Mary Balogh

by A Counterfeit Betrothal; The Notorious Rake

  He smiled when she remained silent, and sat up on the edge of the bed to pull on his nightshirt.

  “But it was never your way to forgive, was it?” he said, and he left the room without looking back at her.

  He wished this dratted wedding was at an end already and everyone gone home. Including Olivia. He did not doubt that she would leave with Clarence, her friend Emma with them to lend propriety to the journey. He wished she were gone already. He wished that he never need see her again.

  His love for her had become a quiet thing over the years, locked away deep inside him, no longer disturbing his day to day living. Now that love had become a pain again, worse even perhaps than it had been at the start. For at the start there had been a great deal of hope—hope that she would forgive him, that she would realize that she could not live without him, that she would see that it was not worth throwing away a life of potential happiness for the sake of one transgression, however bad.

  Now there was no hope. Although her manner toward him in the daytime was amiable, there was a reason for it, an agreement they had come to. And although she had allowed him into her bed and even greeted him there with a passion she had not shown before, her mind was not in accord with her body. She would not speak with him or respond to him or forgive him when passion was satiated.

  There was no point in going to bed, he thought when he reached his own dressing room. It must be infernally early, but there was no more sleep to be had. He rang for his valet and peeled off his nightshirt.

  And what the devil had Sophia wanted with Livy at this hour of the morning? Some other crisis concerning her wedding, no doubt. They would all be fortunate if the girl did not fall into hysterics long before the ceremony was safely over.

  OLIVIA LAY STILL after pulling the blankets up over her breasts. She stared upward at the canopy.

  How he had changed, she thought. She had always been the focus of his world, she, and Sophia after her birth. And Rushton. He had never wanted anyone or anything else. He had often groaned when she had reminded him of some assembly that they were to attend. He had not wanted to attend that Lowry wedding without her. She had urged him to go, thinking that it would be good for him to see his friends again.

  And yet now he could lie in her bed, propped on one elbow, and talk about her supposed lover and the tastelessness of their making love together just as if it were the most normal thing in the world for a husband and wife to behave so. And the sickening thing was that she knew it was quite normal. Marc had become part of his social world. She had not.

  Why had she not denied an involvement with Clarence more vehemently? she wondered. She had told him the night before that Clarence was her friend, but he had misunderstood or else disbelieved her. She had left it at that. She had felt too upset and too weary to protest something that he should have known without any question at all. If he knew her as she had thought he knew her, he could not even have wondered about her and Clarence.

  But Marc belonged to the real world. She was the strange one. What other woman would have urged her man to go alone to London for a wedding and all the parties and drinking and rioting that would be an inevitable part of it? Only a totally credulous innocent.

  She longed to be at home. She longed to be away from this and back in the peace of her own home. Except that she knew that that peace would no longer be waiting there for her, but would have to be fought for all over again.

  And perhaps never found. For the previous fight had been made possible by the fact that she had considered herself right. What he had done was unforgivable. And though she had forgiven him nonetheless in her heart, she had truly believed that they could never live together again, never restore the trust and the friendship that had bound them so closely together.

  She knew now—too late—that she had been wrong in every way. What he had done was not unforgivable. It had been human and everything human was forgivable. And she knew that if only she had had the courage to try, they could have built an even stronger relationship than before, because it would have been based on reality. They would have suffered together and been strengthened together.

  She had given away the chance to have her marriage grow. And it was too late now. Oh, it was true that he was treating her with kindness and deference during the daytime, but that was all a charade they had agreed to. And it was true that he had made love to her four times—on three separate occasions—and that they had been wonderful together, far more wonderful than they had ever been during the years of their marriage. But it had been a physical thing only. Sex only.

  He had talked about Clarence as if he did not mind if he were her lover. And he had talked about Lady Mornington as if she were an accepted part of his life. Making love with his wife was what had made him feel guilty, not the fact of the existence of a mistress.

  He had changed too much and she had changed too little. The gap between them after fourteen years was insurmountable. Only one thing remained unchanged. She still loved him. And her love had become a pain again and would remain so for many weary months. She knew that from experience.

  Olivia turned over onto her stomach and buried her face in the pillow where his head had lain.

  “HOW CAN YOU be ten minutes late,” Lord Francis said, “when you were dressed already, Soph, and all you had to do was come downstairs and out through the door?”

  “I went back to my room,” she said, “and had a fit of the panics. I thought for a while that I was going to vomit, and I did not want to vomit all over you, Francis. I have the feeling under control now.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked. “There are two benches here, Soph. We can sit on separate ones if you like.”

  “And then I was halfway down the stairs,” she said, “and remembered that I did not have my cloak and it looked cloudy and raw outside. Actually it is quite warm, is it not?”

  “Sit down here,” he said. “We have to talk before other people start getting up and wandering out here.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Shall we have breakfast first, Francis, and then ask Mama and Papa and your parents to come to the library? Or shall it be the other way around? Either way, I am sure I shall not be able to eat a bite. I keep thinking of kidneys. Oh, I wish I could think of some other food.” Her teeth were chattering.

