Mad About the Earl (32 page)

“Promise me something,” he said, closing his long fingers over hers.

“Yes? What is it?”

“Promise me you will be careful at that rout party,” Xavier said. “I have a bad feeling about it.”

Rosamund shivered. She had a bad feeling about it, too.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“You didn’t tell me it was a damned ball,” grumbled Griffin as he escorted Rosamund down the stairs. “I said no balls!”

“A few couples forming a set by the pianoforte does not a ball make,” murmured Rosamund, smiling and nodding to her acquaintances. “It is a rout party, Griffin. Do try to smile and not look as if you are about to devour my mother’s guests.”

They were late, which had been Rosamund’s intention in accepting two other invitations for the evening. She and Jacqueline had already dined at Lady Barker’s house and danced a few sets at Mrs. Ashton’s ball before collecting Griffin in the carriage and proceeding to Steyne House.

It was as far as she dared go in order to avoid her mama. That lady had lamented all over town that her daughter had married in such a shabby way. Cornwall! With no relatives or friends present. What, she asked plaintively, was wrong with St. George’s, Hanover Square?

They moved farther into the drawing room, and Griffin said out of the corner of his mouth, “Remind me. Why are we here?”

“It would look odd if we were not,” she said. “My mother would never let me hear the end of it.”

She was at a loss to guess her mother’s motives in inviting Lauderdale tonight. Perhaps she had no plan beyond getting Rosamund and Lauderdale in the one place, but Rosamund suspected there was more to it than that. She intended to stay very close to Griffin tonight.

Without warning, she spied Lauderdale and suffered a horrid jolt of mingled anxiety and fear. “Perhaps we should not stay too long,” she said.

Griffin muttered a foul curse, and Rosamund turned to see that Mr. Maddox was making a beeline for them. Jacqueline hadn’t seen him yet. She had her back to him, as her attention had been claimed by various other debutantes with whom she’d become friends over the past weeks.

As Maddox approached, Jacqueline turned as if sensing his presence. The intense, hungry look on his face, the banked longing in his dark eyes when he saw her made even Rosamund’s heart flutter. She could only imagine what it did to Jacqueline’s.

The girl appeared particularly lovely tonight in a deep rose-pink ball gown and long white gloves. She wore her hair piled high on her head, studded with tiny pearl pins. A matching pearl necklace encircled her slender throat.

A flush the same color as her gown swept over Jacqueline’s face.

Maddox greeted them and bowed, failing to notice Griffin’s glare. He was wholly absorbed in Jacqueline.

“My lady, would you care to dance?” Maddox’s voice had lost its customary nonchalance. It sounded earnest, husky with suppressed emotion.

Jacqueline flushed a brighter pink. She glanced up at Griffin, whose face was now stony. She shook her head. “I regret, Mr. Maddox, that I do not dance this evening.”

Rosamund could have killed Griffin for his steadfast refusal to bend!

“Nonsense!” she said. “Run along, my dear. You need not think you must eschew dancing simply because Griffin and I do.”

“She doesn’t wish to dance. Leave her be,” said Griffin. “Maddox, you heard my sister.”

Their neighbor hadn’t taken his eyes from Jacqueline’s. “Oh, yes,” he said evenly. “I heard her. Most distinctly.”

He made a brief bow, turned on his heel, and strode off in the direction of the card room.

With a fulminating look at Rosamund, Griffin said, “I’m going to get a drink.”

Rosamund turned to Jacqueline, whose face had gone from flushed to stricken and pale.

“I am so sorry, my dear. I did try.”

“Well, stop trying,” said Jacqueline in a low, trembling voice. “I don’t want your help. You are making it
worse,
do you hear me? Just … just leave me alone!”

Before Rosamund could react, Jacqueline broke from her and hurried away, leaving her standing alone, in the middle of the crowd.

Feeling distinctly shaky and a little sick as well, Rosamund started when a deep voice spoke behind her.

“Lady Rosamund.”

She turned swiftly and looked up into Lauderdale’s handsome face. Then her gaze shifted to the lady who clung to Lauderdale’s arm.

The lady was her mother.

“Ah, but I believe it is Lady Tregarth now, is it not?” With an insufferably smug smile, Lauderdale took her hand and bowed over it. She snatched it away before he could raise it to his lips.

Her prior queasiness turned to full-blown nausea. “Good evening, Mama. Good evening, Captain.” She let her gaze wander over his civilian garb. Then she opened her eyes wide. “Ah, but I hear you have sold out. So should I call you plain mister these days?”

He laughed easily, but her mother reproved her. “Once a captain, always a captain, my dear.”

“Ah,” said Rosamund. “Yes, I see.”

Somehow, Lauderdale did not look as handsome as she had once thought him. It was not the lack of regimentals that lessened his appeal, however. It was the malice in his eyes.

“Will you excuse me?” said Rosamund. “I must find the duke.” Montford would protect her, even if Griffin wouldn’t.

“Oh, he was called away on some urgent matter of state or other.” Lady Steyne waved a careless hand. “I daresay he won’t be back tonight.”

“What a pity,” commented Lauderdale. “I was looking forward to renewing my acquaintance with His Grace. But come, my dear ladies. Let us adjourn to the long gallery and take a turn to refresh ourselves. It is a deuced crush in here.”

Rosamund did not want to go to the long gallery with her mother and Lauderdale. They couldn’t be … Were the two of them …
lovers
now? Rosamund shuddered even to think it, but she would not put anything past her mother. And why should Nerissa not take the captain as her cicisbeo? She was clearly the sort of woman Lauderdale wanted.

Rosamund couldn’t believe she’d ever preened over his marked attentions to her, agonized about hurting his feelings.

