Company Of Rogues: An Unwilling Bride Part 10

Beth now understood that Phoebe had been a serious contender for the marquess's hand. Were they in fact disappointed lovers? Selfishly, it had never occurred to her that he might have had to give up a chosen partner to make this match. Beth glanced over at him, but he was relaxed in friendly talk with the Frogmortons and there was nothing to learn.

She looked back and saw Phoebe had noted that look with satisfaction. Beth took hold of her wits. The little cat was out to make trouble. She doubtless had faint hopes of somehow spoiling the present arrangement and reviving her chances. Beth knew there was no possibility of that and had no mind to have her life made more difficult by the girl.

"Personally," she said, "I prefer a quiet family Christmas."

"And where does your family live?" asked Phoebe, probing for a weakness.

"I lived with my aunt in Cheltenham," countered Beth. "Are your parents here with you, Miss Swinnamer?"

"No, my mother is in Bath while my father lingers in Melton. I'm surprised," she drawled, with a somehow familiar look at the marquess, "Arden is not still there. He adores hunting in the Shires."

"The power of love," said Beth sweetly. "I was not in such a mighty hurry to be wed, I a.s.sure you, Miss Swinnamer. But the marquess was positively insistent."

Phoebe's charming, shapely nose became decidedly pinched.

Before she could rally, the d.u.c.h.ess was there, drawing Beth away. "You must come and talk to Lady Frogmorton, my dear." As soon as they were out of earshot, she said, "I do hope the girl did not offend you, Elizabeth."

"Of course not," Beth said. "I'm well used to young misses. But am I correct in thinking there was an attachment between her and the marquess?"

"Not an attachment," the d.u.c.h.ess said quickly. "She did seem to have a great deal to offer, and Lucien considered her-partly at my urging, I confess. I do not think he was ever particularly drawn to her. In fact," she admitted with a rueful twinkle, "he was called away shortly after Christmas on some mysterious urgent business, much to poor Phoebe's annoyance."

Beth shared the amus.e.m.e.nt, relieved to think her future husband wasn't nursing a broken heart. They had enough trouble without that.

She sat down to gossip with Lady Frogmorton, a kindly woman who said everything that was proper. Beth had been right about the jealousy of the daughters, however. Lucy, in particular, being the elder and sharply pretty, with vivid dark-haired, cherry-lipped looks, eyed Beth with disbelief. Beth supposed she would just have to become accustomed to this reaction.

When Lucien came to join them she was grateful for the way he behaved. There was no crude outward show of fondness, of course, but in the way he stood beside her and the tone of his voice he clearly convinced the visitors that, strange though it was, this mousy and rather old woman had stolen his heart.

Beth recognized, however, that this salve to her pride was bought at cost to her heart. When he acted so proficiently it was all too easy to fall under the spell, to forget this was a pact imposed ruthlessly and supported by threats of violence.

She watched carefully when he exchanged pleasantries with Phoebe Swinnamer. Beth couldn't hear the words, but his att.i.tude was friendly and brotherly. In as far as she was capable of it, Miss Swinnamer looked cross, and Beth took unkind satisfaction from that. It was unfortunate but human to dislike a young woman who was so set up in her own opinion and who clearly regarded Beth as something lower than an earthworm.

The next day brought the vicar and his wife in the company of Sir George Matlock, the local squire, and Lady Matlock. They, too, Beth thought, looked at her with a trace of puzzlement, but accepted matters, doubtless due to the marquess's excellent acting. They were also, however, inclined to gush. Beth found it strange to be looked up to as a member of the ducal family when she still felt like Beth Armitage the schoolmistress.

She feared it would be much more of the same at the upcoming ball. Beth helped the d.u.c.h.ess and Mrs. Sysonby to address the hundred invitations.

"I confess," she remarked as she dipped her pen into the ink well again, "this seems a great many invitations for a country ball."

"Oh, but this is a small affair," said the d.u.c.h.ess. "As there will be other events in London we are only asking the local people and at least half will have to decline." She tidied one stack with deft fingers. "Some men are still in the Shires. Women are visiting family. Some have already gone up to Town. But, even so, they would be affronted if we failed to send an invitation."

This was no relief to Beth. She could still apparently expect over thirty families to come and gawk. She wished she was being sent an invitation, for then she could refuse.

She supposed the marquess, too, wished he could escape the event. He at least escaped to London to execute the d.u.c.h.ess's commissions. Before he left he sought out Beth in the library.

"I felt for form's sake I should take a tender farewell of you," he said dryly.

"Consider it taken," she responded in the same manner. She would never show weakness before him again.

That didn't prevent a tremor of nervousness when he walked toward her window seat. He brought to mind a big cat stalking its prey and she was trapped in the deep embrasure. She began to fear he might break his promise and a.s.sault her, but he merely removed her book from her lax fingers and glanced at the t.i.tle.

"Sall.u.s.t?" he noted in surprise. "You read Latin?"

