Slightly Scandalous

by Mary Balogh

  He sat beside Freyja during the orchestral concert in the Upper Rooms that evening, Lady Holt-Barron on his other side, the marquess on Freyja's other side. They did nothing but listen to the music and talk about the music, though Wulfric was mobbed during the interval by people eager to make their curtsy or their bow to the Duke of Bewcastle. There was hardly a moment during which to snatch a private word with the marquess.

  “What did he say?” she asked during one of those moments. “Did you tell him the truth?”

  “Good Lord, no,” he said, confining his answer to the second question. “Ought I to have done? I thought you might have been in more trouble over the masquerade than over a broken engagement next week.”

  “Wulf is not my keeper,” she said haughtily. “There is no question of there being trouble either way.”

  “Then why are you so very out of sorts, sweetheart?” he asked, grinning at her.

  Someone was in the process of informing Wulf that he must be gratified indeed at the betrothal of his sister to the Marquess of Hallmere, and Freyja caught the marquess's eye and chuckled mournfully.

  There was going to be a pile of trouble.

  Wulfric went back to his hotel after the concert. He appeared in the Pump Room the next morning, immaculately dressed in black and gray with white linen. He acknowledged Freyja and Charlotte and Lady Holt-Barron and proceeded to speak with other people, most notably Lady Potford, with whom he strolled twice all about the room.

  Freyja walked arm in arm with Charlotte, who confessed herself mortally terrified of his grace, though she giggled at her own foolishness.

  “Does he ever smile, Freyja?” she asked.

  “Never,” Freyja said. “It is beneath the ducal dignity.”

  They laughed together and she felt horribly disloyal. She adored all her siblings, Wulf included.

  The crowds were beginning to disperse for breakfast when Wulfric sought her out and informed her that she would be taking the meal at the Royal York Hotel with him.

  Should she confess the full truth to him and be done with it? she wondered a few minutes later as she took his arm and they set off at a brisk walking pace. But, oh, dear, he already knew—Lady Holt-Barron had told him, enraptured by the romance of it all—that for the past week she and the marquess had been going off walking and riding together, not a maid or chaperone in sight. How would that appear if it were suddenly revealed that they were not really betrothed after all?

  And since when, she asked herself, had she been afraid to tell the truth or admit to a little indiscretion? She had never pretended to live by the code that hemmed other ladies in from all quarters until they had less freedom than servants or pets.

  She drew breath to tell Wulfric exactly what had happened.

  “Lady Potford has gone to great pains to arrange this large betrothal party for you tonight,” he said.

  Ah, yes, the party. Tonight. Well, this deception must continue until tomorrow, she thought. Surely tomorrow or the next day the marchioness would return home. She must be weary of smiling sweetly at Freyja whenever their paths crossed—at least two or three times each day—while darting private venom at her with her eyes. She had been looking rather pleased with herself this morning, but perhaps that was because she anticipated trouble for her nephew and Freyja with Wulfric's unexpected arrival in Bath.

  In fact, Freyja thought with a sudden rush of insight, it was probably Lady Potford who had informed Wulf.

  “She has been most kind,” Freyja replied, winning for herself a rather sharp glance from her brother, who must have wondered at the docility of her answer.

  They did not talk any more as they walked.

  If the marchioness left tomorrow, Freyja thought, then the marquess would probably leave the day after. She would then confess all to Wulfric and go back to Lindsey Hall with him. It would all be very easy. No one here need know. No announcement of the ended betrothal need ever be made. After a while people would forget and stop wondering when the wedding was to be. She had never much cared what gossip was circulating about her anyway.

  They ate breakfast in Wulfric's private suite of rooms. His valet was dismissed as soon as he had carried in the food and poured their coffee.

  “We have seen two of our brothers married in the past few months,” Wulfric said conversationally as Freyja buttered a slice of toast. “Both quite suddenly and ineligibly.”

