The Proper Wife

by Julia Justiss

  “Will you gentlemen be attending the Maxwell ball tonight?” Alex asked.

  Hal shook his head in an emphatic negative. “No balls. Bang-up affair, though. All London.”

  “If it’s that renowned, I imagine Lady Barbara will be there,” Sinjin said. “You’ll go too, I expect?”

  Despite the light that leapt in Alex’s eyes at the mention of Lady Barbara, he didn’t smile. “I’m not sure of her plans. With the throng in the drawing room when I called, we never exchanged a private word.” He grimaced. “The Countess made sure of that. Perhaps I shall retire to the country for a time, as Mama keeps urging.” A sigh shook his emaciated frame. “Heaven knows I’m not fully fit yet, and it appears I waste my time here.”

  The bleakness of his tone fired Sinjin with righteous anger. Damn Lady Barbara, her officious patronizing perfectionist of a mama, and women in general! Unreliable, troublesome creatures, they seemed unable to distinguish sterling worth from the dross of appearance.

  “I believe I shall attend the ball,” Sinjin announced, deciding on the spot. “If you’ll accompany me, Alex? Mustn’t appear to be abandoning the field in full retreat.”

  Alex smiled grimly. “I suppose not. Even if it happens to be the truth.”

  “Nonsense,” Sinjin said bracingly. “Attend a few more functions with every appearance of enjoyment, call upon Lady Barbara or not as you choose, then retire to the country. If Lady Barbara has the wit you believe her to possess, she will miss you—and eagerly await your return.”

  Alex’s shadowed eyes lightened. “You believe so? I own, I still think she feels a bond between us. I doubt the Countess can prevail upon her to marry someone she does not love, but for Lady Barbara to continue resisting a woman as determined as her mama…” Alex looked down at his useless hand as if willing it to flex, and Sinjin knew he was trying to maintain hope of an eventual recovery. “Perhaps giving the matter time would be best.”

  “Shall I meet you in an hour?”

  Alex nodded. “Very good. And—thank you, Colonel.”

  Waving away his gratitude, Sinjin rose. “If I’m to change I must also take my leave. Until tomorrow, Hal.”

  As he made his way out, Sinjin’s thoughts advanced to the ball he’d just pledged to attend. It would doubtless be a tedious affair. He’d stay only long enough to make sure Alex was at ease.

  Though should Miss Beaumont chance to be present, he could be assured her injury was healing. Perhaps he’d even take it upon himself to deliver a warning. Her courage certainly deserved that she be made aware of the vicious comments circulating about her. Cowardly buffoons, he recalled with contempt.

  Aside from assisting Alex, of course, attending the ball would be a cursed waste of time. Which was why, as he strode down the steps to summon a hackney, it was deuced odd he should feel this definite stirring of excitement.

  Chapter Nine

  Pleased their late entrance spared them going through a receiving line, Sinjin ushered Alex into the tightly-packed ballroom. Despite the crowd, his height allowed him to speedily locate a slender brunette in white surrounded by a milling group of courtiers. Bedecked in regal purple satin and a plumed headdress, her mama stood guard nearby.

  As if conscious of his scrutiny, the countess glanced over. For a shocked instant he thought she would cut him, but then she nodded, setting her ostrich plumes aquiver.

  Lady Barbara turned and saw them. A brilliant smile sprang to her lips—until the countess bent to whisper in her ear. The smile died and Lady Barbara looked away.

  All Sinjin’s fighting instincts went on alert. The men of the Tenth, who’d not broken under attack by Napoleon’s famed Imperial Guard, were not about to let one imperious countess halt them. “Shall we approach?”

  But Alex’s mouth set in a grim line and his dark eyes hardened to flint. “I’ll not force my way in to be rebuffed, nor will I linger at the edges of her court like a supplicant. If she wishes to speak, she knows I am here.”

  “That’s the spirit.” With mingled anger and sadness, Sinjin watched the lines around Alex’s mouth and eyes deepen, revealing how much that show of nonchalance cost him. “Who shall we look for, then?”

