The Temporary Wife/A Promise of Spring (43 page)

Peregrine grinned. “If you will recall my exact words, Madeline,” he said, “you will be forced to admit that I neither said nor hinted at anything so unmannerly. I would have to say that you protest rather too much. I suspect that you have been touched on the raw.”

“Ah, sir,” she said, “you are unkind. Now that you are respectably married, you think you may look in scorn at everyone over the age of twenty who is not. I shall best you yet, you know, by marrying a duke.”

They were dancing, and the flow of their conversation was considerably hampered by the steps of the dance, which frequently separated them. Grace, Peregrine saw, was still standing at the side of the ballroom, talking to Lady Amberley. But he did not worry about her. It was the first of four sets that she had not danced.

He still could not keep his eyes away from her for more than a couple of minutes at a time. He knew her to be beautiful, of course. And that gown could reveal nothing of her body that he did not know already. He knew her with far more than his eyes only: he knew her with his own body and with a long and intimate familiarity. But he still could not stop himself from looking at her in wonder. There was a beauty in her tonight that he had not seen before, a certain glow from within that had forced itself past the calm of her eyes and gave her vibrancy. He was not sure that he had been entirely teasing when he had said that he did not want other men to see her in all her beauty.

And yet he was proud of her and delighted at every male head that turned for a second look at her. The room was filled, of course, with young girls in their delicate whites and pastels, and it was undoubtedly on them that most of the male attention and admiration was focused. But there was a mature beauty and attractiveness about Grace that drew the eye almost like a magnet. Even Lady Sally Jersey, surrounded by her usual court, did not outshine her.

“Even Edmund is here tonight,” Lady Madeline was saying. “I would dare swear that he will not attend half a dozen more balls in the whole Season. He would prefer to attend a salon and spend an evening in conversation on literary or political topics. Can you imagine?”

“It is very poor-spirited of him to be so dull,” Peregrine said. “A whole earldom going to waste! It is
enough to make the most sanguine of young ladies cross beyond bearing.”

“Oh,” she said, “I might have known I would have no sense out of you, Perry. I forget that you are rather like Edmund when you are not tormenting the ladies.”

“Tormenting the ladies?” he said. “When I have been rehearsing my charms for the whole of the past week?”

Peregrine had caught Grace’s eye across the room. Lord Sandersford had joined her and Lady Amberley.

Gareth
.

And all the joy went out of Peregrine’s evening as it had been doing out of his life for the past week, whenever he could not keep that name at bay.

He had not wanted to believe it at first. And he still did not know for sure. He had not asked anyone. But the coincidence would have been just too great. It could not but be true. Sandersford must be of an age with Grace. He had been a soldier. He had grown up with Grace, knew a great deal about her, lived at no great distance from her father. And his name was Gareth.

He had been Grace’s lover. And fathered her child. And abandoned her. She had loved him. And perhaps still did. And now, having seen her again, he had followed her to London.

And Grace’s unhappiness over the last weeks, that something that was troubling her, was finally explained. She had met again the man she had loved. The man she still loved? And he wanted her again. Yet she was trapped in a marriage she had made for comfort and convenience. Marriage with a younger man, who could not hope to compete with the very handsome and charismatic figure of Gareth, Viscount Sandersford.

He did not know what to do, had not known what to do for a week. His first instinct had been to go home and
confront Grace. She had lied to him before their marriage, when he had admired her for being so open with him and frank about her past. And she had deceived him during their visit to her home. He had felt a hurt anger against her, an anger that had bewildered him because it was an unaccustomed emotion for him, especially directed against his wife. Their relationship had been a remarkably tranquil one over more than a year of marriage.

But he had not confronted her. He knew, without having to think very deeply on the matter, that Grace had never lied to him or withheld any truth maliciously. And he knew that she must be troubled as much by the deception she had perpetrated against him as by the renewal of her acquaintance with Sandersford. Would he solve anything by telling her that he knew? Or would he make matters many times worse?

