Slightly Scandalous

by Mary Balogh

  “I know.” She smiled dazzlingly at him.

  “What are we going to do next?” Davy was jumping up and down in his excitement and addressing them all in a piping yell. “You said we would find something else strenuous to do, Uncle Aidan. Can we go riding or play hide-and-seek or climb trees or—”

  Aidan caught him up and suspended him by his ankles.

  “What we will do next,” he said, while Davy squealed and giggled and demanded to be put down, “is have luncheon. And then we will see.” He set the boy gently down on the grass and tickled him with the toe of his boot.

  “Uncle Aidan?” Joshua asked, as they walked back to the house, taking Freyja's hand in his and lacing his fingers with hers.

  “Becky and Davy were Eve's foster children when Aidan met her earlier this year,” she explained. “Their parents were dead and none of their relatives were willing to take them in. More recently Eve and Aidan have been given legal custody of them. Becky calls them Mama and Papa. Davy calls them Uncle and Aunt. Eve has told me that they are careful not to try to take their parents' place or to encourage the children to forget their parents. I could never have imagined Aidan with children. But, as you can see, he is as fond of those two as any father.”

  “He has been a military man?” Joshua asked.

  “For twelve years,” she said. “From the age of eighteen to a few months ago, after he married Eve.” She glanced down at their hands. “Did I give you permission to hold my hand, Josh—and in quite so intimate a manner?”

  He looked down too and then up into her face before laughing at her.

  “No,” he said. “But we have a masquerade to maintain. Apparently you and Bewcastle agreed between you that our betrothal is to appear real to your family. I am merely doing my part.”

  “If you imagine,” she said severely, “that I am going to stand idly by while you maul me about in the name of realism, I am here to tell you that you are mistaken.”

  “Stand idly by?” He laughed again. “Oh, I hope not. It is no fun mauling about a marble statue or a limp fish. I suppose you were quite a hoyden when you were growing up?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “Good.” He lowered his head closer to hers, and for one moment she thought he was going to kiss her again. “I have a definite weakness for hoydens.”

  This masquerade, she realized, had given him all the license in the world to flirt outrageously with her—and even to slip beyond flirtation at times.

  Why was it such an exhilarating thought?

  The Bedwyns were a boisterous, fun-loving family, Joshua had decided before the day was out. The children were not hidden away in the nursery while the adults found something decorously dull with which to occupy themselves. After luncheon they all decided to walk down to the lake, which was hidden from sight among the trees to the east of the house. There were plenty of hiding places there, Rannulf said—all of them had invited Joshua to an informal use of their names—for a game of hide-and-seek. He would take the swing with him, Alleyne added, and set it up in one of the trees. The trees were there to be climbed too, Freyja said.

  “And there is always the water,” Aidan said.

  “In September?” his wife asked.

  “A warm September,” Aidan said, looking toward the window.

  The sun indeed was shining.

  “If anyone is going swimming,” she said firmly, “I shall sit on the bank watching and attempt to look as decorative as I possibly can.”

  “Me too, Eve,” Judith said. “We can take turns on the swing for exercise.”

  It was as active and strenuous an afternoon as it had promised to be. The children, Joshua suspected, were merely an excuse for the adults to kick up their heels and have a rollicking good time.

  Alleyne and Joshua both climbed a tall, stout tree not far from the picturesque, man-made lake and secured the ropes of the swing to a high branch. The children swung there for a while, but inevitably a game of hide-and-seek began and continued for an hour or more until it was Joshua's turn to hunt and he had unearthed everyone but Freyja. He found her eventually perched high in an old oak tree, her back against the trunk, her feet drawn up against her, her arms clasped around her knees. He had already searched around and past that tree half a dozen times.

  “Hey!” he called. “That is cheating. One rule was that we must keep in contact with the ground.”

  “The tree trunk is in contact with the ground,” she said, looking down without giving any sign that she might be afraid of heights. “And my back is in contact with the tree trunk.”

  “Hmm,” he said. “There is a flaw in that logic somewhere. But you are fairly caught now.”

