by Julia Keaton
“But … never mind,” Bronte said, deciding as she helped her mother into her bed and tucked the covers around her, that it was useless to remind her mother that some people functioned very poorly when woken from a sound sleep. “I’ll be back momentarily with a glass of milk.”
“And perhaps a sliver of the cake cook baked earlier,” Lady Millford added as Bronte reached the door again.
Bronte hesitated, turning to look back at her mother. “Should you--? Never mind. Anything else?”
“Well, perhaps a bit more than a sliver, but just a small piece, mind you.”
Darcy grabbed Bronte the moment she entered her room, shoving her back against the wall and kissing her as avidly as if they had not been thoroughly interrupted.
As tempted as she was to allow herself to be dragged once more under his spell, Bronte had had time for more cool headed thinking. After a moment, she pushed against his chest, breaking the kiss. “Darcy, you have to go.”
He dragged in a shuddering breath, fighting for control with an obvious effort. “I had a very bad feeling you were going to say that.”
Bronte couldn’t help but chuckle at his expression. “I have to fetch Mother something from the kitchen. If you’ll be really quiet I’ll let you out the back so you won’t have to go out the way you came in.”
He nodded. “I’d as soon not try the window again. It wasn’t easy coming up with the trellis.”
Bronte shook her head at him, feeling a surge of both affection and amusement. “You are the most incorrigible rogue. How am I to explain the broken trellis?”
He grinned at her unrepentantly. “Pretend ignorance, darlin’. That’s usually the best bet. Trying to come up with a story only creates more problems because then you have to remember what lies you told.”
Chapter Sixteen
“You and I have unfinished business,” Darcy murmured close to her ear as he twirled Bronte about the dance floor in a waltz, bringing a flood of color into her cheeks. She sent him a startled glance, for up until that moment, he’d behaved as if the incident of two nights ago had never occurred.
He grinned at her expression, leaning closer to whisper in her ear. “That. Too. I don’t mind telling you I’m sorely in need and I can offer you no guarantees--if you continue to tease me so unmercifully and then withhold your favors--that I will remember next time that I’m supposed to be a gentleman.”
Bronte felt her heart flutter at the promise/threat, felt her breath catch in her chest and her sex quiver with unrequited ache. The devil take him for being so charming and handsome! “You are more rogue than gentleman, and always were, Darcy St. James! And what’s more, I could as easily lay that accusation at your door as the other way around, for you know very well I did not initiate anything.”
Amusement gleamed in his eyes as he gazed down at her. His arched one brow. “No? It seemed so to me.”
His teasing drew a smile, despite her best efforts to contain it. “You were foxed. Mother gave me a most suspicious look when she learned of the trellis.”
“I will use the door next time.”
“You will not!” Bronte gasped, uncertain of whether he was serious or not.
He shrugged. “I’d hoped to avoid the rose canes.”
“There are no rose canes!” Bronte responded tartly. “You stomped the rose bush down.”
“I have far more reason to be outdone about that than you. It is I who spent a good deal of the night picking thorns from my arse.”
That comment provoked a chuckle. “Behave yourself or I will regret that I did not eschew your company altogether after your trespass.”
His expression became serious. “Speaking of which … why came you to be at that disreputable gathering when I had warned you away?”
Bronte sighed. “Nick lectured me all the way home. Is that not sufficient? Must you lecture me, as well?”
A troubled look came into Darcy’s eyes. “It might have turned out far worse than it did, Bronte.”
“I know. I was fearful that you or Nick, or both, would end up on the dueling field. I wish the two of you would stop trying to protect me. I am not a child anymore.”
He shook his head disbelievingly. “You don’t truly believe it’s no more than that, Bronte.”
Bronte found she couldn’t maintain her gaze. She looked away. “You’re saying that is not a part of it?”
She could’ve bitten her tongue the moment the words were out for even to her own ears it sounded as if she was fishing for some sort of declaration when she most definitely was not. A declaration of any kind was something she most desperately wanted to avoid, for then she would be put in the miserably uncomfortable position of having to decline. Nick had not bought the ‘you’re too much like an older brother’ excuse, and she doubted very much that Darcy would, especially after the way she’d behaved the other night.
Darcy frowned. “I suppose it was, in the beginning, at least. And it’s for damned sure you’ve little more notion of how to look out for yourself now than you did when you were no more than knee high and about as big around as a green twig.
“I wouldn’t have considered it of any consequence if I had ended up in a duel, and can say with certainty that Nick wouldn’t have either. I wasn’t talking about that. I was talking about what might have happened to you.”
Bronte’s jaw set. “It could not have been as bad as all that. I’m not a green girl, Darcy. I was married, remember?”
