by Jaimey Grant
“Because the Earl of Lockwood owned it before he died and he had no heir so it was sold and I bought it,” Adam told him. “Now, come along. We need to get some coffee in you.”
Ten minutes later the two men sat in the kitchen drinking coffee. Adam waited until his cousin-by-marriage was fairly sober before he started in on him.
“So why were you in Brooks’s playing with Winters again?”
Levi groaned. He had hoped Adam would let it drop. He just wanted to seek his bed and try to forget his latest act of sheer stupidity. He hadn’t drunk nearly enough to blot out his evening and he wanted nothing more than to forget certain things.
“Would you believe me if I told you I was bored?” he asked hopefully.
“No.”
“Stupid?”
“Probably.”
“Trying to destroy everything?”
Adam stared at him thoughtfully. “That is far more believable. Define everything.”
The earl shrugged. “My life, I suppose. Have you never wanted to just blot out your entire existence? To forget that you have to wake the next morning and go about as if nothing at all happened the night before? Wish that you could go back and right a terrible wrong while at the same time wishing you could have finished what you started?”
“Let me see if I understand you,” Adam said as he leaned forward with his elbows on the table, one hand locked around a cup of coffee. “You want to change what happened in that antechamber that night but at the same time you regret that you didn’t get to make love to Rory. And now, since you have neither, you want nothing more than to simply cease to exist?”
“Something like that.”
“You are a damned coward!” Adam exploded. He slammed his fist on the table making the earl jump. “Have you even asked her to marry you, you nodcock? How do you know she’ll refuse unless you ask?”
Levi stared at Adam as if the man suddenly sprouted a second head. “And were you so very confident when you asked Bri to marry you?” he almost whispered.
“Well, no,” Adam admitted. “I was quite positive she would darken my daylights. But I still did it.”
“Your situation with Bri is nothing like mine with Rory. Rory is…well, she…she is…I don’t know. It is just different, that is all,” he finished lamely.
“Well said, Vi,” Adam mocked. “Go see her tomorrow. If she agrees to see you, ask her to marry you. You are going to be miserable until you do. Trust me.” He took a sip of his coffee and leaned back. “Now tell me what you owe Winters.”
*
Chapter Eleven
Nearly two weeks after her meeting with Desmond Forester, Aurora still refused to see Lord Greville. She had Miss Ellison thank him for his timely appearance in the park that day. Then she tried to forget he existed.
Which, naturally, was impossible. She thought about him constantly. Worse, she dreamed about him. She dreamed about being with him at Lady Osmond’s and dreamed the natural conclusion. She ached for him.
She received a note from Forester. He informed her again that he was willing to marry her and he didn’t care how many men she’d been with. He reminded her of his threat to expose her.
Aurora burned the note and wished it were him.
She read the papers and kept up with Society gossip. She wouldn’t admit even to herself that she was looking for a certain name.
She took to wearing plain clothing whenever she had to leave the house and somehow managed to escape whenever she saw someone she’d rather not speak to.
But it was inevitable that she would run into Levi Greville again. Well, perhaps not, actually. It can hardly be called inevitable when someone climbs into a person’s bedchamber in the middle of the night. Totty-headed would be more appropriate.
Aurora was not yet asleep. Sitting up in bed, she held a novel in her hands, her mind fully absorbed in the heroine’s plight rather than her own.
“She shuddered, tossed about in her bed, and envied every quiet sleeper. The storm still raged, and various were the noises, more terrific even than the wind, which struck at intervals on her startled ear. The very curtains of her bed seemed at one moment in motion, and at another the lock of her door was agitated, as if by the attempt of somebody to enter. Hollow murmurs seemed to creep along the gallery, and more than once her blood was chilled by the sound of distant moans. Hour after hour passed away, and the wearied Catherine had heard three proclaimed by all the clocks in the house, before the tempest subsided—”
Aurora jumped. What was that? She shook her head, disbelieving her own ears. Resolved to finish the chapter, she returned her gaze to the novel in her hands.
Something creaked in her sitting room, the eerie sound shivering over her. The book tumbled from her nerveless fingers, forgotten.
Drawing in a deep breath, she forced her heart to slow its erratic beat and rose to her feet. When she had selected Northanger Abbey as a suitable book to read before bed, she had assumed it would not be as spine-tingling as any Gothic novel. She would not then be shaking in her—she glanced down and realized her feet were very bare. She felt a little like she was Catherine Morland, dropped right in the middle of a Gothic adventure.
Her composure restored with that simple acknowledgment and the absurdity of it all, Aurora wrapped her robe around her cotton nightrail and approached the door to the sitting room on silent feet. She heard a muttered oath and nearly laughed.
Flinging the door wide, she exclaimed, “Levi Greville, what are you about?” She was far too amused to be afraid or even scandalized.
Startled, Levi stepped back and tripped over a little footstool. He landed on his backside with a thud, clutching a fistful of crushed daisies in one hand. Aurora tried to hold back her laughter at such an incongruous sight but was unable to stop one small chortle from escaping. Her midnight guest’s answering grimace made her hilarity that much harder to contain.
