by Mary Balogh
“Yes, it was,” she said. “It was always—fun. I always enjoyed your teasing insults. I always enjoyed matching wits with you. I thought that was all. I had no idea I would—hurt you by marrying someone else.”
“I thought it was going to be Rushford, if anyone,” he said, his jaw tightening. “I thought I saw a spark there, Samantha. More than a spark. I am glad at least it is not him. I would have fought dirty if he had tried anything, and if you had not had the sense to send him packing.”
“No,” she said. “There was nothing there, Francis. He merely took me by surprise and I danced with him. But there was nothing. I care for the Marquess of Carew. I am going to marry him. I am going to give him contentment. He is going to keep me safe.”
“This would make a riveting romance, Samantha,” he said. “I’ll wager my hat you will make him contented. And from what is he to keep you safe, pray? Wolves like myself?”
“No,” she said. “It was just a manner of speaking. He is going to—to keep me safe, that is all. We are to be wed at St. George’s. It is what he wants. I was going to invite you. But perhaps you would rather I did not. I have written to Jenny and Gabriel, but I do not know if they will come. Jenny is—well, she is in delicate health again.”
“Is she?” he said. “I thought Gabe was contented with two.”
“I am hoping they will come,” she said. “Will you if I invite you?”
“Carew would just adore seeing all your court in attendance at his wedding,” he said.
“My friends,” she said. “You are all my friends, Francis. Don’t distress me with that other nonsense. It is nonsense, you know. We are all just friends.”
“Someone should give you a looking glass for a gift sometime, Samantha,” he said. “Though that would not be quite sufficient, either. It is not just looks with you. Can Carew see beyond your looks? I’ll bloody kill him if—”
“Francis.” She spoke sharply to him. “That is enough. I have heard enough such words from you to last a lifetime. I will hear your apology, if you please.”
He grinned for the first time. “Spoken like a true marchioness,” he said. “When you are considerably older, your ladyship, you will have to invest in a jeweled lorgnette. You will wither everyone you turn it on. It would help, of course, if your nose was longer. Perhaps it will grow in time. I am sorry. I have been a perfect bounder over this whole thing, I must confess. You should have given me some sort of warning, Samantha. If you had written a note, I could have blackened both my valet’s eyes and broken his nose and smashed all his remaining teeth, and by the time I saw you I would have been perfectly civil and amiable. My apologies. Forgive me?”
“Of course,” she said. “But, Francis, you did not mean all that nonsense, did you? Not really. You were just trying to tease me into feeling rotten, you idiot, and you succeeded.”
“Well, then,” he said lightly, “my day is made, Samantha. You really care for him, then? I’ll have to see for myself at your wedding.”
“You will come?” She turned her head to smile brightly at him. “Oh, thank you, Francis. I am going to be very happy, you know. I am going to be very—”
“—safe,” he said. “Yes, I know. The pinnacle of any maiden’s dreams. To marry and live—safely ever after. Do you want to go back to the park? For once there would be something truly spectacular to announce there.”
“No,” she said. “Hartley is to announce our betrothal in tomorrow’s papers. I would not say anything before then. Only to you, because you are my friend and I was engaged to drive out with you.”
“Hartley,” he said quietly. “Do you want to go back to the park?”
“I think I would rather not, if you do not mind very much, Francis,” she said.
They were at Lady Brill’s already. He descended nimbly from the high seat and lifted her to the ground. He kept his hands at her waist for a brief moment.
“I hope he keeps you very—safe, Samantha,” he said. “And I hope you will be very happy, too. He is a lucky devil.”
“Thank you,” she said, smiling at him. “Thank you, Francis.”
He waited until she had been admitted to the house by the butler, who appeared surprised to see her return so soon. Then he climbed back to his seat and drove away.
His valet had better not look sideways or any other ways at him for an hour or two after he returned home, he thought, or those two black eyes and that broken nose and those smashed teeth might well become a reality.
