by Amanda Scott
“What men? ’Twas his lordship and the others.”
“What?” She whirled on Ravenwood, now coming up the stairs at a leisurely pace. “You! You knew she was safe and you never told me! How dare you, sir!”
“I did tell you she was safe, Princess. Any number of times, but you didn’t believe me.”
“You never told me that—”
“Never mind that now,” cut in Meg, who had been looking her mistress up and down with an expression of increasing astonishment. “I should like to know, Miss Cicely, just what in the world you’ve been about to turn yourself into such a shagrag. ’Tis a disgrace, the way you look. And to be coming into a gentleman’s house that way, too. Not but what it isn’t your own house, too, of course, for it is, but that’s no call to look like something from I don’t know where, and no mistake. So just you march straight upstairs, and there you’ll bide till we’ve set you to rights again.”
Cicely would have liked very much to point out to Meg Hardy that it was outside of enough for her to be talking to her mistress in such an impertinent fashion. But she could place no dependence upon Meg’s accepting such a snub in the proper spirit. She’d be much more likely to place her hands on her hips and tap her toe while she raked her mistress down in fine style. Cicely glanced at her husband, but there would be no interference from that quarter. His expression, though guarded, showed something perilously akin to unholy amusement. He offered his arm to his mother.
“Come into the drawing room, ma’am, and tell me all about your journey. I trust the roads were passable.”
“Come along, Miss Cicely.”
“Very well. Oh, Meg, I’m glad you’re back,” Cicely exclaimed, hugging her again. “I was so worried about you.”
“Well, I knew you must be, and so I told his lordship, but he said if those villains found out who had snatched me from the Bow Street men, the fat would be in the fire for sure.”
“But he should have told me!” They had reached her bedchamber, and she strode agitatedly toward the window.
“He couldn’t,” Meg said, opening the wardrobe. “Not without he told you about Sir Conrad, too, which he’d have to have done to keep you from spilling the gaff to him, and you’d never have kept a still tongue over that, Miss Cicely, and well you know it.”
“He knew about Conrad, then?” That was a depressing thought, but it explained why he had objected to leaving her alone with her cousin when he had no qualms about leaving her with his friends.
“He only suspected,” Meg told her. “Get out of that dress now, m’lady. He couldn’t risk letting him get wind of the facts. They knew I never took nothing what didn’t belong to me. His lordship said he knew full well I’d been made game of, and he couldn’t leave me to be humiliated in Bow Street. But they didn’t have enough evidence against the others yet. I can tell you, Miss Cicely, I nearly went daft, worrying about the mess that Betty was likely making of your things whilst I was away.”
Cicely stood in her shift and held up her arms to let Meg slip her lavender silk gown over her head. She wouldn’t have to change for dinner later. If she was allowed to have dinner, she thought ruefully. She remembered the twinkle in his eye when he had moved away with Lady Ravenwood. Perhaps it would not be so bad. Still and all, he would have a thing or two to say to her that she would just as lief not hear, and she wished they might have a few moments’ privacy so he could get them said. It occurred to her that, had he wished to speak to her immediately, he was perfectly capable of dismissing both Meg and his mother in order to do so. Clearly, then, he meant for her to think about her sins and to anticipate whatever was in store for her.
Well, she thought, sitting down to have her hair restored to order, thinking about one’s sins had never, in her experience, done anyone much good, and she had learned as a child that it was better to think of almost anything rather than the punishment one had coming. So she would simply go down to the drawing room and renew her acquaintance with the dowager until it was time for dinner. She was halfway out the door before she turned back to the bed and took her pearls from the muff.
“Meg, fasten these for me, will you, please?”
Moments later she entered the drawing room, head high, and greeted her husband and mother-in-law politely. Decidedly the twinkle was back in Ravenwood’s eye, but he soon left them, saying he, too, must change or be put to shame by two such beauties at his table.
Her ladyship lifted her lorgnette and peered at Cicely. “A decided improvement, my dear.”
“I hope you are well, ma’am.”
