At Last Comes Love (8 page)

“My point exactly,” he said. “A dull dog. You will be far better off with me.”

She looked steadily at him, and he looked as steadily back.

Oh, dear God, she thought, he really
was
serious.

The edges of her vision darkened again. But this was not the moment to faint. She picked up her fan and somehow found her hand steady enough to open it and waft it before her face once more.

She drew in lungfuls of warm, heavily fragrant air.

“Why?” she asked him. “Even if you can meet a complete stranger and be convinced after one glance that she is the one lady above all others whom you wish to marry,
why
must you marry her within two weeks?”

For the first time there was a slight curve to his lips that might almost be described as a smile.

“If I am not wed within the next fourteen days,” he told her, “I am going to be utterly penniless until my grand-father shuffles off this mortal coil, which may well not be for another twenty or thirty years.

Apart from some rheumatism, he appears to be in excellent health.

He will be eighty in two weeks’ time, and yesterday he summoned me into his presence and issued an ultimatum—marry before his birthday or be cut off from the rents and profits of the home where I grew up and from which the heirs traditionally draw their income. I was raised as a gentleman with expectations of wealth and therefore never expected to have to seek employment. I do believe I would make an abysmally inept coal miner even if I felt inclined to try my hand at it. I must marry, you see. And in almost indecent haste. My grandfather, I feel compelled to add, believes it will be impossible. He plans to turnWoodbinePark over to my cousin, his next heir after me, on his birthday unless I am respectably married before then.”

Margaret stared at him, speechless. He
was
serious.

“What have you done,” she asked him, “to incur such wrath? The punishment seems unusually cruel if it is just that you have procrastinated in choosing a bride.”

“I chose a bride five years ago,” he told her. “I was happy with my choice. I was head over ears in love with her. But the night before our wedding I eloped with her brother's wife and lived in sin with her—since the husband would not divorce her—until her death four months ago.”

Margaret stared at him, transfixed. Yes. Oh, yes,
that
was it. Five years ago. It had happened just before she came toLondon for the first time with Stephen and her sisters, all of them new to Stephen's title and their life in the heart of the
ton
. The scandal was still being talked of. She had thought that the Earl of Sheringford must be the devil himself.

This was
him
?

His eyes were fixed on hers. His dark, angular face was filled with mockery.

“My grandfather doubtless wishes,” he said, “that he could simply make my cousin his heir and cut me out of everything that is his. It cannot be done, of course, but he
can
make me very uncomfortable and very miserable indeed for the rest of his life.”

“Are you not
ashamed
?” she asked him, and then felt the color flood her face. It was an impertinent question. What had happened was none of her business. Except that he wanted
her
to marry him in fourteen days or fewer just so that he could keep his income.

“Not at all,” he said. “Things happen, Maggie. One adjusts one's life accordingly.”

She could think of nothing to say in response. She could ask a thousand questions, but she had no wish whatsoever to hear the answers. But why had he done it? How could he
not
be ashamed?

She was saved from the necessity of saying anything at all.

“Your newly betrothed swain is approaching to claim his dance,” the earl said, looking beyond her again. “It is as well, Maggie, is it not? I have shocked you to the core. I shall take the liberty of calling upon you tomorrow and hope I will not find the door barred against me. I have so very little time in which to find someone else, you see.”

She had not even noticed the one set of dances ending and the next beginning to form. But when she turned her head, she could see that indeed the Marquess of Allingham was approaching.

“This is my set, I believe, Miss Huxtable,” he said, smiling genially at her and acknowledging the Earl of Sheringford with the merest nod of the head.

“Oh, yes, indeed.”

The Earl of Sheringford stood up when she did. He took her right hand in his even as the marquess was extending one arm, and raised it briefly to his lips.

“I shall see you tomorrow, then, my love,” he murmured before nodding to the marquess and walking away—and out through the ballroom doors.

My love?

The marquess raised his eyebrows as she set her hand on his sleeve.

