by Amanda Scott
“Oh, no,” Arabella cut in swiftly, “you will not cozen me, Tani. I have already spoken with Lissa, who tells me that Toby has gone off with Cheriton’s mama, of all people, and without so much as a farewell to me.”
Brittany raised her brows. “Why should he make a point of speaking to you, Bella?”
Arabella began to speak again, but Cheriton forestalled her. “Not here, my lady, if you please. I see a gentleman approaching with all the manner of a partner expecting the honor of claiming your hand for this dance. Do you go with him, then meet us”—he paused, glancing at Brittany—“in the dining room?”
Brittany nodded, then turned to Arabella. “First you must let Mama see you, however. I cannot think what you are doing wandering about like this without any escort, Bella. We have all been behaving like hoydens, I fear, and someone is bound to comment upon the fact if Mama wonders aloud where we have all got to.”
Arabella smiled at her. “Never fear, I sent Lissa to her but a moment ago, and I will go to her when this set is done and tell her I must pin up a flounce or something, but I must know what is happening, Tani, so do not attempt to fob me off again.” She turned a glowing smile on the young man coming to claim her for the dance, and went away with him.
Cheriton looked down at Brittany. “Must you show your face to your mama? I wish to speak with you privately before the others descend upon us, so if you must, I wish you will do so at once.”
“It is not necessary, sir,” she said, looking up at him and trembling a little at the intensity of his expression. “I have more freedom of movement than my sisters because my parents—indeed, everyone—believe me still to be betrothed to Lord Faringdon. It would be as well, perhaps, if no one were to see me going apart with you, but after all that has transpired this evening even to say that much seems like nitpicking, does it not?”
He smiled down at her. “You will go with me for the simple reason that I do not want you wandering the corridors of this great barracks of a place all by yourself, my dear. Fahd is not the only danger to a lone female at an affair like this one. And I certainly do not want you to seek out some dragon of a chaperon, or …”
He seemed at a loss for words suddenly, and although his manner confused her and memory of his kisses in the mews did little to allay that confusion, she felt suddenly lighter of heart and grinned at him mischievously. “I would be pleased to go with you, sir. Perhaps if we were to walk in the garden, we might then meet Bella in the dining room without arousing curiosity.”
He chuckled. “The very thing, unless some efficient servant has discovered the French doors to be unlatched and has latched them.”
No one had done so, and after a brief stroll down the steps of the ballroom balcony and through the garden, they were able to enter the dining room again unobserved by anyone else. When they were alone, with the tall doors shut behind them and only the glow from the tapers still alight upon the sideboard to light their faces, Cheriton turned Brittany gently to face him.
“It is time,” he said, his voice very low and carefully controlled, “to clear up a slight misunderstanding that has risen between us.”
“A misunderstanding, sir?” Suddenly it was difficult for her to concentrate. She seemed able to think of nothing other than his nearness and the fact that they were quite alone. The scent of wax candles that drifted to her nostrils was well nigh overridden by the scent of his clothing, the soap he had used to bathe himself, and the light citrus scent of Imperial Water. Her skin prickled where he touched her, and her body moved toward his as though it had a will of its own. He had said nothing, and now she looked up at him, her eyes widening at the expression she saw in his as he continued to gaze down silently at her. Once again she had that odd sensation of her mind merging with his, of believing that she knew his every thought and he knew hers, but this time she felt not the flush in her cheeks that the awareness had brought her before but instead a rush of warmth to other parts of her body. Her breasts swelled beneath her gown, their sensitive tips tingling as though there were a hint of lightning in the air. Indeed, all around her it was as though St. Elmo’s fire stirred the night. With a gasp, she caught her lower lip firmly between her teeth and chewed upon it hard enough to restore her senses. Then she moved slightly, as though she would step away from him.
The movement brought Cheriton out of his own reverie and he gave himself a shake. “You mesmerize me, lady,” he murmured.
