“Mere amusements, if I may boldly contradict you, rarely keep ladies of good breeding up past midnight.” Another smile quirked at the corner of his mouth. “At least not in the country.”
“I don’t sleep well.” The words came out with genuine emotion instead of sounding distant and chilly, as she’d meant. “I never have since I came here.” She didn’t sleep well; that was true. He held her pages against his chest, drat the man. She could not simply take them back. “I have nightmares, if you must know.”
His eyebrows rose. “Nightmares?”
“You know. The usual. Ogres in the closet She shrugged. Unpaid bills. Looming expenses—Tommy’s bootmaker was especially fond of sending a representative to Rider Hall. A husband she did not see for months at a time. ”Strange noises in the house. The wind. My father often complained of my overactive imagination.”
“Ah,” he said. He didn’t sound convinced, but then, wasn’t that the beauty of polite excuses? They weren’t meant to be examined, only accepted as plausible.
“My lord, please.” She bit her lower lip. His gaze dropped to her mouth. He wasn’t drunk enough, if he was drunk at all, for her to hope she could divert him. “If you have been reading—”
“I confess I have.”
“—then it’s perfectly obvious what that is.” She sighed as she stared out the window behind the earl. Moonlight silvered the lawn and the hedges beyond. “I work best when it’s quiet.” She sighed. There was no hope for it. He knew. “At night, with you and Tommy about, I cannot work in my room. So I am in here.” She pinned him with her most earnest gaze. With luck, he would suffer an attack of regrets and leave Rider Hall. “Here,” she said in meaningful tones, “I may have my privacy and my thoughts to myself.”
“Scribbling away,” he said. He did not sound in the least drunk. “In the dark of night.”
“Yes.”
“As scribbles go,” he said, “yours are better than most.” The corner of his mouth, with its full lower lip, curved as he looked at the pages against his chest. She despised him for his beauty. “This is very good.” Another smile slid across his face. “Have you thought of publishing?”
There was no point in pretending she didn’t know what he meant or that she’d never thought of such a thing and was flattered by the suggestion. She hadn’t the patience anyway. She lifted her chin and met his peculiar tarnish eyes. She touched a finger to the desktop. Men were invariably taller than she was. Sophie was used to looking up. But Banallt was taller than most, and besides, she particularly disliked looking up at him. But she did and found herself struck anew by his dark good looks. If she were an artist, she’d paint him as Lucifer. She held his gaze and ignored the fact that he stared back. However compelling she found him, the fact remained that Lord Banallt was Tommy’s friend, and Banallt’s reputation was far from pleasant, as she had personal reason to know. She saw no point in pretending about that, either. With another sigh, she said, “Do you think the bills are paid from my husband’s generosity and deep pockets?”
Some emotion, she could not tell what it might be, lit his eyes. “No, Mrs. Evans. I expect they are not.”
She spoke over him because it occurred to her that he was mocking her. How dare he belittle her? “Because they are not, my lord. I assure you of that. I write because the bills must be paid somehow, and because even if I had a talent for farming, which I have not, it wouldn’t matter. Tommy owns Rider Hall but not the land. He sold that shortly after we married.”
“I know.”
“Unless Tommy sends me something—from his gaming winnings, no doubt—there is no income here but what I bring in from those scribbles you cavalierly mock.”
His eyebrows rose. “Mock? No, Mrs. Evans. I do not mock you.” His serious reply caught her off guard. “I’m going to ask you an unforgivably rude question.”
“Are you sure you ought?”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-three.”
“Twenty-three?”
“Yes.”
“It was rude of me to read this without asking your permission,” he said.
She eyed the pages in his hand, but not even that got him to put them down. “I should like them back, please.”
“You were just a girl when you married Tommy.” His eyebrows drew together. “You couldn’t possibly have known anything about life.”
She pressed her lips together. There he was again, mocking her. “I was in love, my lord. Head over heels in love. That was more than enough life for me.”
“Mrs. Evans...”
She bowled over his silence. “Have no fear. I have learned quickly since I was married.”
