A Most Sinful Proposal

by Sara Bennett

  Lady Bethany’s thin eyebrows climbed. “Not at all. I always know the moment I meet someone whether I want them as a lover and a friend. I am a very good judge of character, my dear.”

  “Yes, Grandmamma,” Marissa replied, trying not to be shocked, but the vision of her grandmamma welcoming Lord Jasper into her boudoir was almost more than she could manage.

  “And at my age there isn’t time to dilly-dally,” her grandmother added. Her eyes narrowed. “What happened between you and Kent, Marissa? He was like a sulky schoolboy when you came back from the castle ruins.”

  Marissa avoided that sharp gaze. “Nothing happened, Grandmamma. He was disappointed he didn’t find his rose, that is all.”

  “Hmm, well I don’t believe you. I suppose you’ll tell me the truth when you’re ready.” She rose to her feet and made for the door. “Now I am going to take a little nap before dinner.”

  Marissa breathed a sigh of relief as the door closed, aware she had got off lightly. If Lady Bethany hadn’t been busy with her own concerns about Lord Jasper she would never have given up so easily, and her probing was always needle sharp.

  Marissa flopped back onto the bed and closed her eyes. She felt as if she was one step away from disaster, and at the same time she knew how simple it would be to take that step. Her body tingled with memories of Valentine’s smile, his touch, the way his breath warmed her skin. It was all wrong, so very wrong, and yet it felt so very right.

  Her eyes sprang open.

  Could she? Dare she? It would serve him right, of course, and it might also help her to develop those skills she was only just beginning to realize she possessed. He’d proposed to her despite obviously hating the idea of marrying her. It was logical that no gentleman who would propose to her against his will would harm her—such an action would be against his code—therefore she was perfectly safe.

  But just in case, her grandmother and Jasper would be there to act as chaperones.

  Marissa smiled. As her grandmother said, more or less, life was too short to dilly-dally.

  Chapter 10

  Marissa dressed carefully for dinner. She was not greatly enamored of the pale pinks and pastels and debutante’s white that young women were expected to wear in society. The colors that suited her were the more striking reds and purples and royal blues, as well as her favorite emerald green. For this evening she had chosen a dark rose silk trimmed with knots of ribbon and lace.

  The current fashion was for evening necklines to be low and off the shoulders, and Marissa’s was almost indelicately so, although a lace fall helped to disguise the fact she was baring so much flesh. The sleeves were mere scraps of cloth, clinging to her upper arms, while the narrow waist emphasized her hourglass figure, before the dress flared out in a great many yards of cloth. She wore her pearl drop earrings and matching necklace, a gift from her grandmother five years ago, on her eighteenth birthday, and the maid servant assigned to her by Morris had been more than competent when it came to dressing her glossy dark hair in a myriad of curls and braids, with ringlets caught up and cascading from a jeweled comb.

  The dress had been designed and packed with George in mind, but George wasn’t here, and it was of Valentine she was thinking as she made her way down the stairs in her matching rose satin slippers.

  Morris was waiting for her in the hall.

  “Miss Rotherhild. Your grandmother advised cook that she will be taking her meal with Lord Jasper, in his sickroom.”

  “Oh.” Marissa was taken aback. This wasn’t part of her plan. Suddenly thrown into confusion, she wondered if she should offer to take her own meal on a tray in her room. But before she could suggest it Morris spoke again.

  “I’m to let you know that Lord Kent is still expecting you to join him for dinner. He has asked that it be served in the yellow salon. It is less formal than the dining room, and in the circumstances seemed more appropriate to the occasion.”

  Did less formal mean more intimate? Marissa wondered.

  “Shall I show you the way, Miss Rotherhild?” Morris inquired, his face expressionless, as still she hesitated.

  “Yes, thank you, Morris.”

