Slightly Scandalous b-5

by Mary Balogh

  What would happen to her sister, Freyja wondered, now that she was grown up and about to be launched on society? Would she find a man who would appreciate her, who would allow her enough rein to feel free, who would not clip her wings?

  And what would happen to her? Once this foolish business of a murder accusation had been cleared up, she was going to have to end her betrothal to Joshua. There must be no more putting it off again for any flimsy reason that presented itself. But then what would happen to her?

  "You may paint at Penhallow," Joshua said to Morgan, "and probe all the mysteries of the universe with your brush. But, speaking of Penhallow, the house is about to come into view around this bend."

  The bend was necessitated by the presence of a river valley cutting across the landscape. The cliff turned sharply inland and then fell gradually away to a steep hillside. The road had been built along the top of it. Below was a river, wide and slow-moving at this point on its course, flowing onward to the sea. The slopes on either side were green and rocky and carpeted in many places with pink thrift and yellow gorse and white clover. On the near side of the valley were the church and houses of a village, close to the sea, climbing the hillside for lack of enough flat land beside the river.

  On the far, western side of the valley, perhaps half a mile from the sea, and perched on a wide plateau more than halfway up the hillside, was a large, imposing gray stone mansion. It was half turned to face the sea, smooth-looking lawns all about it and continuing down the hill with beds of brown earth that must be flower gardens in the summer. Surrounded as it was on all four sides as well as above and below by the wild beauties of the Cornish seacoast, the house and park were like a perfect, cultivated gem.

  There was something about Freyja's first sight of Penhallow that was pure physical sensation, almost as if a fist had collided with a dull thud into her ribs below the heart. It was almost painful.

  The road was descending slowly but rather steeply into the valley and the three-arched stone bridge Freyja could see there. On the other side the road followed the line of the river north for a while before climbing out of the valley on the other side. There was also a steep, curving driveway up to the house and a smaller, though not inconsiderable stone house at the bottom of it-a dower house, perhaps.

  Morgan and Alleyne were crowded against the window on their side of the carriage, looking out. Joshua was looking over Freyja's shoulder.

  "Impressive indeed," Alleyne said.

  "Beautiful!" Morgan said softly.

  Joshua was silent. And tense. Freyja could sense his tension even though he did not touch her. This was where his aunt and cousins lived. Where he had spent an unhappy childhood as an orphan in his uncle's home. This was where he had wanted never to return. And where he would fight suspicion and innuendo and hostility and hatred and accusations of murder.

  It was his. It was his inheritance, his source of wealth and prestige, his responsibility. It was the millstone about his neck.

  She knew almost nothing about his life here, about what had driven him away, about why he had been so reluctant to return. But she was about to discover much, she supposed. She was not sure she wanted to. She had always thought of Joshua as a laughing, carefree, charming man with little depth of character. She had thought of him as pleasant to flirt with, pleasant even to lie with, but not in any way desirable as a lifelong partner. She had always expected to be able to say good-bye to him without any real regrets.

  She hoped all that was not about to change, but she had a horrible sinking feeling that perhaps it was.

  For no reason she could fathom, and without at all intending to, she sought his hand with her own and held it firmly. He laced his fingers with hers and gripped so tightly that she felt pain. Normally she would have reprimanded him sharply or tried to outgrip him. But she sat quietly and made no protest at all.

  The wheels of the carriage rumbled over the bridge and Freyja was aware of a wide and beautiful view along the river to the sea. Both were sparkling like a million diamonds in the sunshine, the clouds having just moved off the face of the sun.

  It would be difficult to approach Penhallow unseen unless one climbed to the headland above it and sneaked down the hill on foot. The approach of two grand traveling carriages, another, plainer one for the servants, and two baggage coaches would have been well nigh impossible to miss.

  Even so, only Jim Saunders was waiting on the gravel terrace before the front doors when the first carriage, in which Joshua rode with Freyja, Alleyne, and Morgan, drew level with them and then pulled ahead to allow room for Eve and Aidan's carriage too. Grooms were approaching from the stables.

