Mary Balogh

by A Counterfeit Betrothal; The Notorious Rake

  Mary swallowed and looked down at her gloves again.

  “Ask it,” he said softly.

  “You killed him?” She looked up at him. “Surely you cannot mean it.”

  “Oh, but I do,” he said. “I did. And you see? I cannot even talk about my childhood and have you see me as a person worthy of knowing. You want to know what happened.”

  “Yes.” She bit her lip.

  “It was the day after my birthday,” he said. “My twenty-first. I had been drinking all day and all night and decided to clear my head with a brisk gallop. Dick tried to dissuade me—said I was still foxed and would do myself some harm.” He laughed. “When I insisted, he came with me. He had not taken one drop beyond the glass with which he had toasted me at dinner, of course. I cleared a gate that should have been unclearable—at full gallop. I was watching and laughing when Dick came over after me. He broke his neck.”

  Mary tasted blood.

  “They would not have allowed me to attend the funeral,” he said. He laughed. “Not that I was around to attend it anyway. I took myself off from there as fast as I could, and never went back.”

  It was horrible. She did not know what to say. And yet it was not as bad as she had imagined. It had not been a cold-blooded murder. But it was also worse than she had imagined. How he must have suffered.

  “And then there was my mother,” he said. “You will want to know about that, too.”

  “Not if it is painful,” she said.

  He laughed. “She died of consumption a little more than a month after Dick,” he said. “My father had taken her to Italy for a winter, and they were both convinced when they returned that she had recovered. She seemed better, too, I must admit. But she outlasted Dick by less than five weeks. He was her favorite, you see, as he was everyone else’s. So I killed her, too.”

  “You say it almost with pride,” she said. “As if you really wish people to see you as a murderer. Strictly speaking, you are not.”

  “Ah, but I am,” he said, “in the popular estimation. And why fight public opinion, Mary? The truth of the matter is that Dick would be alive now if it had not been for me. And perhaps my mother, too. Fifteen years they have missed because of me.”

  “And yet you behave as if you do not care,” she said. “For fifteen years you have behaved as if you do not care. Do you?”

  He was grinning at her, she saw. And yet the mockery was still in his eyes. “I have a quarrel with learned and intelligent people,” he said. “You like to read and to exercise your mind, do you not? You like to converse with other people like yourself. And you pride yourself on your wisdom. Or perhaps I do you an injustice there. Perhaps you do not even pretend to be wise. Wisdom does not come from books, Mary.”

  “Has the subject been changed?” she asked.

  “By no means,” he said. “I am merely saying that you would not have asked your question if you had any of the wisdom that perhaps you imagine you have.”

  “But you have not given up drinking,” she said, “or any of the other excesses that must have led to that accident. I would have thought you would have given it all up out of remorse. You might have shown your family your sorrow. Perhaps by now you would have been reconciled with them.”

  He laughed at her.

  “It does not matter to you, does it?” she said. “Nothing matters.”

  “I remained true to one thing, at least, for many years,” he said. “I remained true to my obligation to Dorothea.”

  “Perhaps it would have been better if you had not,” she said.

  “Undoubtedly,” he said. “I would not have had to escort an iceberg about London several times.”

  “You are not even sorry about that,” she said indignantly. “And yet you say that you wish me to see you as a worthy companion? I can see nothing worthy at all, my lord.”

  “No.” He spread one arm along the side of the barouche and the other along the back of the seat, almost touching her shoulder with his fingers. “There appears to be nothing there to see, does there? Perhaps we should have confined our conversation to the weather after all.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Or perhaps you should see that any interest you may have in me is ridiculous. Perhaps there are some women who would admire your lack of conscience and see something manly in it.”

  “There are plenty of women who admire the fatness of my purse,” he said, “and are willing to perform for a portion of its contents.”

  She flushed and turned her head away.

  “But none of them has ever been as good in bed as you, Mary,” he said. “I cannot forget that. I want you there again. I want to make love to you.”

  She turned her head sharply to look at him in anger. “Perhaps you should offer me payment, too, then,” she said. “Only, more than you have ever offered before, to match my superior performance.”

  “Would you come to bed with me for money?” he asked her, his eyes glinting beneath narrowed lids. “You could name your price, Mary. Would you be my whore?”

  “No,” she said. “Not your whore or anything else. I think you should take me back home, my lord. We are going to do nothing but wrangle all afternoon.”

  “But you have promised me the whole of it,” he said. “And you see what you have done to me, Mary? I set out to impress you, to convince you that really I am not so bad once you get to know me. And yet somehow once again you have maneuvered me into acting deliberately to shock you. How do you do it?”

  “Perhaps by holding up a mirror to you,” she said, “so that you can see yourself as you really are.”

  He stared at her through narrowed lids for a long moment.

  “You are vastly accomplished at giving setdowns,” he said. “Do you ever consider the pain you give with them, Mary?”

  “I never seem to feel obliged to set down anyone but you,” she said. “And I think you are incapable of feeling pain.”

  “Another one,” he said, “hot on the heels of the last. Are you going to marry Goodrich?”

  “That is none of your concern,” she said.