  As she followed Morris’s sedate pace, Marissa tried to tell herself that she would have to deal with Valentine in private sometime, and it was best to get it over with. She’d worn the red dress thinking she’d be dining under the safety of her grandmother’s beady eyes, which would enable her to tease him and flirt and hone her skills, but without any fear of repercussions. In other words, she could play with fire without being burned. Now they were to be alone. What if he proposed to her again in that depressing way? Her brow wrinkled. More likely he’d want to send her back to London as quickly as possible, and then what would become of her plans concerning George?

  Well, she wouldn’t go. This was supposed to be a house party and he was the host. It would be extreme bad manners to order the guests to leave. No, she was not leaving. Not until she’d accomplished what she’d come for.

  In the yellow salon a small dining table and two chairs had been placed in the center of the room, where a candelabra threw a soft pool of light, leaving the remainder of the room in shadows.

  Indeed, it was so shadowy that Marissa didn’t realize Valentine was waiting for her until he rose from an armchair by the window, a glass in his hand.

  “Miss Rotherhild. As Morris will have told you, Lady Bethany has decided to dine upstairs with Jasper. I thought it more practical for us to eat here. I hope this arrangement is acceptable to you?”

  He spoke with scrupulous politeness and Marissa answered just as formally. “Yes, thank you, Lord Kent, it is perfectly acceptable to me.”

  As he walked into the candlelight she noticed he wasn’t smiling, and in fact there was a troubled look in his eyes to go with the straight line of his mouth. She wondered, cravenly, whether she was doing the right thing. But it was too late. She wasn’t going to change her mind now. So she would just have to set about changing his.

  Morris cleared his throat, and Marissa noticed with amusement the slightly despairing glance he cast over his master’s evening wear. She made her own inspection. A fitted black jacket, as was the fashion, smooth across his broad shoulders; his white silk shirt was spotless and the frills attached to the front were smartly pressed, as were the cuffs; black trousers accentuating his long legs; his necktie…Ah, there was the problem. Instead of tying it about his throat, Valentine had left the white strip of cloth hanging loose, as if he had slipped it around his neck and then forgotten to do it up. Or just couldn’t be bothered.

  Morris cleared his throat again and raised a hand to indicate his own immaculately tied necktie. Valentine’s brows came down in a warning frown.

  “Morris, you sound as if you have a cold.”

  Morris’s jowls quivered in defeat. “Do you wish the meal served at once, my lord?”

  “Yes, I do, thank you, Morris.”

  Morris turned away a broken man, and closed the door behind him.

  Valentine drew out one of the chairs for Marissa and she took her place with a polite smile and waited for him to take his.

  “I didn’t realize my grandmother was dining upstairs,” she said, hurriedly filling the silence. “I saw her earlier and she didn’t mention it.”

  “If you are concerned at the propriety of our dining alone together, Miss Rotherhild, be assured that I did ask Lady Bethany’s permission and she had no objections.”

  He’d asked her grandmother’s permission? If she’d ever believed Valentine to be a libertine or a gentleman with evil seduction in mind then his words would have set her mind at ease.

  “I have dined in stranger situations than this, Lord Kent,” she said briskly. “On one of my parents’ expeditions we ate in an underground cave and then spent the night there, waiting for the weather to clear.” She paused, ready to enlarge on her story if he gave her the least encouragement.

  But although he smiled in polite acknowledgement he did not resp
ond, and Marissa knew with a sinking heart that her fears had been well-founded. He was going to send her away—well try to. The silence between them grew longer, and when he finally began to speak it sounded to her as if his words were rehearsed.

  “Actually, I am glad we have this moment alone, Miss Rotherhild. I wanted to talk to you privately.” He looked at her, the expression in his eyes hidden in the reflection of the candlelight.

  Marissa tried to smile. “I think we should discuss the Crusader’s Rose and how you are going to approach the next part of your search—”

  Thankfully, at that moment Morris arrived with servants bearing food. The soup was placed on the table, the wine was poured, and all too soon they were alone again. Marissa took up her spoon, wondering how she was going to eat anything when her stomach was squirming with nerves.

  “How serious are you about George?”

