SLIGHTLY WICKED

by Mary Balogh

  Rannulf ignored her. “Miss Law?”

  Her head had shot up, and she was gazing at him with wide, dismayed eyes. This whole scheme of his had been designed for just this moment. It really had infuriated him that she had been made into an invisible woman, little more than a servant, all because that puppy of a brother of hers had thought he could live beyond his means and be funded by the bottomless pit of his father’s fortune. She should become visible, even if just once, while all the guests were still staying at Harewood, and in all her greatest magnificence.

  It had been a gamble from the start, of course. But it had been planned before the distressing events of this afternoon. All evening he had toyed with the idea of leaving her invisible.

  “But I have no particular accomplishment, my lord,” she protested. “I do not play the pianoforte or sing more than tolerably well.”

  “Perhaps,” he said, looking directly into her eyes, “you have some verse or some passage from literature or the Bible memorized?”

  “I—” She shook her head.

  He would leave it at that, he decided. He had done the wrong thing. He had embarrassed and perhaps hurt her.

  “Perhaps, Miss Law,” his grandmother said kindly, “you would be willing to read a poem or a Bible passage if we were to have a book fetched from the library. I noticed in conversation with you this afternoon what a very pleasant speaking voice you have. But only if you wish. Rannulf will not bully you if you are too shy.”

  “Indeed I will not, Miss Law.” He bowed to her.

  “I will read, then, ma’am,” she said, sounding unhappy.

  “Will you fetch something from the library, Rannulf?” his grandmother asked. “Something by Milton or Pope, perhaps? Or the Bible?”

  So, he had succeeded only in embarrassing her, Rannulf thought as he strode toward the door. But before he reached it a voice stopped him.

  “No, please,” Judith Law said, getting to her feet. “Fetching a book and finding a suitable passage will only cause a long delay. I will... I will act out a little scene I have memorized.”

  “Judith!” her aunt said, sounding truly horrified. “I hardly think a gathering of this nature would appreciate being subjected to schoolgirl theatricals.”

  “Oh, yes, yes, Judith!” Mrs. Law exclaimed almost at the same moment, her heavily ringed hands clinking as she clasped them together, and her bracelets jangling. “That would be wonderful, my love.”

  Judith walked slowly and with obvious reluctance into the open area before the hearth that had been cleared for the nonmusical items of entertainment. She stood there for a few moments, the bent knuckle of one hand against her lips, her gaze on the floor. Rannulf, his heart beating in his chest like a large hammer, was aware of a few shufflings of discomfort from the guests. Several of them, he guessed, were looking full at her for the first time. She looked like someone’s plain and overweight governess.

  And then she looked up, timidity and embarrassment still in her face.

  “I’ll do Lady Macbeth’s speech from the last part of the play,” she said, her glance darting to Rannulf and away again. “The sleepwalking scene that you are all probably familiar with, the scene in which she tries constantly to wash the blood of the murdered King Duncan from her hands.”

  “Judith!” Lady Effingham said. “I really must ask you to sit down. You are embarrassing yourself and everyone else.”

  “Shhh!” Mrs. Law said. “Do be quiet, Louisa, and let us watch.”

  From the look of astonishment on Lady Effingham’s face, Rannulf guessed that it was the first time in a long while that her mother had spoken thus to her.

  But he had little attention to spare for anyone except Judith Law, who was looking quite, quite inadequate to the role she had just taken on. What if he had made a dreadful mistake? What if she was hopelessly overawed by the occasion and the company?

  She turned her back on them. And watching her, he began gradually to relax. He could see her, even before she turned around again, work her way into another woman’s body and mind and spirit. He had watched it before. And then she dipped her head forward, removed her cap and dropped it to the floor, drew out the pins from her hair, and dropped them too.

  Her aunt gasped and Rannulf was half aware of a few of the other men in the room sitting up straighter.

  And then she turned.

