Slightly Tempted

by Mary Balogh

  Wulfric strolled into the hall from the direction of the minstrel gallery and raised his eyebrows at the sight of her. He even stood still to take a better look and raised his quizzing glass to his eye.

  “Breathtaking,” he said softly, an unexpected pronouncement coming from him.

  She had decided to wear white with lavender embroidery about the hems of her skirt and sleeves and lavender ribbons to trim her bonnet and the high waistline of her dress. Lavender in remembrance of Alleyne, for whom she had shed tears last night after retiring to bed. It made her heart ache to realize how life went on after the death of a dearly loved one much as it would if he had lived. Except that if he had lived she would not have remained in Brussels and today would not be happening this way at all.

  “And so I am to cheerfully give away the last one of my family to someone who believes he needs her more than I, am I?” Wulfric asked.

  He was in a strange mood. When had Wulf needed any of them? And yet it struck Morgan suddenly that he would be all alone here now. Would he be lonely? Was Wulf capable of loneliness?

  She hurried across the space between them and wrapped her arms impulsively about him, rather as she had done in Harwich.

  “You will crease your finery,” he said with his customary cool hauteur as he put her from him—but only after hugging her so tightly that she felt the air whooshing out of her lungs.

  She could have cried then. She could have bawled with grief for him, for Alleyne, for the sadness of having to grow up and realize that change was part of the very nature of life, that nothing was permanent and immutable. But before she could do anything so strange or potentially embarrassing, Rannulf appeared in the hall with their grandmother on his arm, looking terribly frail though she had insisted upon coming all the way from Leicestershire for the wedding. Judith was with them, and Eve and Aidan and the children were just behind. Becky came hurtling past them and flung herself at Morgan.

  “You look so pretty, Aunt Morgan,” she cried. “I am going to have bride clothes just like yours when I grow up.”

  “Trust Morgan to be first to her own wedding,” Freyja said, coming into the hall with Joshua behind everyone else.

  “We went to your dressing room but the bird had flown,” Joshua said with a grin.

  “It is a good thing you did not run all the way to the church, Morg,” Rannulf said. “You would probably have been there before Gervase, and we Bedwyns would never have lived down the disgrace.”

  “You look delightful, Morgan, my dear,” their grandmother said. “Come and give me a kiss.”

  Aunt and Uncle Rochester had appeared too.

  “And then we must all leave for the church, except Morgan and Wulfric,” Aunt Rochester said in her usual strident tones that somehow commanded attention even from a full gathering of Bedwyns. “It would be just as disgraceful, Rannulf, if we arrived after Rosthorn.”

  Almost as suddenly as they had all arrived in the hall, they were gone again, though they all invited the wrath of their aunt by hugging Morgan first, Rannulf quite bruisingly. Judith actually had tears in her eyes.

  It was real, Morgan thought as she turned and looked at the silent figure of Wulfric, elegant and severe in black with white linen.

  This was her wedding day.

  TO GERVASE IT SEEMED AS HE WATCHED MORGAN come toward him on Bewcastle’s arm along the nave of the church, beautiful beyond belief in white with touches of lavender, that every moment of the past nine years and more had been worth living through just so that there could now be this moment.

  What likelihood was there that it would have happened otherwise? Quite possibly he would have married someone else several years ago. Even if he had not, he might not have noticed Lady Morgan Bedwyn this spring. No, correction—he would surely have noticed her even as he had in Cameron’s ballroom. But he might not have approached someone so young, so obviously fresh from the schoolroom. And even if he had, without motive to entice and attract her, he might not have caused her to grant him more than a fleeting moment of her attention.

  It was strange how life worked.

  Her eyes were on his, and they were bright with warmth and eagerness and love. By what miracle had she forgiven him? He smiled and, aware as he had been just a minute or two ago of Pierre at his side, of the churchful of family and guests filling every pew, now he saw only her.

  His beloved Morgan.

  The end of his long and difficult rainbow.

  Bewcastle had written to him the very day he had received Marianne’s letter. His own had been brief and to the point, but in it he had assured Gervase that he was satisfied with her explanation and recognized that he had completely misinterpreted what he saw nine years before. He had also mentioned the brooch, which he genuinely could not remember picking off the floor and setting down on a table before leaving the room, though he must have done so since Marianne had admitted that it was never stolen.

  The rainbow’s end was sweet indeed—and dazzling in the rush of joy it brought him as they turned together, he and Morgan, to face the rector.

  “Dearly beloved . . .” he began.

  And then, almost before Gervase could begin to appreciate exactly what it was that was happening, before he could begin to concentrate, the same voice was declaring that they were man and wife together.

  Her smile was dazzling.

  His, he felt, was all mingled with tears. They had come so close, the two of them, to not making it through.

