Slightly Tempted (29 page)

After continuing to stare at him for long moments, she had left the library without another word.

And so she sat on the window seat, knowing that Lord Rosthorn had arrived, that even now he was in the library with Wulfric discussing a marriage contract. She did not know how long such matters took. But some time within the next half hour, or the next hour at the longest, there was going to be a knock on her door and she was going to have to force her legs to carry her back down to the library. She was going to have to face him.

The man who had ravished the woman Wulf had loved. They had been caught in bed together. The woman's words and subsequent actions would seem to confirm that she had not given herself willingly.

The man who had flirted with her, Morgan, quite outrageously and extravagantly before the Battle of Waterloo.

The man who had supported her and given her his protection and companionship and friendship in the days following the battle.

The man with whom she had made love after learning that there was no more hope of Alleyne's having survived.

The man who had brought her home to the comfort of her family.

The man she had been growing to love, the man she had believed was growing to love her.

Did what had happened nine years ago nullify all her instincts about him, all her feelings for him? He hadravished a woman. She could not believe it of him. But how could she not? Wulfric hadbeen there and he was not the sort of man who would deliberately twist evidence.

Morgan had never been so confused in her life.

The summons came after forty minutes, when her maid scratched on her door. Morgan jumped with alarm and then got to her feet and brushed her hands over the skirt of her black dress. She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin.

The Earl of Rosthorn was going to have some explaining to do.

THEDUKE OFBEWCASTLE HAD KEPTGERVASEwaiting in a visitors' reception room for all of twenty minutes before having him admitted to the library. There had followed a brief, cold meeting in which business had been discussed as if there were no personal element involved in the terms. Bewcastle had made no bones of the fact that he had advised Lady Morgan Bedwyn against accepting the offer. But finally he had risen and left the room, leaving Gervase to stare into the unlit coals of the fireplace.

All night he had been feeling cold satisfaction.

And all night too he had been trying to ignore a heavy feeling of guilt. In his obsession with getting revenge on Bewcastle he had allowed himself to become almost as bad as they had all supposed him to be nine years ago.Almost as bad? Worse. Marianne had brought about her own ruin. Lady Morgan had not.

He turned and clasped his hands behind his back when the door opened again and Lady Morgan stepped past a footman and came into the room.

She looked composed, he thought, though her face was devoid of all color. Her shoulders were back and her chin lifted. He frowned when he recalled that embrace they had shared last night. He had not intended that. It had not been part of the plan. He had intended that they be caught waltzing together in a private anteroom. It would have been quite enough to fan the flames of a dying scandal.

The embrace had happened of itself.

"Well,chérie, " he said. "Here we are."

She came toward him and stood a mere two feet away, her eyes lifted steadily to his. Had he expected timidity? Blushes?

"If you are about to drop to one knee and make a picturesque scene of this," she told him, "you may as well not bother, Lord Rosthorn. I want to know what happened nine years ago."

Ah. Had Bewcastle told her, then-his version at least? It was altogether likely. What surer way was there to persuade her to reject his suit?

"There was an indiscretion with a lady,chérie, " he said. "I would tell you that it is nothing to worry your pretty little head over if I thought I could get away with it." He smiled at her.

But she was not to be amused by that old joke.

"Answer me one question first," she said. "Did you ravish her?"

Yes, of course, Bewcastle had been busy. Gervase turned back toward the fireplace.

"You want the simple answer?" he asked her. "I will give it, then. It is no. No, I did not."

"I suppose," she said, her voice trembling slightly, "I want more than the simple answer, Lord Rosthorn. If it was not ravishment, what was it, then? You were caught with the lady in hopelessly compromising circumstances. She accused you of forcing her. She refused your marriage offer. She retired permanently from society. I do know the facts of what happened, you see. I want you to explain to me how you couldnot have been guilty."

He sighed and clasped his hands at his back. She now knew the worst, which was just as well. He did not really wish to marry her, did he? And it certainly would not be in her best interests to marry him. He had achieved what he had set out to do . . . and truth to tell, the victory was hollow. Revenge was a foolish, immature motive for any action. It never solved anything but merely deepened hatreds. Bewcastle had been a victim too. He sometimes forgot that.

He was aware though he did not turn that Lady Morgan had crossed the room away from him until she stood behind the desk, gazing out the window.

"I had known the lady for a long time," he told her. "She was occasionally a neighbor of ours and a friend of my sisters and cousin. I suppose I was even a little infatuated with her after we grew up-she was rather lovely. But I never seriously considered wooing her. I was too young. Besides, I was a friend of Bewcastle's-at least, I moved on the outer perimeter of his set, hoping to be admitted to the inner circle one day-and he began to pay court to her himself when Marianne made her come-out."

"I never knew until today," she said, "that Wulf had ever even considered marriage. I suppose he must have loved her."

"Her father was a marquess," Gervase said. "It would, of course, have been a splendid match for his daughter. He promoted it aggressively. Their betrothal was to be announced during a grand ball he hosted in the middle of the Season."

"None of us ever knew about it," she said.

When he half turned his head, he could see that she had sat down on the chair Bewcastle had vacated a short while ago.

"There was one problem, though," Gervase said. "She did not wish to wedhim . But he was a powerful man and so was her father. The marquess had overridden all her objections and threatened all sorts of dire consequences if she did not behave as she ought when Bewcastle paid her court, and if she did not accept when he offered her marriage."

"How do you know this?" Her eyes met his across the room, wide with what might be anger.

"She told me," he said. "She danced with me that evening and then, in the middle of the set, she drew me away from the ballroom, telling me that she must talk with me. She took me up to her private sitting room and poured out her heart to me. She was quite distraught. She told me her betrothal was to be announced after supper and then her marriage to the duke would be inescapable. She told me she would rather die. She begged me to help her."

