by Mary Balogh
He lit the candles on the mantelpiece now and turned to Lady Morgan. Behind her he had left the door slightly ajar. What he should do, he thought as she smiled at him, was take her back to the ballroom right now at this very moment before someone opened that door and it was too late. He liked her too much for this. She had done nothing to deserve this.
“Listen,” he said instead, holding out his arms to her. “It is not a fast melody. We can contrive to dance it in here, I believe, without bumping into furniture and bouncing off walls.”
She came closer, laughing softly as she did so, and he set his right hand behind her waist and took her right hand in his. She set her other hand on his shoulder. The intimacy of the waltz position felt at least twice as intimate in this private setting. He could smell violets. He was reminded of the last time they had been alone in a room together.
They danced in silence, lights and music and voices and laughter mingling beyond the slightly open door, dim candlelight and intimacy within. She tilted back her head and smiled at him again. He smiled back. Perhaps no one would come. Perhaps after all he would be released from the consequences of this terrible thing he was doing.
After a few minutes he drew her closer. He turned her hand to rest palm-inward over his heart, his own hand spread over the back of it. He felt her other hand slide inward along his shoulder and come to rest behind his neck. She turned her face and, with a soft sigh, rested her cheek against the intricate folds of his neckcloth and danced on with him, their bodies touching.
She was all slender, warm femininity. She felt familiar—and dear.
“Chérie,” he murmured against her ear a few minutes after that, and she drew back her head and raised her face to his. Her eyes were dreamy and heavy-lidded from the music and the candlelight and the shared warmth of their bodies.
“Yes,” she whispered, her lips parting.
He lowered his head and kissed her, dancing her to a halt as he did so and wrapping one arm more completely about her waist while cupping the back of her head with the other. Her arms came tightly about him and her body arched into his. Her lips parted beneath his and heat and urgency engulfed them both. He pressed his tongue deep inside her mouth, and her arms strained him closer as she made a low sound of encouragement. One of his hands found a breast and closed about it.
It was the moment at which he felt sudden panic. No! He was losing himself in passion while in the process of betraying her. She had done nothing to deserve this of him. He simply could not do it. He must get her out of this room undetected and hurry her back to the ballroom before someone made the discovery that they were neither there nor in the refreshment room. He was desperate suddenly to save her—and himself.
He loosened his hold on her and lifted his head.
Too late.
The door was now more than half open and a number of guests were either openly peering inside or were moving slowly past, too well bred, perhaps, to be seen standing and staring.
The Duke of Bewcastle, one hand on the door, had already stepped inside the room and was shutting it firmly behind his back.
CHAPTER XV
MORGAN’S FIRST FEELING WAS GUILT. SHE WAS wearing black and had curtailed her social activities out of respect for Alleyne’s memory and yet she had given in to the temptation to waltz. Her second feeling was intense embarrassment. Wulfric and half the polite world had seen her in a deep embrace with the Earl of Rosthorn. Her third feeling was elation. He must have feelings to match her own. Her fourth feeling was anger. How dare Wulfric walk in on them like this as if they were naughty, wayward children. Actually, all four feelings washed over her almost simultaneously.
“Do you never knock on doors, Wulf?” she asked, glaring haughtily at him.
He had his quizzing glass to his eye and was regarding through it the earl’s arm, which he had placed protectively about her waist. He did not remove it. Wulfric ignored her question.
“I have already petitioned you once for Lady Morgan’s hand, Bewcastle,” Lord Rosthorn said. “I shall present myself at Bedwyn House tomorrow morning to repeat my offer. I think you will agree that this is neither the time nor the place to discuss the matter further.”
His voice was cold, his tone clipped. There was almost no trace of his French accent. Wulfric’s face was a mask of icy control.
“I must congratulate you, Rosthorn,” he said. “You have outmaneuvered me—for the moment.”
“Oh, but this is ridiculous!” Morgan cried, breaking away from the earl’s hold. “We were just waltzing together in here and then kissing—by mutual consent, I will add.”
Wulfric turned his eyes on her. And if that were not disconcerting enough, his quizzing glass was still held to one of them. Had she really said they were just waltzing and kissing?
Just?
But before Wulfric could say whatever he had been about to say, the door opened again to admit Freyja. She looked from one to the other of them with raised eyebrows.
“I expected to find a duel in progress at the very least,” she said, “with Morgan in a swooning heap in one corner. Our ball, it seems, is fated to be talked about tomorrow and for many tomorrows to come. But what can one expect of an entertainment hosted by Josh and me? Lord Rosthorn, were you really seen to be kissing my sister in here? That is shocking indeed, and I have to muster a great deal of fortitude to keep myself from collapsing in a fit of the vapors. Wulf, you are looking as if you had swallowed a whole iceberg. Morgan, you look like Lady Macbeth. I would remind you all that this ball is in honor of Lady Chastity Moore and Lord Meecham and I will not have it become a circus show.”
“I have just been informing his grace, ma’am,” Lord Rosthorn said with a bow, “that I mean to make a formal call at Bedwyn House tomorrow morning with the purpose of offering for the hand of Lady Morgan Bedwyn.”
