by Mary Balogh
“On the contrary, my lord,” she said, drawing her hand free of his. “It is you who will be leaving—the morning after you bed me and turn over the deed of Pinewood and sign the necessary papers.”
She turned then and left the room. Ferdinand stood where he was, looking at the door through which she had disappeared. What in thunder had he just agreed to? Another week spent under the same roof as Viola Thornhill? No—Lilian Talbot.
He had just made a wager with Lilian Talbot. A wager that she could seduce him within a week, Pinewood as the prize if she succeeded.
His temper had got the better of him, as it often did. And his inability to resist a wager.
He would win, of course, as he always did.
But he did not want to share a house with Lilian Talbot. Especially when she looked almost identical to Viola Thornhill—to whom he had come within a whisker of offering marriage just yesterday. What a fortunate escape he had had, he thought suddenly.
But he did not feel fortunate. He felt somehow bereft.
Viola made her way upstairs, thankful that the butler was not in the hall as she passed through it. Her hands were shaking, she noticed when she held them before her, her fingers spread. She really had thought Lilian Talbot was dead, consigned forever to the dust. But how very easily she had been resurrected. How quickly she had bundled all that was herself deep inside so that he would not see her raw pain in confronting her past.
He had called her a whore—after objecting to her calling herself that.
She had begun—oh, yes, there was no point in denying it—to fall a little in love with him.
He had called her a whore.
Hannah was still in her dressing room, packing the large trunk Viola had brought with her from London two years before.
“What happened?” she asked sharply. “What did he want?”
“Only what we expected,” Viola told her. “He gave me until nightfall to leave.”
“We will be ready long before then,” Hannah said grimly. “He knows, I suppose. That duke told him?”
“Yes.” Viola sat down on the dressing table stool, her back to the mirror. “But we are not leaving after all, Hannah. Not now or ever.”
“Is there any point, Miss Vi?” her maid asked. “You read me that paper last night. There is no court in the land that will believe you.”
“We are not leaving,” Viola said. “I am going to win Pinewood from him. I have a week to do it.”
“How?” Hannah straightened up from the half-packed trunk, her expression suddenly suspicious. “How, lovey? You are not going back to work?”
“I have talked him into a wager,” Viola said. “One I intend to win. Never mind about the details, Hannah. Put my clothes back in the wardrobe. They will get creased in the trunk. And have the trunk put away in the attic again. We are staying.”
“Miss Vi—”
“No, Hannah.” Viola looked at her with set jaw and hard eyes. “No! This is where I belong. This is where he wanted me to be. I will not give in just because there has been some fraud. Lord Ferdinand Dudley has made a wager with me, and he will abide by its terms. That at least I can be sure of. He is a gentleman, you see—almost to a fault. It is a wager I will not lose.”
Hannah came and stood in front of her, her head tipped to one side. “I don't think I want to know exactly what you are up to,” she said, “but I do know you need to lie down for an hour or so. You are as white as any ghost. Turn around and I will brush out your hair for you.”
That had always been Hannah's solution to any problem. Viola could not remember a time when her former nurse had not soothed her by brushing her hair. She turned on the stool and felt Hannah's capable hands unpinning and then unraveling her braids.
Just yesterday, Viola thought, closing her eyes, she had run down the hill into his arms, and he had twirled her about and kissed her with a fierce passion to match her own. Today he had called her a whore and ordered her to get out of Pinewood.
Tomorrow or the next day or the next she was going to entice him into bed and pleasure him there with the cold sensual arts she had learned and practiced to perfection.
She was going to do those things with Lord Ferdinand Dudley. To him.
One more time.
And then she was going to have to live with herself for the rest of her life. At Pinewood. It would be hers—indisputably and forever.
But would there be any dreams left to dream?
12
During the next two days Ferdinand began to think that perhaps the week would pass faster and more painlessly than he had expected after agreeing to that mad wager. Perhaps she had come to regret it herself. Certainly if she intended to win it, she was going a strange way about it. He scarcely saw her.
He had a dinner engagement the first evening. It was only when he returned that he learned she had been out too, and still was. He went to bed, taking a book up with him. He heard her walk past his room an hour or so later. Her footsteps did not slow outside his door.
He saw her briefly at breakfast the following morning. She was finishing her meal as he entered the dining room after an early ride. She was looking her usual neat, wholesome self. She would be gone most of the day, she informed him. It was her regular day for visiting the sick and elderly. It struck him that it was not the way one would expect Lilian Talbot to spend her time, but he was happy enough that she would not be going to the school to help out. He had already promised that he would go there himself to give another lesson to Jamie, the would-be Latin scholar.
He intended to call on the boy's father afterward to see what could be arranged for the boy's future education. Jamie needed to be at a good boarding school. Ferdinand was quite willing to finance the whole venture himself, but he had a parent's pride to deal with. He would have to talk of scholarships, Ferdinand thought, rather than financial assistance.
“Will you be attending the assembly tomorrow evening?” Viola Thornhill asked before she left.