  She was so surprised she almost dropped her spoon. Opposite her, Valentine was ignoring his soup, a wineglass in his hand. He looked tense but other than that she could not read him.

  She shook her head, feeling the sway of her pearl earrings. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “You know exactly what I mean, Marissa,” he retorted.

  “We seem to have a great many things in common,” she said primly.

  “For instance, family members who are engaged in boring botanical pursuits? Yes, I see,” he said dryly. He picked up his spoon then put it down again. “Let me be blunt, Marissa. George has never touched you as I touched you?”

  “What—what a shocking question!” she exclaimed. “Hardly the question of a gentleman.”

  “I think we’ve established I am no gentleman.”

  “I disagree. I think you are the epitome of a gentleman.”

  “Answer the question,” he growled.

  “Then, no, he hasn’t.” She lifted her chin, meeting his eyes without flinching. “The only man who has ever touched me like that is you.”

  He was studying her face, reading her, and whatever he saw seemed to satisfy him. “Good,” he said.

  Good? Why was that good?

  Marissa waited for him to speak again and make all clear to her, but it seemed that he had finished because he began to eat his soup. After a moment, so did she. The silence grew heavy, uncomfortable, and she was glad when Morris returned with the servants and more plates. She hoped he would linger and began a conversation about recipes and whether Mrs. Beaumaris used white or black pepper.

  But Valentine put a stop to that.

  “Morris, bring the dessert, would you, and leave it on the sideboard. We can serve ourselves.”

  Morris bowed and a moment later he was back, carrying out his instructions with muted efficiency. “Is that all, my lord?”

  “Yes, thank you, Morris. Give my congratulations to Mrs. Beaumaris on a splendid meal, and then take yourselves off to bed. No need to wait up.”

  “Mrs. Beaumaris will be pleased to know you enjoyed her efforts, my lord. Goodnight, my lord. Goodnight, Miss Rotherhild.” Another bow and the door to the yellow salon closed with an air of finality.

  “This looks delicious,” Marissa said quickly. “You have a fine cook in Mrs. Beaumaris, Lord Kent.”

  He said nothing but she felt his gaze on her, considering.

  “My parents are so rarely at home we find it difficult to keep good cooks—the last one complained she had nothing to do. I remember, when I was younger I longed for a normal life. To sit down at the table and be asked questions about my day rather than listen to details of the next expedition to find new varieties of my parents’ favorite plants.”

  She sounded woebegone, Marissa realized, but it was too late to withdraw her words.

  “Were you a lonely child, Marissa?” His voice was low and deep. Intimate. Marissa felt a shiver run over her skin as if he’d reached out and caressed her.

  “I…Sometimes. But my grandmother was there. Well, sometimes she was busy with her own affairs, so I couldn’t always be sure of her undivided attention. But I remember my eleventh birthday,” she said, smiling. “She went to a great deal of effort, to make up for my tenth birthday, and arranged for a barge on the Thames. It was decorated with ribbons and flowers, and there was food and music, and Grandmamma’s Bohemian friends fussed over me and made me feel very special.”

  Valentine was smiling back, but he wore a puzzled expression. “You have had a most unusual upbringing, Marissa. Perhaps that is why you are such an innocent when it comes to the male sex.”

  She answered him coolly. “You are mistaken, I—”

  He interrupted. “Why was your tenth birthday a disappointment?”

  Marissa hesitated, irritated with herself for giving so much away. “What makes you think it was?” she hedged.

  “You said that on your eleventh birthday your grandmother went to a great deal of effort to make up for your tenth birthday. Why?”

  Marissa sipped her wine to gain time, but he was still waiting when she’d finished, so she told him. “I had asked my friends to come to my party. There was going to be a cake and games. But my parents forgot—something else had come up to claim their attention—and when my friends arrived nothing was prepared, nothing was ready. It was…embarrassing, mainly. Painful. I pretended it didn’t matter, but I could see they felt sorry for me, and that was horrible.”