Standing, he dropped the mutilated flowers on the table. Fists on his hips, he tried to glare at her but his lips twitched and soon he was laughing, albeit quietly.
“Oh, laugh, Rory, do. You are like to explode, else,” he told her through his own chuckles.
Aurora did laugh but the fact that Levi was standing in her sitting room, only a few feet from her bedroom, and only a few feet more from her bed, suddenly robbed her of breath and she gasped.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
Levi sighed. “I need to speak with you, Rory.”
“No.”
“Why the devil not?” he asked in exasperation. “I have been worried to death about you wondering what you were doing and how you were enduring the gossip. You will see no one, except Miss Ellison, and you rarely leave the house. When you do, you are constantly looking over your shoulder. When you see anyone you know, you flee. What in hell is going on?”
“There is no need for such language, my lord,” she retorted primly.
Levi merely folded his arms over his broad chest and stared at her. When she just stared stubbornly back, he said, “I am not leaving until you tell me why you refuse to see me.”
Aurora weighed her options carefully. She could scream and have him forcibly ejected and further ruin her reputation—could she further ruin her reputation?—or she could sit down with him and calmly tell him to leave her alone thereby making herself miserable for the rest of her life. Decisions, decisions.
“Sit down,” she replied.
The earl sat on a chair near the window, one of two placed by the table upon which the wilting daisies rested. “Will you light another candle?” he asked.
“Are you afraid of the dark?” she teased. He raised one eyebrow imperiously. “Yes, Lord Greville, I was planning to light another candle. Maybe two,” she murmured thoughtfully.
The candles were lit, shedding a warm glow over them as they sat across from each other. “Much better,” Levi sighed.
Aurora looked at him in astonishment. “You are afraid of the dark,” she accused, gathering
the flowers into a small pile.
“No, I am not,” he denied. Then he shrugged. “I am afraid of the things that lurk in the dark.”
“A big strong man like you?” she scoffed. “How can you be afraid of anything?”
“I am afraid of a lot of things,” he murmured as he stared at her.
“Such as?”
“Sprites, for one thing.” He smiled.
It was that absolutely beautiful, boyishly handsome, utterly seductive smile, all dimples and white teeth, a tipping up of lips that hinted at sensual delights.
Aurora’s heart picked up speed, her fingers curling around the daisies, further crushing the poor blooms. Such a shame, too, pretty little things that they were. “Sprites?” she finally managed to say, forcing her fingers to release their death grip.
“Well, not all sprites, just you,” he admitted. “More your mind, I think.” He cocked his head to one side and studied her. “I fear what your answer will be to what I am going to say to you.”
“Oh, no,” she whispered, dropping the flowers altogether to prevent more damage. “Please don’t, Levi. It would be suicidal.”
“Blast. Sprites can read minds,” he muttered.
“What?”
“Sprites can read minds,” he told her patiently. “I was thinking about killing myself if you told me no.”
She almost believed him. Almost. As she was about to exclaim in dismay over such a waste, and maybe throw in a carefully worded reprimand or two, the glow of the candle revealed the twinkle in his eye. “You beast,” she said on a laugh.
“Quite,” he agreed good-naturedly. “Are you going to marry me then, my beautiful, green-eyed sprite?”
“No. And my eyes are not green.”
“Why not?”
“Because I was not born with green eyes and you are only asking out of a misplaced sense of honor. I was as much to blame for what happened as you.”
He grinned. “Well, in that case, you compromised me and my reputation will be permanently damaged if you don’t do the honorable thing and make an honest man of me. And I know your eyes are not green.”
She laughed. She couldn’t help it. Ignoring his comment about her eyes, she replied, “Nonsense. A gentleman cannot be compromised, sir.”
He sobered. “No, but he can still be damaged by gossip that says he steals the virtue of innocents,” he said with a sad shake of his head. One dark brown curl fell over his brow. Aurora wanted to brush it back, her fingers tingling at the thought.
“They never said such a thing!” she cried instead.
“No,” he admitted. “But they did say I am no better than I should be.”
Aurora leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. “Are you quite through?” she asked with a dangerous glint in her blue-green eyes.
“Not quite, actually. I want to marry you, Rory. I do think we will suit admirably.”
“Do you?” she asked in the same dangerous tone.
“You are being selfish, you know.”
Now he was attacking her? “Of all the…! How dare you, sir?”
“Have you thought of how this will affect your sister?”
“My sister?”
He nodded. “Have you considered the effect this will have on her?”
Aurora twisted her hands in her lap. “Yes, and she is the only reason I will even consider marrying you,” she admitted.
She didn’t like the expression of hurt that crossed his features ever so briefly but she was helpless to change it.
“Are you in some sort of trouble?”
“No,” she said quickly. She inwardly cringed at the panicked sound in her denial. Considering how many lies she’d told, one would think she’d be far more adept at it.
Levi leaned forward until they were almost touching. “Does this have something to do with that Forester fellow? You can trust me, you know.”
“No, I cannot,” she blurted out.
“Why not?”
