The Famous Heroine/The Plumed Bonnet

by Mary Balogh

  Deeply asleep. He did not believe it had been an act this time, a plea perhaps to give her a bed for the night.

  “How much sleep did you have last night?” he asked her.

  “Not a great deal.” She bit her lower lip. “It was the only night I have ever spent out of doors. I did not sleep a great deal. I am sure I will sleep better tonight. I am more tired.”

  She smiled at him rather wanly. It was a masterful expression. He would have had to be a monster not to respond to it. Especially as he believed this one part of her story. She had spent last night alone out of doors and she had been terrified.

  “I will be stopping at the next inn and taking a room for the night,” he said, his mind made up at last—but what choice did he have, really? “You will stay there too, Miss Gray. And perhaps I will take you a little farther tomorrow. I still have not heard about your life at the parsonage.”

  He was alarmed and even a little embarrassed to see her bite hard on her upper lip while tears sprang to her eyes. Her face even crumpled for a moment before she brought herself under control.

  “Oh,” she whispered. “Thank you. You are the kindest person I have ever met. How will I ever repay you? Money will not do it, I know. You must tell me how I can show you my gratitude.”

  Shortly, Miss Stephanie Gray, he told her silently with his eyes. But I doubt I will have to tell you how. He was glad suddenly that her genuine distress and her ability to turn that distress to her own advantage had made his decision so easy to make.

  He wanted her.

  “Ah,” he said, looking up as the carriage made a sudden turn to the left. “It appears that we have arrived.”

  3

  SERVANT SHOWED HER TO HER ROOM WHILE MR. Munro went back outside on some errand. The maid was obsequious while he was still in sight, and almost insolently abrupt once they were at the top of the stairs. She tossed her head before going back down and looked Stephanie over as if she were a sideshow at a summer fair.

  Stephanie was too tired to care a great deal—and too relieved. She still felt on the verge of tears. The terrifying prospect of having to spend another night out of doors had been hammering at her brain for the last several hours. She stepped inside the inn room and stood against the door, her hands clasping the handle behind her back. Her own room. Four walls and a floor and a ceiling and privacy. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to feel the luxury of safety.

  It was a large room with sofas and chairs and a table as well as a large bed and the usual furnishings of a bedchamber. He need not have been so generous. A tiny attic would have sufficed. She felt a rush of gratitude. How would she ever repay him?

  He had not said anything about another meal tonight, though it was hours since they had eaten. But she was not really hungry. Only a little thirsty. It did not matter. Surely there would be breakfast in the morning before they left. That would fortify her for the day. How far would he take her tomorrow? She thought of the blessed miles they must have covered today. It would have taken her a few days to walk as far.

  She crossed the room to set her reticule down on the dressing table and caught sight of herself in the looking glass. She felt a shock of horror. The bonnet looked even more gaudy and vulgar on her head than it had looked in her hands. Perhaps the way its colors clashed with her hair had something to do with it. And the cloak looked garish, to say the least. Was it any wonder that everyone who had seen her today had looked at her askance? The horrified face in the mirror changed expression and registered amusement despite herself.

  Oh, she looked quite, quite dreadful. Though of course he had not looked askance at her. He had been unfailingly courteous and kind.

  She undid the ribbons with some haste and pulled off the offending bonnet. She plucked at the plumes, twisted them, pulled them. But whoever had put them there had intended that they stay there. With a sigh she set the bonnet down on one end of the dressing table. She unbuttoned the cloak and draped it over a chair. There, she thought, looking back at her image. Now she looked like herself again. Except that her hair was hopelessly flattened and tangled.

  She drew out the pins. Ah, it felt so good to shake her hair free and to feel it loose and light against her back. It looked wild and curly, of course—its natural state, alas. It would take her all of five or ten minutes to tease a comb through it. She was just too tired. She took the few steps to the bed, sat on the edge of it, kicked off her half boots, spread her hands on the bed slightly behind her, and leaned back, bracing herself on her arms. She tipped back her head and shook her hair from side to side, her eyes closed. She sighed with contentment.

