Forbidden

by Nicola Cornick

  Garrick raised a brow. “You’re getting married. I heard the rumors.”

  “Not anymore,” Henry said. “Your rumors lag behind the times.”

  “Thank God,” Garrick said. “Better to embrace holy orders than Lady Antonia Gristwood.”

  “Don’t preach,” Henry begged. “It is not given to us all to marry for love.”

  “You made one mistake,” Garrick said mildly.

  “A colossal one,” Henry said, “given that my father was one of many men enjoying my wife.”

  He took a mouthful of the brandy. It did not wash away the taste of betrayal. Drink had not helped at the time, although he had tried to lose himself in it. It did not help now.

  “Your father was a first-class cad,” Garrick said with unimpaired calm. “And Isobel was somewhat indiscriminate in her affections.”

  Henry laughed. Indiscriminate did not even start to cover the licentious abandon with which his wife had indulged herself. Which was why he had been determined that the second time he married it would be to a cold-blooded aristocrat who understood the meaning of duty. The emotional chaos of his first choice would never be repeated.

  He moved his shoulders uncomfortably against the high velvet back of the chair. He seldom thought about Isobel these days. Revisiting the mistakes of his youth was a pointless exercise. Regretting the past achieved nothing.

  Suddenly restless, he got up and moved to the window, pulling back the thick red velvet curtains that shut out the London night. He looked out into the dark. Shadows pressed against the window. Above the city he could see the stars hard and bright as diamonds, as they had been a half hour ago when he had almost taken Margery beneath that ridiculously romantic sky.

  He sighed. Perhaps there was something dangerously seductive about nights like this. Not that he should be susceptible. Yet, it was at a ball on such a night ten years before that he had first met Isobel Cunningham, the daughter of an impoverished country gentleman, beautiful, sweet-natured, charming, all the things he had thought he had wanted in a wife.

  He had been nineteen, a year into his studies at Oxford, romantic by inclination despite—or possibly because—he had witnessed the miserable hash his parents had made of their arranged marriage. He winced now to think of all the bad poetry he had written for Isobel. He had actually composed a love song as well, with harpsichord accompaniment. He shuddered at the memory.

  In the end, his wife’s sexual indulgence had become so notorious that his godfather had paid her to go away. The Earl of Templemore had bribed her lavishly, dismissively, like a rich man throwing some coins to a beggar in the street. Isobel had taken the money. She had gone abroad with her new fortune and become the mistress of a German prince with an enormous castle on the Rhine. She had died a year later in a carriage accident when she was running away with the prince’s groom. Her death had been as lurid a scandal as her life, and Henry’s name was a laughing stock, his romantic dreams shredded.

  Henry had promptly enlisted in the army to fight Napoleon, much to his godfather’s fury. For a while he had wanted to get himself killed, but the passionate anger soon wore off, leaving nothing but cold indifference in its wake.

  A cynical smile twisted Henry’s lips now. He had been a fool. Marriage, as the Earl of Templemore had said to him, had nothing to do with love. Love was nothing but a weakness.

  Garrick was watching him speculatively. “So, if you are not to wed, what is your news?”

  Henry resumed his seat and reached for the brandy.

  He looked up and met Garrick’s perceptive dark gaze. “Lord Templemore has found his lost heir,” he said. “His granddaughter is alive and well.”

  Garrick put down his glass with a snap that spilled the brandy. His eyes narrowed with incredulity. “I had no notion that Lord Templemore was still searching for his granddaughter.”

  “He never gave up looking for her,” Henry said.

  “And now he has found her.” Garrick shook his head. “Good God, how extraordinary. This will set the ton by the ears.” He checked himself. “Good God,” he said again, more quietly. “Well, thank you for giving me due warning before the news hits the scandal sheets, Henry. Who is the fortunate lady who will inherit the richest title in the country?”

  “Her name is Margery Mallon,” Henry said. “She is currently Lady Grant’s personal maid. Apparently she was found as a child and adopted by a family in Berkshire.”

  Once again Garrick looked winded. “A maidservant? Wait—” He leaned forward in his chair. “I know Miss Mallon. I met her several years ago.” He smiled. “In those days she was maid to Lottie St. Severin.”

