Slightly Tempted (30 page)

"Thank you,chérie ."

She did not resist when he possessed himself of one of her hands and raised it to his lips. She was the only one ever to have believed him. He felt strangely close to tears. She was also the very one he had betrayed.

"And so," he said, "we return to the reason for my visit here this morning."

"I would rather you did not ask the question," she said.

"Would you,chérie ?" he asked her. "You do not wish to marry me?"

"We ought not to consider marriage when the offer has been forced upon you and the answer upon me," she said. "We ought not to let society dictate to us what we do with all the rest of our lives. It is absurd."

"But perhaps," he said, "society and I agree on this one issue."

"It has all been too hasty," she said with a frown. "Too much has happened within the past couple of months. You have been my friend, even though on one occasion we both allowed more to happen between us than we ought to have allowed. I feel an affection for you, Lord Rosthorn, and it seems to me that perhaps you return the feeling. But I want more of marriage."

"Love?" He smiled ruefully at her.

"I want to go home to Lindsey Hall for the summer," she said without pursuing the topic further. "I believe you want to return to Windrush to resume the life of which you were robbed nine years ago. We should both do what we wish, unencumbered by a commitment we may regret."

He was to be set free? Where was the elation he ought to be feeling?

"And next spring?" he said. "We will meet again?"

"Perhaps," she said. "Perhaps not. The future must be allowed to unfold in its own way. I thank you for coming, Lord Rosthorn, but I beg you not to ask your question. I could not bear to say no, you see, when I like you so well, but I would be compelled to do so nonetheless."

"Chérie." He still had her hand in his. He raised it to his lips again and held it there. He tightened his hold on it as he closed his eyes. "You break my heart."

And the foolish thing was that he felt as if he spoke the truth.

There was a light tap on the library door before either of them could say more, and it opened to reveal Lady Aidan Bedwyn, looking both apologetic and embarrassed.

"I do apologize," she said. "Wulfric was determined to come back in here since you have been alone together for longer than he thinks appropriate. I persuaded him to allow me to come instead. I shall sit in the farthest corner with a book and become both deaf and blind. Please ignore my presence."

Lady Morgan had withdrawn her hand.

"There is no need, Eve," she said. "Lord Rosthorn is leaving."

Lady Aidan looked at him inquiringly. "He will not come to the drawing room for refreshments?" she asked.

He bowed. "No, ma'am, I thank you," he said. "I must leave."

"Oh," she said, "I am so sorry."

"You need not be," Lady Morgan assured her. "We part on amicable terms, Eve. Lord Rosthorn and I are friends."

There was nothing to do then but bow to the two of them again and take his leave. As he drove his curricle out of the square a few minutes later, a free man again, Gervase doubted he had felt more wretched in years.

CHAPTER XVI

NOBODY SO MUCH AS MENTIONED THE NAMEof the Earl of Rosthorn. It was as if he had never called, as if he had never been expected to come with an offer of marriage.

Everyone was determinedly cheerful. Eve and Aidan were planning to return home within a few days. They wanted Morgan to accompany them.

"We may go to the Lake District for a few weeks," Eve added. "We were going to go last year if you will recall, Morgan, but we went to Cornwall instead when it seemed that Joshua was in need of our support. This year we will try again. We would love to have you accompany us, would we not, Aidan?"

"The children would be delighted too, Morgan," he told her.

Freyja and Joshua came during the afternoon. Somehow they must have learned that there was no betrothal.

"We are going home the very moment the parliamentary session is over," Freyja said. "No physician here has had any success in persuading me that I suffer from morning sickness or any of the other delights that would surely accompany my condition if I were a properly genteel lady. Besides, we both long for Penhallow-and there will be Chastity's wedding to organize. Come with us, Morg? You can do more of that painting you longed to do there last year."

"Do agree, Morgan," Joshua added with a grin. "Perhaps you will have a restraining influence on my wife, who will otherwise be climbing cliffs and rowing fishing boats and otherwise sending me into a daily fit of mortal anxiety. It must be remembered that we are both in a delicate way these days."

Wulfric announced his intention of returning to Lindsey Hall as soon as the session was over.

"Now that you are out, Morgan," he said, "you will be able to make and receive calls and relieve me of some of my social burdens-unless you decide to go to the Lake District or Cornwall for the summer instead, of course."

None of which social burdens had ever seemed to bother him before, Morgan thought.

"It would seem," she said, "that I have so many choices I will find myself paralyzed by indecision."

But all the plans for involving her in busy activity were future ones, she noticed. There was absolutely no mention of morning rides in Hyde Park or shopping expeditions on Oxford Street or Bond Street or visits to the library or any of a number of other activities that would have been quite unexceptionable even in her mourning state.

She was, of course, in absolute disgrace. Not only had she behaved badly in Brussels and with a vulgar disregard for her name and rank-to quote Aunt Rochester-here in London, but now she had also refused to make amends in the only socially acceptable manner. She had refused to marry the Earl of Rosthorn.

Why had she done so?

It was a question that nagged at her for the whole of the rest of the day. She believed that she loved him. After hearing his account of what had happened nine years ago and realizing the terrible injustice under which he had been living for nine years, she had been even more sure of her feelings.

Why had she refused, then?

Had she expected him to be more persuasive, to assure her much more forcefully of his love for her? But she did not play games like that.

Perhaps she had been right, she thought, after excusing herself early from an evening with her family in the drawing room. She allowed her maid to prepare her for bed and then sat in the window seat in her bedchamber, as she had during the morning, her arms wrapped about her raised legs.

