Surrender Becomes Her (12 page)

Deciding that if Jack had his mother’s approval, and liking
his first impressions of him, Marcus set himself out to put his cousin at ease and soon the two men were conversing as if they had known each other for years. Though Maria and her brood had remained at a distance, she had maintained some contact with her siblings, mostly through letters, and Jack and Marcus were able to find some common ground. By the time Barbara stuck her head around the door to his office, Marcus and Jack were quite at ease with one another.

At Barbara’s entrance, Jack set down his empty glass and rose to his feet. Smiling from mother to son, he said, “I’m sure that the pair of you have much to discuss. If you will direct me to my room, I shall give you some privacy.”

Once Jack had been borne away by Thompson and Barbara had settled herself comfortably in an overstuffed leather chair, she looked up at her son and said simply, “Tell me. All.”

Lying was not Marcus’s forte, but he’d known this moment was coming and he’d prepared himself. Not quite meeting his mother’s gaze, he said, “Before you left for London, you made it clear that I should make some changes in my life. Decided marriage would be one way. Knew you liked Isabel. Offered for her. Accepted me.”

Barbara stared in dismay at her tall handsome son, her heart sinking. Instead of the love match she’d dreamed of, it was obvious that Marcus, in his usual unemotional way, she thought irritably, had chosen a marriage of convenience. She frowned. She could understand Marcus’s motives, but what of Isabel’s?

Thoughtfully, Barbara studied her son. Marcus’s actions, while vexing, she could understand, but Isabel’s had her puzzled. It had not escaped her attention that Marcus and Isabel’s marked avoidance of each other was a little
too
obvious. She’d long suspected that the pair of them were attracted to each other, but both were too stubborn and proud to act on that attraction—or acknowledge it. Perhaps Isabel
had realized that she didn’t really dislike Marcus after all? In fact, quite the opposite?

Barbara sighed. Whatever Isabel’s reasons, it was her son’s that concerned her most. She’d so longed for Marcus to fall wildly, madly in love that she hadn’t cared who the woman was; if Marcus loved her, Barbara would have welcomed a milkmaid into the family. But if she’d had to choose a wife for her son, Isabel would have topped the list. She’d had never simply wanted her son to marry, she’d wanted him to be helplessly,
passionately
in love with the woman he eventually married—which, it was apparent, he was not.

Well, it might not be a love match, she admitted resignedly, but she had hopes for the future. Married, they’d have to be in each other’s company and propinquity was known to make miracles.

Forcing a smile, she looked at Marcus and asked, “So when is the wedding to take place?”

M
arcus nearly groaned aloud. Trust his mother to ask the one question he could not answer! Reluctantly he said, “We haven’t set a precise date yet, but we’ve agreed that the wedding will take place in either late July or early August.”

Barbara glanced down at her hands in her lap. Well, that sounded promising. At least there didn’t seem to be a long engagement in the offing and she’d been half prepared for that. And, she thought pleased, Marcus seemed unhappy with the delay in setting a date for the wedding. Perhaps his emotions were more involved than she realized? Had she detected a note of impatience in his voice?

She glanced up to see him studying her, a quizzical expression on his face. “What?” she asked. “Why do you look at me so?”

“Unless you’re a fortune teller,” he said, smiling faintly, “when you left for London, you had no idea that I planned to marry, and I’ll wager that Isabel Manning would have been the last woman you’d expect me to marry, yet you don’t seem the least surprised.”

Barbara shrugged and said, “You are my only child and I have tried very hard not to be an interfering mother. I raised you to be self-sufficient and you’re old enough to make your
own decisions and have been for years. I have long thought it is past time that you married and started your nursery but I assumed you would marry when it suited you. Obviously that time has come.” She smiled. “As for Isabel being the woman you’ve chosen to marry…why not? She’s an eligible, wealthy, attractive young woman from a respectable family. You’ve known each other all your lives, you come from similar backgrounds, and you’ve some interests in common—horses come to mind—and you even like her son, so why shouldn’t you marry each other? Your marriage seems quite timely and practical to me.”

His mother’s words pricked him. There was nothing wrong in what she said but hearing her lay out all the logical reasons for his marriage annoyed him. When he thought of marriage to Isabel—and he’d thought of little else since the night of their betrothal—he didn’t think in such prosaic terms as eligibility or common interests. No, there was nothing prosaic about his thoughts about Isabel. When he wasn’t thinking of strangling her, he was aware of the emptiness that consumed him when he was away from her, or he was imagining her smile, her laugh; but mostly, he admitted, he was thinking of how very much he wanted her in his arms and in his bed.

A frown on his face, Marcus said, “So the marriage doesn’t bother you?”

“Good heavens! Why should it? I am very fond of both Isabel and Edmund.” She flashed him a wide smile, saying truthfully, “I am thrilled that you are going to marry Isabel; she will be good for you.”

“You make her sound like a mustard foot bath,” he said dryly.

