by Mary Balogh
But now she had refused him. She might never see him again. And even if she did, next year or the year after, they would perhaps merely nod politely and distantly to each other, like strangers.
She could not bear it.
Why had she refused him?
She dropped her forehead to her knees, closed her eyes, and practiced what she had discovered years ago invariably stilled her mind and calmed her emotions. She listened to her own breath, concentrated upon it as if there were nothing else to do or be thought of. And perhaps there was not. She had made her decision, and now her life would move onward into the unknown. The past was over and done with, the future had not yet come, and this moment was poised like a blessed gift between the two. It was, in fact, the only reality.
But sometimes the trouble with suspended thought was that its cushioning effect on the mind was removed, and truth could seep in to replace it and to make itself heard as soon as she lost her concentration upon her breath.
She had stopped him from asking his question because she had not finished asking her own. Yet she had been afraid to ask the other questions. So afraid, in fact, that she had not even admitted to herself until now that there were more to ask.
She lifted her head and gazed out into the darkness beyond her window.
Perhaps, she thought, because she knew the answers but could ignore them as long as they were never expressed in words.
But since when had she been afraid to face truth? Since Brussels, when she had denied to herself for a whole week the reality of Alleyne’s death?
When had she been afraid to ask questions, even when she knew that the answers would crush her? Since this morning?
Since when had she become a coward, cowering here in her room, preparing to go home to Lindsey Hall or to go off to the Lake District or Cornwall, pretending that it was good sense and a growing maturity that had held her back from committing herself to a betrothal this morning?
Love was a hollow thing—and essentially a nonexistent thing—when the object of it was not what one had thought him, when he never had been.
It was a long time before Morgan climbed into bed and lay there, staring at the canopy over her head, knowing that tonight would be as basically sleepless as last night had been. What she really felt like doing, she thought, aware of the silence all around and realizing that everyone else must have gone to bed too, was giving vent to a very noisy tantrum.
But, alas, she was no longer a child.
MORGAN LOOKED ASSESSINGLY AT EVE DURING breakfast the following morning. Eve might seem meek and mild, but Morgan knew the story of how last year she had defied Wulf and Aunt Rochester and Aidan by secretly ordering the color of her presentation gown changed to black so that she could honor the memory of her brother, recently killed in battle, instead of wearing a color, as Wulf had decreed. And then she had defied Wulf again by insisting upon returning home to deal with a family crisis when he had ordered her to stay for an important dinner at Carlton House. Interestingly enough, Wulf now held Eve in the deepest respect even though she was the daughter of a Welsh coal miner. That said something about the quality of her backbone.
Nevertheless, Morgan rejected the idea of asking for her company. This was something she really must do alone.
And so, less than an hour later, when Wulfric had left for the House of Lords and everyone else was busy about various daily concerns, Morgan stepped out of the front door, her maid a few paces behind her, and set out to walk the distance to Pickford House. If she met anyone she knew on her way, she decided, she would incline her head regally and bid whoever it was a good morning and let them behave as they would.
She did not care if she met a dozen people and they all gave her the cut direct.
But the very people she did happen to meet, of course, were Lady Caddick and Rosamond, on their way somewhere on foot. Lady Caddick’s bosom swelled and she sniffed the air, turning to address her daughter just when Morgan was drawing abreast of them.
“I smell rotten fish, Rosamond,” she said. “It is deplorable how even in a fashionable area of London one cannot avoid all the worst smells.”
“Good morning, ma’am,” Morgan said. “Good morning, Rosamond.”
Her friend darted her one agonized look and would have stopped, Morgan believed, but her mother caught her by the sleeve and dragged her onward.
Morgan would have been amused by the whole episode if she had not remembered the nature of her errand. She hurried onward and knocked on the door of Pickford House before she could lose her courage.
The Countess of Rosthorn was from home, she was informed. But Miss Clifton would surely be happy to receive her. Morgan followed the butler upstairs while her maid disappeared into the nether regions of the house, and was shown into a sitting room that was smaller than the drawing room where she had been entertained to tea a few days before. Henrietta Clifton rose to her feet as she was announced, a look of surprise on her face.
“Lady Morgan,” she said, “do come in and have a seat. I am sorry that Aunt Lisette is not here to receive you. She will be sorry too.”
Miss Clifton was in her late twenties, Morgan judged. She was plain and slightly overweight. But she had pleasing manners and Morgan liked her.
“I am the last person you must have expected to see today,” she said, seating herself.
“We were surprised and a little disappointed when Gervase came home yesterday and told us that you had refused his marriage offer,” Miss Clifton said. “I really thought the two of you would suit, and I very much wish for his happiness. But I daresay you had a good reason.”
“You did not turn against him nine years ago, then?” Morgan asked her.
Miss Clifton flushed. “Ah, you know about that, do you?” she said. “No, none of us blamed Gervase except my uncle. None of us expected him to react as he did. I have been dreadfully unhappy about it ever since. May I offer you refreshments?”
“Actually,” Morgan said, “I came to speak with Lord Rosthorn. I will wait for him to return home if I may.”