“I ain’t likely to forget,” Darcy said grimly. “Especially when you are so determined to throw it at me every time I open my mouth, but Isaac was damned near as green as you were when you wed, and being with your husband isn’t the same thing at all.”
“How would you know? You’ve never married,” Bronte pointed out tartly.
“I’ve been with plenty of women that were,” Darcy shot back at her. “And don’t give me that look, Bronte. You know damned well I’m no saint and never claimed to be.”
“But I’m supposed to be?” Bronte demanded indignantly. “Perhaps I went because I was looking for a lover,” she added. “Did that not occur to you?”
“No, it didn’t, because I know better. Is that what you told Nick that’s got him tied in knots and out looking for somebody to kill?”
Bronte sent him a startled look, but there was nothing in his expression to suggest that he was being other than completely serious.
His face hardened. “Fairfax didn’t call Nick out. Nick called Fairfax out. The only reason neither one of them are dead now is because Fairfax refused to meet him on the field. They went a few rounds at the boxing salon instead.”
Fear clutched at Bronte’s insides. “Darcy, this must stop.”
“It must,” he said grimly. “You’ll have to choose between us, Bronte. If it’s Nick, I’ll learn to live with it, but I’ll tell you plain out, unless you tell me right now that you care nothing for me at all, I won’t step aside for anyone else.”
Dismay filled her. It was all very well to say he would learn to live with it, but what about her? Could she live with it? She swallowed with an effort, wishing she had thought of an excuse not to dance with him for she didn’t at all care for the direction the conversation seemed to be taking and she couldn’t for the life of her think of anything to say to turn it. “You would know that I was lying if I told you I did not care for you.”
He seemed to relax fractionally, though she had been so unnerved herself she didn’t realize until that moment that he had tensed as if expecting a blow. “Then marry me.”
It was just as well that the dance ended at that moment for Bronte was so stunned she froze in shock, gaping up at him stupidly.
He reddened slightly. “For God’s sake, Bronte, don’t look at me like that. Everyone will begin to think I offered you an insult.”
Bronte closed her mouth, but when she looked around, her head swum dizzily. The fear seized her that she was going to disgrace herself by fainting dead away in the middle of the dance f
loor, and perhaps even worse, that she would distress Darcy by doing so. Try though she might to fight it off, however, the darkness seemed to close in more firmly upon her. “I think I may have gotten a little overheated,” she said through strangely numb lips.
Nearly as white faced as Bronte was by that time, Darcy glanced around a little desperately and finally spied her mother seated near the refreshment table. “Can you make it to the chair just there?”
Bronte couldn’t see the chair, but she nodded hopefully. “I think so.”
He tucked her firmly against his side. “I suppose I should take this as a definite no,” he said hesitantly, drawing a quick look from her.
“Please don’t think like that, Darcy! I’m just feeling a little dizzy.”
She began to feel a little better when he’d helped her into the chair, but only in the sense that she was no longer in plain view of everyone if she should keel over in a dead faint.
Her mother took one look at her and immediately began to fuss about the heat of the overcrowded room. She drew far more attention than Bronte cared for, but it was a relief that everyone seemed to accept that it was no more than an understandable episode brought on by tight stays and too much exertion in a heated room. Darcy brought her a glass of punch and when she’d drunk it she began to feel better in truth, but she did not argue when her mother insisted that they go home.
They had no more than settled in the carriage than her mother dropped all pretense of believing Bronte had become ill from the heat.
“What in the world happened?” she demanded.
Bronte slumped into one corner, closing her eyes, for she still felt more than a little ill. “Darcy proposed.”
“Darcy St. James?” Lady Millford exclaimed.
Bronte winced, wishing she’d kept her mouth shut. “What other Darcy would I be talking about?” she asked testily.
“I can’t say that I care for your tone.”
“Please excuse me, Mother. It’s just that I’m not feeling at all the thing.”
Lady Millford sniffed. “Well, I must say I am not surprised you nearly fainted dead away. If you had told me before, I am sure I would have. Darcy St. James! You are certain you heard him correctly?”
Bronte burst into tearful wails. “I can only imagine what he must have thought when I nearly passed out on the dance floor! I have behaved so dreadfully, but I could not help it, Mother. Truly, I couldn’t. I was just so surprised.”
“There, there, dear. You mustn’t cry about it. I’m sure you have not wounded him too deeply. He is a disreputable rake, my dear … worse, if you can believe it, than Nick Cain … and both of them confirmed bachelors, though there have been many a female who has tried to entice them down the aisle from what I hear. Most likely you misunderstood something that he said to you.”
Instead of comforting her, the suggestion that she had wounded Darcy made Bronte cry harder, for she couldn’t help but remember the expression of dismay on his face, or his comment about taking her faint as a refusal of his proposal.
