Slightly Tempted

by Mary Balogh

  He looked at her with a mocking smile and was gratified to see her lips twitch.

  “Oh, very well,” she said with every evidence of disdain.

  It was interesting that she had accepted. Very interesting indeed—though she was very careful not to show that she was eager to waltz with him, of course. She was such a worthy foe. He was sorry that hatred had led him to her and that hatred kept him in pursuit of her. But it was an irresistibly pleasurable thought that word of this evening and her indiscretion in spending so much time in his company would almost without a doubt reach Bewcastle in England.

  He led her toward the wooden dancing floor. He handed her up onto it, joined her there, and addressed himself to his guests in the expectant hush that fell. The dancing would begin, he announced. The first set was to be a waltz. He invited them to take their partners and join him and his partner. Then, without waiting for the floor to fill with prospective dancers, he nodded toward the leader of the orchestra.

  The music began immediately, and Gervase set a hand behind Lady Morgan’s waist, took her right hand in his, and moved her into the steps of the waltz.

  And so they danced virtually alone for the first minute or two, until other couples had gathered around them and joined in. For that minute or two they were exposed to public view again as they danced that most intimate of all dances. He smiled down at her and—instead of looking either shocked or embarrassed, as well she might—she looked boldly back, her perfect eyebrows arched high over her perfect eyes.

  He concentrated his attention on the waltz and despite himself got caught up in the exhilaration of it while he smiled into her eyes and wove her in and out of the other dancing couples. The outdoors was a perfect setting for the waltz, he thought. They seemed part of the forest, he and his youthful partner, part of the night, part of the very dance of life itself. She tipped back her head to look up at the stars wheeling above the swirling branches, and laughed.

  “Ah, chérie,” he said, his voice low, “we move together in perfect harmony, you and I . . . on the dance floor.”

  “You are a master of the speaking pause, are you not?” she said haughtily, her smile vanishing.

  He laughed softly.

  The pursuit, he thought, was going to take longer than he had expected. But he was not sorry. He was going to enjoy it every step of the way.

  He had no chance to return her in person to her chaperon’s table when the dance ended. A gentleman took her hand and tucked it firmly beneath his arm almost before her feet had stopped moving.

  “Thank you, Rosthorn,” he said with stiff courtesy. “I will take Lady Morgan back to Lady Caddick’s side.”

  Lord Alleyne Bedwyn looked much like his eldest brother, especially now, when he was clearly annoyed. Gervase had no previous acquaintance with him, but he had seen him a couple of times about Brussels and had greeted him on his arrival this evening.

  Gervase bowed to Lady Morgan and smiled before she was whisked away.

  Ah, this was promising, he thought as he looked after them with narrowed eyes. If Bedwyn had noticed and been offended by what he saw, then others would have noticed too.

  How fortunate for him that she had such a sorry creature for a chaperon.

  WELL, MORG,” ALLEYNE SAID AFTER HE HAD walked her firmly into one of the avenues and they were no longer being jostled by the crowds, “you have been having a grand time of it tonight.”

  “I imagine,” she said, “that everyone is green with envy at not having been the first to think of a moonlit picnic in the Forest of Soignés.”

  “I daresay,” he agreed. “But you know very well what I am talking about. You have not gone falling in love with Rosthorn by any chance, have you? I thought you had more sense.”

  “Fallen in love with . . . Are you mad?” she asked him. “I do not fall in love with every gentleman who deigns to pay me some attention.”

  “I am glad to hear it,” he said dryly. “But I certainly don’t know where Lady Caddick’s sense can be, allowing you to walk about with him after supper as if you were an old married couple and then disappear into one of these avenues for so long that I was about to come after you, and then letting you jump up onto that floor and waltz with him when you were the only two there. You will be fortunate if you are not the subject of some pretty nasty gossip tomorrow. You will be even more fortunate if it does not reach Wulf’s ears. I thought she was a responsible chaperon. So, apparently, did Wulf if he allowed you to come here under her care.”

