SLIGHTLY WICKED

by Mary Balogh

  “Explain myself, Aunt?” Judith asked as she seated her grandmother in her usual chair by the fire. She would not be cowed, she decided. She had done no wrong.

  “What,” her aunt asked, “was the meaning of that vulgar spectacle you made of yourself this evening? I was so ashamed I scarcely knew how to keep my countenance. Your poor uncle was speechless all the way home in the carriage and shut himself into the library the moment we returned.”

  “Oh, dear me, Cousin,” Horace said, sounding mildly amused, “whatever have you been up to?”

  But before Judith could form any reply to her aunt, her grandmother spoke up.

  “Vulgar, Louisa?” she said. “Vulgar? Judith bowed to persuasion as all the other young people did to entertain the company. She acted out a scene, and I have never witnessed finer acting. I was amazed and delighted by it. I was moved to tears by it. It was by far the best performance of the evening, and clearly everyone else—almost everyone else— agreed with me.”

  Judith looked at her grandmother in astonishment. She had never heard her speak in half so impassioned a way. She was actually angry, Judith could see. Her eyes were flashing and there were two spots of color in her cheeks.

  “Mother,” Aunt Louisa said, “I think it would be best if you stayed out of this. A lady does not take her hair down in public and draw everyone’s attention her way with such .. . theatrics.”

  “Oh, tut, tut,” Horace said, lifting his glass in Judith’s direction. “Did you do that, Cousin?”

  “A lady does take her hair down at night,” the old lady said. “When she goes sleepwalking she does not take the time to pin it up first. Judith was not herself tonight, Louisa. She was Lady Macbeth. It is what acting is all about, immersing oneself in the character, bringing that character alive for an audience. But I would not expect you to understand.”

  Judith was amazed that her grandmother did.

  “I am sorry if I displeased you, Aunt Louisa,” she said. “But I cannot apologize for offering some entertainment to the company when both Lord Rannulf Bedwyn and Lady Beamish urged me to do so. It would have been impolite to be coy. I chose to do what I thought I could do well. I do not understand why you feel such an aversion to acting. You are like Papa in that. No one else this evening appeared to be scandalized. Quite the contrary, in fact.”

  Her grandmother had taken one of her hands in both her own and was chafing it as if it were cold.

  “I suppose, Judith, my love,” she said, “your papa has never told you, has he? Neither he nor Louisa could quite forgive your grandfather for what he had done to them, and they have both run from it all their lives. Though neither of them would even have life if he had not done it.”

  Judith looked down at her with a frown of incomprehension.

  “Mother!” Aunt Louisa said sharply. “Enough. Julianne—”

  “Your grandfather met me in the green room at the Covent Garden Theater in London,” the old lady explained. “He said he had fallen in love with me even before that, when he saw me acting onstage, and I always believed him even though all the gentlemen used to say that or something similar—and there were many of them. Your grandfather married me three months later and we had thirty-two happy years together.”

  “Grandmama?” Julianne was openly aghast. “You were an actress! Oh, this is insupportable. Mama, what if Lady Beamish discovers the truth? What if Lord Rannulf does? I’ll die of shame. I swear I will.”

  “Well, well,” Horace muttered softly.

  Her grandmother patted Judith’s hand. “I knew when I saw you as a child,” she said, “that you were the one most like me, my love. That hair! It so horrified your poor papa and your mama too, suggesting as it did a flamboyance unfitted to a child from the rectory—and suggesting too that you might have inherited more than just that from your scandalous grandmama. When I watched you tonight, it was like looking at myself almost fifty years ago. Except that you are more beautiful than I ever was, and a better actress too.”

  “Oh, Grandmama,” Judith said, squeezing the plump, ringed hand beneath her own. Suddenly so much of her own life made sense to her. So much.

