by Mary Balogh
It was a very good thing she had refused.
Besides, she was someone of whom he disapproved, was she not?
Wulfric sat very still, staring ahead at the hedge and concentrating upon tucking his emotions neatly back inside that safe ice core.
7
CHRISTINE TOOK A NUMBER OF WRONG TURNS BEFORE blundering out of the maze and stumbling across the grass and down the steps and half running along the alley, which suddenly seemed to have doubled in length. A couple of times she darted glances back over her shoulder, but he was not coming after her. What did she expect? That he would chase her down and beat her into submission with his quizzing glass?
She slowed down. She had a stitch in her side anyway.
You could be my mistress.
The absurd thing was that when he had told her he could offer her something better than her present life, she had thought he meant marriage.
The even more absurd thing—the absolutely insane thing—was that for a moment her heart had leapt with gladness. Could anyone be more of an idiot than she was?
Would the Duke of Bewcastle want to marry someone like her? More to the point, would she want to marry someone like the Duke of Bewcastle?
The answer to both questions was a resounding no.
It was a good thing—a very good thing—that what he had actually offered was something very different.
She stepped into the rose arbor and realized with a start of dismay that someone was sitting there. But it was only Justin, she saw with considerable relief as he got to his feet and came toward her, a smile on his face.
“Oh, you took me by surprise,” she said, one hand over her heart.
“Did I?” He tipped his head to one side and looked closely at her. “Has something happened to upset you, Chrissie? Come and sit down and tell me about it.”
But she hurried the rest of the distance toward him and took him by the arm. “Not here,” she said urgently. “Let’s walk out behind the house.”
He patted her hand comfortingly as they walked. “I saw you strolling with Bewcastle,” he said. “You had told me you were coming out here to read your sister’s letter and after I thought I had given you a decent time to enjoy it, I came out to see if you wanted to go for a walk with me. But I was too late—he was here ahead of me. Did he insult you?”
“No, of course not,” she said quickly, flashing him a smile.
“This is me, Chrissie,” he said. “You cannot easily deceive me, remember? You were dreadfully agitated when you came into the rose arbor. You still are.”
Christine drew a deep breath and expelled it audibly. Justin had been her friend for a long time, and he had remained loyal to her through the difficult years and beyond. She would trust him with her life.
“We went into the maze,” she said, “and he kissed me. That is all.”
“Do I need to call him out,” he asked, looking up at her with a rueful smile on his lips, “and give him a lesson in manners?”
“Of course not.” She laughed shakily. “I kissed him back. It was nothing really.”
“I did not think Bewcastle was into the petticoat line,” he said as they made their way out past the paddock behind the stables and the kitchen garden behind the house. “But I will have a word with him if you wish, Chrissie. He has obviously upset you. You are not hoping to be his duchess, are you?”
“Oh, Justin.” She laughed again. “He offered something far more lowering. He asked me to be his mistress.”
It was lowering. It was degrading. She had not intended to share her humiliation with anyone, but she had blurted it out anyway.
He stopped and turned toward her, dropping her arm as he did so. He looked unusually grim.
“Did he, by God?” he said, his voice shaking with fury. “Yes, I can believe it. Bewcastle would not stoop to actually marry anyone lower on the social scale than a princess, I daresay. But to offer you such an insult! It is insufferable. Chrissie, stay away from him. He is not a pleasant character. I do not know anyone who likes him or can even tolerate him. You do not want to be getting yourself mixed up with the likes of him. I am going to—”
“Justin!” She took his arm again and forced him to walk onward. “How very sweet of you to be so angry on my behalf. But I am not very angry, you know—only rather shaken, I must confess. Of course I do not want to be his duchess. Who in her right mind would? I do not want to be married at all. I am quite happy with the life I live. I certainly will not put myself in the position of being insulted again. You need not fear for me.”
“Sometimes I do, though,” he said with a sigh. “You know how fond I am of you. I would even marry you myself if I thought you would have me, but you won’t and so I am quite content to be your friend. But don’t expect me to stand tamely by while other men insult you.”
Christine was touched—and embarrassed. She squeezed his arm.
“I am really all right now,” she said. “But I would like a little quiet and fresh air before going inside. Do you mind, Justin?”
“Never let it be said,” he told her, smiling, “that I cannot take a hint. I will see you later.”
And that was one thing she had always loved about him, she thought as he walked away. He would be her dearest friend, but he would never press either his time or his attentions on her when she wished to be alone. She was only sorry that in many ways it was a one-sided friendship. He rarely if ever confided in her or shared a great deal of himself with her. But, one day, she thought, that would surely change. One day he would need her friendship, and she would be there to offer it to him.
She felt weary indeed by the time she had climbed the stairs some time later and reached the door of her room—weary and emotionally drained. But she was not going to be allowed to escape even yet, it seemed.
“Mrs. Derrick!” a voice called from behind her, and she looked back to see Harriet King standing in the doorway of her own room, and then Lady Sarah Buchan poked out a blond, ringleted head from beyond her shoulder. “Do come here if you please.”
