by Mary Balogh
“If I were unwilling,” she said, “I would give him the cut direct, especially if he were indeed impudent. But I cannot construe a properly made introduction at a ball as forcing attention upon anyone. And today he made his invitation very properly—and very generally—to your mama.”
“I beg your pardon,” he said again stiffly.
It was the closest she had come to quarreling openly with him. But really, Morgan thought, he could be very tiresome. And possessiveness was something she would tolerate in no man who was not her husband—or even in her husband, she decided, amending her thought.
But now look what he had provoked her into, she thought, turning her eyes on the departing figure of Lord Rosthorn. Here she was defending the man when she was feeling more than a little annoyed with him.
What was he up to?
CHAPTER III
PREPARATIONS FOR WAR PROCEEDED APACE IN Belgium. Every day brought fresh troops and supplies and artillery—though never enough for the Duke of Wellington, it was said. But not many people believed there was any danger to Brussels itself. Very few returned to the safety of the British Isles. Most threw themselves with ever greater enthusiasm into the entertainments offered daily for their amusement, determined to stay close to husbands and brothers and sons and lovers for as long as they were able.
The evening picnic in the Forest of Soignés to be hosted by the Earl of Rosthorn proved more popular than any other entertainment so far. Of the dozens of invitations sent out, only three refusals came back.
It had, of course, been an idea conceived entirely on the spur of the moment, Gervase admitted to himself after talking with Lady Caddick at the military review, which he had attended with the express purpose of encountering Lady Morgan Bedwyn again. Waldane had laughed at him and told him a little maliciously that he would be the envy of every hostess in Brussels—provided the party did not get rained upon. But Gervase had not cared. He had hired an agency, turned over every detail of the preparations to its expert care, even the compiling of the guest list—he had simply instructed them to invite everyone who was anyone—and carried on with his days as if he were to be no more than a guest himself.
By the time the appointed day dawned, all the preparations had been taken care of and his only concern was the weather. But after a morning of intermittent showers and a cloudy afternoon, the sky had cleared by teatime and the sun shone from then until it set. The moon was up even before full darkness descended, and darkness itself brought millions of stars twinkling overhead. It was also a warm and windless night.
Now, Gervase thought as he surveyed the site, commended the head of the agency, who was present to act as usher and to oversee the catering and all other details of the proceedings in person, and awaited the arrival of the first guest, he had better hope that Lady Morgan Bedwyn would not find some excuse to stay away.
She had bristled with almost visible annoyance at the review, when he had virtually ignored her after looking his fill and had addressed himself—with perfect correctness—to her chaperon.
And she was a very proud, haughty young lady. She might well decide to punish him by remaining at home with a headache or some other mild indisposition.
But he would wager upon her being too proud to make a false excuse and too bold not to face his challenge head-on. She must have recognized the challenge. She was not, he had been delighted to discover, a foolish young lady.
Even so, he conceded, this was a colossally expensive gamble.
The envy of every hostess in Brussels, for the love of God!
MORGAN, WEARING A PALE GREEN EVENING GOWN that had seemed to her to somehow suit the occasion, was sitting in the open barouche beside Rosamond, their backs to the horses, while Lord and Lady Caddick sat facing them. The evening could not possibly have been lovelier for such an event if they had had the ordering of it, Morgan thought, lifting her face to the sky, which was quite visible through the high branches of the trees.
The picnic was to be a large and lavish entertainment, she had learned since the Earl of Rosthorn had extended his verbal invitation beside the Dender. Everyone she knew had been invited. Even Alleyne was coming. So were a large number of the officers of her acquaintance—including, of course, Captain Lord Gordon.
She almost had not come herself. She had even considered the message she would send along with the Caddicks—she would insist upon their going, of course. She would have them inform the Earl of Rosthorn that she preferred to remain at home with a good book this evening since she had been out every night for a week and was a little weary of being entertained. But Lady Caddick would never pass along such a message, of course. She would doubtless tell him that Morgan had a headache or some such lowering thing.
