Love in Disguise (The Love Trilogy, #1)

by Edith Layton

  “But, Julian,” he added, after they’d wordlessly shaken hands and the blond gentleman had turned to go, “please be sure it’s what you want, and be entirely sure. Never cause me to regret not making a fool of myself in order to give her a choice. She’s a remarkable girl…a remarkable woman,” he corrected himself.

  “I am entirely sure,” Julian said quietly. “Can you doubt it?”

  “No,” Warwick said, “how could I?” And then added to the empty room when his friend had gone, “But then how should I know the way of it? I’ve never been in love before, at least not since I came to be a man.”

  *

  Susannah was surprised to see only Julian awaiting her in the drawing room. Usually both of her gentlemen passed the hour before dinner with her, chatting and gossiping over sherry. This evening, when there was so much to talk over, only Julian stood waiting for her by the window seat. But he wore such a glad look when she entered the room that she felt assured that nothing was amiss. He was, in fact, radiant this evening, that was the only word she could think adequate to describe him. She was glad she’d worn her best green frock by way of celebrating the end of their woes, if only so she could feel she belonged in the same room with him in his present splendor. But it wasn’t so much a matter of his clothes, as of his entire presence.

  His handsomeness, which always approached the epitome of classical beauty, transcended that now, for no classical sculptor, however talented, could have infused his marble work with such human warmth, gaiety, and sheer healthy joy as his face held as he held out his hand to her. His golden hair was newly washed and slightly damp, his light eyes alight with laughter; for all his shocking beauty, he appeared altogether real and completely mortal as he put his warm lips to her hand.

  “Sukey,” he said, as if he couldn’t wait to share a secret jest with her, “come, sit. No, stand. Ah, well,” he laughed in some excitation, “it hardly matters. I’ve something to say, and if I formally pose you or position you to my liking before I do, I’ll make a worse botch of it than 1 threaten to do right now. So hear me out, at once, and then choose your stance.”

  He stood directly before her and held her hand tightly as he spoke.

  “Warrick reminds me that the contessa is gone. And he, being a proper gentleman, insists you must be chaperoned or we’ll lose you your good name by staying on here with you tonight. That’s Warwick, of course. He forgets you were abducted to London and passed a day and a half the night in the company of assorted thieves and murderers, and the other half in London alone with us, and forgets you’re no flossy highbred Lady of Fashion to begin with. But he remembers your good name in Brighton. Well, the short of it is, Sukey, that I’ve told him it doesn’t matter since I want to change it for you, whether it’s good or bad. Oh, badly put.”

  He grinned and shook his head and then he said more soberly, “I want to marry you, Sukey, my love, there’s the point of it. I do love you, and I do need you, and I do want you. And I was only an idiot for not having known it long before now. I don’t know how else to tell it to you. So if you say yes, it’ll all be settled, and I’ll stay on, and it will scarcely matter if the contessa stays in Scotland so long she grows a beard.

  “Sukey?” he said softly when she only stared at him. “That was poorly done, wasn’t it? Not very romantic, and I know you’re a romantic sort of a girl. But I’ve done with high romance, thank God, and have opened my eyes to what real love and real worth are, without the flowers and trimmings and sighs. You’ve been here, watching and waiting through my terrible protracted childhood, and I think that’s the one thing I regret, that I couldn’t have met you after I’d made a fool of myself so you couldn’t see it. But perhaps I needed you right here all through it to point up the enormous difference between love and a dream of love. I think you understand me very well. That’s only one of the ten thousand reasons I love you entirely, Susannah Logan.

  “As to that name,” he said quickly, before she could speak, “the fact of our different stations doesn’t signify. If society can accept a viscount who was a coachman as soon as his fortune’s mended, be sure they’ll accept whomever he takes to wive, and I want you. And never fear, I vow that fortune will be repaired without your dowry. Will you marry me? There. There’s nothing more to say.”