  She was not Judith Law in any of her guises. Her loose dress had become a nightgown. Her hair had been messed up while she tossed and turned in bed trying to sleep and then sleeping restlessly. Her eyes were open, but they were the strange, vacant eyes of a sleepwalker. Yet her face was so filled with horror and revulsion that it bore no resemblance whatsoever to Judith Law’s face.

  Her shaking hands lifted slowly before her face, the fingers spread, looking more like serpents than fingers. She tried washing her hands, desperately rubbing them over each other, and then held them up again and gazed intently at them.

  In the play there were two other characters—a doctor and a gentlewoman—to witness and describe her appearance and actions. Their words were not necessary tonight. She was unmistakably a woman in torment, a woman with both feet in hell, even before she spoke. And then she did.

  “ ‘Yet here’s a spot,’ ” she said in a low, dead voice that nevertheless carried clearly to the farthest corner of a room that seemed to hold its breath.

  She touched the spot on her palm with the middle finger of her other hand, picked at it, scratched at it, gouged it, her actions becoming more and more frenzied.

  “ ‘Out, damned spot! out, I say!’ ”

  Rannulf was caught firmly in her spell. He stood close to the door, neither seeing nor hearing anything but her— Lady Macbeth, the sad, horrifying, guilty ruin of an ambitious woman who had thought herself strong enough to incite murder and even commit murder. A young, beautiful, misguided, and ultimately tragic woman whom one pitied to the depths of one’s soul because it was too late for her to go back and apply newly acquired wisdom to past decisions. As perhaps it is not too late for those of us who are fortunate enough to have committed sins less irreversible, he thought.

  And then finally she heard a knocking at the castle door and became panicked over the possibility of being caught literally red-handed over a murder committed long ago.

  “ ‘Come, come, come, come, give me your hand,’” she told an invisible Macbeth, her hand a claw grasping his invisible arm. “ ‘What’s done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed.’”

  She turned then and even though she moved only a few steps in the confining space, it seemed that she hurried a great distance, panic and horror in every step. She ended, as she had begun, with her back to the audience.

  There was a moment’s complete hush ... and then loud, genuine, prolonged applause. Rannulf felt himself sag with relief and realized in some astonishment that he was very close to tears.

  Roy-Hill whistled.

  Lord Braithwaite sprang to his feet. “Bravo!” he cried. “Oh, I say, bravo, Miss Law.”

  “Wherever did you learn to act like that, Jude?” her brother asked. “I had no idea.”

  But she was down on one knee on the floor, her back still toward the room, quickly pinning up her hair and stuffing it beneath her cap again. Rannulf crossed the room and offered her his hand.

  “Thank you, Miss Law,” he said. “That was a magnificent performance and a very fitting conclusion to our entertainment. I would not wish to be the one to try following that.”

  She was Judith Law again, her face aflame with embarrassment. She set her hand on his, but her head was dipped low as she hurried back to her chair beside Mrs. Law’s without looking at anyone.

  Mrs. Law, Rannulf noticed, was drying reddened eyes with her handkerchief. She grasped one of her granddaughter’s hands and squeezed it tightly though she said nothing.

  Rannulf moved away.

  “But my dear Miss Law,” his grandmother asked, “why at your tender age do you keep all that gloriou
s, beautiful hair covered?”

  Judith’s eyes widened in surprise, Rannulf saw when he glanced back at her. He noticed in the same moment that the attention of all the gentlemen was riveted on her.

  “Beautiful, ma’am?” she said. “Oh, I think not. The devil’s own color, my papa always called it. My mama always described it as carroty.”

  The devil’s own color! Her own father had said that?

  “Well,” his grandmother said, smiling, “I would compare it to a gold-tinged fiery sunset, Miss Law. But I am embarrassing you. Rannulf—”

  “We have stayed rather late, Lady Beamish,” Lady Effingham said firmly, getting to her feet, “my niece having decided to prolong the entertainment and make herself the center of attention. You have been most kind to her, for which condescension I thank you on her behalf. But it is time we took our leave.”

