by Mary Balogh
She was of suitably high rank. She was the daughter of an earl. He did not know if she had a fortune, but that point was immaterial to him. He had two vast fortunes, one that he had earned for himself and the one that had come with his title and properties two years before.
She was the bride Theo had picked out for him. Doubtless Theo had chosen her because she was his mistress’s goddaughter, but even so his uncle would not have been swayed by that fact alone. And she had a body that he could contemplate with some pleasure having beneath his own on a bed.
If he had sons, preferably more than one, there would be greater stability in the family because the succession would be assured.
Luke sauntered downstairs only a little after his half hour was up and entered the morning room to find a visibly impatient Lord Severidge pacing the floor. Of course, Luke thought as they left the house together, William ramming his hat onto his wig while Luke more fashionably carried his beneath his right arm, he had no wish to marry, now or ever.
But sometimes one’s personal wishes seemed to count for little.
5
“I DID enjoy the ball,” Lady Agnes Marlowe protested. “Oh yes, of course I did, Anna.” She gazed down at one of the two nosegays she had been sent this morning from two of last night’s dancing partners and twirled it between her fingers.
“But . . . ?” Anna prompted, smiling gently.
“But nothing,” Agnes said. “It is lovely to be in town, Anna. ’Tis something I shall always remember with pleasure. I merely remarked to you that I cannot imagine how some people make a life of such frivolity.”
Anna sighed. “I want you to find a husband here, Agnes,” she said. “Someone of your own rank. Someone with whom you can be happy. There is no one of any interest at home. Charlotte was fortunate, but there is no one for you.”
“No, I know,” Agnes said. “But I am only eighteen. I am not past marriageable age yet.” She flushed and looked anxiously into her sister’s face to see if she had hurt her. “When Aunt Marjorie was urging us to come, Anna, and you were so eager to accept her invitation, I agreed because I thought perhaps you would find someone here. I believe you enjoyed the ball. You looked wonderfully happy and ten times prettier than any other lady present. Did you see that French lady? With her great circles of rouge? She looked . . . strange.”
“The Marquise d’Étienne,” Anna said.
“And the Duke of Harndon?” Agnes said. “I thought he must be French, too, until Lord Quinn presented him to us as his nephew. Anna, you had to dance with him and take supper with him. I would have been terrified.”
“Terrified?” Anna looked at her strangely.
“I have never seen a gentleman dressed as he was,” Agnes said. “Actually he was rather splendid, was he not? But there was something about him, Anna. Something about his eyes, I believe. I think he must be different as a person from what his appearance indicated.”
Anna smiled. “He was very charming,” she said. “And very amusing. He is to call on Aunt Marjorie today and take me walking in St. James’s Park afterward. Apparently it is the fashionable place to stroll.”
“Oh,” Agnes said. “A duke. And young and very handsome, Anna, despite the powder and rouge. I am glad for you. I am glad that important gentlemen are noticing how lovely you are.”
Anna laughed. “I do not believe he is on the verge of declaring undying love for me, Agnes,” she said. “’Tis just a walk we are taking—if he has not forgotten, that is.”
Agnes set down her own nosegay and touched one of the red roses that had been delivered for her sister. “They are from him?” she asked. “I was so surprised by my own nosegays that I did not even ask about your bouquet. It is from him?”
Anna nodded.
“Well, then,” Agnes said, “I do not believe he will forget to take you walking. I will be so happy for you if you find someone, Anna. You deserve happiness more than anyone else I know. We all thought at one time that Sir Lovatt Blaydon . . .”
That name. “No!” Anna said hastily, getting to her feet and picking up her bouquet to take upstairs to her own room.
“I know he was old enough to be your father,” Agnes said. “I always thought that rather a pity. But he was very kind to us all, and he was very particular in his attentions to you.”
“He was merely being neighborly,” Anna said. She bent her head to smell one of the blossoms, feeling slightly dizzy. “And he had been acquainted with Mama’s family.”
