The Reluctant Rake

by Jane Ashford

  Marianne went very still.

  “I was overwhelmed by the disparity of our positions, you see. You could make a far better match from a worldly point of view, and indeed, I knew that you had refused a brilliant alliance, so I…” he ran down. As he stated the case, he nearly succeeded in again convincing himself that his suit was hopeless.

  Marianne felt a wave of inappropriate giggles rising in her chest. When he said he loved her, she’d felt as if a great burden had been lifted from her soul, leaving joy in its wake. But as he went on, tangling himself further and further in rationalization, her feelings threatened to erupt in laughter. This, she knew, would be inexcusable, but she could not resist saying, “Do you wish me to refuse you?”

  “What? No!”

  “You are arguing against yourself so insistently.”

  “I wasn’t. I didn’t mean… It’s just that I am so conscious of the inequality of—”

  “But why mention it? If, that is, you truly wish to convince me.”

  William looked at her, pained. He had not imagined, when he heard that she loved him, that his proposal would be so difficult. He almost wished he had not spoken at all. “I wish with all my heart to marry you,” he replied. “I can say no more than that.”

  Taking pity on him, and unable to restrain her own happiness any longer, Marianne smiled. “Yes.”

  “What?” He seemed uncertain he had heard correctly.

  “Yes,” repeated Marianne, “I will marry you.”

  “But…but…”

  “There! I said you did not mean it.”

  William jumped to his feet in distress. “Marianne! I did. I do! I was just…”

  “When a man apologizes so profusely for kissing one, after all…” She shrugged and raised her eyebrows.

  This was too much. William took one step forward and grasped her elbows, jerking her to her feet. Then his arms slid around her and pulled her against him as his lips met hers in a passionate kiss.

  Before Marianne could really respond, he drew back, holding her by the shoulders at arm’s length. “There! I shan’t apologize for that.”

  She gazed at him, her laughter swept away by very different feelings. “Good.”

  “In fact, I shall do it again.” And he did.

  This time, Marianne had ample time to put her arms around his neck and second his efforts wholeheartedly. Their bodies pressed closer, and both lost themselves in sensation, forgetting the rest of the world. An eternity seemed to pass as they wordlessly communicated a host of things that neither had yet said aloud.

  Finally they drew apart again, though not far. Marianne smiled up at him.

  “After all, a man may kiss his promised wife,” he said.

  “He is practically obliged,” she answered.

  William eyed her. “Has anyone ever told you that you joke at the most inappropriate times?”

  “Heaps of people,” was the cheerful reply. “Since I was tiny.”

  He smiled. “And have you never thought they might be right?”

  “No. They were usually such solemn people.”

  “Ah.” He frowned. “Do you think I am too solemn?”

  “Do you think I am too frivolous?”

  “You are perfect!”

  Marianne laughed at last. “And so are you, in a different way.”

  “I suppose we can learn from each other. But I shall never be a jokester, Marianne.” He looked doubtful.

  “No, but you will become much better at taking a joke, I’m sure.”

  “So I am to be your bobbing block?”

  “Naturally. I shall devote all my time to discovering ways to mock you.”

  William frowned, then saw the teasing twinkle in her blue eyes and smiled again. “You will certainly not lack opportunities,” he replied ruefully.

  “William! I was only funning. I’ll never mock you.” She hesitated. “Exactly.”

  “And what ‘exactly’ will you do?”

  She met his gaze squarely. “Be your wife, and love you with all my heart.”

  There could be only one answer to this, and William gave it very willingly. It was nearly twenty minutes before the couple emerged, beaming, from the library and stood before the front door together.

  “I will call on your mother at ten tomorrow morning,” William said, holding her hand and gazing fondly down on her.

  Marianne grinned. “I will prepare her for your visit.”

  “Do you think she will need bracing?”

  “I think she will need to be told beforehand what is afoot, or she will pay no attention to what you are saying.” She laughed a little.

  After a moment, William followed suit.

  “I will write to my brother by the next post. I suppose he and Alicia will come racing back to see what I’m up to.”

  William looked concerned. “Shall I write to him also? I could explain my situation and the—”

  “Nonsense. Mama is my guardian.”

  “I hope to be friends with your brother, however,” he chided gently.

  “Oh, Ian will adore you!”

  He laughed again. “Why do I feel that is not a compliment?”

  “It is. More or less.”

  William looked inquiring.

  “Ian and I have not always agreed, and I still rather enjoy startling him. I can’t help but regret a little that we shall agree completely on you.”

  “Shall I lose my fortune at hazard or fight a duel so that he will disapprove of me?” Marianne looked pensive. “Stay! That was my own feeble idea of a joke.”

  She dimpled. “I know. And a promising one. The thought is tempting, though.”

  “Not to me!”

  “Oh, well, you would probably do it backward. Your dice would never fall wrong, and you would challenge the greatest blackguard in England and rid the country of him, earning general thanks.”

  “Marianne!” He was half-laughing, half-scandalized.

  She wrinkled her nose at him. “I must go and change. I can’t have them waiting dinner for me.”