He did not know, and he did not know what to do. He did not know if he should try to prevent meetings between his wife and her former lover—should he take her home to Reardon Park, perhaps?—or whether he should allow her to work out the problem in her own way. And he did not know if he should confront the viscount with his knowledge or stand back and let Grace make her own decisions.

He knew what he would do if he were a man, according to all the codes of manhood with which the people of his generation had been indoctrinated. He would probably challenge Sandersford to a duel and beat his wife and take her into the country. Or else he would turn her out, having discovered that her lover was still alive and still a part of her life, and send her back into the arms of the man who had taken her honor.

But he had always considered such codes silly and immature. Why should he think only of his own image, his own reputation, when there was another human being
to be considered? He would prefer to think of what was best for Grace—and himself too—rather than of some inanimate code of behavior. He trusted her, when all was said and done, to do what was right. And if he must lose her, if that was what she would decide was right, then so be it. To hell with what the world might say.

Only one thing he did not consider, because he knew it was not in Grace’s nature to put him in such a dilemma. He did not ask himself what he would do if she should decide to take Sandersford as her lover again while continuing with her marriage. That question he did not ask himself. He knew that he would never have to provide himself with an answer.

He smiled at Lady Madeline as the music ended and led her back to her mother.

“Sandersford?” he said pleasantly. “Ah, Edmund, where have you been hiding? Your sister tells me that you have been in town for four days already.”

“And occupied by business ever since,” his friend said, extending a hand to him. “But intent on enjoying myself tonight. Now let me see. The Courtneys and the Carringtons and the Cartwrights—the three C’s, in fact—and the Misses Stanhope all send their regards to you and Lady Lampman, as do the Mortons and the rector and his wife. Have I forgotten anyone, Mama?”

“I think it would be safer just to say ‘everyone,’ dear,” his mother said.

Lord Amberley smiled. “Now, why did I not think of that?”

“My dance, I believe,” Lord Sandersford said, extending a hand for Grace’s. “With your permission, Lampman.”

Peregrine bowed.

“They make a handsome picture,” Lord Amberley
said, looking after them. “Lady Lampman is in good looks, Perry. You must be treating her well.” He grinned.

“I must be on my way to claim Lady Leila Walsh’s hand for the next dance,” Peregrine said, “before someone else steps in and takes my place. She does not lose any popularity over the years, does she?”

His eyes were twinkling as he approached the lady in question and stood politely to one side while she explained to a disappointed youth that she had no space left on her card where she might write his name. He must enjoy the evening, Peregrine told himself, or appear to do so anyway. He must not appear to mope over Grace.

“Perry, there you are,” Lady Leila said, turning her slanting hazel eyes on him. “I do not know why I did not grant that dance to poor Mr. Daniels, you know. I am still quite out of sorts with you for marrying without giving me a sporting chance of taking you away from her. And I will never forgive you for the trick you played at the theater. Can you imagine my mortification at letting my eyes stray past your wife and dismissing her as far too old for you, and greeting effusively a girl who was not even out at that time? Really, Perry, your jokes get worse and worse.”

“If you are going to scold,” he said, “I will find the card room, Leila, and see if I cannot separate a few duchesses from their fortunes. You have that hair to live up to, I know, but you need not turn into a shrew.”

He grinned at her indignant rejoinder.

Strange, he was thinking. Since his marriage, he really had grown unaware of the difference in age between himself and Grace. She was just Grace to him, a person who had become very dear to him. He could not look at her even now and see a woman of thirty-six in comparison with his twenty-six. He could see only Grace, his
friend and his lover. Did she look older than he? He supposed she must. Common sense said that she must. And London society appeared to be saying that she did.

His eyes strayed to where Grace was dancing with Sandersford, his handsome face smiling down into her upturned one.

Damnation. Oh, damnation!

