why being seen in company with such a man can do irreparable harm to a lady’s reputation. And why I must forbid you ever to speak with him again.”

  Jennifer turned her parasol slowly above her head while she watched the boat out on the river. “My lord,” she said quietly, “I am twenty years old. And yet people persist in treating me like a child and telling what I must do and what I must not do.”

  “You are a young lady,” he said, “and an innocent.”

  “I will no longer be an innocent in a little over a month’s time,” she said, turning to face him.

  “You will be my wife.” A muscle was twitching in his jaw.

  Ah, yes. She would owe him obedience as she now owed obedience to her father—and to Aunt Agatha acting in her father’s stead during her come-out. It was the lot of women. Only love could sweeten the pill. And she and Lionel loved each other. Did they not?

  “Should I not at least be given a reason?” she asked. “If you must give me a command, my lord, should I not know why that command is given so that I may follow it as a rational choice of my own as much as from the need to obey? I have been warned several times to shun the Earl of Thornhill’s company, but until now I have been given no reason to do so. I am a rational being even though I am a woman.”

  He gazed back at her, his handsome face tight with some emotion she could not read.

  He does not understand, she thought. She felt a twinge of alarm, of uneasiness for her future, for the rest of her life. He does not understand that I am a person, that women have minds just as men do.

  She loved him. She had loved him totally and passionately for five years. But for the first time—and she felt panic at the thought—she wondered if a blind, unreasoned love would be enough for her. She had thought that love would be everything. She had lived for this spring and for this betrothal and for her marriage. Was love everything?

  “Of course you have a mind,” he said. “If it is a good mind, it will recognize the wisdom of deferring to the greater experience and better judgment of the men who have the charge of you and of women considerably older than yourself. I hope you are not going to be difficult.”

  He might as well
have slapped her face. She felt as dazed as if he had, and as humiliated.

  “Difficult?” she said. “Do you wish for a placid, docile wife, then, my lord?”

  “I certainly expect one who knows her own place and mine,” he said. “I assumed from my knowledge of your upbringing and the fact that you have always lived in the country that you would suit me. So did my mother and my father.”

  And she did not? Because she had danced with the Earl of Thornhill and walked with him when no one had thought it necessary to explain to her why she should not? Perhaps, she thought—but the thought bewildered her because it was so new and so strange—perhaps Viscount Kersey would not suit her.

  She gazed at him. At her beautiful Lionel. The man she had dreamed of daily and nightly for so long that it seemed she must have loved him and dreamed of him all her life. What had gone wrong with this Season?

  “You seem rebellious,” he said. “Perhaps you are regretting your acceptance of my offer three weeks ago. Perhaps you would like to change your answer now before the official announcement is made.”

  “No!” The answer and the sheer panic that provoked it were purely instinctive, but they came to her rescue and completely drowned out the strange doubts she had been having. “No, Lionel. I love you!”

  And then she froze to the sound of her own words even as she gazed, horrified, into the very blue eyes that looked intently back. She had called him by his given name before she had been invited to do so. She had told him she loved him before he had said the words to her. She was deeply embarrassed. And yet she had spoken the truth, she thought. She bit her lip but did not lower her eyes.

  “I see,” he said. “Well, then, we have no quarrel, do we?”

  Had they been quarreling? She supposed they had. There was a feeling of relief in the thought. It was natural for lovers to quarrel. Not that they were lovers exactly—not yet anyway. But they were betrothed. It was natural. He had been jealous and annoyed and she had been on the defensive. Now it was over. Now it was time to make up—as she supposed they would do dozens or hundreds of times during the course of the rest of their lives. This was real life as opposed to the life of perfection she lived in dreams. It was nothing to worry about.

  “I do not even like him,” she said. “He is bold and … a-and unmannerly. I danced with him at Papa’s ball and at the Chisleys’ only because I could not get out of doing so without seeming quite ill-mannered. And I walked with him this afternoon for the same reason. I would have far preferred to be with you, but you had promised to take Sam out in the boat. I do not like him, and now that I know what he has done, I shall certainly never speak with him again.”

  “I am glad to hear it,” he said.

  She twirled her parasol, feeling all the relief and light-heartedness that came at the end of a quarrel. She smiled. “Don’t look as if you are still cross with me, then,” she said. “Smile at me. These are such beautiful surroundings for a garden party, and I have so looked forward to being here—with you.”

  She blushed at her own boldness, but her heart was full of her love for him again. He had been jealous and she was touched—though she would never again give him even the whisper of a cause.

  “And I with you,” he said rather stiffly.

  But then he smiled and Jennifer’s heart performed its usual somersault. She held out her hand to him, realizing she had done so only when he took it and raised it to his lips. She wished—oh, she wished they were in some secluded spot, the orchard, perhaps, so that he could kiss her on the lips. It seemed such a perfect moment for their first kiss. The warmest, most relaxed moment they had yet shared.

  “Almack’s tomorrow evening,” she said, “and the Velgards’ costume ball the evening after. And then your father’s dinner and ball two nights after that.” She still smiled at him.

  He squeezed her hand. “I can scarcely wait,” he said. And he took her hand to his lips yet again.

