Slightly Dangerous

by Mary Balogh

  Perhaps she would have noticed with far more attention if it had not been for the fact that a large number of people were drawn up in a receiving line between the front doors and the table. And they were all—ghastly realization!—waiting for her, since Melanie and Bertie were already being ushered away in the direction of the staircase.

  It took a few moments for Christine’s eyes to adjust fully to the light of indoors. But when they did so, she could see that the Duke of Bewcastle himself was at one end of the line. Actually, he was stepping forward from it and welcoming her with a formal bow and a quite unfathomable look on his face—not that she had often seen any look there that was not unfathomable, it was true. He opened his mouth to speak, but she forestalled him.

  “I am so sorry,” she said, her voice sounding horribly loud and breathless. “Pamela had been sick, and Phillip was being obnoxious, and Pauline was well on the way to having a fit of hysteria. I left Pamela to her nurse, persuaded Phillip to act the part of gentleman for at least five minutes, and lifted Pauline from the carriage to comfort her. But she is feeling tired and strange, poor lamb, and insisted upon staying with me. And so . . .” She felt suddenly tangled in words. She laughed. “And so here I am.”

  Pauline burrowed closer, twisted her head to peep at the duke, and knocked Christine’s bonnet slightly more off center as she did so.

  “Welcome to Lindsey Hall, Mrs. Derrick,” the Duke of Bewcastle said, and for a moment it seemed to her that his pale silver eyes burned with a curious light. “Allow me to present my family.”

  He turned and indicated the first in line, a haughty, elderly lady whom Christine instantly recognized as one of society’s most formidable dragons even though she had never before been presented to her.

  “The Marchioness of Rochester, my aunt,” the duke said. “And the marquess.”

  Christine curtsied as best she could with a three-year-old in her arms. The marchioness inclined her head and swept Christine from head to foot with one glance that suggested she had been seen and firmly dismissed as of no account whatsoever. The marquess, who appeared to be about half the size of his wife, bowed and murmured something unintelligible.

  “Lord and Lady Aidan Bedwyn,” the duke said, indicating a grim-looking, dark-haired gentleman of military bearing, who looked very much like him except that he was broader in build, and a pretty, brown-haired lady who smiled at her while her husband bowed.

  “Mrs. Derrick,” she said. “That child is going to be asleep in a few more minutes.”

  “Lord and Lady Rannulf Bedwyn,” the duke said.

  Lord Rannulf looked quite different from his brothers except for some similarity of facial features, especially the nose. He was something of a giant of a man with thick, wavy fair hair worn rather long. He brought Saxon warriors to mind. His wife was sheer, luscious, feminine beauty with vibrant, flame-colored hair. She smiled kindly while Lord Rannulf bowed.

  “Mrs. Derrick,” he said, a twinkle in his eye. “Lady Renable thought you had run away.”

  “Oh, no.” Christine laughed. “But the children’s nurse might well not have survived the day if I had not hurried to her rescue. Travel and children—especially three children shut up together for hours on end two days in a row—are not a good mix.”

  “The Marquess and Marchioness of Hallmere,” the Duke of Bewcastle said.

  It was clearly the marchioness who was the Bedwyn. She was small and looked like her brother, Lord Rannulf. She also had the family nose—and the family hauteur.

  “Mrs. Derrick,” she said, inclining her head formally while her husband, a tall blond god, bowed and smiled and asked if she had had a comfortable journey.

  “Yes, I thank you, my lord,” she said.

  “Lord and Lady Alleyne Bedwyn,” the duke said.

  Lord Alleyne, Christine concluded immediately, was the handsome brother. Dark and slender and with perfect features even though he had the family nose, he also had eyes that laughed—perhaps with mockery, perhaps with simple pleasure in life. They were roguish eyes. He bowed elegantly to her and asked her how she did. Lady Alleyne too was lovely—she was all golden beauty.