“I know,” she said, attempting to look away from that piercing gaze and finding as always that she could not. “Do you feel it?” she asked then. “It is as though our thoughts mesh. ’Tis the oddest thing.”
“Not odd at all, though I expect it is unusual,” he said quietly, still looking at her. “I have felt it from the first time I laid eyes upon you. That is one reason our misunderstanding caught me off my guard. I misread you for once, I think.”
“You speak of a misunderstanding,” she said softly, feeling her emotions begin to settle, “but I am not certain what you mean.”
“No, I know. I never sent those gifts to you, that much was perfectly true. I’ve not the least notion who sent them, but the anonymity was easy to understand, since one or two of those gifts were decidedly improper—the cloisonné flower, for one.”
His voice sounded suddenly grim and she looked at him more searchingly. “You are vexed, sir?”
His hand, which he had not removed from her shoulder, tightened there enough, she was sure, to leave a bruise, but she did not protest. “Vexed? Not vexed, merely annoyed that anyone should have trifled with your affections in such an idiotish way as that.”
“But you were vexed with me for having thought you were my secret admirer.”
He did not attempt to deny her statement. “I thought you had fallen in love with your secret admirer because of his gifts. My mother would accuse me of having flown into the boughs. I do so from time to time. ’Tis a matter of pride, and mine was injured by the fact that you could think me capable of such an unmannerly business.”
She blushed and looked down. “I did not think that, sir, only about how nice it was when Papa, Mama, and Tony were all put out with me over Alicia’s behavior to have someone sending me such thoughtful little tributes.” She glanced up at him from beneath her lashes. “If the truth were told, sir, I suppose my thoughts were wishful rather than logical. I should have thought more clearly, I expect. You had never paid me the least heed—”
“Not true,” he interjected swiftly, his other hand coming to clamp upon her other shoulder. He seemed to want to shake her, and she waited a little breathlessly. But although both hands were now tightly gripping her, almost as though he feared she might suddenly vanish, he did nothing so violent. “I paid you great heed, my dear, from that very first night when you took Faringdon’s casual substitution of my escort for his so much in your stride. I know no other lady who would not have thrown a temper tantrum at such cavalier treatment by one who was supposedly betrothed to her.”
She blinked. “But surely if we are telling truths here, sir, you must have recognized by now that my feelings for Tony were not those tender sentiments that lead ladies to behave in so foolish and possessive a manner as that which you describe.”
His grip relaxed as a wide grin spread across his face. “You really have not a single ounce of vanity in your makeup. Do you not realize, my dear, that a young woman who looks as you do and comes from a family like yours has every right to be as vain as she can be? You have been feted and adored since the day of your come-out if I do not mistake the matter; yet, you stand there seeing nothing unusual in your calm acceptance of Faringdon’s attitude that night. Almost any other female would have demanded his constant attention whether she loved him or not. She would have felt it to be her due. You did not.”
“Oh.” The single word came out as a bare whisper. She could not bring herself to look at him, but this time her reluctance came not from shyness but from embarrassment. He was quite right in thinking she had ne
ver felt particularly jealous of Faringdon’s wandering attentions, but …
“What is it?” His tone was still low, but there was a demanding quality now that she could not ignore. Raising her head, she forced herself to meet the steady gaze of those expressive gray eyes that seemed to have the ability to look straight into her soul. She knew she could not prevaricate.
“You are right about Tony,” she murmured, “but not about the feelings of which I am capable. I-I would prefer not to discuss them with you, however, sir. When I believed … that is, when I thought …” She gazed up at him now, helplessly, unable to put the thoughts that were whirling through her mind into words. Her self-respect demanded that she say no more, that she retain what little dignity she had left. He had kissed her. He had even admitted paying heed to her. But he had not said he loved her, and she had made a fool of herself once already tonight. She dared not risk exposing her feelings again.
