Brighton Road (16 page)

"Oh, my lord—Ravenel," she stammered. "I
never dreamed that—that you would feel this way."

"Of course I would. I am a man of honor,
after all."

"So you are," she murmured shyly. "My
chivalrous knight."

"I could not just ride away after I had
compromised you, no matter how unwitting it was on my part. As a
Ravenel, I could not tolerate that sort of scandal."

The hand that Gwenda had been reaching up to
stroke his lordship's cheek froze in midair. "What?" she asked
faintly. "What are you talking about?"

He shot her a look more impatient than
loverlike. "My dear, you will be utterly ruined if it is known you
spent the night at the same inn as I, unchaperoned. That is why I
have no choice but to marry you."

The rose-lined cloud upon which Gwenda
floated dissolved from under her feet. Ravenel did indeed bear a
most heroic cast to his countenance at this moment, but it was more
of the nobility of one about to bravely embrace a firing squad than
his lady. She squirmed free of his grip.

"Oh. I see," she said, surprised by the
keenness of her disappointment. "How utterly honorable of you. But
as a Vickers, I didn't think you believed I had a reputation worth
saving."

The baron looked momentarily shamefaced, but
he recovered himself. "We are not discussing any remarks I might
have made previously about your family. When we are wed, I assure
you I would not be so ill-bred as to utter any further criticisms.
No matter what should happen, I would never be so uncivil as to
blame you—"

"Please." Gwenda groaned. "Do not start
making any speeches. You presume entirely too much, my lord. I have
no intention of accepting your generous offer."

"I was not offering. I was telling you. You
have to marry me. As a Ravenel—"

"Exactly whose good name are you trying to
protect?" she interrupted acidly. "Yours or mine?"

"Yours! If you but had the wit to know it.
And though I do not expect you to feel in the least grateful."

"Grateful!" Gwenda's own voice became
successively more shrill. The sound of their quarrel roused Bertie
enough so that he opened one eye to regard them sleepily.

She shouted, "How dare you talk of gratitude
when you inform me you must marry me, with your face looking grim
as death."

"Forgive me if my manner offends you,"
Ravenel bellowed back. "But in the past eight hours, I have been
thrown from a carriage, nigh drowned in a thunderstorm, given
indigestion from overcooked meat—"

"I told you not to eat it!"

"—which is not calculated to put a man in the
most gallant frame of mind."

Gwenda rubbed her arms where her flesh had
recently felt the strong pressure of his fingers. "Well, I will say
one thing. At least this proposal is somewhat of an improvement
over the one you made to Miss Carruthers."

The dangerous spark that flared in Ravenel's
eyes should have caused Gwenda to fall silent. But Thorne had
always told her that her besetting sin was never knowing when to
hold her tongue. She continued, "I would never marry you, not even
to save my reputation. No, not even if I was to be branded for a
trollop and dragged to the pillory tomorrow."

A muscle twitched along Ravenel's jawline. He
approached her with an ominous deadly calm that was far more
alarming than any outright show of anger. Gwenda had enough sense
to retreat behind the tea table.

"So you would never marry me?" he said in
accents of soft menace. "I daresay you don't find me romantic
enough. A most boring,
stuffy
man."

"I never precisely said that," she replied,
wondering exactly what he intended to do when he got his hands on
her.

"Old Sobersides Ravenel. Not in the least
like any of those dashing heroes you write about."

"I never said that either."

Indeed, if Ravenel only knew how exactly like
one of her heroes he did look at this moment, stalking her around
the tea table in his weather-stained white shirt, his undone cravat
revealing the bronzed flesh of his neck, his dark eyes raking her
in a manner that both threatened and tantalized How often had
Roderigo appeared thusly in her dreams, only moments before he
would attempt to bestow upon her that elusive kiss that never
seemed to materialize.

Gwenda stopped in her tracks, tracing the
sensual outline of Ravenel's mouth with her gaze. What was she
doing? Here might be the perfect opportunity to find out about that
kiss, and she was nearly flinging it away by retreating. But no.
What a scandalous notion! She couldn't possibly demand of Ravenel a
thing like that. But if she didn't, she might never in her life
have such another chance.