Besides, she scorned the whole idea of avoiding him. It would be far better, she had decided, to go and confront him and make him understand that if this picnic had been arranged with her in mind, then he had made a massive error in judgment. She would show him that she found his rakish attentions a colossal bore.
She had never before had a rake to contend with. Wulfric would have had to raise only half an eyebrow in London to frighten away any who had even contemplated dallying with her. And Aunt Rochester had hovered like a large, gorgeously plumed bird of prey.
There was, Morgan admitted to herself, a certain exhilaration in the prospect of matching wits with a practiced rake.
“The air is warm now,” Lady Caddick remarked, “but one wonders if it will not cool off later. Perhaps we ought to have brought the carriage, Caddick.”
Lord Caddick grunted, and Morgan and Rosamond exchanged smiles. They both preferred the barouche.
What happened at an evening picnic? It was a question Rosamond had asked repeatedly during the past few days. Would it be similar to an afternoon picnic? Would they sit around on blankets, eating chicken legs and lobster patties and sipping wine? Would there be strolls in the forest afterward? But would it not be too dark among the trees? Perhaps, she had suggested, the darkness would provide an excuse to get lost for a few minutes with the gentleman of one’s choice.
If that happened with her, Morgan thought dryly, the gentleman would almost undoubtedly be Captain Lord Gordon. Or the Earl of Rosthorn . . . Now that might present an interesting challenge, at least.
The Forest of Soignés was like a great cathedral, she decided, breathing in the verdant fragrance of it while the carriage moved onward and thinking of incense. There was very little undergrowth. To either side of the road the beechwood trees soared overhead on smooth, massive, silvery trunks, like mighty marble columns. Their branches fanned out far overhead like an intricately fretted ceiling. The forest inspired awe, as a Gothic cathedral might. One felt in the very midst of something powerful, something mysterious, something beyond the mundane here and now, something that lifted one’s spirit to another plane.
Suddenly Morgan’s fingers itched to paint it all—the forest and the spirit within it. Suddenly her life during the past few months seemed very trivial. She missed the countryside about Lindsey Hall and the frequent hours of solitude she valued so much.
“I wonder,” Rosamond said, also gazing upward, “if there will be enough moonlight visible through the branches to enable us to see what we eat? Perhaps the forest was not the best choice of site for a picnic after all.”
But no doubt the Earl of Rosthorn would have thought about that potential problem and found a solution—or at least whoever he had hired to arrange the picnic would have done. Morgan doubted he had lifted a finger in preparation himself. And she was quite right about the one thing, of course. As the barouche approached the appointed picnic site, they could see lanterns—hundreds of them in every color of the rainbow—strung among the branches of the trees.
Suddenly the forest had a different type of enchantment—a man-made one, more human, more intimate, more romantic. It was just as appealing in its own way as the natural beauty Morgan had just been lost in.
“It is magical,” Rosamon
d said, her eyes shining. “Like Vauxhall Gardens.”
Small tables had been arranged among the trees, each laid with a crisp white cloth and set formally with fine china and crystal and silver. Each had a small colored lamp glowing at its center.
But the splendor was not just visual.
“Listen!” Morgan held up one hand. As the carriage drew to a halt and the rumbling of its wheels and the clopping of the horses’ hooves died away, they could hear music. It was being provided by a small orchestra seated on a wooden dais farther back from the road among the trees. A larger wooden floor had been laid below the dais.
“There is to be dancing!” Rosamond exclaimed, squeezing Morgan’s arm tightly.
Whoever had planned this for him, Morgan thought, had obviously done an expert job. This picnic, she guessed, would be talked about for days, even weeks to come.
Other carriages were approaching along the road they had just traveled, their lamps ablaze to illumine the way ahead. But numerous guests had already arrived. Among them were several scarlet-coated officers.
“This,” Rosamond declared with conviction, “is going to be the very best entertainment of the Season so far.”