Perhaps she had been right to do what she had done. There had been altogether too much turmoil in her life this spring. How could she make a rational decision about something as momentous as marriage? And perhaps she did not really love him. Perhaps it was only friendship and gratitude after all-and sympathy.

She could hardly remember that encounter in his rooms in Brussels. It had been wild and passionate and shocking-and intensely satisfying at the time. And even now her insides performed strange somersaults at the memory that she had been with him in that way. But had that been love? It really had not been, had it? She had needed comfort and he had given it-because they were friends and perhaps a little dearer to each other than friends.

But now she hadrefused him. She might never see him again. And even if she did, next year or the year after, they would perhaps merely nod politely and distantly to each other, like strangers.

She could not bear it.

Whyhad she refused him?

She dropped her forehead to her knees, closed her eyes, and practiced what she had discovered years ago invariably stilled her mind and calmed her emotions. She listened to her own breath, concentrated upon it as if there were nothing else to do or be thought of. And perhaps there was not. She had made her decision, and now her life would move onward into the unknown. The past was over and done with, the future had not yet come, and this moment was poised like a blessed gift between the two. It was, in fact, the only reality.

But sometimes the trouble with suspended thought was that its cushioning effect on the mind was removed, and truth could seep in to replace it and to make itself heard as soon as she lost her concentration upon her breath.

She had stopped him from asking his question because she had not finished asking her own. Yet she had been afraid to ask the other questions. So afraid, in fact, that she had not even admitted to herself until now that there were more to ask.

She lifted her head and gazed out into the darkness beyond her window.

Perhaps, she thought, because she knew the answers but could ignore them as long as they were never expressed in words.

But since when had she been afraid to face truth? Since Brussels, when she had denied to herself for a whole week the reality of Alleyne's death?

When had she been afraid to ask questions, even when she knew that the answers would crush her? Since this morning?

Since when had she become a coward, cowering here in her room, preparing to go home to Lindsey Hall or to go off to the Lake District or Cornwall, pretending that it was good sense and a growing maturity that had held her back from committing herself to a betrothal this morning?

Love was a hollow thing-and essentially a nonexistent thing-when the object of it was not what one had thought him, when he never had been.

It was a long time before Morgan climbed into bed and lay there, staring at the canopy over her head, knowing that tonight would be as basically sleepless as last night had been. What she really felt like doing, she thought, aware of the silence all around and realizing that everyone else must have gone to bed too, was giving vent to a very noisy tantrum.

But, alas, she was no longer a child.

MORGAN LOOKED ASSESSINGLY ATEVE DURINGbreakfast the following morning. Eve might seem meek and mild, but Morgan knew the story of how last year she had defied Wulf and Aunt Rochester and Aidan by secretly ordering the color of her presentation gown changed to black so that she could honor the memory of her brother, recently killed in battle, instead of wearing a color, as Wulf had decreed. And then she had defied Wulf again by insisting upon returning home to deal with a family crisis when he had ordered her to stay for an important dinner at Carlton House. Interestingly enough, Wulf now held Eve in the deepest respect even though she was the daughter of a Welsh coal miner. That said something about the quality of her backbone.

Nevertheless, Morgan rejected the idea of asking for her company. This was something she really must do alone.

And so, less than an hour later, when Wulfric had left for the House of Lords and everyone else was busy about various daily concerns, Morgan stepped out of the front door, her maid a few paces behind her, and set out to walk the distance to Pickford House. If she met anyone she knew on her way, she decided, she would incline her head regally and bid whoever it was a good morning and let them behave as they would.

She did not care if she met a dozen people and they all gave her the cut direct.

But the very people she did happen to meet, of course, were Lady Caddick and Rosamond, on their way somewhere on foot. Lady Caddick's bosom swelled and she sniffed the air, turning to address her daughter just when Morgan was drawing abreast of them.

"I smell rotten fish, Rosamond," she said. "It is deplorable how even in a fashionable area of London one cannot avoid all the worst smells."

"Good morning, ma'am," Morgan said. "Good morning, Rosamond."

Her friend darted her one agonized look and would have stopped, Morgan believed, but her mother caught her by the sleeve and dragged her onward.

Morgan would have been amused by the whole episode if she had not remembered the nature of her errand. She hurried onward and knocked on the door of Pickford House before she could lose her courage.

The Countess of Rosthorn was from home, she was informed. But Miss Clifton would surely be happy to receive her. Morgan followed the butler upstairs while her maid disappeared into the nether regions of the house, and was shown into a sitting room that was smaller than the drawing room where she had been entertained to tea a few days before. Henrietta Clifton rose to her feet as she was announced, a look of surprise on her face.

"Lady Morgan," she said, "do come in and have a seat. I am sorry that Aunt Lisette is not here to receive you. She will be sorry too."

Miss Clifton was in her late twenties, Morgan judged. She was plain and slightly overweight. But she had pleasing manners and Morgan liked her.

"I am the last person you must have expected to see today," she said, seating herself.

"We were surprised and a little disappointed when Gervase came home yesterday and told us that you had refused his marriage offer," Miss Clifton said. "I really thought the two of you would suit, and I very much wish for his happiness. But I daresay you had a good reason."

"You did not turn against him nine years ago, then?" Morgan asked her.

Miss Clifton flushed. "Ah, you know about that, do you?" she said. "No, none of us blamed Gervase except my uncle. None of us expected him to react as he did. I have been dreadfully unhappy about it ever since. May I offer you refreshments?"