Carew! He had met the man at Chalcote the year before last and again last year. A pleasant enough fellow, quiet and unassuming. But he appeared to have nothing beyond his title and fortune to recommend him to any woman, least of all to someone of Samantha’s beauty and charm. And yet she was the last person he would have expected to succumb to such temptation.
Lord Francis Kneller swore under his breath. And then, realizing that he no longer had an audience that might demand an apology, he swore more vehemently and marginally more satisfyingly.
11
HE FINISHED HIS TOAST AND SIPPED ON HIS SECOND cup of coffee. He was almost reluctant to get up from the breakfast table in order to dress for the outdoors before the Duke of Bridgwater arrived. He had promised to accompany his friend to Tattersall’s. Bridge was in search of a pair of grays grand enough to complement his new curricle.
The Marquess of Carew looked down yet again at the Morning Post open on the table beside him. He set his left hand on it and touched the announcement with two fingers. He smiled. Now at last it was real to him. They were betrothed. The whole fashionable world would know it this morning.
Everyone would assume that it was a loveless match, that she was marrying him for his position and fortune, that he was marrying her for her beauty.
Only he and she would know. It was enough. It was a delicious secret, in fact. It did not matter what the world thought. He would take her home to Highmoor soon after the wedding and live with her there for the rest of their lives, with only the occasional visit elsewhere. She loved Highmoor already. They would raise their children there. It did not matter if no one else ever realized that they loved.
Viscount Nordal had been first surprised and then gratified. The girl had been difficult, he had explained, talking about Samantha as if she were still fresh from the schoolroom. She had refused more marriage offers than enough. But of course she would have to have windmills in her head to have refused the Marquess of Carew.
The marquess had smiled secretly at the assumption that she could have had only one reason for accepting his offer.
Lady Brill, too, had looked surprised when she first saw him. She knew, of course, that he had proposed marriage to her niece and had been accepted. She had been very civil to him during tea while Samantha had been quiet, looking with an endearing mixture of eagerness and anxiety from him to her aunt. He believed that Lady Brill had liked him by the time he rose to take his leave.
He wondered if Samantha had told her aunt that she was marrying him because she loved him. But it did not matter.
He took a few more sips of his coffee, his eyes still on the newspaper. He could hear the knocker banging against the outer door. Bridge was early. But then he heard voices outside the breakfast room, one of them raised confidently.
“No, no,” the voice said. “No need to announce me. I shall announce myself.”
It was a voice the marquess had not heard for a number of years, but there was no mistaking it. He pursed his lips and took one last rueful look down at the Post.
Lionel, Earl of Rushford, opened the door himself and sauntered inside, glancing about him as he did so. He was looking as if he had just stepped out of Weston’s. He was immaculately dressed in the best tradition of Beau Brummell, with nothing overstated. Nothing that Lionel might wear needed overstatement, of course. He looked as if his splendid body had been poured into his clothes.
The marquess did not rise.
“Good morning, Lionel,” he said. “Come and join me
for breakfast.” He gestured toward an empty chair.
“You have made changes,” his cousin said.
“Yes, as you see.” He had not admired his father’s preference for heavy draperies and ponderous furniture. He had made extensive changes both here and at Highmoor. His eye for beauty as a landscape gardener sometimes extended indoors, too.
“Uncle would turn over in his grave,” Lionel said. He was at the sideboard, helping himself to something from each of the hot plates. The words were not spoken with any apparent rancor, but they did not need to be. Even after all these years, the marquess recognized the tone. He was his uncle’s favorite, the words had suggested, more favored than the son his uncle had been ashamed of.
The suggestion could no longer hurt. Any pain he might have felt had been swallowed up in a far greater pain when he was six years old. But because he had never responded to taunts since then, he guessed that Lionel still thought he had the power to wound.
“You do not seem particularly surprised to see me,” Lionel said, seating himself at the table—but not on the chair the marquess had indicated—and tucking into his breakfast.
