Laura Kinsale (12 page)

“I don’t care!” he shouted. “I don’t give a damn who you marry! As long as it isn’t Eliot.” He turned away,
and braced his hands on the windowsill. In a tone that sounded perilously near desperation, he spat, “Good God, if you’re so set on marriage, you’d be better off marrying
me!
”

A fraught silence followed his outburst. To Tess it seemed to spin into a small eternity. A slow, joyous comprehension spread through her, a woman’s certainty. His deep, uneven breathing was audible from where he stood again by the window, staring blindly out, his hands balled into white fists behind his back. She sat down, to keep her legs from buckling under her, and said quietly, “Was that a proposal?”

His whole body stiffened. “No.”

“Then I shall marry Stephen Eliot.”

She had said it as a gamble, but it came out with a ring of dreadful finality. Gryf bent his head and pressed his fists against his forehead. “I won’t let you,” he said dully.

Very gently, she answered, “You have no right to stop me.”

He dropped his hands and stared at the ceiling. She sat still, so afraid that he would walk out the door that she had to make a conscious effort to take each breath. He crossed the room and fell onto his knees before her, gathered her cold hands in his and bent over them, holding her so hard that her fingers ached. “Damn you,” he whispered harshly. “I love you. Does that give me the right?”

A burst of happiness exploded inside of her. “Then this
is
a proposal,” she said, in a voice of unnatural calm.

His grip tightened; he made a wordless sound of misery. “No. I can’t.”

She leaned down and pressed her lips to his burnished hair. “I love you too.”

“It won’t work,” he said, muffled. “It would never work.”

He seemed to her like a small boy, badly in need of comfort. She pulled one of her hands free and rested it on his shoulder. “I love you,” she repeated softly.

He groaned, but his fingers sought hers again, intertwining with them. He raised his head. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

Tess smiled into his anguished eyes, those smoky hawk’s eyes lined with sun and distance. “You’ve already tried that one.”

“I don’t have any money.”

She shook her head. “That won’t do either. I have quite a lot.”

“You don’t—I can’t—” His mouth curved in a grimace and he shook his head. “I’m not what you think I am.”

She gazed down with loving amusement. “What are you, then?”

“It doesn’t matter. You wouldn’t believe me. I can’t marry you.”

Tess sighed. “Then I shall have to become Mrs. Eliot.”

His face darkened. He pulled away from her, and began to prowl the room. Tess pretended to gaze at her lap, but her eyes never left him as he paced a gilded cage with the powerful, unconscious grace of a wild animal. Her experience with such creatures gave her the sure knowledge of what to do. She sat silent and still, schooling herself to wait, though her pulse fluttered erratically. Let him think; let him overcome his fear. The bait was there, and the hunger. She knew it, had seen it in his eyes. He wanted her. The thought made her tremble with anticipation. Oh yes. He wanted her.

He stopped, and Tess turned to look at him openly.
The painful doubt in his expression tore her heart. She forgot patience, forgot tactics, forgot everything but the need to ease the hopeless despair that lined his features. “I don’t care,” she said firmly. “I don’t care what you are, or what you have been, or what you think you might become. I don’t care if you have no money. I don’t care what your name is. I love you. I will marry Mr. Eliot if you won’t have me, but I will still love you. I’m sorry if it hurts you. It hurts me, too, but I can’t change it, and I don’t want to.”

He stared at her for a long moment.

“All right.” His voice shook. “All right. God help us both, but I’ll marry you if that’s what you want.”

By the time he returned to his rented flat on Mount Street, Gryf was no less dazed than he had been when he left Morrow House. He had walked an indeterminate distance through the city, hoping this incredible delusion would vanish into the depths of his imagination where it belonged. But when he had walked for thirty blocks through the London chaos, he was still just as much engaged to be married as he had been when he started.

He threw his hat and stick on the entry table, and got a frown from his valet for not waiting to transfer them in a more civilized manner directly into the man’s hands. “A brandy,” Gryf ordered, feeling himself in bad need of one. He went up the stairs into the sitting room and flung himself into an overstuffed red velvet armchair. He stared at a faded landscape painting that hung on the opposite wall, not seeing it or the room around him. The heavy mahogany furnishings had nothing to do with him anyway: the place, like the valet, was one that Taylor had recommended, and it had never felt like home.