  “My uncle believes that he had an acquaintance with your late husband, Mrs. Derrick,” she said. “I will present you to him later if I may—after you have taken that poor child to the nursery and settled in.”

  “The Earl and Countess of Rosthorn,” the duke said, indicating the couple at the end of the line.

  “I am delighted to make your acquaintance, madame,” the earl said with a faint and attractive French accent as he made her a bow.

  “Mrs. Derrick,” the countess said, “how kind of you to pick up this little one, who looks very, very tired indeed.”

  She touched one of Pauline’s cheeks with the backs of two fingers and smiled at her when the child peeped.

  Lord Alleyne might be the handsome brother, Christine thought, but the very young Countess of Rosthorn was clearly the beauty of the family. Dark and youthfully slender, she was perfect in every feature.

  The Duke of Bewcastle must have given an unobtrusive command—a raised eyebrow, perhaps?—and a female servant came into the hall and waited silently a few feet away.

  “You will be escorted to the nursery and then to your room, ma’am,” the Duke of Bewcastle said. “And someone will come to escort you to the drawing room for tea in half an hour’s time.”

  “Thank you,” Christine said, turning to look at him.

  “And when Wulf says half an hour,” Lord Alleyne said with a low chuckle, “he means thirty minutes.”

  The duke was looking stern and impassive. Was it possible he could have pressed her so hard to come here? Or that he had invited all of Oscar’s family simply as an excuse to invite her too? There was no glimmering of anything in his eyes now except cool courtesy.

  Oh, how she despised herself for being glad to see him again. She had felt starved for a sight of him, if the truth were known. Was she so determined, then, to set herself up for misery? Seeing the outside of his home and this great hall, seeing his very aristocratic family, seeing him in his proper milieu, she was more than ever aware that even if they suited in every personal way—which they most certainly did not—they could never make a match of it anyway.

  The idea of her becoming a duchess was ludicrous, to say the least.

  She followed the silent servant in the direction of the staircase—and felt suddenly very vexed. She had pictured herself arriving at Lindsey Hall, smart and aloof and dignified in some of her new clothes, very much the gracious lady, greeting the Duke of Bewcastle in company with Melanie and Bertie, smiling distantly at him, very much in control of the situation.

  Instead . . .

  Well, she seemed to have got all hot and flushed somewhere between Bertie’s carriage and the front doors of Lindsey Hall. And her bonnet was very definitely askew—she could see several more inches of the underside of the brim on the left side than on the right. And now that she was walking again she could feel that her cloak had got twisted awkwardly about her, bringing her dress with it so that when she glanced downward she could see that far too much ankle—fortunately encased in her new half-boots—was showing on one side.

  And hadn’t she prattled at him when she entered the house instead of waiting for him to greet her and then smiling at him with cool, gracious dignity?

  Yes, indeed she had. She had prattled—loudly enough for them all to hear every word. And then she had met every brother and sister he possessed as well as their spouses and the impossibly arrogant Marchioness of Rochester with twisted clothes, a bonnet askew, hot cheeks, and a child in her arms who was not even her own.

  It was enough to make one want to weep.

  It was enough to convince the Duke of Bewcastle without further ado that no man, least of all himself, would ever want to be her dream man.

  And then that thought made her want to weep even harder.

  15

  WULFRIC WAS VERY CAREFUL DURING TEA
IN THE DRAWING room to focus the bulk of his attention upon every newly arrived guest except Christine Derrick. He was careful to have her seated far from the head of the long table during dinner, between Alleyne and Joshua, while he had Lady Elrick on his left and Lady Mowbury on his right.

  He did not want any of his family suspecting that she was, in fact, the guest of honor.

  Characteristically, she was dressed simply, in a high-waisted, short-sleeved evening gown of pale green with but a single flounce at the hem and a modestly low neckline. She wore no jewelry and no adornments in her hair. She was decently, prettily clad, but even his partial eyes could see that she did not match in splendor any of his sisters or sisters-in-law or, indeed, any of the other ladies present. Yet her section of the table, as first Joshua and then Alleyne conversed with her, fairly sparkled with wit and humor—or so it seemed to Wulfric, who could not actually hear a word of what was being said.

