Smuggler's Lady (29 page)

Merrie found him in the crimson saloon, the only receiving room in the house, it would seem, to be untouched by the bustle. On the way, she paused to look through the open front door where men in leather aprons were erecting an awning to the street and others were unrolling a red carpet.

“I cannot help feeling this is an unconscionable amount of fuss for a country cousin,” she remarked, closing the door of the saloon behind her.

“Have you not realized yet that Bella will seize any excuse to give a party?” Damian teased, holding open his arms.

“Thank you, sir. I am quite put in my place.” She moved with dignified hauteur to the sofa, ignoring the welcoming arms. It was not a choice she was permitted though, and she managed only the faintest squawk of protest as he spun her around and then collapsed, laughing, against his chest.

It was quite some minutes before Rutherford was able to reach the object of his visit. “I have a present for you,” he said, drawing a flat, velvet box from his pocket. “No, do not say anything,” he cautioned, seeing her about to make the protest he had been expecting. “Bella has told me how you will wear your hair tonight. You will accept this to please me.”

Merrie opened the box. An opera comb of platinum, studded with seed pearls and tiny diamonds, lay on the satin lining. She looked at it for long minutes as that damnable Cornish pride warred with the loving desire to accept the gift of love. He would not oblige her to accept this as part of their contract, yet, if she refused it, Meredith knew he would be deeply wounded.

“It is beautiful,” she said softly. “I will wear it with the utmost pleasure.” Wear, but not accept, she thought. When it is time for this to be over, I will return the loan.

Damian did not hear the qualifying word, heard only the words of acceptance with a surge of relief at how easily it had been accomplished. He kissed her hungrily. “Tomorrow, my love, we will go to Highgate. I grow desperate at times, watching you flirt and cajole and play with those wicked eyes, and I cannot declare to the world that you are mine.”

A cold finger touched between Merrie's shoulder blades. Sometimes, he still talked as if he did not understand that it was only a game they played, a game made even more precious by its temporal nature.

She was afforded little time to dwell on this unease when the evening began. Thirty people sat down to dinner at eight o'clock and Meredith found herself the guest of honor in spite of her inclination to retire into the background. She wore a dress of Pomona green crape over a white satin half-slip. Tiny puff sleeves of lace threaded with seed pearls complemented Rutherford's gift set behind the elaborate knot of hair on the crown of her head. Nan had brushed her side curls until they shone, burnished by the candlelight. For one delicious instant, Merrie contemplated the reactions of Lady Patience Barrat and her cronies if they could see the downtrodden widow at this moment. Then she thought of her brothers. Theo, at least, would approve wholeheartedly of his sister's transformation.

Meredith's hand had been solicited for almost every dance by a constant stream of callers to Cavendish Square in the days preceding the ball. She stood up for the first dance with the Marquis of Beaumont as was right and proper, but the waltz that followed was Rutherford's. “You are every inch as accomplished a dancer as Lord Molyneux,” Meredith declared, a note of reproof in her voice. “Why do you dislike it so?”

“Curiously, I find that I do not,” he returned, imperceptibly increasing the pressure of his hand on her back. “But then I have never before found a partner I could tolerate.”

“But you cannot possibly now ignore the claims of all the fair damsels who are regarding me with such open envy.” Merrie lifted her face to give him a smile brimming with mischief. “Having set a precedent, sir, you must continue. No one will believe you to be a reluctant or poor dancer any longer.”

“Marry me,” he said involuntarily, breaking his resolve not to bring up the subject until this way of life had become second nature to her.

“Do not spoil everything,” she whispered. “I had thought we had agreed.”

“To spoil things was not my intention,” her partner said drily. “You are become quite flushed. Let us go onto the balcony for some air.”

The balcony was a grandiose term for the narrow ledge built outside each one of the long windows of the ballroom. Low iron railings fenced in the tiny space where Meredith stepped, breathing deeply of the chilly night air. Damian partially closed the double windows behind them as he stood beside her, hidden from the ballroom by the heavy brocade curtains veiling the window.

