by Jo Beverley
“No blood, I don’t think.” He looked up, blue eyes steady. “All right. What happened, Imp?”
Again the name shook her. He’d started to call her Imp because she had the same dark hair shot with red that Simon had. Or because she’d been an impish child. From the perspective of a six-year-old, a fourteen-year-old lord had seemed awe-inspiring. She’d reacted with some bit of cheek and he’d called her “an imp from hell.”
With his usual grin, which had always stolen her heart.
“Mara, what happened?”
She focused and realized what the dark concern in his eyes meant.
“Oh! Nothing like that, Dare. I ran away.”
She saw him relax. “So where did you have to run away from? And,” he added, looking down to dab at the sole of her right foot with a soapy cloth, “why were you there in the first place?”
It stung and she squirmed, or perhaps that was because of his tone. “You don’t need to do that. Wash my feet.”
“Stop trying to avoid the confession. What bull did you wave a red cloth at this time?”
“It wasn’t my fault,” she protested, but then grimaced. “I suppose it was. I sneaked out of Ella’s to go with Major Berkstead to a gaming hell.”
He paused to stare. “In God’s name, why?”
She looked down and saw how grubby her hands were. One fingernail was broken. Not a lady’s hands at all. “I’ve been asking myself that. I suppose I was bored.”
Surprisingly, he laughed. There wasn’t a lot of humor in it, but it was a better reaction than she’d expected. “Your family should know better than to let a devil-hair have time on her hands.”
“They probably never will again.”
Devil-hair. That’s what her family called the dark hair with red lights, and it wasn’t a welcome sight on a St. Bride baby. It predicted a taste for adventure at best, disaster at worst. It was said to be an inheritance from a medieval ancestor known as Black Ademar.
Devil-hair was rare, but her parents had two afflicted offspring. The first was Simon. When a second had appeared, they’d stared down the devil and called her Ademara. She’d much rather have been Lucy, or Sarah, or Mary, and have the typical St. Bride brown hair and comfortable nature. Look where the hair had brought her now.
Dare rinsed the dirty cloth and resumed bathing her foot. “So who is this Berkstead? Not, I assume, an approved suitor.”
“But he is! I mean, not precisely a suitor, but I’ve met him at Ella’s house on a number of occasions. He’s an MP. From Northumberland.”
“Never trust a politician,” he remarked, shifting his attention to her other foot. “You escaped from the gaming hell?”
She didn’t want to answer, but must. “No. From his rooms.”
His look was brief, cool and scathing.
“I know, I know! I can’t imagine now why I went there except that I hadn’t been playing in the hell, only watching. I wanted to try some of the games.”
“Who saw you there?”
“At the hell? Many, but I was masked and Berkstead didn’t use my name. He called me ‘my queen of hearts,’ which should have been enough to turn me off card games for life.”
She’d tried for a lighter tone, but Dare didn’t smile.
“What about the hair?” he asked.
“Turban.”
He nodded and returned his attention to her foot, for which she was grateful. She’d never have thought Dare could be so profoundly disapproving. She wanted to protest that once he’d have thought this a jape, but perhaps that wasn’t true, and in any case that merry madcap clearly no longer existed.
“Continue,” he said. “Tell me everything.”
“Berkstead had been a perfect gentleman all night. I liked him. He’s a military hero and a great deal more amusing than the rest of George’s associates. I usually have a good instinct for people—you know I do.”
“And?” He was relentless.
She scowled at him even though he couldn’t see it. In fact, she probably wouldn’t have done it if he could see. She was, she realized, nervous of him. Not for her safety, exactly, but just nervous.
“We played for a while,” she said. “He was drinking and encouraged me to drink, but when I wouldn’t, he didn’t press me. I know all about sharps getting flats drunk in order to fleece them.”
He glanced up, brow raised. “Do you? But no suspicion of your greater danger?”
“No. He must be nearly forty!”
Perhaps at last he showed a glimmer of humor. “I assume he acted as if unaware of his advanced years.”
“Men do, don’t they? He proposed to me.”
Now she had his full, astonished attention. “What?”
“He did. He asked me to marry him. No—he said we’d be married. That my being in his rooms didn’t matter because we’d soon be married. Of course I turned him down. Politely,” she added.
His eyes were cold again. “Which he didn’t, I assume, take well.”
“He didn’t take it at all. I’ve never known such a blockhead. He treated my every word as if I was playing a game.”
“In the cur’s defense, you had gone willingly to his rooms at night.”
“That’s no common indication that a lady wishes to marry a man.”
As usual, her quick tongue had raced ahead of sense, and his dry “No” said volumes.
She tried to pull her right foot out of his hands, but he tightened his grip and parted her toes to clean between them. It suddenly looked and felt shockingly intimate.
“You really shouldn’t be doing that.”
“I can hardly summon a servant. What happened next?”
“I can’t remember.” In part because her mind was slipping into misty distraction of a different sort. “It all became very foolish, then very unpleasant.”
“Ah. Tell me about the unpleasant part. I do note that you seem to be undressed.”
A wave of heat passed over her. It was probably turning even her toes red.