Cheriton said nothing. He simply pulled her into his arms, hugging her until she thought she would suffocate. Not that she minded. It would be a pleasant death. She tried to tell herself he meant only to comfort her, that he had read her consternation and her uncertainty in the same way that he seemed so often to read her every thought. But his embrace was more than comforting. She wanted very much to lift her face up to his, to encourage him to kiss her again. She would not do so, however. She had to retain her self-respect.
Cheriton’s right hand came gently to cup her chin. With the slightest of pressure exerted there, he tilted it upward. But he did not attempt to kiss her. He shook his head gently instead, his expression a little as it might be if he meant to scold a wayward but well-loved child. “Brittany, my dearest Brittany,” he said, shaking his head again, “I could not tell you how I felt before because I feared you would misunderstand my motives, that you would believe I felt myself obligated to offer for you merely because you had expected me to do so. Oh, it is complicated,” he added when confusion spread across her countenance, “but the explanation is a simple one: I love you. I don’t know when I fell in love precisely, though my mama tells me she is certain it was that very first night.” He chuckled. “I told her she was all about in her head when she said that to me. I admired you, I told her, because you were all that was admirable. You were beautiful, charming, and funny, but also gentle and considerate of other people.”
“Goodness,” Brittany breathed, staring at him in awe, “you said all that to her? You never said such things to me.”
“Only because I assumed you’d heard them all so many times before that you’d pay no particular heed to compliments from me,” he told her, amusement lighting his eyes, “and I said those things to Mama only after she demanded to hear all about the lady who had stolen my heart. When I went down to the manor, she greeted me with that demand, informing me that my letters to her had been so full of you that she wished to know when the wedding was to be. The tiny detail of your betrothal to Faringdon didn’t seem to have fazed her in the least.”
“No more than her lack of an invitation to our ball,” Brittany murmured with a smile, unable to still her tongue.
“Just so.” He kissed the top of her head and set her back upon her heels again. “Until Mama put the notion in my head, I fear I was quite as unaware of my true feelings toward you as Faringdon was of his for Alicia. Once I recognized that much, I saw what Mama had seen from the outset. I had made every excuse I could to share your company, and since Faringdon had his head in the clouds, I had tried to do what I could to make your life as easy as possible.”
“You do have a knack for looking after one’s comfort, sir. I noticed that even when that vanity you say I lack was erupting in resentment at the fact that you never deigned to bestow a compliment upon me.”
He grinned at her again. “I wonder if ten years from now you will be so complacent about my knack for attending to your comfort. Mama said before she sent me up to London for the Season that I was unconscionably overprotective, that she pitied the poor girl who agreed to spend her life with me. She read me quite a lecture before she ordered me to take myself off to town and leave her in peace.”
“She really ordered you to leave? I had thought until I made her acquaintance so briefly tonight that she was some sort of whining, clinging vine, whose constant demands must be a burden to you.”
Cheriton’s crack of laughter filled the room, making her look hastily over her shoulder at the door, half-expecting to see the handle turning to admit someone who wished to know what the row was all about. When she looked back at him, he was still chuckling. “I trust,” he said between chuckles, “that even so brief an acquaintance with her has put those notions to rest.”
She grinned back at him then. “Oh, yes, sir. Now I wonder only why she never sent you away sooner.”
“There was work to be done and she had no wish to attend to it herself,” he said flatly. “She prefers her books and her friends, and she has a finger in every pie for miles around. Not a tenant scalds a finger but Mama hears of it. ’Twas only the work of putting the land back in good trim after years of my father’s neglect that she balked at. He had never allowed her to interfere, which says a good deal about his personality, too, you know … But perhaps I ought to say no more for fear of convincing you that you would be better off not having to deal with one of my family.”