Barbara laughed. “She will certainly be a spring tonic for you. Now, how do you feel about hosting a small dinner party on Friday evening to introduce Jack? With so many of our friends in London, we will be quite thin of company, but
I think we can put together a pleasant table. Naturally, we’ll invite Isabel and Lord Manning, as well as several others, like Clara Appleton, who eschewed the Season this year.” She smiled slyly. “And perhaps by then you and Isabel will have decided upon a date for the wedding and it can be announced.”

Marcus doubted the latter, but he agreed with his mother’s plans to introduce Jack to their circle of friends. They spoke on the matter for several moments before Marcus inquired about his mother’s trip to London and Barbara in turn asked after local events.

A glimmer of a smile in his eyes, Marcus asked, “Did my news disrupt your plans in London terribly?”

She laughed. “No, truth be told, London was extremely tiring. I find that I like my familiar things around me and my normal routine.”

“Hmmm, seems to me that you’ve scolded me often enough for saying the same thing.”

“Hush!” she said, her eyes dancing. “As a respectful and dutiful son, you are to do as I say, not as I do.” Leaning forward, Barbara demanded, “Now tell me: what do you think of Jack?”

Marcus shrugged. “On the basis of our short acquaintance, he seems a decent enough fellow. I think he will prove to be an enjoyable companion.”

“My impression exactly! He was a delightful and entertaining escort during the trip from London. And if half of what I hear from his mother is true, he has led a most exciting life. The adventures he has had for a young man not yet five and thirty!”

Feeling a trifle ruffled by the wistful, almost envious note in his mother’s voice, Marcus muttered, “Aunt Maria is probably well used to learning that he is lingering near death’s door.”

“Oh, I know,” said Barbara, “she has often written to me
how she worries about him. My heart goes out to her and I am most thankful that you have never given me a moment’s worry.” Unaware that she had just added insult to injury, she added, “It was so fortunate that he came to call on the same day I received your exciting news. I was just about to write you and request your company for the journey home, when the butler informed me that Jack was in the foyer wishing to pay his respects.”

“I’d wondered how he came to escort you from London. I didn’t realize that you knew him well.”

“I knew of his exploits from my sister, of course,” Barbara admitted, “but until I saw him in my sitting room in London, I hadn’t laid eyes on him for years.” She smiled. “His mother wrote him that I was in London and urged him to come to call. I’m sure it was the last thing he wanted to do, but he did and it all worked out splendidly.”

Idly, Marcus remarked, “Seems surprising that such a dashing buck would tear himself away from London to escort home an older female relative he hardly knows.”

“Yes, I thought so, too, but he says that he has a friend staying in the area and that he’d take the opportunity to visit with him.” She frowned slightly. “Now what was his name? Jack said the fellow retired from the Army just a short while ago. A major, I think. Now what was it? White? No. Whitlow? No, that isn’t it either.”

Marcus stiffened. “Would it by chance be Whitley?”

“That’s it!” His mother beamed at him. “Do you know Major Whitley, too?”

“I’ve met him,” Marcus said carefully. Jack was a friend of Whitley’s? A coincidence?

“Oh, this is grand!” said Barbara happily. “Jack will be so pleased that you know his friend. If you let me know where he is staying, I shall invite him to dinner on Friday night.”

“No,” said Marcus in a voice she had never heard from him. His features grim, he added bluntly, “You are to have
nothing to do with Whitley. Order Thompson to refuse him entrance should the man have the temerity to come to call. He is not an appropriate person for you to know.”

Startled, she stared at her normally amiable son, wondering where this hard-eyed, stone-faced stranger had come from. “But
Jack
knows him,” she said helplessly. “You must be mistaken. Surely Whitley cannot be so very bad?”

“I am sure,” Marcus said harshly, “that
Jack
knows all sorts of people and some of them,” he finished ominously, “are
not
the sort one would wish for a closer acquaintance.”

It wasn’t until after they had dined and Barbara had bid the two gentlemen good night that Marcus had a chance to bring up Whitley’s name. The two cousins were comfortably seated once again in Marcus’s office, partaking of snifters of brandy. A small fire burned on the hearth to chase away the faint chill of the May night, and candlelight cast a golden glow over the room.

Marcus was sprawled in the overstuffed leather chair near the fire, a snifter of brandy held in one hand. Jack sat on the oxblood settee, his long legs stretched toward the fire, his brandy resting on a nearby mahogany table.

Taking a sip of his brandy, Jack grinned at Marcus and said, “This is a far cry from some of the places I’ve bivouacked over the years. More nights than I care to think of I’ve gone to bed in a drafty tent, slept on the cold, wet ground with moldy cheese, stale bread, and sour wine my only sustenance—if I had that!” He leaned his head back against the settee and sighed blissfully. “A full stomach—my compliments to your cook, by the way—a warm fire, a snifter of fine brandy, and an entertaining companion; what more could a man ask for?”

“Little else,” Marcus replied with a smile. Even with his suspicions aroused by Jack’s relationship with Whitley, Marcus found it impossible not to respond to his cousin’s easy charm.
Damn it, I like the bloody fellow
, Marcus thought
ruefully.
And just because he knows Whitley doesn’t mean anything.
But Marcus was surprised and a little disappointed, although he had no reason to be, that Jack associated with someone like the major.