“I did not mean that,” she said, horrified. “I know I can trust you. It is just that he is a dangerous man and I would not put your life in danger by confiding in you.”
“Danger?” scoffed the earl. “Aren’t you exaggerating a bit?”
“I don’t believe I am,” she said carefully.
Levi shrugged, his face taking on a look of ease. “I will just kill him and everything will be all right then.”
She looked at him. Could he be in earnest? Would he kill Desmond without a qualm?
“I was jesting, Rory. No need to look so horrified.”
There was something in his look that indicated he was not so much jesting as entirely serious. Unsure what to say, Aurora looked away, watching the candle flame dance.
Silence reigned for several long moments. Levi grew fidgety while Aurora wondered what she could say to make him understand without telling him of her shame.
He darted an almost panicked glance at the window. “Perhaps you were right. I don’t think you can trust me.”
“What?”
“I find that I want a repeat of what happened at the Osmond’s ball. With a change in the outcome, of course. I think it would be best if you gave me an answer and let me leave before I take advantage of our current situation.”
“Oh,” she said on a mere breath of sound. “I see. In that case…” she glanced away, confessing, “It may take some time to gain permission to marry you.”
Lord Greville froze. “Permission? Are you not one-and- twenty?”
Aurora laughed at his tone. “I am, but my father left me in the care of guardians of sorts.”
He reached up to rub at the back of his neck, a slight flush creeping up his cheeks. “I had not considered that. Can your guardians be made to accept me?”
Aurora shrugged, a small grin tugging at her lips. “I have not accepted you. Why should they?”
Her companion growled, apparently growing tired of the game. He leaned close, his dark eyes flashing in the candlelight. “You have little choice, Aurora Glendenning of the Staffordshire Glendennings. You have made your bed and now you will lie in it.” A disarming grin suffused his boyish countenance. “With me.”
She was reminded of Derringer’s propensity to address her so mockingly. She scowled, ignoring the flush that threatened to climb her cheeks. “I should accept you, you great dunderhead. It would serve you right to be saddled with a termagant such as myself.”
He never reacted in the expected manner. He adopted a hang-dog air, his tone turned wheedling. “Truly? Are you a termagant?” He shrugged. “But it is only fitting that a wastrel marry a termagant, I suppose. Who else would care enough to nag me from my destructive course?”
A chuckle escaped before she could stop it. “Well, when you put it that way, I suppose I shall accept your proposal.” And pray God you never discover how I have deceived you. Her smile wavered ever so slightly.
“I understand. I will leave you now.” The earl stood and went to the window. Aurora watched him, wide-eyed. He climbed out and was halfway down the trellis before her words had sunk in. A second later, he stood before her again. “Did you say yes?”
Aurora laughed. “Yes, sir, I did.”
Levi picked her up and swung her around. Then he kissed her enthusiastically on the lips. “You will not regret this, I promise,” he told her. He kissed her again, this time with a good deal more passion but no less enthusiasm, until she was breathless and he had stretched his will power to the very limit. After one last butterfly kiss, he disappeared.
“I may not regret this,” she whispered into the night, “but I am very much afraid you will, my love.”
~~~~~~
The following morning—or later that morning, if one wanted to be strictly accurate—Adam wondered what was wrong with his young cousin-by-marriage. The man was far too cheerful at breakfast. Then he was off on some unspecified errand, whistling off-key as he went.
“He was moping around here yesterday as if he lost his best f
riend and now he’s as merry as a grig. What happened, do you think?” asked Bri. “And what on earth would he need five pounds for?”
Adam’s long-suffering gaze lingered on his wife’s face. “He asked you for five pounds?”
She nodded, gingerly sipping her tea. “I saw no problem with giving it to him. Such a paltry sum cannot possibly be a gambling debt.”
“I have a feeling that a Special License will be issued for yet another hole-in-the-wall ceremony.”
Bri smiled, not at all concerned over the unseemly rush. “Oh, do you think? How wonderful.” Her smile turned to a frown. “But when did he propose?”
“If I may be so bold, sir,” West said woodenly. Adam nodded. “It may have been after my Lord Greville left the premises last night.”
“He left in the middle of the night?” Adam said.
“Indeed, Sir Adam, according to the night footman.”
“Indeed? Well,” Adam remarked dryly as he turned back to his wife, “apparently, your cousin was not satisfied with compromising her just the one time. He must do it twice. For good measure.”
~~~~~~
Aurora, on the other hand, was not merry as a grig. Doubt plagued her. Was she doing the right thing? Rhiannon needed protection from her father. Aurora needed protection from Forester as well. She was sure he would do something quite dreadful if he were so inclined. She really couldn’t take the chance that he might harm Rhiannon.
So she was engaged. To the most handsome man she had ever seen; the most amusing and the most lovable. She should have been in alt.
She wasn’t.
How could she do this to him? How could she marry a man and refuse to tell him her deepest secrets?
But how could she tell him that she wasn’t a virgin, that Rhiannon was really her daughter, that she had kidnapped her from her adoptive parents, and still expect him to want her? How could she tell him that she was actually one of the wealthiest heiresses that England had ever seen and expect him to trust her?