“Oh, yes. I only look as if I am past praying for. Have done since I was sixteen. ’Tis an asset at times, though, believe me, particularly with menfolk. And by the sound of your recent madcap adventures—oh, yes, Ravenwood has been recounting them to me—’tis a habit you might consider cultivating. Your skin tones would be ideal for it, but you must learn to languish more.” She studied Cicely again through the lorgnette. “I was always willowy, you know. Looked as though a stiff wind would blow me to France. The way your chin went up when you walked in just now, you looked more the type to order the wind to cease at once.”
Cicely found herself smiling, though by what Lady Ravenwood had said there was little to smile about. The dowager clearly expected her to need a defense of some sort in the near future, which did not speak well for the state of Ravenwood’s temper.
Dinner was served an hour later. It was a cheerful enough meal, and afterward they returned to the drawing room for what the dowager called a comfortable coze, but which Cicely quickly discovered meant that Lady Ravenwood intended to catch up on all the latest on dits. She was beginning to think she could stand very little more when the dowager suddenly rose from her chair and announced that she was not going to wait up for the tea tray.
“I have had a long day,” she said, sounding very frail indeed, “and I intend to seek my bed.”
“What a good idea, ma’am!” Cicely agreed with a trifle too much enthusiasm. Then, realizing how she had sounded, she flushed deeply, adding, “I-I mean I, too, am very tired. I daresay I’ll go up with you. You will forgive us, will you not, Ravenwood?”
“As you wish, my dear.” He got to his feet and bent to kiss his mother. “Good night, Mama. I’m truly glad you came.”
She smiled up at him and touched his cheek, then turned to Cicely. “Come along, child.”
Meg was waiting for her and had clearly been going through her wardrobe. “Not so bad as I’d feared,” she said. “That Betty might make something of herself yet. You’re early.”
“It has been a long day,” Cicely said, listening carefully for sounds from the adjoining room while Meg relieved her of the lavender gown and chemise, and slipped the lacy nightdress over her head. Cicely sat down at the candlelit dressing table then, and Meg pulled the pins from her hair, letting it fall like a silvery veil almost to her waist. She picked up the brush.
“’Tis glad I am to be home, Miss Cicely,” she said after a few strokes. “Just didn’t seem right, not putting you to bed each night like I’m used to do.”
“You’ll have to forgo the pleasure one more night, Meg.” He stood on the threshold, having opened the door from the corridor while Cicely watched the door to his bedchamber. She turned toward him, trying to read his expression, but he was smiling at Meg. “I’ll finish for you,” he said. “You can go on to bed, Meg.”
“Yes, my lord.” She set the brush down on the dressing table, bade them good night, and a moment later they were alone.
Cicely sat perfectly still, watching him warily while the candles’ glow shot dancing highlights through her hair.
Ravenwood loosened his neckcloth and pulled it off, then shrugged out of his jacket and cast both articles onto a nearby chair, all without taking his eyes from her. The expression in them was unreadable. He straightened.
“Come here, Cilly,” he said quietly.
Obediently she rose and went to stand before him. He looked down at her gr
avely, then raised his hands and set them lightly upon her shoulders.
She looked up into his face. “I know you must be dreadfully vexed with me, sir,” she said.
He gave a weary smile. “‘Vexed’ is a mild word compared with most of the feelings I have had today. I have alternately wanted to shake you, beat you, scold you, kiss you, and hug you. Which do you suggest I attend to first?”
Her eyes stung. “Oh, please, sir, hug me. I have wanted you to do so since I first saw you in that awful place.” And when he obligingly opened his arms, she flung herself into them, thinking she had never experienced anything so comforting as when they closed around her again. She buried her face against his chest, attempting to stifle the tears that suddenly seemed to insist upon plaguing her. Ravenwood said nothing while he held her tightly for a moment, but then his hold relaxed.
“What next?” he asked gravely.
She remembered the list he had rattled off and trembled a little, but then she lifted her chin and looked him in the eye again. “I should prefer that you kiss me, of course,” she replied, “but I expect it would be wiser to have the scold first.”
