The Wicked Marquis

by Mary Lancaster

  He wouldn’t come, obviously. They were playing a game…

  “I thought you’d make me wait.” His voice spoke behind her, warming her.

  She smiled into the rain without turning. “I thought about it. But it seems I don’t care for games any more. So, I thought I’d talk to you instead.”

  “I’m glad.”

  He was closer now, so close she wasn’t surprised when his hands touched her wrists, and glided up her cloaked arms. She half-turned her head, looking up into his face. His eyes were serious and warm with feeling, but close behind the calmness he strived for, she sensed a profound turbulence that moved her. Perhaps it was his quickened breathing that gave him away.

  “Do you forgive me?” he asked hoarsely.

  “Oh, for what?” she said, her voice catching. “For doing what everyone would tell you was the honorable thing? You should have talked to me, told me…”

  “I couldn’t find the words. I still can’t. Just know that I love you, that I would die to give you one instant of happiness…”

  She rose on tiptoe, reaching up for his mouth. He gave it, fervently. She fell back against him and his arms closed around her. The rain pattered down on her face, and his, seeping into their mouths as they kissed and kissed again.

  She turned in his arms, throwing hers around his neck, and pressing her cheek to his. “Does this mean you will marry me?” she asked huskily.

  She felt his smile in her hair. “It means I insist upon it,” he murmured. “Only how do I convince your brother I’m not a fortune hunter?”

  “I don’t really see that you can,” she said ruefully. “He doesn’t know you. And by the time he does, if he ever does, I imagine I will already be twenty-one and we can be married anyway. Or we could elope to Scotland.”

  “Like Dax,” he said thoughtfully. He frowned. “You would really do that to be with me?”

  “Of course, I would.” She was rewarded with a kiss that curled her toes. Before it ended, his arms were around her beneath the cloak and his hard body pressed intimately to hers.

  He groaned. “It will all but kill me to wait, but I can’t do that to you. The scandal of an elopement would be horrendous and I won’t drive a wedge between you and your family if I can avoid it.”

  “We may not avoid it. It depends how stupid Braithwaite decides to be over the issue,” Serena said with sisterly candor.

  “Well, we might as well begin as soon as possible. I’ll write to him today.”

  “So will I,” Serena said, kissing his lips just because they were so close and she liked it so much.

  After the last couple of weeks, she couldn’t believe how happy she was. She couldn’t contain it, but began to sway in his arms, and a moment later, was being danced through the trees, waltzing in the rain and laughing with sheer exuberance.

  “Oh, stop, stop,” she gasped at last, still laughing. “Someone will see us! Or hear. Or worse, I’ll collapse on the mud.”

  “I won’t let you,” he assured her, but he did stop, leaning his back against the wet trunk of the big apple tree and taking her face between his hands. His eyes seemed to blaze, thrilling her all over again. “Do you know what I would like most?”

  She shook her head, smiling with anticipation.

  “I’d like to make love to you under this tree, in the moonlight.”

  Desire flamed through her. “Instead of on the cellar floor?” she managed, recalling a previous improper suggestion.

  “Both,” he growled, and kissed her hard, with wicked sensuality. And when she couldn’t suppress a little moan of pleasure and need, he gentled the kiss, and smiled against her lips. “For now, I’ll settle for dancing with you. Is there to be dancing at this satanic beach revel of yours?”

  She gave a gurgle of laughter. “It is not remotely satanic! The Winslows and all the strict old biddies from town have agreed to come. But yes, we have hired an orchestra! They were not keen at first for fear of getting sand in their instruments, but we have promised them a canopy and, I suspect, an enormous amount of money. And they have agreed to come.”

  “Then I want two waltzes. With or without rain.” He freed her reluctantly, placing her hand in his arm to walk more decorously toward the path.

  “I wish you could simply come in and have breakfast with us,” she blurted. “The girls always like to see you.”

  “One day,” he said lightly. “One day soon, we may see each other whenever we like.” For an instant, his eyes blazed again. “And make love whenever we like.”