“I saw you at the Rochester ball,” the marquess said.
“But did not come near even to exchange civilities?” Lionel said. “Were you too busy tripping the light fantastic, Hart? That must have been a sight for sore eyes.”
“You were dancing with Miss Newman,” the marquess said.
“Ah.” Lionel set down his knife and fork. “Yes, that. The reason I came. I understand congratulations are in order.”
The marquess inclined his head.
“Samantha is exquisitely lovely,” Lionel said. “Enough to set any male mouth to watering. You are a fortunate man, Hart.”
It was not lost upon the marquess that his betrothed had been referred to by the name that even he had not used aloud yet. Perhaps deliberately so? Yes, probably.
“I am well aware of my good fortune, Lionel,” he said. “Thank you.”
“ ‘My face is my fortune, sir, she said.’ ” Lionel sang through the whole verse of the old song before chuckling. “But no longer, eh, Hart? Now she will exchange it for a far greater fortune. Yes, you are a lucky man indeed. Not that I am suggesting, of course, that she is marrying you for that alone. I am sure your—person offers other inducements. I do believe you have fine eyes.”
He spoke with the greatest good nature. Anyone listening would have laughed with him and taken his words for light teasing. The Marquess of Carew was not deceived.
Or ruffled.
“I thank you for your congratulations, Lionel,” he said, smiling. “You will, of course, come to the wedding?”
“I would not miss it for worlds,” his cousin said. “I am almost your only remaining relative, am I not? In the absence of your mother and my uncle, I must be there myself. It will be affecting to watch you—walk up the aisle with the lovely Samantha.”
He was a master at the art of innuendo, the marquess thought. A mere pause between words could speak volumes with Lionel.
“Thank you,” he said. “I shall look forward to seeing you there.”
“Doubtless you will be taking her back to Highmoor as soon as the wedding breakfast has been consumed,” Lionel said. “I would if I were you, Hart. Incarcerate her there. You would not want her running around town once she is married, would you? You know what is said of married ladies. And every man wants to be quite sure of the paternity of at least his firstborn son, after all.”
The fingers of the marquess’s left hand curled about his napkin. He lifted it to his lips when he saw that Lionel had noted the action.
“A joke, of course,” Lionel said, chuckling. “She has a spotless reputation and will doubtless be true to you. What woman would not?” He pushed his chair away and got to his feet, even though his plate was still half-full. “I can see that you are finished, Hart. You doubtless have plans for the morning. I will not keep you. I just felt compelled to come to assure you of a cousin’s good wishes.”
“Thank you.” The marquess stayed where he was. “That was good of you, Lionel. You can show yourself out?”
He stayed where he was for a few minutes after his cousin had left. He smiled again at the announcement still spread on the table beside his plate. Lionel did not know, of course, that it was impossible to put doubts in his mind this morning. Not that he would have allowed himself to be goaded, anyway.
But there was annoyance nevertheless. Perhaps more than annoyance, if he was perfectly honest with himself. Fury. No, fury was an uncontrolled emotion, and his was quite under control. A steely anger, then.
Samantha. Lionel had deliberately called her by her given name to suggest a familiarity with her. He had suggested that she was capable of being unfaithful to him after marriage. He had suggested that she would be capable of conceiving another man’s child and passing it off as his own.
He did not mind the insult such slurs cast upon himself and his ability to attract and to please and to control a wife. Lionel’s opinion meant less than nothing to him. But he had better not try such insinuations on anyone else.
Let him breathe one breath of an insult on Samantha and there would be trouble. Lionel might yet learn a thing or two about letting the proverbial sleeping dog lie. This dog might not prove to be such an abject weakling as he doubtless thought.
Samantha was his. His possession after their marriage, though he did not believe he would ever be able to think of her in quite such terms. She was his by virtue of the facts that she loved him and he loved her and they were to be married. She was his.