  Joshua was first out of the carriage. He shook hands warmly with the steward he had hired in London six months ago and not seen since, and turned to hand Freyja and Morgan down before Alleyne alighted. Aidan was already lifting the children out of their carriage, and the two of them were dashing to the edge of the terrace to gaze downward along the valley to the wide golden beach at the end of it.

  "I came as fast as I could," Joshua said after he had presented Saunders to the Bedwyns.

  "And a good thing too, my lord," Saunders told him. "The Reverend Calvin Moore arrived last night."

  The front doors had opened at last, and glancing up, Joshua saw his aunt standing on the top step, looking frail and wan in her black mourning clothes, a black-bordered handkerchief held to her lips. He wondered if she had expected him. He wondered if she had expected that he would bring Freyja with him. He would wager she had not expected him to bring other guests too. And the Bedwyns were a formidable lot. With the exception of Eve, they were all gazing at the marchioness with their haughtiest expressions. No one could do haughtiness quite like the Bedwyns.

  Joshua almost grinned but decided against it.

  "Aunt?" he said, striding toward her.

  She came down the steps and melted into his arms.

  "Joshua, my dearest boy," she said. "What a perfectly delightful surprise-and just when I had given up all hope of your ever coming home. I was just now observing to Cousin Calvin . . . But you do not know that he has come for a visit, do you? I was just observing to him that it would be more the thing for you to receive him since Penhallow is yours and he is your heir, but that you had not found the time to come here since your poor uncle passed on. And then Chastity saw the carriages approaching and I knew that my prayers had been answered."

  No, Joshua concluded, she had not expected him. Neither did she realize that he knew what was afoot, or else she chose not to speak of it immediately. She might, of course, have greeted him quite differently if he had come alone.

  "I am delighted to be here, Aunt," he said. "I have brought houseguests with me, as you can see. You know my betrothed already. May I present Lord and Lady Aidan Bedwyn, Lady Morgan Bedwyn, and Lord Alleyne Bedwyn? My aunt, the Marchioness of Hallmere."

  She welcomed them graciously. For a moment it looked as if she were about to hug Freyja, but something in Freyja's stance caused her to change her mind and she contented herself with a warm, watery smile instead. A stranger would have sworn that she had never been happier in her life than she was at this moment in greeting a number of unexpected guests to the house she considered her own.

  "And children!" she exclaimed, clasping her hands to her bosom and gazing fondly at Becky and Davy, who were still admiring the view while their nurse looked on from beside the third carriage. "How delightful it will be to hear the happy voices of children echoing about Penhallow's halls again. It has been many years since you and Albert and the girls were children, Joshua. Those were good days. Will you all come up to the drawing room, where everyone is waiting to meet you? You must be ready for your tea."

  Joshua turned to offer his arm to Freyja, but before she could take it, someone came hurtling past his aunt in the doorway. She was ungainly in her haste, her arms clamped to her sides down to the elbows, her hands flapping to the sides in a show of excitement. Her round, childish face beam
ed with happiness. She was laughing convulsively as children do when deeply involved in a game.

  "Josh!" she was saying over and over again. "Josh, Josh, Josh."

  He opened his arms and she came into them, coming close to bowling him over. Her arms gripped him tightly about the neck, almost throttling him, and her head came down so that she butted him in the chest with her forehead and fairly robbed him of breath. She was still laughing and repeating his name.

  She had grown up in five years-she was eighteen now-but she still looked much the same as she had last time he saw her.

  "Prue!" he said, closing his arms about her. "Prue, my sweetest love."

  "You have come home," she told his chest. "I knew you would come home. Josh, Josh, Josh."

  "Prudence!" his aunt said in awful tones. "How dare you leave the nursery without my permission! Where is Miss Palmer?"