  Alex shrugged. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have bothered to come.” He waved a hand, forestalling Sinjin’s reply. “Yes, I recall your advice. I’ll remain for a decent interval and endeavor to look entertained. But as I don’t dance and my recent memories don’t lend themselves to witty conversation, I’m not of much use to anyone present.”

  Before he could reply, the lieutenant’s sister Caroline emerged from the throng. “Alex, I thought you’d never arrive! And Colonel, good evening. Brothers!” She shook her head at Sinjin, the concern in her eyes belying her light tone. “If I waited upon Alex’s escort I should scarce leave home!” Though she laughed, the darkling glance she threw toward Lady Barbara told Sinjin she too was aware of her brother’s heartache.

  “Come along, Alex, Colonel.” She linked an arm with each man. “My friends are waiting. Oh, Alex, your old Oxford mate Brice Peirson’s just arrived in town, and most anxious to chat with you.”

  Ushered along perforce, Sinjin inserted an obligatory word as needed into Caroline’s spirited commentary. She led them to a gaggle of young people, all of whom Alex seemed to know well. After a few moments Alex’s shoulders began to relax and the pinched look left his face. When the promised Oxford friend appeared, bringing a genuine enthusiasm to Alex’s eyes, Sinjin slipped away.

  And spotted Miss Beaumont across the ballroom. Anticipation made his breath catch and all his senses heighten.

  It must be the dress. A form-hugging concoction of turquoise satin that gleamed in the candlelight as she moved, it made her sparkle like a central stone set in the jewel-bright broach of swirling dancers.

  As he approached he noted with surprise that she’d topped the gown with a wisp of a Belgian lace fichu. In taunting mockery of its normal use, however, the lacy scrap did not modestly cover her bosom. Instead, it veiled her shoulders and then was pinned in narrow outline along the plunging depth of her décolletage, leading the eye straight to the generous breasts half-revealed there.

  A spectacle sure to rivet the attention of every male over eight and under eighty who came within eyeshot of her.

  And, he admitted grudgingly as a surge of heat engulfed him, he was as susceptible as any other man.

  Firmly he detached his gaze from her chest and commanded his body to react no further. His body ignored him, and it required several minutes’ struggle to get himself under control.

  Damn and blast, he swore under his breath, sweating. No wonder men called her wanton. Surely she realized the effect she caused. She probably deserved all the comments the White’s Club oafs had made, and more.

  Not fair, his stubborn intellect replied. Her décolletage wasn’t lower than that of many other ladies present. It wasn’t her fault she had more to display.

  Was she a wanton?

  His memory flicked back to that solitary ride in the hackney. He’d been furious, and she’d known it. But not only had she not spouted a litany of excuses, she’d made no attempt to use her beauty to soften his anger. Of course, with her shoulder dripping blood and wrapped in a grimy cloak that smelled of onions, she hadn’t presented quite the seductive picture she did tonight. Or perhaps he didn’t appeal to her?

  The sharp edge of male pique he felt at that prospect irritated him even more than his unwanted response.

  Wanton or not was immaterial. Would that he’d had more green subordinates who’d reacted to a dangerous situation or a painful wound with the cool-headed initiative and considerable courage she’d displayed.

  Unfortunately her common sense didn’t appear to reach a similarly elevated plane. Since she didn’t seem to possess an advisor with the fortitude and candor to inform her of the damage her dress and manners were leading her into, he would. He’d do as much for any friend.

  She’d likely not thank him for it, so ’twas ju
st as well he wasn’t courting her good opinion. He’d deliver the warning he felt honor bound to give and depart.

  Nonetheless, prickles of anticipation such as he’d felt before battle needled his gut as he walked over. A few steps away, she saw him approaching, and smiled.

  He sucked in a breath, momentarily dazzled by that smile and her remarkable emerald eyes. His initial reaction in the game room hadn’t been an aberration, apparently. From a distance she attracted, but up close she was nothing short of stunning. No wonder men fell at her feet in droves.

  “Colonel, how nice to see you.”