How typical that he should think it remarkable. "Yes," she said coldly, "I read Latin. It isn't always easy, but it is good exercise for the mind...." Her voice trailed off because he had sat beside her and taken her hand. Quite gently. There was no anger on his face, only bemus.e.m.e.nt.

"I find you impossible to understand, Elizabeth," he said thoughtfully. "You read Latin and refuse a fortune in jewels. And yet you claim to be-"

"I explained that," Beth interrupted angrily, dragging her fingers from his hold.

He shook his head and put the book, open, in her hands again. "Read me a pa.s.sage and translate it."

With a grunt of anger Beth slammed the book closed. "Putting me to the test again?" She waved the tome in his face. "Really, my lord. Do you think knowledge of Latin a proof of virtue? What then of the whole of the male aristocracy?"

Disarmingly, he laughed. "Ah, but it's the Greek that does us in."

He gently rescued the book and let it fall open again. He smiled as he read, "'Ita in maxima fortuna minima licentia est.' I seem to remember at Harrow I didn't believe that high station limited freedom. Perhaps old Gaius Sal.u.s.tius had something after all." He closed the book and placed it on the seat. "Can we possibly, do you think, cry quarter? This is all going to drive me mad. If you are willing to behave like a lady, the least I can do is act the gentleman. I promise never to refer to our unfortunate conversations again."

Beth rose to her feet, partly in a simple need to move away from him. There was something disturbing in his mere proximity, especially when he was in a mellow mood. "That would be an improvement," she responded. "But can you forget them?"

"I can try," he replied. "At least until you give me further reason to doubt you."

An angry retort rose to her lips, but Beth suppressed it. She, too, found it unbearable to live in a state of war. She studied him and decided he was completely honest. "Truce then," she said, holding out her hand.

He took it and kissed her fingers formally. "Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit. Truce, Elizabeth."

With that he turned and quietly left. Beth had to work out a translation of his words. Something like, "Someday it may be pleasant to remember this." Why was she disconcerted to discover him well-educated? He had doubtless spent most of his youth declining Latin and translating Cicero. But was she not even to be able to retain a sense of superiority as defense?

With one hand covering the spot on the other where he had placed that soft kiss, Beth dealt with conflicting feelings. For the first time they had met in honesty and reached an agreement. Perhaps there was some hope of building a relationship of respect.

On the other hand she was aware of a dangerous response within herself to his kindness and intelligence. Her anger and disdain had formed a bulwark. Without it she feared the marquess could steal her heart as easily as plucking a flower from a stem, and probably as meaninglessly.

It might perhaps have been safer to continue the war.

More than ever she needed an adviser. She suddenly remembered she had a father. The duke was the originator of all her troubles. Why then should he not bear the burden of them?

But how was it to be accomplished? They met at dinner and for part of the evening but rarely otherwise. Send one of the footmen? With a note or a verbal message? She was tempted to give up, but the project a.s.sumed the nature of a challenge, an opportunity to prove to herself that she could cope in the structured world of Belcraven. A little nervously she rang the bell. A footman quickly came in. "Miss Armitage?"

"I wish to speak to the duke, Thomas," said Beth.

"He is usually with his secretary at this time of day, miss. Do you wish me to enquire?"

"Yes, please," said Beth, and when the man had gone she sank down into a chair with relief and a small glow of triumph. It was just a matter of playing the game by the rules.

In a little while she was bowed into the duke's study by Mr. Westall, who discreetly took himself elsewhere.

"Yes, Elizabeth?" asked the duke, removing his spectacles and rubbing the groove they had left in the bridge of his nose.

Now the moment was upon her, Beth was not at all sure what she wished to say. "You are my father," she said at last. "It seemed I might be able to talk to you, but now I am not sure."

His austere features softened slightly. "I would like to think that was true. I have watched and admired your handling of this situation. You may think it would have been easier to avoid this time at Belcraven, Elizabeth, to have lived more quietly before your marriage, but that would have been a cruel type of kindness. You are learning to cope."

"I can cope, I believe, with the pomp. I am not sure I can cope with the marquess."

The duke's lips tightened. "What has he done?"

"Nothing," said Beth hastily. She had no wish to cause further dissension in this unhappy family. "I simply cannot decide how to handle him."

The duke relaxed and smiled a little. "I'm afraid you have come to the wrong person for advice on that, my dear. I am not sure how to handle him either. I manage, because I long ago decided what I wanted from him-that he grow up with a well-educated mind, a healthy body, and the manners of a gentleman. I have steered him in that direction with whatever force was necessary at the time. What do you want from him?"

Beth raised her hands helplessly and let them fall. "I don't know."

"What do you want from him that you do not currently receive?"

Beth shook her head. These questions did not help. "I am so lonely," she said at last.

He sighed. "Ah, loneliness...." He looked at her. "Perhaps what you want from him, my dear, is friendship. The heir to a dukedom is not overly endowed with true friends. If you offer Arden simple companionship, I do not think he would reject it."

Beth had known friendship in her younger years, but in the course of time her friends had left the school to take up different kinds of lives. Beth knew the duke was correct. She did want a friend, and friendship in marriage had always been her ideal. But her rash lies has made such a treasure impossible between herself and the marquess.