It was more an imperious command than a request, though it might easily have been ignored. But what was the point? There was little privacy to be had at a house party. If she did not go now to find out what they wanted, she would have to hear it later.
“Of course.” She smiled as she made her way back to the room—a spacious chamber facing the front of the house. “Did you enjoy the ride?”
All the very young ladies were in Harriet’s room—Lady Sarah, Rowena Siddings, Audrey, Miriam Dunstan-Lutt, Beryl and Penelope Chisholm, and of course Harriet herself.
“You are to be congratulated,” Harriet said, a sharp edge to her voice.
“I can give you five guineas of your prize money,” Audrey told her. “The rest has not been paid in yet. Congratulations, Cousin Christine. I wagered upon you, but I did not expect you to win, I must confess. Or anyone else, for that matter.”
“I am so glad that someone has won,” Rowena said with feeling. “Now I can relax for the second week of the party. Much as I like to win contests, I must confess that the prospect of being in the company of the Duke of Bewcastle for a whole hour has been keeping me awake at night. Congratulations, Mrs. Derrick.”
“We saw you,” Beryl explained. “Penelope and I did. We were just stepping into the rose arbor as the duke was stepping out of it onto the laburnum alley. We were discussing which of us would follow him—or, more to the point, which would not—when we saw him stop to talk to you. And then you went off down the alley with him and we spoke to Mr. Magnus for a minute when he too came into the arbor. But you did not come back until now, though we have been watching for you. You have been gone for almost an hour and a half. Well done. We desperately wanted to win, did we not, Pen, but like Rowena, we did not fancy what we would have to do to become the victor.”
“I would never have remained alone with a gentleman for an hour and a half for all the money in the world,” Sarah said, which was strange really in light
of the terms of the wager. “It would be a good way for someone to lose her reputation.”
“Assuming that there were one to lose, Sarah,” Harriet added pointedly.
They all spoke almost at once, a fact for which Christine was somewhat thankful. They gave her a chance to recover from her initial shock. Had anyone not seen her walking with the duke? And why was it that she had not thought of that foolish wager even once while she was with him?
“But you must keep the money, Audrey,” she said. “You wagered on me and put in the money yourself. The whole prize is therefore yours. It really has been a rather absurd contest, has it not? But I saw my chance to win it today when the Duke of Bewcastle found me reading a letter in the alley, and I took advantage of it. I chattered away to him for a whole hour while he looked as if he might well expire of boredom, and I am quite sure that I would if I had to do it ever again. So, yes, I claim the victory, ladies.”
She laughed and looked brightly about at all the group. Most of them, she thought, looked decidedly relieved and quite happy to forfeit their guineas. Of course, two of them were looking angry and disappointed, but both Lady Sarah and Harriet King were spoiled young ladies who did not deserve her sympathy. She had not, after all, been trying to win the wager. It was ironic that she had been seen this time, whereas last time, when she had deliberately set out to spend an hour with the duke, there had been no one in sight when they returned to the house together.
“Harriet and Sarah,” Audrey said, “you owe me a guinea apiece.”
Christine escaped soon after that and finally found refuge in her room. It was probably absurd to tell herself that she had never been more upset in her life, but she felt at that precise moment that it must be true.
You could be my mistress.
She shut her eyes tightly and shook her head.
He had kissed her. And she had kissed him. For a few seconds—or minutes or hours—she had felt a surging of passion more powerful than anything she had ever felt before.
And then he had asked her to be his mistress.
How utterly mortifying!
“CHRISTINE REALLY IS not a flirt,” Justin Magnus said to Wulfric.
Two days had passed since the debacle out at the maze. Wulfric and Mrs. Derrick had assiduously avoided each other during that time, though it did not appear to him that her spirits had been dampened by the experience. Quite the contrary. She appeared to have the affection of most of the young ladies and she had won the admiration of most of the young gentlemen. Kitredge too was quite noticeably enamored of her. Although she never pushed herself forward to dominate any of the activities of the house party, it nevertheless might be said that she was the life and soul of the party. Wherever the conversation was brightest and the laughter merriest, there Mrs. Derrick was sure to be found.
Some people might think her a flirt.
It was very obvious to Wulfric, however, that she was not. She had a genuinely magnetic appeal. And she genuinely liked people.
“Quite so,” he said as chillingly as he could. They were walking, the whole lot of them, out to the hill by the lake for what Lady Renable had described as an impromptu picnic, but which Wulfric suspected was anything but impromptu. Magnus had attached himself to his side.
“She is not conventionally beautiful or accomplished or elegant,” Magnus continued, “but she is attractive. She does not even know how much, but every man she meets feels it and is drawn to her. The thing is, though, that most ladies feel drawn to her too. So it is not flirtation, you see. It is simply the extraordinary attractiveness of her character. My cousin Oscar fell for her on sight and insisted upon having her even though he could have had any woman he wanted. He looked like a Greek god.”
“How fortunate for him.”