  The carriages had to be brought around and all the extra baggage necessitated by a change of clothes after the garden party loaded up with the valets and personal maids who had come from Harewood. But within half an hour the guests had all been seen on their way and Rannulf was able to escort his grandmother to her room. She was almost gray with fatigue, he saw, though she would not admit as much.

  “That was all very pleasant,” she said. “Miss Effingham looks particularly pretty in pink.”

  Had she been wearing pink? He had not noticed.

  “But she has very little countenance,” she added. “Of course, she has had only her mother’s example to follow, and Lady Effingham has an unfortunate tendency to vulgarity. The girl was flirting at dinner and afterward with every gentleman within range of her, just because you were not beside her, I believe, Rannulf. It is regrettable behavior in a young lady I still hope will be your bride. You are pleased with her?”

  “She is only eighteen, Grandmama,” he said. “She is just a child. She will grow up, given time.”

  “I suppose so.” She sighed as they reached the top of the stairs. “Lord Braithwaite has a comic genius. He can create hilarity out of the most ordinary circumstances and is not afraid to mock himself. But Miss Law! She has the sort of talent that makes one feel humble and honored in its presence.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Poor lady.” She sighed again. “She is beautiful beyond belief and does not even know it. Her father must be a puritanical, joyless sort of clergyman. How could he possibly say such dreadful things of that glorious hair of hers?”

  “I daresay, Grandmama,” he said, “he has seen some of his male parishioners getting an eyeful of her and has concluded there must be something sinful about her appearance.”

  “Foolish man! It is a dreadful fate to be poor and female, is it not?” she said. “And to be offered the charity of someone like Louisa Effingham? But at least Miss Law has her grandmother. Gertrude is fast coming to dote on her.”

  What’s done cannot be undone. That line she had spoken as Lady Macbeth kept running through Rannulf’s head after he had seen his grandmother to her dressing room and had retired to his own room.

  How very true. He could not go back and ride on alone for help after coming across the overturned stagecoach. He could not restore her virginity. He could not erase that day and a half or those two nights when they had talked and laughed and loved and he had been prepared to pursue her wherever she went, to the ends of the earth if necessary.

  He could not go back and change any of that.

  He had fallen somewhat in love with Claire Campbell, he admitted to himself at last. Not just in lust. There had been more to his feelings than that. He was not in love with Judith Law, but there was something ... It was not pity. He would have been actively repelled by her if he could do no more than pity her. It was not lust even though he definitely and ignominiously wanted to bed her. It was not... He simply did not know what it was or was not. He had never been much of a one for deep emotions. He had colored his world with faint, bored cynicism for as far back as he could remember.

  How could he define his feelings for Judith Law when he had no frame of reference by which to measure them? But he thought suddenly of his quiet, morose, stern, always correct, always dutiful elder brother, Aidan, who had taken a commission in the cavalry on his eighteenth birthday, just as it had been planned all his life that he would. Aidan, who had recently married without telling anyone in his family, even Bewcastle, and had then just as abruptly sold out in order to live with the wife he had married only to keep a solemn vow made to her dying brother, a fellow officer in the south of France. Rannulf had accompanied Aidan home from London to his wife’s property on the first stage of his own journey to Grandmaison and had met Lady Aidan for the first time—and the two young children she had fostered.

  Rannulf had watched, transfixed, outside the house as the two children had come racing eagerly to meet Aidan, the little girl addressing him as Papa, and he had scooped them up and given them his fond attention just as if they were the most dearly loved products of his own loins. And then he had looked at his wife as she came more slowly after the children and enfolded her in his free arm and kissed her.

  Yes, Rannulf thought, that was his frame of reference. Just that moment when Aidan had set his arm about Eve and kissed her and looked young and human and exuberant and vulnerable and invincible all at the same time.

  There was only one word to describe what he had witnessed.

  Love.

