A Lady's Point of View (14 page)

The warmth of his touch sent a
delicate shiver down her spine. Attempting to dispel it, Meg reached for a grip
on the saddle, but she lost her balance and fell back down against the marquis.
He caught her easily, his arms encircling her, his cheek pressed against her
hair. They both stood motionless, overcome by this unexpected contact.

Meg’s skin tingled, her knees
felt wobbly, and warmth suffused her entire body as the marquis turned her
gently round to face him. His hands moved to her shoulders, then framed her
face as his mouth descended to hers.

Meg had no desire to protest as
her lips parted. Instead, she clung to him, letting hunger well within her as
the kiss deepened.

This, this was the stuff of her
dreams, this raging in the blood. It was more than she had imagined, the
feeling of his body against hers, the excitement rising in her as she drank in his
caresses. They could not seem to stop kissing, their heat merging and
intensifying until it seemed they must burst into flames.

It was Lord Bryn who drew back.
“My Meg,” he whispered. “What’s happening to us?”

“I don’t know.” What a tangle!
How she wished she had never deceived this man. But had she not, Meg would
never have discovered such passion. How could she live without him now?

“Must you leave?” he murmured,
trailing small kisses across her brow, nose, and cheeks.

“My lord, I...” Meg swallowed, trying
to clear a path for the words. “I should clarify certain matters. My arrival
here, my station.”

“You’re overwrought, dearest.” He
stepped back, still holding her hands. “Tonight, after dinner, you and I must
talk privately.”

She nodded dumbly. Yes, tonight.
How angry he would be when he learned the truth! Would the coldness she had
seen before envelop him? Would he send her away? Her mind awhirl, Meg let
herself be lifted onto King Arthur and felt the horse shift as the marquis
swung up in front of her.

Arms clasped around Lord Bryn,
her body arched against his back, Meg closed her eyes as they rode forward. She
could feel every motion of the stallion ripple through the man. The three of
them became one, riding through the dusk.
I love him,
Meg thought.
I
want to stay with him forever. Please let this dream never end.

The gallop muted into a canter and she knew they
must be nearing Brynwood. With a sigh, Meg pushed a wayward strand of hair from
her eyes.

She hoped no one was looking out
of the house as the canter slowed to a trot. For she could imagine the picture
she made, riding astride with her arms around the marquis and her hair floating
loose.

They rounded the corner of the
house and came to an abrupt halt. Almost dislodged from her seat, Meg clutched
the marquis for balance before straightening. She adjusted the glasses upon her
face and leaned out to gaze around him.

A large tan-and-umber carriage
stood in the drive. Vaguely, in the background, Meg noted the Franklins
mingling with several servants in unfamiliar livery. Her gaze riveted on the
figures in front, an older couple and a younger, stern-faced woman, staring at
the two of them with undisguised astonishment.

The Geraints had arrived early.

In the days following the garden
party, Edward Cockerell became a stranger to himself. In outward appearances,
he was much the same. He arose early, breakfasted alone, and went to the City
to conduct business and talk with his man of affairs. Or, if that wasn’t
necessary, he remained in his study reviewing the rents and other matters of
the family’s estates.

Yet his mind betrayed him.
Deucedly annoying, how he fussed now with the cravat that had never troubled
him before; how he vexed his valet by rejecting first one waistcoat and then
another; how, when driving, he found himself watching for someone or something
he couldn’t identify.

It was time to put his life in
order.

Having received an apologetic
note from Lady Darnet explaining that she had suffered from a toothache, he
visited her to see if matters between them might be restored. She received him
in her gold parlour, with an elderly female cousin dozing in one corner for the
sake of propriety. Gowned in dark blue satin, the countess reigned as an
Incomparable.

Why, then, could Edward not
forget how rough her skin had appeared in the daylight and the hardness about
her eyes? The toothache was the explanation, perhaps for her appearance as well
as for her display of temper. The explanation should have sufficed to ease his
doubts, but it did not.