  Something made her open her eyes and lift her head again, though she had not been conscious of any particular sound.

  He was standing in the doorway, holding the door open, watching her. Had he knocked and she had not heard? She came to her feet and took a few hurried steps toward him. He came inside and closed the door and took a few steps toward her after setting down a valise.

  “I am sorry,” she said. “I did not hear—”

  “It is beautiful,” he said. His voice sounded husky, as if perhaps he had caught a chill. He was looking at her hair. “But I guessed that it would be.”

  She felt horribly mortified. She felt almost naked. No one ever saw her with her hair down.

  “I am sorry,” she said again. “I did not know—”

  But he had taken several more steps toward her, and he had lifted one hand and was running the backs of his fingers lightly down her hair.

  Gentlemen were very easily tempted, Mama had always said. It was a lady’s responsibility to make sure that she never ever teased.

  “Your beauty does not need to be enhanced with bright clothes,” he said. “It speaks for itself. The gray dress, now, is a very clever touch.”

  “Oh, well,” she said, horribly embarrassed. She wanted to take a step back, but it seemed unmannerly. “That cloak and that bonnet, you know …” And then with the corner of her eye she saw his valise again. And the ghastliest of ghastly certainties struck her.

  “What is it?” he asked. His eyes, which had been on her mouth, lifted to hers. They really were quite silver, she thought irrelevantly, but they were saved from fading into insignificance by the dark outer lines—almost as if someone had taken a stick of very dark charcoal and outlined the irises.

  “Oh,” she said, closing her eyes tightly. “This is your room, is it not?” How could she have believed even for a moment that such opulence was intended for her? Doubtless her room really was an attic. That malicious servant girl!

  “Yes,” he said softly. “This is my room.”

  “Oh, I am so sorry,” she said. “The maid brought me here. Perhaps she did not realize … Though I am sure she did.”

  She felt the fingers of both his hands against her wrists and then moving up her arms until his hands came to rest on her shoulders. She was not conscious of either moving or being moved, but she could feel suddenly the tips of her breasts brushing against his coat.

  “She was insolent?” he said. “Well. We will forget about her, Miss Stephanie Gray. She is of no significance.”

  His lips touched hers.

  Her eyes snapped open, and her head jerked back. She had come to the wrong room, and she had let down her hair, and now look what had happened. Gentleman though he was, he was losing control. Mama had been right. Gentlemen—even the best of them—were weak creatures.

  And then another thought struck her—ten times worse than the last. Perhaps he thought she had come deliberately. Perhaps he thought that when she had spoken in the carriage about repayment for his generosity, she had meant …

  “No,” she said. The word came out as a thin, wavering whisper of sound. It did not sound at all convincing even to her own ears.

  “No?” His haughty, rather cold look was back.

  One of his arms, she realized, was about her waist, and her waist and her abdomen were pressed to him. He seemed alarmingly muscular and mascul
ine. And yet she was not frightened—not of him—only distressed by the misunderstanding that she had caused, or that the chambermaid had caused.

  “No,” she said more firmly.

  She was not surprised when his arms fell away from her, and he took a step back. He was quite different, after all, from those other men with whom she had occasionally scuffled at Mr. Burnaby’s. She had known that all day, and she knew it now too. She felt no fear, only embarrassment and regret that she had inadvertently tempted him. He was looking at her, eyebrows raised, waiting for an explanation.

  “I am grateful,” she said, forcing herself to look into his eyes. She clasped her hands at her bosom. “Believe me, I am, sir. More than I could possibly put into words. One day I will repay you.”

  “One day,” he said very softly, and that gleam almost of amusement was back in his eyes.

  “I think,” she said, “I should like to go to my own room now, Mr. Munro. Can you direct me, or shall I ask the maid to do so?”