  She would have agreed with him on both counts when she first met each of her sisters-in-law.

  “Eve's father might have been a coal miner,” she said, “but she was brought up as a lady, and she has spirit and a tender heart. Besides which, Aidan dotes on her. Judith is a gentlewoman even if her father is just an obscure country parson. Grandmama adores her and so, of course, does Rannulf. Eligibility is not everything, Wulf.”

  “Quite so,” he said, taking his time about chewing a mouthful of sausage. “You, on the other hand, have made a perfectly eligible choice, Freyja.”

  She had been quite prepared to argue and fight. She had nothing to say to these words of approval. She looked at him suspiciously.

  “Though an equally sudden one,” he added.

  “It was an impetuous thing,” she said. “He proposed marriage to me during a waltz at the Upper Rooms, I said yes, and we wished to invite our fellow guests to share our joy.”

  “Ah,” he said softly in that way Wulf had of making one's flesh crawl with apprehension, “almost word for word the explanation I had from Hallmere himself.”

  “Because that is the way it was,” she said. “Look here, Wulf, if you have come to Bath to play elder brother and head of the family and scold me for betrothing myself to the marquess without first weeping all over you and begging you to give your consent, you may jolly well go home again. I have been of age these past four years. I would think you would be delighted to see me marry eligibly.”

  “I would rather a marquess than a footman, certainly,” he said. “But I do feel constrained to ask if Aidan's marriage and Rannulf's provoked you into this, Freyja.”

  “Eh?” she asked inelegantly, a forkful of egg halfway to her mouth.

  “You are, as you have just observed,” he said, “four years past your majority. Five and twenty is an uncomfortable age for a single lady. Have you been made suddenly aware of that this year?”

  “No!” she exclaimed hotly. Though there might be a grain of truth in what he had said, she supposed. She had not attended Aidan's wedding—no one in the family had even known about it until weeks after the event. But she had been at Rannulf and Judith's just before coming to Bath, and she had felt some envy. She had even considered putting an end to her single state by grabbing some eligible gentleman in Bath—the Earl of Willett, for example.

  Wulfric appeared to hesitate before speaking again. He stopped to take a drink from his coffee cup.

  “It did not escape my notice,” he said, “that the announcement of your betrothal was made two days after Viscountess Ravensberg was delivered of her son. One day, I believe, after Morgan wrote and informed you of the event. Probably the very day you received her letter.”

  “If you have a point to make, Wulf,” she said when he paused, “there is no need to take all day about it. You think that because Kit has a child I am prostrate with grief and self-pity? You think I hurled myself into the arms of the first available man after I heard the news? You think it was I who proposed marriage to the marquess during that waltz and begged him to have our betrothal announced? All to cover for a broken heart? I do not care that much for Kit Butler.” She snapped her finger and thumb over the table between them with a satisfying click. “Or for his viscountess. Or for their son.” She tore off a piece of toast and popped it vengefully into her mouth.

  “This is, then,” Wulfric asked after a brief silence, “a love match, Freyja?”

  How could she deny it now after that impassioned outburst, from which she was still breathless?

  “I adore him,” she said. “And he
adores me.”

  “Ah,” he said, gazing at her with his inscrutable eyes. “Quite so.”

  The tension was almost too much to bear. What a bouncer she had just told. And if he believed it, she was going to look that much more pathetic in a few days' time after she had been abandoned. She leaned across the table, her eyes sparkling with merriment.

  “Have you heard about our first encounter in Bath?” she asked him. “Or rather about our first two encounters. They are inextricably linked. If you have not heard yet, someone is bound to bring up the matter this evening. I had best tell you myself now.”

  He looked slightly pained. “I have a feeling,” he said, “that it might be something I would rather not know about.”

  She laughed and told him about the misunderstanding in Sydney Gardens, about her punching the Marquess of Hallmere in the nose and his neglecting to insist upon telling her what had really happened.