  “If Templemore hears that, he will be reassessing his granddaughter’s respectability,” Henry said. Garrick’s half brother Ethan Ryder, Baron St. Severin, was a notorious rake who had scandalously set Lottie up as his mistress before marrying her. “It would probably be best keep that quiet,” he added. “There will be enough gossip without a rehearsal of Miss Mallon’s checkered employment history.”

  “Miss Mallon was also maid to Lady Devlin and Lady Rothbury,” Garrick said dryly, “so I think that any attempts to keep quiet are doomed to failure.”

  Henry almost choked on his brandy. Even he was starting to reconsider Margery’s apparent chastity. It was hard to see how she could have worked for so many scandalous ladies and preserve her innocence. Yet she had been innocent, radiantly so. He knew that. She had been untutored and sweet and eager in his arms. Henry shifted uncomfortably, aware of his growing arousal. He could not get an erection in White’s. There were some things that were simply unacceptable, frightfully bad form, and that would be one of them.

  “Are you feeling quite well, Henry?” Garrick was looking at him closely.

  “I am perfectly well, thank you,” Henry said. He took a reckless swig of the brandy, saw Garrick’s brows shoot up and hoped his cousin would assume he was drowning his sorrows.

  “I feel sorry for Miss Mallon,” Garrick said unexpectedly. “What an inheritance. A tyrannical grandfather, a fortune that will be more of a curse than blessing and a family history riddled with tragedy.” He sat back in his chair, cradling his brandy glass in his hands. “I assume that you—and Churchward—are absolutely certain she is the rightful heir?”

  “We are.” Henry spoke a little shortly and saw amused comprehension spill into his cousin’s eyes. He had wanted to warn Garrick of the impending scandal. He did not want to talk about the detail. He might move on from the loss of Templemore but there was no need to rub salt into his own wounds.

  “I remember the murder of Lady Rose and the loss of her child,” Garrick said somberly. “I was only in my teens but a tragedy so great makes an impression on everyone it touches.”

  Henry remembered the tragedy, as well. Templemore had been enveloped in a terrifying dead calm. There had been no outbursts of emotion, of course; the earl and his relatives were too well bred to show grief. Henry, eleven years old, had tiptoed around everything and everyone, aware of something terrible that was never mentioned.

  “They said it was a highway robbery that went wrong,” Garrick said, “but I sometimes wondered.”

  Henry frowned. “You think it was deliberate murder?”

  Garrick shrugged slightly. His face was in shadow. “I don’t believe in random coincidence as a general rule,” he said. “Who benefited from Lady Rose’s death?”

  “I did,” Henry said dryly, “since I became Templemore’s heir.”

  Amusement lit Garrick’s eyes. “I acquit you. You would have been a most precocious murderer.” He stretched. “What will you do now that Miss Mallon will inherit Templemore?”

  “Work,” Henry said tersely. “Wellington suggests that I work for the Board of Ordnance.”

  “Explosives?” Garrick asked.

  “Mapping and coastal fortifications,” Henry said.

  “I thought you might restore your fortunes through marriage.” Garrick reached lazily for the brandy bottle, refil
ling his glass. He offered it to Henry, who shook his head.

  “You sound like my mother,” Henry said. “She has already proposed that I should wed Miss Mallon, but then I imagine she would probably advocate a match with an elephant if it were heir to Templemore.”

  “Probably,” Garrick agreed. “But she has a point.” He leaned forward. “What is Miss Mallon like?”

  Henry closed his eyes to ward off the memory of the vivid sweetness of Margery’s kiss, to push away the recollection of her warmth and silken softness beneath his hands.

  She is exquisite. Seductive. Delicious.

  She is forbidden.

  He opened his eyes to see Garrick studying him with intense interest.

  “Good try, Garrick,” he said.

  His cousin laughed. “Why not marry her if you want her, Henry?”

  Not for the first time in his life, Henry wondered how Garrick always knew everything. It was uncanny.

  “Why not go to hell?” he replied.

  “Indulge me,” Garrick said. “Explain.”