Margaret smiled at him. There was no point in trying to explain, was there? She owed him no explanation, anyway.

But really…

My love.

He had eloped with a married lady the night before his planned wedding to her sister-in-law.

Could any gentleman be further beyond the pale of respectability?

And he wanted her to marry him.

He would indeed find the door barred against him if he should have the effrontery to come calling tomorrow.

Could any day—any evening—be stranger than this one?

5

MARGARET felt very embarrassed as she danced with the Marquess of Allingham. She would have felt self-conscious anyway under the circumstances—though fortunately he had no way of knowing what her expectations had been when she set out for the ball this evening.

But he had heard the Earl of Sheringford calling her
my love
, and though she had told herself that it was none of his business what anyone else called her, nevertheless the words seemed to hover in the air about them as they danced. It did not help that they danced in silence for the first ten minutes or so.

She smiled until her lips felt stiff.

Did he know who the Earl of Sheringford
was
?

But
of course
he must know.

He was the one who spoke first.

“Miss Huxtable,” he said gravely, “forgive me if I am speaking out of turn now and forgive me if I did not speak when perhaps I ought. I
ought
to have taken that fellow to task for the familiarity with which he addressed you, when I daresay you have never met him before this evening.”

That fellow? Yes, indeed he knew.

“Lord Sheringford?” she said lightly. “Oh, I did not take offense, my lord. He was joking. I am relieved you did not take any more notice of his words than they merited.”

“But as your friend,” he said after hesitating a few moments, “I feel that I ought to warn you to keep your distance from the Earl of Sheringford, Miss Huxtable. It would pain me to see your reputation tarnished by any connection with his. I daresay you do not know who he is or why he is justifiably shunned by all respectable people. I would wager he did not receive an invitation to the ball tonight but came quite brazenly without one. And I do not know who thought it appropriate to introduce you to him.”

“You are wrong about one thing,” she said. “I
do
know about him. I even remember the scandal, which was still quite fresh when I made my first appearance at a London Season five years ago, just after Stephen inherited his title. You must not concern yourself, my lord. I am quite capable of looking after myself and choosing my own acquaintances.”

Like the gentleman he was, he said no more on the subject, and Margaret thought that was surely the end of the matter—beyond having to deny admittance to Lord Sheringford if he did indeed put in an appearance at Merton House tomorrow, of course, and beyond having to tell Crispin the truth when she saw him next.

Oh, dear, she
had
behaved foolishly this evening.

She was not proud of herself. She had always been the soul of propriety and discretion. She would remember this evening for a long time and with considerable discomfort. She turned hot and cold again when she remembered all that she had poured out to the Earl of Sheringford—all her most embarrassing and humiliating secrets. That was surely the worst thing she had done all evening.

Whatever had possessed her!

Vanessa and Katherine were both waiting for her when the marquess returned her to their sides. Elliott and Jasper were conversing with a group of gentlemen nearby.

“Meg.” Vanessa linked an arm firmly and possessively through hers.

“I was never more happy in my life than to see you dancing with the Marquess of Allingham. Whoever presented you to the Earl of Sheringford? If it was Lady Tindell, she really ought to have known better and I will not scruple to tell her so. The earl is absolutely beyond the pale.”

“He even
looks
disreputable,” Katherine added. “And downright dangerous. Meg, do you know that—”

“Yes,” Margaret said, interrupting. “I
do
know that he eloped with his bride's sister-in-law five years ago. I cannot see that that makes him an utter pariah today. Perhaps people ought to be entitled to a second chance.”

“That is true,” Vanessa said, patting her hand. “It is very true, indeed. I daresay he is a very sad and contrite gentleman. She died recently, I have heard—the lady with whom he eloped, I mean, though he never married her. Her husband would not divorce her. It is just like you to refuse to give him the cut direct, Meg, though it was a little alarming to watch him lead you off the dance floor in the middle of a set in order to sit with you in that alcove.”