As the coachman set down the steps and opened the door of the barouche, Morgan could see that the Earl of Rosthorn was detaching himself from a group of guests and coming their way. He was looking very splendid clad all in pale silver and white. He was dressed formally in knee breeches and white stockings, she could see. It was a fashion that suited him—his legs were long and muscular and well shaped. He was smiling that rather lazy smile of his and looking really very handsome.
Morgan set her hand in his after he had helped Lady Caddick down.
“This is like something out of a pastoral idyll, Lord Rosthorn,” she said. “It is very well done. I must commend you.”
His eyes laughed at her as he handed her down.
“Then my labors have not been in vain,” he said. He gazed deep into her eyes before turning to Rosamond.
Ah, she thought, she had not been mistaken, then. Of course she had not been mistaken.
“We are quite determined to enjoy ourselves more tonight than at any other entertainment of the Season, my lord,” Rosamond was telling him. “Are we not, Morgan?”
“I shall do my best to see to it that you do,” Lord Rosthorn told her. But it was at Morgan he looked as he spoke.
He waved away a very superior-looking servant when the man would have ushered them to a table, offered an arm to Lady Caddick, and escorted the four of them in person to a table close to the orchestra and the wooden dancing platform. From there they would have a clear view of the whole picnic area, which was like a large, pillared ballroom with a green leafy ceiling, slightly uneven floor, and fresh air to breathe in with the smells of forest and earth. And colored lamps to add an aura of romantic enchantment to the whole.
He bowed to them but did not linger. A waiter was hurrying toward their table, a wine bottle wrapped in a crisp white cloth in his hands.
For the next hour or so Morgan sat there with her party. After everyone had arrived and been seated, they were all served with a cold supper of fine and sumptuous foods while listening to the orchestra play and a tenor sing. The beauty of the singer’s voice quite brought tears to Morgan’s eyes. Afterward they were visited at their table by several young officers, and Lord Caddick excused himself to join a group of his male acquaintances beneath a beech tree a short distance away.
Captain Lord Gordon and Major Franks invited Morgan and Rosamond to stroll about the picnic area with them in order to converse with mutual acquaintances, and Lady Cadick, in response to an anxious glance from her daughter, nodded her gracious consent.
The orchestra was taking a break. The dancing would begin when they returned, Lord Gordon predicted to Morgan. He thought the wooden dancing floor a somewhat sorry substitute for a polished ballroom floor in an elegant home, and the orchestra not as fine as some he had heard in Brussels, but he hoped Lady Morgan was enjoying herself anyway.
“Enormously,” she assured him. “The enchantment of the trees and the light and color from all the lamps more than compensate, surely, for a wooden dancing platform that has had to be laid over the uneven forest floor and an orchestra that must contend with less than ideal acoustics.”
“Oh, but of course, absolutely,” he agreed. “I could not agree with you more, Lady Morgan. I was just afraid it might not be to your taste. It is indeed a splendid entertainment.”
And here she was again, she thought, being provoked into defending the Earl of Rosthorn’s entertainment. In fact, though, despite the novelty of a moonlight picnic, the evening was settling into being much like almost every other evening since her presentation. But at least they were outdoors amid truly lovely surroundings. A part of her inward being detached itself from her social self, which smiled and conversed as good manners dictated—and watched as if from the tranquil, silent heart of the forest itself.
If only she were sitting here painting instead of socializing.
The Earl of Rosthorn was standing at their table when they returned, conversing with Lady Caddick. He turned to smile at Morgan.
“Ah, here you are,” he said. “I hope the supper was to your taste?”
“Yes, I thank you,” she assured him. She noticed how his pale clothes contrasted with the bright colors of the uniforms worn by many of his guests and thought that in some indefinable way he looked far more sheerly masculine than even the best of the officers.
“Perhaps, Lady Morgan,” he said, “you would care for a stroll in my company?”
Just her. Not Rosamond too.
