by Mary Balogh
“One might say so,” he said. “I assume you refer to Lady Morgan Bedwyn, Blake? I had the honor of escorting her home from Brussels since she needed to return in a hurry with the news of her brother’s death.”
“Ah, yes,” his friend said. “Lord Alleyne Bedwyn. Tragic that, poor devil. There is to be a grand memorial service at St. George’s on Hanover Square in a few days’ time. It is a good thing Lady Morgan has the excuse of mourning to keep her at home until it is over. Did you really dance with her alone in the middle of a forest one night, Rosthorn? And whisk her away with you when the Caddicks would have brought her home to England? And kiss her in the middle of a street in Brussels? And stand on the ship’s deck alone with her, your arm about her shoulders? And then abandon her as soon as you set foot on English soil? The girl will be fortunate if Bewcastle does not lock her up for the next decade or two on a diet of bread and water.”
He appeared to find the idea amusing as he laughed down into his glass and swirled the contents before tossing them back in one swallow.
It was every bit as sensational as Gervase had guessed it might be—perhaps more so. Dancing alone with her in the middle of a forest indeed! Kissing her in the middle of a street! Whisking her away . . .
He wondered how much she was suffering from the scandal. His guess was that she would snap her fingers in its face and lift that chin of hers and those arrogant eyebrows and invite it to do its worst. But of course she had Bewcastle to deal with now, and that gentleman would not be amused.
He changed the subject, and the visit continued for another half an hour before he rode down the driveway to the gates of the park with his guest. He rode back, alone with his own thoughts.
It was time, he realized.
He left his horse with a groom at the stables and hurried back to the house. He took the stairs two at a time and found his mother alone in her private sitting room, as he had hoped. She set aside her embroidery and smiled warmly at him.
“Maman,” he said. “I believe you should resurrect your plan to spend a week or so shopping and socializing in London. It will take a day or so for Pickford House to be made ready, but I can send word immediately. How soon can you and Henrietta be ready to leave? Two days after tomorrow?”
She jumped to her feet, her hands clasped to her bosom, her eyes shining.
“And you will be coming too, mon fils?” she asked him. “I was never more happy in my life. I will be seen going about London on the arm of the most handsome gentleman there.”
GERVASE CALLED AT BEDWYN HOUSE THE DAY AFTER the memorial service for Lord Alleyne Bedwyn. He rapped the brass knocker against the door, handed his card to the butler, asking specifically for the Duke of Bewcastle, and waited in the hall.
The house was quiet. During the five minutes he waited—or was kept waiting—there was no sign of anyone except one liveried footman who stood silently on guard. And then the butler returned, nodded regally, and invited Lord Rosthorn to follow him. He led the way to a downstairs book room, impressively male, its four walls lined with filled bookshelves from floor to ceiling, its large oak, leather-topped desk dominating the far end, plush leather chairs and sofa arranged about the high marble fireplace.
Bewcastle was seated behind the desk. He did not rise as Gervase advanced across the room, but he did watch him every step of the way with his hooded silver eyes. The room had been arranged deliberately thus, Gervase thought—so that servants or family members called to account for some misdeed or petitioners and lowly supplicants or unwelcome guests would be made to feel all their lack of power as they approached the august presence of the man who had an abundance of it.
Gervase fell, he supposed, into the category of unwelcome guest. There was a strong temptation to lower his eyes to the Persian carpet beneath his feet as he approached, but he fixed his eyes upon his erstwhile friend instead and kept them there. He would be damned before he would feel cowed even before he had uttered a word.
“Bewcastle?” He nodded genially and spoke briskly when he was close.
“Rosthorn.” The duke’s hand closed about the handle of the quizzing glass hanging from a black silk ribbon about his neck. “You are doubtless about to explain the purpose of this visit.”
He did not invite his visitor to be seated. It was a very deliberate ruse to make him feel like an unequal as well as an unwelcome guest, of course. Gervase acknowledged his understanding of that fact with slightly pursed lips and a half-smile.
