by Mary Balogh
But it was too late now to realize that when he had said I want you she ought to have asked for ten minutes or so in which to consider her answer.
“There is nothing I can say, then,” he said at last, “that will persuade you to change your mind?”
“Nothing,” she assured him.
And that at least was perfectly true. She could conceive of no worse fate than being this man’s mistress, subordinate to his power and arrogance, at his beck and call, his paid employee, nothing to him but a body with which to pleasure himself when the mood was on him. And all the time half despising him, half disliking him, repelled by his coldness, his lack of humor and humanity. And despising herself.
He strode toward her and she scrambled to her feet, reluctant now to accept even the touch of his hand to help her up. But it was his coat he had come for. He bent and retrieved it from the ground, shook out the grass that clung to it, and put it back on. He looked, she thought then, as immaculate as he had appeared when she first caught sight of him in the ballroom.
She clasped her arms behind her back as he turned to her, and he took the hint and led the way back to the path without offering his arm—or his hand. It was strange how two people could share the deepest of all intimacies and yet, just a short while later, shun even the slightest touch from each other.
Tomorrow she would return to Hyacinth Cottage.
Tomorrow he would be gone.
She would never see him again.
Yet her breasts were still tender and her inner thighs were still trembly and inside she was still slightly sore as a result of their lovemaking—though that particular word was a euphemism if ever she had heard one.
They walked back to the house in silence. But he stopped when they were still some distance from the French doors into the ballroom.
“It would be as well,” he said, “if we were not seen to return together. I will remain out here for a while.”
But before she could hurry onward, grateful for his thoughtfulness, he spoke again.
“You will write to me at Lindsey Hall in Hampshire if there is need, Mrs. Derrick,” he said.
It was a statement, not a request. He did not explain his meaning. He did not have to.
Christine shivered, suddenly chilly as he strode off in the direction of the old oak where he had set her down when he carried her outside after Hector had trodden on her foot. How long ago that seemed now!
She hurried in the direction of the ballroom, feeling suddenly more depressed than she could remember feeling for a long time.
So much for no emotional involvement in what she had allowed to happen!
WULFRIC STAYED OUTSIDE for some time before making his way to the card room.
There was nothing in his experience before this night to account for what had just happened between him and Christine Derrick. He had never been a womanizer. Rose had been his only other woman, and an agreement had been carefully drawn up between them and all practical details settled before he had bedded her for the first time.
He had always had a healthy sexual appetite, and he had satisfied his needs with regularity whenever he was in town, but he had never thought of himself as a passionate man.
Tonight he had felt passion.
He wondered what would have happened out there by the lake if she had allowed him to finish what he had begun to say after staring out across the lake for several minutes, thinking. She had assumed that the offer he was about to make was the same as the one he had made in the maze the week before. She had assumed wrongly—and truth to tell, he had been glad to be stopped. He had allowed her interruption to turn him from the course he had decided upon with very little consideration. Honor had dictated it, but honor had been swallowed up in her interruption.
He did not want a duchess.
More especially, he did not want a duchess who was not his social equal, who looked pretty at all times and startlingly lovely when animated but was not at all elegant or refined, who behaved impulsively and not always with proper decorum or gentility, who drew attention to herself every time she became enthusiastic about something and then simply laughed when things went wrong instead of being suitably mortified. There were huge responsibilities attached to the position of duchess. If he ever married, he would want—he would need—to ally himself to a lady who had been raised and educated to step confidently into just such a role.
Mrs. Derrick quite patently could not do so.
There was nothing about her—nothing!—that would qualify her for the role.
Aidan had married beneath himself. Eve, though she had been brought up and educated as a lady, was in fact no more than the daughter of a Welsh coal miner. Rannulf had married beneath himself. Judith was the daughter of an obscure country parson and the granddaughter of a London actress. Wulfric had not approved of either marriage, though he had given his blessing to both. Alleyne was the only brother to have made a respectable marriage—with the niece of a baron.
Was he, the Duke of Bewcastle, head of the family, to do no better than any of his brothers? Was he to subordinate everything he had ever lived for to a summer’s passion that he could in no way understand?
It would have been a disaster if Mrs. Derrick had allowed him to finish his marriage proposal. For of course she would not have refused if he had finished. To scorn to be his mistress was one thing, but what woman in her right mind would turn down the chance to be a duchess, to be married to one of the wealthiest men in Britain?
It would have been a disaster.
And so he had allowed himself to be interrupted, to be misunderstood. He had held his peace.
Yet now he felt that perhaps he had missed one of the few chances life offered to step off the wheel of routine and familiarity and duty to discover if there was joy somewhere beyond its turning.
Joy?
He remembered that Aidan was happy with Eve, as was Rannulf with Judith—quite as happy, in fact, as Alleyne was with his baron’s niece or Freyja with her marquess or Morgan with her earl.
