“Anne, you may tell—”
She broke off abruptly, for it was not Anne the maid walking across the sitting room toward her. It was Christopher, fresh and handsome in his evening clothes. Desire sparked in his eyes and showed clearly in the suddenly predatory nature of his approach.
“Christopher!” she croaked. “I am not dressed.”
“I can see that,” he said gravely. “I came to see if I could help.”
She stepped back, stumbling against the door, and dropped her hair towel as she steadied herself. His knowing smile and his glittering eyes made him dangerously attractive, and she was too distracted to notice his hand until it plucked the large towel from her grasp, and it, too, fell to the floor, revealing her in all her damp nakedness.
His eyes dipped, and he made a hoarse sound deep in his throat. Then he took her in his arms, holding her close against him, and kissed her mouth with slow, unmistakable intent. She tried to speak, to maintain whatever distance she had imagined was possible with him, but it seemed she could not, and by the time he carried her to the bed, there seemed no point in denying him. Or herself.
“Do you trust me?” he asked breathlessly as he made tender love to her.
“Yes.”
“Remember that.”
“I will, if you trust me, too…” And then they could talk no more, or at least not in words.
*
Dinner passed in pleasant lethargy. She rather liked Lady Bilston’s chatter, which was generally amusing and always good-natured. Dudley was beamingly proud of her, and she unquestioningly, if casually, affectionate toward him. To Deborah’s mind, Dudley’s jealousy had no basis except in his own guilt concerning Rupert.
It was also pleasant to have female company while the gentlemen enjoyed their port.
“I don’t know how you put up with all these men so soon after your wedding,” Georgianna remarked. “If I were you, I would turf them all out. Except Christopher, of course.”
“Can one turf Lord Hawfield out?” Deborah asked wryly.
Georgianna laughed. “If anyone can, it’s Christopher. However, I daresay his presence is quite useful to you just now.” Georgianna sat beside her, a little hesitantly. “I heard about your trouble. At the princess’s house. And Ralph Ireton’s big blabbermouth.”
Reality pinched at her. “Is it all around the neighborhood?”
“I think it already was. But no one had told Lady Letchworth. Or Edmund.”
“I had thought better of Sir Edmund. He cut my sister, who is even more innocent than I.”
“That is what could really hurt you,” Georgianna said bluntly. “If you are being portrayed as some wicked seductress, you could have pulled over Christopher’s and even Hawfield’s eyes. And so, the Letchworths’ behavior will win the gossip war. I have been thinking that to counter that, you and I should be seen together as best of friends. And you should hold a party of some kind.”
Deborah smiled with difficulty. “And if no one comes?”
“They’ll come from curiosity and invite you in return because you are clearly not the vulgar creature they have been told about by gossips.”
“I’ll speak to Christopher,” Deborah said doubtfully.
“Do. And tomorrow, you and I shall go to the village.”
“I should have called on my mother today.” Deborah wondered if Lucy would have spoken to her if she had. “Come with me tomorrow, if you like.”
“An excellent plan. And on Sunday, we shall go to church.” Georgianna smiled. “En masse,” she added with relish.
*
“I’ve been thinking,” Christopher said to her the following morning as he pulled on his shirt. He had entered her chamber the previous evening “to kiss her goodnight”, as he had said, and had ended by brushing her hair and undressing her and then sleeping by her side. It had all felt wonderfully intimate, and if it hadn’t been for the secret she was keeping from him, her happiness would have been perfect, especially when she woke to love at dawn.
“What are you thinking?” she asked in reply.
“That if I moved into the rooms next door—which are connected to yours—I wouldn’t have to trail the length of the house to make love to you. Or to dress.”
Meeting his gaze in the dressing table mirror, she blushed with pleasure. “They are the rooms of the master of the house, are they not?”
“Actually, I believe those are the ones above the drawing room, so the master and mistress could avoid living too closely together. Which is another option, since your excellent decorators are currently making them more habitable.”
Her meeting with Barden loomed so large in her mind that she actually found herself wondering if she would find it harder to escape to the inn unseen if he occupied the rooms next door. Then angry with herself for even considering allowing the vile Barden so much control of her life, she forced a smile to her lips.
“I like your idea better,” she said lightly.
But he must have seen her brief conflict, for he said, “Do you?”
She rose and went to him. “Of course I do. I was only surprised you seemed to want my approval.” In fact, it was more wonderful than that, for his suggestion reinforced what he had said at the inn, that he was leaving his rakish lifestyle behind.
She reached up and kissed his cheek, inhaling the distinctive, now-familiar scent of him that she loved so much.
His arms came up at once to hold her loosely. “What are your plans for today?”
“Georgianna is coming with me to my mother. Cravenly, I am hoping her presence will deflect Lucy’s ire.”
“I hope so, too.”
“Do you think she is right about holding a party here?”
“Probably. Either way, it is a good idea—if you don’t hate it too much.”
“I believe I agreed to be your hostess at the beginning.”
“We agreed to a lot of nonsense at the beginning.”
She laughed and kissed his lips before slipping free. “And what are you doing today?”
“Going to look at the school and make some decisions about partitions. Dull stuff, but it’s almost habitable now, and Gates is eager to begin the actual teaching in September.”