  He nodded. “Until tomorrow, then.”

  “Yes.”

  Seeing that the hall was empty, he kissed her lightly again and took his leave. Marianne walked slowly up the stairs to her bedchamber, a dreamy smile making her even more lovely than usual.

  Fifteen

  All was formally settled between Marianne and William later the next day. There could be no objection to the Wyndham lineage or fortune, and Lady Bentham made none. She had satisfied herself of Marianne’s happiness in a private talk, and she asked nothing more. The newly engaged couple spent a happy hour drafting a notice for the Morning Post, and an even more agreeable period discussing their future and bidding each other a very fond farewell. It was settled that William would come to dinner the following evening and become better acquainted with Lady Bentham and her husband.

  These arrangements complete, Marianne had the leisure, as she was getting ready for bed, to wonder again how their reconciliation had been effected. She had forgotten, in the general excitement, to press William for information, so she determined to rise early and visit Georgina, the most probable agent of the change.

  She arrived at the posting house by ten, having left home right after breakfast, and she found Georgina again setting out for a walk in the countryside.

  “Baron Ellerton has visitors,” she replied when asked about her patient’s progress. “I have not seen him since yesterday, but he is mending quickly now. Dr. Mason gave him crutches.”

  “Good.” Marianne’s reply was perfunctory. “May I come with you once again?”

  “If you are certain you don’t prefer to go inside.”

  Shaking her head, Marianne fell in beside the older woman, and they walked for a while in silence. Georgina had just formulated her arg
ument about William when Marianne said, “I came partly to bring you some good news.”

  “Yes?”

  “William and I are engaged.”

  “What?” Georgina stopped and clasped her hands together. “Oh, Marianne, that’s wonderful. But how did it come about? When we spoke last time…”

  Marianne, who had been carefully watching her face for signs of previous knowledge, was disappointed. She would have sworn that her revelation was a complete surprise to Georgina. “He came to me yesterday afternoon and apologized.” She grinned. “Indeed, he rather overapologized. And then he made an offer.”

  “I am so glad! But what can have caused William…that is… Never mind.” Georgina realized that her puzzlement over William’s move was hardly flattering. Yet her knowledge of William’s character made her wonder what had impelled him. He was too modest to have acted without urging, she was sure.

  Marianne laughed. “That is exactly what I came to ask you. In fact, I am tempted to accuse you of interference.” She was watching the other’s expression closely again. “Not that I could scold you too harshly for it, since it brought me such happiness.”

  Georgina shook her head, frowning. “I didn’t speak to him. I thought of it, and I wished to, but I could not make up my mind to betray a confidence.”

  Marianne believed her. No one could feign such perplexed ignorance, she decided. “Did you mention my story to anyone else? But no, you would not.”

  “No,” said Georgina, then abruptly remembered her careful conversation with Ellerton.

  “Well, perhaps William did it on his own,” continued Marianne, oblivious now of the arrested look on her companion’s face. “I like that even better. One doesn’t particularly like to feel that one’s affianced husband had to be goaded to his proposal.”

  Georgina made a vaguely affirmative sound, absorbed in her own thoughts.

  Marianne was now equally abstracted. “We are to be married at the end of the Season. William is taking me down to meet his mother in two weeks, when his brother will be at home as well. I wrote to Ian, too. He will be astonished by my prudent choice.” Turning to share this mild joke, she finally noticed Georgina’s distance. “What is it? Have you thought of something?”

  “Umm? Oh, no, nothing. I was just thinking how you will like Anabel, and she you.” Georgina did not intend to share her theory. The suspicion that Ellerton had taken this kindly task on himself had affected her deeply, and she wanted to assimilate the fact herself.

  “William’s mother? I hope she will. I am a little uneasy about that visit, actually.”

  This captured Georgina’s full attention. “But why?”

  Marianne looked at the ground. “You may not have heard—the talk of last year has died down now—but my father was…a notorious rake. I told William; he doesn’t care. But his family might…”

  “Anabel won’t give a snap of her fingers for your father,” Georgina assured her. “And neither will Christopher—her husband, you know. They will judge you as you are, and they will love you at once.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “I am positive.”

  Marianne heaved a sigh. She had been more concerned about this than she realized.

  “Will you be married in London?” asked Georgina, to divert her.

  She nodded. “Scotland is too far, and besides, most of my friends are here.” She went on happily detailing the plans that had been made, and Georgina again relapsed into her own thoughts.

  Ellerton might have worked out who she meant, Georgina decided, especially considering William’s transparent unhappiness during his visit. She remembered then that the baron had kept William back to speak to him privately, and her suspicion became a certainty. Baron Ellerton had brought William and Marianne together because of her talk with him.

  For some reason, this knowledge filled Georgina was a warm glow. She was merely pleased, she told herself, that her cousin and her friend had surmounted the barriers to their happiness. But she could not deny that the means of their reconciliation was particularly gratifying. The baron’s intervention had been so disinterested and so benevolent; she rejoiced to think of him in such terms. The doubts she had sometimes felt about his capacity for feeling—when his interest in others had seemed merely intellectual—dissolved. He was a thoroughly admirable character, she told herself blissfully. It was at this point that Marianne mentioned the baron’s name, effectively capturing Georgina’s attention again. “What?” she said, looking up.