  “You have to touch me first,” she said.

  “Are you going to make me come up there?” he asked, narrowing his eyes on her.

  “Yes.” She tipped back her head to admire the sky.

  They admired it together after he had climbed up and touched her arm to make her officially out. A few little puffs of white were rolling slowly in a wide expanse of blue.

  “Summer is almost over,” she said. “Well, it is over, but it is lingering on into autumn. I wish winter were not ahead.”

  “But there are invigorating walks and rides to take in winter,” he said. “And if it snows, there are sled rides and snowball fights and skating and snowmen to build.”

  “It never snows,” she said with a sigh.

  He stood on the branch slightly below the level of hers and looked at her. She had left her hair down since the morning. She looked like a wild fairy creature of the woods—but in a pensive mood.

  “We will have to stay betrothed, sweetheart,” he said. “And I will show you so many interesting ways of using winter that you will want summer never to come.”

  She turned her head and half smiled at him.

  “Don't worry,” she said. “I will have decided long before winter arrives in earnest that you have repaid the debt you owe me. Tomorrow will be tedious.”

  “Tomorrow?” he said, and then remembered that they were to go to a christening party for the neighbor's new baby. “Redfield and his family are a dull lot?”

  “I was engaged to the eldest son once,” she said. “I was supposed to be the Viscountess Ravensberg. The first son—the first heir of the next generation—was to have been mine. But Jerome died.”

  “Ah, yes,” he said. “Pardon me, I knew that. You loved him?” She had said not when she had told him about the betrothal at the white rock above Bath.

  She looked slightly disdainful. “We grew up to expect the marriage,” she said. “We did not dislike each other. We were even fond of each other. But love is not a requisite for such matches.”

  Nevertheless, today she was feeling understandably low-spirited about the whole thing. Tomorrow might be somewhat difficult for her, he supposed. She would see another woman in the place that should have been hers with a child that should also have been hers—though with a different father.

  “Do you swim, Josh?” she asked.

  “Of course I swim,” he said. “You are not about to propose a race, are you, Free? If so, I give you fair warning—I grew up by the ocean. I would race to win. You have severely dented my self-esteem, first by winning our horse race in Bath, and then by hitting one of my best balls this morning during your first over—for a six, no less.”

  “To the far bank and back,” she said.

  He turned his head to look down and could see that the men and children were already in the water. Now that he was paying attention, he could hear their shouts and the children's laughter. Eve and Judith were sitting decorously on the bank. Morgan was on the swing, propelling herself almost dangerously high and looking very pretty indeed. That young lady, he thought, was going to be mobbed by prospective suitors when she made her come-out next spring, regardless of the fact that she was a duke's daughter.

  “What do you intend to wear?” he asked.

  “My shift,” she said. “If you
believe you will be just too embarrassed, you may make your way back to the house and find a good book.”

  “Embarrassed?” He started down the tree without offering her a hand—that might be provocation enough for one of her famous punches in the nose. “I can hardly wait. I'll give you a head start for our race, shall I? I'll count slowly to ten before coming after you.”

  He chuckled as she sputtered and fumed and came down after him.

  CHAPTER XII

  The christening of the Honorable Andrew Jerome Christopher Butler was indeed a grand occasion, as Freyja realized as soon as the Bedwyns arrived at the church and were shown to their pews. The church was filled with neighbors and with both Kit's relatives and the viscountess's. Her cousin, the young Viscount Whitleaf, was there and her grandfather, Baron Galton. Then there were all her illustrious relatives by her mother's second marriage—the Duke and Duchess of Portfrey, the Duke and Duchess of Anburey, the Marquess of Attingsborough, the Earl and Countess of Kilbourne, the dowager countess, and her widowed daughter, Lady Muir.

  Such a fuss, Freyja thought, for a baby who was supremely indifferent to all that was going on around him in his honor. He was dressed gorgeously in a long lace christening robe, a family heirloom, but he slept through the whole service, waking only once to squawk with indignation when the baptismal water was poured over his head. He soon fell asleep again, rocked in Kit's arms.

