Married to the Rogue

by Lancaster, Mary

  The cleaning staff had embarked on the terrace room and the salons, and a painter was expected that afternoon to talk to her about the library.

  Christopher and Mr. Gates were at the dower house with builders and carpenters. And Deborah had just approved Mrs. Dawson’s choice of two maids, and Hunter’s of a second footman and a groom.

  She was climbing the staircase to return to the library when two men walked through the open front door. Since the servants were all busy elsewhere, she hurried back down.

  “Can I help you, sir?” she inquired, for her visitors were clearly gentlemen. She addressed the elder, a tall, thin man with a shock of white hair and an expression of baffled fury.

  “I very much doubt it,” the old gentleman snapped. “Since I’ve no idea who you are.”

  “I’m Mrs. Halland, sir. Mrs. Christopher Halland.” It still sounded odd on her lips.

  The old gentleman’s eyes seemed to spit. He looked her up and down from her hair escaping its pins to the hem of her dusty gown. The blatant rudeness chilled her.

  “Is that what you think?” he uttered. His companion was staring at her, too,—quite hard.

  “It is, sir, what I know,” she replied, although her mind was wondering exactly what he meant.

  His lips curled, and she braced herself for whatever insult was coming next, but fortunately, Hunter’s footsteps were heard hurrying across the hall from the servants’ quarters, and her discourteous caller was distracted.

  However, her hopes that she could leave Hunter to deal with him were quickly dashed, for he turned at once to the butler, saying familiarly, “Ah, Hunter. See to packing this…female’s bags and show her out if you will. Make sure she takes nothing that belongs to the estate. And then send for my grandson.”

  The knowledge hit her with a huge flush of anger. Lord Hawfield.

  “Steady on, Grandpapa,” the younger man said uneasily.

  Both his grandfather and Deborah ignored him, gazing instead at Hunter, whose face remained expressionless, though there was a hint of panic behind his eyes.

  “You may ignore his lordship’s jest, Hunter,” Deborah said, willing her voice not to shake. “But certainly, please send for Mr. Halland.”

  Chapter Six

  She had no idea if Hunter would obey her, and she could not afford the indignity of waiting around to see. As if using someone else’s voice, she added, “His lordship may wait in the drawing room if he chooses. Or if he does not care to accept my hospitality, he may wait in the reception room.”

  The old man’s eyes showed a tendency to pop with fury, especially when Hunter bowed to her and said, “Yes, madam.” By then, she had turned her back on her visitors and was forcing herself to walk sedately to the staircase. She hoped the trembling of her legs would not betray her.

  “You are more generous than I,” Christopher’s voice drawled, and she spun around to see him leaning against the still-open front door. In his shirt-sleeves, he looked rather delightfully rumpled and flushed, as though he had run all the way from the dower house when he’d seen his grandfather’s carriage approach. “I’d tell him to wait at the inn. What the devil do you mean turning up in my house and insulting my wife? If you weren’t my grandfather, I’d throw you out on your ear.”

  He walked across the hall, as though he were about to do just that.

  “You may go, Hunter,” Christopher said. “Grandfather, if you can keep a civil tongue in your head, we can go up to the drawing room. Otherwise, you might as well go.”

  “You have no idea what you have done!” Lord Hawfield burst out. “But by all means, let us go upstairs. There is no reason the servants should hear your folly.”

  Christopher did not reply, merely strode past them with quick, angry steps, his scowl black. Deborah carried on upstairs, meaning to go to the library and continue with the tasks she had set herself, leaving Christopher to deal privately with his family. Her presence, clearly, would only exacerbate matters.

  But a moment later, Christopher caught up with her and placed her hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry about this. I won’t have you bullied in your own home.”

  They had reached the landing, and he drew her toward the gallery and the drawing room. She made a quick, instinctive move to be free, but he held on.

  “No, we do it now,” he said, “or it will just rumble on. You are my wife, the mistress of Gosmere Hall.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He blinked down at her, his frown deepening impossibly. “Of course, I am.”

  Deborah had the deepest dislike of confrontations and angry voices. Together with her feeling that this was Christopher’s family business and nothing to do with her, this situation was enough to make her bolt to the other side of the house.

  However, his hand covered hers on his arm, giving it a gentle little squeeze, and this gentleness, despite the fury in his face, distracted her so much that she found herself in the drawing room.

  “Shall I ring for tea?” she asked nervously, as Lord Hawfield strode in, the younger man on his heels.

  “Not yet,” Christopher said, retaining her hand. “We don’t know yet that my grandfather is staying. Allow me to make formal introductions. My grandfather, Lord Hawfield, and his heir, my cousin Dudley, Lord Bilston. Gentlemen, I am happy to present my wife, Deborah.”

  “Ma’am,” Dudley said with a short bow.

  “Let’s stop the pretense,” Hawfield snapped. “We all know why you married her. I suppose you think I should be grateful it wasn’t the kitchen maid. Or is it?”

  “That was said in anger, and I believe it was the milkmaid I threatened you with. My wife is a different case altogether—a gentlewoman as all but a fool could see at once.”

