Slightly Married

by Mary Balogh

  He had been strangely touched by her attachment to two young orphans who were not her responsibility at all. But he had not realized fully until after he had married her that they were of central importance to her life, that without them she might have reacted differently to his suggestion.

  “And your aunt is well?” he asked.

  “Yes, thank you. She was delighted by my decision to come to London.” She laughed. “Even after the duke had raised his quizzing glass all the way to his eye on hearing her Welsh accent when I introduced them.”

  “Why did you decide to come?” he asked once more. “I know Bewcastle can be very persuasive, but I do not see you as a woman of weak will.”

  She fingered a spoon she had not used. “He convinced me,” she said, “that you would suffer from the censure of your peers if I did not come.”

  “I do not care the snap of two fingers about my peers,” he said.

  “Oh, but you do.” She frowned. “You always do what you perceive to be right, even if it comes at the expense of personal sacrifice. Our marriage is proof of that. Duty is all to you, I believe. If your peers got the wrong idea about our living separately and believed that you were ashamed of me after marrying impulsively and so had callously abandoned me to a sort of country prison, you would be judged a dishonorable man. You would be hurt by such gossip, even though you would know there was not a grain of truth in it.”

  Perhaps she was right, he conceded. “And so you came to save me,” he said. “You made me your newest lame duck.”

  She looked up at him, traces of her earlier anger in the slight hardening of her jaw.

  “I came to do for you what you did for me,” she said. “When you thought it important that my neighbors see us together, comfortable and amiable together and respectful of each other, you remained at Ringwood and endured all the tedium of a country assembly for my sake. You owed me nothing according to our agreement, yet you did it anyway. I came here so that I could do the same for you.”

  “But for you it would mean inconvenience for longer than a day,” he said.

  “For a few weeks, I expected,” she said. “Perhaps even a month. I would have had to be carefully prepared—by your aunt, according to the duke.”

  “Aunt Rochester?”

  “Yes.” She was turning the spoon over and over on the table. “I am not a lady by birth, and only partially by education. I was brought up and have lived most of my life in the country among people who are gently born but by no means members of the ton. I know nothing of town fashions and manners. I know absolutely nothing at all about moving in high society or about what is expected of the wife of a duke's heir. I would have had to learn to be presented to the queen without disgracing myself and how to be presented at a ball in Bedwyn House without losing all my composure and committing some heinous social gaffe. And then I would have had to attend all the victory celebrations at your side, behaving as Lady Aidan Bedwyn ought.”

  It was hardly surprising that there was an edge of bitterness to her voice. Aidan dearly wished he could swear out loud.

  “And all this Wulf said to you without mincing words, I suppose,” he said.

  “I do not like him,” she said. “Indeed, I believe my feelings about him go beyond dislike. But at least I respect his honesty. He says what he believes. He does not say one thing and imply another.”

  “About what happened upstairs this afternoon—” he began.

  She set her hand flat over the spoon, hiding it completely from his view and shook her head.

  “It does not matter,” she said. “Perhaps it is as you said. We needed to do that, to complete what we had started, so to speak. It does not matter. And I can hardly pretend, can I, that I did not enjoy it. I did. Let us leave it at that.”

  It was a long time since he had had a woman—before today, that was. The last time had been somewhere back in Spain before the winter crossing of the Pyrenees by Wellington's armies, back before his acquaintance with Miss Knapp had developed into something that had promised a future. But he could not pretend that he had taken his wife only to appease a rabid hunger for sex. It had been, as she had just said, a completion. And apparently an end too.

  “Your coach leaves at seven o'clock in the morning,” he said.

  “Yes.” She lifted her napkin off her lap and set it on the table beside her plate. “I should get to bed early. It has been a long day.”

  “Allow me to escort you home,” he said. “I'll hire a private carriage. It will be far more comfortable than the stage.”

  “No. Thank you.”

  “I'll accompany you on the stage, then,” he said.

  She shook her head.

  He stared at her, exasperated. How could he let her go alone? She had come for his sake, damn it all. And damn Bewcastle to hell and back.

  “You would not have enjoyed it here, you know,” he said. “Life at Bedwyn House, the Season and all that.”