“Both Wulf and Morgan will doubtless have something to say on the matter when you do call,” Freyja said. “But that is for tomorrow, not this evening.”
“It is all nonsense,” Morgan said.
“Of course it is,” Freyja agreed, striding across the room to link arms with her sister. “But deadly serious at the same time. The ton will be ready to plunge you into the deepest disgrace after this, and unfortunately, the ton is a monster that even we Bedwyns must appease on occasion. It is time to put a bold face on this newest sensation. We will go into the ballroom together, Morg, and take a turn or two about the room, just as if nothing untoward had happened. It is a shame you do not have the Bedwyn nose. It is a distinct advantage in situations like this. But you can smile. Do it.”
It had always been difficult not to be swept along by Freyja when she was at her most formidable. On this occasion Morgan did not even try. She left the room without even a glance at either of the two men, and smiled.
She was half aware that Wulfric came out after them and fell into step behind them.
MORGAN SAW THE EARL OF ROSTHORN ARRIVE BY curricle the following morning and stride purposefully up to the front door and through it after knocking and waiting a few moments. She was sitting on the window seat in her bedchamber, her knees drawn up before her, her arms wrapped about them. She had deliberately withdrawn here so that she could be alone to compose herself for what was coming.
She needed to compose herself. Her mind and her emotions were in turmoil. They had all wanted a piece of her, either last night or this morning. All had had an opinion or some advice to offer, or both.
Aunt Rochester, clearly incensed, had found a private moment last night in which to inform her niece that she was a discredit to the name of Bedwyn. The Bedwyns, her aunt informed her, had always had a reputation for wildness and unconventionality, but never for vulgarity. Now Morgan might repent her own foray into the distinctly vulgar at leisure, married to a rake who was far too old for her, and would doubtless neglect her and flaunt his harem of lightskirts before her. She would be fortunate indeed if any of the highest sticklers were willing to receive her within the nex
t fifty years or so.
Freyja had given her opinion during that ghastly stroll about the ballroom, when Morgan had thought her lips might well split from so much smiling.
“Alleyne always did say you would out-Bedwyn all of us one of these days,” she said. “Actually I did far worse with Josh last year than waltz in an anteroom with him and kiss him with the door open for all to see. Though there has been a great deal more than just this in your case, of course. You have been spectacularly indiscreet during the past month or so, have you not? And tonight takes the cake. Alleyne was right. A piece of advice, though, Morg. The man is devastatingly attractive—I’ll admit that. But be a Bedwyn to the end. Don’t accept his marriage proposal tomorrow unless you are quite, quite sure that he is the one and only man with whom you could contemplate spending the rest of your life.”
“Lord Rosthorn is a charming man and a handsome one too.” That was Chastity, also last evening. “And he was kind to you in Belgium. I cannot blame you for wanting to waltz with him tonight, Morgan. I know I could not have borne it if I had been forbidden to waltz with Leonard. Do you love him? I think you must if you allowed him to kiss you. How I long to see you as happy as I am.”
“When I married Aidan last year against the advice of everyone who loved me, I did so for all the wrong reasons.” That was Eve after they had returned home from the ball. “It was extremely fortunate that we very soon fell deeply in love with each other. We might just as easily have been miserable for the rest of our lives. Do be sure, Morgan, that if you marry Lord Rosthorn, it is not because of this renewed scandal but because you know you can find happiness with no man but him.”
“Forget about the scandal, Morgan.” It was Aidan’s turn. “If you do not want Rosthorn, tell him so and send him on his way. Come with Eve and the children and me for the summer and then go to Lindsey Hall for the winter. By next spring you will be remembered simply as one of those headstrong, wild Bedwyns.” He had regarded her closely then from his keen dark eyes. “On the other hand, if you want him, then tell him that and we will all forgive him for tonight’s indiscretion and welcome him into the family for your sake.”
Wulfric had waited for the morning—until after Morgan had spent a restless, almost sleepless night. He had summoned her to the library before she went down to breakfast. She had walked the whole length of the room with his eyes resting on her from his seat behind the desk. And of course she could not make it easy on herself—she had stared right back at him.
“Be seated,” he had invited her, and she had perched on the edge of a gilt chair while he sat back and rested his elbows on the arms of his own chair and steepled his fingers.
“Nothing is irrevocable at the moment, Morgan,” he told her, “although this time I do feel obliged to discuss marriage terms with the Earl of Rosthorn and then grant his request to pay his addresses to you in person. Your admitted acquiescence in what happened last evening dictates that I go through such distasteful motions. However, my consequence is great and therefore so is yours. I would urge you to say a very firm and definite no. If you do so, no further word will be spoken of this matter between you and me. I will escort you back to Lindsey Hall within the week or you can go to Oxfordshire with Aidan before that.”
There were to be no major recriminations, then, no blistering scold? She twisted her hands in her lap, almost disappointed. It was easier to deal with Wulf when she could defy him over some issue.
“I will reply to Lord Rosthorn as I see fit,” she told him. All through the night she had wondered if he loved her. She was almost certain that she loved him.
