by Norma Darcy
“Well,” continued Louisa brightly, having achieved her aim of putting her own matrimonial hand fairly out of harm’s way, “I think she must be tall―”
“Louisa, have you finished with your glass? The waiter is coming to pick up the empty things,” said her aunt with a quelling look.
Louisa turned a magnificent smile upon the young man who had appeared by the side of their carriage. “Thank you.” The smitten waiter stared adoringly up at her, dropped his tray and had the mortification of chasing runaway glasses for several moments afterwards.
“You were saying, my lady?” asked the Duke, leaning back against the seat of his carriage.
“I’m not sure that I should say any more,” replied Louisa, encountering the bleak stare of her aunt.
“Oh, do pray continue,” encouraged Malvern with an airy wave of the hand. “I would know what manner of woman you think suitable for my wife. Tall, I think you said.”
“Let us talk of something else,” returned the young lady.
“Good natured,” continued the Duke. “I do not think that I could live with a woman who was given to fits of the sullens.”
“Why do you wish to talk about this? I was in the wrong to tease you on this subject.”
“I wish to know,” he said simply. “As you have said, we are very well acquainted, and I trust your opinion. I would like to know whom you would like me to marry.”
She blushed as she saw her aunt roll her eyes. “She must have a sense of humour.”
“Undoubtedly,” he agreed.
“And be kind and obliging and generous of heart.”
“Of course.”
“Perhaps she should be a little educated about the world and take an interest in history. She should be beautiful and with a decided air of fashion―I could not see you marry a dowd.”
“No, indeed not,” he murmured.
“I think she should be kind and affectionate. She should like you for yourself rather than your purse or your title. She must not be a scheming fortune hunter.”
“And I wish you the very best of luck in finding such a woman,” remarked her aunt dryly.
Malvern smiled faintly at that. “And who, Lady Louisa, would you pick from amongst our acquaintance as a suitable candidate?”
There was a silence. Aunt Garbey’s eyes met those of the gentleman in a long look loaded with meaning as Louisa put her head on one side and thought.
“Well,” said she at last. “I was thinking of my other sister. Emma.”
The Duke blinked. “I thought you said that I was to look about me outside your family?”
“I did, but now I come to think of it, she is perfect. She is closer to you in age than I am and is quite the cleverest of all of us. She is good and amiable―”
“And set to marry Charles, Lord Yarlett,” commented the Duke.
“That is my father’s wish for her and only think how he would prefer to have a Duke for Emma’s husband. You and she have known each other for years, you both have a keen interest in history and she is quite as amiable as you are.”
“I thank you for the compliment of metaphorically bestowing your sister’s hand upon me. She is a most excellent woman and one I hold in the very deepest regard. But even putting aside Lord Yarlett, there is one small problem.”
“And what problem is that?” asked Louisa, looking up into his face.
“I do not have even the remotest wish to kiss her. Drive on, Briggs!”
“Yes, your grace,” the man mumbled from his seat.
Louisa lurched back against the seat as the carriage moved forward, rather shocked to discover that the Duke of Malvern entertained such thoughts as wishing to kiss a female. This revelation inevitably brought with it the thought that he had proposed to her and therefore, did that mean that he had wished to kiss her? The colour flamed in her cheeks and she turned her face aside, pretending interest in the passing traffic until they reached home once more.
* * *
“She refused you?” repeated Jane, Lady Myall incredulously.
Her brother gave a rueful smile and popped a grape into his mouth. “It does happen, you know.”
“No, it doesn’t,” she retorted. “It never happens.”
The Duke stretched himself out full length on the chaise lounge, crossing his booted ankles, clasping his hands behind his head and staring at the ceiling. “She has set herself the task of finding me a wife.”
Jane dropped her jaw. “She’s what? She is going to find you a wife? She, a chit who’s barely been kissed?”
“She says that she understands precisely the sort of female who would suit me and has determined to find her; all I am sure, to let me know that she is irrevocably decided against me.”
“I see,” murmured his sister. “And who has she decided upon?”
“At the moment, her current favourite is her sister Emma.”
“Oh lord.”
“Quite.”
“I like Emma…” began Lady Myall.
“So do I, but I don’t wish to marry her. Despite the fact that she is intended for Lord Yarlett, despite the fact that I consider her more like a sister than a wife, more pertinently, Marcus most definitely has an interest in that quarter. How could I cut the poor fellow out? He is the best of good friends―I could not, in all consciousness do that to him.”
“No indeed. He has been hurt before; and by a friend too.”
“Exactly.”
“What do you plan to do?” she asked.
He shrugged, his eyes roving over the fruits and leaves of the plasterwork mouldings on the ceiling. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“What can I do?” he retorted. “I cannot force Louisa to accept my hand.”
“No,” she conceded, “but you can turn your attentions to someone else.”
“To what aim?”
She blinked at him. “To gain a wife, silly. That is why one pays one’s attentions to a woman, is it not?”
“One of the reasons, yes,” he agreed, thoughtfully frowning into the middle distance.