  “Well, I will not stand for it, miss,” Aunt Louisa said. “You have shamed me and my young, impressionable daughter, before houseguests I selected from the very cream of society, before Lady Beamish and the son of a duke who is courting Julianne. I would remind you that you were brought here by the kindness and charity of your uncle. You will remain here for the next week, when I will need you to tend to your grandmother. Tomorrow I will write to my brother and inform him that I am severely displeased with you. I daresay he will not be surprised. I will offer to take one of your sisters instead of you. This time I will ask specifically for Hilary, who is young enough to learn her place. You will be going home in disgrace.”

  “Tut, tut, Cousin,” Horace said. “After only a week.”

  Judith should have been feeling relieved, even euphoric. She was going home?. But Papa would know all about the acting at Lady Beamish’s. And Hilary was going to have to come to take her place.

  “If Judith goes, I will go too,” her grandmother said. “I will sell some of my jewels, Judith. They are worth a fortune, you know. We will buy a little cottage somewhere and be cozy together. We will take Tillie with us.”

  Judith squeezed her hand again. “Come, Grandmama,” she said. “It is late and you are upset and tired. I’ll help you up to your room. We will talk in the morning.”

  “Mama?” Julianne wailed. “You are not paying any attention to me! You do not care about me either, I daresay. What am I going to do about Lord Rannulf? I must have him. He almost ignored me this evening and now he may find out that I am the granddaughter of an actress.”

  “My dearest Julianne,” her mother said, “there is more than one way to catch a husband. You will be Lady Rannulf Bedwyn before the summer is out. Trust me.”

  Horace smiled nastily at Judith as she passed his chair, her grandmother leaning heavily on her arm.

  “Remember what I said, Cousin,” he said softly.

  During the following week Rannulf spent his mornings, sometimes the afternoons too, with his grandmother’s steward, learning some of the intricacies of the workings of an estate. He was surprised to discover that he enjoyed poring over account books and other business papers quite as much as he did riding about the home farm and tenant farms, seeing for himself and talking with a number of the farmers and laborers. He was careful about one thing, though.

  “I am not offending you, Grandmama?” he asked her at breakfast one morning, taking her thin hand with its almost translucent blue-veined skin in his own and holding it gently. “I am not giving the impression that I am taking over as if I were already master here? I wish, you know, that you would live another ten years or twenty or longer.”

  “I am not sure I have the energy left with which to oblige you,” she told him. “But you are brightening my final days, Rannulf. I did not expect this, I must admit, though I did expect that you would learn quickly and do a creditable job here after my time. You are a Bedwyn after all, and Bedwyns have always taken their duty seriously no matter what else one might say about them.”

  He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.

  “Now, if I could just see you well married,” she said, “I would be entirely content. But is Julianne Effingham right for you? I so hoped she would be. She is a neighbor, her grandmother is one of my dearest friends, and she is young and pretty. What do you think, Rannulf?”

  He had been hoping she would change her mind about pressing the match on him. At the same time he knew she would be bitterly disappointed if he did not marry soon.

  “I think I had better keep on going over to Harewood each day,” he said. “The house party will be over in another week. There is the ball still to come. I promised you I would seriously consider the girl, Grandmama, and I will.”

  But the trouble was, he discovered as the week progressed, he could not like Miss Ef
fingham any better on closer acquaintance. She still pouted whenever he neglected to dance attendance upon her every hour of every day and still tried to punish him by flirting with all the other gentlemen. She still prattled on about herself and her various accomplishments and conquests whenever he was in her company and tittered at his flatteries. She bored him silly. And of course her mother made every attempt in her power to throw them together. They always sat beside each other if he was at Harewood for dinner, as he was most evenings. They always rode together in a carriage whenever he joined any of the numerous excursions to places of interest. He was always called upon to turn the pages of her music.

  Sometimes he thought that perhaps he continued to go to Harewood less for his grandmother’s sake than in the hope of having a private word with Judith Law. He feared that he might after all have made a dreadful mistake in maneuvering her into acting at Grandmaison. She had never been very visible at Harewood, but now she was even less so. She was never at the dinner table. Neither was the old lady. She never joined any of the excursions or outdoor activities. On the few occasions she appeared in the drawing room of an evening, she behaved more than ever like a hired companion to Mrs. Law and retired early with her.