  He looked down at her. Her brown eyes were so wide he could make out the separate shadows of her upper lashes against the dazzlingly fair skin above them, and looking closely, he could see a small image of himself looking down at her in their dark depths. So he hoped he would always find himself, and since she didn’t answer, he took her in his arms and held her gently and close, and brought his lips to hers, and explained before he kissed her, “That’s all I can say. But not all I can do.”

  And she went dazedly into his embrace, and felt his warm lips against hers, and it was exactly as she had always dreamed it would be.

  21

  The door to the drawing room stood open; as it wasn’t a room meant for privacy, it never was closed when the master of the house or his guests were in. There was no way Warwick could avoid looking in when he passed, just as, despite all his better judgment, there was no way he could have avoided forcing himself to pass by the room. He glanced in for the space of a heartbeat, and stayed at the door staring when it seemed his own heart stopped.

  The blond gentleman held the blond young woman in his arms, he kissed her, she seemed content with that. There was no reason for the master of the house to then back away as though he’d gotten acid in his eyes. There was no reason for him to flee to his study and sit at his desk, shaken and somewhat shamed, feeling like a voyeur, feeling displaced and out of place in his own home, as he’d once been made to feel so long ago. These were, after all, people he had elected to have in his house, these people he loved wholly, if too well.

  They’d actually looked exceedingly decorative as a matched pair, he thought mirthlessly, the gold and the flaxen head finally joined at the mouth, fair skin against fair, like differently shaded lengths of the same bolt of cloth. But there was nothing incestuous about the sight of the two of them locked together in passion, there was instead something entirely natural and inevitable about it, reminding him of a pair of yellow butterflies he’d once seen mating, connected, their separate wings beating their same slow pulse.

  He’d known what he’d see, he thought savagely, but he’d needed to see it in order to give up at last. He’d rationalized that staying in his study while Julian proposed to the woman he loved would be like lurking or sulking or hiding, and he refused to be so childish. It wasn’t until he saw them, of course, that he knew how he’d deceived himself: how he’d held out one foolish hope that perhaps she’d refuse Julian, because, perhaps, he thought humorlessly, there was a chance she’d caught a bad case of madness from Lord Moredon. Of course, she’d loved Julian forever. And if in some small part of his mind he still believed that he would have been the better man for her, why then, he was after all, he realized, an odd eccentric man, given to strange fancies.

  Thank God, at least, he thought, rising and going to his decanter of port, he’d not given in to his strongest urge, to let her know completely how he felt, making an idiot of himself entirely by offering for her when he knew she loved another. He’d tried that once after he’d failed to keep his hands off her, and even then she’d looked at him in such shock he’d had to pass it off as a jest. His only chance to win her would’ve been to act as her comforter; he only wished that he had one now. He hadn’t known, he thought in some wonder, that it would hurt quite so much as this.

  He poured himself a generous glass, but then set it down without taking it to his lips. That would be childish. Instead, he’d sit and wait and come out of his study at their happy announcement, and then smile and jest and wish them every happiness. He’d shake Julian’s hand and kiss her cheek. He’d had an old uncle, he knew the way of it. Then, after watching them for a space, he’d discreetly retire for the night. In the morning he’d find some wonde
rful excuse to go to London, or to Paris, or to hell with himself. But until then, he vowed, sitting down again after taking up a book for the look of it, he’d be grown-up if it killed him. And he had the oddest notion that it would.

  *

  Julian’s lips were warm and gentle, his body strong and comforting against hers; when he pulled back from her for a moment, only to hold her close again in a wordless embrace, Susannah rested her cheek against his and saw the fair tendrils of his hair curling like some tender boy-child’s would against the strong column of his neck. She was entirely astounded. For once the books and stories hadn’t lied, his kiss had been exactly as she’d always dreamed it would be. Just as sweet and gentle as all the fairy tales had promised the handsome prince’s kiss would be when he woke the dreaming princess from her sleep. It was only too bad, or too good, she thought, as she began to step from out of that perfect embrace, that she’d already been aroused, and so had been wide-awake when he’d come to her at last.