  Marianne looked self-conscious. “Don’t be offended. I only wish to help. And I daresay you know everything I’m going to say very well, and have considered it already.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” admitted Georgina, who had lost the thread of the conversation.

  Marianne bit her lower lip. “You mean that I have no business giving you advice. That is true, of course. I just do not want to see you…perhaps embarrassed by a mistaken impression.”

  “Marianne, I vow I don’t know what you mean.”

  The younger girl looked at her. “I am talking about Baron Ellerton, of course.”

  Georgina simply frowned.

  “Oh, come. It was obvious when you determined to stay and nurse him, even after his servants arrived, that you… felt an unusual interest in him. I only wanted to say that he is much pursued, and you should not, well, form false hopes or…” Marianne broke off in confusion, wishing she’d never begun. She felt ridiculous admonishing this woman who was both years older and much more reserved than she.

  Georgina felt as if she’d fallen from the heights of fantasy to a most unwelcome reality. Her joy in Ellerton’s kindness was overwhelmed by the truth of Marianne’s assertion, and all her doubts came rushing back. Whatever the baron did, it had nothing to do with her. She had, perhaps, piqued his interest with her tale of thwarted love, and he had indeed shown his quality in untangling the situation, but Georgina’s part in it was mere informant, just as her relationship with Ellerton was no more than mild friendship, if that. He was, naturally, grateful for her help, and they occasionally shared a moment of amused understanding, but this was no basis for the rush of feeling Georgina had experienced a few moments before. She was, she thought unhappily, doing just what Marianne sought to warn her against. She was building upon her artificial intimacy with Ellerton when it was in fact a temporary, and meaningless, coincidence.

  “Oh, how I wish I hadn’t opened my mouth,” exclaimed Marianne. “Of course you know what you are about. I mean… I was just—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” interrupted Georgina, her voice sounding flat in her own ears. “You needn’t worry about me.”

  “No,” agreed Marianne, relieved that Georgina seemed neither angry at her nor unduly upset by her remarks. She must have been mistaken, she told herself. Georgina did not care for Baron Ellerton after all.

  Her duty done, Marianne gladly turned the subject to more pleasant things, and they finished their walk in further discussion of her plans. By the time she took her leave some half hour later, Marianne had nearly forgotten about the baron. She rode back to London immersed in her own happiness, so abstracted that her groom more than once had to warn her of a hazard in the road.

  Georgina reentered the inn to hear that Ellerton’s visitors from London had departed and that he had asked for her. But she did not go to him immediately. She slipped upstairs to her own bedchamber and sat down in the armchair near the window, looking out over the garden behind the inn and trying to regain her customary calm.

  But instead of growing more composed, she became steadily less so. In Marianne’s presence, Georgina had held her feelings in check, but alone, she could give them free play. Indeed, she could do nothing else, for they were too strong.

  She had been exceedingly stupid, she thought miserably. She had ignored her own inner warnings during these days away
from society, and she had unconsciously assumed that Baron Ellerton was feeling as she did—content and happy in her company and increasingly drawn to her, as she was to him. Despite Jenkins’s cautionary tales, and her own common sense, she had fallen in love with him.

  This revelation brought tears to Georgina’s eyes. How could she have been so foolish? She’d always prided herself on the sharpness of her intellect, but in this she had acted directly against its warnings. She had no one to blame but herself.

  The best thing to do, that sensible part of herself declared, was to leave this place. Back in her aunt’s town house, with Susan’s antics and William’s joyful plans to occupy her, she would no doubt soon forget the baron. Her earlier youthful infatuation had passed off in a matter of months when she had determinedly turned her attention elsewhere. When she saw Susan’s stepfather now, she rarely even thought of the time she had fancied herself in love with him. This would be the same.

  But another part of her remained stubbornly unconvinced. This was not the same, it insisted. This love was not built on the imaginings of a schoolgirl, and though its foundation might be equally illusory, the result was not. She would not forget Ellerton, ever.

  A knock at the door made Georgina jump, her heart pounding. It was a moment before she could call, “Yes?”

  Her maid looked in. “His lordship is calling for you, miss. Should I tell him that you’re resting?”

  Georgina rose and came forward. “No, I’ll go down now.” She would have to see him eventually, she told herself as she followed the girl downstairs to the parlor, and thinking was merely making her more agitated. She did not admit that his asking for her had raised a tiny hope.

  The baron was reading one of her books when she came in, stretched out on the sofa with a mug of ale nearby. In the moment before he looked up, Georgina gazed lingeringly at his face. He was more than handsome to her now, she thought. She could see there all the qualities she admired.

  He raised his head, and their eyes met. Georgina found it suddenly difficult to breathe. “Ah, there you are,” he said, his voice very cool. “Where have you been? Packing your things?”