Slightly Scandalous b-5

by Mary Balogh

  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 without 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.

  "I want to do that," she said, and Freyja spent the next ten minutes or so showing her how to select a suitable pebble and how to throw it sideways with just the right flick of the wrist. Prue never did get it right, but she derived a great deal of merriment from trying and collapsed down onto a large rock with uncontrollable mirth when Joshua c
ould not do it either.

  Freyja, with a sharp, narrow-eyed look at his abjectly meek face, was convinced that he could make his stones bounce ten times if he so chose.

  She could not understand the almost painful love she felt for Prue. She was usually embarrassed by what she had always thought of as handicaps. If she had known about Prue in advance, she would have been horrified and would have shied away from her. Even so, she had kept her wary distance for a few days, content to let Eve and Joshua and Chastity converse with the girl.

  But there was no guile in her and no stupidity or dullness or negativity. She was a sunny-natured child who simply did not possess whatever it was in most of the rest of mortality that enabled them to move away from the innocent exuberance and loving trust of childhood to a darker place they labeled maturity. Although Prue's sometimes ungainly movements and round, childish face were an outward sign that she was not as other young women were, she nevertheless was a rather pretty young lady.

  She was the same age as Morgan.

  Joshua looked down at her with a smile of warm affection until she had stopped rocking with laughter.

  "Do you like going to the village, Prue?" he asked.

  "Ye-es," she said. "I love it."

  "What is your favorite part of it?" he asked her. "Your favorite place?"

  Prue gazed with bright eyes across the river in the direction of Lydmere.

  "The cottage," she said.

  "Mrs. Turner's?"

  "Yes."

  "Why do you like it?" He went down on his haunches before her, selected a few pebbles, and rolled them in one hand.

  "I can do things," Prue said. "I can help. It is a dear place."

  "But small," Joshua said. "You would not like to live there, would you?"

  Prue thought with furrowed brow and then smiled again. "Yes, I would," she said. "I know how to do things."

  "You love Mrs. Turner?" Joshua asked.

  "Yes." Her smile widened. "And Ben. I love Ben."

  "Do you?" He turned and flung one of the stones. He obviously forgot that bouncing them was a skill he could not master-it bounced five times. Prue laughed excitedly and pointed. "Why do you love him, Prue? Is he kind to you?"

  "Ye-es," Prue said. "He likes me making his tea, and he ate my cake, not Mrs. Turner's. Ben loves me."

  "I love you, Prue," Joshua said. "Freyja loves you."

  "Yes." She looked up at Freyja and beamed. "Josh made you better, Freyja. I saw you in the boat. You went to the island."

  Oh, dear. Freyja smiled back and avoided Joshua's eyes.

  Prue looked back to Joshua. "Ben kissed me," she said.

  His face visibly blanched. "Kissed you?"

  Prue laughed with delight. "On my birthday," she said. "I was eighteen. Mrs. Turner gave me my apron and she kissed me. And Ben poured my tea-we all laughed-and he kissed me. Here," she added, poking one forefinger at her cheek close to her mouth. "I said, 'I love you, Ben,' and he said, 'I love you, Prue.' " She laughed with delight.

  "Prue," Freyja asked, taking the girl by the hand and drawing her to her feet so that they could stroll onward, "do you love Ben in a special way? As Eve loves Aidan?"

  "As you love Josh?" Prue laughed. "Ye-es."

  Joshua fell into step beside them on Prue's other side.

  "Ben has nice hands," Prue said. "They are big. He works with them. He wouldn't hurt me with them, though."

  "Of course he would not," Joshua said, drawing her arm through his and patting her hand. "No one will ever hurt you, Prue. Do you know what marriage is? Do you know what married people do together?"

  "Ye-es," Prue said. "They look after each other. And they kiss each other. And have babies."

  Joshua darted a startled look across her at Freyja.

  "Miss Palmer told me," Prue said, "and Chastity. Chastity took me to see Miss Jewell and she told me. Miss Jewell has David. I love David."

  "Her son?" Joshua said. "He is a handsome little boy."

  "Miss Jewell said there are bad kisses and I must not let anyone give them to me ever again," Prue said. "Ben would not give me bad kisses. Ben loves me. I love Ben."

  The women in her life-all except her mother who was most qualified to do it-had been educating Prue in the dangers of her own sexuality, Freyja thought. They clearly had realized that in some ways at least the girl was no longer a child.

  "If you lived at the cottage all the time," Joshua said, "you would not have all of Penhallow for your home, Prue. You would sleep there and live there, and the work you do there now would have to be done every day. Lady Prudence Moore should live in a big house, should she not, with servants to look after her and grand clothes to wear all the time?"