  “It makes no difference who she is,” Hawfield roared, causing Deborah’s whole body to jump. “I’ll have the damned marriage annulled, and don’t think I won’t!”

  Christopher, who probably felt the trembling of her body, was distracted enough to walk with her to a chair where she sank down, wishing it would fold over her. Since it wouldn’t, she held herself rigid, forcing her hands to stillness when they tried to reach up to her ears to shut out the anger.

  “No, you won’t,” Christopher said with unexpected calmness. “The marriage was legal in every sense. To be honest, sir, I find it rather distasteful that you are so eager to hold on to control of my property. But I have already spoken to the solicitors concerned, and the truth is, you can’t. Gosmere Hall and the estate is mine. You can make yourself a laughing stock raging against it if you like, but it will do you no good and change nothing. Would you like tea?”

  “Tea? Tea?” Lord Hawfield was turning puce.

  “Now, now, Grandpapa, calm yourself,” Lord Bilston said uneasily. “Chris, don’t.”

  “Why, what’s wrong with tea?” Christopher asked provokingly. “You can have brandy if you prefer. It’s rather good.”

  “Oh, the devil!” Hawfield exploded. “What is the matter with you? What do you imagine you’re doing? Do you think the girl married you for love? For belief in your ridiculous charity and the hope you’ll be Prime Minister one day? Have you no idea who or what she is?”

  “Be careful, Grandfather,” Christopher warned.

  “Look at her!” Hawfield stabbed a finger in her direction. “Is that ill-groomed creature in the grubby dress really to be the lady of Gosmere Hall? Your political hostess to support your career? You’ve married a ruined trollop, you imbecile, and the world knows it! Don’t you know she was in the household of the Princess of Wales? Ramshackle woman, if ever there was one, but even for her household, it was a new low to remain in her house when she had gone, gobbling up everything she left behind and turning the place into an open brothel…”

  “Enough,” Christopher said. He spoke quietly and yet with a peculiar intensity that cut through his grandfather’s loudness like a knife. At the same time, his hand gripped Deborah’s stricken shoulder, comforting, supporting. “If you choose to get
your information from salacious scandal rags, there is no point in even talking to you. You will, simply, apologize to my wife or leave. Now.”

  Hawfield’s gaze crashed into Christopher’s. “Don’t you care? She has twisted you—”

  “My wife has been completely honest with me from the moment we met,” Christopher said calmly. “For one thing, exactly how much twisting do you imagine can be done on the basis of half an hour’s public conversation? We married for mutual convenience and from mutual respect.”

  “Respect that neither of you has earned!” Hawfield interrupted.

  “Goodbye, sir,” Christopher said.

  The old man looked baffled. Deborah guessed this was not the way their quarrels usually went.

  “Well, well,” he said at last. His gaze lowered to the floor, then lifted to Deborah’s face. “I am a bluntly-spoken man. You must forgive any rudeness.”

  “And insult,” Christopher added.

  Hawfield smiled thinly. “As you say. My care is only for my grandson’s wellbeing and maintaining his property as I was entrusted to do.”

  Christopher moved away from her, and she was conscious of a surge of panic, but he only pulled the bell, and Deborah swallowed, trying to gather herself back together.

  “Please sit down,” she managed.

  Her visitors sat, both gazing around the room as though trying to work out what was different about it.

  Ellen, the new maid, stuck her head around the door.

  “Tea, if you please,” Deborah said. “And ask Mrs. Dawson to have bedchambers made ready for their lordships.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” The maid curtseyed and vanished.

  “Who the devil is she?” Hawfield demanded.

  “We’re taking on new staff,” Deborah murmured.

  Hawfield smiled, but only with his lips. “You’re not letting the grass grow under your feet, are you?”

  “Indeed, no, there is much to do.”

  Tea arrived speedily, much to Deborah’s relief. Dudley, Lord Bilston, began to make polite conversation about the weather to Deborah, and to Christopher about family news and mutual friends. It might have eased the tension had she not felt Hawfield’s gaze constantly upon her, as though waiting for her to betray some hint of depravity, or at least clumsiness.

  Somehow, she got through the next half hour, but it was with considerable relief that she heard Christopher offering to show their guests to their rooms. The old man barely remembered to nod to her, but at least the younger bowed civilly as they left the room.

  Deborah counted to ten, then fled to the library and picked up her duster.

  Ten minutes later, she was still gazing at it as the door opened, and Christopher came in. He was frowning, but she realized, with surprise, it was a frown of concern, not anger.

  He searched her face. “What are you thinking?”

  She swallowed. “That without you, I would have fled weeping like a scolded child.”

  His lips twisted. “Well, without me, you wouldn’t have been in this situation in the first place. For what it’s worth, without you, I would have had a flaming row with him and said things that would never have been forgiven. But I knew you would hate it, and in biting my tongue, I discovered a better way to deal with him. It seems we make a good partnership.”

  He took the duster from her numb fingers and dropped it on the nearby table. “I think you have done enough here for today. Come, let’s walk down to the lake.”

  “Don’t you want to return to Mr. Gates at the dower house?”

  “No, I’ve left him arguing with the builders. I think we both need an escape.”