  “She has done nothing irresponsible,” Morgan said crossly. “Neither have I. It is quite unexceptionable to stroll with a gentleman with whom one has an acquaintance. Even Aunt Rochester would not argue with that. And I have been granted permission to waltz. Lady Caddick did not know Lord Rosthorn intended to begin dancing before other couples joined us. Neither did I.”

  “Cut line, Morg,” he said. “You know very well that Aunt Rochester would have been breathing fire and brimstone tonight even before you stepped off into one of these avenues and disappeared from sight. And while she was doing that, Wulf would have been dripping icicles. You would have been home in bed by now, and Rosthorn would have been chiseling ice chips out of his liver.”

  “Well, they are not here,” she told him, “and no one appointed you my guardian, Alleyne. Do you not have anything better to do with your evening than watch me enjoy myself? There must be a dozen ladies and more falling all over their feet in their eagerness to dance with you.”

  Even Morgan would concede that her brother was devastatingly handsome, with his dark good looks and slim figure, even if he had been afflicted with the prominent Bedwyn nose. She was, in fact, the only one among them who had escaped it.

  “I promised Wulf I would keep a brotherly eye on you,” he said, “and it is beginning to look, Morg, as if I had better make that two eyes. Rosthorn clearly has designs on you.”

  “Nonsense!” she said. “We have merely enjoyed each other’s company for a short while this evening. And he is a gentleman.”

  “Well, there you are wrong,” he said, pokering up and looking disconcertingly like Wulfric for a moment. “In all but birth, that is. The man has a decidedly shady reputation, Morg. He has been on the prowl on the Continent for years, not always in the best company, and rumor has it that he left England under some cloud in the first place.”

  Morgan held her peace.

  “Wulf would not consider Rosthorn eligible, you may be sure,” he said.

  “Eligible?” she said haughtily. “Must every man have marriage on his mind when he invites a lady to stroll with him, then?”

  “He had better not have anything else on it,” he said fiercely. “Not when the lady is my sister. I thought you were in love with Gordon.”

  “He grows tedious,” she told him. “He is handsome enough to turn any girl’s head, but he boasts and he postures. I keep trying to make allowances for his youth, but then I remember that he is four years older than I am.”

  He chuckled and looked his old self again.

  “I know I can trust you, Morg,” he said, squeezing her hand to his side. “We Bedwyns may be ramshackle, but we do know what is what. But you are an innocent, you know, even if you hate to hear it, and sometimes innocence can be a dashed dangerous thing. Promise me you will be careful around Rosthorn? I’ll have a word with him if you wish.”

  “If you do,” she said, bristling fiercely, “I’ll borrow one of Freyja’s famous left hooks and rearrange your nose, Alleyne. Of course I’ll be careful. Not that there is any need. Lady Caddick is a perfectly adequate chaperon, and I have a brain in my head.”

  He laughed and cuffed her jaw lightly with his closed fist.

  “I think I’ll keep my nose as it is, then, if it is all the same to you,” he said. “Shall I take you back to Lady Caddick? I daresay Gordon is panting for a dance with you.”

  She nodded and wondered what he would say—and do—if she told him this whole entertainment had been conceived and
organized for her benefit. And that she had gone quite deliberately into the forest with Lord Rosthorn and allowed him to kiss her there—even though she had known very well that he had nothing but dalliance on his mind.

  Alleyne would conjure up his very own fireworks display to rival the one in Vauxhall Gardens. He would probably take the Earl of Rosthorn apart limb from limb and lay out the pieces across the forest floor.

  And what would Wulfric say and do? The idea really did not bear thinking of.

  But she was not going to start feeling guilty. No harm had been done. Quite the contrary. A wily, practiced rake had thought to toy with her, and she had turned his weapons against him and come away from the experience quite unscathed. She was rather proud of herself.

  Perhaps the Earl of Rosthorn, who really was a quite despicable man, would think twice before wasting his time and money on a young, green girl again.

  Green girl! Ha! Gracious heaven, she was Lady Morgan Bedwyn.