  “Ah, yes, it is,” he said. “I would not be willing to share you with a husband, Mary. No, don’t say it.” He held up a staying hand. “Are you going to marry him?”

  “He has not asked me,” she said.

  “He will,” he said. “You are respectable enough to be married, despite the lapse with Clifton. And I believe the man is on the lookout for a leg shackle. Don’t marry him.”

  “Why not?” She could not resist the question.

  “No passion,” he said. “The man would not be good in bed.”

  “Is that all that matters?” she asked scornfully. “Do you think that is the all-important thing in marriage?”

  He considered. “No,” he said. “I suppose if I were considering marriage—as you probably know I was, not so long ago—I would consider looks and breeding capability. And I would be careful not to choose a shrew or a giggler or someone who has to drag about a large canvas bag full of hartshorn and lavender water and whatnot. And I would not want a timid little thing without a tongue in her head. Or someone who gazed at me reproachfully whenever I arrived home after midnight. But bedworthiness is important, too, Mary, despite your scorn for the physical. I could not stomach making love to a cold fish for the rest of my life—or even to a warm fish. She would have to be like you.”

  “But I would never marry you,” she said.

  “Certainly you would not,” he said, “because I would never ask you. You see how well I learn from you, Mary? That was a setdown almost worthy of you, was it not?”

  She smiled despite herself.

  “You are pretty when you smile,” he said.

  “And am not when I do not?” she asked.

  “No,” he said.

  She raised her eyebrows.

  He laughed. “You will never get the expected answers out of me, Mary,” he said. “I am not a gentleman, remember? You are not pretty. At least, I have never thought you so. I
had never thought you attractive or worthy of a second glance until almost three weeks ago. It is strange how one’s perceptions can change. Actually, you have looked remarkably pretty to me in the last three weeks, though I know with my mind that you are not. Now, which would you prefer? Mind, which you so value? Or intuition, which you scorn?”

  “Your opinion does not matter at all to me,” she said. “I do not care how you see me.”

  “Very well, then,” he said. “You are too short and too flat-bosomed and remarkably plain of features. Let us have some plain speaking.”

  “And you are no gentleman,” she said, stung, glaring at him, “at the risk of repeating myself.”

  “But, Mary,” he said calmly, “you do not care what I think of you.”

  “That’s true enough,” she said crossly, turning to stare rigidly forward to the horses’ heads. She stiffened when she felt the backs of two of his fingers caress her cheek briefly.

  “You look lovely to me even when you do not smile,” he said softly. “And if your body has imperfections, then I certainly did not notice them three weeks ago. Nor did they mar my great pleasure in you.”

  She closed her eyes. It did not matter, she told herself determinedly. His opinion did not matter. Whether he found her beautiful or whether he found her ugly—it was all the same to her. She had been hurt only because the words had been brutal and unmannerly. And it did not matter how well he had been pleased by what had once happened between them. My great pleasure in you. It did not matter. She did not care. She wanted only to forget.

  He sat up suddenly so that his shoulder almost touched hers, and he took her hand in a firm clasp and held it on the seat between them.

  “We are almost there,” he said. “Time is slipping fast already. Too fast for me. Too slow for you. Right?”

  “Right,” she said.

  For some reason she was remembering sitting beside him during the storm, trying to control herself, trying not to show him her fear. She was remembering trying to climb into him when her control snapped. And the way he had scooped her up onto his lap and proceeded to comfort her in any and all possible ways. A woman he had never considered either pretty or attractive. Just someone who needed comforting.

  Was he the sort of man to do something merely to comfort another person?

  She was about to ask him, but she was a little afraid of his answer.

  LADY ELEANOR VARLEY’S house was set in extensive grounds in Richmond. Long lawns interspersed with flower beds and shrubberies sloped gently to the banks of the River Thames. Long tables set with crisp white cloths had been set out on the upper lawn just below the terrace. Servants were carrying out trays of food and large bowls of drink. Four early arrivals were strolling down beside the river. Four others were playing croquet on the lawn beside the house.

  Lord Edmond handed Mary from the barouche but did not lead her immediately to the garden. He took her indoors to where his aunt was standing in the middle of a morning room, its French windows onto the terrace thrown wide, giving orders to a harassed pair of servants.

  “I might as well do it all myself and save myself the cost of servants,” she said, shaking her head. And then she spotted her nephew. “Ah, Edmond, dear, there you are. I was not looking for you for at least another three hours. You are always notoriously late.”

  “Your usual exuberant welcome, Aunt,” he said, setting his hands on her shoulders and kissing her cheek. “I am on my best behavior today. I have Lady Mornington with me.”

  “Ah.” Lady Eleanor held out her hand. “Lady Mornington. Welcome. I have been wanting to meet you this age. I keep meaning to attend one of your literary evenings, since the Clements are always full of enthusiasm about them. But I never seem to get around to it. I have seen you somewhere before.”

  “We have occasionally been in attendance at the same ball or assembly,” Mary said, shaking hands with her hostess.

  “And since when are you back with the literary set, Edmond?” his aunt asked. “It is about time, I must say.”

  “I am not with any set,” Lord Edmond said. “I am with Lady Mornington, Aunt. I coerced her into accompanying me here today.”