G
ARETH HAD TURNED ON THE FULL FORCE OF HIS
charm. Grace recognized all the signs. There was his smile, of course, which had always been more attractive than almost any other man’s smile because of the whiteness of his teeth. And there was the very intense and appreciative look in his dark eyes and the way he had of crinkling his eyes at the corners when he laughed. And those eyes, though very direct, knew how to flutter down to one’s mouth for the merest moment, or up to one’s hair.

They had laughed about that deliberate charm when they were much younger. He had never used it on her then because she would immediately have accused him of being false. But he had used it on other girls, entirely for his own amusement and hers.

He was using it on her now, Grace saw as she danced with him. Except that now it was not a boy’s charm any longer, but a man’s seductive power. And he was a man now who knew the irresistibility of his attractiveness even more than the young Gareth had done.

“Well, Grace,” he said, “I came to town to look about me for a young wife. I came here tonight for that purpose. And it could be a successful evening. We are surrounded by young ladies, a dozen or more of them pretty, I would imagine. Yet I find I have eyes for no one but you.”

“Nonsense, Gareth,” she said. “You forget that I know this approach of yours from long ago. Are you trying to make a conquest of me? Did you think it would be easy? And would it amuse you to know that it was still possible?”

They were dancing close to the edge of the dancing floor, close to the windows. He drew her away from the other dancers and stood with her in the relative shelter of the long velvet curtains.

“You are right,” he said. “I was being less than sincere in my manner. And I have been lying, both to you and to others I have spoken to since arriving in town. I am not here to look over this new crop of beauties, Grace. What interest would I have in young girls who know nothing about satisfying a man’s needs and appetites? I came here because of you. You know that, do you not? You must have expected me to come. But if I am to be honest, then so must you. Don’t talk of my conquering you. There is no conquest to be made. Is there?”

He was Gareth, she told herself, looking up at him. He was that boy she had loved dearly for years as she grew to womanhood, the young man with whom she had been intimate for the span of a few days. He was Jeremy’s father. He had started her son in her. She had always expected that he would be her husband. She had always expected that there would be several children. And now he was powerfully handsome. He frightened her, suffocated her.

“No, there is not, Gareth,” she said, answering only his last question. “It is an impossibility. I am married to Perry.”

He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “A mere boy,” he said. “A pleasant-enough boy, I will admit. And it was decent enough of him to rescue you from an awkward situation after Paul died. But a boy nonetheless. And one who favors young ladies, as is perfectly
understandable, Grace. Look at him now laughing with his partner. Do you believe he does not fancy her?”

Grace looked obediently. Perry’s fair head was bent to Lady Leila’s flaming red one, and they were clearly teasing each other or flirting. There was nothing unusual about the scene. But Lady Leila was indeed very youthful and dashing. And extremely pretty.

“You do not need to cling to him and be constantly humiliated by his roving eye, Grace,” Lord Sandersford said fiercely. “You have more beauty and more passion in your little finger than that young lovely will ever have in her whole person. But you need a man to appreciate both and bring them alive in you. Not a boy.”

“You speak as if you think me undecided, wavering,” Grace said, turning determinedly from the charming picture made by Perry and Lady Leila. “I am not, Gareth. My relationship with Perry, as I told you before, is entirely a private matter between him and me. And as for you, you are a part of my distant past. There is no question of resurrecting what there once was between us.”

“Oh, liar, Grace,” he said, his dark eyes gazing down intently into hers. “Are you trying to convince yourself? Ours was not a love that could easily die. I put the child in you, whom you claim to have loved so dearly because he was mine, Grace. That is a bond that cannot be shrugged off even in a lifetime.”

“And yet,” she said, “it was of so little importance to you that you married a wealthier woman even while that child was still inside me. Don’t talk to me of lifelong bonds.”

“I was a boy,” he said. “A headstrong, conceited boy. Let us not judge each other now from this distance of time, Grace. You were not blameless yourself. You knew the risks and the moral implications when you decided to give me a husband’s privilege.”

“I was foolish,” she said. “Foolish and irresponsible.”