Slightly Dangerous

by Mary Balogh

  Of course, she was a great deal older now. She was twenty-nine—almost ancient. No one could expect her to frolic with the young people any longer. She could be a dignified elder. She could sit back and enjoy all the proceedings as a spectator rather than as a participant. It might be highly diverting to do just that, in fact.

  “May we offer you a cup of tea and some cakes, Lady Renable?” her mother was asking.

  “I have not a moment to spare, Mrs. Thompson,” Melanie replied. “I have a houseful of guests arriving the day after tomorrow, and a thousand and one details to attend to before they come. Being a baroness is not all glamour, I do assure you. I must be on my way.”

  She inclined her head regally, kissed Christine’s cheek and squeezed her arm warmly, and swept from the room, all nodding plumes and waving lorgnette and rustling skirts.

  “It might be worth remembering for future reference, Christine,” Eleanor said, “that it is altogether easier to say yes to Lady Renable the first time she asks a question, whether in writing or in person.”

  Their mother was on her feet.

  “We must go up to your room right now, Christine,” she said, “and see which of your clothes need mending or trimming or cleaning. Goodness me—the Duke of Bewcastle, not to mention Viscount Mowbury and his mother and Viscount Elrick and his wife! And Lord and Lady Renable, of course.”

  Christine fled upstairs ahead of her to see if perhaps a dozen or so really ravishing and fashionable garments had suddenly materialized in her wardrobe since she had dressed that morning.

  WULFRIC BEDWYN, DUKE of Bewcastle, was sitting behind the large oak desk in the magnificently appointed and well-stocked library of Bedwyn House in London. He was dressed for the evening with exquisite taste and elegance, though he had entertained no guests for dinner and none were with him now. The leather-inlaid desktop was bare except for the blotter, several freshly mended quill pens, and a silver-topped ink bottle. There was nothing to do, since he was always meticulous about dealing with business matters during the daytime and this was evening.

  He might have gone out to some entertainment—he still could, in fact. There were several to choose among even though the Season was now over and most of his peers had left London to spend the summer in Brighton or at their country estates. But he had never been one for social entertainments, unless his presence was particularly called for.

  He might have gone to spend the evening at White’s. Even though the club would be sparsely populated at this time of the year, there was always some congenial companionship and conversation to be found there. But he had spent altogether too much time at his clubs in the last week or so since the parliamentary session ended.

  None of his family was in town. Lord Aidan Bedwyn, the brother next in age to himself and his heir presumptive, had not come at all this spring. He had remained at home in Oxfordshire with his wife, Eve, for the birth of their first child, a daughter. It was a happy event they had awaited for almost three years after their marriage. Wulfric had gone there for the christening in May but had stayed only a few days. Lord Rannulf Bedwyn, his next brother, was in Leicestershire with Judith and their son and daughter. He was taking his responsibilities as a landowner more seriously than ever now that their grandmother had died and the property was officially his. Freyja, their sister, was in Cornwall. So was the Marquess of Hallmere, her husband, who had neglected his duties in the House this year and not come up to town at all. Freyja was pregnant again. They had had a son early last year and were apparently hoping for a daughter this time.

  Lord Alleyne Bedwyn was in the country with his wife, Rachel, and their twin girls, who had been born last summer. They were concerned about the health of Baron Weston, Rachel’s uncle, with whom they lived, and wouldn’t leave him. His heart had taken a turn for the worse again. Morgan, his youngest sister, was in Kent. She had come up to town for a few weeks with the Earl of Rosthorn, her husband, but the London air had not agreed with their young son, and so she had returned home with him. Rosthorn had gone home whenever he could after that until the House closed and then had wasted no time in going back to stay. Never again, he had told Bewcastle before he left. In future, if his wife and children could not accompany him, he would simply remain at home and the House could go hang. Children, he had said. Plural. That probably meant that Morgan too was with child again.

  It was gratifying, Wulfric decided, picking up one of the quill pens and drawing the smooth feather between his fingers and thumb, that his brothers and sisters were all married and settled in life. His duties to them had been satisfactorily discharged.

  But Bedwyn House felt empty without them. Even when Morgan had been in town, she had not stayed here, of course.

  Lindsey Hall, his principal seat in Hampshire, was going to seem even emptier.

  It was that realization, perhaps, that had led him into making an uncharacteristically impulsive decision just a few days earlier. He had accepted a verbal invitation from Lady Renable—conveyed by Viscount Mowbury, her brother—to a house party at Schofield Park in Gloucestershire. He never attended house parties. He could not imagine a more insipid way of passing two weeks. Of course, Mowbury had assured him that there would be superior company and intelligent conversation there as well as some fishing. But even so, two weeks in the same company, no matter how congenial, might well prove wearing on the nerves.

  Wulfric sat back in his chair, rested his elbows on the arms, and steepled his fingers. He stared off sightlessly across the room. He missed Rose far more than he cared to admit. She had been his mistress for well over ten years, but she had died in February. She had taken a chill that had seemed relatively harmless at first, though he had insisted upon summoning his physician to her. It had developed into a severe inflammation of the lungs anyway, and all the doctor had been able to do for her was make her as comfortable as possible. Her death had come as a severe shock. Wulfric had been with her at the end—and almost constantly throughout her illness.