“You are not seriously considering a proposal from him, are you? Assuming, of course, that you did hear him correctly and it was not some silly bet or something of that nature.”
Bronte sniffed her tears back, searching for her handkerchief. Far from being insulted at her mother’s suggestion, she felt a ray of hope that, perhaps, she had not wounded Darcy after all, and that she needn’t torment herself with trying to think of some way she might decline without hurting or angering him.
“You think it might have been something like that?”
Lady Millford rolled her eyes. “Men! They will wager on anything, up to and including which male fly will mount the female first, though I am not at all sure how it is that they can tell which are male and which female.”
“Mother!” Bronte gasped in shock, torn between amusement and horror.
Her mother gave her a complacent smile. “I did not find you in a garden patch, my dear. I do know a little something.”
Lady Millford did not cease to marvel over the fact that Darcy had proposed, and Bronte began to think that perhaps she had heard him incorrectly. He came to visit the following day to see how she was, but he said nothing, nor did he behave as if anything at all had happened.
On the other hand he had been much the same about the night he had climbed into her window and she’d become convinced then that he had been so foxed he either didn’t remember it at all, or he wasn’t certain what woman’s bed he had climbed into. Since he’d proved her wrong that time, she couldn’t decide whether he was merely allowing her time to come to terms with the idea and decide upon an answer, or if her mother was right after all.
What, she wondered, might he have said that she could have misunderstood though?
Try though she might, she couldn’t remember the precise words that he’d used. It had not been the least like a formal declaration, but then she would not have expected Darcy to be at all formal. Still … on the dance floor? Almost as if it were one of his peculiar impulses? Was that it?
He was impulsive. Perhaps something had prompted him to ask, and he’d immediately regretted it, and he was hoping she wouldn’t bring it up again?
Nick called upon her later that same day and asked to speak with her alone in the parlor. Bronte had no idea why it popped into her mind that Darcy had asked him to come and explain that he hadn’t really meant it, but that was the trend of her mind when her mother left them alone.
When he knelt and took her hand, Bronte merely stared at him blankly, wondering what in the world he was doing on the floor. He seemed to be having difficulty saying anything at all, however, and he looked so pale that she began to wonder after a few moments if he was quite all right.
His poor face was battered still, and she wondered what Lord Fairfax must look like. She couldn’t imagine how such a handsome man could be so careless of his looks as to allow other men to punch it with such regularity, although, to do him justice, except for when he fought with Darcy, he generally managed to avoid flying fists.
“Are you feeling all right?” she asked finally. “You’re not unwell?”
He flushed. “You are not making this easy, Bronte.”
Bronte stared at him, feeling the blood leave her face. “This isn’t bad news, is it, Nick?” she asked breathlessly, her mind instantly supplying her with a half a dozen horrible possibilities.
“I should bloody well hope not,” he said irritably.
The response jolted Bronte from her tormented thoughts but did nothing to calm her racing heart.
“I wanted to ask if you would do me the honor of becoming my wife.”
Bronte merely stared at him for a couple of moments and then burst into tears.
Nick stared at her in dismay, turning whiter if possible. “I take it those are not tears of joy,” he finally managed to say.
Bronte searched frantically for her handkerchief, wailing louder. After a moment, Nick pulled his from his pocket and handed it to her.
Lady Millford burst into the room, stared at the tableaux before her in horror for a couple of seconds, then fell back against the door, holding her heart. “Who? Who? Has someone died?”
Reddening, Nick got to his feet. “Perhaps I should go.”
“No!” Bronte cried, grasping his hand. “Please don’t. I’m so sorry. Mother, please! Everything is fine … really.”
“No one died?” Lady Millford asked, obviously confused.
Nick sent her a chagrinned look.
Lady Millford glanced from Nick to Bronte and finally shook her head and departed without another word, closing the door once more. When she had gone, Nick settled beside Bronte, studied her for several moments and finally grasped her hand. “It’s all right, sweetheart. Don’t cry.”
Bronte felt her chin wobble and tried to fight off a fresh onslaught of tears. Finally, she flung herself upon Nick’s chest, wrapping her arms around his neck and burrowing her face against his neck cloth. “It i
sn’t all right. I’m so sorry to behave so badly. It’s just … I had this terrible feeling that something very bad had happened.”
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Nick murmured wryly. “Darcy is fine.”
Bronte stiffened. She should have known that Nick would know instantly that it was fear for Darcy that had upset her so. She lifted her head, placing her palm on his cheek and urging him to look at her.
“Do you love him?”
Tears filled her eyes again and ran down her cheeks. “No more than I love you.”
He swallowed with an effort. “You meant it then, the other night when you said that you could only think of me and Darcy as brothers.”