  One thing quickly became clear to Rannulf. When Tanguay invited her to partner him in a card game, Lady Effingham informed him that her mother was indisposed and needed Miss Law to help her to her room and wait on her there. When Roy-Hill invited her to join the group about the pianoforte, Miss Effingham informed him that her cousin had no interest in anything musical. When they all decided to play charades one evening and Braithwaite chose her first to be on his team, Lady Effingham told him that Miss Law had a headache and was to be excused from remaining in the drawing room any longer.

  The gentlemen of the house party had clearly awoken to Judith Law’s existence. And Lady Effingham was punishing her for that very fact. Yet he, Rannulf realized, was the one responsible for the unhappy situation. He had done the wrong thing. He had made her life worse, not better. And so he made no attempt to speak to her himself when her aunt or cousin might have noticed. He did not want to make matters even worse for her. He bided his time.

  On the day before the ball everyone, including Lady Effingham, went into the town again since most of them needed to make some purchases for the occasion. Rannulf had declined their invitation to join them. His grandmother decided to take the opportunity to call upon Mrs. Law while she could expect to find a quiet house. Rannulf escorted her there even though she assured him that it was not necessary.

  “I’ll not intrude upon your visit, Grandmama,” he told her. “I’ll go for a walk after paying my respects to Mrs. Law.”

  He was hoping to be able to invite Judith Law to join him on that walk, but she was not present in the drawing room.

  “She is in her room writing letters to her sisters, I believe,” Mrs. Law told him when he asked after her granddaughter’s health. “Though why it is necessary when she will see them very soon, I do not know.”

  “Miss Law’s sisters are coming to Harewood?” Lady Beamish asked. “That will be very pleasant for her.”

  Mrs. Law sighed. “One of them will,” she said. “Judith is to go home.”

  “I am sorry to hear that,” Lady Beamish said. “You will miss her, Gertrude.”

  “I will,” Mrs. Law admitted. “Dreadfully.”

  “She is an amiable young lady,” Lady Beamish said. “And when she acted for us a few evenings ago, I realized too how extraordinarily lovely she is. And how very talented. She gets that from you, of course.”

  Rannulf excused himself and went back outside. It was a cool, cloudy day, but it was not actually raining. He made his way to the hill at the back of the house. He did not expect to see Judith Law there, but he could hardly just go up to her room and knock on the door.

  She was down at the lake again, not swimming this time, but sitting in front of the willow tree, her hands clasped about her updrawn knees, staring into the water. Her head was bare, her hair braided in neat coils at the back of her head, her own bonnet—the one he had bought for her—on the grass beside her. There was no sign of a cap. She was wearing a long-sleeved pelisse over her dress.

  He descended the hill slowly, not even trying to mask his progress. He did not want to startle or frighten her. She heard him when he was halfway down and looked back over her shoulder for a moment before resuming her former posture.

  “It would seem,” he said, “that I owe you an apology. Though my guess is that a simple apology is quite inadequate.” He stood behind her and propped one shoulder against the tree trunk.

  “You owe me nothing,” she told him.

  “You are being sent home,” he said.

  “That is hardly a punishment, is it?” she asked.

  “And one of your sisters is to take your place here.” Even in the shade of the tree and with only dull clouds overhead the hair over the crown of her head gleamed gold and red.

  “Yes.” She bowed her head forward until her forehead rested on her knees, a posture he was beginning to recognize as characteristic of her.

  “I ought not to have meddled,” he said—an understatement if ever he had spoken one. “I knew that the most talented person in the room had not yet performed, and I could not resist enticing you to do so.”