“With Gervase?” Miss Clifton looked surprised again, as well she might.
“There is something I forgot to say yesterday,” Morgan said. “Please do not tell me now that you do not expect him home until tonight.”
“He is not even from home,” Miss Clifton said, getting to her feet. “Do you wish to speak with him alone?”
“Yes, please,” Morgan said.
“I will go and fetch him, then,” the other woman told her, and left the room before Morgan could change her mind. It was too late for that now anyway.
He came less than a minute later. He came striding into the room while an unseen servant closed the door behind him. Both his hands were outstretched to hers. There was a frown on his face.
“What has happened?” he asked her. “What is the matter? Has someone made your life quite intolerable? Bewcastle?”
“Nothing is the matter.” She got to her feet and moved around her chair so that it stood between them. He dropped his arms to his sides. “Lord Rosthorn, why did you ask me to dance at Viscount Cameron’s ball?”
His eyes searched hers for a few moments.
“You were by far the loveliest lady there, chérie,” he told her. “I saw you and knew I had to seek an introduction to you.”
“Try again,” she told him, holding his eyes with her own. “And try honesty this time. You danced with no one else that evening. I am eighteen years old. I was wearing the white gown of a girl who has just made her come-out. I must have looked the veriest infant to you, a rake of long experience. Did you know my identity before you asked to be presented to me?”
A faint half-smile played about his lips and eyes.
“I did,” he said.
“And you were not repulsed,” she asked him, “to know that I was the sister of the Duke of Bewcastle?”
“I was not,” he said. “I waltzed with you, did I not?”
“Why did you do so?” she asked him.
Even now there was a part of her that hoped she might be wrong. But she knew she was not. She just needed to hear him say it.
“It would have been best, chérie,” he said softly, his head to one side, “if you had not come here today. It would be best even now if you would accept the easy explanation. But you will not do so, will you? You will never take the easy path through life, I suspect. I waltzed with you, ma petite, because you were the sister of the Duke of Bewcastle.”
With one hand she clung tightly to the back of the chair. She lifted her chin.
“And the picnic in the Forest of Soignés?” she asked him.
“Because you were Bewcastle’s sister,” he said.
“You meant to ruin me there?” she asked him.
“Ah, no,” he said. “I meant merely to single you out for marked attention and perhaps even a little indiscretion so that the gathered ton would gossip about us and word would get back to London and to the ears of Bewcastle.”
It felt almost as if she had not guessed the truth, as if it were assaulting her now for the first time. She felt almost numb with hurt. She remembered allowing him to flirt with her there and flirting right back at him, feeling in control of the situation and in control of him. She remembered the kiss she had allowed.
She had not understood the game at all. She had come nowhere close to winning it.
She had been no more than a puppet on a string.
Even then she was tempted to leave it at that. But he continued to look at her from his place in the middle of the room, and he continued to smile that half-smile she had seen so often in Brussels—and thought teasing and attractive.
Now she knew it was a smile of contempt for her youth and her ignorance and her lineage.
“The Richmond ball?” she said, plowing onward. “You waited until all the officers had gone and then came to comfort me. Or was it to lay the grounds for more open scandal?”
“Ah, chérie,” he said, “you needed comforting.”
“And then I needed escorting to and from Mrs. Clark’s,” she said, her eyes flashing at him. “And then I needed someone to find Alleyne for me. And someone to champion my cause when the Caddicks would not stay in Brussels. You fought so firmly and righteously for me then, Lord Rosthorn. And then I needed escorting about Brussels when I was not on duty with the wounded. All the time scandal was growing about us, and all the time you were my friend. My oh-so-dear friend. The funny thing is that I thought myself so mature for my age. I was impatient of others of my own age or even older who were less bold, less in control of their own destinies. I was your dupe. Wulfric used that word yesterday before you came to Bedwyn House and I would not listen to him.” She was clinging with both hands now.
“How can I defend myself?” he asked her. “I have been horribly guilty where you are concerned. But not always guilty. Not after Waterloo.”
She came around the chair toward him when she realized that he might believe she was cowering there.
“And that night,” she said to him, her hands balling into fists at her sides, “when I came to your rooms, distraught and in shock over what I had discovered about Alleyne—”
“Ah, non, ma chère,” he said, raising both hands palm-out as if to ward off an attack.
“I thought,” she said, “that I initiated what happened there. I still believe I did, but only because you had tricked and manipulated me so that I liked and trusted you more than anyone else in this world. How you must have exulted.”
“Non, ma petite.”
She raised her right hand and whipped it across his face with a ringing slap.
“Oh, yes!” she cried. “Do not deny it. Yes, yes, yes, oui, oui, oui. In either language, it is useless to lie to me.”
“As you say,” he said, dropping his arms to his sides while the marks of her fingers showed scarlet against his left cheek.
“You have used me,” she said. “You have preyed upon me and hated me and pretended to care for me. You are the worst kind of villain.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “Perhaps I am.”
Her hand was hot and stinging, but she had the satisfaction of knowing that his face probably felt far worse.