“And the other things?”
“Do you truly mean to beat me, sir?” She watched him from under her lashes, thinking he would not, but unaccountably relieved nonetheless when he shook his head and smiled at her.
“After seeing your defense against those four today, I believe it would be more than my life is worth.”
She smiled back. “I would never treat you so, my lord.”
“Ha!” The crack of laughter surprised her. “How can you say that when you trounced me before we were even married?”
Chuckling, she nodded. “I had forgotten. But I truly do not think I would attempt such a thing again.”
“Just as well for you if you do not,” he said, growing serious again. A small silence followed, but when she looked up at him anxiously, he went on. “That was the sop before the scold, I’m afraid. If my men had not been watching both your precious cousin and that shop, your tale might well have been told today. You would have been far wiser to have told me the whole last week when your pearls were stolen.” Her eyes widened with dismay. “Of course I know. My men in Gray’s Inn Lane told me about the episode, not realizing, of course, that they were telling me about my own wife. I didn’t realize myself until days later that your pearls must have been in the reticule. I thought about confronting you then, but I hoped you would come to me.”
“I wanted to,” she muttered, “only—”
“You needn’t explain, Cilly,” he said gently. “I know I frightened you. The Lord knows I meant to frighten you. But I meant it to keep you from doing anything foolish, not to force you to it.”
“I thought so long as I was with Conrad, I would be safe.”
He nodded. “I should have put a stop to that relationship the moment we suspected him, but I was afraid of setting up your back.”
“When did you suspect him?”
“When he made such a point of Vaughan’s talents.”
“But you were annoyed about him before that,” she pointed out.
He nodded with an apologetic grimace. “You and your damned modern marriage!”
“Mine! But I thought that was what you expected!”
“Nonsense. I wanted a wife to love and to love me. I’m afraid I’m an incurable romantic, my dear.”
“To love, my lord?” She stared at him, hardly daring to hope he would repeat the magic words.
“Yes, minx, to love. I have loved you since you were fourteen. Until you emptied a bottle of claret over my head, of course. I admit to a second thought or two at that juncture.”
Smiling ruefully, she put her hand on his arm. “I have been a fool, my lord, in more ways than one. I thought ’twas for my dowry and to please my father that you married me.”
“I didn’t need your dowry, love. I’d plenty to keep us comfortable, and even if I hadn’t, your father would have made me a suitable allowance as his heir whether I had married you or not.”
“Perhaps you should have beat me, sir, or at least shake me for being such an idiotish wife,” she said, looking woeful.
“No.” He pulled her into his arms again, holding her there tightly and kissing the top of her head. “I prefer the kissing part if you don’t mind. I think perhaps I shall kiss you till you squirm, my little one. You will discover then what real punishment can be.” His eyes twinkled then, and before she realized what he meant to do, he had swept her up into his arms and dumped her unceremoniously onto the bed. “’Tis time and more to teach you proper respect for your husband,” he said firmly. “Take off that nightdress.”
Lying back upon the bed, she folded her arms beneath her head and grinned up at him impudently. “Do your worst, my lord. But I fear you’ll have to exert yourself. ’Tis certain I’ll require a deal of teaching.”
1
“I THINK ALL THIS fascination with babies and lace trimmings so soon after breakfast is prodigiously unnatural,” announced ten-year-old Lady Amalie Leighton, very much upon her dignity as she stood poised for departure in the doorway of the sunny morning room at Malmesbury London House. Idly fingering the dark-blue sash of her white muslin morning frock, she regarded the three other, similarly clad, equally fair-haired occupants of the room for a brief moment before adding with a superior air, “I have more important things to do, I assure you.” When none of the three paid her the slightest heed, she tilted her snub nose an inch higher into the air and stepped into the hall, shutting the tall, narrow doors behind her with a decided snap.
The two eldest of the three young ladies remaining in the room looked up from their reading as though the snap had stirred them to life. Eyes atwinkle, their gazes met.