  *

  “You have made it up with Tamar,” Kate said, as soon as Serena danced across the drawing room to greet her.

  Serena laughed. “Is it so obvious?”

  “Blindingly.” Kate smiled and gave her a quick hug. “I am so glad for you! But you do realize the real fight is yet to come?”

  Serena wrinkled her nose. “I know. I am prepared for it. Tamar has written to Braithwaite. So have I. In a few days, I daresay I shall receive a stinker of a letter summoning me to London, or heralding his furious arrival with my mother in toe. To be honest, I am so prepared for their refusal that I shan’t let it cast me down. It is barely three months until my birthday, after all.”

  “They may refuse to receive him altogether,” Kate warned.

  “I know.”

  To please them, she was already observing strict propriety within the castle. Tamar never called, except with Kate to paint the children. Outside the house, they met in the orchard every morning—which might prove more difficult with her lady mother and Braithwaite in residence, but she would find a way. Being alone with him was a time she valued too much to give up, not just because it allowed her a taste of passion, but because they could talk freely and much more intimately than in public.

  Without going into distressing details, he’d told her something of the attack that had led to his killing of the bailiff, and more about its effect on himself and his siblings. Beneath his good-natured exterior, he carried a huge weight of guilt over everything concerned with it, and that, she thought, was the reason he’d paid Rivers all those years. It was a vain attempt to pay for his guilt, to assuage it. Because he thought he should.

  “If he’d been charged with what he did, he would have hanged,” Serena had told him. “You spared him that, and your sisters the inevitable scandal. I don’t honestly see what you could have done differently, or even better. And you were really only a child yourself.”

  He’d touched her cheek with tenderness, a rueful smile playing on his lips. “You are biased. And very sweet.” And yet, as he’d kissed her, she thought she might have lightened his burden just a little, not so much by her words as by her acceptance of his past.

  “Well,” she said brightly now to Kate, “I think all is prepared for the revel tonight! Tamar and Jem have rigged up some very ingenious pulleys to convey things like food and drink down to the cove without the servants having to trek up and down the path all the time.”

  In the end, they had decided to hold the event at Braithwaite Cove rather than the town beach. It provided a little more privacy and a sense of respectable intimacy, without being exactly on Braithwaite property. Inevitably, Brathwaite servants were involved, of course, but so were Kate’s, the Winslows’ and a few others. And Serena was not the hostess. Kate and Mrs. Winslow shared that honor.

  Still, Serena was aware she was further breaking both the spirit and the letter of her confinement in the castle. It would, inevitably, be added to her list of crimes when her mother discovered it. With luck, it would be a distant memory by the time the subject came up and she was obliged to confess.

  For now, she prepared to enjoy the event to the full, particularly her promised waltzes with Tamar. She accompanied Kate to the schoolroom, where Tamar was continuing his painting of the girls. Although she’d already seen him that morning in the orchard, her heart quickened at the sight of him already behind his easel and mixing paint on his palette. His spontaneous smile of greeting m
elted her all over again.

  “You are quite ridiculously in love,” Kate murmured in her ear, though oddly, she sounded neither disapproving nor scoffing. Serena guessed she was “ridiculously” in love with her own husband and recognized the signs in others.

  “So, may we come to the revel?” Maria demanded as soon as she saw Serena.

  Serena, having already discussed the matter with Miss Grey and Mrs. Winslow, finally relented. “Well, you may, but only for an hour. Catherine’s younger brother and sister will be there for that time, too. But you must stay with Miss Grey and be on your best behavior at all times.”

  “Oh, we will,” Alice said fervently.

  Serena went over to examine the painting, which had really caught the character of her sisters, the hint of mischief, resignation, and concentration in their eyes. “Hmm…am I mad to let them loose at such an event?”