The words seemed to spill from her lips of
their own accord. "Ravenel. Have you ever kissed a woman
before?"

"Have I what?" Her question brought him to an
abrupt halt, bare inches between them. "Of course I have." He added
bitterly, "Though I daresay you'd tell me I don't do that right,
either."

"I have no way of judging unless you do so."
Despite his angry mood, Ravenel looked a little taken aback.

"And you can hardly expect me to marry you
unless you kiss me first," Gwenda said, entirely forgetting that
she had just told him she would never marry him on any account.

Ravenel appeared far more likely to box her
ears. But he grabbed her by the shoulders, hauled her forward, and
planted a kiss on her lips that was swift, hard, and far from
satisfactory. But as he was pulling back, their eyes met and some
lightning awareness seemed to spark between them.

He drew her into his arms more gently this
time. Gwenda came without resisting until she was pressed so close
to his chest, their bodies seemed to melt together. His head bent
toward hers, his hand cradling the back of her neck. The moment
stretched out forever, as in one of her dreams, and as Gwenda
stared deep into the dark pools that were Ravenel's eyes, she was
certain she would wake too soon, as she always did.

But then his mouth covered hers, tenderly at
first so that she could savor the warm texture of his lips. Gwenda
tried to capture her feelings at this moment, but it was
impossible. As Ravenel deepened the kiss, all thought slipped
through her mind until she was aware of nothing but Ravenel and the
wondrous, fiery sensation of his lips on hers.

He pulled back, his mouth parting from hers
with a lingering reluctance. His voice was husky. "My dear Gwenda.
I should not. I am taking the most shameful advantage of you."

"Don't waste time apologizing," she begged.
"Just kiss me again." She flung her arms about his neck. Ever a
quick study, Gwenda proceeded to demonstrate to Ravenel just how
much she had learned from their first embrace. She pressed her
mouth to his in an ardent kiss that was even headier than the last
one had been. Ravenel crushed her hard against him, returning her
passion with fervor, when suddenly he wrenched himself free.

"Miss Vickers!" he gasped. This time it was
the baron who retreated around the tea table. When Gwenda murmured
in protest and attempted to follow him, he held up one hand to ward
her off.

"No, no more of that," he said, panting. "Not
until we are married."

She could not tell whether he appeared more
shocked by his own behavior or hers. The warm glow enveloping her
faded, leaving her overcome with feelings of shame and misery.

She pressed her hands to her flaming cheeks.
"We are not getting married. I have been kissing you under false
pretenses b-because you look like him and—and he looks like you. I
never knew how Roderigo ought to kiss before, but I never
imagined…And how could one begin to describe such an overwhelming
experience in a book, anyway?"

Since she concluded this rather incoherent
speech by bursting into tears, it did not surprise her that Ravenel
should look thoroughly confused. He kept a wary distance between
them.

"We are both more than a little overwrought
from the day's events," he said. "You should retire. I'll just go
and inquire if your room is ready, and we'll settle this matter in
the morning." The baron spun on his heel and retreated briskly from
the room.

"It is settled now! I am not mmarrying you,"
Gwenda cried, but the door had already closed behind Ravenel.

Bert stood up, stretched, yawned, and ambled
over to nuzzle Gwenda's hand sympathetically. She gave a doleful
sniff and patted the dog. "Oh, Bertie! If he had any doubts before,
now I have thoroughly convinced him that I am a lunatic. But as if
I give a fig for his opinion or his beastly honorable
proposals!"

She wiped her eyes angrily on her sleeve and
managed to compose herself by the time his lordship returned with
the young waiter, Rob, bearing a candlestick to light her way.

Ravenel bade her a curt good night. "And be
sure to keep your door locked" were his final words to her, before
retreating to the fire and presenting her with the rigid line of
his back.

Gwenda glared at him and followed Rob from
the sitting room, Bertie trailing after them. As they mounted the
creaking stairs to the upper floor, the candle flame cast eerie,
flickering shadows upon the inn's ancient, gloom-shrouded walls.
Under other circumstances, she would have permitted herself a
delicious shiver, allowed her mind to conjure up all sorts of
sinister images. But at the moment her thoughts were too full of
the recent tempestuous scene with Ravenel.