  They signed the register, walked out of church together, past a sea of smiling faces, and emerged into sunshine and cheers and a rain of flower petals hurled by Bedwyns and his own brothers-in-law and a couple of his nieces. They drove back to Lindsey Hall in an open carriage, gaudy ribbons and old boots trailing and bouncing behind, holding hands tightly, gazing like moonstruck idiots into each other’s eyes, and indulging in a long, warm kiss as soon as the village was out of sight behind them.

  “Happy?” he asked her.

  “Happy.” She smiled back at him. “The past month seemed endless.”

  They had been apart for that long. She had returned to Lindsey Hall two days after the ball to prepare for her wedding and arrange for the banns to be called. He had stayed at Windrush. He had come here only yesterday. He had stayed, with his family, at Alvesley Park a few miles away, at the invitation of the Earl and Countess of Redfield and of Viscount Ravensberg, his son, and Ravensberg’s wife.

  “Years long,” he agreed. “The longest separation we are going to have to endure for the rest of our lives, I swear to you, chérie. There were no consequences of our night of sin?” He grinned at her and waggled his eyebrows as he remembered their night of passion outside the grotto.

  But she was gazing gravely back at him, her eyes large and beautiful.

  “I do believe there were,” she said.

  “What?” He grapsed her free hand and squeezed both tightly. “There were?”

  She smiled softly. Her cheeks were flushed. If she had looked beautiful in his eyes before, there were no words to describe her now.

  They were indecorously close to the house. Only a large, circular flower garden with a great fountain at its center stood between their moving carriage and the terrace outside the front doors. And as bad luck would have it, there was someone standing outside the doors—a lone gentleman. Fleetingly Gervase wondered whether he was someone who had not been invited to the wedding or someone who had left the church early and ridden neck-or-nothing back to the house.

  But truth to tell, at that moment he would not have cared if every servant and gardener and groom in Bewcastle’s employ was lined up on the terrace to greet their arrival. He was a newly married man, and he had just discovered that he was to be a father.

  “Chérie,” he said, lowering his head to hers. “Mon amour. Ma femme.”

  “I am so happy, Gervase,” she said, “that I cannot even find words.”

  “You do not need to,” he assured her, feathering kisses against her lips.
“There is sometimes a better way of communicating than with words, chérie.”

  And he proceeded to show her, wrapping his arms about her and kissing her thoroughly while her arms came about his neck.

  The lone gentleman on the terrace watched the carriage—obviously a wedding conveyance—circle about the fountain and approach the doors, the bride and groom lost to propriety and to the very world itself in each other’s arms.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Bestselling, multi-award-winning author Mary Balogh grew up in Wales, land of sea and mountains, song and legend. She brought music and a vivid imagination with her when she came to Canada to teach. Here she began a second career as a writer of books that always end happily and always celebrate the power of love. There are over four million copies of her Regency romances and historical romances in print. She is also the author of the Regency-era romantic novels No Man’s Mistress, More than a Mistress, A Summer to Remember, Slightly Married, Slightly Wicked, and Slightly Scandalous, all available in paperback from Dell. Visit her website at www.marybalogh.com

  Also by Mary Balogh

  SLIGHTLY SCANDALOUS

  SLIGHTLY MARRIED

  SLIGHTLY WICKED

  A SUMMER TO REMEMBER

  NO MAN’S MISTRESS

  MORE THAN A MISTRESS

  ONE NIGHT FOR LOVE

  Step into a world of scandal and surprise, of stately homes and breathtaking seduction. . . .

  Step into the world of master storyteller Mary Balogh. In novels of wit and intrigue, the best-selling, award-winning author draws you into a vibrant, sensual new world . . . and into the lives of one extraordinary family: the Bedwyns—six brothers and sisters—heirs to a legacy of power, passion, and seduction.

  Their adventures will dazzle and delight you.

  Their stories will leave you breathless. . . .

  AIDAN

  —the brooding man of honor

  RANNULF

  —the irresistible rebel

  FREYJA

  —the fiery beauty

  MORGAN

  —the ravishing innocent

  This is her story . . .

  Praise for the Novels of

  MARY BALOGH

  SLIGHTLY SCANDALOUS

  “Balogh is the queen of spicy Regency-era romance.”

  —Booklist

  “Exceptionally entertaining . . . With its impeccable plotting and memorable characters, Balogh’s book raises the bar for Regency romances.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “Zingy dialogue, witty humor, and marvelously appealing characters breathe new life into a classic plot . . . This delightful and exceptionally well-done title nicely demonstrates [Balogh’s] matchless style.”

  —Library Journal

  SLIGHTLY WICKED

  “Sympathetic characters and scalding sexual tension make the second installment in [the ‘Slightly’ series] a truly engrossing read . . . Balogh’s surefooted story possesses an abundance of character and class.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  SLIGHTLY MARRIED

  “Well-written and nicely paced . . . Refreshing.”