  When the gentlemen joined the ladies in the drawing room after dinner, Mrs. Derrick was sitting in one corner of the room, away from the fire, with Eve, Rachel, and Mrs. Pritchard. Her eyes met Wulfric’s briefly, and he was not surprised when they laughed at him as if to say that her attempt to be unobtrusive and to observe humanity rather than be one of its number had been foiled.

  He did not hold her gaze but gave his attention to his other guests and somehow found himself after a few minutes performing the unspeakably tedious task of turning pages of music for Miss Hutchinson while she played the pianoforte—competently but somewhat nervously, it seemed to him. After she had finished and he had complimented her, he strolled away in order to accept a cup of tea from Judith, who was pouring, and then found himself in conversation with his aunt and Miss Hutchinson again, though the former, after a mere couple of minutes, suddenly claimed that Rochester was beckoning her and swept away with all her hair plumes nodding.

  Rochester, Wulfric could see, was playing cards with Weston, Lady Mowbury, and Mrs. Pritchard and was probably unaware that his wife was even in the room.

  Miss Hutchinson, who had already been showing signs of nervous discomfort, looked as if she were on the verge of swooning quite away as he addressed his conversation exclusively to her. Morgan approached them, a smile on her face, but almost before Miss Hutchinson could turn to her in relief like a drowning person being thrown a rope, Aunt Rochester came swooping back down upon them and bore Morgan away on some slim pretext.

  This, Wulfric, decided, was quite intolerable. It was more than a decade since he had last been the object of his aunt’s matchmaking efforts.

  “Miss Hutchinson,” he said, “I see that a group of young people is gathering about the pianoforte. Would you care to join them?”

  “Yes, please, your grace,” she said.

  His aunt, he thought, must have taken leave of her senses if she believed a match was possible between this girl and himself, but he knew that when she made up her mind to something, she was not easily deterred. If he did not wish to find himself tête-à-tête with Miss Hutchinson again in five minutes’ time or less, he had better take an active role in his own salvation and find some alternative. And so he did what he wished to do.

  He strolled toward the corner of the room where Christine Derrick was for the moment sitting alone. He stood before her, looking down at her and marveling anew that she was actually here at Lindsey Hall. For a few ghastly moments after the Renables had entered the house alone this afternoon, he had thought she must have changed her mind and not come after all. And then when she had stepped inside, flushed and breathless, her bonnet askew, her dress and cloak bunched up on one side, the child clutched in her arms, and had immediately launched into speech, he had thought the old thought—she simply did not know how to behave. But at the same time he had had the curious feeling that if there were any sunshine outside at all on such a gloomy day she must have brought it all inside with her.

  He had never expected to fall in love. He had certainly never expected to develop an attachment to someone so very ineligible. And so he was quite unprepared to deal with the emotional turmoil that doing both had brought with it.

  “Well, Mrs. Derrick,” he said now.

  “Well, your grace.”

  “I trust,” he said, “all is to your liking? Your room? The service?”

  “I have the loveliest room,” she said, “with the loveliest view. Your housekeeper has been exceedingly kind to me. She has even insisted on assigning me my own personal maid, even though I assured her that I did not need one.”

  He inclined his head. His housekeeper, of course, had taken her orders from him. He had chosen that room specifically for Christine Derrick, partly because he had thought the Chinese silk wallpaper and screens and the cheerful green and gold bed and window hangings would please her, and partly because he had wanted her to be able to look out upon the fountain surrounded by spring flowers, and upon the long, straight driveway beyond. It was, he always thought, a particularly stately view of the park. It was also the view he had from his own windows, though there were three rooms separating his apartments from hers. And he had guessed that she would not have a maid with her. She would be the only lady in his home who would not. It simply would not do.

  He seated himself on a chair close to hers and arranged the tails of his coat neatly behind him.