  “Because Miss Mallon deserves better than me,” Henry said shortly. “I’m too cynical. I’d make the devil of a bad husband.” He sighed, his gaze on the brandy glass as he turned it round and around in his hand. “Miss Mallon would wish to marry for love,” he said, “and that is something that I can never give her.”

  “Ah, the influence of the lovely Isobel,” Garrick said ironically.

  Henry shrugged. “Call it what you will. Truth is, there are a hundred reasons why I cannot marry Miss Mallon. I’d be the biggest fortune hunter in London if I did and I’ll not live off my wife’s money.”

  “You have too much pride,” Garrick said, with the ghost of a smile.

  “Perhaps,” Henry said. Pride, duty, honor and service were the virtues that had held his life together through all that had happened to him since childhood. They were the principles he would never abandon.

  “How did you know?” he was unable to resist asking. “How did you know I had been with Miss Mallon this evening?”

  Garrick looked so smug he wanted to punch him.

  “You looked as though you had spent the past few hours in Celia Walter’s bed,” Garrick said. “However, if you had, you would not be in such a bad mood.” He shifted. “Then there was the fact that you were quite open about your loss of Templemore but very reluctant to discuss Miss Mallon herself. At first, I thought this was because you disliked her for taking Templemore away from you. Then—” he steepled his fingers “—I thought the reverse was probably true. You were reticent because you like her very much and you didn’t want me to guess.”

  “Bloody hell,” Henry growled. “Have you finished?”

  “Almost,” Garrick said. “Finally, there is the fact that you smell of rose perfume and that you have a hairpin stuck to your jacket.” He grinned. “I rest my case.”

  “Hell,” Henry said again. He stared blankly into the fire. “I had no idea I was so easy to read.”

  “You’re not,” Garrick said dryly. He rested his chin in one hand. Henry felt his narrowed gaze on his face. “I have to ask, though. What were you thinking?”

  “I wasn’t thinking,” Henry said through his teeth. He felt a sudden and unexpected pang of tenderness for Margery, as though he had failed somehow to protect her. “At least not with my head.”

  He thought of Margery, with her passion for Gothic romances and her sweet starry-eyed generosity. He felt an utter cad for the way he had behaved, deceiving her, damn near seducing her. It was unforgivable. He was unforgivable.

  He pushed back his chair and stood up. “Tomorrow I will tell Miss Mallon about her inheritance, take her to Templemore and get back to my work for Wellington—” He stopped, arrested by the expression on Garrick’s face.

  “Henry,” Garrick said slowly. “Did Miss Mallon know who you were when you met tonight?”

  “I—” Henry stopped. “Damnation,” he said, after a moment. He could see all too clearly the point that Garrick was making. He wondered that he had not thought of it before. He had felt guilt at deceiving Margery when she had been so open with him. He had deplored his raging lust and his lack of self-control.

  He had not thought how Margery might react when she discovered his real identity and that he had been heir to Templemore before her.

  “Hell,” he said.

  “That,” his cousin said dryly, “is exactly what will break loose tomorrow when Miss Mallon finds out who you really are.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Ace of Swords: Change. There are battles to be fought

  ���MISS MALLON! MISS MALLON!”

  Margery swam up through layers of sleep to find the face of Jessie, the third housemaid, hanging over her. Even though Margery was now awake, the girl continued to shake her shoulder as though she could not stop. “Wake up!”

  “I am awake.” Margery sat up and reached for her wrap. The room was already bright with sunlight even though the battered little clock on the shelf over the fire registered only eight o’clock. Margery’s head ached. Normally she was up at six. She had overslept. “What on earth is the matter?” She took in, for the first time, the pinched expression on Jessie’s face and the fear in her eyes.

  “Lady Grant is asking for you.” Jessie sat down heavily on Margery’s little narrow bed, which sagged in glum protest. “There’s trouble. I don’t know what, but it’s bad. Something terrible has happened.”

  Trouble.

  Margery felt a clutch of fear. Lady Grant seldom rose before ten and only then in the direst emergency. Surely—her stomach did a dizzy swoop and she felt sick—surely Lady Grant could not know what had happened last night, could not know that her maid had behaved like a wanton, drinking ale in an inn of ill repute, dining with a gentleman and then kissing him to within an inch of her life. More than mere kissing, if she were truthful….