  He did not even trouble to fetch a coat, and she was only able to snatch her old bonnet from the stand on their way out.

  The fresh air filled her lungs, the birds’ songs soothed her mind back into proper thought.

  “The word is spreading,” she observed. “About the scandal. Is Lord Hawfield not right that it will do you harm?”

  “Only if he insists on shouting his mouth off about it. If he accepts you, it could well help scotch the whole nonsense.”

  “I doubt he’s going to do that,” she said wryly.

  “He’s still in the house. His one hope was to scare or shame us into seeking an annulment. Otherwise, it’s not in his power to part us.”

  “I can’t understand why he is so upset. What is it to him whether you have Gosmere now or in two years?”

  Christopher shrugged. “He doesn’t like being thwarted, and to give him his due, he still thinks I am playing at politics and am a dilettante at heart.”

  “Are you?”

  He flashed her a rather charming smile, half-deprecating, half-mischievous. “I’m serious about some things. Just not everything.”

  “And he thinks it should be all or nothing?”

  “Perhaps. And I suppose he is concerned about family honor. But I won’t allow him to go on thinking you threaten that.”

  “You can’t stop him thinking, Christopher.”

  “No, but stopping him talking is a start. And from there, we’ll just have to change his mind.”

  She gave him an unhappy smile. “Just? I can’t charm him, you know.”

  “You underestimate yourself. No one expects you to flutter your eyelashes and flatter him. In fact, on the whole, I would rather you didn’t! Just be yourself. He is only an old bluster-bag.”

  She couldn’t help laughing at the description, and he smiled back, taking her hand and swinging it upward, almost as though they were children playing together.

  “I should have brought my coat for you to sit on,” he observed as they paused by the gently rippling lake.

  She sank down onto the grass. “My dress is already filthy, as your grandfather noted.”

  “You have other gowns,” he said comfortably, then glanced at her. “Though perhaps you need more?”

  She shook her head. “Not unless you wish me to wear something different every day and every evening.”

  “You must wear what you wish. All I mean is, if you would like anything, we can easily go to Chester or Liverpool. I like you, whatever you wear.”

  It was said so casually, she glanced at him to see if she had misheard. He was gazing across the lake, his finger idly twisting a blade of grass. He looked perfectly content, his short dark hair, slightly rumpled, his open-necked shirt falling to one side, revealing the strong column of his throat and a broad collarbone. No one would have known he was an earl’s grandson. But it came to her that whatever he wore, she liked him, too.

  He glanced round, catching her observation. “What? Do I look horribly disreputable?”

  She smiled and shook her head. “No.”

  “I’m sorry about my grandfather. I didn’t expect him to trouble us so soon. I thought he’d go back to London and fume in silence until his temper cooled.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I shan’t go into a decline. It was just…unexpected, and I’m afraid I rather cower before anger and loud voices.”

  “You seemed to be giving as good as you got by the time I arrived,” he remarked. “In fact, on the whole, I’d have put you ahead and all with total civility. You most certainly did not cower.”

  “I did inside,” she confessed.

  “That’s different,” he said gently. “Everyone does that.”

  “You are trying to make me feel better.”

  “Trust me, you hide it so well, no one would guess.”

  “You did.”

  “I’m good at observing people, and you were right beside me with your hand on my arm. I could feel you trembling.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  He took her hand, looking into her averted face. “For what?”

  She could only shake her head again.

  He didn’t release her hand, but after a moment, he asked, “Did someone bully you or shout at you excessively when you were a child?”

  “Oh, no,” she said, shocked. Then she said carefully, “My father
was a good man, though strict. I was always getting into mischief, and then so were Lucy and Giles, and as the eldest, I always got the blame for all of us, even when Lucy had learned to twist him around her little finger. I wasn’t afraid of him, for he was kind beneath it, but my biggest dread became his anger and having to explain myself to his displeasure. I suppose the feeling has stayed with me, even when I thought I had outgrown it.”

  He squeezed her hand. “Well, we must stick to our pact. You will keep me from shouting at my grandfather, and I will stop him from shouting at you. Or at least protect you when he does. When I was a child, I used to imagine him in his nightcap, and he wasn’t nearly so frightening. And when he roars, he’s really just like a small child having a tantrum.”

  “You are irreverent,” she observed.

  “I admit it.”

  She smiled, and he smiled back, raising her hand to his lips and dropping a quick kiss on her fingers. He seemed about to release her hand, and for some reason, she was sorry. Then something unfathomable changed in his eyes, and he leaned closer. She thought she must have a dust-smut or some other blemish on her face and opened her mouth to ask.

  The words died unspoken, for he came closer yet and gently kissed her lips.

  Sheer surprise held her still. His lips were warm and firm, softly cradling hers. She had never encountered anything like it, and yet the birds still sang, the breeze still stirred the fabric of her gown. His masculine scent mingled with those of the outdoors, and she seemed to be held spellbound in his kiss.

  It can only have lasted a moment, but her eyes fluttered open when he drew back. She realized she was clinging to his hand and immediately released it in shock, jumping to her feet.

  “I should go back,” she said breathlessly. “I have things to do before the decorator comes.”