Slightly Scandalous

by Mary Balogh

  She was sitting across from him in the boat, her narrowed gaze on the shoreline, her expression uncommunicative. Since making love for a second time and dressing and returning to the boat, they had exchanged scarcely a word.

  She transferred her gaze to his face.

  “Don't you dare feel obliged to act the gentleman and offer for me,” she said, sounding genuinely angry. “What happened was my fault. It was not done to trap you into marriage.”

  “Fault?” He grinned at her. “Yours again? I am beginning to feel like a puppet on a string.”

  “Which is exactly how I felt at the beginning of our acquaintance,” she said. “Now we are even.”

  “Marriage with me would be a trap, would it?” he asked her.

  “Of course it would,” she said impatiently. “We have been aware of it and wary of it from the start. It would be a horrible mistake for both of us.”

  He was no longer sure why. She could not mourn her lost love forever, could she? But then he would hate to be married to a woman who felt even leftover traces of such a mourning.

  “Why has this afternoon happened, then?” he asked her. “We do not have the excuse of having been swept away by passion, do we? This was planned quite deliberately yesterday—by both of us.”

  She did not answer him immediately. She stared out over the sea again.

  “I am Lady Freyja Bedwyn,” she said. “I am the daughter and sister of a duke. Though I have always been known as bold and unconventional and occasionally even rebellious, I am expected to behave in all essential ways with the strictest propriety—both in public and in private. Gentlemen have no such restrictions on their private behavior. All my brothers have had mistresses or casual amours. Wulf has had the same mistress for years without any breath of scandal touching his name. I choose not to marry—not yet, at least, and not unless I meet someone for whom I would willingly sacrifice my freedom. But I am five and twenty and I have all a woman's needs.”

  “You have used me, then, sweetheart,” he asked her, “as a . . . casual amour?”

  “Don't be absurd,” she said, looking at him again with cold disdain. “You can be remarkably tedious at times, Josh. Change places with me. I want to row.”

  He grinned at her. “We are not on a lake,” he said. “Rowing on the sea takes far more strength and skill. Besides, you would have to get up from your place and maneuver around me in order to get here. I daresay the boat would rock abominably.”

  “If you fall overboard,” she said, “I will stop the boat and rescue you.”

  One had to admire the woman. All the way across to the island earlier he had been aware of her terror though she had given no outward sign of it. Yet now she was willing to move around in the boat, somehow shift places with him, and then row them back to the harbor? He could almost smell fear in her arrogant, nonchalant stance.

  “That is reassuring, at least,” he said, securing the oars and getting to his feet, holding to the sides as he did so. The boat rocked from side to side. “I will do the same for you, Free, though I seem to recall that you can swim like a fish. I only just beat you in our race at Lindsey Hall.”

  He thought she was going to change her mind when she did not immediately move, but as he approached her she stood up—straight, without clinging to the sides. She held herself upright and balanced as the boat swayed and as he squeezed past her and sat down where she had been sitting. He watched appreciatively as she moved along the boat, keeping perfect balance, before turning and sitting and taking the oars in her hands. Her chin was up, as he had expected, and she was viewing the world along the length of her nose.

  She had accused him of wearing a mask, of hiding either his real self or nothing at all behind it. She was no different. Behind the cool, haughty, bold front she displayed to the world was a woman who had been hurt, a woman who was lonely—yes, Prue had been quite right about that—a woman who was perhaps afraid to love again.

  He might have guessed that she would row the boat like an expert. She did not expend energy by digging the oars deep and trying to displace the whole ocean with every stroke. They were soon moving along at a steady clip.

  So she had not changed her mind about marrying, had she? It was a shame really, as he was beginning to change his mind about marrying her. Actually, the thought of saying good-bye to her—probably quite soon now—was one his mind shied away from. His life was going to seem very empty indeed without Freyja in it. And now to top everything off he was going to have the memories of this afternoon to live with.