“He didn’t,” she assured him. “We didn’t. He simply wouldn’t believe me. He knelt and protested that he adored me. That he’d cherish and take care of me. I didn’t know what to do, so I told him that I couldn’t marry him because my parents would never let me move far from Brideswell. That’s true—you know it is—and I’d never do it anyway. Instead of giving up, he took that as a challenge and declared that we must…go to bed to force their hand.”
He looked at her, a steady question in his eyes.
“Of course we didn’t! I keep telling you that, and I certainly told him. He was pleased, would you believe? Said it proved I was a virtuous lady despite my wild behavior. Then he decided that my staying there for the night would work just as well. In the early hours, he’d send a message to say that we wished to marry and had spent the night together. I told him my maid was waiting up and she’d set off the alarm before then. It didn’t shake him. Nothing I said could move him. This is all,” she said with a scowl, “a consequence of Father becoming the Earl of Marlowe. No one would act so idiotically with plain Miss St. Bride of Brideswell.”
“You underestimate your charms.”
It was a dry statement, but Mara’s spirits perked. “Really? I have had many suitors—but none has lost his wits over me.”
“Not a single madman? No pale corpse laid to your account? How dreadful. So what then? How do you come to be without your gown?”
She supposed she’d never had a hope of passing that by.
“He took it off. I made an error and said I’d escape. I don’t think he believed me, but he insisted I take off my gown and shoes to, as he put it, prevent my putting myself in danger. I couldn’t fight or scream without being discovered. You see that, don’t you?”
“Yes. What happened next?”
Mara decided to skip over the way Berkstead had looked at her corset, then kissed her in a slobbering way, before thrusting her into his bedroom.
“He locked me in his bedroom,” she sai
d.
“How many floors up?”
“Only one. And there were sheets for a rope.”
“As you said, a blockhead.”
“For not realizing I’d escape, even shoeless and undressed?”
“For not realizing that someone would kill him.”
Mara sat up straight. “No duel!”
“You have no say in this.”
“Oh, yes, I do.” She dragged her foot out of his grasp. “When I heard Simon had fought a duel and almost died I knew they were an invention of the devil. I won’t have it, Dare. I won’t! I couldn’t bear to have you or Simon hurt because of my stupidity. I don’t even want Berkstead killed. It was at least half my fault.”
“He’s a louse.”
She looked at his set face and wanted to scream with frustration. Instead, being an experienced sister, she tried piteous. “Please, Dare.”
He briefly closed his eyes. “Very well. You won’t mind, I assume, if I warn him away from making further trouble?”
“I’d be very grateful. And,” she added, “no one else need know? You won’t tell Simon?”
Or Father, she thought.
“If you don’t want Berkstead dead, I most definitely won’t tell your devil-haired brother. But I probably should tell your father. Perhaps he’d whip some sense into you.”
“You know he wouldn’t, but please don’t.” She reached to touch his arm. “I promise I’ve learned my lesson. I’ll never do anything like that again. I was just so bored.”
He moved slightly back, breaking the contact. “Didn’t Johnson say that when someone is tired of London, they’re tired of life?”
“I’m not tired of it. I haven’t yet experienced it. Ella’s expecting. To be fair, she didn’t know when she offered, but apparently at this stage she’s incapable of anything more than tea with friends, quiet concerts, and drives in the park. Never, of course, at a fashionable hour. Too much noise and hurley-burley.”
“Which is exactly what you want.”
She responded to the understanding in his eyes. “Is it so bad? We were here for the special Drawing Room on St. George’s day, but that would have been absolutely too much for her.”
“In fairness, it probably would have been, and a dead bore to boot.”
“But it would have been something. Almack’s. The theater. Something. Ella’s house is quieter than Brideswell.”
“Not difficult to achieve.” Perhaps there was a smile in his eyes.
She smiled back, for her crowded home was all bustle and life. “No, but you know what I mean. The only guests are matrons like Ella, talking endlessly of husbands and children, and George’s fellow MPs wanting to discuss the Corn Laws, sedition, or the ruinous cost of the army. All very important, I’m sure, but tedious.”
“Enter this military Berkstead. I assume he’s handsome and dashing.”
“For a man of his age.” She almost added, He was at Waterloo, but thought better of it. That was where Dare had been so terribly wounded. “He took me to amusing places such as the waxworks and the Egyptian Hall. And he knows all the best scandals.”
He stood, dropping the washcloth in the bowl. “You need some livelier lady to chaperone you.”
Clearly he did not approve of waxworks, the Egyptian Hall, and especially not of scandals. Could he really have become so prosy?
“None of my friends from Lincolnshire are in London yet. Simon and Jane are to come soon, but it keeps being put off. It is excruciating to be so close to a treat but have to view it from within a cage.”
“Poor Mara.”
Her deliberate exaggeration had been rewarded with the ghost of a smile. Suddenly she needed to revive the old Dare, to make him smile as he used to—widely, brilliantly, infectiously. She needed him to make a witty joke, or propose some outrageous piece of mischief—daring her, daring everyone, to join him.
He was only twenty-six. Surely not too old for merriment and mischief. War, wounds, and other problems may have ground down his spirits, but it must be possible to build them up again.