  “Ah,” he said, clasping his hands behind his back, “but I believe it is agreed that the chambermaid is unreliable, Miss Gray, if not downright malicious. It will be better if you stay here and I take the room that was intended for you.”

  “Oh, no,” she protested as he turned toward the door and bent to take up his valise. “Oh, no, please. I could not allow—”

  “Miss Gray,” he said, and he spoke in a voice that she guessed his servants were accustomed to hearing and obeying, though he did not raise it at all, “I must insist. You will give me the honor of your company for breakfast—at eight?”

  “Oh, please,” she said, “I feel dreadful. This is your room. It is so very splendid.”

  He looked around him and then at her. “Indifferently pleasant,” he said. “I assure you that the one intended for your use is in no way inferior to this.”

  He spoke to make her feel better. She did not believe him for a moment. But there was no point in arguing further. He was determined to be the gentleman.

  “Thank you,” she said. “You are so very kind.”

  And then, before turning and leaving the room and closing the door behind him, he did what no one had ever done to her before. He took her right hand in his, raised it to his lips, and kissed the backs of her fingers.

  “Good night, Miss Gray,” he said. “Have pleasant dreams.”

  She closed her eyes and set her fingertips to her lips, prayer fashion, after he had gone. Oh, how dreadfully embarrassing. How would she ever face him tomorrow morning? She had come to his room and taken the pins from her hair. She had been on the bed when he arrived. And naturally he had thought … And yet, as soon as she had said no, he had let her go. Not only that, he had left her in possession of his room and asked for the honor of her company at breakfast tomorrow.

  If she had lost faith in the male species during the past six years—and sometimes it had been difficult to believe that there were other men like Papa in the world—then that faith had been restored today. Oh, how fortunate his wife was, if he had a wife.

  But perhaps not either. Stephanie was not naive enough to believe that he had intended only kisses a few minutes ago. He had intended—Well, he had intended to do that to her. Not that she could really blame him. It must have appeared as if she were offering a quite blatant invitation, and being a man—as Mama would have said—it had not occurred to him to resist it. But surely he would have resisted if he had a wife. Surely he would. He must be a single man.

  She was glad he was a gentleman. She shivered when she remembered the very real danger she had just been in. She had been alone in a bedchamber with him. She had inadvertently inflamed his passions. And she had felt two things during the brief moments when he had held her against him. She had felt his strength, against which she would have been powerless had he chosen to exert it. And she had felt something else. She swallowed and would not verbalize in her mind what that something else was.

  She felt grubby and stale, she thought, turning her mind determinedly from the disturbing images. She needed to wash. She was going to take all her clothes off and wash all over. She was going to wash out some of her undergarments and trust that they would dry by the morning. And she was tired. So tired that both her mind and her limbs felt sluggish. She was going to lie down once she was clean, and sleep and sleep and sleep.

  But half an hour later, before she had had a chance to lie down, a knock on the door heralded the arrival of a servant—not the chambermaid who had misdirected her—bearing a tray laden with food and a steaming teapot.

  She bit her lip and wondered if this was perhaps Mr. Munro’s dinner. But no.

  “With the compliments of the gentleman, ma’am,” the servant said with considerably more respect than anyone else had shown her today—except for Mr. Munro himself, of course.

  HE WAS LYING on a narrow, lumpy bed in a little box of an attic room, his hands linked behind his head, staring up at a water-stained ceiling. Surprisingly, he was feeling amusement.

  The landlord had been deeply apologetic that there was no other room available. He had even offered to turn some lesser mortal out of another room so that His Grace might pass the night in more pleasant surroundings. Bridgwater had declined the offer. He was only thankful that he was not doomed to spend the night on a wooden settle in the taproom.

  Of course, the servants were all probably making delighted sport of the fact that he had been kicked out of the best room at the inn by the brazen whore he had brought there with him. Well, let them enjoy their amusement. The duke had never cared a great deal what servants thought or said of him. There were more important things in life on which to fix his thoughts and emotions.