“Do you agree?”
“I plan to be on my wedding trip, so he may do as he likes.”
Chapter Seventeen
“What do you think of a garden party?” she asked Georgianna as the carriage rattled down the drive. “Spilling out from the terrace room? We could have sunshades on the terrace, and pall mall or something similar on the lawn. I know we have hoops and mallets at my mother’s house—if the children have not lost them.”
“I think that’s a wonderful idea. Elegant but informal. Only, what if the weather lets us down, and it rains?”
“We could use the salons instead, even for a form of pall mall.”
“That would work!” Georgianna enthused. “Something less usual. Who would you invite?”
“All the families in the neighborhood with a claim to gentility. Or wealth. I wondered about using the event to raise funds for the school. I thought it might convince people to put up with my scandal for the sake of charity.”
Georgianna frowned. “If any need to be convinced. But certainly, it gives a focus beyond you, which is good. And I presume the school will need money before much longer.”
“Christopher plans to raise most of it in London and the big industrial cities, create a trust that will eventually pay for everything. But I see no harm in making a start.”
“Won’t you dislike having the little monsters at the bottom of your garden?”
Deborah laughed. “They won’t be as close as that! Besides, there won’t be so many, and they might learn, too, from how the estate is run.”
Georgianna looked amused. “You have thought of everything. You are good for Christopher, you know. Somehow you manage to encourage him and keep his feet on the ground at the same time. He is subject to enthusiasms.”
; “You mean he will tire of the school?” Of me?
Georgianna considered. “Not necessarily. But he will almost certainly find other obsessions that will take up more of his time.”
“It won’t matter if Mr. Gates is running the school, and the money is secure.”
Georgianna cast her a wry look. “You do understand him, don’t you?”
I love him.
Georgianna insisted on stopping in the village first and going into the shop in search of ribbons. She took Deborah’s arm to walk across the road, chattering away, though she paused to return the vicar’s bow. As they left the shop again with a box of sweetmeats for the children and a length of shell-pink ribbon, Mrs. Copsley, the squire’s wife, was gossiping in the square with another woman Deborah didn’t recognize. She inclined her head before walking back to the carriage. Mrs. Copsley returned the gesture, and Georgianna squeezed Deborah’s arm in triumph.
“There, you are acknowledged by whoever she is,” Georgianna crowed.
Deborah did not have the heart to tell her that the squire’s wife was a close family friend and was unlikely to give her the cut direct under any circumstances.
“Shall we walk to your mother’s house since it is such a fine day?” Georgianna suggested.
Agreeing, Deborah told the coachman he might wait in the square for an hour. Walking the length of the village felt a little like marching into battle through enemy fire, but Georgianna seemed to manage everything, including pinching her arm to draw her attention to Miss Figgis, the retired governess who had once given a few lessons to the children. Miss Figgis bowed to her from her cottage garden, a hesitant smile on her lips.
“Good day, ma’am,” Deborah said politely. “Your roses are looking quite brilliant this year.”
“Oh, thank you,” Miss Figgis said breathlessly. “I believe it is all in the pruning.”
“I’m sure you must be right. I shall ask your advice about the new garden we’re planning at the hall. Georgianna, this is Miss Figgis, who has been most kind to us since we came to Coggleton. Miss Figgis, Lady Bilston, my husband’s cousin.”
The two women bowed to each other. Miss Figgis’s cheeks were pink with delight and interest.
“Excellent,” Georgianna murmured when they had walked on far enough not to be overheard. “Our friendship will be all over the neighborhood by evening. Now we can visit your mother.”
Georgianna seemed very pleased with these results, so Deborah didn’t mention that Miss Figgis was so unworldly she was unlikely even to have heard of the scandal in London.
However, her younger siblings were undeniably pleased to see her, and Georgianna took their boisterous welcome in her stride.
“Oh, Deb, I thought you were coming yesterday,” Mrs. Shelby exclaimed, emerging from the parlor. “Lucy has been so low and—oh!” She broke off at the unexpected sight of the brilliantly fashionable Georgianna bending to admire Stephen’s wooden sword while Lizzie and Giles spoke at once.
“My mother,” Deborah murmured as the children fell silent at last. “Mama, Lady Bilston.”
“Forgive my descending on you uninvited,” Georgianna said, extending her hand with a friendly smile. “I have heard so much about you all, and Deborah assured me you would not mind.”
“Indeed, not! Your ladyship is most welcome,” Deborah’s mother assured her. “Lizzie, run up and tell Lucy to come down.”
“I will go, Mama,” Deborah said, leaving Georgianna to the tender mercies of the rest of her family.
At the top of the stairs, she knocked on the door of the chamber she had once shared with Lucy and Lizzie. Receiving no answer, she went in anyway.
Lucy sat by the empty grate, dry-eyed, although from her stained cheeks and swollen eyelids, she had clearly wept a good deal recently.
“If the welcome below is not enough for you, I cannot help it,” Lucy said. “You are not welcome to me.”
“I can see that,” Deborah said calmly. “But Mama would like you to wash your face and come down and greet Lady Bilston.”
