Tempted (24 page)

She almost told him she didn’t. Almost lied to him out of spite, but Mary wasn’t that hard.

“Is that all?”

“Aye.”

She opened the flap of the tent, wanting him to leave. “I’m sorry, Mary girl,” her father said, and he actually sounded like he meant it. “And I’m sorry for what I did to old Admiral all those years ago, too. It were a rotten thing to do, and not a day goes by that I don’t regret it.”

He stood before her, the proud and callous man Mary remembered suddenly staring at her with tears in his eyes. And of all the silly things, she felt tears of her own.

“I accept your apology, Father.”

Neither one of them made a move. Truth be told, it would take years for that to happen.

“Well, then. I’ll be going. But afore I do, I want to tell you how proud I am of you, Mary. The way you ride them horses, it’s somethin’ ta see.”

“You’ve seen me ride?”

“Aye. I’ve watched your performance every night this week.”

She stiffened.

“Knew you didn’t see me. I’ll wager there was only one face you were looking for in that crowd.”

She wondered how he knew, but she supposed it didn’t matter. But something held her back, some brutal bond of honesty that had suddenly sprung between them.

“And as to that I’ll say nothin’ more than he doesn’t deserve you, Mary lass. Not if he doesn’t see what a bonny woman he’s given up.”

It grew hard to swallow. Lawks, hard, even, to see, for her tears were born of a pain that her father—a man who Mary would have sworn despised her up until a few moments ago—could say such a thing, while Alex…well, Alex couldn’t.

Oddly enough, her father’s visit didn’t make things easier on her. If anything, it made things harder. She fluctuated between despising Alex for having so little faith in her and wanting to see him so much it hurt.

So it was that three mornings later she found herself on the way to another party, only this time it was a villa perched on the edge of Regent’s Park, proclaiming the owner to be of phenomenal wealth if the size of the place and the seclusion from other homes in the area was any indication. Three stories tall it was, with large windows that reflected the surrounding park, a home as majestic as its owner, no doubt. Bloody hell.

“It belongs to the Duke of Wainridge,” Samuel, the circus’s manager, told her, obviously following her gaze.

Mary turned toward the man. “The who?”

“Duke of Wainridge. You know, Wicked Wainridge. Surely you’ve heard of him before? I’ll wager all of London has heard of him and his ancestors.”

“Dear God.”

“Don’t worry none, luv. He’s promised to be on his best behavior.”

Mary just stared in horror until suddenly, abruptly, hysterical laughter welled up within her. But just as quickly, she straightened. “Did the duke come to you to schedule the event?”

“The duke’s steward did, aye, but he said the duke had a particular desire to see you perform. Isn’t that some-thin’, Mary? You’ve come to the attention of a duke.”

She’d begun to shake, her anger and resentment making it hard to breathe. Hateful man. How could he be so cruel? How? She should leave. Thwart him. And Alex, too, if he was in on his father’s plans. And how could he not be? She felt her eyes begin to burn. How could he not be?

“Go on out behind the carriages, lass, and get ready. I’ll call you when ’tis time.”

Mary almost told him no. Almost told him she couldn’t perform. But as she looked up at the house Alex’s father owned, she realized she was made of sterner stuff. She may not have been noble born, but she had the iron will of the nobility. Aye, and the pride. Try to put her in her place, would they? She would just see about that.

“Lord, would you look at all them swells,” said the groom a half-hour later as he peeked out of a crack between the carriages they’d lined up to shield them from the guests’ view. “Never imagined they lived so grand. Would you look at the fancy lace at the table. My mam would give her left bubby for just a tiny scrap of it.”

“Hush,” she said, brushing at her jewel-encrusted white tunic. For as she listened to the groom drone on, she realized she’d deluded herself. Grandly, spectacularly deluded herself, for when she’d taken a peek at all those swells a few moments ago, when she’d watched them glitter and glow like a gaudy chandelier, it had made her want to cry out.

That was Alex’s life out there. A life she’d never share with him.

She tilted her head back, closed her eyes. She couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t.

“Get ready, get ready,” Samuel said, coming around the back of a carriage. “They’re gathering.”

Mary stared blindly at the manager, her body frozen as indecision felt like ballast to her legs. Funny, for she’d never thought of herself as a coward. And yet here she was ready to slink away like a beaten puppy.

“Mary?”

She tilted up her chin. Damn him. Damn them all. She would do it, she would show him that she was no hound kicked by his master’s toe.

“I’ll be there in a moment, Samuel,” she said.

With a broad smile, the manager left, Mary herself going to where the horses were tied up behind the carriages. There were six chestnut geldings, each wearing sparkling white tack with a dandy white feather stuck in their bridles. They lifted their heads as she approached. In a daze, she checked the surcingle buckled around the lead horse’s girth, untied him from the rope tether, swung up on his back.

She could do this.

They’d arranged a ring out of hay bales beyond the carriages, Mary waiting what seemed an eternity for Samuel’s signal, and when it came, even then she hesitated. But with a lift of her head and a proud stretch of her body, she kicked her horse forward and blindly headed toward the ring. She waited until two strides away before standing atop the horse’s back. The wind whistled in her ears, the familiar rhythm of the horse cantering beneath her still sore feet helping to steady her. And it was then, and only then, that she looked up.

Alex stood in the center of the ring.

Shock made her knees lock, made her wobble. Her horse felt the change, thought she meant to stop.

He did.

She didn’t.

Mary flew through the air, her body instinctively curling itself into a ball. She’d fallen off a thousand times, sometimes badly, other times, like this time, with a grace that almost made it look planned.

She landed right at Alex’s feet, blast it all.

“Mary,” he said, squatting down next to her. “Are you hurt?”

She glared up at him, biting back the urge to cluck her tongue. “What the bleedin’ blazes do
you
care?”