“Rosamund, I insist you come upstairs at once! I wish to ask your opinion of something.” Her mother exchanged a conspiratorial glance with Lauderdale, which could not possibly bode well for Rosamund.

“Really, Mama, I just arrived. I must … I must pay my respects to my acquaintances.” She craned her neck. “Ah! I see Lady Arden over there, beckoning.”

“Oh, pooh!” said Nerissa, gripping her arm with her talonlike fingers to prevent her from leaving them. “
That
is a weak excuse if I ever heard one. Who gives a fig for Lady Arden? I
demand
that you come with us, you disobedient wretch. Lauderdale, you must persuade her to come!”

Her mother’s voice grew shrill. More than anything, Rosamund dreaded one of the marchioness’s scenes. She’d do anything to avoid drawing attention to their conversation.

With a hurried assent, she went with them, searching the crowd for Andrew or Griffin, or even some other friend whom she might depend upon to come to her rescue.

There was no one. She followed her mother and her former admirer upstairs to the long gallery, the dread in the pit of her stomach compounding with each step.

When they reached the gallery, it was deserted. Rosamund didn’t know whether to be thankful or sorry for that.

She felt the old helplessness swamp her. The same weakness that had overtaken her since she was a child and completely at her mother’s capricious mercy—and at the mercy of the men with whom the marchioness associated. If it had not been for Xavier …

But Xavier wasn’t here now, and she needed to protect herself from her mother’s depredations on her confidence. Suddenly, she halted. Which alternative was worse? A scene at her brother’s rout party, or the further erosion of her soul?

Giving in to her mother’s demands had become an ingrained habit with her, only to avoid unpleasant scenes. No longer. Not after this.

“No,”
she said, turning to face her mother. “I’m not going to let you do this to me. Not again.
Never
again.”

She wrenched herself from her mother’s grip and turned to go.

That was when she saw it.

The painting.

But it was not a composite portrait of her body with her mother’s face. It was
all
Rosamund! Form, features, a dreamy, sensual expression that belonged in the bedchamber,
in her and Griffin’s bedchamber,
not on public display.

Hanging there, in the gallery of her brother’s house, for all the world to see.

“A work of genius, is it not?” murmured Lauderdale. “I cannot wait to hang it in my own rooms. Somewhere private, I think. We don’t want everyone to know what we are to each other.”

“You are
nothing
to me!” flashed Rosamund. She turned to her mother. “My lady, this is too base, even for you.”

Lady Steyne gave a tinkling laugh. “My dear, I thought you would thank me for bringing the two of you together so neatly. I shall leave you now, so that you may discuss your affairs in private.”

She laid a slight emphasis on the word
affairs
.

With the sensation of swimming through the murky blackness of a nightmare, Rosamund managed to say, “Do you know something, Lady Steyne? I think I shall positively enjoy making you a grandmama.”

She had the dubious satisfaction of seeing her mother’s eyes flare with rage. Then the marchioness turned on her heel and walked away, leaving Rosamund with the captain.

Rosamund turned to Lauderdale. “I should warn you that my brother taught me various rather painful ways of defending myself against men like you.”

Lauderdale laughed softly. “You think I would stoop to taking you by force? No, no, I shall merely enjoy my purchase in the privacy of my own rooms.”

“My husband would kill you,” she said contemptuously. “And then my cousins would carve you up like mincemeat and feed you to the dogs.”

His face turned stark with pain. With a travesty of a smile, he shrugged and held out his arms. “Do you know something, Rosamund? I really don’t care.”

It was only then that she received an inkling of what was happening.

“You don’t understand, do you?” said Lauderdale. “I
love
you, Rosamund. I always knew my case was hopeless—or thought I did. But that oaf of an earl of yours …
He
never came for you, did he? And so I fooled myself.…” He threw back his head and gave a crack of mirthless laughter. “After this campaign, I told myself, I shall put my fortune to the test. If I cover myself in glory on the battlefield and come home a hero, Rosamund’s stuffy duke might agree to let us marry.”

She put her palms to her scalding cheeks. She’d been afraid all along that he cared for her, that she might hurt him by going through with the marriage to Griffin. But then the captain had behaved like a scoundrel and laid those fears to rest.

“And then
he
came to London, didn’t he?” whispered Lauderdale fiercely. “And you were all smiles at him. And all my hopes went to Hell.”

“Those hopes … Captain Lauderdale, I was betrothed when you and I met. I told you over and over that I could not offer you more than friendship. True, the duke would not have permitted our marriage, but there is a more important reason:
I do not love you.
I love my husband.” Her lips trembled. “I loved him before I even met you.”

“No!”
cried Lauderdale
.
“You only think you do because you are so good and honorable that the alternative to loving your husband is unthinkable. But how can you truly
love
a monster like the Earl of Tregarth? I refuse to believe it. My God, I can’t bear the thought of his great dirty paws on you.”

“It doesn’t matter what you believe, Captain. I will never care for you. If you truly loved me, you would not treat me thus. And you would not have insulted me with a carte blanche, either.”

He’d done that out of pique. He’d needed to hurt her as she had hurt him, she realized now.

“I came back for you,” he said. “When a man has faced death, he realizes how little conventions like marriage truly matter. What matters is our love, Rosamund! Don’t you see?”

With as much force as she could muster, she said, “I do not love you, Captain Lauderdale! I never shall!”

But he was beyond listening to reason, it seemed. The balance of his mind was so disturbed by whatever warped passion he’d conceived for her that he might indeed make good on his threats despite the dire consequences that would befall him afterwards.

Griffin would never believe she was innocent if Lauderdale let it be known he owned this painting. He’d never accept the truth. Who would believe any mother capable of perpetrating such a crime as Nerissa had tonight? Against her own daughter!