  “Soph,” he said, “you don’t really think we can do this, do you?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said. “I just want to do it. I shall have that feeling again if I think.”

  “The guests are all here,” he said, “and the neighbors stirred up to fever pitch. The rector is puffed up with importance and the cook and your father’s chef from London are considering giving up sleep for the next two nights in order to get all the baking done. The wedding cake is made and the flowers have been chosen for cutting tomorrow. Your dress is made and your mama’s and my clothes. And … well, I could go on forever, couldn’t I?”

  Sophia licked her lips nervously. “You see what I mean?” she said. “We must not think, Francis, or we are going to end up married to each other. We have to do. No one can force us to marry, after all.”

  “I think we had better all the same,” he said.

  She stared at him.

  “It would save an awful lot of trouble,” he said.

  Her jaw dropped inelegantly.

  “You would be able to enjoy your breakfast after all, Soph,” he said. “And even perhaps have some kidneys.”

  “Are you mad?” she said. “Have you gone totally insane? Are we to put up with each other for a lifetime just in order to avoid a little trouble now?”

  “In short, yes,” he said.

  “Francis.” She stretched out her hands to him until he took them, and set her head to one side. “I cannot let you do it. Really I cannot. Oh, you are very wonderful. But you would never be able to face life with me. You know that—you spent all of your boyhood fleeing from me. I will take all the blame. Truly, I will. I will make sure that there is not even a whis
per of blame put on you. It will be all right, Francis. It will be forgotten. Perhaps you can go away for a year or so until the embarrassment has passed. It will eventually, you know. Perhaps you can go to Italy and see the Sistine Chapel—in Rome.”

  Lord Francis sighed. “I had hoped to avoid this,” he said. “But I think it is time for a little confession, Soph. Or perhaps not so little, either. I have trapped you.”

  “No,” she said. “I have trapped you, Francis, by my thoughtlessness. But I shall put all right, you will see.”

  “Soph,” he said, “I knew from the very start exactly how it would be. I knew that all this would happen—a blind man would have known it. I knew we would find ourselves within a couple of days of this wedding and no reasonable way out of going ahead with it.”

  “But you did it anyway,” she said, “for Mama’s and Papa’s sake. How wonderful you are, Francis.”

  “I did it to trap you into marriage,” he said.

  Sophia laughed and then looked at him in incomprehension.

  “When I saw you again this spring,” he said, “I just couldn’t believe that I had done so much running from you when we were younger, Soph. You had changed. By Jove, you had changed. And yet you stuck up your nose whenever I came close and you started to drop all sorts of nasty remarks about rakes and suchlike until I did not know how I was going to get you to take me seriously.”

  “Nonsense,” she said. “You are making this all up just so that I will believe you and you can laugh at me. This is most unkind, you know, especially on this of all mornings. Don’t you know that I …”

  “Then some ass—was it Hathaway?—suggested this most corkbrained of corkbrained schemes,” he said, “and I saw immediately where it could lead. I thought that perhaps my agreeing to it would give you time to realize that I was not the wild libertine you took me for.”

  “Francis,” she said, “be serious, do.”

  “Well, take it or leave it,” he said. “I thought I had better confess, Soph. But however it is, we had better get married. All hell will break loose here if we don’t. You have to think no further than my mother.”

  “I don’t want to think at all,” she said.

  “And your parents are going to start blaming themselves,” he said. “They will wonder where they went wrong with you, Soph, and before you know it they will be at each other’s throats and leaving each other for the rest of two lifetimes.”

  “Don’t,” she said. “I don’t want to think.”

  “Don’t, then,” he said. “Just marry me.”

  “I don’t want to marry you,” she said. “I would rather marry …”

  “A toad,” he said. “I love you, Soph.”

  “Oh, you do not,” she said indignantly. “You are a brazen liar.”

  “I love you.”

  “You do not.”

  “Love you.”

  “Do not.”

  “Do.”

  “Don’t. You horrid man. I hate you. I do. I hope you go away this very morning after I have made the announcement, and I hope I never ever see you again.”

  “You don’t, Soph,” he said.

  “I do.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Do.”

  “Do.”

  “Don—. I hate you, Francis. I hate you. Take your hand away from my face.”

  “It feels so soft, Soph,” he said. “So much softer than my hand.”

  “I don’t want you touching me,” she said.

  “Don’t you?” He moved closer to her on the bench and lowered his head to feather a kiss across her lips.

  “Or kissing me,” she said.

  “Don’t you?”

  “No.”

  “It feels so good, though, does it not?” he said. “Like this, Soph? And this? Shall I tell you what I wanted to do with you when you came to my room earlier?”

  “No.”

  “I wanted to do this,” he said, kissing her again and running his tongue along her closed lips. “And this.” He slid a hand beneath her cloak and cupped one breast lightly in his hand.

  “Don’t,” she said.

  “I shan’t tell you the rest of what I wanted to do,” he said. “I’ll show you on our wedding night, Soph. Not tonight or tomorrow night. The next night.”

