A Little Deception (21 page)

Rampton, stroking her shoulders, looked perplexed. ‘He has
no sister.’

‘Well, he certainly made it plain that his attendance here
was more in the nature of a visit to the zoo to see what sort of creature I
really was than a genuine desire for our society.’ She bit her lip, watching
him in the looking-glass, close to tears. ‘I wonder how many others felt the
same?’

‘Geoffrey, my friend as you erroneously term him, would not
have been invited here at all if I had had anything to do with the guest list.’
Rampton leant down and put his cheek against hers, smiling at her reflection.
‘Rest assured that you were mightily admired tonight. By Geoffrey too, who, I
must warn you, is very much in the petticoat line. I do not care for his
society but for some reason my mother has had a fondness for him since we were
brats together.’

‘Were you not even friends as schoolboys?’

‘Age and proximity were all we had in common.’ Rampton gave
a grim laugh. ‘You’ll have heard, no doubt, several sly references to his
recent house visit to Colonel and Mrs Huntingdon. They have a son and two
daughters, the younger a pretty enough creature, just out of the schoolroom but
too giddy, it was thought, to unleash on society this year. In usual fashion it
seems Geoffrey played fast and loose with the young girl and she, knowing no
better, her head doubtless turned by his pretty compliments, has become in
consequence the talk of the town, to her detriment.’

‘You mean he’s compromised her reputation and won’t behave
in good part?’

‘My dear, the man is married with an invalid wife. Not that
you’d know it from the way he comports himself about the countryside like a gay
young blade.’

He drew Rose up to stand beside him and continued, as he led
her to the bed, ‘But no, he prefers to brag about his involvement with Miss
Huntingdon, suggesting it was she who led him into all sorts of disgraceful
scrapes.’

He had Rose trapped against the bed. Leisurely he began to
nuzzle her neck while loosening her silk peignoir. Beth had performed her
duties and been dismissed for the night.

‘A wife!’ Rose was shocked. She arched against him. ‘He never
mentioned her during our conversation and I quizzed him all about his family.’
For once she felt little answering response to Rampton’s obvious desire. All
her plans of dazzling the company and gainsaying the gossips who said she’d
trapped him into marriage lay in ruins. If Geoffrey, with his obvious penchant
for female company, could make her feel this unworthy, how would she fare when
confronted with the more virtuous element of her neighbours?

‘Yes, scandalizing, isn’t it?’ Rampton sounded amused. The
palm of his hand was now travelling in gentle circular strokes from her
shoulder, moving down to her breast. ‘I blame his pea-goose of a mother,’ he
went on, conversationally. ‘She dotes on him. Takes his part and always has
done, whatever mischief he’s engaged upon.’

Rampton bent to nibble Rose’s earlobe, both hands being now
engaged upon their journey of discovery. Normally Rose would have been in
thrall. Now all she could think of were Geoffrey’s insults and hurtful
insinuations. Rampton had sat across the table and observed the conversation,
yet he had no idea just how insulting Geoffrey had been.

Tonight’s dinner with its declined invitations and
Geoffrey’s brazen curiosity, and his cruelty in dealing in home truths, made
Rose realize how compromised she really was. And how much it affected Rampton’s
standing in the community.

‘He’s been horribly indulged by his stepfather, too. His
mother was a poor widow and Geoffrey just an infant when she married Albright.
She believes her precious Geoffrey was inveigled into marriage. But the girl’s
a simpleton. A very comely simpleton, I grant you. Geoffrey was loath to do his
duty until forced.’

Rose pulled away again and closed her eyes. His words
scorched her soul. Perhaps Rampton would think her in the throes of ecstasy.
But for that moment she could not bear his touch.

She sighed softly. ‘Unlike you were forced to do your duty?’

She felt Rampton draw back in surprise. His expression was
quizzical. And uncertain. He must have felt her reserve.

‘My duty?’ he began. His hands dropped from her shoulders
and he took a step backwards. ‘My duty, my dear?’ he repeated, his head cocked
on one side. ‘Do you consider this a duty?’

Shaking her head, she exhaled on a sob. ‘Of course not. But
please, Rampton, I’ve very tired tonight…’

She knew she should say more. Rampton had been so
understanding and used every opportunity to reassure her that her place in his
heart was secure. Good lord, it was more than a bride who’d married for love
could have expected.

Married for love?
As she lay in bed, alone, that night
the phrase kept returning, until she finally acknowledged the truth of them.

Love was the basis for her union for Rampton, not deceit,
and she was only harming herself and what they had if she kept harking back to
it.

She shivered beneath the counterpane of her large, empty
four-poster in the private apartments she’d been assigned. How foolish of her
to have elected to ‘give him his privacy’, thinking space apart would be good
for them, and how much she wanted to go to him.

But she didn’t think she’d know how to find his quarters in
the dark.

Berating herself for thinking no further than her foolish
insecurities she tossed and turned until daylight when she would have sought
him out immediately had sleep not finally claimed her.

ROSE’S
GUILT COMPOUNDED her unhappiness when she found that her husband had left on an
unscheduled trip at dawn the following morning.

‘A man needs his freedom,’ her mother-in-law said, looking
up from her tatting. Rose had seen the malicious gleam in her eye as she
informed her that Rampton had ridden to town and she had no idea when he might
be back.

‘It must be at least four hours on horseback. Perhaps
longer. He must mean to spend the night. And you only just married. Still, it
cannot be said he has not done his duty by you when all’s said and done.’

