Slightly Tempted (17 page)

He looked back at her as earnestly as she gazed at him, and for a moment she expected that he would agree to do as she asked. She smiled at him. Her hand, she noticed, was still in his.

"I am disappointed," he said. "I thought I was of more importance to you than a brother.You are more important tome than my sister. If I thought it would do any good for you to stay, I would speak up for it in a moment. I would even lead the search, in this carriage, if necessary. But men do not need ladies hanging about them when they are engaged in official business, Lady Morgan. Lord Alleyne Bedwyn will be embarrassed when he knows what a fuss you have made about his absence. In the meantime Mama is upset, Rosamond is in tears, my father is angry, and I am disappointed. I had looked forward to the distraction of your company during the journey, which will doubtless be painful for me. I had looked forward to perhaps addressing myself to the Duke of Bewcastle upon our return. Are you determined to remain stubborn? Mama says it is a Bedwyn trait."

Morgan withdrew her hand from his.

"All I ask is one day," she said."One day."

Even then she hoped that he would look beyond his own pain to see hers and redeem himself somewhat in her eyes. But all he did was look beyond her shoulder.

"Ah, is that you, Rosthorn?" he asked. "I must thank you for riding ahead of me to Brussels the day before yesterday and setting my mother's mind at ease. Anxiety is a dreadful thing for women of tender sensibilities, and one really ought to do all in one's power to alleviate it. I am doing as well as can be expected, you will be pleased to know, but of course I wish to consult an English physician as soon as possible."

Morgan turned to look at the earl.

"You are leaving now, this morning?" he asked. "And you too, Lady Morgan?" His eyes swept over her simple muslin day dress.

"I am staying," she told him, "until I have heard something from Alleyne. I am going to stay with Mrs. Clark or one of the other regimental wives if they will have me."

"And how will you then return to England?" he asked her.

"I will find someone to travel with." She lifted her chin. "Or Alleyne will find someone for me."

"And your maid?" He looked about the pavement, which held no other female but her.

Morgan felt herself flush.

"She does not with to remain with me," she said, "and so I am sending her home."

He raised his eyebrows.

"Talk reason to her, if you will, Rosthorn," Lord Gordon said wearily. "Tell her that it is quite impossible for her to remain here without my mother to chaperon her. It isunthinkable . Tell her that her anxieties are foolish. Tell her she has no choice but to come with us."

The Earl of Rosthorn looked at her with inscrutable eyes. She lifted her chin again. If he tried to order her to leave with the Caddicks, she was going to be very angry indeed and everyone on the street was going to know it.

"Why is Lady Caddick leaving Brussels when Lady Morgan cannot?" he asked Lord Gordon without taking his eyes off Morgan.

Cannot.Ah, he did understand, then.

"My mother is anxious to get me to an English physician," Lord Gordon explained, his voice clearly irritated now. "Lady Morgan is in her care. It is outrageous of her to set her will against my mother's and put her in such an awkward position. I daresay Bewcastle will have a thing or two to say on the matter if she remains stubborn. He is the one who appointed my mother chaperon."

It amazed Morgan that she had ever felt even mildly attracted to him.

Lady Caddick herself stepped out of the house at that moment with Lord Caddick and Rosamond.

"Ah, there you are, Lady Morgan," she said, a martial gleam in her eye. "I simply mustinsist that you accompany us whether you are dressed for travel or not. I will not take no for an answer. The Duke of Bewcastle will be informed of how much trouble you have been to me. Ah, good morning, Rosthorn. You will be gratified to see that Gordon is brave enough to travel though he is still in considerable pain."

"Ma'am?" He bowed in acknowledgment of her greeting. "I have come to escort Lady Morgan to Mrs. Clark's house. Her belongings are still here? I will have someone come to remove them within the hour. I wish you a safe journey."

His French accent was quite pronounced. He spoke with pleasant charm-and a thread of steel Morgan had not heard in his voice before.

"See here, Rosthorn-" the Earl of Caddick began.

"Lord Alleyne Bedwyn, when he rode out of Brussels the day before yesterday," Lord Rosthorn said, interrupting him, "instructed Lady Morgan to await his return, after which he promised to take her home to England himself. She remains by his authority. I will escort her in person to Mrs. Clark's. She will be quite safe there. I will personally undertake to see that no harm comes to her."

"Lord Rosthorn," Lady Caddick said faintly, "you are a single gentleman in no way related to Lady Morgan. It would be most improper and irresponsible for me to leave her in your care."

"Then you must remain, ma'am, so that she may be in yours," he retorted.

Morgan turned and strode away along the pavement. She would not stay one moment longer to wrangle or, worse, to hear herself being wrangled over. Life had suddenly become very tiresome indeed. She was almost blind with anxiety over Alleyne, yet the people she had thought cared for her treated her as if she were a stubborn, willful, disobedient girl for wanting to find him. And the man who less than a week ago had declared such extravagant love for her expected her to put him before all other loves-even her love for her own family.

She would have given anything in the world at that moment to have seen Wulfric striding toward her-or Aidan or Rannulf. Or Alleyne.

Alleyne was dead. He must be.

He could not be dead.

Running feet sounded behind her, and Rosamond dashed around her and caught her up in a tight hug.

"I am so sorry about this, Morgan," she said, tears swimming in her eyes. "I am so very sorry. Iwish I could stay with you but I cannot."

Then she was hurrying away again, back to the carriages, and Lord Rosthorn had come up beside Morgan and offered his arm without a word.

No, she was not quite alone, she thought, pulling herself together again. She still had this friend. And Mrs. Clark would welcome her. The wounded men needed her. And even besides all those facts she was Lady Morgan Bedwyn. She lifted her chin and unconsciously lengthened her stride as she took the earl's arm.