  For all her boldness and passion, she was really still a sexual innocent. She probably did not recognize the difference between having sex and making love. They had been making love this afternoon—or at least, he had been even though he had been careful not to utter one word of love.

  She had wanted him only for the experience, for the satisfying of her feminine sexual hunger.

  It was a humbling thought.

  He chuckled.

  “I should be wielding a whip in my right hand,” he said, laying his arms along the sides of the boat. “This scene would look far more impressive from the harbor if I were.”

  There were indeed several villagers standing still on the front road or down on the sand among the boats, all watching in curiosity as the Marquess of Hallmere's betrothed rowed him to shore.

  Joshua jumped out when they were in shallow water, risking his valet's wrath when he saw his Hessian boots. He dragged the boat up onto dry sand and lifted Freyja out even as Ben Turner came running to haul the boat higher. Someone up on the road whistled shrilly, and there was a burst of good-natured laughter.

  “Ah, Ben,” Joshua said, “just the man I want to talk to.”

  Ben looked warily at him and reached into the boat to take out the blankets.

  “I understand,” Joshua said, “that your mother has been kind to Lady Prudence. She is at your cottage door, I see. Shall we go up?”

  He took Freyja by the elbow and indicated one of the cottages on the front road above the harbor. Mrs. Turner was standing in the doorway, her arms crossed over her bosom. She watched them approach before bobbing a curtsy. Ben trailed along behind.

  “If he was making you row that boat, my lady,” she said, chuckling, “I would give him his marching orders if I was you. Or lay down the law as it is going to be for the rest of your life.”

  “But she insisted,” Joshua protested. “How was a gentleman to say no?”

  Freyja, he realized, found this all very strange—this way he had of fraternizing with ordinary folk and their way of being at ease with him. But he had been one of them just five years ago. She stood silently beside him.

  “I have heard of all your kindnesses to Lady Prudence,” he said to Mrs. Turner.

  He had had a lengthy talk with Miss Palmer during the morning while Prue was out walking with Eve and the children. Prue was very much confined to the nursery at the house. Miss Palmer took her out as much as she could. More often than not they walked into the village or took the gig if it was available. Prue had developed a deep attachment to the Turners, who treated her with warm affection. Indeed, Mrs. Turner often suggested that Miss Palmer leave her there for an hour or two and have some time to herself—she often called upon Miss Jewell, she had explained.

  Mrs. Turner looked instantly wary.

  “She is a sweet child,” she said, “and not an imbecile, even though her mother seems to believe she is, begging your pardon, my lord. I know she is Lady Prudence, and therefore I ought not to encourage her to set foot over my doorstep, but someone has to love her, and Miss Palmer is not always enough.”

  “I am not here to scold you,” Joshua said, clasping his hands behind his back.

  “I would think not,” she said. “She loves this house. She has her own apron behind the door, and the first thing she does is reach for it and put it on. She sweeps the floors and shakes the mats and washes the dishes and pegs out washing and makes me and Ben tea and is learning how to co
ok. She even does some mending when she sits down. She brings sunshine into this house.”

  Joshua looked at Ben, who flushed and dipped his head and worried at a stone buried in the road with the toe of his boot.

  “She does that,” he said. “And she is not a little girl no longer neither.” He looked up into Joshua's face with something like defiance in his own. “She is a woman grown.”

  Miss Palmer had voiced a concern over the number of times Prue declared that she loved Ben Turner. She said it of everyone, of course, and meant it of everyone. But there was a way she had of saying it with regard to Ben, Miss Palmer had said, that she could not quite explain in words.

  “You love her, do you, Ben?” Joshua asked quietly.

  Ben's flush deepened, but he did not look away. “It is not my place to love Prue—Lady Prudence,” he said. “You need not worry about me, my lord. I will not forget my place.”

  His title was spoken with slight emphasis and some bitterness, Joshua noticed. He sighed.

  “No, I did not expect you would, Ben,” he said. “I wanted to thank you for befriending her. I do love her, you see.”