  “I did not expect to enjoy it,” she told him. “I did not come to be entertained.”

  “You would have found it impossible,” he said. “Bewcastle, Aunt Rochester, even Freyja and Alleyne. You would never have coped with them or with all they would have expected of you.”

  “Impossible?” She looked up at him with a frown. “Never?”

  “I apologize for the inconvenience you have been put to today,” he told her, “and for the tedium of another day of travel tomorrow. But you will be altogether happier at home in Ringwood. You would never have been able to master every lesson here in time.”

  “Would I not?”

  The quietness of her voice finally alerted him. “Not to Bewcastle's satisfaction, anyway,” he said. “Or Aunt Rochester's. They are incredibly high in the instep.”

  “And you are not, Colonel?”

  He leaned a little toward her. “I believe we have both long realized,” he said, “that we are from different worlds. One is not necessarily superior to the other. They are just different. Bewcastle was wrong to persuade you to come here. You would have been miserable if you had stayed. What comes naturally to me, to Bewcastle, to my sister, would not come naturally to you at all. That is not—”

  But he had lost his audience. She pushed back her chair with her knees and got to her feet. He stood too, his eyebrows raised.

  “Call a hackney coach, Colonel Bedwyn,” she said. “I am returning to Bedwyn House—this evening. There is no time to waste. I have a presentation to the queen to prepare for and a ball and numerous other social activities, including a state dinner at Carlton House.”

  He stared at her for a few moments longer. Although she spoke quietly and looked perfectly composed so that she was attracting no unwelcome attention from any other guest in the dining room, he could see that she was furiously angry.

  “I do not believe this is a wise choice, ma'am,” he said.

  “Then,” she said with a stubborn, potentially dangerous lift of her chin, “you are going to have to use your husband's prerogative, Colonel, and order me back home. Please do it, and then I will have the pleasure of openly defying you. Will you call a hackney coach, or shall I?”

  Devil take it, was this thing they had started three weeks ago never going to come to an end? Aidan strode away without another word while silently answering his own question. No, it was not. Not while they both lived.

  He assumed that she had gone upstairs to fetch her bag while he called a carriage. He did not look back to see.

  CHAPTER XII

  ONE OF THE FOOTMEN ON DUTY IN THE HALL at Bedwyn House informed Colonel Bedwyn that the family was still at dinner. They would wait in the drawing room then, the colonel informed him, cupping Eve's elbow with one hand and turning her in the direction of the staircase. But the footman coughed discreetly.

  “I believe his grace has plans to go out for the evening after dinner, my lord,” the man said. “And Lady Freyja and Lord Alleyne will be attending the theater.”

  “Then we will interrupt their dinner,
” the colonel said, his voice hard and abrupt. “Have Fleming announce us.”

  The footman's eyebrows rose perhaps half an inch, the only sign he gave of holding an opinion on the matter. He turned and led the way. Eve, her elbow firmly in the colonel's grasp, tried to draw breaths that were both silent and steadying. The anger and bravado that had propelled her out of The Green Man and Still less than half an hour ago and into the waiting hackney coach and then inside Bedwyn House were rapidly deserting her—at least the bravado was. Until they set foot inside the hall and he spoke to the footman, Colonel Bedwyn had not uttered a single word. He had contented himself with looking thunderous.

  The footman knocked on the door—presumably it was the dining room—murmured something to the butler when the latter opened it, and turned back in the direction of the hall. The butler's eyebrows rose perhaps three quarters of an inch.

  “Lord and Lady Aidan, your grace,” he announced, stepping to one side of the doorway.

  The dining room was a long, high-ceilinged chamber with a table that took up much of its length. Eve was given an instant impression of grandeur and noticed the gold and crystal chandelier hanging from the painted, coved ceiling, and the fine china, crystalware, and silverware glittering on the table beneath the light of the candles. Truth to tell, though, most of her attention was taken by the three people seated at the table. The Duke of Bewcastle she knew. The young man at his left was obviously another brother, though he was more handsome than either the duke or the colonel. The lady on the duke's right had masses of wavy fair hair, eyebrows that were very dark in contrast, a dark-toned complexion, and the family nose. All three of them were dressed in formal evening wear and looked everything Eve had ever imagined of the aristocracy. If a single word could sum up those expectations, it would be haughty.

