SLIGHTLY WICKED

by Mary Balogh

  “Lord,” Horace said, sounding bored, “have you no imagination, Julianne? You have to tell him you are faint or warm or cold or something and lure him to a private place. Make it the library. No one ever goes there except Father, and even he will not be there tonight but will feel it his duty to remain in the ballroom. Close the door behind the two of you. Get close to him. Get him to put his arms about you and kiss you. Then I’ll walk in on you there—Father and I will. Your betrothal will be announced before the ball is over.”

  “How are you going to persuade Papa to go to the library with you?” Julianne asked.

  “If I cannot devise a way of dragging him to his favorite place in the world I’ll eat my hat,” Horace said. “The new beaver one.”

  “Mama?”

  “It will do very well,” Aunt Effingham said briskly. “You know, my dearest, that once you are Lady Rannulf Bedwyn you may devote yourself entirely to making Lord Rannulf realize that it was all for the best. And meanwhile you will have the fortune and the position.”

  “And Grandmaison after Lady Beamish dies,” Julianne said, “and a house in London, I daresay. I will persuade him to buy one there. And I will be sister-in-law to the Duke of Bewcastle and will be on visiting terms at Bedwyn House. Indeed, perhaps we will live there while in town instead of buying our own house. I daresay we will spend summers in the country at Lindsey Hall. I will—”

  Judith lifted her hand and knocked firmly before pushing the door open and handing the ribbon to Julianne.

  “I hope this will suit you,” she said. “It was the only shade of pink in the shop, but it is a lovely shade, I think, deeper and more suited to your coloring than the other.”

  Julianne unwound the ribbon, looked carelessly at it, and then tossed it onto the dressing table behind her.

  “I believe I like the other better,” she said. “You took awfully long, Judith. I think you might have hurried when the errand was for your own cousin.”

  “Perhaps, Cousin,” Horace said, “you might wear whichever ribbon Julianne decides not to wear. Ah, but how tactless of me. Pink does not suit your coloring, does it? Does anything?”

  “Judith will doubtless be more comfortable remaining in her own room this evening,” Aunt Effingham said. “Let us compare these ribbons more carefully, dearest. You would not want to—”

  Judith left the room and hurried to her own.

  Was it true, then, that he was unlikely to propose marriage to Julianne, left to his own devices? And could Julianne and Aunt Effingham be so desperate to net him as a husband that they were prepared to use trickery, to trap him into an apparently compromising situation? Horace was right, she thought. Lord Rannulf Bedwyn was a gentleman and would offer marriage if he believed he had compromised a lady. She had had personal proof of that herself.

  Her heart was pounding by the time she had closed her door behind her. That he would marry Julianne of his own accord had been a hard enough prospect to bear. But that he should be tricked into it...

  Judith had had a quiet dinner with her grandmother in the latter’s private sitting room, both of them being disinclined to dine with the houseguests. Then they went their separate ways to dress for the ball.

  Judith was more nervous than she cared to admit. She had worn her cream and gold silk to a dozen assemblies at home. It had never been in the first stare of fashion or fussily adorned. And of course Mama and Papa had always been strict about modesty, especially with her. But at least it had always been an elegant garment that fit her well. She had always liked it, until Aunt Louisa’s maid had let panels into the sides of it and lined the neckline.

  Judith had removed all the additions during the morning. She had restored the dress to its former self except that it had a new peach-colored sash of wide silk ribbon that her grandmother had given her a few days ago because she knew she would never use it herself and it suited Judith’s coloring so well. There was enough ribbon that the ends of it fluttered almost to the floor after it had been tied neatly at the front of the high waist.

  There was no maid to help her dress. But she had rarely had the services of the one maid at the rectory, there being Mama and her other three sisters all with their demands on the girl’s limited time. Judith was accustomed to dressing her own hair, even for elegant occasions. She had had time to both wash and dry it. It had the healthy sheen of clean hair as she brushed it all back from her face, plaited it into two braids, and coiled and looped them into a pleasing design at the back of her head. She used a hand mirror to check it while she sat in front of her dressing table mirror.