Her ladyship set down her teacup. “What did you think that I meant?” she demanded. “Did you think I was suggesting that you make her jealous?”
He shrugged again. “I can think of worse strategies.”
“And whom are you proposing for such an endeavour?”
“Lady Emma Munsford.”
“Jasper, be serious for one moment, do. Are you really proposing to make Louisa jealous by paying your attentions to her sister?”
“Do you think it will work?” the Duke asked.
“I think it will make Marcus as mad as fire.”
“Yes,” he said slowly and then laughed.
“He will be as jealous as anything.”
“Then he might be forced into declaring his hand rather than looking on from the shadows. It is about time Marcus Ashworth put his house in order. He has procrastinated for too long. Do you know, Jane, this might well be the proverbial bird that kills two stones.”
Chapter 3
It was a magical evening.
Louisa’s face glowed with happiness as she surveyed the scene before her. Vauxhall Gardens surely must be one of the most delightful, romantic places in the world, she thought wistfully. People milled around in their finery, the champagne flowed, kisses were stolen in the darkened walkways and the air was scented with jasmine.
It was a week after the Duke had accompanied her to the Royal Academy and she had not seen him again in all that time. Truth be told, she was avoiding him. She had been out when he had come to take her out driving, ill when he had arranged a night for her and her aunt at the opera and deeply engaged in a conversation with another man when he had intended to ask her to dance at Almacks.
She thought back to the day they had gone to the exhibition and the erotic painting that had made her start vigorously fanning her cheeks. The fact that even that message failed to elicit a response in the man on her arm proved what she thought of h
im; he was amiable and kind but incapable of passion. She was hoping that standing before such a painting would inspire him to look at her in a different way; to see that she had curves too; to see her as a woman who desired a man to want her in the way the painter had obviously wanted his subject. But he had declared that the lady had been cold and teased her over fig leaves. She had wanted to scream.
The firework exploded across the night’s sky in a shower of yellow sparks as Nicholas Ashworth grabbed her hand and pulled her along one of the darkened alleyways. Lanterns were strung across the path, nodding gently in the warm summer breeze amongst the honeysuckle and roses. Laughter and music and the sounds of gaiety drifted upon the air, moths flew in tight spirals beneath the lamplights, as giddy as the fireworks popping above them.
She giggled as they ran to the end of the walkway, feet crunching on the gravel as they ducked under an archway. Here was another avenue, flanked by tall hedges with a small Rococo style folly at one end. The walk was bathed in moonlight and utterly deserted. It was quieter here, away from the party that Louisa had come with, away from the throng of people, the laughter, the chatter and the music. Even the fireworks seemed to be once removed from the perfect surroundings in which she found herself.
They slowed, laughing and he still held her hand, pulling her up the steps and inside the stone folly. The stone columns were almost blue in the moonlight and surrounded by white roses, their perfect blooms appearing as pale spirits from another world.
In the darkness they stared at each other, smiling.
“How did you know I was coming here this evening?” Louisa asked, coyly looking up at him through her lashes.
“Your aunt has a fondness for me,” he replied, his eyes warm as they rested upon her with undisguised admiration. “I wheedled the information out of her.”
“Shocking,” she said. “And how many other ladies do you meet in these walkways, Mr Ashworth?”
“My lady,” he answered, his hand to his breast as if affronted by her suggestion. “I am not sure what you mean.”
“I think you understand me very well,” she retorted. “You are the handsome Nicholas Ashworth. The darling of the Ton. I doubt I am the only female you have brought here.”
“No,” he conceded, “but you are by far the loveliest.”
Mr Nicholas Ashworth smiled his handsome smile and moved to brace a hand high against one of the pillars to trap her with his body. She neatly sidestepped him leaving him holding nothing but air.
“And do you say that to every lady you bring here, Mr Ashworth?”
He shook his head, smiling, his eyes heavy-lidded with a mixture of drink, desire and expectation. He slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her back against him. The lady gasped as he lifted a hand and allowed his fingertips to trail along the slender column of her throat, downwards over the swell of her collarbone towards the curve of her breast.
“You tease me, my lady,” he murmured in mock censure.
She raised a brow. “Do I? By asking you about your other ladies?”
“You and my other ladies all come out here with me because you all want the same thing.”
She smiled. “And what is that, sir?”
“To be made love to,” he whispered. His hand cupped her chin and gently lifted her face upward so that he might look into her eyes. His eyes slid to her lips and Louisa felt her heart skip with expectation. She was going to be kissed at last; properly, soundly, thoroughly kissed.
“You are so beautiful,” he breathed.
Stop talking, her mind screamed. I want to, you want to, just do it, please, before I lose my mind.
“Your lips are sweet and full and red.”
Lady Louisa rolled her eyes. Oh for God’s sake. Lord Byron he wasn’t.
“Please, Nicky.”
He smiled and lowered his mouth to hers and Louisa closed her eyes. His arms tightened around her and he tilted his head to deepen the kiss.