  She had heard it said, Jennifer thought, that it was good for couples to quarrel, that quarrels often cleared the air between them and made the relationship better than ever. It was so very true. She felt the warmth of his arm through his sleeve as they strolled up the lawn again, back in the direction of the house, and felt so happy that the old cliché of the heart being about to burst seemed almost to suit. It was all behind them, the rather slow, uncomfortable beginning to their betrothal. And any last-minute doubts—if they could be called that—had been put to rest.

  She would determinedly avoid the Earl of Thornhill for the rest of the Season. She felt ashamed now of the ease she had felt in his company just this afternoon and the feeling she had had that there was indeed a certain friendship between them. She felt more discomfort than ever over the fact that she had allowed him that kiss at the Chisleys’ ball. Knowing what she now knew of him, she would not find it at all difficult to snub him quite openly if necessary. His own stepmother! He had done that with his father’s wife.

  She closed her mind quite firmly to twinges of guilt over the fact that she was no longer making allowances for the possibility that he had finished sowing his wild oats and was now trying to make amends. Some things were unforgivable. Besides, he had abandoned his stepmother and their child and left them alone somewhere in a foreign land. He was not making amends at all. He was quite despicable. Quite loathsome.

  “AND SO YOU SEE,” Sir Albert Boyle said as he sat over an early afternoon dinner at White’s with his friend, the Earl of Thornhill, “I have been caught. Past tense, it seems, Gabe. Not even present tense, and certainly not future.”

  The earl looked at him keenly. “But you have made no declaration yet?” he asked.

  “Good Lord, no.” Sir Albert gazed gloomily into his port for a moment before taking a drink. “I said it would happen, Gabe. Appear one too many times in a ballroom and dance one too many sets, and someone will get it into her head that you are out shopping when in truth you are just browsing. Rosalie Ogden!”

  “I thought that if you fell victim to anyone this year it would be to Miss Newman,” the earl said.

  “Ah,” his friend said. “The delectable blonde. Every red-blooded man’s dream.” He looked down into his glass. “And the plain and ordinary and rather dull Miss Ogden, with whom I have danced and whom I have taken driving because Frank said she had not taken well, poor girl.”

  “And she is expecting a declaration? And her mother is expecting it?” The earl frowned. “You don’t have to do it, Bertie. You have not compromised the girl, have you?”

  “Lord, no,” Sir Albert said. “She is not the type of girl one goes slinking off into grottoes with, Gabe. I thought about calling tomorrow actually. Before my nerve goes.”

  The Earl of Thornhill dabbed at his mouth with his napkin and set it down beside his empty plate. He wondered what he was missing. He and Bertie had been close friends for years—since their schoolboy days.

  “Why?” he asked. “You are not in love with the girl by any chance, are you?” He could not imagine any man being in love with Miss Rosalie Ogden, though the thought was unkind. She seemed so totally without any quality that any man might find appealing. Bertie, on the other hand, was young and good-looking and wealthy and intelligent and could surely attach the affections of almost any lady he cared to set his sights on.

  Sir Albert puffed out his cheeks and blew air out through his mouth. “It’s like this, Gabe,” he said. “You dance with a girl because you feel sorry for her and imagine how sad and humiliated she would be going home and to bed knowing that she had been a wallflower all evening while the prettier girls had danced. And then you take her driving for the same reason, and walking and boating at a garden party and then dancing again at Almack’s last evening. And then you start to realize that there is someone hiding behind the plainness and the quietness and the—the dullness. Someone sort of sweet in a way and someone who—well, who would bleed if she cut herself, if you know what I mean. Someone who loves kittens to distraction and cries over chimne
y sweeps’ climbing boys and likes to slip up to her sister’s nursery to play with her nieces and nephews instead of sitting in the drawing room listening to the adults converse. And then you realize that she is not quite as plain or as quiet or as dull as you had thought.”

  “You are in love with her,” the earl said, intrigued.

  “Well, I don’t see stars whirling about my head,” Sir Albert said. “So it can’t be that, Gabe, can it? It is just that I am—well, a little bit fond of her, I suppose. It sort of creeps up on you. You don’t notice it and you don’t particularly want it or welcome it when you discover it. But it’s there. And there seems to be only one thing to do about it. No, two, I suppose. I could leave London tomorrow—go visit my aunt in Brighton, or something like that. But I would always wait for word of her marrying some oaf and then I would always wonder if he was allowing climbing boys into their house and keeping kittens out. And if he was giving her children for her own nursery. Gabe, I think I must have been touched by the sun. Has it been hot lately? I have known her for less than a week. I cannot even realistically talk about anything creeping up on me, can I? Creeping is a slow process. Galloping, more like.”

  “You are in love with her,” the earl said again.

  “Well,” Sir Albert said. “Whatever name you care to give it, Gabe. But I think I am off to call tomorrow. Brigham is her uncle and guardian. I’ll have a word with him first. And with her mother too. I’ll do the thing properly. I’ll probably even go down on one knee when the moment comes.” He winced. “Do you think I will do anything so unspeakably humiliating, Gabe?”