  SEVERAL DAYS PASSED BEFORE GERVASE TALKED with Lady Morgan Bedwyn again. He saw her at the Salle du Grand Concert on the Rue Ducale one evening—the famous soprano, Madame Catalini, sang there and the Duke of Wellington was in attendance—but he did not approach her since she was in the very midst of an entourage that included her brother.

  There was indeed gossip and speculation about them in the drawing rooms of Brussels, enough that several people would surely include word of it in letters home to England and it would become the on dit there too. The lady concerned was, after all, Lady Morgan Bedwyn, sister of the Duke of Bewcastle.

  His scheme was working very nicely indeed. And he was not at all concerned that matters were proceeding slowly. He was in no hurry.

  One morning when he was out riding and was cantering along the Allée Verte—a wide grassy avenue beyond the city walls, lined on both sides with straight rows of lime trees, a canal flowing beyond them on one side—he spotted Lady Morgan approaching, also on horseback, with Lady Rosamond Havelock. He was himself alone, having just parted from John Waldane and a few other of their acquaintances.

  She was looking very fetching indeed in a bright royal blue riding habit with a jaunty little feathered hat to match. She rode sidesaddle but with such grace and assurance that she might well have been born in the saddle. A discreet distance behind the ladies rode a couple of burly grooms.

  Gervase touched the brim of his hat and bowed from the saddle. Lady Morgan inclined her head graciously in return—she was playing the grand lady this morning, perhaps in response to the gossip that was still focused on them. She might have ridden on past without a word if Lady Rosamond had not spoken up.

  “Good morning, Lord Rosthorn,” she called cheerfully. “Is it not a lovely day?”

  “After two days of rain it does feel remarkably pleasant to be outdoors again,” he agreed.

  “How fortunate,” she said as the three horses came to a stop and the grooms halted where they were, “that you chose just the evening you did for your picnic. The weather has been quite unsettled since then.”

  “I trust,” he said, “the entertainment was to your liking?”

  “It was wonderful!” she assured him with all the unalloyed enthusiasm of a very young lady. “We enjoyed every single moment, did we not, Morgan?”

  But that young lady, he saw when he turned his eyes on her, was looking gravely at him.

  “Do you hear any news of the French, Lord Rosthorn?” she asked. “It is said that they are indeed on their way here.”

  “But you heard what Ambrose and Major Franks and Lieutenant Hunt-Mathers said last evening, Morgan,” Lady Rosamond protested before Gervase had a chance to answer. “They told us we were not to worry our heads about the French. They will never get past our defenses to come anywhere near Brussels. Ah, here come Captain Quigley and Lieutenant Meredith,” she cried as two Guards’ officers rode up to join them. “They will give their opinion. Are we in danger of invasion by the French, Captain Quigley?”

  The captain looked suitably shocked. “In danger, Lady Rosamond?” he said. “When the Guards are here to protect you? Old Boney will not be allowed to set one toe over the border into Belgium without having it shot off, you may rest assured.”

  “You must not worry your pretty head over such matters, Lady Rosamond,” the lieutenant added. “Or over the safety of your brother or any other officer of your acquaintance. Boney would not dare attack us with the tattered remnants of his ragtag army. More’s the pity.”

  They turned their horses in order to ride with the ladies. But Lady Morgan had scarcely glanced at them. She had kept her eyes on Gervase, a slight frown creasing her brow.

  “May I be permitted to ride a short way with you?” he suggested, and she nodded, though somewhat absentmindedly, it seemed to him.

  They rode side by side, a little apart from Lady Rosamond and the officers, who were all talking rather loudly and laughing heartily. The two grooms, Gervase noticed when he glanced back, were proceeding along in their wake.

  “I find it frustrating, even insulting,” Lady Morgan said, “to be told twenty times each day not to worry my pretty head about such matters though they clearly concern me and all my countrymen and certain military acquaintances of mine in particular.”