  “Miss Beaumont. Would y-you…” Something tingled along his nerves as he raised her hand to his lips and he lost track of his sentence. Damn and blast.

  He cleared his throat. “Walk with me, please?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “If you wish.”

  As she raised her hand to place it on his arm, she made a small grimace. Under the lace at her shoulder he could just make out the line of a bandage.

  How could he have forgotten her injury? Concern overcame annoyance. “You are recovered, ma’am?”

  “Yes, thank you. A little stiff, merely.”

  “You should take care. Such…events can turn nasty.”

  He’d deliberately chosen words to obscure, should anyone nearby chance to overhear, but she placed another meaning on his comment.

  “A singularly ill-judged escapade, which might have ended very badly. I am mortified you were obliged to assist me, but I thank you again for it.” She smiled wryly. “And for refraining from giving me the dressing-down I deserved. If it is any reward for your forbearance, I shall endeavor never to be so foolish again.”

  “I am glad of it.” Her frank avowal of fault once again impressed him, and he found himself returning her smile. “You are certainly looking…recovered.”

  She laughed outright. “An awkward contrivance. However, it does…direct attention from my shoulder.”

  “Most effectively,” he agreed with a grin. So she had deliberately chosen the effect as an odd sort of camouflage. No coquetry there.

  The need for a warning recurred, and his grin faded. How to begin? “It does, uh, draw a man’s eye,” he said, groping his way.

  She sighed. “Colonel, I’ve been the focus of male eyes since I turned twelve. As it matters little whether I wear sackcloth or silk—I have experimented, I assure you—I give the subject little thought.” She raised her chin, as if expecting criticism. “I wear what I like.”

  “Including sackcloth?”

  “Seldom that,” she allowed. “Though after Covent Garden, I expect you believe I should.”

  “I wouldn’t say something so unhandsome. However…”

  She inclined her head toward him, her green eyes assessing. “‘However’?”

  Steeling himself to seize the opening, he plunged forward. “I do think it would be prudent for you to…take somewhat more care in your appearance and behavior.”

  As he’d expected, the warmth in her eyes chilled. “And what do you suggest?”

  “Before I explain, please understand I speak only out of genuine concern. You may have exhibited a lamentable lack of judgment the other night, but your reactions once the unfortunate encounter began showed laudable good sense. I hope I may persuade you of the need to extend that prudence to your behavior in general. Otherwise I fear you stand in some danger.”

  She tilted her head up, locking her green eyes on his, and raised an eyebrow. “Danger?”

  “I chanced to overhear a conversation at a gentleman’s club. Normally I should not listen to gossip, but the name being bandied about was yours.”

  “In danger from gossip?” She made a scornful noise. “I recommend you ignore it. I always do.”

  “In this case perhaps it’s wiser to pay attention. I had never before heard such…comments made in reference to a gently-born lady. Not an unmarried one, at least.”

  “And what was it that so injured your sensibilities?”

  There wasn’t a kind way to phrase it, so having come this far, better to just state it baldly. “They expressed doubts about your virtue. One went so far as to assert that he knew a gentlemen who claimed to have received such…testaments to your, um, spirited nature that your eventual husband must discover you no longer a maid.”

  She said nothing for so long, he wondered if she’d understood his rather tortuous language. Sweating once more, he wished he’d never broached the wretched business.

  Then the hand on his arm trembled. “I’m a whore, then? And odds are being laid in the betting books against the possibility that I come to wedlock still a virgin?”

  He flinched. Stripped of the polite euphemisms in which he’d tried to cloak them, the vulgar accusations sounded even coarser.

  “The gossip hasn’t gone that far, nor will it, if you could but be a bit more…circumspect. Men expect a virtuous maiden to act in a certain fashion, and are, I’m afraid, quite censorious of those who do not.”

  “And do you, too, believe me a wanton?”

  “If I did, would I have troubled to warn you?”

  Her face had gone white, then pink again, and she seemed to struggle before at last she spoke. “It appears I am once again in your debt. Since I assume the gallant gentlemen who made these illuminating remarks would never have dared do so to my face.”

