One Night of Scandal (23 page)

‘I am betrothed to Richard Kestrel,’ she had pointed out. ‘Richard Kestrel! Surely you must disapprove, Ross?’

‘Would you like me to?’ her brother-in-law had asked mildly. ‘I could object if you wish, but Richard is the greatest of good fellows, and my only opposition, Deb, springs from the fact that this is not a genuine engagement.’

With that he had kissed her cheek, exchanged a meaningful look with his wife, and strolled out of the room.

And now Olivia was contemplating the same betrothal with something approaching complacence. It made Deb wonder what it was that they knew that she did not.

She glanced back at Richard. The only thing she could think of that could account for Ross’s good humour was if he knew Richard’s intentions were honourable and that was manifestly absurd. Richard had told her that he had told Ross the truth about their betrothal agreement, so there could be no misunderstanding. For a moment Deb thought about what might happen were Richard to make her a declaration. The cold fear of marriage that had held her in its grip for years had not diminished, yet alongside it was a small but tantalising glimmer of hope. Deborah crushed it. She had thought very carefully about her proposal to Richard. She ached to experience the passion that she had starved for all these years. Yet even in that she had limited the risk she was taking by specifying that it would only be for the duration of the fictitious betrothal. She had no wish to tumble headlong in love with Richard and be at the mercy of her feelings again. She had to be able to let him go.

‘How has the Duke greeted the news of his brother’s betrothal?’ Olivia enquired, glancing across to where Justin Kestrel partnered Helena Lang in the country dance.

Deb fidgeted with her fan. ‘He has been everything that is charming to me, though Richard says that he teases him mercilessly in private.’ Deb shifted slightly and the rout chair squeaked protestingly. ‘Truth to tell, Liv, I cannot like it that Richard’s family now know of the betrothal. It was only intended as a private arrangement and now I feel a little trapped…’

Once again Olivia looked so blandly unconcerned that Deb started to feel quite irritated.

‘If you have agreed with Richard that you may break the engagement when it has served its purpose, then I do not see that you need be concerned,’ she said.

Deb frowned. ‘I know that. It is merely…’ She waved her fan vaguely. ‘It makes it more difficult for me to end it…’

‘Because you do not wish to appear heartless?’

Deb frowned harder. ‘It is not only that. People have been so kind. Most people,’ she amended, thinking of Lady Benedict. ‘The Dowager Duchess of Kestrel will hear of it soon and then no doubt she will write to me. The Duke tells me that she has been wanting her sons to marry this age, and will be
aux anges
to hear the news.’

‘Perhaps you should consider telling them that it is only a convenient arrangement,’ Olivia suggested. ‘That way there would be no misunderstanding when you jilt Lord Richard.’

Deb winced. She had deliberately avoided using that word in both her thoughts and her conversation, for it made her feel rather tawdry. Yet she had to accept it. That was exactly what she was planning for Richard once he had served his purpose—and not merely his purpose as her short-term fi
ancé, either. She deliberately turned her thoughts away from her plan and the strangely mixed feelings that it was starting to arouse in her and thought about the other arrangement she had made with Richard, which involved neither plights of troth nor benefit of clergy.

What would happen during their nights of passion? Deb shivered as a wave of heat started at her toes and swept over her entire body as she considered what it might entail. Seduction by a rake…The thought was both delicious and terrifying. She almost shivered. Once she had tasted the pleasure that she knew Richard could give her would she really be able to turn her back on it? Her body craved the sensual delight that she had never experienced before. Starved of physical love, she longed for Richard’s touch. Her mind whispered that she craved more than that and she firmly ignored the thought. This was all that she dared afford.

She looked up to see Olivia watching her, a wry smile on her lips.

‘Whatever it is that you are drinking,’ Olivia said drily, nodding at her glass of lemonade, ‘I would like some. You look like a girl in love, Deb, for all your protestations of pretend betrothals! You are burning up with excitement.’

Deb smiled. ‘No, you are quite mistaken. I was merely wondering, rather improperly, whether Lord Richard is indeed the rake everyone claims.’

‘No,’ Olivia said decisively, ‘I think not.’ She turned her amused blue gaze on her sister. ‘You look disappointed, Deb! But only consider—how could he be? In the time that he has been in Midwinter I do not think that he has seduced a single lady! His reputation is all hearsay and no substance.’