“Which is in full public view,” Margaret pointed out. “I was in no danger whatsoever of being kidnapped or otherwise assaulted.”

“True.” Vanessa laughed. “But I had visions of him whispering all sorts of improper suggestions in your ear. I might have stridden over there to rescue you myself, but Kate was dancing at the time and could not accompany me, and Elliott thought it unnecessary to risk making a public scene, since he trusts your good sense. Crispin went to see if you needed rescuing, though. I was glad of that even though I know you are not entirely delighted that he is inLondon .”

And a mistaken sense of pride had goaded her into introducing the Earl of Sheringford to him as her betrothed. The enormity of what she had done swept over Margaret again. Thank
heaven
she had at least sworn Crispin to secrecy—or as good as sworn him, anyway. She had told him the betrothal had not yet been publicly announced. She must find him without further delay and tell him the truth. But he had asked to dance with her later, had he not? She would tell him then, humiliating as it would be. And there—finally—would be an end of the matter.

It was already too late, though.

Stephen was striding toward them across the ballroom, looking uncharacteristically grim, his eyes fixed upon Margaret.

“Stephen,” Katherine said as he came up to them. “Whatever is the matter?”

He spoke directly to Margaret.

“Meg,” he said, “I do not know who on earth introduced you to that fellow. Whoever it was deserves to be shot. But that is the least of our worries. The most ridiculous rumor is spreading and we are going to have to move quickly to quash it. It is being said that you and Sheringford are
betrothed
.”

“Oh, Stephen, no!” Vanessa exclaimed.

“But how very ridiculous!” Katherine said, laughing. “No one will take it seriously, Stephen.”

Margaret stared at him, speechless.

Elliott and Jasper must have heard what Stephen had said. They both turned away from their group.

“I'll draw his cork for this,” Elliott said. “What does he think he is up to?”

“It would be more to the point,” Jasper said, “to draw the cork of the joker who began the story. It was hardly Sherry himself, as he left the ball half an hour ago. Do you know who
did
, Stephen?”

It was Margaret who answered him.

“I fear it must have been Crispin Dew,” she said, and not for the first time that evening she felt on the verge of fainting.

There was that quite unmistakable buzz in the ballroom that always accompanied the spreading of the newest salacious rumor. And a quick glance about the room confirmed Margaret in her fear that it was indeed she who was the subject of that rumor. Far too many eyes were turned in the direction of her group to be normal.

“Dew?” Stephen's voice was like thunder. “Why the devil would he start any such rumor?”

He did not even apologize for his language—and no one in the group thought to demand an apology.

“I fear it was something I said,” Margaret said. But that was clearly not explanation enough. She drew a deep, somewhat ragged breath.

“I introduced the Earl of Sheringford to him as my betrothed.”

“You
what
?” Elliott asked very quietly.

The others stared at her as if she had suddenly sprouted a second head.

“I also told him no one else knew yet,” she said. “It was a
joke
. It was … Well, it was something I said impulsively and would have corrected later when I dance with him.”

To say she felt foolish—as well as a number of other uncomfortable things—would be a massive understatement.

The buzz of excited conversation about them had not abated.

“But what,” Katherine asked, “did Lord
Sheringford
have to say about such an extraordinary announcement, Meg?”

Margaret licked lips that were suddenly dry. “It was he who suggested it,” she said. “And he wants to make it real. He wants to marry me. But it is really all nonsense and best forgotten.”

This whole evening seemed like a ghastly nightmare. She would be fortunate if they did not haul her off to Bedlam before the night was out.

“Which may be easier said than done,” Jasper said, bowing to her and extending a hand for hers. “You are attracting a great deal of attention, Meg, especially as Sherry has absconded and cannot take his half share. Come and dance with me again. And smile. Katherine and I will escort you home afterward, and the others may remain to dispel the rumors as best they can.”

Margaret set her hand in his.

“This is so very ridiculous,” she said.