But they were free to be happy. None of them was the Duke of Bewcastle, who could expect almost everything of life except freedom and personal happiness.
Life for a while, he thought as his steps led him slowly back in the direction of the revelries, was going to seem bleak indeed without even a glimpse of Christine Derrick to look forward to.
But then, life was bleak. In reality there was nothing beyond the wheel’s turning. Not for men like him, anyway. He had been told in no uncertain terms at the age of twelve that he was different, set apart, bound by privilege and by duty for the rest of his days. He had fought and railed against his fate for only a short while—perhaps not even a year—before accepting the truth of what he had been told.
After that he had learned his lesson well.
The child in whose body he had lived and dreamed for twelve years no longer existed.
Christine Derrick was not for him.
THE MUSIC STOPPED playing in the ballroom below while Christine was in her bedchamber packing her meager belongings. Justin was sitting on the bed. It was not at all proper for him to be there, of course, but she did not care. She had been relieved when she answered the tap at her door to discover that it was only he and not Melanie or Eleanor or . . . someone else.
“I thought,” she explained, “that it would be a good idea to go home with my mother and Eleanor tonight and save Bertie the trouble of having to call the carriage out again tomorrow.”
“And so here you are packing in the middle of a ball without summoning a maid to do it for you,” he said. “Poor Chrissie. I saw Hector plowing into you when you were waltzing and Bewcastle carrying you outside. I saw you slip back inside an hour later and then skirt about the edge of the floor until you reached the door and could disappear again. Are you sure nothing happened to upset you? He did not repeat his dishonorable offer by any chance, did he?”
She sighed as she pressed a pair of slippers down the side of the bag. Justin had a
lways had an uncanny ability to appear on the scene during the various crises of her life, sensing that something upsetting had happened, that she needed a friendly ear into which to pour out her anger or grief or frustration or whatever the negative emotion happened to be, finding ways to console her or advise her or simply make her smile. She had always considered herself to be marvelously fortunate to have such a friend. But tonight she did not really want to confide even in him.
“No, of course not,” she said. “He was actually very gallant. He stayed with me until I could stand on my foot again, and then we waltzed a little and strolled outside until the music stopped. Then he went wandering off to the card room, I suppose, and I stayed outdoors for a few minutes. It was so cool and peaceful out there that I was reluctant to come back inside. Then I got the idea of coming up here to pack my things so that I can go home tonight instead of waiting until the morning.”
He looked at her with a gentle smile and keen eyes, and she knew that he knew she had lied to him for once in her life. But being Justin and her dear friend, he would not push for more information than she chose to give.
“I am glad he did not upset you,” he said.
“Oh, he did not,” she assured him again, setting her brush on top of the bag and closing it. “But I will be very glad to be back home, Justin. I daresay Hermione and Basil will be happy to see me go too. Do you know what those wretched girls, Lady Sarah Buchan and Harriet King, did? They ran to them and told them about that silly wager.”
“Oh, Chrissie,” he said, interrupting her, “I’m afraid that was me. Audrey told me about it too after you had won, and I was so certain that word would spread to everyone else pretty soon that I went and told Hermione myself. I wanted to assure her that you had been drawn into the wager against your will, that you had put none of your own money into it, that it was Bewcastle who invited you to walk in the alley, not the other way around—I saw it happen, remember?—and that your manner toward him was in no way flirtatious. I really wanted her to understand that. I suppose I did the wrong thing. Perhaps she never would have heard about the wager after all if I had not told her.”
She stared at him in some dismay. It was Justin who was responsible for that horrid scene out at the lake? She knew from old experience that he often took it upon himself to intervene in any altercation that involved her, to defend her, explain for her, intercede for her. She had always appreciated his efforts to be her champion, though they had not seemed to do much good. This interference she resented, though. It had actually caused trouble for her.
“Do forgive me,” he said, looking so crestfallen that her heart melted.
“Well,” she said, “I daresay someone else would have told if you had not. And it does not really matter, does it? I’ll probably never see them again after tonight.”
She would never again accept any invitation from Melanie that included them. And yet it broke her heart. Basil was Oscar’s brother and had once seemed like hers for a few years. Hermione at one time had been like another sister.
“I’ll talk to them again,” he promised.
“I would really rather you did not,” she said, leaving her packed bag where it was and making for the door. “You spoke up for me so many times, Justin, that they stopped believing you. Leave well enough alone. There has been no music downstairs for some time now, has there? Supper time must be almost over. I suppose I ought to put in an appearance again, though there must be only another set or two left. None of the neighbors will wish to be too late leaving here, will they? And all the houseguests are to begin their journeys tomorrow and will not want too late a night.”
“Come and dance with me, then,” he said, getting up off the bed to open the door for her, “and smile as only you know how, even though I know Bewcastle said or did something to upset you, damn his eyes.”
“Not at all,” she said. “I am a little weary, that is all. But not too weary to dance with you.”