He carried the basin back to the washstand and then turned to study her. Something about his stance, or the candlelight, or her steadier nerves made her aware that the changes were not entirely for the worse.
He was still slim, but stronger, with broader shoulders and more muscle. There was something about his face, too. It was still a little long, the mouth a little wide, but there seemed to be more definition around his jaw and eyes giving it a pleasing symmetry. Or perhaps the effect came from his light brown hair being fashionably cropped, not carelessly around his collar as he used to wear it.
Just perhaps sobriety suited him….
He quirked a brow as if wondering what she was thinking. She began to scramble off the bed. “I really do need to get home, Dare. My maid will set up an alarm.”
“Wait a moment. I’ll find you something of Thea’s to wear.”
He left and Mara could breathe properly and try to gather her wits.
Chapter 2
Thea was Lady Dorothea Debenham, Dare’s younger sister. Mara had read about her introduction to society last spring. Anything to do with Dare had been of interest, for at that time the St. Brides and the world had still mourned him. The St. Brides had learned of Dare’s discovery alive in the paper, too, for with Simon still in Canada, no one had thought to tell them.
What a delirious day that had been, even though the paper had said he was grievously ill and addicted to the opium that had been given him for the pain of his wounds.
She lifted and turned her right foot so she could inspect the damage. A couple of scrapes across the ball of her foot could be sore for a while, but even if walking hurt her tomorrow, she’d be able to conceal the injury and its cause.
Dare had never had a chance of concealment. When a duke’s son had been thought dead at Waterloo, then spectacularly appeared alive over a year later, some explanation must be made.
Thus the papers had recounted the story in full—how his horse had been shot from under him and he’d been trampled by cavalry, resulting in broken bones and a head wound, which had deprived him of awareness of who he was for quite some time.
He’d been cared for by a kindly Belgian widow, who had given him laudanum for his excruciating pain, but so much of it for so long that he’d become addicted.
Mara could understand. How could anyone watch someone suffer when relief was at hand? Once someone was accustomed to opium, however, it was very hard to break free.
She’d asked their family doctor about Dare’s chances, but Dr. Warbuthnot had shaken his head.
“On it a year? Heavy dose? Better to stay on it, m’dear. It changes the body, you see, so that the organs need it to function. Sudden abstinence can kill, and if it doesn’t, it can drive the sufferer mad.”
She’d been appalled. “But surely some people manage to free themselves?”
“Very few in my experience.”
“But the system of gradual reduction?” she’d persisted. “That’s what Lord Darius is using.”
“Haven’t witnessed the attempt, but I have grave doubts. Who has the strength for constant torment, and what is the point? If a person has the courage for that, they have the resolution to take only what they need to live a normal life. There are men and women of respectability, even of eminence, m’dear, in just that condition. There’s no shame to it.”
It hadn’t been the assurance Mara had wanted, but now she wondered if Dare had settled for that path. Why else was he in London, living a normal life? He’d lived in seclusion at Long Chart, his family’s Somerset estate, since his discovery. She’d been surprised to encounter him in the park the other day.
Yet he wasn’t living a normal life. He wasn’t taking part in the early events of the season, for that would have been noted in the papers. He’d responded to Ella’s invitation to dinner with a vague comment about living quietly. No normal young lord lived quietly in London, especially not Dare, whose friends had to
be legion.
He returned and she smiled, wiping away any trace of her thoughts. She had no right to be picking apart his life, but she couldn’t help caring.
He passed over cotton stockings, kid slippers, and a gown of dull gray silk. “I don’t think Thea will miss these.”
“I’ll return them.”
“The stockings are darned, the slippers battered, and I’m sure she’ll be glad to see the end of the dress. I assume it must have been for mourning.”
For him, probably, Mara thought, wriggling into the plain gown. Lady Thea must be taller and with a more bounteous figure, but it would have to do. She turned her back. “Fasten it, please.”
His hesitation brought her to her senses. What was she doing? Dare had been like a brother once, but he was a stranger now.
Few years ago when Simon had sailed for Canada, Dare had stopped visiting Brideswell. Since then, she’d only met him twice—two days ago in the park, and at Simon’s wedding last December. She remembered how shocked she’d been by the change in him. He’d been so pale and thin, in some ways even fragile, and she’d hovered for fear he’d collapse.
He wasn’t fragile now. He’d just carried her up the stairs and he was making her shivery and uncertain in all kinds of ways. But someone had to fasten the dress.
“Please? I can’t do it for myself.”
She heard his footsteps, and then felt his fingers against her spine. A secret shiver heightened her sudden awareness that she was half dressed in a man’s bedroom. She clutched the dress to herself at the front and sought something, anything, to say.
“It’s loose. Your sister must have a good figure.”
“There’s nothing wrong with your figure.”
“I’m almost flat in the bosom.”
“Not flat.”
“Well, no, but meager.”
His fingers halted between her shoulderblades. “Mara, really. Is this situation not awkward enough without discussing your bosom?” He finished and stepped back.
She turned, aware of the gown bulging empty at the front. “I’m sorry. I don’t have much experience with strange men. I mean, you’re not strange. But you’re not a brother—”