  “It is in the nature of a gentleman,” he explained, “to wish to protect ladies from harm and even from anxiety.”

  “It really is going to happen, then, is it not?” she said. “There really is going to be war again.”

  “Undoubtedly,” he said, deciding instantly upon the sort of honesty with which he would reply if it were a man who had asked. “Any faint hope that the French will simply refuse to rally around their fallen emperor has been dashed. The French army is said to be very large indeed and very formidable. All of Bonaparte’s most famous marshals have come dashing to his side, doubtless in the hope that he will restore all their lost prestige and glory. Yes, at least one more pitched battle seems inevitable. One must simply hope that one battle will suffice. If Bonaparte is the victor, there is no predicting the future.”

  “But what has happened was thoroughly predictable,” she told him. “I said so from the start. People call Napoléon Bonaparte Old Boney and then make the assumption that a man with such a nickname must be a buffoon. But in order to have had the success he has enjoyed over the years he must be a man of genius and great charisma, must he not?”

  “The coming battle will be a deadly one,” he said, “and its outcome is far from certain, else Wellington would not be so openly worried about it. But I firmly believe there is no imminent danger to Brussels. The borders are strongly defended. If there were any real threat, most of the British visitors and all the ladies would by now be on their way home.”

  “Lord Caddick wishes us to go without further delay,” she said, “and my brother Alleyne came yesterday to find out why we were not already on our way. But Lady Caddick refuses to leave until it becomes impossible to stay. She insists upon remaining close to Lord Gordon, and I can only applaud her resolve. There is so little that women are allowed to do, Lord Rosthorn. At least we can stand by our men.”

  “And Lord Gordon is the one by whom you will stand?” he asked her.

  She leveled a straight look at him.

  “That is an impertinent question, Lord Rosthorn,” she said.

  He smiled at her.

  But she was not bent upon quarreling with him, it seemed.

  “It is not Brussels and my own safety that worry me,” she said. “I suppose that when the time comes I will be hurried away to safety long before there is any real danger to my person. But the men of the armies cannot be whisked away, can they? They must remain and fight. And die.”

  “Not all soldiers die in battle,” he said gently. “Consider all the veterans in Brussels. They fought in numerous ferocious battles in the Peninsula—and many of them in India before that—and have lived to tell the tale.”

  “My brother Aidan among them,” she said. “He did not relin
quish his commission until after the Battle of Toulouse last year. But consider, Lord Rosthorn, all the countless thousands of veterans who are not in Brussels because they are dead—my sister-in-law Eve’s brother, for example.”

  Her friend was laughing gaily with the officers, but Lady Morgan seemed not to notice them.

  “Perhaps Bonaparte will be stopped at the border,” she said, “but he will not simply turn meekly and go back home, will he?”

  “It would seem very unlikely,” he agreed.

  “What exactly will he do, then?” She gave him a very direct look again.

  “As a matter of pride,” he said, “he will have to attempt to force a way through to Brussels itself. The Duke of Wellington’s armies will not make it easy for him—or even possible, it is to be hoped. But he will, of course, try. If I were in his shoes, I would attack at the weakest point of defense, which is, perhaps, at the juncture between Wellington’s defending forces and those of Field Marshal von Blücher. If he can bludgeon his way through at that point and turn their flanks and cut their communications with each other, he will stand a good chance indeed of winning the victory.”

  It was not the sort of gloomy prediction he would normally make to a woman, especially to a very young and delicately nurtured lady. But she was not as other ladies were—he was increasingly aware of that.

  “Thank you,” she said gravely. “Thank you for not making disparaging references to my pretty head, Lord Rosthorn, and for answering my questions without softening your replies. Sometimes I think the officers of my acquaintance are like toy soldiers playing at war games. But I suppose that is unfair. They merely make light of reality in the presence of ladies because they think us too delicate to face the truth. I daresay they talk more sense among themselves.”

  A loud burst of laughter from Lady Rosamond’s group illustrated her concern.

  “They will acquit themselves well if they are called upon to fight,” he said.