To share secret feelings, to listen to anxieties, to know the other person will immediately understand-that all depended on trust.

"I cannot imagine it," she said bleakly.

The duke rose and paced the room. "I am perplexed. I am not blind: I have seen the constraint between the two of you. It seems to me that the marquess could charm any woman, but you are not charmed. It seems to me that two people of sense could find common ground upon which to build and yet you appear to be achieving nothing. Is your future happiness not worth some effort?"

Beth met his look. "We are trying. We keep finding ourselves setting stones in quicksand."

After a frowning study of her, the duke sighed and looked away with a shake of his head. "When we all move to London you will make friends of your own. These recent days have not been typical of your future life. As you have seen," he said dryly, "people such as we do not need to live in one another's pockets. Once you are married, there is no need for you and Arden to see much of each other. Or if you do, it will mostly be in company."

Beth knew with a pang this was not what she wanted. Then she nervously considered the private moments. "If I could be more at ease with him...." She could not finish the sentence.

Perhaps it was her rising color which enabled the duke to read her mind. "You are concerned about the intimacies of marriage, Elizabeth. It is only to be expected. I can merely say this, my dear. I have absolute trust in Arden's ability to handle a marriage bed with courtesy and kindness."

But, despite their truce, would the marquess feel he needed to handle the marriage bed so carefully? And even so, no matter how it was handled, it was going to be a gross invasion by a man who had no desire for the business at all.

Beth looked up at the duke and said, "You are my father." She had not the slightest idea what she intended by it.

"Yes. And I love you, Elizabeth, as I did not expect to when this started." The genuine concern on his face, however, was wiped away. "I will cherish you as best I can," he said in his usual manner, "but I will not give up my plan."

Beth stood and said desperately, "I wish it were all done!"

The duke walked over and took her hand. "It will soon begin, Elizabeth. The ending, of course, is death."

Beth had only looked ahead to the wedding. Now her life stretched before her, intimately entangled with a stranger, watching every word and treading among quicksands. She stared at the duke for a moment, then wrenched her hand from his and ran out of the room.

Catching the interested look in the eye of a footman, she pulled herself together. Oh, how she hated the fishbowl life of Belcraven. She forced herself to walk composedly to her room, where she found her cloak, then slipped out of a side entrance to march mindlessly along the many paths of the grounds.

"Till death us do part." Soon she would have to say those words to the marquess, and it was true. Once there were children they would be entangled forever. Even if she were to flee him, the knowledge of the children would always be there.

There was no going back in life.

Her life had been so unchanging before that she had never realized the simple truth, though she had read it in Lucretius. "Whenever a thing changes and quits its proper limits, this change is at once the death of that which was before."

Quietly in the spring garden, Beth mourned her previous life.

Chapter 8.

Once in town the marquess lost little time in going to Blanche's house. She threw herself into his arms. "Lucien, love!"

He buried his head in her sweet-smelling hair and sighed. "You know why I have come?"

She pulled back and smiled sadly at him. "It's goodbye? I saw the notice of your engagement. Is she worthy of you, love?"

He let her go and said fiercely, "What do you mean by that?"

Blanche went as white as her softly draped gown. "I'm sorry, Lucien. I didn't mean it badly. If you have chosen a bride from nowhere you must love her, and that's all that matters."

He ran a hand through his curls. "We shouldn't even be discussing it."

"Well then," said Blanche lightly, though she was still pale, "let me order tea, and I can tell you all the scandal."

He sat across from her and let her chatter.

Blanche hoped he could not tell how hard it was for her. She had prepared to receive her conge ever since she had seen the notice, but she had not been prepared for the shadow in his eyes. What had happened? It clearly was not a love match he was entering, but more than that she could not guess. She ached for him.

When she interrupted her light account of the latest crim-con to refill his cup, he asked abruptly, "How can a man tell if a woman is virtuous, Blanche?"

She looked up, puzzled. "Do you mean, if she's a virgin?"

"No. Just the tenor of her mind."

Blanche shrugged. "I could ask, why should a man care? He could see how easily she was shocked, I suppose."

He laughed without humor, put down his cup, and pulled her up and away from the table. "And are you easily shocked, my winter rose?"

She knew she had colored, which didn't happen often these days. "I think you've shocked me now, Lucien. You said this was goodbye. You're as good as married."

He drew down both the loose sleeves of her gown until her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were bare, then gently cupped them in his hands and pushed them up. "That's no impediment to making love to the most beautiful woman in London." He lowered his head to kiss the swell of each.

Blanche was already halfway to pa.s.sion just from simple memory. "You said 'in England' the last time," she teased softly.

He looked up and smiled, and it was his old smile. "Did I?" He swept her into his arms and headed for the stairs. "Well, that diminution of your sphere must be my tribute to the obligations of matrimony, ma belle." He stopped to pay tribute to each sensitive nipple. "We are in London, aren't we?"

Blanche arched and clutched him. "That or heaven, dear one."