  He said nothing and she was grateful he didn’t offer meaningless platitudes. The memory was still an uncomfortable one, like a stone in one’s shoe. She couldn’t believe she’d mentioned it at all—she never did normally—and decided it must be her anxiety in his presence that had caused her to say far more about herself than she’d meant to.

  “On my own tenth birthday,” he began, sipping his wine and gazing across the room as though he was seeing into the past, “my mother had just died.”

  Marissa felt an ache in her heart for the little boy he must have been, but she did not think he would want gushing sympathy any more than she did. “Was she ill for a long time?”

  “She was always ill.” He grimaced. “That sounds callous, but it is true. I’m afraid that, although I missed the fact I no longer had someone I could call mother, I rarely grieved for her. She wasn’t involved in my upbringing in any way, and apart from an occasional visit to her boudoir, always dim and smelling of eau de cologne, I was kept from her. I was told my boisterous ways made her head ache.”

  “And then she died.”

  “Yes. I used to overhear the servants whispering that it was George who finished her off—she died soon after his birth—but I didn’t blame him.”

  “Was your father often away?”

  “While Bony was locked up on Elba, he had more time to be with us, but then Bony escaped and there was the showdown at Waterloo, and afterward he was dead, too. George and I were alone, apart from a collection of elderly aunts to fuss over us. I was glad when I was old enough to take over my own affairs, and George.”

  “Yes, I can see you would be. But it is different for a man. He is expected to be independent. Whereas women are to be cosseted and cared for, and any decisions about their lives are made for them by their parents or the menfolk in their lives. At least, that seems to be the belief held by a large part of our society.”

  “But not by you?”

  “Definitely not by me.”

  His mouth curled up in a mocking smile, the sort of male smile Marissa found particularly annoying. “You know there is a good reason for that belief,” he said. “Women are unworldly and they need men to guide them through the pitfalls that await them beyond their front doors.”

  “What rot—”

  “Look at your own behavior, Marissa. Do you know how dangerous it is? There are bad men out there who would hurt you without a moment’s thought and believe your behavior gave them the right to do so.”

  He was sounding so prim and proper, she wanted to scream. Or laugh in his face. But she schooled her expression into one of polite interest.

  “I
am only telling you this for your own good,” he finished, a little clumsily, and sat back in his chair as though he’d just performed an unpleasant but necessary task.

  He was treating her like a silly child and she’d had enough of it. Marissa knew her own mind; she had done for years. And even if she didn’t she wouldn’t ask someone else to tell her what to do. If he wished to play the man of the world to her innocent then he deserved to be taught a lesson.

  “Actually, Valentine,” Marissa said, picking up her wineglass and taking another sip, “that is the very thing I was intending to speak to you about.”

  “Oh?” His eyes narrowed. “Bad men?”

  “About how to conduct myself safely in the sort of situation I happened to find myself in today. I mean, if it wasn’t you I was with, if it was someone else. For instance…Baron Von Hautt.”

  “What has Von Hautt got to do with it?” he said sharply, his brows lowering.

  “Well…he did say I was beautiful.”

  He seemed to be speechless, but not for long. “He said what!”

  “Today, when I saw him outside the church. He said I was beautiful, and then he said he wouldn’t hurt me. Not yet. You can see why I might consider that some sort of threat to my person. What if he captured me somehow and carried me deep into the woods and threw me down onto a soft bank of grass, and then undressed me and himself and—”

  “Marissa, stop, please.” Valentine set down his glass with a thud and stared at her, while she gave him one of her wide-eyed innocent looks. “I will not let Von Hautt do anything of the sort to you, you can be certain of that.”

  “That is all very well, Valentine, but what if you’re not around to protect me?”

  He sighed, glanced down at their meal. “Have you finished? I find my appetite quite gone.”

  “Of course.” She rose promptly and followed him over to the two armchairs by the windows. The shadows were deeper here, but that was good. It would make it easier for her to play the role she had chosen to play.