Swallowing carefully, Brittany favored him with a gaze as searching as any he had ever afforded her. “Look here, my lord,” she said, gathering her courage and speaking quite firmly, “are you asking me to—”
“Tani!” The door opened behind her to admit both Arabella and Alicia, who scooted inside, whipping it shut again behind them. It was Alicia who had spoken, and she went on in a rush, “Oh, where is Tony, and what has become of Zara? Oh, do tell me at once, for I have been on tenterhooks, as you must have guessed had you given me but the tiniest thought. Only people never do, so I expect you have merely dealt with everything between the pair of you and never meant to tell me anything whatever. And what,” she added without so much as taking a breath, “are you about, to let Cheriton embrace you like that when you are betrothed to Tony? Quite disgraceful, and so I do not scruple to tell you.”
“Oh, do hush, Lissa,” Arabella said sharply. “You prattle like a bagpipe and you have nothing of import to say.” She turned to Cheriton, who had dropped his hands to his sides but had made no other move away from Brittany. “Lissa has told me her disgraceful tale, sir, and I cannot imagine what you must think of such a disorderly household as ours. That she had hidden that woman here these past days with no one the wiser, or,” she added, turning a frowning gaze upon Brittany, “that you have aided her in this outrageous escapade. Really, I know not what to say.”
“Well, that does not matter,” Alicia said before Brittany could reply, “for the only reason you did not see what was beneath your nose, Bella, is that you have not had a thought to spare for anyone but yourself these past days and more. Going about with your eyes shining and your thoughts a hundred miles away. ’Tis all of a piece, and I can tell you to your head that it was no great thing to keep you from knowing what was happening beneath this roof. And if you think for a moment that either Tani or I would have turned that poor girl into the streets, or that we would have refused to help her tonight when that dreadful Fahd was after her, well, all I can say is—”
“You have said enough,” said Brittany on a choke of laughter. “Would you undo everything, Lissa? ’Tis bad enough that we are, the three of us, absent again from a ball given in our honor.”
“Oh, no one will notice,” Alicia said airily.
“Possibly not for some time,” Brittany agreed, “but we cannot stay away indefinitely. If you have told Bella about Zara, then there is no real reason to remain here.”
“What, are you trying to send us away so that you may be private with Cheriton?” Alicia demanded, suddenly angry. “I think you are horrid if that is so, Brittany, and I hope Tony gets back quickly and catches you at it
. You may find he is not so amusing, after all, if he does, for I can tell you his temper is such—”
“Lissa, Lissa, Tony and I have already agreed that we should not suit,” Brittany cut in gently.
The younger girl stared as though she had not truly understood the words. Then the light of joy dawned in her eyes and she stepped forward, her mouth opening to speak, then shutting again, then opening. “Not suit? You have broken it off?”
Brittany nodded. She felt Cheriton’s hand at her waist and looked up at him.
“Goodness,” Alicia exclaimed, “then it is to be you and Cheriton?”
“It is,” said the marquess firmly when Brittany hesitated.
“I knew it would be so,” Arabella said, smiling at them both. “At least, I knew Tani cared for you, sir, though I wasn’t by any means certain she knew how much you had come to mean to her. And as for you, well, you were very discreet, of course, but I did begin to believe you were sending all those little gifts to her. At least, I believed it until she received the cloisonné flower.” She looked at him searchingly. “You did not send that, did you?”
“I did not send any of those things,” Cheriton said. Though his tone was even, Brittany glanced quickly at him, then relaxed when he smiled reassuringly at her. “If anything,” he said, “those gifts nearly kept us apart.”
A short gasp from Alicia turned every other eye upon her. She looked at each of them in turn, her countenance paling. Unable to meet Brittany’s eyes, or Arabella’s, she turned toward Cheriton. “I never thought,” she said hastily, her expression willing him to listen to her. “Truly, you must believe that, sir. I never meant any harm.”
“You?” Cheriton’s eyes narrowed.
Brittany stared at her younger sister, unable to think of a thing to say, but Arabella was not so tongue-tied. “You sent those gifts, Alicia? What on earth were you thinking of, you idiotic girl? Making Brittany think there was some foolish lout out there watching her every move? And to send jewelry, of all things. You must have known how that would look.”
