Secrets of Surrender (10 page)

She gritted her teeth so that voice would not actually speak. The last time she had heeded that pitiful part of her soul, she had found herself with a scoundrel.

Still, the desperation increased while she waited for him to speak. She hated that. She hated how it proved she really did not have any other choice but this marriage. She even hated Tim, and that he had once more left her teetering on the line between utter ruin and abject dependency.

“If he returns to England, you can see him,” he finally said. “However, you will not go to him where he now hides. Whether you marry me or not, you will not go to him, so you can remove that from any weighing that you are doing. Do not think that I cannot stop you. I can and I will.”

Her face burned. He had guessed her plan, and who the man was.

Nor was his compromise generous. Tim would never return to England. He dared not. Mr. Bradwell won even as he retreated.

The carriage seemed to be moving very slowly through town. She wished it would hurry. This conversation vexed her. She worried that he had seen the spiking desperation in her as she waited for him to speak. If so, he might continue these “explanations” until she was little better than a dutiful child in this marriage he proposed.

Her pique got the better of her. “I think I will need more than the single day that I assumed to make my decision, since you saved so many conditions for the end. Pray tell me, is there more?”

“Just one detail.”

“Enlighten me.”

“I do not hold with the loose morals so easily accepted in polite society. I do not mind sharing what is mine if I agree to it, but I will never agree to share you.”

“You will, however, still ask me for the truth before you kill a man over a rumor? That assurance was not false, I trust.”

He smiled. “It was not false.”

“Is there anything else? I hope not. As it is, I may forget some of this litany of increasingly disconcerting terms. I should have brought paper and pencil this morning so I could write it all down.”

He leaned forward and took her hand in his. The gesture implied he had a right to both comfort and claim her.

His thumb gently caressed her palm. She felt it through her glove very plainly. The touch made her arm tingle all the way up to her shoulder.

“I do not think that any of these terms truly disconcerts you,” he said. “If you require more time for a decision, it is not due to matters such as we have addressed today. If you want a right understanding, as you say, we must speak as honestly of the true reason.”

They had discussed everything that mattered, and a good deal that she had not expected. “You are omniscient today, as well as demanding.”

“Not omniscient. You spoke of this last concern when I proposed.” He looked in her eyes. “You are trying to decide if you can bear the duties of a wife. You are trying to decide if you will loathe the sexual part of this marriage.”

She felt her face flaming. “I told you that I am beyond romantic illusions. In truth I have no concerns at all because that implies an open question. I was giving you fair warning about how I know it will be.”

“If I believed that were true, I would find a way to make you reject the offer. Romantic feelings and illusions are not required to make those duties tolerable, Miss Longworth. Believing that they are may even make matters worse. Instead of an expression of undying romantic love, you might better think of that congress as a good meal that satisfies a hunger.”

She could not believe that he spoke of this so bluntly. A gentleman would not. But then he was not a gentleman. Worse, he expected some response from her besides the flustered dismay this indelicate turn in the conversation evoked.

A meal to satisfy a hunger. That was a rather novel if bawdy way to think about it. It certainly demolished the notion of romance, but at least it implied something more satisfying than what she had known.

“This meal—would it be porridge, or pheasant?” she blurted.

He laughed quietly and appeared a little dismayed himself now.

“You see, I do not much care for porridge. I have had my fill of that,” she said.

“There are many courses, and a whole menu from which to choose. I am sure that we can find something to your taste. We will only discover what it is if you agree to sit at the table, however.”

They had arrived at another term by an indirect route. He was saying that he expected her to accept him in this way, without dramatics and excuses.

She pictured that. She imagined lying in bed, and this man joining her there. She braced herself for the unpleasant resignation that she had experienced in her brief affair.

Instead, the picture stirred her. The waiting contained an alluring anticipation that physically affected her. Any fear carried a delicious overtone.

He watched her, his expression one of dangerous charm, as if he too saw her in that bed and knew how the waiting excited more than imposed.