  "It is all right, Aunt," Joshua said as his cousin began to make grunting noises of distress. "What better welcome home could I possibly be given? I have brought some people for you to meet, my love. If you will leave off hugging me, I will present them to you."

  "Lady Prudence Moore, my cousin," he said, looking first at Freyja. "This is Lady Freyja Bedwyn, Prue. I daresay she will allow you to call her Freyja just as she will call you Prue. She is going to be my wife."

  Now, why the devil had he added that?

  Prue smiled her wide, guileless child's smile at each of the Bedwyns in turn and repeated their names quietly to herself so that she would not forget them. When Joshua had finished introducing them, she looked at him and laughed.

  "And this is Josh," she said, having noticed that he had not been introduced to anyone.

  "And I am Josh," he said, smiling tenderly at her and setting one arm about her shoulders.

  "And you have come home."

  "And I have come home."

  "And you have brought Freyja," Prue said. "I like Freyja. I like everyone. I like Eve best, though. Except Josh. I love Josh most in the world. Except for Chass and Constance and-"

  "Prudence!" her mother said a little more faintly.

  Joshua chuckled and caught Freyja's eye. She was not looking cold or haughty or shocked or repelled or any of the things he might have expected. She was gazing fully at him, a light of sharp curiosity in her eyes.

  His aunt led the way into the house. Eve hurried forward and took Prue's arm, a kind and very genuine smile lighting her pretty face, while Aidan strode across the terrace to fetch the children. Morgan and Alleyne had already stepped inside. Joshua offered Freyja his arm.

  "She has always been a child," he said. "She always will be."

  "And you love her," Freyja said.

  "She is made up of love," he said. "There is nothing else in her but love. How could one give back to her anything else but love?"

  "Josh," she said with a sigh, "this is something I really did not need to know about you."

  "Sweetheart," he said, laughing softly, "did you think me incapable of loving? How unsporting of you."

  CHAPTER XVI

  The pillared hallway was two stories high with marble friezes and marble busts that would be worth examining more closely some time. The stairway with its wide, gleaming oak stairs and intricately carved banister was in a separate chamber. The drawing room to which the Marchioness of Hallmere led them was a large, square, elegantly classical apartment with an ornately sculptured marble fireplace, silk-paneled walls with gilded trim, a high, coved ceiling painted with scenes from Greek mythology, and a deep bay window with a breathtaking prospect down over the valley and out to-ward the sea.

  Freyja did not immediately notice the view, but from the moment she stepped inside the house she realized that it was far grander than she had expected. Yet it was a place to which Joshua had never wanted to return.

  Lady Constance was waiting in the drawing room. She smiled with genuine warmth at Joshua and at Freyja. The other lady with her, slender almost to the point of thinness, brown-haired with a long, oval face and large, beautiful, sad eyes, was her younger sister, Lady Chastity Moore. The slightly portly, somewhat balding gentleman with shirt points so stiff and high that he had to move the whole of his upper body when he wished to turn his head, was introduced to the newly arrived guests as the Reverend Calvin Moore, Joshua's second cousin.

  The heir, who had been sent for, Freyja supposed.

  It was Joshua who made the introductions, not his aunt. Indeed, Freyja noticed with interest, his whole manner had changed as soon as they set foot inside the drawing room. The room became almost visibly his. He became lord of the manor. He invited them all to be seated after the introductions had been made or to look out at the view from the bay window. He asked his aunt if she would be so good as to have tea brought up.

  "Prudence," his aunt said, her sweet smile belying the venomous glance she darted at her youngest daughter, "return to Miss Palmer in the nursery immediately."

  "Oh, no," Joshua said, the Marquess of Hallmere to his fingertips, "Prue may stay for tea, Aunt."

  The girl flapped her hands in excitement, and Lady Chastity took one of them in her own and drew her sister down beside her on a love seat.

  "Absolutely," Eve agreed, seating herself close to them and beaming at both. "We came here to see Joshua's home and to meet the members of his family who live here. Prue is one of those."