  Freyja tried not to pay too much attention to the central group, but how could she avoid seeing Kit, fairly bursting with pride and happiness, and his viscountess—Freyja had never been able to think of her as Lauren—glowing with her new motherhood.

  The viscountess had a certain beauty, Freyja conceded. She had dark, lustrous hair and a flawless complexion and eyes that were startlingly violet. But she was always dignified, always the proper lady, with never a word or a hair out of place. It seemed to Freyja that she lacked all spirit and charisma. She hated the woman—if only because everyone else admired and loved her.

  Freyja was looking at her gloved hands in her lap when Joshua took one of them, squeezed it tightly, and drew it through his arm. She looked up at him with her is-this-not-a-dead-bore look. He smiled at her, his eyes softer, less merry, less mocking than usual, and covered her hand with his free one.

  She could cheerfully have gone at him with both fists then. She knew very well what this was all about. He pitied her. Just before he had handed her into one of the carriages this morning, when she had been feeling out of sorts and irritated with everyone, he had bent his head to hers and spoken for her ears only.

  “Courage,” he had said. “Your Jerome is gone. But there will be someone else for you one day.” He had grinned then. “And in the meanwhile, maybe I can be of some service, sweetheart.”

  He thought she was depressed because of Jerome. And so she was—or so she ought to be. He had died so young and so foolishly—of a fever contracted when he rescued several of his neighbors' laboring families from a flood. And she had been fond of him. He had been one of her playmates all through her growing years. But she had dragged her heels about marrying him, and he had not seemed overeager for the event either. Whenever she had made some excuse not to make the betrothal formal just yet or—after their betrothal—not to set a wedding date just yet, he had offered no objection.

  The interminable service was over at last, and Kit and the viscountess left in the first carriage, it being close to the time when the baby would need to be fed. It would appear that the viscountess was nursing her child herself. She certainly was not perfect in that, Freyja thought with a moment's satisfaction. Many ladies of good ton would frown and even call her vulgar for not hiring a wet nurse.

  It was an enormous blessing having Joshua with her after they arrived at Alvesley. Introducing him to everyone as her betrothed occupied both her time and her attention and deflected any embarrassment or pity any of those people who knew about last year might have been feeling. And there was an appallingly large number who did know that last summer's celebrations for the birthday of Kit's grandmother—she had died suddenly earlier this year—were to have included the announcement of his betrothal to Lady Freyja Bedwyn.

  Just before dinner Kit and his viscountess came down from the nursery, and there was the painful moment of coming face-to-face with them. Kit was wearing the somewhat wary smile he always wore in Freyja's presence. The viscountess was wearing her corresponding bright, warm smile. Freyja smiled dazzlingly. What varying thoughts and emotions must be turning over behind those three smiles, she thought.

  “I must congratulate you both on the birth of your son,” she said.

  “Thank you, Freyja,” Kit said. “And thank you for coming.”

  “We are so very delighted that you came home from Bath in time to join us today,” the viscountess said—surely lying through her teeth.

  “May I present the Marquess of Hallmere, my betrothed?” Freyja said. “Viscount and Viscountess Ravensberg, Josh.”

  “Lady Freyja's betrothed.” The viscountess smiled with warm pleasure at Joshua. “How pleased I am to make your acquaintance, Lord Hallmere. And how happy I am for you, Lady Freyja.”

  She took one step forward and for a horrified moment Freyja thought she was about to be hugged. She raised her eyebrows and lifted her chin, and the viscountess hesitated and contented herself with another warm smile.

  “Hallmere?” Kit shook hands with him. “You are a fortunate man. I hope you realize that you have won a treasure.”

  Freyja's knuckles itched as she curled her fingers into her palms.

  “And Freyja.” Kit set both hands on her shoulders. “I knew you would find happiness one day soon. My sincerest best wishes.” He did not hesitate as his wife had done. He kissed her warmly on the cheek.