  “I have never left her and Ben alone together,” Mrs. Turner said. “Nor ever would. I know better than that, though I know Ben wouldn't never forget himself.”

  Joshua smiled at them both, nodded genially, and offered Freyja his arm. They walked back in the direction of the inn, where they had stabled their horses.

  “Strangely,” he said, “I had never considered the problem of Prue's growing up. Because she will always be a child in many ways, I suppose I had expected that she would remain a child in every way.”

  “It is a mistake often made of women in general,” she said, “the assumption that they do not have needs to match those of men. Prue is not a child, is she? She is a woman. And Ben Turner has seen that. Probably she has seen that he has seen, and the attraction of the cottage is more him than his mother. What will the marchioness do if she discovers the truth?”

  “She will try sending Prue to an asylum,” he said, “where she will be locked up and chained and beaten and put on public display and treated like an animal.”

  She looked sharply at him. “Even she could not be so cruel,” she said.

  “She would have done it when Prue was a child,” he said, “if my uncle for once in his life had not exerted himself. She is talking of doing it now if she is forced by my return to remove to the dower house with her daughters.”

  Freyja inhaled audibly. “If I do not take my fists to that woman's face before I leave here,” she said, “I will be a candidate for sainthood—and I believe that would be a dreadful fate. What are you going to do about it? You are Prue's guardian, are you not?”

  “Until I am convicted of murder, yes,” he said. “What ought I to do, Freyja? Encourage her to marry a fisherman?”

  He smiled at the look on her face. Such a prospect must be beyond the wildest imaginings of any member of the proud Bedwyn family. Except that he had learned since going to Lindsey Hall that Aidan had married the daughter of a Welsh coal miner and that Rannulf had married the daughter of an obscure country parson and granddaughter of a London actress. Yet Eve and Judith were as well accepted by the rest of the family as if they had been duchesses.

  “Perhaps,” she said, “Prue is capable of making her own choices in life. Josh, she held my hand yesterday afternoon when we were climbing up the hill behind the house. It was not because she needed my help but because she believed I needed hers.”

  “You froze me in my tracks when I once made that mistake,” he said. “Though we were about to go down rather than up, I remember.”

  “I know,” she said. “But I was touched. I know what you meant when you told me she is full of love and brimming over with it. And so innocent that one fears for her. Perhaps we ought not to fear for such people but for ourselves whose experience has taught us not to trust one another or life itself.”

  He looked at her in some astonishment. Her voice had lost all its customary hauteur. It was almost shaking with emotion. All because Prue, thinking her lonely, had taken her hand?

  “I should talk to her, then?” he asked. “Will you come with me?”

  She looked more herself then. “Eve would be a far better choice,” she said. “But, yes, I will come. Josh, whatever am I doing here at Penhallow? Why am I not still in Bath, promenading in the Pump Room every morning and taking tea in the Assembly Rooms?”

  “I believe, sweetheart,” he said, “you perceived a rogue and could not resist brightening up your life for a spell by taking on the challenge of trying to keep pace with him. Besides, it is better for you to be here with me than expiring of boredom there, is it not?”

  “A rogue,” she said as they turned into the cobbled stableyard of the inn and an ostler hastened to lead out their horses. “Is that what you are, Josh? Life was so simple when I had no doubt about the answer.”

  He turned his head and winked at her.

  The following morning was cloudy, windy, and altogether rather dreary. Joshua had gone out early again with his steward and Aidan. The marchioness had asked Constance to run an errand for her in the village and at the last moment had suggested that the Reverend Calvin Moore accompany her. Alleyne, perhaps seeing the tight look on Constance's face, had asked Chastity if she would like to go too, and the four of them had departed together, the marchioness's dagger glances piercing Alleyne's back.

  She was a tedious enemy, Freyja concluded. Very different from Freyja herself or any of the Bedwyns for that matter, she did not simply burst out with open hostility and fight fairly. She had set something in motion, and she was prepared to wait for it to come to fruition. In the meanwhile, she acted the gracious, wilting hostess to everyone. Her gentle smile seemed to have been painted on her face.