  It had felt every bit as bad as being widowed must feel.

  They had had a comfortable arrangement, he and Rose. He had kept her in considerable luxury in London during the months of each year when he had to be here, and during the summers he had returned to Lindsey Hall while she had gone to her father’s home at a country smithy, where she had enjoyed some fame and commanded universal respect as the wealthy mistress of a duke. He had spent most of his nights with her whenever he was in town. Theirs had not been a passionate relationship—he doubted he was capable of passion—and they had not enjoyed a particularly deep friendship, since their education and interests were quite dissimilar. But there had been a comfortable companionship between them nevertheless. He was quite sure she had shared his contentment with their liaison. After more than ten years he would have known if she had not. He had always been glad that she had never had children by him. He would have provided handsomely for them, but it would have made him uncomfortable to have bastard children.

  Her death, though, had left a vast emptiness in his life.

  He missed her. He had been celibate since February but did not know how he was to replace her. He was not even sure he wanted to—not yet, at least. She had known how to please and satisfy him. He had known how to please and satisfy her. He was not certain he wanted to adjust to someone else. He felt too old at thirty-five.

  And then he rested his chin against the tips of his fingers.

  He was thirty-five.

  He had fulfilled every one of his duties as Duke of Bewcastle, a position he had never wanted but had inherited anyway at the age of seventeen. Every duty except that to marry and beget sons and heirs. He had been about to fulfill that obligation too, years ago, when he was young and still a little bit hopeful that personal happiness might be combined with duty. But on the very night when his betrothal was to be announced, his chosen bride had put on an elaborate charade in order to avoid a marriage that was repugnant to her, too afraid of him and her father simply to tell the trut
h.

  How could a duke choose any woman to be his duchess and expect personal contentment out of the arrangement? Who would ever marry a duke for himself? A mistress could be dismissed. A wife could not.

  And so the one little rebellion he had allowed himself in the years since Lady Marianne Bonner was to remain single. And to satisfy his needs with Rose. He had found her and brought her under his protection less than two months after that disastrous evening.

  But now Rose was dead—and buried at his expense in a country churchyard close to the smithy. The Duke of Bewcastle had astonished the neighborhood for miles around by attending the funeral in person.

  Why the devil had he agreed to go to Schofield Park with Mowbury? Had he done so only because he was not looking forward to returning alone to Lindsey Hall—and yet could not bear the thought of staying in London either? It was a poor reason even if Mowbury did have a well-informed mind and lively conversation and there was every hope that the other guests would match him. Even so, it would have been better to spend the summer touring his various properties in England and Wales, and perhaps calling in on his brothers and sisters as he went. But no—that latter was not a good idea. They all had their own lives now. They all had spouses and children. They were all happy. Yes, he believed they really were—all of them.

  He rejoiced for them.

  The Duke of Bewcastle, very much alone in his power and the splendor of his person and the magnificence of the London mansion surrounding him, continued to stare off into space as he tapped his steepled fingertips against his chin.

  2

  BARON RENABLE’S CARRIAGE CAME RATHER EARLY IN the morning to fetch Christine to Schofield Park. Melanie, looking harried, gratefully accepted her offer to help with some final preparations. Christine made a brief visit to her appointed chamber—a small box room at the back of the house wedged between two chimneys, both of which blocked the view from the window and gave her only a narrow glimpse of the kitchen garden below—in order to take off her bonnet, fluff up her curls, and unpack her meager belongings. She then dashed up to the nursery to greet the children and spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon being rushed off her feet with various errands. She might have run for the rest of the day if Melanie had not suddenly spotted her in the middle of the afternoon dashing upstairs with an armful of towels for one of the more opulent guest chambers and shrieked in protest at her appearance.

  “You simply must get dressed, Christine,” she said faintly, one hand over her heart, “and do something with your hair. I said you might help. I did not intend that you be treated like a maid. Are those really towels over your arm? Go to your room this instant, you wretch, and start behaving like a guest.”

  Less than half an hour later Christine appeared downstairs clad decently if not dazzlingly in her second-best sprigged muslin with her curls freshly brushed to a shine. She positively despised the fact that she was nervous—and that she had allowed herself to be trapped into this. She could be in the middle of giving her weekly geography lesson at the school now and actually enjoying herself.

  “Oh, there you are,” Melanie said when Christine joined her in the hall. She grabbed one of her hands and squeezed it rather painfully. “This is going to be such fun, Christine. If only I have not forgotten anything. And if only I do not vomit when I see guests approaching. Why do I always want to vomit on such occasions? It is really quite ungenteel.”

  “As usual,” Christine assured her, “everything will go so dazzlingly well that you will be declared the summer’s finest hostess.”

  “Oh, do you think so?” Melanie set one hand over her heart as if to still its erratic beating. “I like your hair short, Christine. I almost had a fit of the vapors when you told me you were going to have it cut, but you look young and pretty again, as if someone had turned back the calendar just for you—not that you were ever not pretty. I am mortally jealous. What was that you said, Bertie?”