“You have been preoccupied with a family bereavement for the past two weeks,” he said. “Even so, I doubt it has escaped your notice that Lady Morgan Bedwyn has become the focus of a great deal of unsavory gossip.”
“There are few things pertinent to my family that escape my notice,” Bewcastle said. “If you came here to inform me of the current topics of conversation now doing the rounds of London drawing rooms, you may be spared the trouble and I will bid you a good morning.”
Gervase chuckled and set two hands flat on the desk. He had once envied the cool, seemingly effortless manner with which Bewcastle wielded power and assumed the ascendancy over everyone in his path. He had wanted to be like the duke himself, had even tried to imitate him. He had been a rather silly puppy in those days. They had never been particularly close friends. He had always been the junior hanger-on, the very young man who had not yet discovered either his own strengths and weaknesses or his own identity. He was no longer to be intimidated by someone who was, when all was said and done, but a man.
“The gossip concerns your sister and me,” he said. “I spent some time in her company in Brussels, first because we moved in the same social circles, and then because she had been abandoned by both her chaperon and her maid and needed the protection of someone who could ensure her safety.”
“Ensure her safety,” Bewcastle repeated very softly. “You?”
“I escorted her home to England because she needed to come and because there was no one else to bring her,” Gervase said. “Yes, for a few weeks I was in her company far too frequently to avoid the gossiping tongues of those who thrive upon such seeming indiscretions.”
“Am I to thank you for the care you offered Lady Morgan Bedwyn and the gossip to which you exposed her—quite deliberately, if I am not much mistaken?” Bewcastle asked, raising haughty eyebrows. “You may wait a long time for such thanks, Rosthorn. Sir Charles Stuart would, without a doubt, have taken care of Lady Morgan if you had not—and in a far more seemly manner.”
Strangely, Gervase had not thought of that possibility at the time. But it was surely true. Lady Morgan was the sister of one of Sir Charles’s staff, after all. She was also the sister of a duke. He smiled somewhat ruefully.
“The past is, of course, unchangeable,” he said. “All of it. I have come to offer for Lady Morgan Bedwyn, to make a marriage agreement with you, to beg leave to pay my addresses to the lady herself.”
Nine years ago he had wondered if Bewcastle’s austere, handsome frame housed a heart or if the arteries and veins that fed it ran with ice water instead of blood. He wondered the same thing now as he felt himself the object of a cold, expressionless stare. The ducal quizzing glass was raised halfway to the ducal eye.
“Lady Morgan Bedwyn,” he said with quiet distinctness, breaking a rather lengthy silence, “will not be sacrificed upon the altar of gossip, Rosthorn. Neither will she, under any circumstances whatsoever, be sacrificed to you.”
Gervase straightened up, his lips tightening.
“Perhaps,” he said, “the lady will have different thoughts on the subject.”
“The lady,” Bewcastle said, “will not be consulted. Good day to you, Rosthorn.”
Gervase did not move. How it must irk Bewcastle even to have felt obliged to grant this interview. How it must gall him to know his sister the object of unsavory gossip, her name linked with Rosthorn’s. For a few moments Gervase savored his own satisfaction and toyed with the slight temptation to deliver the coup de grâce.
&nb
sp; I have lain with her. Did she think to mention that, Bewcastle? No? Ah, then, perhaps you would wish to reconsider your decision?
But that was one length he was not prepared to go. She did not deserve that. That was something no other human being would ever know through him.
“You do not care about the slurs on her reputation?” he asked. “You do not care that she is being offered a chance to silence the gossip? Or that the offer is an eligible one even for a lady as socially elevated as Lady Morgan Bedwyn? Or that she might wish to consider it?”
“Lady Morgan Bedwyn is under my guardianship,” Bewcastle said, his quizzing glass now to his eye and sweeping over his visitor. “And will be for the next two and a half years. I bid you a good morning yet again, Rosthorn.”