“You may go, Lady Morgan,” Lady Caddick said graciously. “But remain within sight.”
Lord Gordon cleared his throat as if to protest, but if he had intended to deter her, his gesture had just the opposite effect, of course. Besides, Morgan was curious to know how the earl would proceed. She was almost certain that he had done all this for her. Did he really believe that she would fall, all big eyes and heaving bosom, for such a lavish display of apparent devotion?
“Thank you,” she said, favoring him with one of her haughtiest glances as she took his offered arm. “I should like that.”
It was a hard, well-muscled arm. He was almost a full head taller than she, she noticed, though she was tall herself. He was taller than Lord Gordon. He was looking down at her with the now-familiar mocking smile—as if he knew that she recognized his game but believed he could win it anyway.
“It must have been quite a challenge,” she said, “to plan a picnic by moonlight.”
“I daresay it was,” he agreed, “for Monsieur Pepin of the Pepin agency. But you would have to ask him if you wish to be sure. He did try to involve me with one or two of his more tricky decisions, but I reminded him that I was paying him a rather handsome fee to take all such tedious burdens upon his own shoulders. Did I do right? Was he reliable? One of his questions—momentous to his mind, I suppose—was whether to have tables brought out here or to have blankets spread on the ground.”
His eyes now were positively laughing at her.
“Tables and chairs are more comfortable than blankets,” she said. “And they looked very picturesque when we arrived, formally set as they were.”
“I would have been crushed,” he said, laying his free hand over his heart, “if you had spoken in favor of blankets.”
Despite herself she smiled.
“And another question,” he told her, “was whether to allow the moonlight and starlight to filter through the shades of the forest—assuming it would not be a cloudy night—while only the tables bore lamps, or whether there should be lanterns hung in the trees and so interfere with the beauties of nature. I am afraid I do not have the philosophical mind to deal with such thorny issues. I made it very clear at that point that I was not to be consulted again except with the direst emergency—like the moon moving to a different galaxy or an army of foresters moving into the f
orest to chop down the trees. Did Monsieur Pepin make the right choice, do you suppose?”
“Lanterns like these, strung just so, enhance the beauty of nature for such an occasion,” she said. “They do not spoil it.”
“I would have been devastated,” he told her, “had you said otherwise.”
She laughed outright.
How could one take such blatant, theatrical flirtation seriously? She was not meant to, she guessed. She also guessed that the Earl of Rosthorn was somewhat cleverer than she had expected. He had realized, of course, that she would know what he was up to and so was making no attempt to hide his motives. He was deliberately making her laugh and enjoy herself instead.
Well, she was enjoying herself too—this was better than boredom. But he had better not believe that she would be softened into compliance with his plans for her—whatever they might be.
They had been strolling about the picnic area, well within sight of Lady Caddick and anyone else who cared to check up on her movements—Alleyne, for instance, who was there. By now most of the guests were on their feet and mingling with one another. Laughter and animated conversation proclaimed the fact that Lord Rosthorn’s picnic was a resounding success.
Morgan expected that he would return her to Lady Caddick’s table after a decent while—and bide his time until the dancing began. But the earl was in no hurry to relinquish her company. He kept her hand tucked into the crook of his arm while he began circulating among his guests, exchanging brief greetings with most, stopping for a lengthier exchange with a few.
Morgan was acquainted with almost everyone and so was quite at her ease. But she noticed that he had her arm rather firmly pressed to his side so that she could not slide it free even if she had wanted to without drawing attention to what she did. He had every intention of keeping her with him—almost as if she were the hostess of the evening, or the guest of honor. Almost as if they were an established couple. It really was not quite proper for him to single her out thus for such prolonged and marked attention. She wondered if they would be spoken of tomorrow as an item—Lady Morgan Bedwyn, who was almost betrothed to Captain Lord Gordon, and the mysterious, rakish Earl of Rosthorn. It took so little to become the object of speculation and unsavory gossip—as of course he must be well aware.