“I do beg your pardon for bringing up a subject you find so repugnant,” said Rutherford with ill-concealed sarcasm.

Meredith gripped the iron railing, heedless of the dirt transferred to her long white satin gloves. “How many times must I tell you that it will not do? I am not made to be a duchess, Damian. I am an adventuress, a smuggler, my birth is paltry, my fortune nonexistent. The only things I possess in any quantity are debts and brothers.”

“In the past month,” he said with quiet emphasis, “you have taken the town by storm. You are considered beautiful, accomplished, wellborn—”

“And rich!” She interrupted fiercely. “What does it matter that I should be considered all of those things when you and I know that they are not true?”

“What society believes, my dear girl, is always the truth. Have you not realized that fact yet? Nothing else will ever be believed of you even if you hired a town crier to proclaim from the rooftops what you consider to be the truth.”

The words sank in, bringing with them the final pieces of the puzzle. “I see,” she said slowly. “That being the case then, I need not worry that you would commit social suicide by marrying an indigent, law-breaking widow since, as far as society is concerned, you would not be doing so.” He did not respond and she turned in the confined space to face him. “You are as conniving and as full of duplicity as I am myself.”

“True enough. But it is a perfectly respectable tactic to turn one's opponent's weapons against him.”

“It is underhanded!” Merrie declared.

Damian laughed softly and tilted her chin. “You cannot blame me, love, for adopting whatever strategy seems necessary to achieve my object. You would do so yourself.”

A gleam came into the sloe eyes.
“Will
do so, my lord. I give you fair warning.”

“Just what is going through that pretty, but excessively devious, little head, now?” he demanded uneasily.

“Why, nothing.” The slim white shoulders lifted in a careless shrug. “You issued a challenge, sir. I am merely telling you that I accept it. Perhaps we should return to the ballroom. We may be considered cousins, but rules of propriety still apply, do they not?”

That well-remembered crisp crackle was in her voice, and Damian's heart sank as his sense of unease increased. He held the rich curtains aside for her, ran his finger up the slender column of her neck as she passed him. Her skin, as always, rippled beneath his touch, and he felt that inevitable quiver run through the taut body. Angry with him she may be, the emotion did nothing to lessen her physical response to his caress.

He could derive only small comfort from this knowledge, however, as he watched her go off with a radiant smile on the arm of Gerald Devereux. She seemed to sparkle as lustrously as the great crystal chandelier whose hundreds of candles illuminated the ballroom, and Devereux quite obviously basked in that luminous warmth.

“I beg you will pardon my impertinence, ma'am, but I have the distinct impression that something has angered you.” Gerald handed Merrie a glass of lemonade, taking up his place by her chair where she sat fanning herself vigorously after the exertions of the dance.

She looked at him in surprise not a little tinged with guilt. “I must have been lacking in manners, Mr. Devereux, to have given you such an impression.”

“No—no, not at all,” he protested. “I should never have mentioned it, but—forgive me—there is something about the way your eyes are sparkling that indicates an emotion other than pure enjoyment.”

“You are remarkably perspicacious.” She smiled wryly. “I have, perhaps, been a little out of temper, but I am quite restored to good humor now, I assure you.”

He bowed, smiling. “I hope I can assume that I was not the author of your irritation.”

“Indeed you were not!” Her eyes widened in horror. “Now, you have made me feel most dreadfully guilty.”

“A thousand pardons, Lady Blake! That was never my intention.” His voice dropped slightly. “I would only ensure your pleasure and happiness.”

Meredith felt a small prickle of discomfort at the serious note, the intensity of the blue eyes bent upon her face. The light flirtatious veneer that she enjoyed with Gerald Devereux seemed suddenly to have been drawn aside, revealing something rather more purposeful. It was with a measure of relief that she greeted Viscount Allenby, coming at that moment to claim her hand for the quadrille.

For the remainder of the evening she danced every dance, seemingly indefatigable. Gerald Devereux partnered her several times but, to her relief, behaved with his usual amusing charm and light touch as if that moment of intensity had been a figment of her imagination. Meredith decided that it had been. Her imagination, after all, had a rich diet these days; it would be no wonder if it suffered from indigestion once in a while.