“You have been duped, Morgan,” Wulfric said after gazing at her in brooding silence for an unnerving length of time. “Rosthorn does not love you. Rather, he hates me.”
“What nonsense!” she retorted crossly. “It is you who hate him merely for doing what you would have applauded in Sir Charles Stuart. You are being quite unreasonable.”
The silver eyes gazed back into her own.
“I asked you before,” she said, “and you did not answer. I have asked him and he evaded my question. Why do you hate him? It has nothing to do with me really, does it? You knew each other before—before his exile.”
Lengthy silences never seemed to disconcert Wulfric. Morgan refused to let the one that followed disconcert her either. She looked steadily back into her brother’s eyes and waited.
“He ravished a lady,” he said, “and robbed her. Rosthorn—his father—expelled him from England and told him never to return.”
“What?” Morgan reached out one hand and grasped the edge of the desk as if to stop herself from falling.
“He was discovered in her bedchamber and in her bed during the course of a ball,” Wulfric said. “It was not entirely unlike what happened last evening, and probably the motive was similar.”
Morgan’s mouth was dry. She tried to lick her lips with a dry tongue.
“How do you know the lady was unwilling?” she asked him. “I was not last evening.”
“She was not willing,” Wulfric said. “Her betrothal to another man was to have been announced that evening. She was too ashamed to continue with that plan though he would still have had her. She refused the offer Rosthorn’s son made her the next day. She retired from society and never married despite position, wealth, and beauty, all of which she possessed in abundance. Her life was ruined.”
“I will not believe it,” she said, getting to her feet. “We all know how stories become distorted and exaggerated in the telling. How do you know that what you have told me is true?”
“I was the man to whom she was to be betrothed,” Wulfric said softly. “I was one of the three men—her father and Rosthorn were the others—who burst in upon them in her bedchamber. Too late, as it turned out.”
She stared at him, transfixed. Wulfric had once been almost betrothed? And had been so horribly hurt? By the present Earl of Rosthorn? It was too dizzying to be digested all at once.
“Perhaps you misunderstood the evidence of your eyes,” she said.
“Hardly.”
“It happened nine years ago,” she said.
“Yes.”
They stared at each other, her eyes stormy, his silver and ice cold.
“Such a man,” he said after a lengthy silence, “ought not to be allowed within one mile of my sister. But he has maneuvered his way very cleverly into your affections and into such a public position that I am forced to allow him to address himself to you. Since I will not forbid him to make you an offer, I cannot forbid you to accept him. And if I tried, I am well aware that you might then feel obliged to defy me and ruin yourself permanently by eloping with Rosthorn. But what I can do is trust you to make the right decision about your own lifelong happiness.”
After continuing to stare at him for long moments, she had left the library without another word.
And so she sat on the window seat, knowing that Lord Rosthorn had arrived, that even now he was in the library with Wulfric discussing a marriage contract. She did not know how long such matters took. But some time within the next half hour, or the next hour at the longest, there was going to be a knock on her door and she was going to have to force her legs to carry her back down to the library. She was going to have to face him.
The man who had ravished the woman Wulf had loved. They had been caught in bed together. The woman’s words and subsequent actions would seem to confirm that she had not given herself willingly.
The man who had flirted with her, Morgan, quite outrageously and extravagantly before the Battle of Waterloo.
The man who had supported her and given her his protection and companionship and friendship in the days following the battle.
The man with whom she had made love after learning that there was no more hope of Alleyne’s having survived.
The man who had brought her home to the comfort of her family.
The man she had been growing to love, the man she had believed was growing to love her
.
Did what had happened nine years ago nullify all her instincts about him, all her feelings for him? He had ravished a woman. She could not believe it of him. But how could she not? Wulfric had been there and he was not the sort of man who would deliberately twist evidence.
Morgan had never been so confused in her life.
The summons came after forty minutes, when her maid scratched on her door. Morgan jumped with alarm and then got to her feet and brushed her hands over the skirt of her black dress. She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin.
The Earl of Rosthorn was going to have some explaining to do.
THE DUKE OF BEWCASTLE HAD KEPT GERVASE waiting in a visitors’ reception room for all of twenty minutes before having him admitted to the library. There had followed a brief, cold meeting in which business had been discussed as if there were no personal element involved in the terms. Bewcastle had made no bones of the fact that he had advised Lady Morgan Bedwyn against accepting the offer. But finally he had risen and left the room, leaving Gervase to stare into the unlit coals of the fireplace.
All night he had been feeling cold satisfaction.
And all night too he had been trying to ignore a heavy feeling of guilt. In his obsession with getting revenge on Bewcastle he had allowed himself to become almost as bad as they had all supposed him to be nine years ago. Almost as bad? Worse. Marianne had brought about her own ruin. Lady Morgan had not.
He turned and clasped his hands behind his back when the door opened again and Lady Morgan stepped past a footman and came into the room.
She looked composed, he thought, though her face was devoid of all color. Her shoulders were back and her chin lifted. He frowned when he recalled that embrace they had shared last night. He had not intended that. It had not been part of the plan. He had intended that they be caught waltzing together in a private anteroom. It would have been quite enough to fan the flames of a dying scandal.
