Company Of Rogues: An Unwilling Bride Part 15

"And you know what I mean. Are you with child?"

"No, of course I'm not," she said sharply. "You said you would never raise that ridiculous conversation again."

"Because if you were," he continued, "that would be cause to break off this engagement. Even my father wouldn't insist on it."

Beth forced herself to look at him. "I am afraid I cannot offer that escape route. And though it would suit you, my lord, it would be a poor sort of freedom for me, with a b.a.s.t.a.r.d in tow."

She could almost see the strain as he forced his mouth into a smile. "We are becoming heated, Elizabeth. Remember, we are the two turtledoves."

As they made their way back to the ballroom, Beth said, simply from the desire to hurt, "Doves of Drury Lane, perhaps?"

She was amazed to see him color up, but at that moment her next partner came to claim her. She smiled through her headache and cast a languis.h.i.+ng look back at her betrothed.

Once she was away from him her headache began to fade. Another poor indicator for their future.

Eventually it was the supper waltz, for which the marquess was her partner. Beth joined him with some trepidation, wondering if he would pick up their quarrel. She was also concerned about her ability to maintain her high standard of dancing. The daring waltz had not been taught at Miss Mallory's.

But all went well. He did not refer to their earlier conversation, and Beth found her recent lessons to be adequate when reinforced by an excellent partner.

When they sat down to the meal they were at a large table, and Beth found she had Mr. Beaumont on her other side. She liked this man very much, for he was of easy address and had a wry sense of humor and, of course, she felt sorry for him because of his injury. Though he was as tall and strong as the marquess Beth didn't feel intimidated by him, perhaps because of the softer lines of his sun-darkened face or the warmth of his dark brown eyes.

She was less pleased to have Phoebe Swinnamer at the table, for she always felt the young lady would like to skewer her with the nearest sharp implement. The beauty's supper partner was Lord Darius. Beth could only hope the son of a duke would a.s.suage the beauty's vanity though she feared the fact that Lord Darius was not the heir would weigh heavily with the girl, who had thought she had such a one in her grasp.

Beth turned to Mr. Beaumont. "Have you been a friend of the marquess for a long time, Mr. Beaumont?"

"Since Harrow, Miss Armitage," he said with a smile. "And I can reveal things about his school days he wouldn't want known."

Beth could tell from his manner he was not going to offend her, but the marquess overheard and broke in. "What are you up to, Hal?"

"Why, Luce, I think it only fair to tell your bride-to-be your terrible secret."

"Not the cow," said the marquess in alarm, causing Beth's eyebrows to rise.

"Of course not," said Mr. Beaumont, straight-faced.

"The bells?" queried the marquess anxiously.

"The merest peccadillo," replied his friend with a dismissive gesture. "In fact, I think you're still rather proud of that one."

Beth turned and saw the marquess grin as he said, "I am indeed. It took a great deal of ingenuity to cross all the wires on the servants' bells at school. Mind, it wasn't such a good idea to try it here."

Mr. Beaumont hooted with laughter. "You didn't!"

"I did," said the marquess ruefully. "I had to sort it all out again and then my father-" perhaps only Beth caught the little catch in his voice before he continued, "made me run useless errands for him all over this place to teach me not to cause the servants unnecessary work."

"How extraordinary," drawled Miss Swinnamer. "What does it matter to a servant whether they are called correctly or not? They can always make themselves useful."

"Well then," said Lord Darius dryly, "look at it from the point of view of the guest who rings for breakfast and doesn't receive it because the servant thinks the bell rang in quite another chamber."

"Oh, I see," said the young lady with a warm smile at her partner. Obviously a duke's son in the hand was worth something. "Of course, my lord, that would be most annoying."

"Doubtless gets the servant a fine jawing."

"Well, of course, Lord Darius," said the young lady blandly. "They would be fortunate not to be dismissed."

Lord Darius looked at her. "When it was all the fault of some prankster?"

"My mama," stated Miss Swinnamer, "says servants cannot be allowed to make excuses for poor performance or they will be forever s.h.i.+rking." She looked around and perhaps detected disapproval in the group. "The mischief-maker, of course, deserves a sound whipping."

"My dear Phoebe," drawled the marquess, "are you expressing a desire to whip me?"

Poor Phoebe had clearly lost track of the origins of the conversation. She merely gaped while others hid smiles with greater or lesser success.

Beth decided to intervene. "As I understand it," she said, "the offense has already been adequately punished. I approve of the duke's disciplinary measures. It is my belief that corporal punishment rarely achieves anything except to brutalize."

The marquess looked at Lord Darius and Mr. Beaumont. "I think she's calling us brutes," he said. He glanced sideways at Beth. "Probably baboons."

"Baboons?" they queried in unison.

Beth could feel the color in her face, but she frowned severely at the marquess. "Lord Arden is funning. I merely point out that children learn right from wrong more clearly if their fault is explained to them than if they are hit."

The marquess grinned. "Did I neglect to mention the whipping? But the explanation was very thorough, too. I think we're going to fight over the raising of our children, my dear."

The mere thought of children was enough to have Beth turn to Mr. Beaumont in search of a safer topic. "I think I will need ammunition. What was the dreadful secret you were going to impart, sir?"