There was to be a dance at the assembly rooms above the inn. He had heard about it wherever he went. He certainly planned to attend. It was important to him to be an active participant in village life.
“Yes, indeed,” he said. “You may ride in my carriage with me.”
“Thank you.” She smiled. “But I will be dining at Crossings and will go to the assembly with the Claypoles.”
The Claypoles, he thought, would have a heart seizure apiece if they knew the truth about her.
He did not see her again for the rest of the day. He dined at home, but she did not. He went to choir practice at the church, but she did not. He learned when he returned home that she had been delayed at the cottage of one of the laborers, helping to care for five young children while their mother delivered a sixth.
She was going to be missed when she left Pinewood, Ferdinand knew. His neighbors treated him politely. A few had even warmed to him. But he sensed that most of them still resented the fact that he had come to turn their Miss Thornhill away.
This time he did not hear her come home. He fell asleep with his book open and his candle still alight. She had returned at four o'clock in the morning, he learned at breakfast—from which meal she was absent.
When he came back to the house after a session with Paxton, she had already left for the school.
He did see her during the afternoon, when the ladies' sewing circle gathered in the drawing room again. She was sitting demurely sewing when he went in there, shamelessly to charm the ladies and to read them another few chapters of Pride and Prejudice. Viola Thornhill stitched on through it all, just as if he were not there, her neck arched delicately over her embroidery frame. The sunlight pouring through the windows picked gold and auburn highlights out of the predominantly dark red braids of her hair. She was wearing one of her simple, pretty muslins.
If Tresham had not said it, he thought, he would be doubting the evidence of his own eyes now. How could she be the same woman as that voluptuous courtesan in Gnass's
box, with her haughty, contemptuous half smile? Or the same woman who had forced a wager on him two days ago?
He dined alone before proceeding to the assembly. She had gone off with the Claypole ladies. Five more days after this one was over, he thought. Then he would be free. She would be gone, and he would never see her again.
Five more days.
But the thought did not cheer him nearly as much as it ought.
During her working years, men—titled, wealthy, powerful, influential men—had pursued Lilian Talbot relentlessly. Viola Thornhill had no idea how to entice a man who was determined not to have her. It was not that Lord Ferdinand did not want her. She knew he did. He had kissed her on four separate occasions. On the night he had broken the urn, he had come very close to going beyond mere kisses. No, it was not lack of desire that would make him difficult to seduce. It was his love of a wager, his determination to win it at all costs.
She could use none of her more obvious seductive arts on him. They just would not work. He would resist them. The best way to proceed, she had decided that very first day, was to convince him that she was not proceeding at all. It would be best to confuse him with the illusion that she was Viola Thornhill, that Lilian Talbot was indeed dead and gone. It would be best to tease him with only the occasional glimpse of her when he must expect to be bombarded with her company and full-blown sexual allure.
She would win the wager. She was determined to do so. Her resolve strengthened after she received a letter from Maria, telling her how much Ben was enjoying school, how much he wanted to work hard and become a lawyer when he grew up, how very kind it was of Uncle Wesley to pay his school fees.
There would be no more money to send. Pinewood's income was now Lord Ferdinand Dudley's. The little money Viola had brought with her to Pinewood had gone into the estate and to her family. What the estate had earned in two years had gone back into further improvements—and to her family. Uncle Wesley would continue to care for them, of course. They would not be destitute. But Ben would have to leave school, and there would be very little money for all the extras that added comfort to life.
There would be no more money to send unless she won her wager. She was determined to win it.
She dined at Crossings the evening of the assembly. Mr. Claypole took her aside before they left for the village and proposed marriage to her yet again. For a moment she was tempted, as she never had been before. But only for a moment. Marrying Thomas Claypole would not really solve her problems. She would live in comfort and security as his wife, but she could not expect him to pay for Ben's schooling or to help support her family. Besides, he did not know the truth about her, and she would not so deceive him as to marry him.
She refused his offer.
Soon she was in the carriage with the Claypoles, on the way to the assembly. Lord Ferdinand Dudley would be there, she thought. She would see him for a few hours at a stretch.
She wished—oh, she wished, wished, wished she had not been forced to make that wager with him. But there was no other way.
The village assemblies were always jolly affairs. All the sets here were country dances, performed in circles or lines, some slow and stately, others fast and vigorous, all with precise, intricate patterns, which everyone knew from long practice.
Ferdinand danced every set. So did Viola Thornhill. He talked and laughed with his neighbors between sets. So did she. He ate supper in company with a group of people who had invited him to take a seat at their table. So did she.
They scarcely looked at each other. He was aware of almost no one else. They did not exchange a word. Yet he heard her low, musical voice and her laughter even when the whole room separated them. They did not share a table, yet he knew that she ate only one-half of a buttered scone and drank only one cup of tea. He did not ask her to dance, yet he noticed the light, graceful way in which she performed the steps and pictured her with a maypole ribbon in one hand.
This time next week she would be gone. The next time there was an assembly he would be able to concentrate the whole of his attention on the pretty girls with whom he danced. He hated this constant awareness, this constant alertness for the move she must surely make soon if she hoped to have any chance at all to win her wager before time ran out. He wished fervently that she had assaulted him with all her tricks on that very first day. He had been angry enough then to resist her with ease.