"What did you say?" Her nostrils flared and she set both hands flat on the desk.

"Whatcould I say?" He shrugged. "I am not even sure I remember my exact response. I advised her to go immediately to both her father and Bewcastle, I suppose, to tell them quite firmly that she would not go through with the marriage. I do recall offering to go and have a word with Bewcastle myself even though I was hardly a close enough friend of his to presume to do this. The next thing I remember is waking up with a start when the door to her bedchamber crashed open and Bewcastle came thundering in, followed closely by her father and mine."

"Herbedchamber ?"

"I was lying on the bed," he said, "in a thoroughly, shockingly disordered state of dishabille. So was Marianne. The bedcovers were tossed about as if a violent orgy had just been in progress over and under them. Marianne was weeping hysterically. I believe I was blinking like a bewildered moon calf."

He had turned back to the fireplace and could not tell if she believed him or not. It was a pretty incredible tale, admittedly. That was why no one had believed him at the time-not that he had defended himself immediately. He had been paralyzed by shock and by his infernal code of gentlemanly honor. A gentleman just did not openly contradict a lady.

"Was it something that had happened by mutual consent?" he asked of the fireplace with a low laugh. "Or was it ravishment? I believe that at the time Marianne was too hysterical to give any coherent answer to the bellowed demands of her father, and I was not saying. I was too aware of the shocked, horrified stare of my father and the cold scrutiny of Bewcastle."

"Whichwas it?" Lady Morgan asked sharply.

"I am firmly of the opinion," he said, "that it was neither. I had not had a great deal to drink, but even if I had I would not have completely forgotten such an event, would I? Besides, if I had imbibed that much I daresay I would have been incapacitated even if I had felt amorously inclined. I suppose I was drugged."

"By Marianne?"

He shrugged. "One does not accuse a lady of such a thing," he said. "Or of lying when she finally got around to claiming that I had taken her by force. But if she did drug me, it was a spectacularly effective plan. There was, of course, no announcement that night or anytime after that night."

He raised one arm to rest on the mantelpiece above his head. A strange marriage proposal, this. But then he supposed that he had been half expecting it. It was something of a relief to have it out in the open between them.

"All this would explain very well," she said, getting to her feet and coming around the desk toward him again, "why Wulfric would hate you, Lord Rosthorn. But he says thatyou hatehim ? Did he believe you had done it out of hatred for him rather than love for her?"

He laughed softly and turned to look at her. Poor girl-she had been only a child when it had all happened. She ought not to have been dragged into it at this late date. Would he ever forgive himself? He doubted it.

"It really was like an atrocious melodrama, that scene," he said. "Bewcastle left the room while the Marquess of Paysley was still blustering at his daughter and threatening to kill me, and while my father was assuring him that I would pay him a formal visit in the morning to make my own marriage offer. I left the room on Bewcastle's heels, intent upon explaining the situation to him without calling Marianne a liar to her face, but he hurried downstairs ahead of me and Henrietta delayed me at the bottom. She was pale-faced and very nearly distraught and wanted to know what had happened. By the time I caught up with Bewcastle again he was in the hall, about to leave the house. He was surrounded by a number of our mutual friends, and of course there were numerous servants present and perhaps a few other guests too. I was beside myself with bewilderment and anger and mortification. I struck a pose and nobly invited Bewcastle to call me out if he wanted satisfaction."

"You fought a duel?" Her eyes widened again.

"He looked at me," Gervase said with another chuckle, "as only Bewcastle can, as if I were a little lower on the chain of life than the worm. He had his quizzing glass to his eye. He told me that he made it a rule to duel only with gentlemen. He added that he would take a horse whip to my hide if he saw me anytime soon after that night. And then he left and everyone else stayed-and stared accusingly at me."

She gazed mutely at him for several moments.

"And then your father banished you," she said. "Did you refuse to offer marriage to Marianne, then?"

"I was not given the chance," he said. "Neither was she given the chance to refuse me. My father came to me the next morning while I was still in my dressing room. He had an open letter in his hand and a look of thunder on his brow like nothing I had ever seen there before-even the previous night. It was from Paysley, demanding the return of the brooch I had taken from Marianne's bedchamber the night before. It was a priceless heirloom, it seemed, rarely taken out of the family safe, but given her to wear for what had been expected to be the occasion of her betrothal announcement."

"No." She frowned. "This of all else is ridiculous. You would have done no such thing."

"Thank you,chérie ." He smiled at her. "But Ihad seen it. It was on the floor when I was about to leave the bedchamber. Bewcastle almost stepped on it. He stooped and picked it up and set it on a table-and then I followed him out. I told my father so the next morning and persuaded him to let me go to Bewcastle so that he might confirm my innocence. He was not at Bedwyn House. I found him at White's, surrounded by basically the same group of mutual friends as the night before. I blurted out my request for all to hear, and he raised his glass to his eye again and asked if anyone knew the impudent puppy standing in the doorway. After that he ignored me and I slunk away-I was avery young and foolish man in those days,chérie . My father wrote to him, but he sent back only a very curt reply claiming that he knew nothing of any brooch. And so, you see, my disgrace was compounded. I stood accused and condemned as a ravisher of innocence and as a dastardly thief. My father did what he felt he had to do."

She stared at him for a very long time.

"I believe you," she said at last. "I believe Wulfric too. He saw and heard what seemed incontrovertible proof of your guilt, though itdoes seem spiteful of him to have refused to give you the alibi you needed over the matter of the brooch. I suppose he thought to punish you for what you had done to him. But I believe you were innocent."