  “You are saying that to frighten me,” she said. “Don’t touch me there, Francis.” She set a hand over his, the fabric of her cloak between them. “It makes me feel funny. And don’t do that with your tongue. Please.”

  “Don’t you think that perhaps you want me, Soph?” he asked.

  “Want you?” she said. “Want you? You would just love for me to say yes, would you not, so that you can ridicule me. Don’t, Francis. Don’t do that.” He was rubbing a thumb over her nipple.

  “Marry me,” he said. “Tell me you love me, Soph, and that you will marry me. And then on our wedding night you can tell me all the things to stop doing so that I can keep on doing them.”

  “Francis,” she said. “Please. Do you think I don’t remember all the times you deceived me years ago?”

  “I love you,” he said.

  She sighed. “Well,” she said, “you always won every contest, did you not, Francis? You always made me believe you and then you called me idiot for being so gullible. Why should anything have changed? Why not this time, too? All right, then. I do love you and I will marry you. And now it will serve you right if I do not release you from our betrothal but marry you and plague you for the rest of our lives.”

  “Plague me, Soph,” he said. “And stop pulling away like a frightened rabbit. Let me kiss you properly.”

  “Frightened?” she said. “Of you? Who do you think you are?”

  “Your betrothed,” he said. “The man who loves you. The man you love. Let me kiss you properly.”

  “Francis,” she said, setting one hand over his mouth and looking wistfully into his eyes, “do you mean it? Tell me now if you do not. Please? I will not be able to bear it if you kiss me and tell me those things again and then laugh at me and run away from me.”

  “If I don’t mean it, I am playing a pretty dangerous game, aren’t I?” he said. “Parson’s mousetrap waiting to snap its jaws?”

  “Do you really love me, then?” she asked.

  “I really do, Soph,” he said.

  “Really and truly?”

  “And that, too,” he said.

  She pulled herself away from his hold suddenly and jumped to her feet. She looked at him with shining eyes.

  “I have to go back to the house,” she said. “I have to find Mama and Papa. I have to tell them that we are betrothed.”

  “Soph.” He scratched his head. “If I were to whisper the word ‘Bedlam,’ you would not start ripping up at me, would you?”

  She looked blankly at him and then chuckled. “We have this moment become betrothed,” she said, “and no one knows.”

  “It will be our secret,” he said. “Sit down here and let me kiss you properly.”

  She sat. “Will we have to stop quarreling now?” she asked.

  “And lead a dull respectable life forever after?” he said, horrified. “Heaven forbid. Let me see now, where was my hand? It was somewhere warm and comfortable. Here?”

  “Did you mean it when you said it was small?” she asked as his hand covered her breast again.

  “I have seen many larger,” he said. “And, ah, touched a few, too.”

  “Have you?” she said tartly. “Am I to be compared to your—to your pieces of muslin for the rest of my life?”

  “Only when I want to start a quarrel,” he said. “My hand feels good there, though, does it not? Admit it, Soph.”

  “You would love me to do just that, would you not?” she said. “You conceited …”

  He kissed her.

  “… toad,” she said.

  “Hush, Soph,” he said. “I have waited long enough. And you are the loveliest kisser, my love, that it has ever been my privilege to kiss.”

>   “Oh,” she said. “Mm.”

  “And you have the loveliest bosom, too,” he said without removing his mouth from hers. “No answer needed or allowed.”

  “Mmm,” she said.

  15

  “THIS CRAVAT IS TOO TIGHT,” LORD FRANCIS COMPLAINED to Claude, pulling at the offending garment and twisting his head from side to side.

  “It is your usual size?” his brother asked.

  “Of course,” Lord Francis said.

  “My guess is that it is a quite normal wedding cravat, then,” Claude said.

  “Eh?”

  “Made exactly the same size as all your other cravats,” his brother said, “instead of a couple of inches larger to accommodate the swelling of the throat that comes with wedding days. Your shoes are probably going to be too tight, as well. Now, are they?”

  “Ah, I see how it is,” Lord Francis said. “I am to be the butt of everyone’s wit on the very day when I cannot think up one witticism to hurl in return.”

  “The cook always puts a dose of poison in the breakfast, too,” Claude said. “Just the groom’s, of course, not anyone else’s. Is your stomach feeling queasy, Frank?”

  Lord Francis smoothed the lace at his wrists over the backs of his hands and took one final look at himself in the mirror.

  “If I could plan this all over again,” he said, “I would choose an unmarried man for my best man, Claude, just as any sensible groom would do. The chances are, he would not be standing there cackling at me. I did not crack one stupid jest when I was your best man.”

  “You were too busy wondering how long it would take Henrietta’s cousin Marianne to fall under your spell during the wedding breakfast,” Claude said. “I have been told that she fell under it when we were all still at the church, though I did not notice myself, my attention being otherwise occupied.”

  “She was too plump for my taste as it turned out,” Lord Francis said.

  “She was too eligible for your tastes,” his brother said. “That was the problem, Frank. Her papa all but asked you your intentions, did he not?”

  “By Jove,” Lord Francis said, “that was it, too. It was never safe to flirt with a girl of reputation, was it?”