  Fortunately dinner was announced at that moment and so there was no need to make further conversation. Freyja took Joshua's arm and smiled dazzlingly at him.

  “What fun we are having,” she murmured.

  Joshua did not stay at Freyja's side all through the afternoon. It would have been bad form, and it seemed to him that once dinner was over the terrible tension he had sensed in her body earlier despite her smiles and seemingly perfect composure had dissipated. She was circulating among the guests, bright-eyed, poised, and sociable and looking remarkably fetching in a muslin dress with loose, floating skirts in varying shades of turquoise and sea green.

  He was not at all sure she had not loved Jerome Butler very much indeed. Certainly today seemed very hard for her.

  He mingled with the guests too for most of the afternoon. But eventually he sat down on the window seat in the drawing room beside the Earl of Redfield's youngest son, Sydnam Butler, who had been sitting there for a while. The man's right arm and eye were missing, and the right side of his face and neck were disfigured with the purple marks of old burns.

  “War wounds?” Joshua asked.

  “Right,” Sydnam Butler said. “I was captured by a French scouting party when I was on a reconnaissance mission in Portugal. I was out of uniform.”

  Joshua grimaced. “It was my greatest fear for five years,” he said. “I was in France doing some spying for the government, but in an entirely unofficial capacity. No commission, no uniform, no rescue had I been caught. You were not given the honorable treatment your uniform would have ensured, then?”

  “No,” Butler said.

  They chatted for a while about the wars and about Wales, where the man was now living on one of Bewcastle's estates in the capacity of steward. Then Butler nodded in Freyja's direction—she was in a group with Rannulf and Judith, Lady Muir, and a Butler cousin whose name had escaped Joshua's memory.

  “I am very glad indeed to see Freyja happy again,” he said. “You are obviously good for her.”

  “Thank you,” Joshua said. “Today has been something of a strain for her, though. I believe she must have been deeply attached to your brother when she was betrothed to him.”

  “Oh, they were ne
ver actually betrothed,” Butler said. “When Kit came home last summer he brought Lauren with him as his fiancée, and there was an end of the match Bewcastle and my father had arranged.” He paused briefly and Joshua was aware that he grimaced slightly. “I do beg your pardon. You were speaking of Jerome. Yes, of course. They were always fond of each other. But I would not worry if I were you. That was a long time ago, and she looks happy today. Very happy.”

  Ravensberg and his wife, who had been absent from the room for a while, came back into it at that moment. The viscountess was carrying the baby, no longer in his christening robe but wrapped cozily in a white blanket. Two little hands were waving above its folds. They proceeded to move from group to group, showing off their treasure while the ladies cooed and smiled over him and several of the gentlemen looked faintly sheepish.

  They were a remarkably good-looking couple. And they were still in the throes of a deep romantic attachment to each other, if Joshua was not mistaken.

  He also had not mistaken what Sydnam Butler had just said before he had realized his mistake. A marriage had been arranged for Freyja and the present Ravensberg. It made sense. If the two families had planned the alliance with the eldest son from the children's infancy, would it not be natural a suitable time after his demise to revive the plan with the second son as the projected husband? But the second son had brought home a bride of his own choosing and so had spoiled the plan.

  Had it been deliberate? Had he known of the marriage his father and Freyja's brother were arranging for him? Had he—rather like Joshua himself in Bath—rushed into a betrothal with someone else in order to avoid a marriage he did not want? Or had he not known?

  Either way Freyja would have felt spurned.

  She would not have liked that!

  What part of her being had been most hurt by the rejection? he wondered. Her pride? Or her heart?

  Watching from his position on the window seat—Sydnam Butler had been drawn away by his father and a cousin—Joshua could see Freyja's smile become brighter as the couple and the baby approached her group. He could see her fingers flexing at her sides and one foot tapping a rapid tattoo on the carpet. The smile looked somewhat feline to him. She darted a look at the viscountess, who was not far from her now and who had just laughed with warm delight as she gazed down into the face of her baby. Freyja's look, brief as it was and quickly veiled as it was, was pure venom.