He still held her hand. Now his own tightened just enough to control and confine. He gently pulled. The scene outside the window slid past as her whole body floated across to him. With elegant smoothness he settled her on his lap.

Surprise gave way to alarm. The light surrounding them dimmed. She twisted to see him pulling the curtains.

“What are you doing?” She could feel his thighs beneath her, despite her dress. She began to scramble off her perch.

The arm with which he supported her back held her in place so she did not fall on the floor. Or get free. She straightened her back to achieve some independence.

“
What
are you doing?” she repeated.

His gaze followed his fingertips while they traced the side of her face in that familiar way. Only this time his touch did not end, but gently held her chin while he gave her a kiss. A light kiss, like that first one in the field, but her lip trembled and a shudder slid down to her chest.

“I am making sure that you judge my offer fairly, and without prejudice.” He kissed her again. “I am pleading my case on your final concern with the only argument that matters.”

“Final concern—?” His meaning shocked her. She pressed her hands against his shoulder and reared back.

He smiled slowly while he eased her back to him. A polite, slow, careful wrestling match ensued. She did not truly fight and he did not really restrain. She merely kept trying to position herself out of an intimate embrace and he kept managing to encompass her in one anyway.

Somehow he arranged her to where she definitely had lost. If he thought to seduce her, he was badly mistaken. She pushed against his shoulders again. “Good heavens. You can not think to—not here, in a carriage.”

“I will not. Unless you beg it of me, of course.”

Beg it? She swallowed her mirth as best she could.

He saw it anyway. “You are right. It would be best to leave that for another day.”

She would have laughed outright at his confidence, except he kissed her then. Suddenly his insinuation ceased being a lark.

The kiss in the field had surprised her. The one in the kitchen had defeated her. This one frightened her.

The excitement did not trickle through her this time. It flooded her in a rush. His firm kiss demolished whatever barrier held physical composure in. Her body responded fast, as if it knew the happy pleasure that waited now, and longed to experience it again.

Warm kisses led her to a mindless, breathless place. Kisses on her lips and neck lured and titillated. Tense, small bites on her ear sent trembles into her blood. If marriage meant this and only this, she was very sure she would accept his offer.

Only it did not, and his passion darkened even as hers increased. She felt it in him, the restraint that he put on his desire, but it still reminded her of that desire’s goal. She did not relinquish the little pleasures in seeing that, but she was not inexperienced. She knew how pleasure could abruptly end.

He did not have to cajole her mouth open this time. She submitted to that invasion because she already knew it would not be unpleasant. He ravished her mouth, carefully and deliberately, as if he knew how to provoke every thrilling response that streaked and pulsed down her body. Soon she noticed nothing except their lively paths and the way she wanted to feel more of them.

He caressed her and the spring breeze of her pleasure turned to summer’s hot wind. She felt his hand under her cloak, through fabric and stays, warm and firm and very sure of its path. Her body moved into it even as the possessive touch shocked her. Soon she resented the cloth that inhibited the warmth. A storm of madness threatened to break in her head.

He kissed her hard and called the lightning forth with a caress on her breast. Her body responded as if it had been waiting for that touch.

His fingers submerged her in a pleasure so luscious that she could not bear it. He found the hard tip and teased until her body whimpered. Images entered her mind of other intimacies and touches.

He was making her crazed. Insane. She understood what he meant by hunger now. She understood his allusion to begging, because pleas chanted in her mind.

She clutched his arms to try to hold on to her sense of the world. Still his hand devastated her. She clenched her teeth to keep from crying out or moaning. She wanted relief. She wanted more.

Her pleasure peaked to an intensity both painfully needful and wonderfully delirious. It was then—while her body screamed and her control shattered and she ached to rip off her clothes and feel him touch her whole body and fill the aching voids trembling in her—it was then that he stopped.