  “I trust,” he said, “you had a pleasant journey.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Thank you.”

  “And I trust,” he said, “you left your mother well? And your sister?”

  “Both, thank you,” she said.

  “And your sister at the vicarage?” he said. “And your nephews and niece?”

  “They are all well, thank you.” She half smiled at him and her eyes laughed outright. “So is Charles—the vicar.”

  When had he begun to take delight from that way she had of laughing at him?

  “I am glad to hear it.” The fingers of his right hand found the handle of his quizzing glass, and for a moment her eyes followed the gesture and made him conscious of it.

  He was not a particularly sociable man. He avoided entertainments and trivial conversation whenever he could. He was, nevertheless, a gentleman and therefore adept at making polite conversation when he needed to do so. This evening there was certainly need. He was entertaining houseguests in his own home. And they had all—even his brothers and sisters—been invited here because of this woman, because of his need to have her here and somehow woo her.

  He could not think of a thing to say to her.

  “I was surprised,” she said, “to find the nursery so full of children, many of them very young.”

  “My brothers and sisters,” he said, “have been somewhat prolific during the past few years. But you must not fear that the house will be overrun with them or that you will be called upon again to tend any of their needs. They belong in the nursery and will be kept there by their nurses.”

  His own family, he had decided, must make less free of the house with their offspring now that his other guests had arrived.

  “I must not fear,” she said softly. “They will be kept in the nursery. How convenient it is for the very wealthy to have nurseries and nurses to help them forget that they even have children—except for the succession.”

  “You would prefer to have them constantly underfoot, then?” he asked her. “Forever interrupting adult conversation and trying adult patience?”

  “In my experience,” she said, “the situation is more like to be reversed. Adults constantly interrupt a child’s conversation and try a child’s patience to the limit. But adults and children can coexist to the mutual happiness and benefit of both.”

  “And so,” he said, “adults must board magic carpets with children and flap their arms with them as they fly over the Atlantic Ocean without getting their feet wet?”

  “Oh, dear,” she said, flushing, “so you did see some of that lesson, did you? It was unkind of you to stand against the fence at just the place where the sun would be
behind you and make you virtually invisible. Did you disapprove, then? Did you think me undignified? Would it have been better to have the children sit in disciplined rows on the grass while I stood to assert my physical and intellectual superiority? Would it have been better to give them a verbal history of the fur trade in the interior of the North American continent beyond Canada and to describe to them the canoe routes taken by the voyageurs and the riverbed they follow and the flora and fauna they pass? To give the children a list of the food they take with them and the trading goods they carry to exchange for furs? And would I then have been justified the next day in my annoyance over discovering that not a single child remembered a single detail of the lesson?”

  Many people spoke with their lips alone. Mrs. Derrick spoke with her lips, her eyes, her whole face, her hands, and her body—and with everything that was inside herself. She spoke as she appeared to live—with eagerness, even passion. He watched her and listened to her with fascination.

  “Actually, Mrs. Derrick,” he said, “I was charmed.”

  “Oh.” Clearly he had taken the wind out of her sails. She had been preparing to argue with him. Perhaps, he thought belatedly, he should have baited her. “And yet you believe children belong in the nursery?”

  “I wonder,” he said, “what the children upstairs would think if we invaded their domain at will. Would they perhaps come to the conclusion that in the main adults belong downstairs?”

  She laughed. “That is a novel thought, I must confess,” she said. “At the vicarage Hazel is forever shushing the children because Charles is invariably writing and rewriting next Sunday’s sermon, and she is forever correcting their grammar or criticizing their posture or directing their activities. Perhaps they would be delighted to have a nursery as their very own domain.”

  “I am not after all, then,” he said, “the monster you first thought me, Mrs. Derrick?”

  “But we must compromise,” she said. “We adults must be allowed to enjoy ourselves free of children, and they must be allowed to enjoy themselves free of us. If we never see them, though, how can we learn from them? How can they learn from us?”