  *

  Braithwaite Cove was a blaze of light, burning torches attached to the cliff side and myriad lanterns aiding the natural glow of the full moon. A couple of braziers surrounded by chairs had been placed close to the cliff for the comfort of the frailer guests. Against the fickle weather, two canopies had been set up, the largest for the guests, the smaller for the musical quartet. But it seemed the weather would behave itself for once. The sky was clear and starry, bringing cold but no spirit-dampening rain.

  The guests moved about constantly, liveried servants passing between them to offer champagne or tea or something stronger for the gentlemen. Although no one wore their best ball gowns for the occasion, the flashes of color beneath fur-lined cloaks and the wink of jewels in the ladies’ hair all helped to create a wonderful picture.

  Or so Tamar thought as he strolled along the beach with a few friends. Inevitably, his gaze was drawn at once by Serena, not just because he loved her, but because she flitted among the guests like the butterfly he’d once thought her, distributing fun and laughter.

  “She has to be the most beautiful girl ever,” Fenner, one of Tamar’s friends, said reverently.

  “Yes, well, she’s the Earl of Braithwaite’s sister,” Lieutenant Gordon retorted, “so she’s a cut above you, old chap!”

  “A man can look.”

  Tamar could hardly blame him for looking. He couldn’t take his eyes off her himself. The musicians struck up, and she began to dance with Bernard Muir in a country dance set that kicked up sand and caused much innocent hilarity. Among the other dancers, Tamar recognized Catherine Winslow, the younger Braithwaite ladies, and a gaggle of Penhalligans. Among the youngest dancers at least, the sex of one’s partner did not appear to matter.

  “Well, Muir’s dancing with her,” Fenner pointed out. “She ain’t high in the instep. I shall ask for a waltz.”

  “I’ll wager you five pounds,” Tamar said. “that her waltzes are spoken for.”

  “Done,” Fenner said promptly.

  “Idiot,” said Gordon. “Tamar only bets when he knows he’ll win.”

  Tamar smiled serenely.

  “Evening, gents,” said a voice close by, and a man sitting on a rock tipped his hat to them. Rivers.

  Tamar scowled. He’d wondered why the bailiff hadn’t been haunting his doorstep the last couple of days. He’d obviously taken Tamar’s last words to heart and decided to change his tactics to haunt him in public instead. Not that it would make any difference. Tamar still wouldn’t pay him. But he didn’t want the little rat spoiling Serena’s evening. Or Catherine’s, since this had been created primarily for her, and the squire’s daughter was a sweet girl.

  “Who the devil is that?” Gordon demanded. “Damned sure he ain’t invited. Shall I move him on?”

  “You can try,” Tamar returned. “But it’s a public beach. Unless he annoys anyone, I’d ignore him.”

  They walked on to greet Mrs. Winslow and then Kate, who were welcoming guests from either approach to the beach.

  In recognition of the uneven and unconventional dance floor, each dance was considerably shorter than usual. The orchestra allowed recovery time, playing some gentle chamber music between dances.

  Tamar, being circumspect in the vain hope of not appalling Braithwaite more than necessary, didn’t immediately rush at Serena as soon as her dance ended. However, Fenner, determined to try his luck and, no doubt, to win his five pounds, had positioned himself strategically close by. Tamar and Gordon chose to join him there.

  Serena’s sisters at once greeted Tamar with their usual affection, and he made general introductions to his friends.

  “You have escaped Miss Grey,” he said to the girls.

  “Only briefly,” Helen assured him. “Will you dance with us, sir?”

  “What, all of you at once? I think that might get confusing for everyone else. I’ll do it one at a time, though, if Lady Serena permits?”

  “Gladly,” Serena said, clearly torn between amusement and gratitude.

  “Lady Serena, might I beg the honor of a waltz with you?” Fenner blurted.

  “Sadly, I am already promised for both.”

  It was part of her charm that she sounded genuinely regretful. Tamar, not so kind-hearted, merely grinned at his friend as the music halted and changed to a waltz. He offered his arm to Serena.

  Fenner glowered at him. “Tamar, you—”

  “Told you,” Gordon interrupted. “Miss Winslow, dare I hope you are not promised already?”