He would protect what was his own.
SHE FELT SAFE. AND cheerful and at peace with herself. She knew she had done the right thing, despite the reactions of other people.
“I was more gratified than I can say,” Uncle Gerald had said when he called at Lady Brill’s, “to learn that you could be so wise, Samantha. Carew is worth seventy thousand a year, you know, and has made very generous provision indeed for you and any children of the marriage in the event that he should predecease you. The first boy, of course, will inherit.”
It did not matter to her that half the members of the ton, or maybe a great deal more than half, would believe that she was marrying Hartley for his position and wealth. It was enough that she knew she was marrying him for friendship and safety. Because she liked him more than any other man she had known.
“You could have knocked me down with a feather,” Aunt Aggy said after Hartley’s afternoon call. “He is not at all the type of young man one would have expected you to choose. And I know, of course, that his title and his fortune did not weigh with you at all. I am happy to have this proof that you have acquired the wisdom to see beyond outer appearances to the man within. He is a very pleasant young man, dear. And I know you would not marry for anything less than love. I believe you have done very well for yourself.”
She did not correct her aunt. What she and Hartley had was better than love. Far better. There would be none of the deceptive highs and shattering lows of love in their relationship. Only friendship and gentleness and kindness and—oh, and safety. She clung to the word and the idea more than to any other.
She wondered if it would be a normal marriage. She could not imagine anything more than friendship between them. It seemed almost embarrassing to think of more—until she remembered the kiss they had shared at the Rochester ball. That had been a wonderful kiss, warm and comforting. Perhaps the marriage bed would be like that, too. And she wanted the marriage bed, she realized, even though she had put marriage from her mind years ago and had never felt any great craving for what she would miss as a spinster.
There was no reason to believe that he had been suggesting a mere platonic relationship. He was a marquess— it was still difficult to adjust her mind to that reality—and would want an heir.
She wanted children. Now that she had made the quite unexpected and impulsive decision to marry—so that she would feel safe from the
raw emotions that had threatened her with Lionel’s return—she wanted all that marriage could offer her. Except love. Love terrified her. She was deeply thankful that Mr. Wade—Hartley—was just her friend. And soon to be her husband. The man who would initiate her in his own quiet way into the secrets of the marriage bed. Despite her age and her worldly wisdom, she knew only the essential fact of what would happen there.
She wanted it—with him. Without any extreme of emotion. With just—affection. There was affection between them, she believed.
Her “court” surprised her. None as much as Francis, it was true—she had been dreadfully upset over his quite uncharacteristic reaction to her announcement, until she met him at a soirée two evenings later and he was his old self, right down to the notorious lavender coat and to the indolent, teasing manner as he asked her if he had succeeded in squeezing a tear from her eye during the afternoon they had not gone to the park.
“Pray do not disappoint me by telling me that I did not succeed with my superior acting skills, Samantha,” he said. “You deserved a little punishment for your defection, after all. Now whom am I expected to flirt with without running the danger of finding myself caught in parson’s mousetrap?”
She was enormously relieved to learn that it had all been an act. At least, she chose to believe that it had been. She did not like to think that she really had hurt him.
A few of her former beaux quietly disappeared. Some of them expressed disappointment, with varying degrees of intensity. One or two of them were hearty in their congratulations.
All of them believed the worst of her motives for betrothing herself to the Marquess of Carew. She did not care. But she did try to look at him through the eyes of the ton, many of whose members either had never seen him before he started to escort her to some evening entertainments or else were virtual strangers to him.
She saw a gentleman of little more than average height and of only average build—though she knew from the one occasion when her body had rested along the length of his that there was strength in his muscles. She saw a man who had no great claim to good looks, though there was nothing ugly about his face. And of course, she saw a man whose right arm was usually held stiffly to his side, the hand, always gloved, curled inward against his hip. And a man whose permanent limp jarred his whole body when he walked.
