Only Enchanting (24 page)

“He would appreciate it, I am sure,” she said. “Though
I did write to him this morning, and to my brother. I am sure they will both be pleased as well as surprised. They will see that I have done very well for myself.”

“Even without s-setting eyes upon me?”

“When they
do
, they may change their minds.” Her eyes twinkled at her own joke.

“When did your mother die?” he asked.

“When I was—” But she stopped to set her cup very carefully in the saucer, and she leaned forward to set them rattling down on the tray. “She did not. As far as I know, she is still alive.”

He stared at her as she came to sit beside him again and spread her fingers over her lap to examine the backs of them with careful attention.

Hang on a minute. Her father had remarried, had he not?

“She left when I was five,” she told him. “My father petitioned Parliament soon after and divorced her. It took a great deal of time and trouble and money, though I knew nothing about any of it as a child. All I did know was that she was gone and was not coming back and that I missed her and cried for her night after night and often in the daytime too. But Dora was still there, and was staying after all instead of going to London for her come-out Season and the husband she had dreamed of finding there. I was very happy about that. She had always been my favorite person in the world—apart from our mother, that is—and she assured me over and over again until I believed her that she would far rather stay with me than go anywhere else. How innocent children are. She stayed until our father remarried, and then the year after that
I
married William. It was only then that I understood that we had once had very decent dowries set aside for us, Dora and I, but that most of the money had gone on the divorce, and almost all of the little that
remained had been used to set Dora up at Inglebrook before she started to earn her own way. Not many men would have taken me when I was virtually portionless. William always assured me that it was
me
he had wanted to marry, not money.”

Good God! Did
everyone
have a story to tell when one took the time to listen to it—or when the person concerned could be persuaded to tell it?

“
And
he was willing to take me despite the disgrace,” she added, still addressing the backs of her hands. “He knew about it, of course. He had always been our neighbor. I did not give you the choice, did I?”

“What happened to her?” he asked. “To your mother, I mean.”

She shrugged her shoulders and kept them up close to her ears for a few moments. “She was never spoken of,” she said, “especially around me, I suppose. I heard snatches of things anyway, of course, from servants, from the children of neighbors. I believe she married her lover. I do not know who he was. I believe, though I do not know for certain, that he had been her lover for some time before she left with him. I have a few memories of her. She was dark and beautiful and vibrant with life. She laughed and she danced and she lifted me high and tossed me upward until I shrieked with fright and begged for more. At least I
think
she was beautiful. Perhaps a mother always looks beautiful to her infant child. And she cannot have been really young. Oliver was fourteen when I was born.”

“Are you c-curious about her?” he asked.

She raised her eyes to his at last.

“No,” she said. “Not even to the smallest degree. I do not know who he was or is, and I do not want to know. I do not know who
she
is or even for sure
whether
she is. I would not recognize her name or her face, I daresay. I
would not wish to recognize either. I do not want to know
her
. She abandoned Dora as well as me, and the consequences for Dora were far more dreadful than they were for me. No, I am not curious. But there is something else you ought to know—something you ought to have known before this morning.”

He had set down his own cup and saucer and taken one of her hands in his again. It was cold, as he had expected it to be. He sensed what was coming.

“I am not even sure,” she said, “that my father
is
my father.”

Her eyes were flat, her voice toneless, and he simply did not believe that she was not curious. Ah, his calm, quiet, disciplined,
safe
Agnes, who had carried inside a universe of pain since she was little more than a baby.

“Has anyone ever said he is not?” he asked her.

“No.”

“Has he ever treated you differently from your brother and sister?”

“No. But I do not look like him or Dora or Oliver. Or
her
.”

“Perhaps you resemble an aunt or uncle or grandparent,” he said. “Your father
is
your f-father regardless, Agnes. Birth and b-breeding do not always depend upon small matters like who provided the seed.”

She looked away from him.

“You may have married a bastard,” she said.