That too-attentive look flashed back into his eyes. He walked over to a settee with her manuscript still in his hands. “Do sit down, Mrs. Evans. It’s late, and as we are both yet awake and neither one of us has yawned, let us speak a while longer. May I?” he asked, meaning, might he sit. When she waved a hand, he sat, legs sprawled so that she could not help but notice the muscled curve of his thighs. “You were in love,” he said. “But no longer?”
“He is my husband, my lord.”
He let his head fall back on the settee, staring at God knows what on the ceiling. When he looked back at her, his expression was unreadable. “A hypothetical, if I may.”
“If I answer, will you give back my novel? I’ve bills to pay.”
“I wonder whether you will answer to my satisfaction.”
She sat sideways on the desk chair and gave him a challenging stare.
“Come closer. You’re too far away.” He grinned. “Just here.” He pointed to an upholstered chair near him.
“Will you give back my book if I do?”
“You’re a persistent woman.” He leaned back and made a sit there motion with one hand. “No. Not yet.”
She stayed where she was and crossed her ankles. She tucked her feet as far under her chair as they reached. “What is your hypothetical?”
“If you were married to me, Mrs. Evans, knowing what I am, would you be faithful?”
She made a face. “But I’m not married to you.”
“Hence I pose it to you as a hypothetical, Mrs. Evans. I’m curious to know the answer.” Another of his fleeting smiles flashed over his face. That smile intrigued her. He seemed another man entirely then. “Indulge me with your piquant honesty.”
“Of course I would be faithful.”
“Why of course?” He shrugged. “I would not be faithful to you.”
“Marriage is a vow before God and before oneself, my lord. He cocked his head, obviously waiting to hear more. ”I would not marry a man I did not love. And therefore, if I were married to you, it would be because I was in love. And to a woman in love, faithfulness is the air she breathes, not a meal she chooses. One day this, another that. Changing menus all the time because one grows bored.”
“Do you still love your husband?” he softly asked.
She interlaced her fingers and forced her hands to relax on her lap. “I made a vow,” she said. “And that is more than enough.”
“I love my wife. But I am not faithful to her.”
She lifted her gaze. He sounded oddly plaintive. Rakes did not pine for fidelity, did they? “That is nothing to do with me.”
“I think it is not in my nature to be faithful. I love her. No one takes her place in my heart, but—” He frowned, and Sophie was astonished to see that he was thinking quite hard. “Why is that not enough for you?”
“How is it that you, the rogue extraordinaire, understand so little of women?”
He leaned forward. “I have a daughter, did you know that?”
“No.”
“She’s nearly three. There is no one in this world I love more. I would give my life for her.” He settled back, his hands still on her pages. “When I became a father, I never expected that. Never. But I would. It’s frightening to find oneself so vulnerable.”
“I can see that,” she said. Manifestl
y, that was true.
“There are days when I wonder who she will grow up to marry. Will she marry for love or make a political union to please her father? For which ought I to hope? Will she love her husband and be miserable or will she be happy enough in a marriage that had not, after all, engaged her heart?”
“What an odd choice you present. Love and misery or no love and happiness. Why can’t a woman be in love and happy?”
He draped an arm along the top of the settee, but his eyes were intense on her face. “Are you?”
“If your daughter has even half your intelligence, and if you do not raise her to be ignorant ... Do not tell me you are one of those men who think women ought to be ignorant.”
“Perish the thought, madam.”
“Then she will be happy in love.” Sophie couldn’t help but smile. How unexpected this was, to learn that Lord Banallt was a devoted parent. “Be a wonderful father to her, and she’ll meet someone wonderful, my lord.”
“I won’t allow anything less.” His eyes danced and for once did not strike her as eerie. “And yet I think, my God, if her husband does not make her happy, I’ll kill him.” He threw a hand into the air, describing a quick and deadly arc. “Or thrash him within an inch of his life. No man will make my little girl cry over her broken heart.”
Sophie thought much better of Lord Banallt.