It was hard to imagine feeling more depressed than she was feeling at this precise moment, Christine thought. Her spirits were lodged somewhere in the soles of her slippers. But she smiled anyway.
She informed her mother and Eleanor that she would be accompanying them home, and then she danced with Justin and with Mr. Gerard Hilliers. She smiled determinedly and made merry. It was an enormous relief to find that the Duke of Bewcastle was not in the ballroom.
She thanked Melanie and Bertie at the end of the ball and explained to them that she was leaving with her mother. She had hoped to slip away unnoticed after that, but Melanie spread the word, and the actual leave-taking became a grand public event, the very thing she had hoped to avoid by not waiting until the morning.
She hugged Audrey and shook hands with Sir Lewis Wiseman and wished them well at their wedding next spring and in their future life. She kissed Lady Mowbury’s cheek and promised to write to her. She exchanged farewell greetings with a large crowd of the young people, all of whom were trying to talk at once—with a great deal of laughter thrown in.
Even Hermione and Basil must have decided that it was their duty to take a formal leave of her. Hermione kissed the air near her cheek and Basil bowed stiffly to her. Ignominiously, Christine felt a rush of tears to her eyes, and she startled Hermione—and herself—by hugging her sister-in-law tightly.
“I am so sorry,” she said. “I am so sorry, Hermione. So very sorry.”
She had little idea what she was talking about, but Hermione, she noticed before she turned and clambered into the waiting carriage, moved closer to Basil’s side, and he set an arm about her shoulders.
The Duke of Bewcastle, at least, had absented himself from the small crowd gathered on the terrace. Christine felt enormous relief about that as she settled back into the well-upholstered seat, her chest tight with unshed tears. She was very, very glad of it.
“That was a fine entertainment,” her mother said, taking her place on the seat opposite with Eleanor. “It was gratifying to see you made so much of, Christine.”
“Well, and so she ought to be, Mama,” Eleanor said. “She is, after all, a Derrick by marriage and related to Lady Renable and Viscount Elrick and Viscount Mowbury. Our Christine is an important lady.” She winked across the carriage at her younger sister.
“It was most courteous of the Earl of Kitredge to ask to be presented to us,” their mother said. “And he actually danced with you, Christine. So did the Duke of Bewcastle for a short while, though I must say I thought him a thoroughly disagreeable man. He did not come to be introduced.”
“Too cold and haughty for his own good,” Eleanor agreed. “I am so delighted that the evening is over and done with. I never could see the attraction of cavorting about a floor with dozens of other people, wearing out one’s legs and one’s conversation when one could be more pleasantly employed at home, reading a good book.”
“And I am delighted the two weeks are at an end,” Christine said. “I have missed the children at school and our niece and nephews and all the villagers and the garden. And both of you,” she added.
“And yet,” her mother said, “I always fear that life must seem dull to you, Christine, when you have known something far grander.”
“It is never dull, Mama,” she said, smiling and setting her head back against the cushions. “And it was never grand.”
She closed her eyes and felt suddenly that she was back at the lake, the Duke of Bewcastle bending his head to kiss her before all passion broke loose between them. She had done such a careful job of convincing herself that it had all been just carnal and therefore meaningless, something to be experienced and enjoyed and then shrugged off.
Well, and so it had been!
She opened her eyes to rid herself of the images.
I thought him a thoroughly disagreeable man.
Too cold and haughty for his own good.
Why had those words hurt? She agreed with them. But they had hurt. They still did. She felt raw with grief, though she could not understand
the reason.
He had been inside her. They had shared life’s deepest intimacy. But only physically. There was no other connection between them at all, and never could be. There was nothing in him she could like and admire, and—to be fair—there was nothing in her that he could possibly like or admire either. And so they had been intimate without intimacy.
Her heart felt like a leaden weight in the middle of her chest.
She would never see him again.
Thank heaven.
But never.
It sounded like an awfully long time.
10
WULFRIC WENT HOME TO LINDSEY HALL IN HAMPSHIRE. For a whole week he reveled in the huge, silent emptiness of the place. It was home. It was where he belonged. For perhaps the first time in his life he realized that he loved it. He had not wanted it. As a boy, if there had been anything he could have done to change places with Aidan, to make him their father’s heir instead of himself, he would have done it.
But when one was born the eldest son of a duke, of course, one was born with an unchangeable destiny. There was no freedom of choice allowed such a child.
As there was none to any child born to a chimney sweep, he supposed.
He had never been much of a one for self-pity. Why should he have been? There were thousands who would give a right arm for even a fraction of the privileges and wealth and power he took largely for granted.
He wandered from room to room in the house, far more than he usually did, and enjoyed the knowledge that there would be no people beyond every door, waiting to converse and be conversed with. He roamed about the large park surrounding the house, both on horseback and on foot, and was thankful that there was no one to suggest a picnic or an expedition by carriage.