He might have laughed if she had not looked so serious.

“There will be those who will tell you that it is y-you who have married the b-bastard,” he told her, and then he did smile as he raised her hand to his lips. “I have something in common with your W-William after all, it seems, Agnes. I married you this morning because, even though I s-scarcely know you, I wanted you for my wife.
I still w-want you, even if you are a bastard ten times over. Is it p-possible to be ten times a bastard? It s-sounds rather dire, does it not?”

He had moved his head closer to hers, despite the infernally giant size of the sofa cushions, until she was forced to gaze into his eyes. And she . . . laughed.

“You are
so
absurd,” she said.

And he kissed her while her hand clung to his and her lips trembled against his and then pushed back, and he wound one arm about her shoulders.

She was, he thought, as horribly damaged as he was.

*   *   *

They managed to keep a conversation going for the hour that remained before their supper was brought and during the meal itself—and one that was far lighter in tone. The two footmen who came with their food set up a table in the middle of the sitting room with a crisp white cloth and the finest china and silverware and crystal and wine Lord Darleigh had to offer. They lit two tapers set in silver holders. It was a gloriously romantic setting.

He told her more about his mother and his sister and the latter’s husband and children. He recounted a few anecdotes involving his brother and himself in their younger years, and it was clearer than ever that he had adored his smaller, less robust older sibling. He told her about his years in school at Eton—his brother had been educated at home—and a little about his years with his cavalry regiment, though nothing touching upon the battles in which he had fought. She told him about her brother and his wife and their children. She told him about her father’s wife, whom she had always liked and still did, though she would find it a severe trial to have to live with her in the same house. She recounted some incidents from her childhood that included Dora.

It was only toward the end of the meal, when Flavian was sitting back at his ease, wineglass in hand, that something shocking struck Agnes.

“Oh, goodness me,” she said, “I did not change for dinner.”

“Neither did I,” he said, his eyes roaming lazily over the part of her dress he could see above the table.

“Oh, but you are dressed splendidly,” she pointed out, “while I am wearing just a day dress.”

“This was not dinner, Agnes,” he said. “It was s-supper.”

“But I ought to have changed, nevertheless,” she said. “I do beg your pardon.”

Into the blue or the lavender or the green. No, not the green. It was a little too festive, though this
was
her wedding evening. Oh, he would grow mortally sick of seeing the green—and the blue and the lavender.

He regarded her thoughtfully for a few moments before setting down his glass and getting to his feet. He came around the table and held out a hand for hers. And she was conscious of the fact that it was after ten o’clock and that she was nervous, just as if she were still a virgin.

She might as well be. It had been so long. . . .

She set her napkin on the table, put her hand in his, and rose to her feet. He brought her hand to his lips.

“Go and change now, then,” he said, “into your nightgown. I will ring for the dishes to be removed and for my valet to come. You do not have a maid?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “It is quite unnecessary.”

“You nevertheless will h-have one,” he told her, “as soon as we reach London. As well as new clothes.”

“Oh, that will be quite un—” she began.

“They will be of the
first
necessity when we arrive in L-London,” he told her. “The maid and the clothes. You are no l-longer Mrs. Keeping from the village of
Inglebrook. You are Viscountess Ponsonby of Candlebury A-Abbey. I will see you clothed accordingly.”

It was strange that she had not thought of that—of the fact that she no longer had to support herself on the small legacy William had left her, of the fact that she was now the wife of a wealthy aristocrat who would be shamed by a shabby wife. Not that her clothes were
shabby
, only not very new or plentiful, and never fashionable.

“Are you very wealthy?” she asked him.

Oh, it was shocking indeed to have married him without knowing the full extent of his fortune.