  “Of course,” she added, “I did not know his identity at that time or he mine. He refused to believe that I was a duke's sister because I had no chaperone with me.”

  “It is very clear,” Wulfric observed dryly, “that you were behaving perfectly normally.”

  She proceeded to describe the scene in the Pump Room the following morning, complete with all the gruesome details.

  “You are to be commended,” Wulfric said when she had finished. He sounded rather weary. “You must have provided Bath society with enough conversation to last a week, Freyja. And then, just when it was dying down, you refreshed it with that unexpected announcement at the assembly. Now that you have described the commencement of your acquaintance with Hallmere, of course, it makes perfect sense to me that the two of you would have fallen head over ears for each other and you would have decided upon a life's commitment to each other in the course of a single waltz.” He sighed and set down his knife and fork.

  Freyja wondered what he would have to say if she were to describe her first encounter with the marquess outside of Bath.

  “Are you going to be happy in this marriage, then?” he asked.

  Sometimes—just occasionally—one had a sudden glimpse into the humanity of Wulfric. Not often. If he had feelings, he almost never displayed them. If he had dreams or secrets or personal concerns, he never shared them. She often wondered about his relationship with his mistress—if it was strictly business, serving only the obvious function. But sometimes, for the merest moment, there came the shocking realization that perhaps he cared for them all, not just as brothers and sisters who were his responsibility, but as persons whom he might love.

  She had one of those stabbing glimpses when he asked his question. And she did something horribly ignominious. Her eyes filled with tears.

  “Yes, I am,” she said fervently, leaning a little toward him across the table. “Yes, we are.”

  And then she swallowed and heard a nasty gurgling sound in her throat as she remembered that what she had just said with such uncharacteristic emotion was all a lie.

  She almost wished that she really were betrothed to the Marquess of Hallmere and that she really were in love with him and looking forward to a lifetime of happiness with him. She wanted to be able to give her happiness as a gift to Wulf, who, she suddenly thought, was quite probably a lonely man.

  “I suppose, then,” Wulfric said, setting his napkin on the table and leaning back in his chair, “I had better give my blessing to this match, Freyja, for what my blessing is worth. It is rather akin, I daresay, to shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.”

  There was still food left on Freyja's plate, but she had lost interest in it. She pushed the plate away. She felt wretched. She was impulsive and headstrong and frequently indiscreet, but she was unaccustomed to lying to Wulf or anyone else in her family. She was so far into this deception business, however, that there was nothing else to do now but go forward with it until it ended. Fortunately that would be soon.

  “Hallmere had better come back to Lindsey Hall with us unless he has some pressing obligation elsewhere,” Wulfric said. “We will need to present him in the neighborhood and celebrate your betrothal properly. And we will need to make plans for your wedding.”

  Freyja suddenly wished she had not eaten at all.

  CHAPTER X

  Lady Potford's home on Great Pulteney Street was filled with guests on the evening of the betrothal party. She had opened the drawing room, her private sitting room, a salon, and the dining room in order to accommodate all her guests. Each room blazed with the lights of many candles. The long table in the dining room with its crisp white linen cloth was covered with dishes laden with a wide variety of appetizing foods. Two footmen hovered to help guests make their selection and fill their plates. Others carried large trays of filled glasses from room to room.

  Lady Potford was, as she had told Joshua and Freyja numerous times and the Duke of Bewcastle once during her morning stroll with him in the Pump Room, more than delighted by the happy turn of events.

  “I was dreadfully afraid,” she had told Joshua, “that you would drift on as you have drifted for the past several years, tasting the ephemeral pleasures of life without realizing that there is an even greater pleasure to be had from fulfilling one's appointed role in life and from forming one's own family. You will go back to Penhallow after marrying Lady Freyja and set up your nursery there and see to the administration of your estate and the well-being of your people. She is just the bride for you, Joshua. I am very happy.”

