by Norma Darcy
She lifted her chin. “I have no idea what you are talking about. Was William able to set your mind at rest concerning Thorncote?”
“Not in the least. I think Thorncote may be damned as far as he’s concerned. I think that the only person who cares for it is you. And possibly your aunt.”
“And may I ask what you have decided?”
“I may make Hal a gift of it.” His lordship smiled, but no warmth reached his eyes as he observed the effect of that name upon his dance partner. “Yes, my brother. I believe you are acquainted with him?”
She colored. “A little.”
“A little?” he repeated. “I should say more than a little, from all I have heard, Miss Blakelow . . . or should I say, Miss Ashton?”
She stopped. A lady behind her nearly walked into the back of her, and Miss Blakelow apologized profusely. He knew. She looked up at him, steeling herself against the blaze of anger in his eyes. He knew. “Are you attempting to punish me, my lord, for refusing you the other day?” she asked, and was obliged to resume dancing for appearance’s sake or else have the whole room staring at them.
“You flatter yourself, ma’am.”
“Then why do you bring up a subject that you must know is painful for me?”
“Is it painful for you? Still?” he demanded, watching her intently.
There was a silence.
“The memory of my own folly is painful,” she answered at last, her voice barely audible above the sound of the music and laughter and conversation in the room.
“You do know that he’s here, don’t you?” said his lordship.
Her eyes darted to his face. “If you think to discomfort me, my lord, by mentioning his name, you are sadly mistaken.”
“Indeed? You would like me to think so, at any rate. His wife died, you know,” he said conversationally. “Give me your other hand and turn toward me. You really are out of practice, aren’t you?”
“I am sorry that his wife died.”
“I’ll wager you are,” drawled the earl in such a tone as to imply the opposite.
She glared up at him. “I am sorry that Mary died. And you are a great deal too cruel to accuse me of wishing for her death and too unfair to think that Mr. Holkham’s marital status should anymore be of interest to me.”
He raised a brow in a supercilious look that made her long to stamp on his foot. “I am amazed that you did not recognize him before, Miss Blakelow,” remarked the earl. “After all, it was he who ran you down on your horse that night on the road to Loughton. A man and a woman who had been as inseparable as you and he appear to have been, and yet he carried you to his horse and held you all the way back here, and neither of you recognized one another. It is vastly amusing, I’m sure you’ll agree,” said his lordship, sounding as if nothing amused him less.
“It was dark and I swooned. There is nothing very remarkable about it.”
“And he has visited Thorncote on several occasions to visit Marianne, although she has apparently kept that fact from you.”
“It is a friendship, nothing more.”
“Friendship? Is that what you call it? And we all know what sort of friendships my brother makes, do we not?”
“So speaks the rake,” she replied with heavy sarcasm.
He smiled. “Ironic, is it not? A man of my reputation is discovered to be an arbiter of moral excellence after all. Whatever you may think of me, Miss Blakelow, I have never seduced an innocent, unlike my saintly brother. The reason he married Mary was because she was carrying his child.”
Miss Blakelow began to feel faint. The room was hot and airless; the champagne she had drunk swam in her head.
“Does the sight of him still upset you, my love?” mocked his lordship. “Well, now his wife is dead, so you are free to pick up where you left off. How convenient. Does Mr. Peabody know that his fiancée has designs on another man?” His hand tightened uncomfortably on hers as she started to pull away to run from the dance floor. “Don’t,” he said in a warning voice.
Miss Blakelow began to feel sick. “Why are you doing this?” she whispered.
“Is that why you refused me?” hissed the Earl under his breath. “Are you still in love with my brother?”
“No.”
“He makes a very handsome widower, does he not? All the ladies of the neighborhood have been in a flutter since he arrived.”
“You are cruel,” she cried.
“Oh, no, my love, it is you who are cruel. To play one brother off against another. To punish me for my brother’s mistakes. And I have had it from the horse’s mouth. Yes, Miss Blakelow, Caroline told me everything that happened. You eloped and you were ruined. My brother was already married and failed to make you aware of the fact,” he said, lowering his voice. “How can you have been so foolish? Are you so free with your reputation?”
Her eyes fell away from the angry resentment in his, the disappointment in her and the disgust. He knew everything and had already condemned her. She had feared his reaction with good reason, but nothing she could possibly have imagined would have prepared her for the look in his eyes at that moment. Well, it was not to be wondered at. Any man her stepfather had ever told had also turned away in disgust. She’d have given anything for the blissful ignorance of a couple of weeks ago, when it had seemed that nothing could taint his opinion of her. The respect and admiration that she was so used to seeing in his eyes had utterly vanished, as had the smile that she had learned to love. Only now that she’d lost it did she realize how much his good opinion had meant to her.
“I don’t expect you to understand. I fell in love,” she said hotly, “an emotion that you know nothing about.”
“Don’t I? How well you think you know me,” he observed with a hard smile. “Clever Miss Blakelow, you think you know everything, do you not? You think that you know men so well. You think that you know me so well, and yet you have failed to spot that which is obvious to half the people in this room.”