Damian found her smilingly polite, prepared to talk only the merest commonplace on the few occasions he could get close enough to her for speech. It was all very splendid that his plans should have succeeded so well, he reflected, finding his own hand relegated to a country dance where the need to concentrate on the figure made serious conversation impossible, but his success seemed somewhat Pyrrhic when his attempt to take her into supper met with a pretty apology as Meredith accepted the rival claim of the Marquis of Wolvey.

Much to Arabella's gratification, the band of the Scots Greys played at supper, Rutherford being good friends with their colonel, but she found her pleasure somewhat diminished when she saw her brother's moody expression. It was one she recognized all too well although it had been absent recently, but, when she asked him in a whisper what was amiss, he smiled, shrugged, denied that anything had occurred to disturb his serenity and reverted to his customary, charming sunny temper. In fact, Lord Rutherford was ruefully regretting the impulse that had led him to betray his intentions. Knowing better than to underestimate his mistress, he felt a considerable sense of foreboding when he sought his bed in the first faint flush of dawn.

 

 

“I do not think there has been such a sad crush this Season,” Arabella announced complacently, rustling in a morning wrapper of rose-pink silk as she sat on her guest's bed the following morning. “I dare swear that by midnight one could hardly move.”

“The floor was certainly crowded,” Merrie agreed obligingly, smiling at Bella over her hot chocolate.

“My dear, only look at these billet-doux,” Bella exclaimed, picking up a handful of the prettily penned papers scattered over Merrie's satin coverlet. “Why, there must be one from every unattached male in the Upper Ten Thousand.”

“Goose,” Meredith said affectionately. “There is not one from your brother at any event.”

“Well, it is not precisely his style,” Arabella said, brushing away a stray curl. “My dear, you may snub me if you wish, but—have you and Damian perhaps quarreled? I could not help noticing that you were little in his company last night.”

Meredith regarded her visitor thoughtfully. “I was as much in his as in anyone's. I would not care for it to be said that I was throwing myself at his head.”

“No one would ever say such a thing.” Bella sounded genuinely shocked at the idea. “It is perfectly proper for him to offer special attentions since you reside under his family's roof. Indeed, people would not be at all surprised.”

“No?” Meredith inquired, eyebrows lifting. “Why would they not?”

“It is common knowledge that Rutherford must find a wife,” Arabella said with blithe indiscretion. “Papa talks to him of little else, which is why Damian does not call upon him as often as he should. It would not be considered in the least extraordinary if you, as the family's protegée, caught his eye.”

“Does your mother think this?”

“Oh, certainly.” Bella smiled confidently. “She would be very well pleased with such an outcome, and it would not surprise me if it is not already thought about town to be almost settled.”

“I see.” Meredith sat back against her pillows, responding to Bella's cheerful chatter automatically, her mind occupied with the infuriating knowledge of how thoroughly she had been duped. Damian had not for one minute accepted her proscription on marriage. Instead, he had set up a perfect arrangement whereby what he saw as her main objections to his proposal were made null and void. If society and the Keighleys considered such a match not only respectable but desirable, why should Merrie Trelawney have scruples? She had none about hoodwinking her Cornish neighbors as Rutherford knew only too well; the fraud she was now perpetuating on London society was simply on a more elaborate scale. There was no qualitative difference. She could almost hear his arguments, could almost be convinced by them. But nothing could overcome the dull certainty that a woman who drew the breath of life from flaunting the law and every rule and regulation of society would not make a suitable wife for the future Duke of Keighley. Rutherford enjoyed her unconventional ways, her recklessness excited him, and he found in the game they played the purpose and daring that had been lacking since he had left the army. But something that satisfied a momentary craving was no basis for the long years of a marriage that would have to be conventional. Suppose she could not adapt, could not become good and law-abiding or obedient to the rules and prohibitions of Damian's world? If she could not, she would bring him only misery, and Meredith was fairly convinced that she could not.