“Lord Bilston’s wife?” Lucy said, clearly interested in spite of her own tragedy.
“Yes. She is very friendly and kind-hearted.”
Lucy curled her lip. “Vising the sick and the shunned?”
“Helping the shunned,” Deborah said. “This does not affect her at all. Her life is in London. Yet, she gives up her time to prove her friendship to me and to you.”
Lucy’s eyes flickered, but she said only, “What is the point?”
“The point is not wallowing. You are not disgraced except by association with me. I am trying to improve things, not crying over the unfairness of life.”
“You have things to improve,” Lucy retorted. “You have a husband.”
“Yes, I do. He never believed the scandal nonsense in the first place, and he married me in the full knowledge that it could erupt at any time.”
“Do you expect my congratulations?”
“No, I expect you to think about what you actually had and what you lost by this. Do you think Sir Edmund was a good man, that he loved you? Did you love him?”
Lucy stared at her, then her eyelids drooped, and she frowned down at her hands. “I don’t know,” she said dully. “I suppose I never thought about it. I liked him. He is a baronet with several beautiful homes. I liked that he liked me, that he loved me.”
“Did he?”
“Of course he did,” Lucy exclaimed. “He would have married me if it had not been for your…trouble!”
“If he truly loved you, do you really think he would have been deterred by an accusation flung by his disreputable brother-in-law? An accusation against me that did not deter my husband.”
Lucy shrugged impatiently. “He only married you to get at his inheritance.”
“He could have married anyone to get at his inheritance. Lucy, you are nineteen years old, and you have lost one suitor you’re not even sure you love and who may not be worth loving. If I were you, I would pick myself up and show the world he is nothing to you. And that he has nothing to blame you for.”
Lucy raised her eyes with a hint of curiosity. “Is that what you are going to do? Show the world you are not to blame?”
“I hope to. And if you help me, it’s probable you will help all of us. We’re having a garden party next week.”
Lucy swallowed. “Will he be there?”
“I don’t know. I shall certainly invite him.”
This appeared to have given Lucy enough food for thought, so Deborah turned to go. “Wash your face, and come down. You will like Lady Bilston excessively. She is very fashionable.”
She was rewarded barely five minutes later by her sister’s entrance to the drawing room, looking very pretty and bright-eyed, with her sociable manners in perfect place.
“Oh, well done,” their mother murmured to Deborah. “I only wish you had come yesterday.”
Deborah laughed. “I’m not sure I would have known what to say yesterday. A great deal seems to have happened since then!”
*
Christopher, having made the necessary decisions for the workmen in the dower house, rode over to Coggleton House. He was interested to see what his reception would be.
Although he didn’t truly expect the Letchworths to be not at home to him, he also knew that receiving him today was no guarantee they would receive Deborah. But he wanted a hint as to their feelings, and he wanted a blunt word with young Letchworth. Beyond that, he was quite prepared to cut the connection with them or anyone else who insulted his wife.
By ill luck, Frederica Ireton was crossing the hall as he was admitted.
“Why, Christopher,” she said, smiling, “What a pleasant surprise. Come into the drawing room. Don’t worry, Alfred isn’t here.”
“Good.”
She glanced at him. “You didn’t need to hit him.”
“I beg to differ. In fact, he’s lucky that’s all I did.”
“Such heat.” She lowered her amuse
d voice. “Did your wife give you such terrible grief for catching us?”
“My wife gives me no grief at all.”
“She does not seem very spirited,” Frederica said with barely disguised contempt.
Christopher laughed. “You have no idea how wrong you are. My wife understands perfectly how things are.”
Seeing she had erred, she smiled pleadingly and tried to take his arm, but he avoided her touch, bowing her instead into the drawing room.
“Mr. Halland,” Lady Letchworth said in surprise, laying aside her needlework. “What a pleasant surprise.”
He didn’t miss her quick glance over his shoulder, or her not quite concealed relief to discover his wife was not with him. She hadn’t yet decided what to do about Deborah, he deduced.
“Deborah sends her regards,” he said blandly. “And her thanks for the other evening’s delightful dinner. She has taken my cousin’s wife to meet her family.”
“Of course, I had almost forgotten Lady Bilston was with you now. How is the dear young lady?”
“Very well. You may see for yourself if you care to join us next week. Deborah will send you a card.”
“Ring for tea, Frederica,” Lady Letchworth said, presumably to avoid answering.
“Not for me, ma’am,” Christopher said at once. “I am not really fit for the drawing room since I rode over from Gosmere. Is Letchworth about?”
“At the stables, I think, fussing over some fetlock or other.”
“Then, if you will excuse me, I’ll beard him there. Good day.”
He bowed and sauntered away, closing the door to lessen the likelihood of Frederica following him.
He encountered Letchworth just coming from the stables, an unusual scowl on his brow that vanished when Christopher hailed him.
“Halland! I didn’t know you were here.”
“Just dropped in to pay my respects, but I’m more suited to the stables right now. How is the fetlock?”
“On the mend, but I won’t ride him for a few days.”
“Walk with me then and explain to me your unforgivable rudeness to my sister-in-law.”
Married to the Rogue Page 19