Deb laughed. ‘He tried to seduce me last year,’ she pointed out.

‘You are the only one and now you are betrothed to him.’ Olivia raised her brows. ‘So perhaps it is for you to find out.’

‘Liv!’ Deb exclaimed at this frank echo of her own thoughts. She changed the subject quickly. ‘Have you tried the face cream that I gave you yet?’

‘Yes,’ Olivia said, blushing. ‘I did not think it smelled much of roses but it was delightfully smooth and I was careful to use only a small amount.’

‘Good,’ Deb said. ‘You mentioned earlier that you and Ross had been talking?’

‘Oh, yes, we have.’ For a moment Olivia looked young and charmingly ruffled. ‘We had quite a long conversation about your betrothal, and another about our plans for this autumn, and on both occasions we managed not to quarrel.’ She looked a little perplexed. ‘It is odd though, Deb…Ross keeps looking at me in a particular way, as though he is expecting me to say something or do something…yet I do not know what!’

Deb raised her brows. ‘Does he? How intriguing!’ She laughed. ‘Has Ross come to your bed again, Liv?’

‘Deb!’ Olivia looked quickly over her shoulder to make sure that no one had overheard. She drooped a little. ‘No, he has not.’

‘Well, never mind,’ Deb said bracingly. ‘Unless I miss my guess, he is about to ask you to dance and that is a good start. This aphrodisiac cream must be potent!’

‘Hush!’ Olivia said, blushing scarlet. She turned a becomingly pink face to her husband as Ross strolled across and smiled down at her. Deb was intrigued to see an unmistakable spark of masculine interest in Ross’s eyes. It was just as Olivia had said—he was looking at his wife as though he had not really seen her before.

‘They put the most remarkable ingredients in face cream these days,’ she said mischievously.

Olivia kicked her ankle. ‘Deb, hush! Ross…’ She smiled very sweetly. ‘Are you enjoying the evening?’

‘Not as much as I shall be once I have persuaded my beautiful wife to dance with me,’ Ross said. He took Olivia’s hand, turned it over and pressed a kiss on the palm. ‘Shall we?’

Olivia’s mouth formed a small, astonished ‘o’ of pleasure. ‘I should be delighted,’ she said.

Even Deb stood staring at this unlikely sight. She had not expected the face cream to work quite so quickly or effectively. She was so surprised that she did not even see Richard approach her until, most reprehensibly, he slid an arm about her waist. His lips brushed the sensitive skin of her neck and Deb shivered pleasurably. She turned within the circle of his arm, her hand against his chest.

‘For shame, sir! We are in a public place…’

Beyond Richard’s shoulder she could see the dancers dipping and swaying, but she scarcely registered them. Her whole attention was focussed on Richard, the hard warmth of his chest beneath her hand, the intensity in his eyes, the wicked smile on his lips.

‘And I am enjoying myself,’ he said, ‘so do not stop me, I beg you.’

Deb’s lips twitched. ‘Was enjoying oneself a part of the plan?’ she asked.

‘Surely. If we are to be betrothed, then we should make it as pleasurable as possible, though this is nowhere near as pleasurable as what will happen soon…’

Deb’s heart leapt in her chest, her blue eyes wide as they scanned his face. The laughter within her died, banished by a heated excitement. She saw the corner of his mouth lifted in a smile.

‘Unfortunately it will not be tonight, sweetheart, unless you continue to look at me like that, in which case I may well carry you straight out of the ballroom and make love to you here and now.’

Deb hastily recalled herself to their surroundings. ‘Come and dance,’ she said. ‘I believe that, rather than anything else, is the appropriate activity for a ballroom.’

It was a quadrille, which gave no opportunity for intimate conversation since Deb was obliged to move away from her partner swiftly and chat with a variety of gentlemen as she walked through the steps. She ended with Owen Chance, whom she had not seen since the day at the Customs House. He gave her a charming smile as he took her hand, and once the dance was ended, was swift to draw her to one side so that they could speak further. Deb, aware that Richard had been dancing with Lady Benedict and was yet to leave her side, saw no reason to excuse herself from Mr Chance.

‘I hear I am to congratulate you,’ Owen said, smiling in the open and friendly manner that had made Deb warm to him when they had met at Lady Sally Saltire’s ball. ‘Or, more properly, it is Lord Richard who should be congratulated since he has gained a treasure beyond price in persuading you to be his bride!’