She could not breathe. She could not think. The sweet kiss with which he ended the passion seemed a cruel joke. She blinked back to awareness and saw the carriage wall and ceiling, and him.

He gazed down, no more content than she. Perhaps he waited for her to beg as he had said she would have to.

She almost did, God help her. His fingers came to rest on her lips, stopping any such impulse.

“Agree to marry me now, Roselyn.”

The desire still stimulated her. The sweet torture had not ceased. But a peaceful mood of beauty and freedom settled on her while the storm slowly calmed. She floated in a lively, carefree stupor drenched with the intimacy of his kisses and touch.

The mood reminded her of how she had felt while she lay on the hill that day and gazed up at the boundless sky.

“Yes. I will marry you.”

CHAPTER
NINE

T
he clerk ushered Kyle into a spartan sitting room in the City, part of a suite of chambers such as a bachelor solicitor might use. Kyle guessed that a bedchamber could be found behind the closed door at the far end, opposite the Venetian window with its compass pane at the top.

His letter to Lord Hayden had produced the invitation to call at these chambers. It appeared that his host used this apartment for business and other things. Women, perhaps, in the days before he married. Private pursuits, like whatever was being written on the pages piled on the standing desk near the window.

Lord Hayden greeted him. They sat in two deep red upholstered chairs near the fireplace.

The memory of their last private meeting cast a shadow on this one. Lord Hayden Rothwell had come to Kyle’s chambers that time, seeking him out after an invitation like this one had been declined.

“Miss Longworth has asked me to speak for her,” Lord Hayden said. “She indicated that you suggested this.”

“In considering my offer she had been impractical in neglecting the financial terms.”

Lord Hayden lounged in his chair as if a friendly chat were part of the settlement ritual. “I did not know her before her brother’s ruin. She blamed me for it, and although she now knows the truth there is still much formality between us. I knew her older brother very well, but not his sisters.”

“That would be her brother Benjamin. The one who died some years back.”

Lord Hayden’s face turned stern, taking on the mask this man usually showed the world. “My wife tells me that her cousin has not been herself the last year. She says that affair with Norbury was the bad judgment of a woman in a deep melancholy. Her neglect regarding your offer’s financial terms no doubt reflects her state of mind as well.”

“Then it is well that we address the matter for her. Although her state of mind, while affected, is not melancholic. I am not taking advantage of a woman unable to make sound decisions.”

“I did not mean to imply that you were. Even if you did, the chance this will give her—I will not be sorry to see her restored to my wife.”

For a man not sorry to see this marriage, Lord Hayden was taking his time about settling the details.

“To now play the father in marriage discussions for her is unexpected and a little unwelcome, Bradwell. Regrettably, I know more than I would like and I am compelled to address more than pin money.”

“I trust that you believe that my intentions are honorable.”

“That is not the matter on my mind, and I think that you know it.”

Of course Kyle knew it. He just did not know what tack Lord Hayden would take.

“Has she told you about Timothy’s crimes? I cannot blame her if she has not,” Lord Hayden said.

“She was very honest and insisted that I hear all.”

“Brave of her.”

“I think that she assumed that I would retract the offer when I heard, so it was very brave.” Actually, he suspected that she
hoped
he would retract, and spare her making a decision herself. She no longer trusted her own mind even if she still knew it.

“Were you as honest with her as she was with you?”

“I told her that I already knew what her brother had done, and that I am familiar with one of his victims.”

“Hell, you
were
one of his victims. As trustee, that loss was yours too.”

“Only because I made it mine. I had other choices.” Only one, in truth. The one talking to him now. The other alternative to replenishing that trust with his own money had been to allow the trust to lie empty and useless. He could not do that.

“Does she know that you refused to be made whole?”

“No. Do you think I should tell her?”

“I do not know what the hell I think.” Lord Hayden shot to his feet. Mouth hard, frown deep, he paced away, deliberating the same conundrum that had vexed Kyle often enough the last few weeks.

“She was thinking of going to her brother,” Kyle said. “She received another letter and he asked her to join him.”