“It was always you he asked for first when he came calling,” Agnes said, smiling, “and he was always disappointed if you were from home. He used to take you for drives and walks and he used to dance only with you at the assemblies. We all thought he had a tendre for you, Anna.”
“No,” Anna said. “These roses need water. I must take them up and have a vase brought.”
“I am sorry,” Agnes said. “I have upset you. Did he offer and you refused, Anna? Is that why he left so soon after Papa’s death, when we all thought he might have stayed so that you would have had someone to lean on?”
Anna repressed a shudder. “No,” she said. “There was nothing, Agnes. Nothing at all. As you said, he was an older man. He had no interest in me beyond a neighborly friendliness, or I in him.”
“Well, ’tis as well,” Agnes said. “He was too old for you. The Duke of Harndon is a much younger man. Perhaps he has a tendre for you.” She laughed as her sister effected a hasty retreat.
Anna hurried upstairs as if to outdistance demons at her heels. She lowered her face close to the roses again as she entered her dressing room, and breathed in their scent. A dozen red roses. Roses as red as the coat he had worn last night. And the card. She read it again and noted the boldness of his handwriting: “With the compliments of your obedient servant, Harndon.” Purely formal and conventional words. They made her heart race.
She could not shake off last night’s mood. She could not bring herself back to sober good sense. She could not feel the regret she knew she should feel that she had agreed to walk with the duke this afternoon. She wondered how he would look today. Away from the glitter and splendor of the ball, would he look quite ordinary? Would he no longer resemble Prince Charming in her mind? She must hope so. She must hope that after this afternoon the magic would be gone.
Sir Lovatt Blaydon. Anna closed her eyes and bowed her head, the roses clutched against her long after they should have been put into water. Yes, everyone had liked him—everyone in her family and everyone in the neighborhood, except perhaps Emily, but then Emily very often did not react as other people did. He had deceived everyone with his elegant good looks and warm charm.
He had arrived in the neighborhood only days after Mama’s death, having leased a house that was going to be empty indefinitely. He had known Mama’s family and Mama, too, a long time ago. It was pure coincidence, he had said, that he had come to that particular place to take up his abode and had then discovered that he had once been acquainted with the recently deceased Lady Royce. His concern and sympathy had appeared very genuine. He had been so very kind and so very comforting, especially to her, Anna. She had nursed her mother for years and had scarcely left her bedside for weeks. She had been physically and emotionally drained after the death and funeral.
Sir Lovatt Blaydon had been someone on whom to lean. There had been no one else. Her father had already been a broken man, and Victor had returned to university after the funeral. Besides, Victor had been only nineteen years old.
She had leaned on Sir Lovatt. She had come to look forward to his frequent visits. She had even confided some of her worries to him—worries about her father, worries about the girls and their future. He had been kind and understanding.
Anna opened her eyes and stared blankly at her roses for a few moments. And then she crossed her dressing room with resolute steps and pulled the bell rope. They must have water. They were beautiful. And they we
re from him, her Prince Charming. She smiled at the thought.
Yes, she would concentrate on today. Today might be all she ever had. Then she smiled again at the rather self-pitying thought.
• • •
Luke had wondered if perhaps he would be less dazzled by Lady Anna Marlowe in the light of day, without the trappings of a grand ball surrounding her. But she was as brightly lovely and as vivacious this afternoon as she had been last evening.
They strolled along the straight, treelined Mall in St. James’s Park, acknowledging among the crowds also walking there those people they knew, occasionally stopping to exchange pleasantries with acquaintances, but mostly walking and talking exclusively to each other. One thing experience had taught him was that women liked to feel that they had the whole of a man’s attention. He never allowed his attention to stray appreciatively to any other woman when he was with one in particular.
But it was not difficult to focus all his attention on Lady Anna. She sparkled as she had done the night before and her green eyes danced with merriment as she described to him the agony and the absurdity of standing for hours while a mantua maker fitted her out for a whole new wardrobe.