Alleyne had always predicted that she would out-Bedwyn the Bedwyns one day. It seemed that he had been right all along. She was eighteen years old and striding along the street of a foreign city on the arm of a gentleman she scarcely knew, having just defied the will of the chaperon to whose care Wulfric had entrusted her and having just dismissed her maid.

But Alleyne was still here too. Today he would come, and tomorrow he would take her home himself.

He could not be dead.

HE HAD DONE SOME MAD THINGS IN HIS TIME,Gervase thought, things that had got him into any number of nasty scrapes. This was no scrape. This was downright trouble. What the devil had he done?

He had aided and abetted a young lady in defying and walking away from her appointed chaperon, that was what. Not just for an hour or a morning. Not even for a day. The Caddicks were leaving for England. Lady Morgan Bedwyn was staying in Brussels. And he had defended her decision to remain without them. He had promised to look after her himself.

I will personally undertake to see that no harm comes to her.

What he had personally undertaken, unless he was very fortunate indeed, was a leg shackle. What he had just accomplished, unless he could find some way of wriggling out of the situation, was the fulfillment of all his dreams of avenging himself upon Bewcastle. Once the Caddicks had arrived home and spread the word in the drawing rooms and clubs of London, Lady Morgan Bedwyn would either be totally ruinedor she would be forced into marriage with him-either of which outcomes would be a vicious slap in the face for her brother.

He no longer wanted to avenge himself upon Bewcastle this way. Not through her. Heliked her. He respected and admired her.

"Was I the one in the wrong?" she asked, her hand light on his arm, her eyes looking straight ahead, a martial gleam in them. "WasI?"

He guessed that it was a rhetorical question, but he answered it anyway.

"You were not wrong," he told her. "The Caddicks are anxious to ensure the full recovery of their son, of course, and are understandably eager to take him home to England. But they also undertook a duty when they agreed to bring you with them to Brussels. They undertook to treat you with as much care and consideration as they would show their own family. They failed in that duty today."

"Thank you," she said. "It is what I thought too."

"Once we have reached Mrs. Clark's," he told her, "I will make arrangements to have your belongings fetched. Then I will call on Sir Charles Stuart again and, if necessary, ride out to Waterloo once more."

Perhaps, he thought, he would find Bedwyn today. Perhaps he was injured and lying in a field hospital somewhere. Or perhaps the man would simply ride into Brussels from wherever he had been for the past two days, some reasonable explanation on his lips. Perhaps after all he could set out for England with his sister later today, or at the very least take over responsibility for her.

If that were to happen, Gervase decided, he himself would not delay in riding off into the proverbial sunset. But if itwere to happen, it would be a miracle indeed.

Lord Alleyne Bedwyn was almost certainly dead.

"Thank you," she said. "Is he dead, do you suppose, Lord Rosthorn?"

"You must not give up hope yet,chérie, " he said, setting a hand over hers on his arm. "I will do my very best to find him."

"He is the most sunny-natured of us all," she said. "The most charismatic, the most restless. He has so much vitality to share with the world, so much living yet to do. He only recently decided to try the life of a diplomat instead of taking the seat in Parliament that Wulfric would have secured for him. This is his first posting-is not that ironic? He cannot be dead, Lord Rosthorn. I would feel ithere if he were." She touched the fingers of her free hand to her heart.

He wondered how many hundreds or thousands of women were telling themselves the same thing today.

"If he were dead, he would have been found, would he not?" she asked.

He merely squeezed her hand. How could he tell her that untold hundreds of the unattended dead, especially the better dressed ones, would have been stripped naked even before the night following the battle was over? Only in the unlikely event that such a man was identified quickly by someone who knew him could an anonymous burial in a mass grave be avoided.

"Try not to think such thoughts if you possibly can," he said. "Not yet."

They passed four of his acquaintances-and hers-before they finally reached Mrs. Clark's. He nodded affably at each of them. He doubted she even noticed them. But he wondered how long it would be before one or more of them discovered that the Earl and Countess of Caddick had left for England this morning. Then there would be scandal in Brussels as well as in England.

He had exposed Lady Morgan Bedwyn deliberately to gossip and speculation at his picnic in the Forest of Soignés less than two weeks ago. Now, when he had no such intention, he was about to expose her to a great deal more. Not that this was all his fault, of course. She would have stayed anyway. She would have come striding over to Mrs. Clark's with or without him.

On the whole, despite the danger to himself, he would prefer that she camewith him.

Mrs. Clark met them on her doorstep, hugged Lady Morgan when she heard her story, and was soon assuring her that she was very welcome indeed to stay, provided she did not object to sharing a very small room with her hostess.

NONE OFSIRCHARLESSTUART'S EMBASSY STAFFhad heard anything of or from Lord Alleyne Bedwyn. It was clear to Gervase that the annoyance they had shown yesterday had by now turned to alarm. There was no logical explanation for his failure to return except that he had somehow been wounded or killed in the action south of Waterloo. Efforts were even then being made to discover whether the letter he had carried to the Duke of Wellington had been delivered. Gervase announced his intention of riding out to the battle site again. He would check with Sir Charles's staff when he returned, he promised, and pass on any information he might pick up.

He found nothing, of course. The road south was still crowded with men and conveyances moving in the opposite direction from the one he took, though it was not quite as clogged as it had been the day before. The Forest of Soignés was still strewn with debris. The battlefield looked more than ever like a wilderness from hell. But there was nothing to be learned of Bedwyn's fate even though Gervase spoke to many people and checked at villages and farmhouses along the way. He searched among the wounded wherever they were gathered.

Lord Alleyne Bedwyn seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth-probably literally.

It was with a heavy heart that he rode back to Brussels. What hope could he still hold out for her? Would it be irresponsible even to try?