“Damn.”
Lord Hayden shook his head. “Still, while you are not deceiving her, you are being less than completely honest.”

Another call for complete honesty, as if such a thing were not only possible, but normal.

He would have dealings with this man in the future. He did not want Lord Hayden thinking him a liar or scoundrel. He would attempt to explain, even though he almost never did with anyone.

He stood too, and strolled through the chamber while he decided what to say and what to avoid. His walk took him near the standing desk. He spied the jotting on the pages. Numbers and notations filled the sheets. This was where Lord Hayden pursued those mathematical investigations for which he was rumored to have a passion.

“Tell me, Lord Hayden, what would the world assume if it knew of Longworth’s crime and his sister fled in his wake?”

“The world does not know of his crime.”

“It will. Someday. It is inevitable. Too many were burned for it to remain a secret.”

His confidence in that alarmed Lord Hayden. “They have all had their losses restored, damn it.” He glared the rest—
except you.

“The loss to their purses, yes. To their pride, no. You may have miscalculated.”

Lord Hayden did not like that idea. A sigh of frustration signaled how weary this talk of Longworth made him. “If she were with him when it all came out, she would probably be seen as an accomplice.”

“I think so too. So, should I tell her everything? If I do, if she knows how I was touched by that, she might change her mind on this marriage. She might run to her brother, to save him or help him or to escape the pending shame to herself. She assumes time is short for that secret, even if you do not.”

Lord Hayden’s lids lowered while he subjected Kyle to an examination much like the one Easterbrook had given that day.

“Is that why you refused the money? Pride, like the others you mention?”

“It was not your crime. Why should you pay? You have paid dearly too. An astonishing sum for a crime of which you are innocent. If I took your money I would have made myself whole at the expense of another victim, that is all.”

“A willing victim, so it was not the same. I think it was pride after all.”

Lord Hayden’s arrogance annoyed Kyle. He gestured to the chamber. “No financial schemes have been concocted here of late. No syndicates formed. You remain in that house, which is modest by Mayfair standards. Even you have felt the bite of laying out all that money. Should I have bled you for another twenty thousand? Agreed to the blackmail that you proposed I take?”

“Blackmail, hell. Your purse would have been spared the ravage of his crime, that is all.”

“You did not only make them whole. You required that they forget the fraud. Silence for money, that was part of the deal. Would that every sinner had an angel like you pleading his case.”

He expected an argument, even anger. Instead Lord Hayden rubbed his brow and spoke with resignation. “And when time runs out the way you expect, Bradwell? Justice will require that he pay with his life. If that day comes, what will you say to her?”

“That pain waits for her whether she marries me or not. If that day comes, I will protect and comfort her as best I can.”

Lord Hayden considered that a good while. Then he walked to his desk and gestured for Kyle to join him.

“Let us prepare for the solicitors. This marriage would sit better with me if you had let me pay that blackmail. However, that sorry episode has shadowed the Longworth sisters too much. Perhaps after this marriage it will weigh less heavily in Roselyn’s future.”

“Don’t you look all grown up, Miss Irene,” Mr. Preston said with a grin. “The women in the village will be talking about that bonnet for days.”

Irene beamed while Mr. Preston counted out Rose’s money and wrapped the groceries she had bought.

She did look all grown up, Rose thought. Alexia had raised the idea of launching Irene next season. It was definitely time in terms of Irene’s age, but probably too early in light of other things. Even this marriage would not blunt the scandal quickly enough for Irene to be received this season.

The mere idea that Irene might have a better future calmed Rose’s nervousness about the pending wedding. That constant agitation had not been helped by Kyle’s absence the last week. He had gone north for Christmas, to the aunt and uncle who had raised him.

His absence meant that she could prepare without distraction, but the conviction that she knew the man she was marrying dimmed a bit with each day.