After a while, he let out an explosive sigh, and rubbed his face with his palms. The valet entered the door Gryf had left open, placed a silver tray and a snifter on the table next to Gryf, and asked if there would be anything else.

“No,” Gryf said wearily, and tapped at the crystal. “Just keep this full. I’m planning to become excessively drunk.”

The valet, a middle-aged cockney who had done his share in making Gryf acceptable in London society, gave his temporary master a sympathetic look. “A dog’s day, then, Mr. Gryphon?”

Gryf smiled humorlessly. “That doesn’t begin to describe it.”

“Afore you finds yerself hindisposed, sir, you might be wantin’ to know…’twas a lady ’ere to see you. She wouldn’t leave no card, but says she’ll be back, an’ she’s come once or twice since.”

“A lady.” Gryf thought immediately of Tess. A mingled misery and joy gripped him. “A dark-haired lady?”

“No sir. She wouldn’t ’ave ’ad dark ’air, I don’t fancy.”

“Oh.” Gryf frowned. “Is it all right for me to have a lady caller here?”

The valet was used to such questions; Gryf had made no secret of his social ignorance.

“I don’t ’spect hit says much for ’er, Mr. Gryphon.”

Gryf picked up the glass and twirled it. “I don’t suppose I can turn her off the doorstep. Whoever she may be.”

“No, sir. I don’t think she’d take that, seein’ as ’ow she’s so wild to see you.”

“Well,” Gryf said, “I’m mystified.”

A bell tinkled, and the valet turned. “I ’spect that’ll be ’er, Mr. Gryphon.”

Gryf took a stiff mouthful of brandy and swallowed it. He stood. “See her up, then. I can’t see how my life could possibly get any worse.”

He realized how wrong he had been in that happy sentiment a few minutes later when Louisa stepped into the room with a pleasant smile. “Cousin Gryphon,” she said musically, as the valet closed the door behind her. “I’m so glad to find you at home.”

He eyed her warily, and gave a brief nod. “Louisa.”

“That’s right. Louisa. Your favorite cousin. May I sit down? Thank you so much; you’re such a kind host. Tell me, Gryphon dear, are we first cousins, or is the connection more distant?”

“It’s as distant as you care to make it,” Gryf said blandly.

“Really? Suppose I care to make it rather close?”

Gryf sat down. “Could this sudden closeness have anything to do with my purported ‘declaration’ to you?”

Louisa’s sharp blue eyes probed him. “You have spoken to Tess Collier.”

“I have.”

“I asked you not to.” She began industriously to pull off her gloves. “That business of meeting in the park, Gryphon—a little too much, don’t you think? If Lady Wynthrop knew of it, you would be run out of town. It would have been best to stay away from Lady Tess until her engagement is announced. Stephen Eliot wouldn’t care for any hint of scandal.”

“I don’t give a damn for what Stephen Eliot thinks,” Gryf said calmly. “And I don’t care for you telling lies about me.”

She gave him a small smile. “Why, lies are all I’ve told about you, Gryphon dear. Is there any reason to change the pattern now?”

He matched her smile with a hard one of his own. “You’re being paid for those particular lies, Louisa. I’d prefer it if you didn’t extemporize.”

“Is that a brandy, Gryphon?” she asked airily. “Would you mind if I finished it for you?”

He shrugged. She waited a moment, then rose to retrieve the glass herself. She sipped it with a greediness that caught his attention. He suddenly realized that she was nervous.

She was silent until she had finished the drink, then set the glass aside and ran her tongue delicately over her upper lip. “Actually, Gryphon dear, I haven’t really been telling lies about you and myself.”

“Haven’t you?” His tone was dangerously polite.

“No. I expect you to marry me.”

By dint of old and ingrained conditioning, he managed to keep himself from jumping out of his chair. “May I ask for what reason you expect me to marry you?”

She fluttered her lashes downward. “I’m carrying your child.”

“Pardon me?”

Her lashes flicked open. “A baby, Gryphon dear. Yours. I’m sure you’ll do the right thing.”

For a moment, breath failed him, and then he found his tongue. “Louisa,” he said in a dead neutral voice. “I’ve never touched you.”

She drew herself up. “Never touched me! But here I am, lured to your apartments. Totally alone. My good name is ruined.”