Funny, but her words made him smile. “Ahh, Mary my love, how I missed your saucy tongue.”

My love?
The beard splitter. The Abraham cove. She wasn’t his love. “Burn in hell.”

He laughed then. “Still as saucy as ever.”

“I’ll give you some sauce, you—”

“Shhh,” he said, placing his finger against her lips. “For once in your life, be silent Mary, while a man tells you what is in his heart.”

And lord help her, something in the way he looked at her, in the way he seemed to still, to contemplate something very serious indeed, made her hold her tongue.

But despite the silence, he didn’t say anything immediately. “I’ve been practicing this moment for nearly a week and damned if I know what to say.” And then he scratched at his arm and Mary realized he was nervous.
Nervous.

She looked into his eyes, the expression in the blue depths as deep as the ocean his eyes reminded her of. And when he reached out and gently swiped away a lock of her hair, Mary’s heart leapt.

“I love you, Mary Brown Callahan.”

Oh, God. She must be dreaming.

“If anything, my time away from you to set this all up has made me realize just exactly how much.”

“Alex—”

“Shh,” he said. “Don’t talk. Listen. If I don’t get this over with I’m afraid the itching will drive me mad.”

And so she held still, even as a part of her thought she must surely be dreaming.

“You think I don’t trust you, Mary, but I do. Even when you told me who you really were, I had to fight the urge to go to you, to tell you that it would be all right. A part of me couldn’t believe that I would bend my principles so much, but I realized later that it was because despite what you’d done, I knew you to be a good person. An amazing person, really, one I was fortunate to get to know.”

She was crying silently now, tears running down the side of her face. He saw them, wiped them away tenderly. “And so the question became how to convince
you
to trust
me.
No,” he shook his head slightly. “That’s not right. The question became how to convince you that if it comes down to a choice between you and my career, I choose you. If it comes down to a choice between you and my reputation, I choose you. If it comes down to being disowned by my father, I would still choose you. You see, nothing matters but you. Nothing. And so Rein and I concocted a scheme. We would invite half the
ton
, including the prince. Yes, dear Mary, the Prince of Wales is over there, waiting to meet you, for he has great sympathy for our plight having been forbidden to marry for love. As such he has pledged his support. But even if he hadn’t done that, even if he’d laughed me out of Windsor, it wouldn’t have mattered, as long as I had you.”

“Oh, Alex.”

And now he tipped her chin up as he had so many times before. “So I’m going to ask you to stay with me, Mary. Not as my mistress, but as my marchioness—”

“Alex,” and the name was almost a sob.

“It will not be easy,” he said. “Even now, today, you might get cut by those who think themselves above you. We may never be accepted into polite society, something that might be for the better, now that I think upon it.”

She smiled.

He smiled, too, and then he kissed her, the two of them still kneeling on the ground, though it felt like Mary flew. She heard people gasp, but he didn’t seem to care. He broke it off only when he wanted to, she had a feeling. Only when he judged the time right to say, “Stand up, please.”

Stand up?

“Alex—”

“I can’t propose to you on the ground now, can I?” Oh, lord. He really meant to go through with it. He truly did.

And will you accept his challenge, Mary? Will you face those silly nabobs and thumb your nose at them?

Her answer was to stand, ignoring the minor twinges associated with her fall. She stood as a marquis, a peer of the realm, heir to a bleedin’ dukedom, stayed on the ground, positioned himself so that he knelt on one knee, reached into his pocket and said, “Mary Elizabeth Brown Callahan. Will you do me the honor—the very great honor—of becoming my marchioness? Of filling my life with laughter and saucy comments. Of forever speaking your mind. Of forever being”—and for the first time she saw tears in his eyes—“my friend?”

Oh
, she thought.
Oh, oh, oh.

“Yes, Alex,” she said with a voice choked by tears. “Yes, oh yes.”

He stood abruptly, pulling her up against him and into his arms. And it was then, and only then, that Mary finally understood that it was for real. She was not hallucinating as the result of an injury. She was not lying on the ground, unconscious, likely with a silly smile on her face. Alex’s smell, touch and presence was all too real.

“Alex,” she murmured against his lapel, and his arms tightened around her as if he were afraid she might gallop away. But she was a long, long way from doing that.

All too soon he pulled back, wiping tears away from his own eyes with his thumb as he turned and led her out of the ring and toward the
ton.
She recognized Rein, who smiled at her mischievously, and Alex’s father, who, of all things, silently applauded. The rest stared at her with various degrees of shock and outrage. More than one glanced in the direction of a man Mary knew was the Prince of Wales. Lord, he looked just like the drawings she’d seen of him in print-shop windows: plump with puffy cheeks.

Her theory was confirmed when Alex stopped before him, bowing deeply before saying, “Your highness, may I present my fiancée, Miss Mary Brown?”

There were startled murmurings from the crowd. Mary waited for cries of “Scandalous,” and “Outrageous,” cries she’d heard once before at Rein’s home. But, oddly enough, nothing happened. Indeed, every member of the
ton
looked at the prince, a prince who came forward and said, “Indeed you may, Warrick. Indeed you may.”

And as if in a dream, Mary saw the expression on people’s faces change. It amazed her how it happened, for one minute they were staring at her and Alex in horror, the next they were…smiling?

“Curtsy, Mary,” she heard Alex say under his breath.
Yes, of course.
And this time as she bent her knee, the slits on her glittering skirts spreading as she clutched them in her left hand and sank to the ground, she took great care in how she did it. It was a perfect curtsy. Elegant. Graceful, with just the right angle to her head. When she stood again, Alex stared down at her proudly, just before he pulled her into his arms again. And before she could say a word, he kissed her, and the last of her doubts slipped way on the gossamer wings of love. It was real. She was loved. By a lord.