“Aunt Uffington to the life,” said Lady Arabella Leighton, shaking her head in mock sadness.
“Very like her,” agreed her elder sister, the Lady Brittany, “though perhaps it would not be tactful to point out the fact to Amalie. I wonder what the little one has to do this morning that is so important.”
Lady Arabella wrinkled her small straight nose and tucked a strand of tawny hair more securely behind her right ear. Her gray eyes were still alight with laughter. “Since her horses are all down at Malmesbury Park, I am sure I cannot say. She is so very much like Cicely, you know, for until our dear eldest sister married Ravenwood, you will remember that she also preferred her horses and the country to life here in London. Now, of course, since she expects to be confined in May, I doubt Cicely is riding very much.” But that topic had already been discussed at length—several times, in fact—over the period of time since the exciting news had first come that Viscountess Ravenwood was at last expecting her first child, so Arabella turned her attention back to the March issue of the Ladies’ Monthly Museum, spread across her lap. A moment later, she said, “Only look at this evening dress, Tani,” and pushed the magazine, open to “The Mirror of Fashion,” across to her sister. “Still white and so plain, though it is cut very low ’round the bust.”
Obligingly, Brittany pulled the magazine closer and inspected the full-page illustration, showing two stunning young women, one in morning and one in evening dress. “What a quiz of a hat,” she exclaimed, staring at the former. “Only see how it flops down in the center of the forehead, like a cock’s comb.”
“Not the morning gown,” protested Arabella, “though it is of lead-colored luster and no doubt as dull as the gown depicted for evening wear. I had thought we were to be free of black and white at last. So dull, and not good colors for either of us.”
“True,” her sister agreed, “but that magazine is several weeks old, after all.”
“I found it in Alicia’s bedchamber,” Arabella said, glancing at their younger sister, who lounged upon the French seat in the window embrasure, absorbed in another of the morning papers. “She has been hoarding it, though one scarcely knows why when she is not to come out for another year.”
With a wary
glance toward Alicia, Brittany said, “Don’t get her started on that subject, for heaven’s sake. And you would do as well, Bella, not to let Papa hear you speak of your desire to wear colors. Since Queen Charlotte has been dead for scarcely four months, he would regard your attitude as both vain and disrespectful. Indeed, he has scorned the Regent for declaring deep mourning at an end, and he dislikes even more this rush among the royal dukes to produce an heir to the throne.” She gestured toward the Morning Post, spread open to the “Royal News” upon her own lap. “And although Amalie wishes we would discuss other things, with Cicely increasing and the Duchesses of Cambridge and Clarence both lying in at practically the same moment in Hanover, one cannot be surprised if we discuss babies nearly as often as we discuss the latest clothing styles.”
“Indeed, and despite Papa’s notions, I for one am grateful that the Regent has put an end to general mourning,” said Arabella, “even if he did so only in honor of the state visits of the Algerian and Persian ambassadors. However, I was assured …” Her voice trailed away as she skimmed the columns of text opposite the illustration. “Oh, here, listen to this, Tani, about the morning gown’s headdress. ‘A white blond cornette, the headpiece of which projects a little in the middle of the forehead’—that is what you did not like—‘it is tied under the chin with a full bow of pale rose-colored riband and edged and striped with pipings of deep rose-colored satin. Kid shoes to correspond, and lemon-colored gloves.’ Lemon and rose—so there is indeed color at last.” She heaved a sigh of satisfaction and quietly continued to read.
The ensuing silence was broken only by the turning of pages for some moments thereafter. Then suddenly there came a sharp cry of distaste from the Lady Alicia Leighton, whose lounging posture on the window seat had deteriorated to a sprawl that would have produced a stern lecture from her mama or Miss Fellows, her governess. Lady Alicia’s attention was focused upon an article in the Times. Ordinarily, she would have scorned to read so stuffy a paper, but as the youngest of the three she had little choice in her portion, and for once, even the Times’ attention had been caught by events upon the Continent in which the Lady Alicia was deeply interested.