  Her body heated to a burning blush as she remembered all the liberties she had allowed Henry to take and the way in which she had responded to him. For a second when she had awoken she had hoped that it was all a dream. It was not.

  But perhaps Lady Grant did know. Perhaps someone had seen her with Henry in Bedford Square Gardens and reported her for lewd behavior. Her mind spun and the ache in her head stabbed at her viciously. She could imagine the outcry. She could even see in her mind’s eye the constable coming to take her away. They would put her in the stocks and brand her a whore. She grabbed the wooden rail at the end of the bed to steady herself.

  “Are you quite well, Miss Mallon?” Jessie was looking at her with sharp curiosity. Margery knew that some of the housemaids resented the fact that she had achieved the rank of lady’s maid so young. Some of them would not be sorry to see her fall from grace.

  “I am very well, thank you,” she said briskly. “Pray tell Lady Grant that I shall be down directly.”

  It took her only a few minutes to slip on her gown—thank goodness she had one freshly pressed—and to braid her hair into a neat plait. Those few minutes also enabled her to persuade herself that Lady Grant’s early rising and the trouble that Jessie had referred to were in no way connected to her. Of course they were not. It was both fanciful and presumptuous of her to imagine it.

  As she hurried down the stairs to Lady Grant’s bedchamber she was aware of a strange atmosphere in the house. It was silent and yet it felt tense, waiting. Margery shivered. Her hand shook a little as she knocked on the oaken panels of Lady Grant’s door and turned the handle.

  Lady Grant was in her nightgown in the dressing room, rummaging through her chest of drawers, leaving all of Margery’s carefully arranged piles of clothing in complete disarray. Her rich red-gold hair tumbled in artistic profusion over her bare shoulders above the lace embroidery of her neckline. She looked at once harassed and fragile, and when Margery came in she swooped on her with a cry of gladness.

  “Margery! Oh, thank goodness! You have no idea…. Mr. Churchward is here—the lawyer—at seven-thirty
in the morning! I sent Alex to deal with him but he insists that I join them and I have no notion what to wear. I simply cannot be expected to decide such matters before I have had my morning chocolate….”

  The door opened and Lord Grant strode in. “Joanna,” he said. “I left you twenty minutes ago and you are no further forward now than you were then.”

  “Ten more minutes, my lord,” Margery said, pushing Lady Grant gently but firmly away from the chest and selecting a range of undergarments at the same time. “I promise.”

  Lord Grant’s incisive gaze swept Margery from head to foot. “Miss…Mallon, is it not? I think that you had better attend the drawing room with my wife when she is ready.” He nodded to her, smiled at Lady Grant and went out closing the door with a decisive click.

  Margery’s heart gave a great, sickening lurch. Lady Grant was staring at her as though she had suddenly grown a second head. “Well! What can that be about?”

  “I have no notion, ma’am,” Margery said woodenly. “Here are your stockings, ma’am. And may I suggest the pink day gown and matching slippers?”

  She managed to get Lady Grant into her clothes with great difficulty. It was like trying to dress a slippery fish, because her ladyship was forever changing her mind about what she would wear, kept wriggling out of one outfit and into another, and rushed to the mirror to check which colors were most flattering to her morning complexion. Finally, a half hour later than promised, they were both ready.

  The challenge of getting Lady Grant dressed had distracted Margery for a while, but as she trailed her employer down the broad sweeping stair her anxiety returned, the feeling of sick dread intensifying with every step she took.

  She had no notion how she would defend herself against the charge that she had behaved with lewd abandon the previous night. She could not bear to see the disgust and shock in Lady Grant’s eyes when she heard what had happened. For all Joanna Grant’s maddening butterfly mind, she was the kindest and most thoughtful of employers. They respected each other, they liked each other, and Margery could not bear to disappoint Lady Grant. Her throat felt dry. Her tongue seemed to be sticking to the roof of her mouth. She swallowed hard as the footman opened the drawing room door and she followed her employer inside.