  "I would like to live in the cottage, Josh," she said. "I would like to live with Mrs. Turner. I would like to live with Ben best of all. I love Ben. He kissed me and it was not a bad kiss. He would not give me bad kisses. He would not hurt me with his hands."

  He raised her hand to his lips and held it there for a few moments.

  "No, he would not, my sweetest love," he said. "I knew Ben when he was a lad. He would not hurt you or any other woman. And if he ever kisses you again, it will be with good kisses. If he touches you, it will be with gentle hands."

  Freyja was startled to notice that his eyes were bright with tears.

  "Shall I talk with Ben and Mrs. Turner, then?" he asked Prue. "Would you really choose to live with them if you could?"

  She stopped walking, snatched her arm away from Joshua, clasped her hands to her bosom, and regarded first him and then Freyja with wide, excited eyes.

  "Miss Palmer said Mama would say no," she said, "and you would say no. Mrs. Turner said Mama would say no and you would say no. I asked and she said that. Ben cried and went out."

  "But you are a woman, Prue," Joshua said gently. "Sometimes when you are a woman you get to decide things for yourself. But Mrs. Turner and Ben have to decide too. I will talk to them."

  Prue smiled sunnily and then laughed and spun around in a circle before offering one of her hands to Joshua and the other to Freyja. They went walking off down the river path-actually it was more skip than walk-swinging their arms like three exuberant children.

  Freyja felt raw with love for Joshua. If she had even suspected him capable of such gentleness and concern for one of life's lesser mortals-according to the general consensus-she would have fled Sydney Gardens that morning in Bath and left that serving girl to her fate. She would have ignored him in the Pump Room. She would-

  No, she would not.

  She would perhaps have set about wooing him with every ounce of skill and determination she could muster for the task. She would not have engaged in mere light flirtation with him instead and given him the eternal impression that she wanted no more from him. It was too late now. If she were to try to woo him now, he would feel trapped, obliged to offer for her, obliged to pretend to be happy with her.

  And so she could do nothing but skip down the river path with him and Prue, aching with love for him.

  CHAPTER XXI

  The servants at Penhallow, both indoors and out, had worked extremely hard to prepare for the grand ball. They had grumbled-but only in Joshua's hearing so that he would grin at them and wheedle them and laugh when they occasionally addressed him as "lad." Behind his back they did not waste their time on complaints but threw themselves with great enthusiasm into the preparations for such a novel event.

  The state apartments had not been used within the memory of even the oldest servant. They were there for show. The occasional traveler who was bold enough to knock on the door was taken there by the housekeeper and allowed to gaze upon all the treasures while she recited their history. Although they had always been kept clean, there had never seemed to be the necessity of banishing every last speck of dust and making every surface gleam.

  It was a huge task to make all ready in time-and all for the likes of themselves, the cook remarked when she came to peep in on the ballroom when the g
reat chandeliers were down and the hundreds of candles were being replaced. It seemed strangest of all to the servants that they were all invited, as well as all their family members and friends from the village and the surrounding farms. Even those who would need to be on duty in one capacity or another were not too long-faced. The butler, at Joshua's request, had organized the servants into shifts, so that those who worked the start of the evening would be able to feast and dance at the end, and vice versa for those who must work last.

  The head gardener had scoured the park for late-blooming flowers and had agreed to sacrifice almost all the contents of his carefully nurtured hothouses for the occasion. The flower arrangements were undertaken by the ladies of the house. Chastity supervised, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright with the pleasure of such a grand occasion. Prue was allowed to help. Constance and Eve were both competent, but Morgan was the one with the best eye for design. She made a number of suggestions to Chastity, all of which they discussed with much arm gesturing and great good nature. Freyja was content to watch, flower arranging never having been her forte. The marchioness was absent, having declared that flowers made her sneeze and gave her a headache.

  The orchestra arrived late in the afternoon and were borne off to their rooms in the back wing of the house after setting up their instruments and tuning them.

  Dinner was set for two hours earlier than usual since the guests would be arriving by seven and the ladies preferred to change into their evening finery after eating. This was no London ball, starting late and continuing until dawn. The majority of the guests were ordinary working folk, who would not have the luxury of being able to lie abed until the middle of the next afternoon. And many of them had some distance to travel, either by foot or by gig, though the head groom, at Joshua's direction, had made arrangements to send out every carriage and other vehicle to fetch the more elderly and the more distant folk.