  The two gentlemen rose from their places.

  “Ah,” the duke said with faint hauteur, his quizzing glass already in his hand.

  “Lady Aidan?” the young man asked.

  The lady merely stared with raised eyebrows.

  “I have the honor,” Colonel Bedwyn said, “of presenting Lady Aidan Bedwyn, my wife. Lady Freyja Bedwyn, the elder of my two sisters, ma'am, and Lord Alleyne Bedwyn, my youngest brother.”

  Lady Freyja's eyebrows soared higher and her eyes swept over Eve from head to toe, making her horribly aware of her travel clothes, which were neat and clean but very far from being either in the finest of fabrics or in the first stare of fashion—or suitable for evening wear.

  “You devil, you, Aidan!” Lord Alleyne exclaimed. He laughed, revealing himself to be even more handsome than Eve had first thought, and looked her over as frankly as his sister was doing, though with humor dancing in his eyes. “This happened today?”

  “Almost three weeks ago, actually,” the colonel said. “By special license.”

  Lord Alleyne strode down the long room toward them. “Before you even came to Lindsey Hall,” he said, his eyes on Eve. “Yet you breathed not a word to any of us. I wonder why.” He laughed again and favored Eve with an elegant, formal bow. “Your servant, Lady Aidan.”

  “Lord Alleyne,” Eve murmured, curtsying.

  “Oh, you must dispense with the lord,” he told her. “I am Alleyne. What may we call you? You are not going to insist that we treat your wife with prim formality, are you, Aidan, when she is our sister-in-law?”

  “I am Eve,” she said.

  “Eve.” He grinned. “Did you offer the apple of temptation? Why did our brother keep your existence a secret from us? Are you going to tell?”

  From close up, his smile was ambivalent. It was hard to know if it proceeded from pure good humor or from mischief. Was he being welcoming and brotherly—or was he mocking her? Certainly his questions were unanswerable.

  “You are somewhat late for dinner, Aidan,” the duke observed from his place at the head of the table.

  “We have already dined,” the colonel informed him brusquely.

  “Ah,” his grace said. “But you will join us for a glass of wine. Alleyne, seat Lady Aidan beside you.”

  He was not going to comment upon the fact that she had returned, then, Eve thought as Lord Alleyne offered his arm and she placed her hand on his sleeve. Neither was he going to take his cue from his brother and call her by name. She took her seat at the table and for a moment felt engulfed in panic. They were from different worlds, the colonel had said earlier. Different universes, more like.

  “But this is no surprise to Wulf, it is to be noted,” Lord Alleyne said as Eve seated herself and he pushed her chair closer to the table. “We have been slighted, Free. Kept in the dark. Kept from the most delicious family on-dit in a generation.”

  “Lady Aidan,” Lady Freyja said with cold arrogance as the colonel seated himself beside her, “may one ask who exactly Aidan has married? I do not believe we have met before, have we? Are we acquainted with your family? Would we recognize the name if we were to hear it?”

  “I am sure you would not,” Eve said, looking into the disdainful eyes of her sister-in-law.

  “My wife was Miss Morris of Ringwood Manor in Oxfordshire,” Colonel Bedwyn explained. “She has owned the property since the passing of her father a little over a year ago. Captain Morris, her brother, was my fellow officer in the Peninsula. I had the sad duty of bringing home the news of his death in battle.”

  “Ah, do accept my commiserations, Eve,” Lord Alleyne said.

  “And you fell head over ears for each other at first glance,” his sister said, her eyes resting mockingly on Eve. “How unutterably romantic. But Morris? No, I am afraid I have never heard the name.”

  “It would be strange if you had.” Eve smiled. “My father was a coal miner before he married the owner's daughter.”

  And so, she thought as her sister-in-law answered her smile without making any comment, the battle lines had been drawn. Well, she had been warned both by her own common sense and by Colonel Bedwyn. She had no one but herself to blame for this.