The boy indicated the door to the chamber
that was to be hers, but when she moved to sweep past him, Rob
suddenly blurted out, "His lordship never said a truer thing!"

"What?" Gwenda asked, wanting only for the
boy to be gone so that she could be alone.

"About keeping your door locked, miss." Rob
leaned forward, lowering his voice to a frightened pitch. "And not
venturing out of your room tonight, not under any
circumstances."

It was the kind of dire warning she had often
used in her books, but she took little heed of what Rob was
saying.

"Of course," she said, giving the boy an
impatient, weary smile. Taking the candle, she whisked into her
chamber and shut the door in Rob's anxious face.

"That woman is going to marry me," Ravenel
muttered, clenching his jaw.

"Of course, my lord," Jarvis said. He had
lost track of the number of times he had uttered that soothing
phrase since his arrival at the Nonesuch a half hour ago. Never had
he seen his master in such a pelter. From what few mumbled words he
caught, Jarvis supposed his lordship to be fretting over Miss
Carruthers and her rejection of him. But why, in the wake of
everything else that had happened, should such a thing now be
preying upon Master Des's mind? The only likely explanation was
that his lordship was overwrought. It behooved Jarvis to get him
into bed as quickly as possible.

The valet rolled back the coverlet and eyed
the sheets with great disfavor. Yellowed, threadbare, they appeared
apt to come apart at the slightest touch. He clucked his tongue.
"This bed is very likely full of vermin, my lord."

"Good," his lordship replied in abstracted
fashion. "Make sure there are at least two. I shall never get to
sleep otherwise."

Jarvis swiveled his head to stare at Ravenel
in astonishment, then realized that his lordship had not heeded a
word said to him. By the light of an oil lamp, its glow obscured by
a dusty globe, his lordship pawed through one of his trunks. He
found his dressing gown, which he proceeded to don inside out.

You have had a very long day, Master Des,
Jarvis thought. He had been worried about his lordship and Miss
Vickers ever since he had watched the young couple vanish down the
road and saw the rain coming on. But his anxieties would have been
tenfold worse if he had known they had fetched up in this dirty,
tumbledown inn.

"It would have been far better if I had come
and rescued you, my lord." Jarvis could not help voicing this
opinion for perhaps the dozenth time. A grunt was his only
reply.

Jarvis felt he had fared much better than
Lord Ravenel and the young lady. The rain had barely begun when a
farm cart had happened by. If only they had known there was a snug
cottage within walking distance a bare quarter of mile beyond the
field where his lordship had been flung.

After hailing the cart, Jarvis had soon had
the drunken coachman and the poor young footman comfortably settled
in the cozy farmhouse with plump Mrs. Ladbroke fussing and plying
them with hot tea. With her help, Jarvis had bandaged James's ankle
and sobered up the coachman. Jarvis would have been well content if
not for his nagging fears over Lord Ravenel's continued absence.
When the carriage from the Nonesuch had arrived in search of him,
Jarvis had been most eager to leave. Not so Fitch or James, he
thought with disapproval. They were too selfishly concerned with
their own ailments to stir a step for their mistress. These young
servants nowadays. It would have taken more than a sprained ankle
or a raging headache to keep Jarvis from Master Des.

Through all this Jarvis was ashamed to feel a
twinge of smugness. The young master oft seemed so sure his poor
old valet was beyond coping with any disaster. Jarvis thought he
had done rather well today, shown his lordship he was not
completely past it. Had he remembered to tell Master Des with what
foresight he had left a note pinned inside the wrecked carriage,
otherwise the groom from the Nonesuch never would have found him at
Mrs. Ladbroke's cottage?

"Yes, Jarvis. You told me. Several times,"
was his lordship's disgruntled reply.

While Ravenel took to pacing again, Jarvis
hunted for a warming pan to take some of the dampness from the
sheets, then he thought better of it. Any friction would likely
cause that worn linen to disintegrate entirely.