Melinda nodded and winced. “Yes, it does.” Gratefully, she took a sip of tea, and then another. “This is perfect, thank you.” Not too hot, fragrant and delicious, with just enough sugar.
“A couple of days of rest and quiet are all you need,” Mrs. Timms said comfortably. “‘Your sweet, lovely lady has a concussion,’ I told his lordship. ‘She cannot possibly go to Sussex today.’”
Melinda remembered that, too. He had promised to take her to Edward. What did the housekeeper mean by your sweet, lovely lady? She wasn’t his lordship’s anything. She began to be uneasy, but again, she couldn’t bring herself to ask questions to which she should already know the answers.
“And how is your stomach, Miss? You were dreadfully sick upon your arrival, but I expect that was only because of the concussion.”
Melinda frowned. She didn’t remember that at all. It sounded mortifying, so perhaps it was all for the best. She took refuge in a long swallow of tea.
“You don’t recall that, I daresay,” said Mrs. Timms. “You fell into a swoon and his lordship carried you indoors. It warmed my heart to see him show such tenderness toward you.”
What was going on? Melinda set the tea dish down with a clatter, but the housekeeper took it for weakness, not panic. “You’re in need of nourishment, Miss. I shall see about bringing you something light to eat.” She sailed to the door and curtseyed. “I wish you both very happy, Miss Starling.” She closed the door behind her.
Chapter 3
Melinda scrambled out of bed. Mrs. Timms seemed to think she was going to marry his lordship.
There must be some mistake. He couldn’t possibly want to marry her, and she certainly didn’t intend to marry him. She didn’t even know who he was!
She must find out where he had taken her. Firmly ignoring the ache in her head, she hurried to the window and thrust the curtains aside. The window wasn’t a window after all, but a door to a small balcony. She opened the door and went out.
The bedchamber overlooked a tiny back garden, a chicken yard, and a path to a mews. Similar houses and gardens were to the right and left. The backs of another row of houses showed past the mews, along with trees and a church spire . . . She might be anywhere in London. Judging by the position of the sun, it was early evening. She must have slept the day through.
What was she going to do?
Two men emerged from the house, sauntering through the garden toward the mews, deep in conversation. One of them might be the man who had kissed her, but she couldn’t tell from the tops of their heads, both with dark wavy hair. She’d never seen the man who had kissed her without a hat.
A familiar laugh drifted up. It must be—it was Colin Warren, one of her brother Stephen’s closest friends.
Relief poured over her. “Colin?” she squeaked. “Is that really you?”
Both men looked up.
“She’s awake,” said the one she didn’t know, but she recognized his voice from the night before. “Thank God for that.”
“Melinda-love!” Colin called. “Feeling more the thing now?”
“Much better,” she said. “Oh, Colin, how lovely to see you.”
“Lovely to see you, too, m’dear. I’ll be off now—dining with some friends tonight—but I shall be back tomorrow to see how you do. Evening, Garrison.”
“Colin!” she cried, “please, I—” But with a cheerful wave, he had already disappeared into the mews.
Was it starting already?
Miles tore his eyes from Melinda, up on the balcony calling for Colin, blast him, and strode back into the house.
Melinda-love? How dare he! Innocent young women weren’t supposed to be on a first-name basis with rakes like Colin. She should not even be acquainted with him. Did her grandmother have good reason to abandon her?
He clenched and unclenched his fists, stormed up one flight to the library, tossed back a swallow of brandy, and forced himself to calm down.
History was not repeating itself. He wouldn’t allow it. Melinda might have glorious copper hair, but she was an innocent; he found it impossible to believe anything else of her.
He’d also found it impossible to believe that Desiree Sibley would betray him—until he found her in bed with three footmen.
Footsteps heralded the approach of Mrs. Timms. She scratched on the door. “Miss Starling is awake, my lord. I brought her some tea. She seems much better.”
“Excellent,” he said heavily. “Thank you.”
“When is the wedding to be?” she asked through the door; she knew better than to open it unless he invited her to do so. “Because there’s the mistress’s room to be readied up, not to mention something will have to be done about next door, if you know what I mean.”
This was Mrs. Timms’ way of dancing around the inconvenient fact that Miles housed his illegitimate daughter next door in the care of servants. Desiree had died within a short time of Rebecca’s birth.
“For the foreseeable future, Miss Starling will stay in the room she currently occupies,” he said.
“But my lord, if Miss Starling were to find out—”
“She will doubtless find out sooner or later. It will take a while to arrange for Rebecca’s future care. She must stay where she is at least until Mrs. Rawley returns.” Mrs. Rawley had been Rebecca’s nurse since birth and was the closest the child had to a mother. She had gone to stay with a daughter who lived near Islington and had recently given birth, and for now, Rebecca was in the care of Miss Jenks, the governess he’d hired not long ago.