Duty. That is what Rampton had talked of last night, before
he had kissed her cheek and left her. She had clung to him for a moment. She
wanted to rest her cheek against his chest and cry her heart out; she wanted
him to reassure her – again, in view of Geoffrey’s unkindness —
that he had married her not out of duty but plain desire. She had been too
self-absorbed to see that he had wanted the same reassurance. And now he was
gone, before she could tell him so.

***

A gentleman’s club was a refuge from domesticity, a
sanctuary for beleaguered husbands. But not when every second member wanted to
talk to one about one’s wife.

Not that Rampton had left Larchfield strictly on account of
Rose. Since he was not revelling in his wife’s warm embrace that morning he had
decided on his usual dawn ride. It was only as he was dressing that the
remembering of a neglected piece of business had prompted him into changing his
plans and making a day trip to London.

It had been a piece of perversity not to slide into bed
beside Rose and inform her, he knew. The truth was that he was chagrined. Last
night Rose had clearly not desired him.

It had been less than two weeks since they had wed and they
had shared a bed every night. He had thought his desire would run its course,
but its trajectory was ever upward. He grimaced. He could feel a certain piece
of his anatomy taking the same course at the mere thought of her.

But last night Rose insinuated that duty lay at the heart of
their marriage, just as it did every marriage. At least, that was how he had
taken it when she had not run after him, begging to explain a misunderstanding.
No, she had insinuated that having been compromised she, like he, had had to
pay the price by making their union legally binding.

Well, that was how his touchy male pride had taken it before
common sense had told him he was being a fool; that last night he had wanted to
feel himself the object of Rose’s slavish devotion to the same degree as he had
on every night since they had wed.

Catherine Barbery, his most longstanding mistress, had once
declared that it was impossible to desire one’s husband. ‘Desire implies
excitement, and who can be excited at the prospect of duty?’ she had asked.

Catherine had been twenty-seven to his twenty years when
he’d met her. Married to the wealthy banker, Claude Barbery for ten years at
the time, she was famous for her fiery and often indiscreet amours. Within five
years she had provided her elderly husband with three sons and had then
embarked upon a life of self-gratification, unchallenged by Barbery who was
content to spend much of his time with his own mistress of thirty years.

Rampton had been just a callow, untried youth just down from
Cambridge when Catherine had first cast her lures.

This bold, adventurous and unconventional woman had proved a
voracious lover and had shaped his ideas on love. She had been the one to end
his first romance, introducing him to her bosom friend. ‘A year is a long time
and you are only twenty-one, my love. We’ve taught one another as much as we
can. The excitement has lost its lustre and now it’s time to move on.’ Then she
added, with great prescience, ‘I think you will like Annabelle.’

But Rampton’s association with Catherine did not end there.
They remained friends and the romance had been rekindled the previous year.

Then Rampton had met Rose.

Catherine had not been happy. ‘I could be reconciled if your
marriage were contracted on dynastic or pecuniary grounds but it revolts me to
see this foisted upon you as an obligation,’ she had flared.

‘Honour, not duty, my dear.’ He had tried to not to be
riled.

‘Same thing. The girl should have known better but if she is
enceinte then I know a very discreet gentleman just off Harley Street who’ll
take care of her. Neither of you should be forced into a marriage you’d never
have contracted willingly.’

Rampton replied with spirit, ‘I married a virgin … on the
novel grounds of love.’

Having Rose cleave to him, and knowing that they were bound
until death was immensely satisfying.

Yes, satisfying. She made him feel whole.

Last night he’d wanted her to tell him she felt the same.
He’d ceased his amatory explorations, held her away from him and bluntly asked
her if she considered this a duty.

He’d laid the groundwork; all she needed to do was deny it
and sink, boneless into his very responsive arms. Instead she had been unable
to meet his eye. He almost expected her to say she had a megrim.

When he had indicated that he was going to bed she had clung
to him, and tears had glistened in her eyes. But then she had released him and
turned away.

He was confused. She had seemed so happy earlier. With
marriage. With him.

Was she tired of him already? Had she only ever pretended to
enjoy it?

A nagging doubt entered his brain then, and like a grain of
sand nestling into his grey matter, began to agitate.

Rose had been actively resistant to the idea of marrying
him, initially. He had almost bullied her into accepting.

Restlessly, Rampton turned the page of the periodical on the
table before him. No, he decided, with a surge of almost self righteous
pleasure, he had married a good woman whose only crime was taking on her
sister-in-law’s identity in order to help her family. She’d certainly not set
out to entrap.

But she’d come to love him. She might have entered into a
charade to repay a debt but she could not fool him that she did not love him.
No woman could smile at him as if he radiated all that could be pleasing to
her. No woman who was merely play-acting could drive him to such exalted
frenzies of lustful pleasure and then make it plain she’d be quite happy to
repeat the exercise five minutes later.

It was only after last night’s dinner that she had behaved
differently. And for the very first time.

Which was when Rampton had abandoned her.

Turning another page of the periodical in front of him,
realising he hadn’t taken in a word, Rampton felt a real cad. Just when Rose
needed reassuring over her role as his wife and hostess he had disappeared. That
blackguard, Geoffrey, playing on her vulnerabilities, probably to spite
Rampton, was largely to blame for her downcast spirits but Rampton had been too
absorbed in himself that he’d been unable to see what was right in front of his
nose.

At this point Rampton’s thoughts were interrupted by a
heavy-set elderly gentleman stumbling against his chair.

As he stopped to apologize Rampton could not but be struck
by his deeply tanned complexion. He was about to murmur that it was quite all
right when the gentleman, obviously recognizing him, declared, ‘It’s Rampton,
ain’t I right? Lucky man who’s just married the incomparable Miss Chesterfield.
I’d not the nerve to approach you directly when you were pointed out to me
before, but since I’ve literally stumbled upon you …’