  He bowed, glad she was taking this in so reasonable a light. “I only did what I felt was right.”

  “How kind of you, Colonel.”

  He was about to assure her to think nothing of it when fury flashed in her eyes, so abrupt and intense he instinctively stepped back a pace.

  Before he could stammer out a word, she rounded on him. “You may take yourself and your warning back to the cowardly curs at your club. I should modify my behavior? Curry the good opinion of a passel of lecherous fools who have nothing better to do than play cards, drink themselves senseless and slander the innocent? As if being a ‘virtuous maiden’ did not already crib and confine me enough! I am who I am, and not a jot of it shall I change. Go add that codicil to your betting book!”

  Appalled that she seemed to be including him among the wretches who’d made the comments, he opened his mouth to protest, then shut it with a snap. He owed her no explanations. After he’d gone out of his way to warn her, how dared she insult him by equating him with those half-witted society wastrels?

  Incensed, he withdrew his arm. “You must suit yourself, of course. I only felt it fair that you be warned.” With a stiff bow, he prepared to walk away.

  Until he looked at her face.

  Disbelief and hurt were painted in emerald eyes glassy with unshed tears. The hurt of finding herself betrayed by men of her own class who doubtless flattered and cajoled to her face and then, she’d just discovered, spread foul rumors behind her back.

  The opening strains of a waltz sounded. Though he’d opened his lips with the intention of bidding her goodbye, he found himself saying instead, “Would you like to dance?”

  She stared at him as if the words made no sense.

  “Could I have this waltz, Miss Beaumont?” he repeated.

  He wasn’t sure she ever responded, but when he took her arm, she docilely followed him onto the dance floor.

  Captured, as he had been the night of the Covent Garden episode, by a perverse protectiveness, he pulled her close and swept her into the waltz.

  Miss Beaumont remained silent and he didn’t attempt to force a conversation. Her stormy eyes still reflected anger and hurt, and he couldn’t really blame her. She was right—the men who slandered her conducted themselves much less honorably, yet as men they were unlikely ever to be subjected to reproach. Her lowliest servants were freer to come and go than she. How the petty restrictions of their society must chafe someone of her tempestuous nature.

  As London’s narcissistic idleness chafed him. He felt a curious sense of connection, as if they shared a bond. Ridiculous, of course.

  This time as he
held her close she was neither bleeding nor grubby. The rose-scented curls tickling his chin, the softness of her breasts brushing his chest, the warmth of her waist under his hand were producing the inevitable consequences, swamping his sympathy for her plight in impulses of quite another sort. Breathing harder, and not from the dance, he stepped away.

  No wonder the waltz was considered scandalous.

  Mercifully the music reached a final chord. As they walked off the floor, he tried to order his thoughts. “I must take my leave now, Miss Beaumont. I hope you will consider the…news I brought and act upon it prudently.”

  Her chin snapped up and she eyed him frostily. “Yes, I must act prudently. Do not let me detain you, Colonel. An upright man like yourself cannot wish to partner a woman whom gossip proclaims practically a demi-rep. Indeed, should you not be out trolling for virtuous virgins in the seas of the middle-class righteous?”

  Her attack once again caught him unawares, and anger evaporated his sympathy. Viper-tongued virago!

  “How kind you are to remind me. My apologies for intruding upon your presence with a matter you find of no consequence. Your servant, Miss Beaumont.” Swallowing his anger with an effort, he bowed and walked away.

  Cursing her unruly tongue, Clarissa watched the colonel stalk out. After having the decency—and courage, for he must have realized the bearer of bad news risked arousing her infamous temper—to bring the despicable rumors to her attention, he deserved better than having her use him to blunt her anger. And she really must stop twitting him about his quest for a rich wife.

  Still, what did he expect after honesty forced her to practically grovel before him, acknowledging shortcomings he’d been only too happy to point out?

  Besides, before he started lecturing again, in the intimacy of a waltz’s embrace she found him entirely too attractive. She had no business growing breathless and faint over the touch of his large strong hands or the brush of his whipcord-lean body. The man thought her a bird-witted twit and despised her whole class.