“Yes, my lord, but surely it’s not proper—”
“Leave it be, Mrs. Timms.” He didn’t give a damn about propriety, and the last thing he needed right now was yet another reminder of his past folly. The housekeeper apologized stiffly and took herself off, leaving him to his uneasy thoughts.
There must be a reasonable explanation for Melinda’s behavior. Colin was his cousin and close friend, not some lusty servant lured into bed by a wanton. If he’d dallied with Melinda—if she was not a virgin—he would surely have told Miles so.
No, Melinda was an innocent ruined by a series of misfortunes. He took another swallow of brandy, worked the muscles of his face into something resembling a smile, and went upstairs.
He was Lord Garrison?
Every mother (and grandmother) warned her daughter against him. He was a notorious rake, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, he’d caused a huge scandal a few years before Melinda’s come-out. The story was deemed unsuitable for virgin ears, so Melinda didn’t know the details, but he was considered to be the worst sort of libertine and therefore extremely dangerous to any innocent girl.
Panic swirled within her. She hurried back indoors, shutting the door with a bang. Colin had abandoned her to a debaucher!
Commonsense took hold. Colin wouldn’t do that. He was Stephen’s close friend. Her friend, too, although he was quite a rake—not as dreadful as Lord Garrison but generally to be avoided, so Grandmama wouldn’t let her give him more than a nod in passing. Which was frightfully annoying, because he wouldn’t hurt a hair of her head.
Nor would he leave her with a man who would harm her. She knew better than that.
She poured herself another dish of tea and climbed back into bed. Colin wouldn’t abandon her here unless he trusted Lord Garrison. Unless what Mrs. Timms had seemed to suggest was true . . . that Lord Garrison intended to marry her.
Surely a notorious debaucher wasn’t the sort to offer for a woman out of obligation. He seemed quite kind-hearted and not callous at all, except for not believing in love. She heaved a sigh. It didn’t matter what he was. She didn’t love him, and she didn’t hold him responsible for her predicament, and she would insist that he take her home to Edward.
Footsteps approached her door. Her heart sped up. A soft
tap sounded. “Miss Starling, may I come in?”
Into her bedchamber? Definitely not! But this was his house, and he was polite enough to ask permission . . . “Why?”
“We need to have a talk,” Lord Garrison said. “In private. You need not fear me. As I promised before, I shall not force myself on you.”
She had to know what was going on. She set the dish of tea on the tray and pulled the counterpane up almost to her chin. “Very well, but it’s not at all proper.”
He opened the door. “Nothing about the last night and day qualifies as proper. That is why I wish to speak to you.” He closed the door behind him but didn’t approach, merely watching her gravely.
He has a good face, she thought immediately. A hard, weary one, but with a strong nose and a determined chin, and between them, a friendly sort of mouth.
A mouth that had kissed her. She felt herself blush. He didn’t look the least bit amorous, though. It occurred to her that the wary look in his eyes must mirror hers.
He came forward, adjusted the chair by the bed, and sat down. Despite his hard face, he looked to be in his late twenties—not so many more years older than she. “I’m relieved to find you so much better. Mrs. Timms tells me that after another day of rest, I may be allowed to convey you to Sussex—but that may not be necessary after all.”
“It is necessary,” Melinda blurted. “Your housekeeper seems to think I am going to marry you!”
“Ah,” he said, and the wariness deepened. “Possibly that is because I told her so.”
She clutched the coverlet tighter to herself. “Why? It’s not true!”
“Calm yourself, Miss Starling.” He put up both hands as if to ward off her distress. “Believe me, I had good reason.”
“You promised to take me to Edward,” she said furiously. She didn’t want to calm down, but his voice had taken on that soothing note. She mustn’t trust it. A pulse began to pound in her head.
“And I shall, unless Sir Edward gets here first. When I realized you were too ill to travel, I sent him an express. I expect he will come to London post-haste.”
Dear Edward. She took a deep breath and then another to slow her racing heart. She clasped her hands to her chest. Edward would come get her and take her home. “Thank you,” she said.
“It seemed a good notion,” Lord Garrison said. “I wanted Sir Edward to get our version of the story before your grandmother and half the gossips in London sent him theirs.”
“Oh,” she said, slumping against the pillows, letting the coverlet slip. “It’s that bad, is it?”
He nodded. “Unfortunately, yes. By the bye, how do you come to know my cousin, Colin Warren?”
It took a moment to realize what he’d asked, so preoccupied was she with contemplating the ruins of her reputation and very probably her life. “He is a boyhood friend of my brother Stephen. Sometimes he came home with Stephen for the school holidays.” She sighed.
“Ah,” Lord Garrison said.
“He is a very dear friend,” Melinda said. “Grandmama won’t let me associate with him now, because he is a rake. She warned me against you, too.” She reddened. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. You have been everything that’s kind.” Except for telling Mrs. Timms they were going to marry.
“Think nothing of it.” His lips twisted into a sort of half smile. “I’ve become accustomed to disregarding the slanders.”
“It’s not true, then? What they say about you?”