  "A splendid view indeed," Alleyne commented after strolling into the bay window. "I suppose the beach on this side of the valley is a private one, Joshua? Part of the estate? I envy you."

  "I still want to paint the sea," Morgan said-she was standing beside Alleyne. "But I want to paint this valley too and the house and the park on the hillside. It is a good thing you are to be my brother-in-law, Joshua. I may have to visit you here several times and at different times of the year before my palette has been satisfied. Oh, Freyja, all this is to be yours too."

  "I daresay this is sheep country, is it, Joshua?" Aidan asked. "Your farmland is above the valley? I look forward to viewing it with you and to chatting with your steward."

  Freyja was ignoring the view beyond the window for the moment. She was very deliberately viewing the room, standing in the middle of it and turning slowly.

  "It is a magnificent apartment," she said in her haughtiest voice. "I daresay I will wish to change some of the furnishings and draperies after we are married, Josh, but those are minor matters. I shall very much enjoy entertaining here. I daresay you enjoyed it in your day too, ma'am." She smiled graciously at the marchioness, who smiled sweetly back but was saved from having to reply by the arrival of the tea trays.

  The Bedwyns, Freyja thought, had made their point.

  Joshua was talking with his second cousin.

  "It is a happy chance that you should be at Penhallow at just the time I have brought my betrothed and some of her family to see the home that will be hers after we wed," he said. "It must be nearly ten years since I saw you last, Calvin. You decided to take a vacation in Cornwall, did you?"

  The Reverend Calvin Moore flushed. "I was invited here by Cousin Corinne," he said stiffly.

  "Indeed?" Joshua raised his eyebrows and looked at his aunt with a smile. "You guessed that I would bring Freyja here soon, did you, Aunt, and thought to surprise me with a visit from my heir? That was extraordinarily kind of you. Feel free to stay for a week or longer, Calvin-as long as you wish, in fact. It will be pleasant to have my own family about me here as well as Freyja's."

  Mr. Moore cleared his throat. "It is good of you to say so, Hallmere," he said.

  They all sat down for tea after that and conversed pleasantly enough on a variety of different topics. It was all rather amusing, Freyja thought. The air fairly shouted the unspoken topic. A witness had stepped forward to accuse Joshua of a five-year-old murder. The Reverend Calvin Moore obviously knew about it already. So did the daughters, with the probable exception of Prue. And so, of course, did Joshua and all the Bedwyns. But not a word of the pending scandal was spo
ken aloud.

  The marchioness had been taken by surprise, Freyja guessed-by the sudden arrival of her nephew, by the fact that he had brought her and other houseguests with him, and by his courteously masterful manner. She had hatched the plot, but it obviously had not yet come to full fruition.

  And so there was an absurd sense of normality about the whole scene. Two families, about to be connected by marriage, took tea together and made themselves agreeable to one another. The marchioness fairly sparkled with joy.

  "Mrs. Richardson will be ready to show you to your rooms," she said when they had finished tea. "You will all wish to rest before dinner, I am sure. How delightful it will be to have so many guests at my table. I have longed for this moment. Have I not, Constance?"

  "Rest?" Freyja said, smiling faintly at the woman. "I think not, ma'am. I will change and freshen up and then I will be ready for a tour of the house. You will oblige me, Josh?"

  "It would be my pleasure," he said. "Will everyone else join us? You too, Calvin? And Chass, you must accompany us, if you will. You were always more knowledgeable about the house than anyone else. And yes, Prue, my love, we will certainly not go without you. Shall we all meet in the hall in half an hour?"

  The house was far larger than it had appeared to be during their approach to it. It was an elegant, square building. Most of the living apartments were in the front wing, facing toward the southeast and the magnificent views over gardens and valley and sea. The private apartments and bedchambers were in the east wing, the state apartments, the ballroom, and the long gallery in the west wing. The north wing, facing half up the valley and half back toward sloping gardens and hillside, consisted mostly of offices, with servants' quarters on the upper floors.