He noted for the first time the
absence of warmth between him and the countess, the lack of any spark when
their eyes chanced to meet, the way she confined her conversation to malicious
on-dits
.
Oddly, Edward felt as if he were comparing her to someone. It was not until he
was returning home in his phaeton that he realized who that someone was.

Angela Linley.

She
was the figure who
haunted the corners of his mind.
She
was the ghost who shadowed his
dreams.

The discovery rocked through him
like cannon-fire. Angela Linley? That young girl, his sister’s barely
acceptable friend? It could not be, must not be. The chit was entirely too
lively and unrestrained to meet his standards for matrimony.

He was, after all, heir to
considerable monies and served as trustee for not only his sister, but also his
aunt and two young cousins. There were tenants to consider, and dozens of
servants, including some who had waited upon his parents and grandparents. If
Edward lost his good sense and allied himself with an unpredictable,
overemotional wife, great harm might come of it.

He recalled only too well the
plight of a schoolmate of his at Eton, Jamie Winter. When Jamie’s mother lost
her temper and insulted Queen Charlotte, he had been removed from school, and
his sister’s engagement to the eldest son of a duke had been promptly
terminated. After the family was forced to retreat to the country, the daughter
had died of a fever—some said she committed suicide—and Jamie had departed for
America, never to be heard from again.

Such, Edward reflected grimly, might be the fate of
his own offspring if he married Angela. Nevertheless, the girl did come from
good family. For the first time in his life, he found himself unsure of the
proper course.

The answer came to him slowly, as
he mulled the matter during the next few hours. If Angela was a ghost, then she
could be exorcised. Not through priestly ministrations, but through the dulling
effect of habituation.

He refused to allow himself to
visit her alone, which might cause society to think he was courting her. It
would be improper, of course, to woo and then abandon a respectable young
woman. Therefore, on the following day, Edward decided to call on the Linleys
in the company of Helen, sitting silently while the two girls conversed in
animated fashion.

How lovely Angela looked, he
couldn’t help but notice. Sternly, he forced himself to concentrate upon her
flaws.

Her conversation was unsuitable.
Interesting, true, and never unkind, but entirely too well informed. What well-bred
young lady of the
ton
would keep so abreast of the war with France, and
so forcefully decry it for raising the price of food and thereby increasing
hunger among the poor?

Admirable sentiments in a man, he
thought, or perhaps in an older woman, but inappropriate in a young girl.
Angela even dared to criticize the enclosure laws that forced small farmers off
the land. Politics was no matter for a female, particularly not when one of her
visitors was a large landowner whose estates benefitted from the enclosures.
She might even, he reflected with horror, have the temerity to broach such
unpopular opinions in the company of other lords and ladies. If so, she would
surely be shunned.

Yet as the days went by and
Edward adhered to his plan by visiting repeatedly with Helen, he was forced to
concede that the Linley family behaved in a manner beyond reproach. They
avoided the excesses in which many other families with a marriageable daughter
indulged. He witnessed no flaunting of jewels and gowns, nor a plethora of
sumptuous balls, merely the good taste and refinement one found among the old
nobility. Yes, Angela Linley would make a splendid wife for some
less-particular gentleman, but not, he warned himself, for Edward Cockerell.

So matters might have remained had
it not been for Sir Manfred and Lady Darnet.

When Edward failed to pay another
call upon the countess, she decided it was time to take matters into her own
hands. Cynthia well knew the young man’s extreme adherence to propriety. To
place Angela Linley in an unflattering public light would quickly destroy his
interest in her, the countess believed.

To this end she required the
assistance of her cousin, the baronet. Cynthia invited him to tea and told him
of jests, which she herself invented, which Angela had made at his expense at a
card party. These
bon mots
, the countess declared, were currently
circulating through society. With shrewd insight, Cynthia abused her cousin’s
vanity in a way calculated to provoke him most painfully.

Sir Manfred was easily persuaded
that the Linley minx had played him for a fool. Within the hour, he had become
Angela’s most bitter enemy.