  “You have nothing to feel sorry about,” she said. “I am glad it happened. I had been sitting there dreaming of doing just what I did do when you and Lady Beamish coaxed me into contributing something of my own to the entertainment. It was the first free thing I had done since arriving here. It made me realize how very abject I had been. I have been happier during the past few days, though perhaps that has not been apparent to you the few times you have seen me. Grandmama and I have decided, you see, that it is best for me to behave as I am expected to behave when we must put in an appearance before the company, but we do that as little as we can. When we are together we talk more than ever and laugh and have fun. She . . .” She lifted her head and chuckled quietly. “She likes to brush my hair for half an hour or more at a time. She says it is good for her hands... and her heart. I think I help take her mind off all her imaginary illnesses. She is more animated, more cheerful than when I arrived.”

  He had a vivid memory of kneeling behind her on the bed at the Rum and Puncheon, brushing her hair before making love to her.

  “She will miss you when you leave,” he said.

  “She wants to sell some of her jewels and buy a cottage somewhere so that we can live together,” she said. “Though I do not know if it will really happen. Either way you must not feel guilty for having been the unwitting cause of all that is happening. I am glad it happened. It has brought me very much closer to my grandmother and to an understanding of my own life.”

  She did not offer an explanation, but he remembered suddenly something that had been said just a short while ago.

  “My grandmother says that you get your talent from Mrs. Law,” he said.

  “Oh, so Lady Beamish does know?” she said. “And you too? My aunt and Julianne are so very worried that you may both discover the truth.”

  “Your grandmother was an actress?” he asked, pushing away from the tree and seating himself beside her on the grass.

  “In London.” She was smiling, he could see. “My grandfather fell in love with her when she was onstage, went to meet her in the green room of the Covent Garden Theater, and married her three months later, to the lasting horror of his family. She was a draper’s daughter. She had been very successful as an actress and much sought-after by all the fashionable gentlemen. She must have been very beautiful, I think, though she had red hair like me.”

  It was hard to picture Mrs. Law young and beautiful and red-haired and much sought-after by the bucks and beaux of her time. But not impossible. Even now when she was old and plump and gray-haired, she possessed a certain charm, and her jewel-bedecked figure suggested a flamboyance of personality consistent with her past as an actre
ss. She might well have been a fine-looking woman in her time.

  “She kept her figure until my grandfather died,” Judith said. “Then she started eating to console her grief, she told me. And then it became a habit. It is sad, is it not, that she had such a happy marriage and yet both her children—my aunt and my father—are ashamed of both her and her past? I am not ashamed of her.”

  He had possessed himself of one of her hands before he realized it.

  “Why should you be,” he asked her, “when she is largely responsible for your beauty and your talent and the richness of your character?”

  And yet, he thought even as he spoke, the Bedwyns would be in the forefront of those who shunned a woman of such blemished ancestry. He was surprised that his grandmother, knowing the truth about her friend, would consider Julianne Effingham an eligible bride for him even if the lineage on her father’s side was impeccable. Bewcastle might have vastly different ideas on the matter.

  “Tell me something,” she said, her voice suddenly breathless and urgent. “And please tell me the truth. Oh, please be truthful. Am I beautiful?”

  He understood suddenly—why she had been taught to see her red hair with shame and embarrassment, why she had been encouraged to think of herself as ugly. Every time he looked at her, her father, the rector, must be reminded of the mother who could yet embarrass him before his flock and his peers if the truth were ever known. His second daughter must always have seemed a heavy cross to bear.

  With his free hand Rannulf cupped her chin and turned her face to his. Her cheeks were flushed with embarrassment.

  “I have known many women, Judith,” he said. “I have admired all the most lovely of them, worshipped a few of the unattainable from afar, pursued others with some diligence. It is what wealthy, idle, bored gentlemen of my type tend to do. I can truly say that I have never ever seen any woman whose beauty comes even close to matching yours.”

  Was it true, that seemingly extravagant claim? Was she really that beautiful? Or was it partly that the lovely package contained Judith Law? It did not matter. There was much truth, after all, in that old cliché that beauty is more than skin deep.