  But Lord Renable, a short distance away, had merely cleared his throat with a long rumbling sound.

  “Carriage approaching, Mel,” he said. “Here we go.” He regarded her gloomily, as if they were expecting the bailiffs to invade Schofield Park and haul off all their earthly possessions. “You go upstairs and hide, Christine. You can have another hour of freedom yet, I daresay.”

  Melanie tapped his arm none too gently and drew a deep and audible breath. She appeared to grow three inches and was instantly transformed into a gracious, aristocratic hostess who had never in her life felt a single qualm of nerves or tendency to vomit in a crisis.

  Though a relapse did threaten when she looked down suddenly and realized that she had a half-full glass of lemonade in her right hand.

  “Take this, someone!” she commanded, looking around for the closest footman. “Oh, gracious me, I might have spilled it over someone’s boots or muslins.”

  “I’ll take it,” Christine said, laughing and suiting action to words. “And spilling it over someone sounds far more like something I would do than you, Melanie. I’ll take myself and the lemonade out of harm’s way.”

  She escaped up the stairs on her way toward the primrose sitting room, where the other lady guests were to join her. For some reason known only to herself, Melanie always kept the ladies and gentlemen apart at her parties until she was free to welcome them all to the drawing room for the tea that was the official opening of festivities.

  But she paused on the landing, which curved back above the hallway so that one could look down over the banister. The carriage Bertie had heard must have been closer than he thought. The first guests were already stepping inside, and Christine could not resist looking to see if they included anyone she knew.

  They were two gentlemen. One of them—carelessly dressed in a brown coat that was wrinkled and too large for him, dark blue pantaloons that bagged slightly at the knee, scuffed boots that had seen better days, a cravat that appeared to have been thrown about his neck with haste and without any reference to either a mirror or a valet, shirt points that drooped without benefit of starch, and fair hair that stuck out in all directions as if he had that moment lifted his head from the pillow—was Hector Magnus, Viscount Mowbury.

  “Ah, it’s you, is it, Mel?” he said, smiling vaguely at his sister as if he had expected someone else to greet him at her house. “How d’you do, Bertie?”

  Christine smiled affectionately and would have called down if it had not been for the gentleman with him. He could not have been more the antithesis of Hector if he had tried. He was tall and well formed and dressed with consummate elegance in a coat of blue superfine over a waistcoat of embroidered gray with darker gray pantaloons and white-topped, shining Hessian boots. His neckcloth was tied neatly and expertly but without ostentation. His starched shirt points hugged his jaw just so. Both garments were sparkling white. He held a tall hat in one hand. His hair was dark and thick, expertly cut and neatly worn.

  His shoulders and chest looked broad and powerful beneath the exquisite tailoring, his hips slender in contrast, and his thighs very obviously in no need of a tailor’s padding.

  But it was not so much his impressive appearance that held Christine silent and rooted to the spot, spying when she ought to have moved on. It was more his utter assurance of manner and bearing and the proud, surely arrogant, tilt to his head. He was clearly a man who ruled his world with ease and exacted instant obedience from his inferiors, who would, of course, include almost every other living mortal—a fanciful thought, perhaps, but she realized that this must be the infamous Duke of Bewcastle.

  He looked everything she had ever been led to expect of him.

  He was an aristocrat from the topmost hair on his head to the soles of his boots.

  She could see something of his face as Melanie and Bertie greeted him and he bowed and then straightened. It was handsome in a cold, austere way, with stern jaw, thin lips, high cheekbones, and a prominent, slightly hooked, finely chiseled nose.

  She could not
see his eyes, though. He moved almost directly beneath her as Melanie turned her attention back to Hector, and Christine leaned slightly over the banister rail at the very moment when he tipped back his head and looked up and spotted her.

  She might have drawn back in instant embarrassment at being caught spying if she had not been so startled by the very eyes she had been trying to see. They seemed to bore right through her head to the back of her skull. She could not be sure of the color of those eyes—pale blue? pale gray?—but she was not too far away from them to feel their effect.

  No wonder he had such a reputation!

  For one fleeting moment she was given the distinct impression that the Duke of Bewcastle might well be a very dangerous man. Her heart thudded painfully in her chest as if she had just been caught in the act of peeping into a room through a forbidden knothole in the door at some scandal proceeding within.

  And then something extraordinary happened.

  He winked at her.

  Or so it seemed for yet another fleeting moment.

  But then, even as her eyes widened in shock, Christine could see that he was swiping at the eye that had winked, and she realized that when she had bent forward over the rail so had the glass in her hand. She had dripped lemonade down into the eye of the Duke of Bewcastle.

  “Oh!” she exclaimed. “I am so terribly sorry.”

  And then she turned and scurried away as fast as her legs would carry her. How excruciatingly embarrassing! How horridly clumsy of her! She had promised not to trip over his feet on the very first day, but it had not occurred to her also to promise not to pour lemonade in his eye.