  “A coal miner.” Lord Alleyne chuckled. “It must certainly have been love, then. Aidan has always been the highest of sticklers, and he has no need of anyone's fortune—he has a vast one of his own. Did you know that, Eve? Now tell me, why is he pokering up at me?”

  Eve was not sure she would like Alleyne. She did not know how to interpret his good humor, so different from the coldness of his siblings. She thought it wise to ignore his questions and wait for someone else to say something.

  “Lady Aidan,” the Duke of Bewcastle said as the butler poured red wine into the crystal glass beside her, “you will be ready after breakfast tomorrow morning to accompany Aidan and me when we call upon the Marchioness of Rochester.”

  It was not a question, but Eve answered it anyway. “I will, your grace,” she said. She had made her decision. She would live by it.

  “Aunt Rochester?” Lord Alleyne grimaced rather theatrically. “You are going to unleash the dragon on Eve, Wulf?”

  “Is Aunt Rochester to be given the task of bringing you up to snuff, Lady Aidan?” Lady Freyja asked.

  “I believe she is to be asked to sponsor me in my presentation to the queen,” Eve replied, “and to give me some advice and direction on how I may move comfortably in Colonel Bedwyn's world for the next few weeks until I can return home to my own life.”

  “Aunt Rochester is up to most challenges,” Lady Freyja said. “Even the most difficult.”

  “We must all agree with you on that, Free,” Alleyne said, raising his glass in apparent toast to his sister. “She orchestrated your come-out, did she not? And the world kept turning.”

  She glared disdainfully at him.

  “A hit, Freyja, you must admit,” the duke said languidly. He rose to his feet, glass in hand. “We will drink a toast to the newest member of the Bedwyn family. To Lady Aidan Bedwyn.”

  There was no warmth in either his voice or his eyes. The others rose too and clinked glasses before drinking, but only Alleyne looked directl
y at Eve. Only Alleyne smiled—and quickly winked.

  Colonel Bedwyn was stern and granite-faced. Unbidden, a memory of the afternoon came to Eve's mind—of the hour they had spent together in her bed at the Green Man and Still. Could it really have happened? It seemed like a strange, bizarre dream except that she could feel the physical effects of what had happened. Could that man possibly be this man? Her stomach performed an uncomfortable flip-flop.

  THE MARCHIONESS OF ROCHESTER WAS AT HOME THE next morning, but she still had not emerged from her dressing room, her butler informed Bewcastle in a manner that showed all the proper deference for his rank while at the same time conveying unmistakable reproach. This particular hour of the morning was not, of course, the polite time for even so lofty a person as the Duke of Bewcastle to be paying a social call.

  “If you would care to wait in the rose salon, your grace? My lord?” the butler asked, his tone implying that they might not care to do any such thing but to take themselves off until a more respectable hour. His eyes skimmed over Eve and apparently dismissed her.

  Bewcastle was already moving toward the salon with firm strides. “Bring us refreshments,” he commanded.

  Aunt Rochester took her time about coming down. Aidan seated his wife on a settee and went to stand behind her. Wulf crossed to the window and stood staring out over the square. After perhaps ten minutes, during which they partook of refreshments without exchanging a word, the double doors of the rose salon opened with a flourish, the butler stepped to one side, and the marchioness swept into the room, dressed and coifed for a morning outing. She carried a long-handled lorgnette in her right hand, an affectation she had indulged in for as far back as Aidan could remember, though he suspected that, as with Wulf and his quizzing glass, she had perfect eyesight. She wore a jeweled ring on each finger.

  “Bewcastle!” she exclaimed as she came. “Only you would have the effrontery to call at such an ungodly hour and expect to be received. But this is not well done of you. I have a meeting with one of my charitable committees, and you know how strict I am about punctuality. Well, bless my soul.” She raised her lorgnette to her eyes. “You have brought Aidan with you. Where is your uniform, boy? You are going to have to wear it if you are to be seen about town with me. What is the point of having a colonel for a nephew if I cannot show him off in all his scarlet splendor at this of all times? I must say, though, that you are looking more and more distinguished with every passing year. How many years is it since I saw you last? Two? Three? Four? At my age time passes so quickly that a year seems no longer than a week. Who is the female?”