Deb smiled. ‘Thank you, sir. That is a pretty compliment.’ She took his arm for the customary turn about the floor. ‘Now that you have been here a little while,’ she said, ‘how are you enjoying Midwinter?’

Owen laughed. ‘It is an odd, secretive place, Mrs Stratton. On the surface everything is charming and bright—’ he waved his hand descriptively about the ballroom ‘—but beneath the surface all manner of currents flow.’

Deb raised her brows. ‘How very mysterious! Whatever can you mean, sir?’

Owen shrugged a little uncomfortably. ‘Why, merely that
while we dance here there are probably smugglers dragging their cargo up a beach not five miles distant, or privateers ploughing the ocean close to shore…’

‘And should you not be out there catching them, sir?’

Owen laughed, his teeth very white in his dark face. ‘I should, but I would rather be here dancing with you, ma’am!’

Deb shook her head in mock reproach. ‘Tempted from your duty by other distractions, sir?’

‘I admit it. There are other occupations far more attractive than chasing smugglers.’

Deb raised her brows. It was flattering to be the object of Mr Chance’s admiration, but even as she enjoyed his attentions she was aware that they stirred nothing deeper in her. There was not the clutch of excitement that she felt when Richard so much as looked at her, nor the quiver of feeling that ran through her at the touch of his hand.

‘You are an accomplished flirt, sir,’ she said, smiling. ‘I had no notion that the Revenue Service trained its Riding Officers in the art of flattery, but now that I think of it I imagine it must be a very useful accomplishment. You will wheedle all manner of secrets from the ladies.’

Owen Chance’s eyes lit with laughter. ‘I do believe you have divined my strategy, Mrs Stratton!’

They were still laughing when Lady Benedict slid up to them and insinuated her slender body between the two of them.

‘Mr Chance…’ she slanted a look up at him, her expression sultry ‘…I do believe you are monopolising Mrs Stratton. Let me take you away and…dance…with you…’

Deb saw the flash of expression in Owen Chance’s eyes and felt a little shock go through her as she registered how much he disliked Lady Benedict. Fortunately, however, her ladyship did not appear to have noticed, for she was busy
admiring her reflection in the long ballroom mirrors. And when Owen Chance spoke, it was so smooth and polite that Deb wondered whether she had made a mistake.

‘With the greatest of pleasure, Lady Benedict,’ he said, taking her arm and leading her towards the nearest set.

Deb frowned as she watched them walk away. She had intended to ask Richard what he thought about Mr Chance’s opinion of Lily Benedict, but when he came to claim her for another dance she forgot about Owen Chance almost immediately and did not give him another thought for the rest of the evening.

It was late when they returned to Marney. Deb had agreed to spend the night there rather than require the coach to take her on to Mallow, but when they reached the house it was to find it in uproar. Whilst they had been away at the ball, the drawing room had been ransacked and some items stolen, chief amongst them Olivia’s engraved glass vases.

‘The most extraordinary thing,’ Olivia said, as she and Deb surveyed the damage the following day, ‘was that so very few items were taken or spoilt. It is only the glass really. I suppose that Ford interrupted them. He was making his rounds to check that all the doors and windows were locked and surprised the thief in the act.’

Looking around, Deb was a little puzzled. There was none of the chaos and untidiness that normally accompanied a burglary. There were no papers scattered over the floor, the desk had not been emptied and the valuable collection of china that Ross’s mother, the late Viscountess Marney, had collected throughout her life, remained pristine and undamaged.

‘How shocking for Ford,’ she said. ‘How is he this morning?’

Olivia was looking at the cherry-wood display case, her face wrinkled in perplexity. ‘Oh, he is much recovered, thank you. Mrs Hillman dosed him up with milk laced with Ross’s best whisky and honey for the shock, and the poor man was unconscious before they could even carry him to his bed! Ross was not too pleased either! I have told Ford to rest today, though I have no conviction that he will obey me. He does not like to think of the household running without him.’ She touched Deb’s sleeve lightly. ‘Come and look at this, Deb. Do you see how they forced the lock on my display cabinet? It is almost as though they were looking for something specific.’

Deb ran her fingers over the rough wood about the splintered lock. ‘Did they take everything from here, Liv?’