  “I have an able steward, Grandmama,” he had pointed out to her, “and I keep in constant communication with him.” Jim Saunders was, in fact, the one person who always knew where he was. “Lady Freyja may prefer to live in London—or she may not,” he conceded.

  All the guests appeared happy too. It was not often that there was an event of such a dazzling nature to celebrate in Bath—and involving two such illustrious persons as a marquess and a duke's daughter. There was a great deal of merry conversation and laughter in every room.

  The Marchioness of Hallmere, clad regally in a black satin gown with tall black hair plumes, appeared as happy as anyone. She smiled with sentimental joy at anyone who greeted her and occasionally dabbed at a happy tear with her black-bordered handkerchief. She kissed the air close to Freyja's cheek and took Joshua's face between her two hands before kissing him tenderly and assuring him and everyone else within earshot that his dear departed uncle would be proud of him tonight.

  And then she sought out the Duke of Bewcastle in the drawing room.

  “I am gratified and relieved that you saw fit to come to Bath at such short notice, your grace,” she said, presenting him with her hand.

  He took it and bowed over it, though he did not carry it to his lips.

  “Ma'am,” he said.

  “Lady Freyja has taken Bath society by storm,” she said. “She is such a sweet young lady.”

  His grace inclined his head in acknowledgment of the strange compliment, his silver eyes flat and quite unreadable.

  “One can only hope,” she said, “that she will be as happy as she deserves to be.”

  “Indeed, ma'am,” he agreed with chilling hauteur.

  “And one can only hope,” she said, dabbing delicately at one eye with her handkerchief, “that Joshua did not rush into this betrothal simply for a lark.”

  The ducal eyebrows arched slightly, but he did not ask the question she clearly expected him to ask in the pause that succeeded her words.

  “He is the dearest boy,” she said with a deep sigh. “It was always impossible not to love him despite all his mischief. He was devoted to his cousins, especially Constance, my eldest girl, to whom you were presented in the Pump Room this morning.”

  The duke inclined his head again.

  “But he acquired what the late Hallmere referred to as cold feet when he was on the verge of offering for her five years ago,” she said, “and ran away to amuse himself on the Continent, though why he would go there when there was a war on
I cannot imagine. It became clear to me after my dear husband's passing that he was still too embarrassed and ashamed to come home, and so I came here. It was soon obvious that the attachment between Joshua and Constance was still very much alive, but foolishly—parents can be very foolish, your grace, when they wish for nothing more than the happiness of their children—foolishly I pressed the match on them instead of allowing the courtship to take its natural course. It was my dearest wish that their betrothal be announced during last week's ball in the Upper Rooms, and I was under the distinct impression that it was Joshua's dearest wish too. But then he dashed off to waltz with Lady Freyja, that mischievous, reckless look in his eye that I recognize so well, and at the end of the set he had Mr. King announce his betrothal to her.”

  The Duke of Bewcastle had grasped the handle of his quizzing glass and raised it halfway to his eye.

  The marchioness tittered and then let the happy expression fade. She looked fragile and wan.

  “I fear,” she said, “that my nephew has taken advantage of a fine lady who has perhaps reached the age at which—I am sure you will pardon me for such plain speaking, your grace—she is so eager for a marriage proposal that she is unable to distinguish between a serious offer and one that was made merely for his own convenience until he can disappear on one of his wild escapades again.”

  For a moment the marchioness found herself undergoing the disconcerting experience of being regarded through the lens of the duke's quizzing glass. But he soon let the glass fall on its ribbon.

  “I must congratulate you, ma'am,” he said coldly, “on your narrow escape.”

  “My . . . ?” Clearly she did not know what he was talking about. She took refuge behind her handkerchief and then smiled bravely and sweetly at a guest who greeted her as he passed.

  “It would have been painful to you, ma'am,” he said, “to see Hallmere married to your daughter when you suspect that he was somehow responsible for your son's death.”