“It seemed that the clothes I brought from the country were fit for nothing but the dustbin,” she said, “though I made very sure that they were not put there. Even the servants, Madame Delacroix hinted, would be insulted to be presented with garments so far out of fashion.” She laughed merrily.
A woman who could laugh at herself, he thought, was one not overly given to conceit.
“I would wager, madam,” he said, “that you looked more lovely in your country clothes than many a lady decked out in the latest Parisian mode.”
She laughed again.
She looked very handsome indeed in her new clothes. His eyes appreciated the wide-brimmed straw hat she wore tilted slightly forward over her frilled lace cap and tied with blue ribbons at the nape of her neck. And he admired the graceful flow of the loosely pleated back of her sack dress, the bodice fitted tightly over her neat figure in front, English fashion, and opened to reveal an embroidered stomacher.
They talked on easily about trivialities while his mind returned unwillingly to the thoughts he had had during the morning. What would it be like, he wondered, to live permanently with this woman? Was she always so brightly cheerful? So amusing and even witty? Would he tire of the brightness, the frivolity? Were there any depths to her character that were not apparent on first acquaintance?
And what would it be like to have her as a bedfellow for the rest of his life? She was lovely. He felt a definite stirring of desire as he unclothed her with knowing and expert eyes and mentally placed her back against the mattress of his bed. Yes, he would certainly enjoy making love to her. But for a lifetime? He had had some of the most lovely and most sexually accomplished beauties of France to bed and yet had tired of every single one of them after a few months. Although he had spent two satisfactory afternoons in Angélique’s bed since their arrival in England, in truth he was tired of her. He had neither expected nor wanted her to follow him to London.
Would he not tire of an innocent far sooner? She would know nothing. She would have no idea how to give him pleasure beyond submitting to having her body penetrated. He would have to teach her everything. And teach her how to receive pleasure without guilt or embarrassment.
She smiled brightly across at him in response to a story he had told about his rather stormy crossing of the English Channel and its effect on his fellow passengers. Oh yes, but there was some appeal in the thought of giving instruction to such lovely and sprightly innocence.
But it was a lifetime he was thinking of.
He was the Duke of Harndon, he reminded himself. That fact and the fact of his vast fortune must be common knowledge. And of course so would be the fact that he was thirty years old and unmarried. He was, he supposed, one of the biggest matrimonial prizes in London this spring, if not the biggest. He had never had to consider those facts before in the two years since he had succeeded his brother. He had never before considered matrimony.
And was he seriously considering it now? Part of his mind rushed into an instant denial. But another part of his mind . . .
It was altogether possible that Lady Anna Marlowe, who was somewhat past the age of twenty if his guess was not quite wide of the mark, had set out to net him. She had her godmother and his uncle on her side. And she had gone out of her way last evening to attract his notice and to hold it. She had been quite openly flirtatious. Perhaps the real Lady Anna was quite different from the one who sparkled and laughed up at him now. Perhaps she was a shrew. Perhaps after they were married she would show herself in her true colors.
After they were married?
He needed to be exceedingly careful.
He took his leave of her an hour later in the hall of Lady Sterne’s house, bowing over her hand and kissing it as he did so. “I have enjoyed this afternoon’s walk more than anything else since my return to England except for one hour of last evening’s ball,” he said. “For which I have you to thank, madam.”
“And I you, your grace,” she said. “I had no idea that life in town could be so—so very enjoyable.”
He spoke from impulse. “I plan to escort my mother and my sister to the theater tomorrow evening,” he said, “and to invite a few other guests to join us in my box there. Would you do me the honor of being one of their number, madam? And your sister and godmother, too?” he added hastily as an afterthought.
He was given again the impression that Lady Anna Marlowe was no coquette. She leaned slightly toward him, her lips parting, her eyes coming alight, and answered almost before he had finished speaking.