Marcus knew the major’s type. One met men like Whitley in the halls and gaming clubs along Pall Mall or in the high-priced brothels favored by the gentlemen of the
ton
. The major and his ilk were amusing companions for drinking and whoring, or any number of masculine pursuits, but they were generally
not
people someone introduced to the ladies of the family. Whitley’s bold manner with Isabel bothered him more than he cared to admit and he wondered what Hugh Manning had been about calling someone like Whitley friend and letting him be on familiar terms with his wife. He certainly wouldn’t let a bounder like Whitley within a mile of
his
wife, even if the polite world was full of men like the major. One didn’t, Marcus thought protectively, subject the females of the family to fellows of Whitley’s stripe.

The fact that Jack knew Whitley wouldn’t have normally aroused Marcus’s interest, but Jack’s knowing him, coupled with Whitley’s manner toward Isabel, raised alarms all through him. Of course, he reminded himself, Whitley and Jack had both been military men, and it was possible their paths had crossed more than once in the course of their careers. He frowned. Perhaps that’s all it was: Jack simply knew Whitley in the most superficial way. But that didn’t make sense. Why would Jack leave London at the height of the Season to travel to a small seaside village in the country to visit someone he only knew in passing?

Marcus took a sip of his brandy and decided to plunge right in. “Mother says that you have a friend staying in the area. A Major Whitley?”

A peculiar expression crossed Jack’s face and Marcus was immediately aware that Whitley’s name had provoked some emotion within Jack. And it wasn’t friendly.

Jack hesitated, then said, “Ah, yes. I heard from, um, friends that Whitley was visiting around here, and since I would be in the area, I thought I’d look him up.”

“A small world, isn’t it?” Marcus said, watching him closely. “I happen to have met your friend Whitley just days ago.”

“Did you now?” commented Jack. “Quite a coincidence.”

Marcus nodded. “I thought so.”

Jack tossed off some brandy. “When you met my friend, did he, perhaps, mention where he was staying?” He smiled, but Marcus noticed it didn’t reach his eyes. “It’ll save me having to look for him.”

“The Stag Horn Inn near Salcombe, about a half hour’s ride from here.”

“How convenient,” Jack said, staring at the amber liquid in his snifter.

“He a good friend of yours?”

“Not precisely,” said Jack, a note in his voice that made Marcus wonder just what sort of “friendship” Jack had with Whitley.

“Still, you traveled all the way from London to visit him,” Marcus prompted.

Jack grinned at him. “No, I traveled all the way from London to enjoy the company of your charming mother. Whitley being in the area is a, er, bonus.” Tossing off another swallow of brandy, Jack looked at him and asked, “So how did you meet Whitley?”

Marcus hesitated, wondering how much to tell. Deciding that there was little to be gained in prevaricating, he said simply, “My fiancée, Isabel Manning, introduced us. She’s been a widow for nearly a decade now and it appears that Whitley was good friends with Isabel and her husband, Hugh, when she was in India several years ago. Apparently, Whitley recently retired from the Army and, with time on his hands, he is looking up old friends and making their reacquaintance—at least that’s what he said.”

“Oh? And he just now decided to visit her? After ten years?”

“Again, that’s what he said.”

“You don’t believe him,” Jack observed, staring keenly at Marcus.

Marcus took a sip of his brandy. “Not a bit,” he said cheerfully. Glancing at Jack, he said, “I think the man’s a bounder and up to no good. I’ve already told my mother to have our butler refuse him entrance should he come to call.” Thoughtfully he added, “And I must say that he’s not the sort of fellow I’d expect you to call ‘friend.’”

Jack made a face. “But then you don’t know me that well, do you?”

“Can’t deny that, but if I suspected for one second that you were of Whitley’s ilk, you wouldn’t be sitting here right now,” Marcus said levelly. “Relative or not, I’d have sent you packing the moment Mother was inside the house.”

Jack stood up and helped himself to another brandy. Walking to the fireplace, he set his snifter on the mantel and, resting one arm along its length, looked down at Marcus still lounging comfortably in the overstuffed chair.

After a moment, Jack asked, “Does the name Roxbury mean anything to you?”

“The Duke of Roxbury?”

Jack nodded.

Suddenly several things became clear to Marcus and a grin spread across his face. While he had only met Roxbury in a social setting, he knew from Julian that Roxbury was not the dilettante old aristocrat he played for the benefit of the
ton
. It was whispered in a select group of gentlemen that the old duke rubbed shoulders with unsavory members of the lower orders and wild young bloods of the
ton
as easily as he dined with society leaders, prime ministers, and members of their cabinets. Roxbury wasn’t in politics, but according to Julian, the old duke dabbled quietly in the background at the behest of the government. It was because of Roxbury that Julian, in
his younger days, had undertaken several dangerous missions for the duke in France. Julian seldom mentioned his days as a spy for Roxbury and through him the British government, but Marcus was aware of Roxbury’s penchant for harnessing the talents of the bored, daring members of the aristocracy for his own uses.