The smile vanished. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s true. It is long past.”
She frowned. “Of course it matters!”
“Nevertheless, I do not intend to discuss it,” he said. She would have protested, but his harsh expression made her think twice, and by then he had continued. “I have come to let you know what has transpired since this morning. By an extremely awkward coincidence, Colin and a friend of his were on their way home from a night’s gambling and passed my doorstep just as we emerged from the carriage. You won’t remember this, for you had fainted.”
And vomited, possibly all over him. How mortifying, and how considerate of him not to mention it. For a rake and possibly villainous debaucher, he was an extremely well-mannered man.
“The situation was so utterly damning that I had no choice but to say that we were engaged to marry,” he said.
She understood now why he had done so, but it would never do.
“Colin can be trusted, but his friend Toup is another story,” Lord Garrison said. “He immediately set about spreading a rumor that I had ravished you, causing you to be violently ill and then swoon away.”
Indignation reared up inside her. “That’s a vile, disgusting lie!”
“Colin spent the afternoon collecting gossip. As if Toup’s story weren’t bad enough, your grandmother’s neighbor, Lady Hudson, witnessed that dramatic scene in the street this morning but interpreted it her own way. She assumed no one woke at your knocking, and that I, having already debauched you once, took advantage of your distress and lured you into my coach, having formed the evil intention of ravishing you all over again.”
She gaped at him. “That is completely absurd.” Unfortunately, it was just the sort of thing Lady Hudson, who loved salacious gossip, would say.
“After which I would of course abandon you to your fate.” His voice wasn’t soothing now, but cold and flat. He must be very angry, but the obvious conclusion—that he had abandoned some other woman in the past—made no sense at all. Quite simply, he wasn’t that sort of man.
“How horrid for you,” she said softly.
He shrugged. “Your grandmother, upon hearing the scurrilous stories that were circulating, declared to the world that I had abducted you.”
Melinda narrowed her eyes. “How dare she blame you for what was her fault!”
“She did her best to call in the Bow Street Runners—”
“She sent the Runners after me?”
“But the magistrate in charge said that you had left the masquerade willingly, so whether it was a seduction or an elopement, it was none of his business.”
Melinda let out a long breath. “Thank heavens for that. Well, you needn’t worry. I shall make it entirely clear that you didn’t ravish me, but rather have been extraordinarily kind. In fact,” she said, fury and distress warming her, “if Edward lets me, I will set it about that Grandmama aban—abandoned m—” She couldn’t get the words out.
Lord Garrison leaned closer and took her hand between his large, warm ones. “It won’t do,” he said gently. “Even if people believed you, far too many of them would agree with what she did. One way or another, you are thoroughly ruined. There is only one way out of this mess.”
“No!” Melinda snatched her hand away from his kind, comforting grasp. “I understand why you said we were betrothed, but it will not do.”
Lord Garrison straightened, letting his hands fall, and the gentleness left his face. “Please hear me out. I realize the prospect dismays you, but the only acceptable solution to your difficulties is to marry me.”
“I can’t.” She bit back the misery that welled up. “I hardly know you.” Her parents had scarcely known one another when they’d married, and they’d fought constantly.
“True, we are barely acquainted, but we are both rational, well-intentioned people. We shall learn to deal comfortably with one another.”
“No,” Melinda said again. “It’s not possible. You’re very kind, but you don’t want to marry me, and I don’t l-love you.” She couldn’t bear the thought of a loveless marriage, of repeated infidelities, of constant quarrels and a coldness that developed into hatred. She’d seen what that was like.
“I understand your reluctance,” he said, “but think of the alternative. Edward will take you home to Sussex, where the locals may feel
obliged, for his sake, to treat you with civility, but you will always know that they would rather shun you. Your life will be circumscribed and unhappy. The best you can hope for is that Edward will find some man willing to overlook your history—”
“But it’s not my history. It’s not true!”
“As I have learned through painful experience, the truth matters not one whit. Edward may be able to bribe someone into taking you, but such men usually accord their wives little respect.”
“Edward would not give me to such a horrid sort of man!”
“No other choice might be offered,” Lord Garrison said. “Consider, as well, the effect of your damaged reputation on that of your family.”
Fury roiled up in her. “I don’t care about the Starling reputation!” Her words came out in a vicious, unladylike snarl. Appalled at herself, she closed her eyes.
Lord Garrison remained silent for a few seconds before resuming his speech. He had probably practiced the whole thing, she thought bitterly. How could he be so calm and patient in the face of such a catastrophe? Most of what he said made perfect sense; nevertheless, she couldn’t marry him. She twisted her fingers together. Marrying him meant the loss of every hope, every dream . . .
“You say that now,” he went on in his soothing voice, “but I don’t believe that you care so little about your brother and sister-in-law.”
She opened her eyes. “I do care about them! I shall ask Edward to send me away someplace where no one will know who I am.”
To Kiss a Rake (Scandalous Kisses) Page 4