They came to the clearing by the lake where Mrs. Derrick had run into him on that first afternoon, and turned in the direction of the hill. Wulfric slowed his steps slightly and hoped the young man would go on ahead, but it appeared he was on a mission. Magnus was Mrs. Derrick’s friend, of course. Had he been sent with a message? Or had he taken it upon himself to deliver his own? It annoyed Wulfric that he had put himself in the ridiculous position of having to endure a scold from a stripling.
“And so the fact that Kitredge admires her,” Magnus continued, “and that the Culvers do and Hilliers and Snapes does not mean she has deliberately invited their attentions.”
“I daresay,” Wulfric said, “you intend to explain the relevance of these remarks to me?”
“You admire her too,” Magnus said. “And maybe you think that she has been flirting with you. Or maybe you think she has been flirting with all the others and is seriously trying to snare you. You would be wrong either way. It is just her friendly manner, you see. She is the same with everyone. If Oscar had realized that, he would have been far happier. But he wanted all her smiles and all her attentions for himself.”
Magnus would have been well advised not to try being his friend’s champion, Wulfric thought. Inadvertently, he was giving the impression that Mrs. Derrick was incapable of any deep affection or attachment, even for a husband, and that she was indiscriminately amiable to all and sundry. That, in fact, she was a flirt.
“Forgive me,” Wulfric said, fingering the handle of his quizzing glass, “but my interest in the happiness or unhappiness of a dead man is really quite minimal. You will excuse me?”
They had reached the hill, and it was instantly clear that the picnic had been well planned in advance. Blankets were spread on the slope facing the lake and a few chairs had been set for the more elderly. Hampers of food and wine lay beside each blanket and within reach of each chair. A couple of servants stood unobtrusively among the trees at the foot of the hill.
Wulfric engaged Renable in conversation and noticed that Mrs. Derrick was at the top of the hill, the ribbons of her bonnet fluttering in the breeze, pointing out various places of interest to Kitredge—as she had done to him on that first afternoon. She was laughing at something Kitredge had said.
It bothered Wulfric that she had complained to Magnus. It annoyed him that he was guilty where she was concerned. Until he had kissed her—uninvited—she had not said or done anything to make him think that she would welcome either his advances or his offer. Doubtless he owed her an apology.
He was not usually either impulsive or gauche. He rarely put himself in the wrong or made himself vulnerable to any attack.
It would not happen again. He felt decidedly irritated with Christine Derrick—perhaps because he knew she was in no way to blame.
CHRISTINE HAD LAIN awake through most of the night following the distressing scene in the maze and had almost decided that she would return home in the morning. But pride and a certain stubbornness had come to her rescue. Why should she run away simply because the Duke of Bewcastle had offered to make her his mistress? It did not matter that he would not have dared make such an offer to any other of the lady guests. It simply did not matter.
Why should it matter? She disliked and despised him more than ever. She could hardly bear to be in the same room with him—or the same house, for that matter. But she would stay, she had decided at last, if for no other reason than that perhaps her continued presence would embarrass him.
And so she had thrown herself into what remained of the house party with a new exuberance and had the satisfaction of knowing that she had won the friendship of several of her fellow guests, both male and female. She could do this, she had decided. She could enjoy herself and she could keep well out of the way of the Duke of Bewcastle, who seemed just as intent upon staying out of her way.
It was all very satisfactory.
She enjoyed herself at the picnic, pointing out landmarks from the top of the hill to the Earl of Kitredge, who kept her there for some time with his questions, and running down to the lakeshore after tea at the request of a group of the young gentlemen to demonstrate the art of skipping stones over the surface of the water. A few of the ladies came down
there too, and a merry time they all had of it, though Christine did succeed in getting the hem of her dress wet when she could see perfect stones for throwing on the lake bottom just beyond reach from the bank and insisted upon getting them herself. But since she had had the forethought to remove her shoes and stockings beforehand, no great harm was done.
Sometimes she could convince herself that the past was all over and done with and her youth and naturally high spirits had been restored without any lurking shadows. But the shadows were never far away, even in the brightest light—or perhaps especially then. Subsequent events proved it.
She was one of the last to leave the picnic site, as she had to find a secluded spot in which to pull her stockings back on. She saw that Hermione and Basil were still on the hillside, and then she saw that the Duke of Bewcastle was with them.
“I confess, your grace,” Hermione said to him as Christine trudged up toward them, “that Elrick and I have been determined to have a private word with you since the day before yesterday, but it is appropriate that Christine hear what we have to say. We really must apologize on her behalf.”
Christine looked blankly at her sister-in-law and stopped where she was, a few feet below them.
“It was extremely foolish of the young ladies to wager upon which of them could engage you in private conversation for a whole hour,” Hermione said, her voice actually shaking with some emotion that sounded very like suppressed anger to Christine, “but girls will be girls, and it is understandable that they would wish to impress someone of your rank and consequence. However, it was unpardonably presumptuous of Christine to participate in such a wager and actually to win it.”
Christine closed her eyes briefly. That wretched wager! But how had Hermione found out about it? From Lady Sarah and Harriet King, no doubt.