  He drew back, feeling her withdrawal, and looked his question at her. Her response to his kiss had been everything he’d dreamed it should be: pure and gentle and innocent. Her response after it confused him; she looked grave and regretful and was decidedly not glowing with happiness or blushing with delight. For all his past history, he’d had little traffic with inexperienced girls, and so wondered if he’d stepped wrong. She clearly wasn’t happy with his embrace, and that was a thing entirely beyond his experience; even Marianna had pretended some pleasure at his light kisses. But seeing her unease, all at once he remembered her secluded life and damned his insensitivity. Rather than something he’d done wrong, it was more than likely she had some foolish notion of what he’d expected from her. He’d set that right at once, he thought with fond compassion, but she spoke before he could.

  “Julian,” she said softly, lowering her lashes, looking so exquisitely abashed that he took heart again, but before he could reach for her again she said quietly but clearly, “I am very sensible of the honor you do me, but I cannot be your wife.”

  “But you love me,” he blurted in his amazement, and wished he hadn’t, for it sounded nothing like what he wanted to say, although it was absolutely true.

  She grew very still. This was terrible, she thought, for she did love him and never wanted to hurt him, indeed, he didn’t deserve insult and he looked very hurt indeed. But how could she tell him that precisely because his kiss had been exactly as she’d dreamed it would be, it was no longer enough for her, because she was a very different girl now from the one who’d dreamed that particular bright dream? It was never his fault that she’d lain in his arms waiting for a sensation that had never come, that she’d found his embrace pleasant, not thrilling, and his kiss incomplete, when she knew all that was lacking was her reaction to it. All it had given her was confirmation of a truth. It would be better if she could make up some comfortable lie and avoid the further truth she owed him as much as she’d owed him that kiss. But he was her friend and she was never a coward, and if there was only one truth, there were a dozen ways to say it.

  “I did love you,” she confessed. “I do still, in a different way. If you’d asked me weeks ago I should have said yes before the words were out of your mouth, if I believed I heard them right, that is. I suppose everyone knew how I felt, poor Lord Moredon was probably absolutely right. But, Julian, you spoke just now of a ‘protracted boyhood,’ and I understood you very well, just as you said I did. For all that you’re a man and a nobleman and I’m a fishmonger’s daughter, we’re very alike, you know, you and I—that may be why we’re such good friends. And so we are, never doubt it. I don’t believe we’d be good lovers, though. But you see, I didn’t want a lover then.

  “I wanted a dream prince,” she explained earnestly, looking beseechingly into his confused eyes, seeking his understanding. “I wanted a beautiful noble fair-haired fellow who had a white horse and fought dragons and bled ichor and lived between the covers of a book. And you exceeded all my expectations, you were…are, incredibly beautiful, and you had two teams of horses,” she said on a sudden irrepressible smile, “and you bravely fought adversity and bad men, and treated me with just the right blend of grace and casual politeness. I would’ve snapped you up then, Julian—you fitted my fantasy perfectly.”

  “And now?” he said stiffly, unbelievingly, for still in some way he thought it all a jest, and that in a moment she’d give up this odd exhibition and cast herself into his arms, laughing. But it had better be a very good jest, he thought with growing displeasure, for he was disappointed with this display, it was unbecoming, very unlike her.

  “Now,” she said ruefully, “I see you’re altogether too nice to labor under that burden for the rest of your life. What would I do if you got a streaming head cold, how would you explain a rash on your back to me? Oh, Julian,” she giggled then, unexpectedly, as he gazed at her in startlement, “how could you wed a bride who’d be appalled to discover you snored?