“Women, in my experience,” he said, “are rarely happy to think their husbands stray.” He turned over her pages and scanned them. “Men, Mrs. Evans, are deceitful creatures who demand fidelity of their wives while they discreetly set up a mistress or take one lover after another.”
“Not all husbands do, you know,” she said. “Some are faithful.”
“But not I.”
Neither of them, she thought, saw fit to include Tommy in that company of faithful husbands. She knew the truth, but did not know it, and she preferred it that way. “Perhaps you ought to set your daughter a better example, my lord.”
“No doubt you’re right.” He stretched out a leg. They fell silent while he considered her. “You’re a fine writer, Mrs. Evans.”
The compliment caught her off guard. This time she really was flattered. “Thank you.”
“Who will Beatrice end up with, I wonder? I burn with curiosity to know. Will it be the fiancé or the young nobleman who refuses to show her his face?”
“Perhaps Ralf, her cousin and guardian.”
Banallt waved a hand. “Never. He’s the villain. No heroine ever marries the villain at the end.”
“Perhaps I’m writing a tragedy.”
His eyes pinned her. “What name do you publish under? Not your own. I should have recognized it otherwise.”
She hesitated before she answered, and he gave her a sideways look with a mischievous smile. “Very well.” She frowned. “I write as Mrs. Merchant.”
Lord Banallt sat up. He was still holding her pages, drat the man. “Not The Murder of Gilling Fell?”
“You’ve read it?” Her heart leaped.
He brought in his legs and leaned toward her. “Can this be so? The authoress of The Desert Corsair and The Orphan of Hopewell Moor sits before me?”
“I’m astonished,” she said. Despite herself, she was immensely flattered. “You’ve read my books?”
“You, madam,” he said, laughing, “have been responsible for keeping me up nearly twenty hours straight. I’ve read all your books, but for The Peruvian Escape. I’ve not found that as yet.”
“That was my first.”
“Yes, Mrs. Evans, you are quite my favorite authoress.”
“My lord.” She squeezed her fingers because she’d only now, far too late, realized what a dreadful mistake she’d made, putting her secret in the hands of a man like Banallt. Her throat closed off, and she had to take a deep breath before more words would come. She stared at her hands. What had she done, admitting anything to him, confessing even the name under which she published? He would think he knew her, and he didn’t. He didn’t know her at all.
“I’m not a fool, Mrs. Evans.” He tsk-tsked at her. “What horror are you imagining?”
“Please.” She looked up. He was still leaning forward, one hand on his knee, the other holding her manuscript pages. “Do not tell my husband.”
His face went dark, and Sophie’s heart raced. She’d heard the rumors about him. The absent master of Castle Darmead was no gentleman. Even here, so far from London, one heard tales. She couldn’t bear to look at him, so she stared again at her lap. She wouldn’t. No matter what he said or did or threatened. She wouldn’t. She lifted her eyes from her lap and found him watching her. The sensation was not pleasant.
His eyes grew darker. “You would find yourself quite humiliated, not to mention badgered for money, if Tommy knew of your talent. You would indeed have a difficult time of it. If he knew.”
“Then you do understand.”
“Given his debts, I don’t imagine he’d be able to keep the house if you weren’t paying the taxes. I assume that’s what you’ve done with the money.”
“It’s not as though the writing is very profitable. But an extra ten or fifteen pounds a quarter—”
“No wonder you write so quickly.”
“Not the muse,” she said softly, “so much as necessity.” She was talking to a man who had, in all likelihood, spent that much and more in town, drinking with her husband, just tonight. A man like him would have no idea what ten pounds meant when you had to sit with the bills to decide which ones to pay this time. “Are you going to tell him?”
He shot to his feet. Her pages rattled in the air. “Do you think me so base as that?”
She stood up, too. “You’ve blackmailed women before.”
“Have I?”
“Everyone says so.”
“Well then. It’s so.” He dropped her manuscript on the settee and walked to her. Sophie would have retreated if her knees hadn’t hit the chair behind her. He put his hands on either of her cheeks, holding her face. His skin burned hers; his eyes held her gaze and stared into her soul. “What would you be willing to do in return for my silence?”