“You ought to have r-remembered to ask me that last night instead of this,” he said, using his sighing voice and drooping his eyelids over his eyes. “For all you know, you may have m-married a pauper or a man with a p-pile of debts as high as Mount Olympus. But you can be comforted. My m-man of business in London has never yet resigned or had a f-fit of the vapors when he has met me, nor has he scolded me for extravagance or warned me that d-debtors’ prison looms large in my near future. And my s-steward’s accounts always show a healthy balance on the p-plus side. A few pretty frocks will not b-beggar me, though we may have to drink water for a month instead of tea if we add bonnets to the pile.” He smiled, then added, “I do not have expensive vices, you will be r-relieved to know. When I do gamble, which is not often, I break out in a c-cold sweat as soon as my losses creep up near one hundred pounds, and I arouse the derisive annoyance of all my fellow players by throwing in my h-hand. And horses are fickle creatures, except in battle. I never b-bet on them.”

“Was that a yes?” she asked.

“It was,” he said. “I will never be able to accuse you of m-marrying me for my money, will I? You have d-deprived me of one weapon to use when we quarrel.”

“I married you for your title,” she said.

He smiled lazily at her.

“Did you s-sleep well last night?” he asked.

“We were late getting home.” She looked warily at him. “Then I had to pack my things. I slept well enough after I finally lay down.”

Apart from the wakeful spells. And the vivid dreams.

“You will not s-sleep much tonight,” he told her. “And I would rather the night be no shorter than it need be. Go and get undressed.”

What?
It was not long after ten. Surely they would be able to get a good night’s sleep after . . . Well,
after
. If she could sleep, that was. She might still be wound up by the strangeness of the day’s events, including the one soon to be enacted.

They were leaving in the morning. For London.

She made her way to her dressing room, feeling his eyes on her back as she went.

*   *   *

It was a prim nightgown, as he had fully expected. It was not inexpensive—none of her clothes were. Neither was it new—none of her clothes were. And it had certainly not been made to excite a man’s imagination or lust.

It did both anyway. It covered her to the ankles and the wrists and the neck. What was left to do
but
imagine and lust after what was hidden from sight?

Her hair was in a single neat braid down her back and drawn smoothly over her head and ears. She was standing by the window of her bedchamber, though he did not believe there was much of a view beyond it. It faced the hill and the wilderness walk, and there was not much moonlight tonight. She was looking back over her shoulder at him, her face wiped of all expression. Like a martyr headed to the bonfire. Or was it witches who were destined for that particular fate? She looked bewitching
enough to be one. She could give the most experienced courtesan a few hints.

He had tapped on the door and waited for her summons. He advanced into the room now after closing the door behind him.

“Have you ever seen such an opulent bedchamber?” he asked her. “It is a good thing the w-window does not face east. We might be blinded by sunlight on all the g-gilding in the morning.”

“I wonder if the prince and his princess
did
stay here,” she said. “It must have seemed like a horrid waste if they did not.”

“We will have to make good use of it t-tonight,” he said. “And then every farthing spent on it will have been worthwhile.”

It was a good thing his valet had dug up a nightshirt from somewhere in his baggage, he thought—perhaps from the same remote corner his knee breeches had occupied. She might have been disconcerted to discover nakedness beneath his dressing gown.

“How l-long did it take you to braid your hair?” he asked her.

“Two minutes?” she said as though she was not sure. “Three?”

“Let me see if I can unbraid it in one,” he said.

It took him longer because he stood in front of her to do it instead of behind, and he was distracted by her eyes, which were on the grayish side of blue and looked slightly smoky in the candlelight, fringed as they were by lashes that curled slightly at the ends and were a darker shade than her hair. Then he was distracted by her mouth, which no one would never compare to a rosebud, for which fact he was thankful. Wider mouths were far more kissable. And he was distracted by the smell of her hair or her skin or
her
. It was a scent beyond description
and certainly came from no bottle or even entirely from any bar of soap. It was a scent that would be worth a fortune if he
could
bottle it, but he was far too selfish to share it, and why have it in a bottle when he had her?