  —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

  “Readers will be delighted.” —Booklist

  “[A Perfect Ten] . . . SLIGHTLY MARRIED is a masterpiece! Mary Balogh has an unparalleled gift for creating complex, compelling characters who come alive on the pages.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  A SUMMER TO REMEMBER

  “Balogh outdoes herself with this romantic romp, crafting a truly seamless plot and peopling it with well-rounded, winning characters.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A tale to relish and remember . . . [A SUMMER TO REMEMBER] may be the most sensuous romance of the year.”

  —Booklist (starred review)

  “This one will rise to the top”

  —Library Journal

  “This is a powerful book, filled with emotions, and the reader will feel every one of them. Save it for evenings at home and keep tissues nearby—you’ll need them.”

  —The Oakland Press

  Follow the passionate and spirited adventures of the Bedwyn family in Mary Balogh’s dazzling novels . . .

  SLIGHTLY MARRIED

  Aidan’s story

  Now on Sale

  SLIGHTLY WICKED

  Rannulf’s story

  Now on Sale

  SLIGHTLY SCANDALOUS

  Freyja’s story

  Now on Sale

  Plus, read on for previews of the upcoming Bedwyn family stories . . .

  SLIGHTLY SINFUL

  Alleyne’s story

  May 2004

  and the glorious hardcover series finale

  SLIGHTLY DANGEROUS

  Wulfric’s story

  June 2004

  SLIGHTLY SINFUL

  * * *

  On Sale May 2004

  THE ROAD SOUTH OF BRUSSELS LOOKED LIKE A scene from hell in the dusk of early dawn. It was clogged with carts and wagons and men trudging along on foot, some of them carrying biers or helping or dragging along a comrade. Almost all of them were wounded, some severely. They were streaming back from the battleground south of the village of Waterloo.

  Rachel had never witnessed such sheer, unending horror.

  It seemed to her at first that she and Flossie and Geraldine must be the only persons going in the opposite direction. But that was not so, of course. There were pedestrians, even vehicles, moving south. One of the latter, a wagon driven by a tattered soldier with a powder-blackened face, stopped to offer them a ride, and Flossie and Geraldine, acting convincingly the part of anxious wives, accepted.

  Rachel did not. The bravado that had brought her out here was rapidly disintegrating. What was she doing? How could she even be thinking of profiting from all this misery?

  “You go on,” she told the other two. “There must be many wounded men in the forest. I’ll look there. I’ll look for Jack and Sam too,” she added, raising her voice for the benefit of the wagon driver and anyone else who might be listening. “And you look for Harry for me farther south.”

  The lie and the deception made her feel dirty and sinful even though it was doubtful anyone was paying her any attention.

  She turned off the crowded road to walk among the trees of the Forest of Soignés, though she did not go so far in that she would lose sight of the road and get lost. What on earth was she going to do now? she wondered. She could not continue with her plan, she was convinced. She could not possibly take so much as a handkerchief from a poor dead man’s body. And even the thought of seeing one was enough to make the bile rise in her throat. Yet to go back empty-handed without at least trying would be selfish and cowardly. When Mr. Crawley had sat with the ladies in the sitting room on the Rue d’Aremberg and explained to them how potentially dangerous it was to keep a large sum of money with them in such volatile times, and had offered to take the money back to London with him and deposit it safely in a bank, she had sat beside him and smiled proudly over the fact that she had introduced them to such a kindly, considerate, compassionate man. Afterward she had thanked him. She had thought that for once in her life she had discovered a steady, upright, dependable man. She had almost imagined that she loved him.

  Her hands curled into fists at her sides and she gritted her teeth. But the reality of her surroundings soon cut through pointless reminiscences.

  There must be thousands of wounded on all those carts and biers, she decided, averting her face from the road to her left. All that suffering and yet she had come out here to find the dead and search their bodies and rob them of any valuable that was portable and salable. She simply could not do it.

  And then her stomach seemed to perform a complete somersault, leaving her feeling as if she were about to vomit as she set eyes upon the first of the dead bodies she had come to find.

  He was lying huddled against the tall trunk of one of the trees, out of sight of the road, and he was very
definitely dead. He was also quite naked. She felt her abdominal muscles contract again as she took a hesitant, reluctant step closer. But instead of vomiting, she giggled. She slapped a hand over her mouth, more horrified by her inappropriate response than she would have been if she had emptied the contents of her stomach onto the ground in full view of a thousand men. What was funny about the fact that there was nothing left to loot? Someone had found this one before her and had taken everything but the body itself. She could not have done it anyway. She knew it at that moment with absolute certainty. Even if he had been fully clothed and had a costly ring on each finger, a gold watch and chain and expensive fobs at his waist, a gold sword at his side, she could not have taken any of them.

  It would have been robbery.

  He was young, with hair that looked startlingly dark in contrast to the paleness of his skin. Nakedness was horribly pathetic under such circumstances, she thought. He was an insignificant bundle of dead humanity with a nasty-looking wound on his thigh and blood pooled beneath his head, suggesting that there was a ghastly wound out of sight there. He was someone’s son, someone’s brother, perhaps someone’s husband, someone’s father. His life had been precious to him and perhaps to dozens of other people.