  “Coerced?” Lady Eleanor chuckled. “That is probably true, too, dear. Any lady takes her reputation in her own hands when she is seen with you. I take it you know about the Lady Dorothea Page and the Lady Wren episodes, Lady Mornington? Shocking businesses, both. Though as for Dorothea, I must say Edmond is well rid of her. The girl will rule the man who finally takes her to the altar. And these marriages that are arranged from the cradle are ridiculous affairs, in my estimation. No chance of success at all. What do you think, my dear?”

  “I am very glad that no marriage was ever arranged for me,” Mary said. “I do not believe I could marry where my feelings were not engaged and where I did not feel liking and respect.”

  “Very sensible,” Lady Eleanor said. “Now, take my arm, my dear, and we shall step outside, where I should have been this past hour. Tell me who has been at your salon for the past few weeks. Whom have I been missing? And who is to be there next? Tempt me. Perhaps I shall look in on you.”

  “And what am I to do, Aunt?” Lord Edmond asked. “Trot along behind like a faithful lapdog?”

  “You may run along and bully the servants, Edmond,” she said. “They should have had all the tables set long before now. Growl at them, dear. You are so very good at growling. It will be far more effective than my nagging. When I nag at my servants, they invariably proceed to do exactly what they were doing before, which is not a great deal. Do you have any trouble managing your servants, Lady Mornington?”

  The two ladies walked arm in arm out to the terrace, and Lord Edmond was left in the middle of the morning room, scratching his head.

  8

  IT WAS NOT WORKING WELL AT ALL. SHE WAS THE only woman he had ever really wanted to impress, and it was impossible to impress her. Oh, he had wooed other women, but he had always done so with confidence, playing by the rules of the seduction game that he had learned over the years. Only once had he failed—with Felicity. But then, he could not recall wanting to impress Felicity. He had only wanted to lure her to his bed, and had been willing to do so even at the price of a leg shackle. He wanted to impress Mary, to make her like him, respect him, think him worth knowing and perhaps loving.

  But it was not working. There was nothing to impress her with, he was realizing. There was nothing likable or worthy of respect about him. Was there really nothing? Had his life been so utterly worthless? Had he so hated himself that he had wasted fifteen years of his life—all his young manhood? He remembered with a jolt that she had commented on the fact that he hated himself.

  He had nothing to offer her beyond a certain expertise in bed. It had always been enough with women—enough to please them and enough to satisfy himself. It had pleased Mary, too, but she was not the type of woman to wish to build a whole relationship on that alone. And she was right. No relationship could thrive on just sex.

  But did he want a relationship? he asked himself, and laughed inwardly. He was incapable of having a relationship.

  After half an hour he managed to detach her from his aunt’s side. He had thought the two of them would get along famously, but he had not expected that they would leap into such instant friendship. He took her walking down by the river, and when there was a boat free, he rowed her out onto the water. By his request she told him about Spain, and he listened, fascinated, to her accounts of various campaigns and the endless marches to and fro across the Peninsula. He had heard some of the stories before, but never from a woman’s point of view.

  But it was a one-sided conversation. He had nothing to tell her. Nothing beyond his twenty-first year, and before that time his life had been so wrapped up with family that it was difficult to tell any story that did not involve Dick. And as soon as he mentioned Dick, she would be reminded of how he had killed him as a result of a drunken debauch.

  He looked at himself thr
ough her eyes and saw a worthless fellow, someone who had done nothing that he might lay with pride at the feet of his chosen woman. Chosen? For what? For his mistress? That was what he had wanted. She attracted him and had proved to him already that she could satisfy him more fully than any other woman he had had.

  Had wanted? Was that no longer enough? No, it was not, he realized with numbing shock. It would not be enough to have Mary only in bed, to take her to his house once or twice a week, to stay at hers once or twice more. Not nearly enough. He wanted her in his life, an integral part of it. A part of him. He wanted her as his wife.

  “Shall we stroll up to the house?” he suggested when he handed her out of the boat. “You are probably ready for some tea. Perhaps there will be another couple who will wish to join us in a game of croquet.”

  He no longer wanted to be alone with her. Knowing what he now knew, he realized even more the impossibility of the whole situation. His wife! He would see the scorn in her eyes if he so much as hinted at such a thing. And it would be like the lash of a whip. He would be quite defenseless against it.

  “Yes,” she said, taking his arm. “That would be pleasant.”

  The poke of her bonnet reached barely to his chin. She was light and dainty, like one of the delicate flowers on her bonnet. The thought amazed him. If someone had told him a little more than two weeks before that he would ever look at Lady Mornington and compare her to a delicate flower, he would have chuckled with vast amusement. It was hard to remember how he had used to view her.

  “Are you enjoying yourself?” he asked, and then wished he had not done so. Why invite one of the setdowns she was so good at?

  “It is very pleasant,” she said. “The surroundings are lovely and the weather perfect. Your aunt is very amiable. I am pleased to have made her acquaintance at last.”

  She was also good at diplomacy.

  “Ah,” he said. “So I have done something that meets with your approval, Mary. I have effected a meeting between the two of you.”