  The style looked elegant, she thought. Carefully, so as not to ruin the whole painstakingly constructed coiffure, she teased two long strands free at the sides and curled the brush about them. There was enough curl in her hair that they waved in soft tendrils over her ears. She teased out two more curls at her temples.

  She did not put on a cap, not even the pretty lacy one she had always worn to assemblies or other evening gatherings.

  I have never ever seen any woman whose beauty comes even close to matching yours.

  She gazed at her image, standing up so that she could see herself full length. She tried to see herself through the eyes of a man who could speak those words in all honesty. She had trusted his honesty. He had meant what he said.

  She was beautiful.

  I am beautiful.

  For the first time she could look at herself and believe that there must be some truth in the preposterous-seeming claim.

  I am beautiful.

  She whisked herself off to her grandmother’s room before she could lose her courage. She knocked lightly on the dressing room door and let herself in.

  Her grandmother was still seated at her dressing table, Tillie behind her, fixing three tall plumes into her elaborately piled gray hair. She was wearing an evening gown of a deep ruby red, but it was completely outshone by all the heavy jewelry that sparkled and glittered at her neck and bosom, on both plump wrists, on every finger of both hands except the thumbs, and at her ears. There was even a large, ornate brooch pinned to her gown beneath one shoulder. On the dressing table was a jeweled lorgnette.

  Two circles of rouge had been painted high on her cheeks.

  But Judith was not given more than a moment or two in which to digest her grandmother’s appearance. The old lady looked at her in the mirror, swiveled about on her stool with unusual agility while Tillie stifled an exclamation and scurried around with her, clutching the plumes, and clasped her hands together with a distinct metallic clink.

  “Judith!” she exclaimed. “Oh, my dearest love, you look ... Tillie, what is the word I am looking for?”

  “Beautiful?” Tillie suggested. “You do too, miss.”

  “Not nearly adequate enough,” her mistress said, waving one hand dismissively. “Turn, turn, Judith, and let me have a good look at you.”

  Judith laughed, held her arms out to the sides in a deliberate pose of elegance, and pirouetted slowly.

  “Will I do?” she asked.

  “Tillie,” her grandmother said, “my pearls. The long strand and the short, if you please. I never wear them, Judith, because at my age I need some glitter to distract the eye from my wrinkles and other sad attributes.” She laughed heartily. “But pearls will enhance your loveliness without competing with it.”

  The pearls were not in the jewelry box but in a drawer. Tillie, having secured the plumes to her own satisfaction, produced them in a moment and held them up for inspection.

  “They will look good on you, miss,” she said.

  Judith’s grandmother got to her feet and gestured to the stool.

  “Sit down, my love,” she said, “and Tillie will arrange the longer strand in your hair without disturbing it. I do like your braids in loops like that. When I was your age, I would have had rolls and curls and ringlets bouncing all over my head and not looked half as good. But I never was famous for my good taste. Your grandfather used to tease me about it and insist
that he loved me just as I was.”

  Ten minutes later Judith was wearing the shorter string of pearls about her neck and found that it was the perfect length for the modest scoop of her neckline. The longer strand was not very visible from the front, but Tillie showed her what the back now looked like, and when she moved her head Judith could feel the heavier swing of the pearls and hear them clinking against one another.

  She smiled and then laughed.

  Yes, she was. She really was. She was beautiful.

  It did not matter that she would be the very least fashionable lady at the ball, that she would be outshone by every other guest. It simply did not matter. She was beautiful, and for the first time in her life she rejoiced in her own appearance.

  Her grandmother, laughing too, picked up her lorgnette in one hand, and inclined her head, setting her plumes to nodding vigorously.

  “Magnificent,” she said. “That is the word I was searching for. You look magnificent, my love.” She tapped Judith on the arm with the lorgnette. “Let us go down and capture the hearts of every man at the ball. I’ll take the old ones and you can have the young ones.”