“How sad for you.”

“Oh, no. I’ve put it about that we’re childhood sweethearts. Secretly engaged for years. That should damp any notion that the marriage is rushed.”

He stood up, crossed the room, and looked down at her. “Is this Falken’s child?”

Her face stiffened, but she recovered quickly. “It’s yours, my love. Don’t try to deny it.”

“I can help you, Louisa. I’ll find a doctor—”

“No!” She leaped to her feet. “I’ll not submit to some filthy knife! I’d likely die of it!”

“All right, calm down. I have a little money—my ship will be docking soon. You could take a passage to France—”

“No!” she wailed. “I’d be ruined; I could never come back! Not a soul in England would receive me!”

“It appears to me that you’re already in that position.”

“Not if you marry me.” There was a rising note of hysteria in her voice. “I don’t care what you do afterwards—you may take yourself off to perdition if you please, but we must wed! It’s the only way.”

With a sense of disbelief, Gryf found himself saying for the second time in one day, “I can’t marry you.”

Her pretty eyes gleamed. “Oh, yes, you can. And you will. Because if I go down,
Cousin,
I’ll make sure I bring you down with me!”

An old and familiar chill touched his spine. “Would you care to make that threat more clear?”

“I’ll make sure they all know it’s yours,” she sneered. “I’ll drag your name through the mud. No one will speak to you. You’ll be a pariah! I’ll see that you never step in a decent drawing room again!”

The tirade confused him at first, until he realized that Louisa was threatening him with what she was most afraid of herself. It had not occurred to her that Gryf could care less if he ever saw a decent drawing room again for the rest of his natural life.

He sat down, pretending to look worried. “What if I deny it? I’ll simply say it’s Falken’s child.”

“No one will believe you,” she said, recovering her
self a little. She too resumed her seat. “I’ll make sure they don’t, and I imagine Lord Falken would be a little put out.”

Gryf couldn’t restrain a short laugh. “Yes, I suppose he would be. Have you told him, Louisa?”

Color sprang into her face. She had, Gryf concluded from her silence. And Falken had probably politely instructed her to go to Hell.

“I think we should set an early date,” she said matter-of-factly. “It will save speculation.”

“Louisa,” Gryf said gently. “I cannot marry you.”

“You mean you don’t want to.”

“I mean I can’t.”

Her hands fluttered. “Why ever not?”

“Because I’m engaged to Lady Collier.”

The motion of her hands ceased. “I see.”

At the frozen expression on her face, Gryf felt a wave of disgust for Falken’s callousness. “Will you let me help you in any other way?”

“No.” She grasped her gloves and stood up suddenly. “No, thank you. I must take my leave now. Good-bye, Gryphon dear. Will your man see me out? Good-bye.”

The door closed behind her before Gryf even had the chance to rise. He heard her footsteps, drumming down the stairs, and then the slam of the door, much too soon and loud for his valet to have had any hand in the matter. After a few moments, the man opened the sitting room door tentatively.

“Is the lady gone for good, then, sir?”

Gryf looked at him in bemusement. “It would appear so.”

“I ’ope she weren’t too overly excited, Mr. Gryphon. She near knocked me down on the stairs. I was just comin’ hup to give you this—” He proffered a sealed envelope. “The boy said hit were hurgent.”

Gryf rolled his eyes. “Now what the devil—” He took the note and tore it open.

Gryf came to his feet with a strangled oath. For a moment he was unable to summon action through the fear that gripped his throat. Grady, his mind throbbed. Dear God, not Grady.

“Hit can’t be bad news, sir?” the valet said, in a tone of worry.

“A cab,” Gryf said, bursting out of immobility, “get me a cab. Never mind, I’ll find one myself—” He was already halfway out the door, the crumpled note fluttering to the floor behind him. His valet followed quickly, pounding down the stairs in atypical haste.

“I can get one faster, sir!” the man said, brushing past Gryf toward the door. “If you’ll manage your own hat and coat…” He was gone, leaving Gryf in the hall in a draft from the open door. It was true the manservant could probably hail a cab more quickly, but Gryf’s fingers trembled in frustrated haste as he buttoned his coat. He just remembered to grab his top hat and cram it onto his head. He was on the step in time to see a hansom rattle to a stop at the curb.