  “Julian,” she said, smiling up at him warmly, “the oddest thing happened to me when I least expected it. I grew up. Just as you say you did. But if your growing up made you realize you wanted to marry me, my growing up made me see I couldn’t marry you. I don’t know if it was being with you and Warwick that prompted it, or being out in the world at last, or being mistreated by bad people for the first time, or being well-treated by them for that matter, that did it. But I achieved my dream, and when I did, I found it was like all dreams, wonderful to live in my mind, but as nourishing as the stuff of the clouds I built it from. I was accepted in society—oh, I’ll grant it wasn’t high society, only a little provincial part of it. But I danced and was feted and was permitted to be what I always wanted to be, and I found it was very pleasant. But only that, not worth half the trouble I went to attain it.”

  “And I,” he said, surprised at how aloof his voice sounded, shocked at how staggered he was at her refusal, more incredulous still at how her amused account of it stung, “having been attained, am also deemed not worth half the trouble?”

  “Oh, Julian,” she sighed, “you’re worth far more than anyone’s trouble. And I haven’t attained you at all. Because I begin to believe you don’t know me any more than 1 knew you.”

  He gazed down at her, mute and troubled. She looked into that dear, beautiful face, made even more attractive by the bright intelligence she now knew lay behind it, and she sighed for the vanished girl who once would’ve given all she possessed to see that want in his eyes for her.

  “There’s someone else?” he finally asked, groping for understanding.

  “Oh. Yes,” she said, looking down, quiet, embarrassed, flustered at last.

  That, at least, he thought, incredible as it was, of all of this, that made sense.

  * * *

  Warwick looked up as Julian strode into his study. He put on the best representation of a fond smile that he could and rose to his feet, laying aside a book on insects he’d been engrossed in, and that he’d have been alarmed to find himself reading. But then his smile vanished, for Julian was white as talc and clearly upset.

  “I’m going now,” Julian said abruptly, “for the night, as you suggested. In the morning perhaps I’ll have calmed myself enough to know if and when I’ll ever return here. I feel rather a fool, you know. And I’d like the time to think this out. She refused me.”

  There was still wonderment in his voice as he said that, for he’d never been refused before. Even Marianna had granted her favors even as she’d rejected his name. And yet, he realized, though females had given him “yes” for answer every time he could recall having asked them for answer in his life, the two times he’d offered wedlock, he’d been turned down: once with a sop to his masculinity, once with what was definitely sympathy. All those easy affirmatives, and two such devastating negatives? It was a profound revelation he’d need time to consider.

  Warwick stared at him until his words took on meaning. His first impulse was to offer to intercede, to fi
nd where the problem lay. It might be that Julian had put a word wrong. Susannah was sensitive, and like many such people, might’ve had some odd, hidden reason for having said no, meaning yes, all the while desperately wanting someone to winkle the true answer out of her. Then he paused. Julian was his best friend, and he loved him well. But he couldn’t, not for the sake of his soul, offer to help him in this. Not when doing his task right would mean doing so much wrong to himself. He hesitated; then, deciding he must let Julian find his own way, he echoed, “Turned you down?”

  Julian thought for only a moment. There was a strong supposition that he was already considering, and this man was his closest friend, and he well knew where his heart lay. But though he might damn himself forever for being petty and cruel and small-minded, he couldn’t bring himself to hand over that which he’d wanted, even to his best friend. If it were to be his fortune, let him seek it, he thought, as he replied, giving only half a loaf, but at least giving that. “She says there is another.”

  Then, after looking steadily at Warwick. Julian chose not to stay any longer. So much as it was good to see dawning hope brighten that melancholy face, it was painful as well. Then too, he thought in his own defense, it mightn’t be true either; she’d changed, so much so that he couldn’t swear to anything concerning her. And though unlikely, he might be wrong, she could have had some entirely different gentleman in mind when her eyes had grown so soft, and her color had risen, and she’d ducked her head at the thought of him, and he’d hate to stay to see that resurgent hope dashed. So, beset by too many hopes and fears and too much sympathy and envy for his friend, he decided to leave while there was still enough doubt in his own mind to make the rest of his night barely bearable.