Smoothly Cynthia proposed a plan.
Sir Manfred would pretend to court the Linley girl, and be seen with her
everywhere. Then he would contrive, with Lady Darnet’s help if need be, to
create an embarrassing situation in which she would appear to be at fault.
During this courtship, the countess proposed that she spread titbits about
Angela. Nothing so scandalous as to defy belief, but needle pricks that would
help lay the groundwork for the upstart’s ultimate downfall.

By the time her cousin left her
parlour, Cynthia’s irritation with Angela Linley had shifted into glee. That
frothy little baggage would rue the day she ever set her cap for Edward Cockerell.

The conspiracy took its first
step at the Opera, where London society had gone ostensibly to enjoy the
melodrama of Timour the Tartar and a pantomime with the clown Joey Grimaldi. In
truth, everyone had come to be seen and to show off the latest fashions and
hairstyles, with little regard for what transpired on stage.

It was Angela’s first visit to
Covent Garden, and she descended eagerly amid the crush of carriages. She
paused to stare up at the massive building, which had opened less than two years
earlier, to replace a structure destroyed by fire. The ponderous exterior of
stucco and stone, relieved only by a Greek portico resting on four Doric
columns, struck Angela as unexpectedly severe, but the interior more than
compensated.

The Linleys and the Cockerells,
who had come together, entered at Bow Street. They proceeded through the foyer
and up the main staircase, a single grand flight set off dramatically by a
vault resting on black Ionic columns.

At the top, they entered a
curving lobby, from which branched a long saloon styled in the Greek manner and
lined with statues. Here Edward purchased refreshments before escorting the
party to the Cockerells’ private box.

Painted a Grecian pink accented by mahogany
woodwork, it was set forward in one of the horseshoe tiers of boxes. These
overlooked the pit, where poorer folk and rowdy young bucks sat. Raucous
catcalls and the smells of unwashed bodies ascended forcefully, but were
ignored by the elegant set, who conversed in a more seemly fashion.

Angela’s gaze travelled upward to
the curving, ornamental ceiling, before Lady Mary distracted her by pointing
out some of their acquaintances in other boxes. Nods, smiles, and waves were
exchanged. How exciting this was! At last she was part of the glittering world
of which she had dreamed for so long.

The entertainment began, but no
one paid much attention. Even Angela, in her excitement, found it difficult to
focus on the absurd goings-on of the melodrama.

She had little inkling that a
different sort of drama was about to unfold.

At the interval, the real
business of the evening began. Gentlemen and ladies visited back and forth
between boxes, exchanging compliments and gossip.

Lady Darnet was a popular figure
as always, and she glowed with delight, the reason for which, as she alone
knew, derived from having observed that Angela Linley’s gown bore a strong
resemblance to one the girl’s sister had worn the previous season.

“Do you know,” the countess
murmured to Lady Jersey, “that the Linley creature is wearing one of her
sister’s made-over dresses? The family must have fallen upon hard times, or
else they are extremely clutch-fisted.”

Cynthia had intended, by singling
out the leader of society, to spread her tale directly to the top. What she
failed to take into account, however, was that Lady Jersey was no fool. The
patroness knew perfectly well what lay behind Lady Darnet’s remarks.

Therefore it was to Edward
Cockerell, as Angela’s sponsor, that Lady Jersey took this item. His response
was an immediate denial, followed for emphasis by the statement that he
believed his sister had accompanied Miss Angela to the dressmaker.

Now why had he said that? Edward
wondered after Lady Jersey departed. No matter; it would put the preposterous
story to rest.

He had not meant to leap so
strongly to Angela’s defence. Might not his championing of her lead to
speculation? Yet he was infuriated that anyone should subject the Linleys to
idle gossip and speculation. He might not choose Angela for himself, but he
accorded her a certain grudging respect.

Meanwhile, Sir Manfred was laying
the groundwork for his counterfeit suit. Ensconced in the Cockerell box with
the three ladies he found there, he proceeded to ply Angela with witticisms
that soon had her laughing.