She didn’t answer.
“Well,” he said, drawing out the word in an unbearably sensuous whisper. “And so. What an interesting moment this is.”
What would it be like to be in the arms of a man who wanted her? Who actually seemed to admire her? She was attracted to him. What woman wouldn’t be? But that didn’t mean she would act on the sensations racing through her. She pulled back.
He let go of her. “Your secret is safe with me, Mrs. Evans.”
She stepped back and hit the chair. He caught her upper arm, steadying her. He leaned closer. “Lovely, sad little Sophie Mercer Evans,” he said in the voice of Satan himself. “When I take you to bed, I assure you, it won’t be because I’ve coerced you. It will be because you want to be there.”
Eleven
Number 5 Albion Grove, Hampstead Heath,
MARCH 16, 1815
“COME NOW, MRS. EVANS,” SAID His GRACE, THE DUKE of Vedaelin. He had to raise his voice to make himself heard over the din of conversation. They were at Mr. Tallboys’s garden fete in Hampstead Heath. John was somewhere here, but Sophie couldn’t see him from where she’d stopped to greet the duke. A happy coincidence, meeting the duke here. Other than Mr. Tallboys and Vedaelin, she’d not seen anyone she knew even slightly. The duke leaned closer to her. “Not a word of that was true.”
She glanced in the direction of the retreating Mrs. Adcock. According to her, the Earl of Banallt, a man wicked to the very core, was having an affair with Mrs. Peters. He would, claimed Mrs. Adcock, treat the woman badly and when he’d had his fill, leave her in some publically humiliating fashion, heartbroken and mired in scandal. Her information, she informed them, came from the very best source: her own lady’s maid, who had heard it directly from one of Mrs. Peters’s upstairs maids. If Banallt dared show his face here and dared to greet her, why, Mrs. Adcock was going to giv
e him the cut direct. See if she didn’t!
“London is no different than Duke’s Head when it comes to gossip,” Sophie told Vedaelin. She was proud of her cool reaction when she learned that Banallt had been invited and might well show up. Privately, she thought him quite up to such misbehavior, but also that he would have been more discreet up to now. Unless he really did intend to break with Mrs. Peters soon. The endings of his affairs were often the stuff of scandal.
Sophie watched Mrs. Adcock greet another couple. Her hands, glittering with half a dozen rings, flew into the air, swooping to punctuate whatever she was saying to her listeners. Repeating her gossip about Banallt’s affair? Whatever the truth, Sophie did not much like the rumor. She wished she’d heard none of it. The gossip was vile. She didn’t doubt Banallt was having an affair. If not with Mrs. Peters—and of course he was, the woman was exactly his type—then with some other woman who believed he was madly in love with her. Knowing him, he was probably having several affairs. She returned her attention to the duke.
Vedaelin’s nut-brown hair was cut short, well above his collar. His clothing was sober and distinguished: dun breeches, chocolate waistcoat and coat. He was far from a dandy or a rake. And he would never be accused of having an affair or behaving in a manner that ill befit his rank. Sophie liked him a great deal. “Three-quarters of what one hears about Banallt is a lie, Mrs. Evans.”
Sophie lifted one eyebrow but said nothing. She doubted Vedaelin knew Banallt as well as she did. “Yes,” she replied, smiling a little. “But what of the one-quarter that isn’t?”
He sighed and, with a hand to the back of her arm, steered her toward a quieter corner. There weren’t many. Every inch of the rear gardens was occupied. His eyes were serious. “Mrs. Evans.”
“Yes?”
“Your brother has told me you were previously acquainted with Lord Banallt.” He lifted his hands when Sophie’s eyes widened. “I know nothing more than that, I assure you.”
“My brother should not have discussed me with you at all,” she said. How disconcerting to think she’d been a subject of conversation between John and Vedaelin. She took a step back, but he followed, and the distance between them remained as it was. “It’s mortifying, Your Grace, to know one’s brother has spoken out of turn.”
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