  Freyja had found refuge in the morning room. She was writing a letter to her solicitor while Morgan, beside her at the table, wrote to Judith.

  “This waiting around for something to happen is very strange, is it not?” Morgan said abruptly after a while. “I expected fireworks as soon as we arrived at Penhallow. I expected excitement and danger and flashing swords and smoking pistols for the first day or two and then the satisfaction of victory.”

  “Are you disappointed?” Freyja smiled at her.

  “Disappointed? No.” Morgan frowned. “But a little uneasy, I must confess. The marchioness really does hate Joshua, does she not? And all of us too even though she persists in informing us how delighted she is to have us all here. Why does she hate him so much that she is prepared to put his life in danger?”

  “She blames him for her son's death,” Freyja said. “She thought him guilty in the sordid business over the governess, and then when her son went to confront him, he died. In a sense, perhaps, one can hardly blame her for wondering if the accident really was an accident.”

  “I suppose,” Morgan said, “it was the son who seduced the governess.”

  “Yes,” Freyja said.

  “I do not believe I would have liked him,” Morgan said. “Indeed, I am quite certain I would have detested him quite as much as I do his mother. How horrid of him to have allowed Joshua to shoulder the blame—and to find a home for that poor lady. But what worries me, Freyja, is that witness. How provoking that he is not at home and so cannot be confronted. Alone he is surely no threat at all, but what if he can persuade several other men to corroborate his story? Does Joshua understand the danger he is in? Is he doing anything about it?”

  “He is indeed,” a voice said from the doorway, and they both turned to see Joshua himself standing there. He was still dressed for riding. His face was ruddy from the outdoors, his eyes dancing with laughter.

  He liked living on the edge of danger, Freyja thought.

  Independent of thought, her body was instantly aware of him, of his virile grace and beauty. She had wanted yesterday to happen so that she would have happy memories to cling to. She had been a fool. How would she live w
ithout that? How would she live without him?

  “What, then?” Morgan asked.

  “Why spoil the fun by telling?” he said, laughing as he came into the room. “Garnett is still from home, but I have hopes that he will return in time for the ball. Indeed, I am depending upon his having heard of it and upon his having a proper sense of drama. I have sent him an invitation.”

  “I know,” Morgan said. “I wrote it. But why?”

  But he would only laugh again. “Let me say only,” he said, “that if Garnett comes, the ball will be an occasion after the Bedwyns' own heart.”

  Morgan's eyes shone. “Oh, you do have something planned,” she said. “Well done.”

  He reached out a hand and squeezed her shoulder while turning his attention to Freyja.

  “I am going down to the river walk with Prue,” he said. “Will you come, Freyja?”

  “I have to finish this letter to Judith,” Morgan said when Freyja looked at her, “and then I must write to Aunt Rochester. I have not done so in ages, but she is to sponsor my come-out in the spring, perish the thought.”

  Freyja changed into a wool dress and a warm pelisse. She even, after looking out the window to note that the weather had not changed, drew on a bonnet that would cover her ears. Prue too was dressed warmly, in sunshine yellow from head to toe. She was beaming and clearly excited at the prospect of an outing with Josh and Freyja.

  They scrambled down over the sloping lawn to the valley without using the more gradual slope of the winding driveway past the dower house. Prue was laughing aloud as she hurtled down the last few feet into Joshua's waiting arms. Freyja glared at him when he would have offered similar assistance to her, and he grinned and turned away.

  They walked along the private path that ran beside the river to the beach. They did not go all the way to the beach, though. They stopped frequently to peer into the water, watching the slow currents eddying past stones and small sandbars, seeing the occasional tadpole dart by. Joshua picked up a stone and hurled it in a high arc to hit the opposite bank, some distance away, and Prue laughed and clapped her hands with delight. Freyja, not to be outdone, picked up a flat stone and threw it in such a way that it skimmed the surface of the water, bouncing four times before it sank out of sight. Prue jumped up and down in her excitement.