“Let me go,” she hissed, trying to free her hand from his tight grip.
“When the dance has ended.”
“Dancing with you is agony, my lord,” she muttered.
“And I have been living in agony since our last meeting,” he responded bitterly. “You have made a fool out of me.”
She could not answer him; her throat was choked with tears and emotion.
“And now I find that you were in love with my brother all along. I never stood a chance, did I? Why didn’t you just tell me? Or was it more entertaining to lead me on and watch me tie myself in knots over you?”
She shook her head.
“Did you set out to punish me?” he demanded. “Did you set out to bewitch me so that you might have your revenge? A Holkham broke your heart so you chose to avenge yourself on his brother. That has a certain completeness to it, doesn’t it? After all, I am just a rake and I have no feelings, do I? Men like me are not worth a damn.”
“You are angry, my lord, because I chose not to reveal my past to you. But you need not insult me. It is my secret, and who I choose to tell is my own affair.”
“Are you honestly going to marry Hal or Peabody or anyone else after what happened between us the other day?” he asked hoarsely. “Do you kiss all your admirers the way you kissed me?”
She flushed and lowered her eyes. “What happened between us was a mistake.”
“Indeed it was, Miss Blakelow. The worst mistake I ever made,” he agreed, “because I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it ever since.”
They moved for a moment in a circle, interweaving with the other partners in the dance.
“Go to him then,” said the earl, his voice like ice. “I won’t marry a woman who has given her love to someone else.”
The dance ended five minutes later, five minutes of icy silence that seemed like an eternity. When he finally released her, she barely stayed long enough to receive his bow before she fled.
CHAPTER 25
MISS BLAKELOW FAST
ENED HER wrap around her shoulders in the cool hallway. It was quieter here, and she was alone but for the servants.
“I won’t marry a woman who has given her love to someone else.”
Those had been his words.
He knew. He knew everything. She looked longingly at the ballroom, hoping for one last glimpse of him before she left. She knew that she had to go. She knew that she would never see him again.
“Where are you going?”
Miss Blakelow jumped at the sound of the voice and turned, her heart beating loudly. She had thought that she was entirely alone. She had thought she had made her escape from the ballroom unseen, but Hal Holkham stood before her, smiling.
She adjusted her wrap. “I am going home. I have a headache.”
“Stay. The night is young, and I have yet had the pleasure of dancing with you.”
She shook her head. “No. I am tired and I shouldn’t have come.”
“Why did you?” he asked curiously. “And without your disguise?”
She shrugged. “Someone made me angry.”
“Sarah,” he guessed.
She colored and looked away.
“I thought so,” he said. “You two never could stand each other.”
She pulled the hood of her cape over her hair. “Good night, Hal.”
His hand caught her arm, halting her flight. “Come into the library with me.”
She choked on a half laugh. “No.”
He spread his hands. “You needn’t look like that. We may be more comfortable in there.”
She eyed him in amusement. “So we might, but I am no longer a green girl, Mr. Holkham.”
He looked amused. “I didn’t mean that.”
“Didn’t you?” she asked, her tone doubtful.
“You look beautiful tonight,” he said.
She playfully rolled her eyes. “Don’t you ever give up?”
A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I could hardly keep my eyes off you.”
“When you weren’t staring at Marianne, that is,” she answered with a knowing look.
He gave a reluctant smile and held up his hand to acknowledge a hit. “Alright, I admit it. But she is hard to ignore.”
“Indeed she is . . . for a man like you.”
“Or Robert,” he added.
Miss Blakelow stiffened. “Lord Marcham is not short of beautiful women for company.”
“He is a man like any other. Why shouldn’t he enjoy a beautiful woman when he finds one?”
“Because there are rules.”
“Rules are made to be broken,” he murmured, coming closer.
“For men, perhaps.”
“You broke rules once before,” he said softly.
“Yes, but I was nineteen and very foolish.”
“You were adorable.”
She laughed scornfully. “Hal, stop.”
He spread his hands, the picture of innocence. “What?”
“The chance of some sport is not to be passed by, is it? You are worse than your brother.”
He leaned his shoulders against the balustrade with folded arms. “Not worse, Sophie. The same. We are not so very different, he and I.”
“Neither of you can think past the gratification of your own pleasure, whether it comes from a bottle or a bedroom—but at least he respects a virtuous female.”
“Perhaps. But unlike me, Robert is a dreamer. He believes in love.”
“And what do you believe in?” she asked.
He smiled. “I believe in making it.”
She was unimpressed by this speech. “A predictable response, Hal. Did you not think of growing up in Brussels?”
He looked amused. “Where would be the fun in that?”
“You might actually pass one calendar year without an outraged father, husband, or fiancée on your heels and a horsewhip in their hands. Try it. You might like it.”
He tilted his head on one side, examining her like a bird. “You have changed, Miss Ashton.”
“I have had to.”
He took a few steps toward her, smiling. “But I wonder if this cool aloofness is a ruse and that the passionate creature I remember so well is still lurking underneath?”