  Even Tillie laughed with them this time.

  Chapter XVI

  Rannulf had never attended a ball from personal choice. He had, nevertheless, attended his fair share, polite society having decreed that its members be forced to enjoy themselves on occasion by tripping the light fantastic. The ball at Harewood, he saw as soon as he and his grandmother had passed along the receiving line and entered the ballroom, looked as if it would be a tolerable squeeze for a country affair. A great deal of effort had been put into decorating the room pleasingly with great banks of flowers and potted plants.

  He looked about and was amused and unsurprised to discover that the houseguests, all splendidly clad in their London finery, were easily distinguishable from the lowlier guests from the neighborhood in their simpler evening wear. Miss Effingham, whom he had just passed in the receiving line, was resplendent in delicate lace over pink satin, the waist fashionably high, the neckline fashionably low, her blond hair piled in elaborate curls threaded with pink ribbon twined with jewels. And he had, of course, been maneuvered into soliciting her hand for the opening set of country dances.

  And then he spotted Judith Law, who was in the process of looking away from him and bending to say something to her grandmother. He inhaled slowly. She looked much as she had looked the first time he saw her in that gown— voluptuous and elegant, the simplicity of the design only emphasizing the feminine curves and the vibrant beauty of the woman wearing it. Her hair was smoothed back over her head, but she had done something intricate with the back of it, and it was prettily and delicately entwined with pearls.

  He felt a surge of something that was not lust, though it certainly included desire. He had, he realized, been waiting all day for this moment and fearing that perhaps she would not put in an appearance at all.

  Mrs. Law raised one glittering arm and waved her jeweled lorgnette.

  “Ah, there is Gertrude,” his grandmother said. “I shall go and sit with her and watch the revelries, Rannulf.”

  He escorted her across the room, noticing as he did so that Judith was not isolated as she had always been in the drawing room and at most other activities during the past two weeks. Roy-Hill and Braithwaite were standing close to her.

  Greetings were exchanged and his grandmother seated herself beside Mrs. Law.

  “You are looking remarkably lovely this evening, Miss Law,” she said. “I hope you mean to dance?”

  “Thank you, ma’am.” Judith flushed and smiled, something he had seen her do too rarely in the past two weeks. “Yes, Lord Braithwaite has been kind enough to offer to lead me into the first set, and Sir Dudley has asked for the second.”

  “I would imagine, then,” Lady Beamish said, “that any gentleman wishing to dance with you this evening had better speak up soon.”

  “Oh.” Judith laughed.

  “Miss Law.” Rannulf bowed. “Will you do me the honor of saving the third set for me?”

  She looked fully at him then, her lovely green eyes wide, her red hair gleaming in the light from the chandeliers overhead. It was, perhaps, the moment at which he realized how very reluctant he had been over the past week or so to call a spade simply a spade. It was not lust or tenderness or affection or liking or companionship he felt for Judith Law, though all of them were included in that sentiment he had been unwilling to name.

  He loved her.

  “Thank you, Lord Rannulf.” She made him a slight curtsy. “I would like that.”

  A heightened buzz of anticipation around them diverted his attention then. Lady Effingham had stepped into the ballroom and was approaching the orchestra dais. Sir George came in behind her, his daughter on his arm. It struck Rannulf that they had waited for his somewhat late arrival before beginning the ball. He stepped forward to claim his partner, who was blushing and smiling and looking very pretty indeed.

  “It is said, Lord Rannulf,” she said as they took their places opposite each other at the head of the lines of ladies and gentlemen, “that the rules of good ton do not apply to a country ball and that a gentleman may ask a lady to dance with him as many times as he wishes. But I am still afraid it may be construed as less than good manners to dance more than twice with the same partner. What do you think?”

  “Perhaps,” he suggested, “it is even better manners to choose a different partner for every set, especially when the gathering is large enough—as this one is tonight, for example—to provide more than enough choices.”