He was talking with the Reverend Prewitt and Miss Faith Merrywether when Viola touched his arm. He looked down and was somewhat surprised to see that her fingers had not burned a hole through the sleeve of his evening coat. He looked into her face, flushed from the exertions of dancing.
“My lord,” she said, “Mr. Claypole has had to take his mother home early. The heat has made her feel faint.”
“Mrs. Claypole does not have a strong constitution,” Miss Merrywether commented disapprovingly. “She is fortunate indeed to have such a doting son.”
But Viola Thornhill had not removed her eyes from Ferdinand's. “They were to escort me home,” she said. “But Mr. Claypole thought it wise not to take such a wide detour on his way to Crossings.”
“I would be delighted to call out my carriage for your convenience, Miss Thornhill,” the vicar assured her. “But I daresay his lordship will squeeze you into his.”
She looked mortified and smiled apologetically. “Will you?”
Ferdinand bowed. “It would be my pleasure, ma'am,” he said.
“Not just yet, though,” she said. “I would not drag you away early from the dancing. There is still one more set. I was to dance it with Mr. Claypole.”
“I would lead you out myself,” the Reverend Prewitt said with a hearty laugh, “if I had any breath and any legs left, but I confess I have neither. His lordship will see to it that you are not a wallflower, Miss Thornhill. Will you not, my lord?”
The color in her cheeks deepened. “Perhaps his lordship has another partner in mind,” she said.
But there was that glow of color in her face, and her eyes were still sparkling from an evening of dancing. Her hair, dressed in curls tonight rather than the usual coronet of braids, was still tidy, but a few wavy tendrils of hair teased her neck and temples. There was a slight sheen of perspiration on her cheeks and on her bosom above the neckline of her evening gown.
I have been waiting for a suitable partner, sir. He could hear again the low, saucy words she had spoken to him when he had sought her out to dance about the maypole with him. I have been waiting for'you.
“I was prepared to be a wallflower myself,” he said, offering her his arm, “believing that your hand had already been engaged.”
She set her hand on his sleeve and he led her onto the floor to join the long lines that were forming for the Roger de Coverly.
The dance consumed all their energy and concentration. There was no chance to talk, even had they wished to. But she glowed and laughed with delight when it was their turn to twirl between the lines and lead the procession around the outside to form an arch with their arms for everyone else to dance beneath. He could not take his eyes off her.
He was still more than halfway in love with her, he realized. How could he not be? What he should do on the way home was tell her to forget that outrageous wager. He should just marry her so that they could both remain at Pinewood. Forever after. Happily ever after.
But she had been Lilian Talbot. And the courtesan in her still survived—he had seen it for himself just two days ago.
He could not simply forget and pretend that she was Viola Thornhill as he had known her for the first week. She had deceived him.
A great heavy sadness seemed to lodge itself suddenly in the soles of his dancing shoes.
Fortunately, the music drew to an end within the next few minutes. Less fortunately, it was the final set. He was handing her into his carriage only minutes later. What did all the neighbors think of the situation at Pinewood? he wondered. He would not have to worry about it for much longer, though, wou
ld he?
Five more days.
Viola was beginning to hate herself. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that she was beginning to hate herself again. There had been two years of healing, but really, she had discovered in the past few days, the gaping wound of her self-loathing had only filmed over, not knitted into wholeness at all.
It was so easy to play a part, to send herself into deep hiding and become someone else. The trouble was that this time the part she played and her real self were so similar to each other that sometimes she got them confused. She was wearing down his defenses by playing the part of Viola Thornhill. But she was Viola Thornhill.
Mr. Claypole really had decided to take his mother home early, but he had wanted to escort Viola home on their way. She had refused by lying. She had told him it was all arranged for her to return to Pinewood in Lord Ferdinand Dudley's carriage.
She had wanted to dance with Lord Ferdinand. She had wanted to remind him of the evening at the fête. But acting had got all jumbled up with reality. She had enjoyed herself immensely and been hopelessly miserable at the same time.
She sat silently beside him until the carriage wheels had rumbled over the bridge.
“Do you ever feel lonely?” she asked him softly.
“Lonely?” The question seemed to surprise him. “No, I don't think so. Alone, sometimes, but that is not the same thing as loneliness. Aloneness can actually be pleasant.”
“How?” she asked.
“One can read,” he said.
It had surprised her to realize that he did enjoy reading. It seemed out of character somehow. But then, so did the fact that he had graduated from Oxford with a double first in Latin and Greek.
“What if there are no books?” she asked.
“Then one thinks,” he said. “Actually, I have not done a great deal of that for many years. I have not been much alone either. I used to be when I lived at Acton. So was Tresham. It used to be like an unspoken conspiracy sometimes—he would go off to his favorite hill and I would go to mine. It was furtive. Dudley males admitted only to being hellions, not to being thinkers, brooding on the mysteries of life and the universe.”