“Oh yes, your grace,” she said. “That would be lovely. I have never been to the theater and have always longed to watch a play being performed. It is a play?”
He inclined his head. “The Beggar’s Opera,” he said. “A very successful work by the late Mr. John Gay.”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “I have heard of it.”
He made her one of his deepest bows. “Until tomorrow evening, then, madam,” he said. “The hours between now and then will crawl by.”
He left her standing in the hall, smiling. What the devil was happening to him? he wondered. The hours between now and then will crawl by. He was accustomed to uttering such gallantries to women who clearly knew that he was trying to maneuver them into a liaison. They were not the sort of words he was in the habit of speaking to innocent young ladies of quality whom he could neither wish nor hope to bed this side of a wedding ceremony.
And yet he had spoken the words to Lady Anna Marlowe— one scant hour after he had cautioned himself to be very careful.
And what had prompted him to say he planned to take his mother and Doris to the theater? Some responsibility for the latter he might reluctantly acknowledge, but he desired no social intercourse with his family. He had planned to go to the theater himself since The Beggar’s Opera was a play he wished to see and since the subscription on his family box at the theater had been kept up even after George’s death. But he had not planned to take a party there. Thank the Lord that at least he had thought to include the sister and Lady Sterne in the invitation.
He supposed that he should call on his mother again to issue the invitation.
Damnation, he thought. His mother, in particular, was someone with whom he did not really wish to renew relations. He had not forgiven her and doubted that he ever would or could. And during his own brief visit to her and the meeting at last evening’s ball she had shown no sign of wishing forgiveness. Perhaps she still believed he had tried to kill George. Damnation. He wished he had stayed in Paris and consigned them all to hell.
He turned his steps in the direction of his ducal town house.
• • •
Anna sat with Agnes and Lady Sterne in the Duke of Harnd
on’s box at the Covent Garden theater the following evening and gazed about her in wonder and awe. Her desire to see London, to attend balls and concerts there, to sit in a theater and watch a play or listen to an opera, had been so suppressed in her during her youth and the early years of her adulthood that she had been scarcely aware of them before coming here. It had all, she supposed, seemed to be such an impossibility.
She was here, she told herself. She was really here. And it was all more wonderful than anything she might have imagined. She had given up all caution during the past few days. It was silly, she had persuaded herself, to stop herself from enjoying these two months only because she knew they must come to an end. She was going to enjoy them and she was going to enjoy the company of the duke and flirt with him, too, for as long as he gave her the opportunity. Once she had returned home, she would never see him again. It would not matter what sort of an impression she left behind with him.
She looked over her shoulder to where he was standing, greeting Lord Quinn and a tall, handsome young man, who had just entered the box together. The duke was wearing a gold coat tonight and a scarlet waistcoat. He was wearing his cosmetics again, something he had not done on their walk yesterday. She wondered how long his hair was inside the black silk bag. She wondered what color it was in its natural state, beneath the carefully applied white powder.
The handsome young man was Lord Ashley Kendrick, the Duke of Harndon’s younger brother. He smiled at her and bowed deeply when he was presented. He shared his brother’s charm, Anna thought, though he smiled more easily than the duke. Apart from that they were unalike. He greeted Lady Sterne and took a seat beside Agnes, who looked painfully shy, Anna thought, despite his charm.
The duke’s mother and his sister, who had come with the two gentlemen, would arrive any moment. They had stopped outside in the corridor to exchange a few words with a friend, Lord Quinn explained as he sat beside Lady Sterne.
She and her family and he and his. It was very significant, Lady Sterne had commented when she knew of the invitation. She had smiled and nodded knowingly. And it was extremely satisfactory. It was what she had hoped for from the first. The Duke of Harndon was, of course, Lord Quinn’s nephew, and very wealthy with vast estates, Bowden Abbey in Hampshire being the principal one. And he was going to present her to his mother. Very promising indeed.