  He chuckled. She really was quite priceless. It was a long time since he had been so vastly entertained. He should be feeling both angry and sexually frustrated, of course. She had outmaneuvered him. She had teased him dangerously—but then he supposed she would not have been very upset if he had insisted on taking what she had been so artfully offering when he had opened the door to the room.

  He felt an unwelcome tightening of the groin again when he remembered how she had looked on that bed, her slender body arched back against her supporting arms, her gorgeous mane of hair swaying from side to side behind her, her face lifted to the ceiling, as if in sexual ecstasy. He wondered how many hours she had spent before a looking glass before she had perfected the posture. And then she had affected surprise and confusion to find that he was standing in the doorway, watching her.

  He chuckled again.

  The gray dress really was a masterpiece. It complemented the glorious auburn of her hair to perfection, and its simplicity somehow enhanced her long-limbed, slender beauty. She did not have a voluptuous figure, but he had no doubt at all that she knew exactly how to make the most of what she had. Certainly she had succeeded in bringing him to painful arousal even before he had touched her.

  He was not sorry she had said no. Well, perhaps that was not strictly true. He still felt uncomfortably warm as his mind touched on the imagined picture of that wavy, tangled hair spread on a pillow beneath him and of those long slim legs twined about his as he worked his pleasure on her. No, he could not pretend that he had not really wanted her. He had and he did.

  But he was not sorry even so. One did not know with whom she had been last or with how many she had recently been. The mistake he had made, of course—but perhaps after all it was a fortunate one—was in offering her lodging for the night and in taking the room and sending her to it before agreeing to terms. He had been given the impression that she had enjoyed enormously evicting him while pretending to wish to evict herself. He wondered again if she really was an actress. She seemed almost too good. For there had been nothing melodramatic in her performance. It had been neither understated nor overstated. It had been almost convincing.

  He smiled again. She was wonderful, he thought. A woman who lived by her wits and who knew how to use them to her own best advantage. What intelligent woman,
after all, would willingly give herself an hour or so’s strenuous work in bed when the bed might be had without the work? She had maneuvered him into offering the one without first extracting an agreement about the other. Very wise of her. Undoubtedly she was very tired. She needed to sleep tonight, not to work.

  He wondered if she was sleeping peacefully. He would wager she was. And he wondered too if tomorrow night he would plan more carefully and make his conditions clearer. But he doubted it. It amused him to allow her to play out her hand.

  Tomorrow night? Was he planning to have her with him again tomorrow night, then? Was it not time to set her down somewhere along the way? With the wherewithal to continue her journey in comfort, of course.

  No, he knew he would not set her down. Neither would he go directly to London, he realized. He would take her to Hampshire, if that indeed was her destination. He would take her to the exact place she was going, if she did have an exact place in mind. He was curious to know where it was and why she was going there. And he looked forward to seeing her try to worm her way out of allowing him to travel the whole distance. She would not want to have all her lies exposed, after all.

  So they would have a battle of wits. But this was one he intended to win. A night of sexual frustration notwithstanding, he had had more enjoyment out of today, and he had a brighter anticipation of the morrow than he had felt for a long, long time. It was a thought that made him feel a twinge of guilt when he remembered how eagerly and kindly Carew and his wife had entertained him for the past few weeks.

  Miss Stephanie Gray—or whatever her name was—had succeeded where they had failed.

  IT WAS RAINING heavily when she got up the following morning. She looked out the window of her luxurious inn room and imagined the misery, as well as the terror, she would have lived through last night if it had not been for the generosity of Mr. Munro.

  The rain eased up by midmorning, but it drizzled all day long, and the treetops were tossed about in a fitful and gusty wind. Even inside the carriage, which traveled more slowly than it had the day before because of the state of the roads, the air felt chill and slightly damp.