“We are all looking forward to the big day, Miss Longworth,” Mr. Preston said with a wide smile. “May I say that those who met Mr. Bradwell last month when he was in the village all extol his fine manner and good nature.”

“Thank you. I trust that you and Mrs. Preston will honor us with your attendance.”

“My wife would not miss it. She said all along that some people are too fast to assume the worst. It grieved her, it did, the way some others—” He stopped abruptly and gave Irene a meaningful glance. His eyes communicated apology for referring to the scandal in front of her.

“It moves me that your wife defended me, Mr. Preston. Good day to you now.”

She and Irene stepped out of the shop. Irene’s impressive bonnet, made of Terre d’Egypte gros de Naples, dipped close. “Do you think the whole village is of Mr. Preston’s mind?”

“It is unlikely that Mrs. Preston would allow her husband to be so friendly unless most of the village is.”

“Then it appears to be working the way Alexia hoped.”

“Here, yes. However, Watlington is one thing. London will be another.”

“I think it will not be bad in London. Easterbrook is coming to your wedding. When the notices report that, it will make quick work of wagging tongues.”

“Since tongues wag plenty about him, I would not put too much faith in his powers on that count.”

It had been Kyle’s idea, not Alexia’s, that they hold the wedding here in the country. Lord Hayden had then offered his brother’s nearby estate, Aylesbury Abbey, but Kyle had said the Longworth house would be preferable. Even though he had procured a special license, they would marry in her girlhood parish church amidst the people who had known her all her life.

Rose now realized the wisdom in that. Kyle knew villagers better than a marquess’s brother ever would. The money the family would spend on preparations in the village, and the celebration open to everyone, would do more to encourage a generous view of that scandal than ten years of honest living.

She and Irene strolled down the village lane, exchanging greetings with neighbors and stopping so some girls could admire Irene’s fine bonnet. They bought some ribbons and fabric before making the walk back to the house.

Commotion waited for them there. Three large wagons laden with furniture crowded the drive. An army of servants carted items past Alexia, who stood sentry at the front door with a long sheet of paper in her hand.

“That goes to the library,” she said to two men carrying a big rug.

“What are you doing?” Rose asked, ducking aside as a large wardrobe traveled past her.

“To the south bedchamber,” Alexia commanded three men straining with the wardrobe’s weight. She glanced at Rose. “You cannot hold a wedding in a house with no chairs.”

“That was not a chair.”

“Do not get proud on me. Do not dare. Hayden said that you would and I will not allow you to make him right. I am vexed enough that he convinced me to wait so long to do this. If bad weather had set in, you would be hosting a party in a barren house next week.” A fellow with a chest on his back staggered past. She rapped his shoulder with her paper. “Get help in the future, my good man. You cannot even see where you are going.”

“I’m strong, Madam. It’ll take more than this to hurt me.”

“To be sure. However, one bad turn and the walls will be gouged. We do not have time to start with new plaster. Now, Rose, Aylesbury Abbey has attics full of furniture that is never used. It is sinful to see such waste. Nor is this a gift from Hayden. That house and its contents are not his.”

Irene nodded. “That is true, Rose. It is all Easterbrook’s.”

A line of chairs marched past Rose. “Alexia, did the marquess give permission for you to raid Aylesbury’s attics?”

Alexia counted the chairs, then consulted her paper. “I had not discovered the riches in them until we came down this time. However, the last I saw him the conversation turned to your wedding. I mentioned that I planned to help you prepare, and he said that I could make free with Aylesbury’s servants and such if I needed to.” She grinned. “This is the ‘and such.’”

Rose pictured the marquess in her house, sardonic when he was not silent, eyeing furniture that looked suspiciously familiar. She had met him only twice since Alexia wed, and she found him an enigmatic, rather darkly humored man who would benefit from more country air than he ever sought.

“Of course, he may change his mind about attending,” she muttered, rather wishing he might even if his presence would help redeem her. The villagers’ fawning and scraping would be so thick on her wedding day that no one would have any fun.