  He strode impulsively into his dressing room and found his cloak in the wardrobe there. He dug around in the inside pocket until he found what he was searching for. He drew it out, unwrapped the brown paper from about it, and gazed down at the cheap little snuffbox with the ugly pig’s head carved on its lid. He chuckled softly, closed his hand about the box, and then felt almost overwhelmingly sad.

  Chapter XIV

  Judith returned home in the last carriage with her grandmother, who had been slower than everyone else getting ready to leave and had twice asked Judith if she would be so good as to run back up to the room in which she had changed to make sure she had not forgotten anything. It was very late by the time they arrived at Harewood. All the guests had retired to their rooms for the night. Aunt Effingham was waiting in the hall. “Judith,” she said in awful tones, “you will assist Mother to her room and then attend me in the drawing room.”

  “I am coming too, Louisa,” her mother said.

  “Mother.” Lady Effingham bent a stern gaze on the old lady though she attempted to soften her tone. “It is late and you are tired. Judith will take you up and ring for Tillie if she is not already there waiting for you. She will help you undress and get into bed and will bring you a cup of tea and a draft to help you sleep.”

  “I do not want my bed or a cup of tea,” her mother said firmly. “I will come to the drawing room. Judith, my love, may I trouble you for your arm again? I daresay I sat too long in the rose arbor this afternoon. The wind has made all my joints stiff.”

  Judith had been expecting the scold that was obviously coming. She could hardly believe herself that she had had the temerity to act before an audience—Papa would surely have sentenced her to a full week in her room on bread and water if she had ever done such a thing at home. She had even taken her hair down. She had acted and she had reacted to the audience, which had given her its total, undivided attention even though she had not been consciously aware of it. She had been Lady Macbeth. The audience had liked her and applauded and praised her. What she had done could not have been so very wrong. Everyone else had entertained the company, not all of them with music. She was a lady. She had been as much a guest of Lady Beamish as anyone else.

  Lady Beamish had called her hair glorious and beautiful. How else had she described it? Judith frowned in thought as she climbed the stairs slowly with her grandmother while Aunt Effingham came behind.

  I would compare it to a gold-tinged, fiery sunset.

  Lady Beamish, though she had perfect manners, was not given to frivolous, flattering compliments, Judith suspect
ed. Was it possible, then, that her hair could be seen that way? A gold-tinged, fiery sunset. . .

  “These earrings pinch me almost as badly as those others,” her grandmother said, pulling them off as they entered the drawing room. “Though I have been wearing them all evening, of course. Now where shall I put them so that they will not be lost?”

  “Give them to me, Grandmama,” Judith said, taking them from her and putting them safely inside her reticule. “I will put them away in your jewelry box when we go upstairs.”

  Horace was in the room, she saw at a glance, sitting on the arm of a chair, a glass of some dark liquor in his hand, swinging one leg nonchalantly and looking at her with insolent malice. Julianne was there too, dabbing at her eyes with a lace-edged handkerchief.

  “Are you feeling better, Horace?” Grandmama asked. “It is a great shame you were indisposed and had to miss dinner and the entertainment in the drawing room afterward.”

  “Indisposed, Grandmama?” Horace laughed. “It was the indisposition of boredom. I know from past experience how insipid evenings at Lady Beamish’s can be.”

  Judith, her stomach knotted with revulsion, tried not to look at him or hear his voice.

  “It was a horrid evening,” Julianne said. “I was seated half a table away from Lord Rannulf during dinner, yet he did not protest the seating arrangement even though he was in his own grandmother’s house. And I thought Lady Beamish was promoting a match between us. I daresay he persuaded her to keep me away from him. He does not like me. He is not going to offer for me. He did not even applaud my performance on the pianoforte any more than he did Lady Margaret’s even though I played much better than she did. And he did not call for an encore. I have never been so humiliated in my life. Or so wretched. Mama, I hate him, I hate him.”

  “There, there, dearest,” her mother said soothingly. But it was clear her mind was on other matters than her daughter’s distress. Her bosom appeared to swell to twice its size as she turned on her niece. “Now, Miss Judith Law, you will kindly explain yourself.”