Barely a second later, two hands grabbed Nicholas by the scruff of the neck and lifted him bodily from the ground. He was flung headfirst down the steps of the folly and through the nearest hedge without any consideration for his dignity or his expensive attire. Dark green glossy leaves clawed at his face and he held out his hands to save himself as his momentum carried him through the shrubbery. He heard his beautiful coat rip at the shoulder and the knees of his spotless white satin breeches were besmirched with mud, the palms of his hands grazed and sore. He blinked, trying to ascertain what had happened and why he was face down in a flower bed with his rear end in the air.
Lady Louisa stared in disbelief at the man who had so effortlessly spun her free of Nicholas Ashworth’s attentions. She hardly recognised the gentleman before her who looked at her now with such cold disapproval. He was pale with anger, his eyes raking over her figure as if she were nothing but a common trollop. Where the amiable smile of former days? Where the gentle humour in his eyes? Where the special attention she had come to expect from him? Gone; scoured away until nothing at all remained of his habitual good humour, and what was left, was disagreeable in the extreme.
“What is the meaning of this?” demanded the Duke of Malvern.
Lady Louisa coloured despite herself. She had to force herself to look at him. She told herself that she did not care. She lifted her chin defiantly and met the cold stare of her noble suitor.
“The meaning of what, your grace?” she asked in an equally frigid tone.
“You know very well what. You are not with your party. How came you to leave your aunt’s care? Have you no thought to your reputation or mine for that matter?”
“Yours?” she asked. “How, pray, does this involve you?”
“Our names are bound together by the arrangement that exists between us,” he responded angrily. “You must know that your behaviour reflects upon me.”
The tone of his voice was so utterly disagreeable that it put her forcibly in mind of all the complaints she’d had against him in the last few months and the way that he treated her. Here he was again, sternly lecturing her as if she were a child. It would do him good to realise that he could not order her about as if she were one of his servants. It would do him good to realise that he had to fight for her attentions. Other men were interested; he was going to have to woo her if he wanted her for his wife. The Duke of Malvern needed to be taught a much needed lesson.
She stared at him haughtily. “I wished to escape the company of Mr Biggleswade who was becoming tiresomely attentive―”
“And so instead you come out here alone with one of the biggest flirts in all of London?” he demanded, the scowl on his brow so utterly alien to her, a look that she had never seen in him before and wished never to see again.
“Who I choose as my friends has nothing whatever to do with you,” she retorted, her eyes flashing.
“Indeed?” he enquired with a lift of one haughty brow. “And are you really so naïve, Louisa?”
She flushed with mortification.
“I had thought you a woman of sense,” he continued when she had made no answer. “I had thought you a woman of great intelligence. And this is how you repay my trust in you? Do you imagine that such behaviour shows maturity? Do you imagine that anyone will be impressed by such wanton disregard for propriety? If your intent was to show me how grown up you have become, then you have failed in your task. Only the greenest schoolroom miss would behave as you have done.”
Louisa’s face was swept by a tide of mortification. “To you I might be a schoolroom miss, but I am a woman and I desire the company of people who want more from me than to teach me my sums. I wish for―” she broke off abruptly.
“You wish for what?” he demanded.
“Nothing.”
He came forward slowly to stand before her, towering over her, his body blocking out the lights of the distant lanterns. He put a gentle hand beneath her chin and cupped it in his warm fingers. Her eyes rose to his face and her heart skipped a beat as she saw the ful
l force of his anger in those usually placid brown eyes.
“Do you think that secret assignations with strange gentlemen will make people respect you? Do you think anyone will be impressed by this behaviour? Your aunt? Your father? Me? Do you think any one of us wants you see you ruined?”
“I don’t care what you think of me,” she declared.
“That I severely doubt,” he said coldly and released his hold on her chin.
She gasped. Of all the insufferably, arrogant―
“And how many other gentlemen have you kissed in the moonlight, unattended with nary a thought to your reputation?” he continued before she had time to voice her response. “You come out here alone with a strange man who is not a relative, not even one of your party, a man who, in short, is fast becoming the most disreputable louche in society.”
“I say, Malvern, steady on,” protested the young Mr Ashworth, fists clenched.
“Nicholas is not a stranger,” retorted Louisa furiously. “He is my most particular friend.”
“Indeed?” replied Malvern, more than a hint of a sneer on his lips as he looked at her as if she had crawled out from beneath his shoe. “You certainly appeared very friendly, I’ll agree.”
She flinched at the implication of his words. “How dare you?”
“You are insulting, my lord Duke!” said Nicholas.
“Marcus is not here to protect you now,” said the Duke savagely, glaring at the younger man, “and if I were you, I would lower those fists of yours before I give you the lesson your brother should have given you years ago.”
Nicholas stormed forward. “You may be my brother’s friend but that gives you no right to censure me.”
“On the contrary,” remarked his grace coldly. “I have every right. You have played fast and loose with my property.”
“Property?” repeated Louisa in outraged anger.
“She is not your property yet,” snarled Mr Ashworth.
“You are mistaken,” said the Duke. “The lady and I are engaged.”
Nicholas choked. Louisa gasped and had to clutch at the stone pillar in front of her for support.