  He had, of course, given the wrong answer—quite deliberately.

  “But sometimes,” she said, tittering, “good manners can seem tiresome, can they not?”

  “Exceedingly,” he agreed. Braithwaite had stepped up beside him and Judith beside Miss Effingham.

  “Yet even good manners, as decreed by the ton,” Miss Effingham said, “allow for a gentleman to dance with the same partner twice without incurring censure. In all the balls I attended during the Season, I was forever being asked to dance twice with the same gentleman, and no one ever accused me of being ill-mannered when I did so, though a number of other gentlemen complained when I had no free sets to offer them.”

  “Can one blame them?” he asked.

  She tittered again. “The fourth set is to be a waltz,” she said. “I was not allowed to dance it until halfway through the Season when Lady Jersey finally gave me the nod of approval. I believe she did so because so many gentlemen had complained to her about not being able to dance with me. I suppose many people here tonight will not even know the steps, but I pleaded with Mama to include one. I suppose you know the steps, Lord Rannulf?”

  “I have shuffled through a few waltzes without treading on my partner’s toes,” he admitted.

  She laughed merrily. “Oh,” she said, “I am sure you did not come even close to doing so but are merely funning me. I am sure you will not tread on my toes. Oh!” She colored prettily and set one hand over her mouth. “You were asking me, were you not? I shall die of embarrassment if you were not.”

  He pursed his lips, amused despite himself. “I cannot have you expiring in the middle of your own ball, Miss Effingham,” he said. “We will show all your guests how superior your waltzing skills are.”

  “Oh, not just mine,” she said modestly. “Yours too, Lord Rannulf. Do you waltz, Judith? But I daresay Uncle never allowed you to learn the steps, did he? It is said to be a scandalous dance, but I think it is perfectly divine. My dancing master said it must have been created just for me, dainty and light on my feet as I am. He was very foolish. I do believe he was half in love with me.”

  The orchestra began playing the opening bars of the country dance and prevented Judith from replying. But of course, the questions had been rhetorical anyway. Rannulf concentrated his attention on his partner, as good manners dictated, though all his awareness was on his love, moving gracefully at her cousin’
s side.

  Judith was breathless by the time Lord Braithwaite returned her to her grandmother. It had been a vigorous set and she had enjoyed it thoroughly despite the fact that she had had to endure being so close to Lord Rannulf and Julianne the whole time. But that fact had had its compensations. She had understood from the way he replied to all of Julianne’s efforts to draw him into flatteries and flirtation that he really was not behaving like a man who was about to declare himself. More important, perhaps, she had overheard Julianne maneuver him into agreeing to waltz with her during the fourth set. It was the time when she, Judith, would watch most carefully, though how she would save Lord Rannulf from the proposed trap she did not know. She could not simply warn him. How foolish she would sound!

  “Perhaps, Miss Law,” Lord Braithwaite said, “your father did allow you to learn the steps of the waltz? And perhaps you will do me the honor of dancing it with me?”

  He had gazed at her with open admiration throughout the dance. It had been very flattering. He was a handsome and amiable young man.

  “My father had no chance either to forbid or to approve waltzing lessons,” she explained. “The dance has not even reached our neighborhood yet. I shall enjoy watching you dance it with someone else, my lord.”

  Her grandmother, she noticed, plumes nodding in concert with Lady Beamish’s as they talked and commented upon the scene before them, was easing her earrings off her earlobes and wincing as she did so. Poor Grandmama— would she never learn that there were no earrings she would find comfortable?

  “Grandmama.” Judith leaned solicitously over her. “Shall I take them upstairs for you and put them away?”

  “Oh, will you, my love?” her grandmother asked. “But you will miss your dance with Sir Dudley.”

  “No, I will not,” Judith said. “It will take me only a minute.”

  “I would be very grateful, then,” her grandmother said, putting the jewels into her hand. “Will you bring me the star-shaped ones instead, if it is not too much trouble?”