She tried not to gulp as he came to stand before her. She willed herself not to flinch or balk and raised her eyes defiantly to his.
He gave a soft laugh as he saw the fight in her stare. “Yes . . . most definitely you have changed,” he said.
“Go home, Hal. Marianne is not the fool that I was. She will not give up her kisses so easily and you cannot—”
He silenced her with his mouth. For a moment she resisted him, struggling against his embrace, but then something in her gave way and she leaned into him, savoring his closeness, smelling his cologne, feeling his arms around her after all these years apart. So many times had she dreamed that she would one day be back in his arms, that she would once again feel his desire, if not his love.
But this was wrong. Somewhere along the line they had become the wrong arms, the wrong lips, and his kiss aroused nothing more in her than the desire to be kissed properly by the man whom she craved to hold close.
“Hal . . .” she whispered, closing her eyes, searching . . . trying to find something. A feeling. A thrill. Anything. Trying to recapture those feelings that had been hers so long ago . . .
He bent his head and kissed her again, this time very gently, almost reverently. She opened her mouth beneath his, offering herself up to him, waiting for him to come and take her, waiting for the passion, waiting for that old familiar feeling to tremble in her belly. But it didn’t.
She drew her mouth away and simply stared at him.
“Hal,” she whispered.
She put her arms around his neck and looked up at him as their eyes met. And in that long moment, Miss Blakelow felt the years fall away. All the hurt and anger and resentment were unimportant now. It was over.
He had not been deliberately cruel and heartless all those years ago. He had not intended to use her for his own ends or ruin her life. He had been weak, that’s all. He was a weak man trapped in a loveless marriage. He had given in to his youthful passions at the expense of his honor, and she realized now that he had been every bit as naive as she. He had not intended to cheat her or break her heart. They had both been young and foolish and unable to reconcile their feelings for each other to the world in which they lived.
In that moment, she forgave him much. The ten years of hurt slid away, and she saw him as he really was: not a hero from one of the novels she read as a young woman, but a real man who made very real mistakes.
“Hal, it’s over,” she said softly.
He sighed. “I know.”
“You’re kissing me as if I were your sister—or at least it feels as if you are.”
“Sister?” he repeated, horrified. “Well, dash it, Sophie, that’s not exactly flattering.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s too late then,” he said sadly.
“It would never have worked, you know . . . you and I.”
“Wouldn’t it?”
“I realize it now even if I didn’t before.”
“Perhaps you’ve met someone who suits you better?” he suggested.
She lowered her eyes from his. “I don’t think I’m suited to anyone, Hal. I am the poisoned chalice. Everything I touch turns sour. No matter where I go or what I do, my past continues to haunt my future.”
“Then change it.”
She gave a scornful laugh. “Oh, how easy you make it sound. I wish that I could.”
“You can.”
“How?”
“Stop running away. Face it head on.”
She shook her head.
“Robert needs to know what happened,” Hal said gently.
“I can’t,” she whispered, emotion closing her throat.
“You have to tell him.” His hands slid down her arms and took her hands in his. “Tell him, Georgie.”
She loo
ked up at him, surprised to hear that name on his lips. She had always been Sophie to him.
“You are Georgiana now,” he said. “Your life is here now. These people are your friends. This is your home. No more running.”
She reached up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “Good-bye, Hal.”
She stepped away from him, but not before she had seen the man hovering over his shoulder. Lord Marcham stood in the doorway, watching.
Their eyes met for a long moment before he turned back to his guests.
Lord Marcham stood in the entrance to the ballroom, half watching the dancing but with one eye to the hallway, waiting for his brother to come back . . . or Georgiana . . . or both of them together.
A woman passed by and nodded a greeting to him but he did not notice. His attention was caught by the scene taking place in the hallway, which would decide his future happiness. He saw a movement out of the corner of his eye and watched as his brother came back in through the front door. Davenham closed it, and Hal said something to the butler and smiled.
Hal was smiling, damn him. He looked happy. His lordship felt his stomach clench into knots. He was happy for him. Or at least he should be. He was his brother, after all.
Hal had spent years in an unhappy marriage—why shouldn’t he now marry the woman he had fallen in love with all those years ago? All the best to him. He wanted nothing but Hal’s happiness, he told himself. It was all he ever wanted. Now Hal had a second chance at matrimony, a chance for love, and children, and a future. He should take it with both hands.
And Georgie? Well. There had been women before her and there would no doubt be women after her. He was a rake, wasn’t he? It was expected of him. He would take a mistress. A mistress with green eyes and chestnut hair. And in the moments after intimacy, he would be grateful to wake up still a single man, without responsibilities. He would still be free.
He had lived thirty-six years without love, and he had no doubt that he could survive another the same. Sarah was probably right. He was not the right man for matrimony. He was too jaded, too selfish, too used to taking his pleasure where and when he chose. And he found Georgiana intriguing, but she was not beautiful enough to hold his interest for long. There would be other women. There were bound to be. Since when had he stayed with any woman for more than a year?