“I was given the distinct impression during my acquaintance with her that she has a mind of her own,” Gervase said. “I would like to hear her opinion on my offer of marriage. She may very well reject it. Indeed, she told me she would when I informed her that I would speak with you on our return to England. But I would like to see her offered the chance to decide for herself.”
“Until Lady Morgan reaches the age of majority,” Bewcastle said, reaching out one hand to the bell rope and pulling on it, “it is my responsibility to decide which of the offers for her hand—and there have already been several—I deem in her best interests to consider. This one I deem not among that number. Fleming.” He had looked beyond Gervase’s shoulder. “The Earl of Rosthorn is leaving. Show him out.”
Gervase nodded and half smiled at the duke before turning and striding from the room, past the butler, who stood to one side of the door. There was still no sign of anyone else in the hall, except the same footman. He wondered if Lady Morgan would be informed that he had called and made an offer for her. He rather expected not.
He pulled his hat down on his head as he stepped outside and eased on his gloves as his newly employed tiger brought up his new curricle from the spot he had found for it against the grassy curb of the park in the center of the square.
Now he must consider his next move.
There did not have to be a next move, of course. Bewcastle had been annoyed and must find some way of dealing with the scandal that was still raging through the drawing rooms of London. He had refused an offer of marriage for his sister. So had she—she had been quite firm about it when Gervase had mentioned it in Brussels.
But it was not finished, Gervase thought as he swung himself up into the high seat of the curricle and gathered the ribbons into his hands.
Not with Bewcastle.
And not with Lady Morgan Bedwyn herself, either.
CHAPTER XIII
JUDITH AND RANNULF WERE PLANNING TO RETURN home to Leicestershire and invited Morgan to go with them. The prospect was attractive to her for several reasons. She would see her grandmother, with whom they lived. She would get to spend more time with baby William, whom she adored. And she would get away from all the entertainments of the Season, most of which she could no longer attend anyway since she was in mourning. Not that she wanted to attend any more. Her first Season had been considerably less dreary than she had expected, it was true, but she was very ready to put it behind her.
One fact, and one fact alone, made her decide, though, to stick it out to the bitter end, to remain in London until Wulfric was ready to return to Lindsey Hall for the summer. That fact was the discovery that Captain Lord Gordon had spoken the truth—there was indeed a great deal of vicious gossip about her and the Earl of Rosthorn. General opinion even seemed to have it that she was in utter disgrace and ought to withdraw from society to hide her shame since the man who had disgraced her had not offered to redeem her by rushing her to the altar.
Morgan had discovered the nasty truth during tea at Freyja and Joshua’s the day after the memorial service. She had asked the question and her family members—Wulfric had been absent—had admitted that it was true. They had kept it from her only because she had been upset over Alleyne and had not needed additional provocation.
The truth had acted like the proverbial red flag to the proverbial bull.
She would neither leave London nor avoid society simply because everyone expected her to do just that. And her family, of course—with the usual exception of Wulfric, who did not even know about it—applauded her decision.
And so she went riding in Hyde Park with them all the next morning. Lady Chastity Moore and Viscount Meecham were of the party too. It was a lovely day and Morgan needed the exercise after the unaccustomed inactivity of the past two weeks. But more than that, Rotten Row was the fashionable place to go for a morning ride and was therefore the perfect place in which to show her defiant face. It was also somewhere even mourners could go.
Morgan gazed proudly about her as they rode onto the Row, looking everyone they passed in the eye and inclining her head in courteous acknowledgment of those with whom she had an acquaintance. Nobody, she was interested to see, gave her the cut direct. But then, of course, she was Lady Morgan Bedwyn and she was riding in the midst of a group of eminently respectable persons. Fellow riders could always pretend they were greeting the others and had not even noticed her.
It was not good enough.
“Who wants to race me to the other end of the Row?” she asked.
“You snatched the words right out of my mouth, Morg,” Freyja said.