  “What was that about?” Serena asked as they waltzed together across the sand.

  “I wagered Fenner he didn’t stand a chance of waltzing with you.”

  “I’m not sure I care to have my name bandied about in wagers.”

  “Look on the bright side. I now have five pounds with which to buy you a betrothal gift.”

  “Don’t do that,” she said at once. “Buy something for yourself.”

  He allowed his arm to tighten just a little around her. “I already have all I want. Do you think anyone would notice if I held you beneath the cloak?”

  “I’m fairly sure they would,” she said, breathlessly enough to inflame him. “Besides, you just said you had all you wanted.”

  “I lied.”

  Serena laughed, attracting the attention of several dancers around her. She lowered her voice. “Do you think everyone knows about us? Besides Kate and Mr. Grant.”

  He shrugged. “I really don’t care.”

  *

  Sometime later, after he’d danced with each of the girls, then Catherine and Kate, he strolled among the revelers with a glass of what could only be contraband brandy. That was when he caught sight of Rivers again.

  Rivers was up to something. Perhaps he actually planned to denounce Tamar in public. For himself, Tamar didn’t care what people said or thought, but he couldn’t allow it to touch Serena, or even to spoil her evening. Maybe Gordon had been right. Maybe it was time to send the bastard about his business. But as he watched, another figure came loping over the beach after Rivers, who turned and spoke to him. Both looked toward the revelers.

  Distracted by Mr. Winslow, Tamar returned his attention to the party.

  A little later, after dancing with a young lady whose name he couldn’t remember and restoring her to her mother, Miss Grey asked him if he’d seen Helen.

  “Lady Serena thinks they should return to the castle now,” she said. “The Winslow children have already left.”

  “I’ll bring her back to you,” he promised, appreciating her difficulty in keeping hold of the first two girls while searching for the third.

  He found Helen without much difficulty, dancing back and forth over some rocks at the edge of the cove. “Your presence is required, Lady Helen,” he said with mock formality.

  She wrinkled her nose, much as Serena did. “I suppose we have had rather more than an hour.”

  “I suppose you have,” he agreed as they walked back together.

  “Who is that man?” she asked, pointing across the cove to the figure he’d seen before, talking to Rivers. Now he stood o
n the edge of the party, scratching his head.

  “I don’t know,” he said. Rivers was hovering farther back as though waiting for something. Again, unease twisted through him. “He isn’t one of the guests.”

  “I know. But he asked about you.”

  Tamar frowned. “What? He spoke to you?”

  “With perfect politeness,” Helen said with what she must have imagined was reassurance. “He just asked which of the gentlemen was Lord Tamar.”

  “Did he, by God?” His disquiet sharpened. This man had been talking to Rivers. Had Rivers finally called in the law? A Bow Street runner, perhaps? He had to put this off until after the party, or at least leave now… “Did you point me out?” he asked Helen casually.

  “Well, no. Fortunately, I couldn’t see you at the time, and I wasn’t sure it was his business in any case.”

  “What a very perceptive person you are… Now, you have to run straight to Miss Grey by the left-hand brazier, for this is the dance your sister promised me.”

  “I’ll go,” Helen agreed reluctantly, but he kept half an eye on her progress as he approached Serena.

  “You again,” Serena said happily as he swept her into the waltz.

  “In the flesh.” He loved the feel of her soft, lithe body moving in his arms. The sense of pleasure, frustration and anticipation was unique. He smiled. “I think you and Kate may congratulate yourselves on a most successful party.”

  “Do you know, I think we may,” she said complacently. “I’m certainly enjoying it.”

  “So am I, though of course I enjoy anything that allows me to hold you. Serena, I think I’m going to leave now. There’s a man looking for me—”

  “Rivers,” she said at once.

  “Well, no, but—”

  “Rivers,” she repeated. “He’s coming toward us.”

  Tamar spun her around so that he could see what she had, and sure enough, Rivers was actually approaching among the guests.