“The meeting in Hyde Park,” she said, “and the tea here with your mother were all part of a clever plan, I suppose, to embarrass Wulfric further and force him to allow you to pay me your addresses. And the ball—how did you happen to know that there was an unused anteroom close to the ballroom? How did it come about that the door was left carelessly ajar after we had gone inside? And why were we overcome with passion while we waltzed and so were found conveniently locked in each other’s arms? You planned it that way.”
He continued to look steadily at her. “I planned it,” he admitted.
She lifted her left hand and slapped it across his other cheek. And then she gazed at him as he winced but made no move to defend himself, her nostrils flared, her lip curled with disdain.
“And yesterday was the coup de grâce,” she said. “You told me your story and won my sympathy—there is no tale better designed to arouse pity than one that tells of wrongs committed and injustices endured. And I suppose I turned your schemes into perfection itself when I refused to allow you to offer for me. I set you free. You had wreaked havoc with my life and Wulfric’s and all my family’s and I let you go to enjoy the memory of all your triumphs.”
“Right, chérie,” he said softly when she waited for his comment.
“Wrong, Lord Rosthorn.” She glared at him and pointed at the floor. “Down on your knees. I have changed my mind. Ask your question. And know, if you refuse, that I will spare no effort to let it be known all over London, all over England, that you are a man without all honor and decency. I still have some influence. I have powerful relatives.”
His head tipped to one side again, and the half-smile returned to his eyes.
“You wish me to propose marriage to you?” he asked her. “After all this? So that you may have the satisfaction of refusing me? It would be monstrous of me to deny you that, I suppose. Very well, then.”
He went down on one knee before her and lifted his eyes to hers, taking both her hands in his own as he did so. The amusement had gone from his face. He looked at her with what just yesterday she might have interpreted as tenderness.
“Lady Morgan Bedwyn,” he said, “will you do me the great honor of accepting my hand in marriage?”
She mustered all the considerable haughtiness of which she was capable and gazed down at him, not even trying to mask the contempt she felt. She kept him waiting. She savored the moment.
“Thank you, Lord Rosthorn,” she said at last. “I will.”
He stared back at her, an arrested look in his eyes.
“Have I missed something?” he asked her.
“I doubt you are deaf,” she said, “and so I suppose you have missed nothing at all. You may rise now.”
He got slowly to his feet. His eyes were smiling at her again.
“You will punish me, chérie,” he asked her, “by marrying me and never letting me forget what a villain I am?”
“Wrong again, Lord Rosthorn,” she told him. “I have accepted your marriage offer. I have no intention in this world of marrying you.”
The laughter deepened in his eyes.
“Ah,” he said, “now all is perfectly clear.”
“You thought to go free,” she said, throwing back her head and gazing very directly into his eyes, “your revenge nicely wreaked on all of us. And I was to creep off to the country in disgrace. Not so, Lord Rosthorn. You must have forgotten that I am a Bedwyn. I am not finished with you yet. And I will not slink away and hang my head merely because I was too stupid and too naive to spot a rogue. You are my betrothed. You will shower me with attentions and tender devotion until I decide to set myself free.”
“Ah, chérie,” he said, clasping his hands behind his back and leaning a little closer to her, “you are magnificent when you are in a fury. I will court you
until you change your mind about leaving me.”
“Wrong once more,” she told him. “I will court you, Lord Rosthorn. I will make you fall in love with me, and then I will break your heart.”
“You have already done the former, ma petite,” he said, “and will surely do the latter if you will show no mercy on me.”
“Or perhaps,” she said, “I will make you hate me and then marry you after all. You will never know my feelings or my intentions. But you will dance attendance upon me for as long as I choose to make you do so. And if you refuse, if you end our betrothal, then I will see to it that you are hounded out of this country again—and for the rest of your life this time.”
His eyes smiled.
Her bosom heaved.
The door opened.
“Lady Morgan, ma chère!” the Countess of Rosthorn cried as she swept into the room. “Henrietta told me that you were in here with Gervase and no maid to make all proper. Has something happened to upset you? I scolded my son soundly after the Hallmere ball, you may be sure. I was not in any way pleased with him.”
“Maman,” he said, drawing Morgan’s arm through his and smiling down at her in a way that might have turned her weak at the knees just a day or so before, “Morgan has just made me the happiest of men.”
“Indeed, ma’am, it is true,” Morgan said, smiling dazzlingly. “Gervase has just asked me to marry him, and I have said yes.”
She looked up at him, and right there, with his mother watching and exclaiming rapturously in French and clasping her hands to her bosom, he lowered his head and kissed her on the lips.
Not to be outdone, Morgan kissed him right back.
CHAPTER XVII
GERVASE WONDERED IF MORGAN HAD realized when she insisted upon a betrothal between them that the Season was all but over. Perhaps she had imagined their appearing together at numerous entertainments, herself haughty and triumphant, him dancing smiling attendance upon her, before she spurned him publicly and so wreaked her revenge on him.
That she would also thereby embroil herself in even more scandal would not deter her, he knew.