“I suppose,” Joshua said with an exaggerated sigh, “if I were to forbid you to do any such thing because of your condition, sweetheart, you would then feel obliged to race to the far end and back again? Yes, I thought so.”
Freyja had directed her haughtiest stare at him—and she had the distinct advantage of the prominent Bedwyn nose to look along as she did so.
They were off then, the two of them, without further ado. Morgan bent low over her horse’s neck and felt all the exhilaration of speed and potential danger. Not that Rotten Row posed much of the latter, of course. It was kept in immaculate condition. The Bedwyns, who were all neck-or-nothing riders, were accustomed to far worse in their frequent cross-country dashes. But it felt so good to be outdoors again.
They galloped along the Row, almost neck and neck the whole way until Freyja surged into the lead as they approached the Hyde Park Corner gates and won by a head. They were both laughing as they reined in their horses.
A small group of gentlemen was riding into the park through the gates a short distance away, and Morgan glanced toward them, lifting her chin as she did so in order to force them to acknowledge her or openly cut her. But then her eyes focused and held on one of them. He was gazing back at her, a lazy smile in his eyes, and looked so dearly familiar that she quite forgot for the moment that she was out of charity with him.
He detached himself from the group and walked his horse toward her.
“Lady Morgan.” He swept off his hat and inclined his head to her.
“Lord Rosthorn.” She was breathless from her ride, she told herself.
Freyja was suddenly all bristling attention.
“Freyja.” Morgan glanced at her, bright-eyed. “May I have the pleasure of presenting the Earl of Rosthorn to you? My sister, the Marchioness of Hallmere, my lord.”
The earl bowed again, and Freyja inclined her head with stiff hauteur.
“I did not know you were in town,” Morgan said.
“Ah, but I am,” he said. “I came up from Windrush the day before yesterday.”
The day of the memorial service. That explained why he had not attended it, then—and why he had not called upon her during the past two weeks. But he had been here since the day before yesterday. She felt sorry then that she had smiled at him with such enthusiasm a few moments ago.
“I trust all is well at your home and with your family,” she said with a more becoming dignity.
“Indeed it is.” His eyes smiled at her as if they shared a private joke, and she was reminded of their first meeting, when she had concluded that he could be nothing more than a rake and a ro
gue.
By that time the rest of her group had come up with them and Morgan made the introductions. The men all pokered up, of course, as she would have expected—this, after all was the man who had caused all the infamous gossip in which she was involved. Eve was warm and gracious—also as expected. Judith and Chastity were polite. Lord Rosthorn was charming.
His companions were by now well on their way along the Row, and Morgan’s own group had nowhere to go but back the way they had come. The earl fell into place beside Morgan as they moved off, her family forming a powerful ring of chaperonage around them. It was only then that Morgan became aware that this encounter was arousing considerable interest among the other riders, who would doubtless bask in the glory of being able to report on it throughout London drawing rooms for the rest of the day.
There was a chance for some almost-private conversation.
“Chérie,” the earl said, his voice low, “have you missed me?”
“Missed you?” More than she had admitted even to herself. Seeing him again was almost overwhelming her with awareness, with knowledge. He looked handsome and attractive and virile. He looked like a dearly familiar friend. And he felt like a long-lost lover. The air between them seemed fairly to bristle with her awareness. “I have been too busy with other concerns to have spared you more than a passing thought, Lord Rosthorn.”
“Ah.” He set one hand briefly over his heart. “You wound me. I have missed you.”
She darted him a haughty, suspicious glance. He was flirting with her again, teasing her, just as if everything that had happened since that infamous picnic in the Forest of Soignés had never been.
“Have you?” she asked him, her voice cool, even bored. “You came to London the day before yesterday, Lord Rosthorn? I daresay I was out when you called at Bedwyn House yesterday, then.”
“I suppose you were, chérie,” he said. “Certainly I did not see you there even though I waited in the hall for all of five minutes before your brother admitted me to the library.”