The man smiled. "Why, the one he has kept hidden most carefully," he said. "Though I am not sure how you will find a way to use it, I am sure if anyone can it will be you." He cast a mock-wary glance at his friend, who was sharing a joke with Lord Darius, then lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "He was brilliant," he murmured. "Quite the best student in our form."

After a startled moment, Beth chuckled. "I admit, I had begun to suspect.... But why keep it secret?"

"Good G.o.d, ma'am, you can't be serious! Be known as a scholar? It was just a temporary lapse of judgment due to inexperience. By the time we went on to Cambridge he was wiser and managed to survive his years there without drawing attention to himself."

Beth was about to protest this insanity, but she saw there was a strong element of truth in it and shook her head. "And you, Major Beaumont? Were you an intellectual prodigy?"

"Not at all," he a.s.sured her earnestly, yet with a twinkle of amus.e.m.e.nt. "Straight down the middle. Give you my word, Miss Armitage."

"And what have you done with your middling abilities?" Beth queried, knowing this man was no dullard.

"A very ordinary time in the army, Miss Armitage."

"And that's a lie," said the marquess, entering the conversation again; Beth suspected he'd been monitoring it. "Mentioned in dispatches so often the Horse Guards were tired of hearing his name-"

"Weren't we all?" broke in Beaumont hastily. "Have to be dashed unlucky in a war not to be noticed now and then."

"Let this be a lesson to you, Hal," said the marquess, and Beth knew he was referring to the spilling of secrets, not the war.

"Point taken. But I don't think Miss Armitage will take it amiss that you like to use your brain."

The marquess looked at Beth thoughtfully. "I wonder. Being very clever herself, she might have thought to outsmart me now and then."

Beth colored at this piece of perception. "I still do expect that," she said saucily. "Now and then."

"A challenge!" said Beaumont. "I wouldn't care to lay odds on the winner either."

"I would," said Miss Swinnamer complacently with a malicious glance at Beth. "Mama says a lady never wins by besting a gentleman in anything."

"Well, Miss Swinnamer," said Beth politely. "I am sure it is a pleasure to us all to know you will never cause your Mama any anxiety in that regard."

The marquess choked on a mouthful of wine. The beauty was still puzzling over the strange remark when the marquess and Beth left the table."When I think I was close to offering for her, I shudder," he said, still fighting laughter.

"Why were you going to offer for someone with whom you have so little in common?"

He shrugged. "It was my duty to marry and I didn't seem to be the type to fall in love. Phoebe Swinnamer is the sort of girl I was supposed to marry-well-born, well-dowered, beautiful and... perfectly amiable."

"Because she has been trained to be," said Beth pointedly, knowing that in that list of qualities she scored a round nothing.

He smiled at her and shook his head. "Not one of your failings, as we are both aware."

"I am perfectly amiable," retorted Beth, "unless I am given reason not to be."

"You are a shrew," said the marquess, amus.e.m.e.nt still softening his face. "Don't fly into alt about it. I'm coming to like it well enough." With that he handed her over to her next partner, leaving Beth not a little off balance.

Eventually, at four in the morning, the affair was over and Beth could seek her bed. As she slipped between the sheets exhausted, she wandered through memories of the evening, confused by it all. Moments of affinity, moments of strife.

As the maid walked toward the door, Beth asked, "Do you know anything about doves of Drury Lane, Redcliff?"

"No, miss. I've only been to London the once and never visited a theater. I suppose they have them in cages, for decoration like."

"Yes. But it's all very strange," said Beth as she drifted off to sleep.

Redcliff happened to mention this strange conversation the next morning at the upper servant's breakfast. She was surprised when Hughes, the marquess's very proper valet, took her aside afterwards.

"If I were you, Miss Redcliff," he said. "I would dissuade Miss Armitage from speaking of doves of Drury Lane."

"Why, Mr. Hughes?"

The man pursed his lips. "Let us just say that the White Dove of Drury Lane is a particular favorite of the marquess's. If you see what I mean."

The maid flushed. "I do indeed. Oh, the poor dear! And who would put such a thing into her head?"

"Exactly what I was wondering. And so will his lords.h.i.+p if it comes to his ears."

Lucien, however, had forgotten Beth's comment. He was more concerned with other matters, and before he collapsed into bed he sat down and scribbled a note to Nicholas Delaney.

Dear Nicholas, Deveril turned up at my betrothal ball. I thought he'd fled with Madame, but he must have straightened things out with the authorities. Thought you should know. He's as nasty as ever.

L de V He arranged for it to be dispatched to Grattingley, home of Nicholas's twin brother, Lord Stainbridge.

He didn't know why the intrusion of Lord Deveril made him so uneasy, other than the man was evil with very low and nasty tastes. It was a natural instinct not to want such a specimen within miles of one's home, but there was more to it than that.

Deveril had been entwined with Therese Bellaire in her plot to trick Napoleonic sympathizers out of their money. Lucien had gained the impression that Deveril had also had something to do with Eleanor Delaney in the days when she'd been living with her loathsome worm of a brother. There was certainly no love lost between Nicholas and Deveril.

They had all a.s.sumed Lord Deveril had fled with Therese Bellaire to enjoy their ill-gotten gains and their shared taste for depravity. His reemergence raised worrying questions.

Chapter 11.

Beth rose the next morning feeling wrung out. Her head throbbed, her mouth tasted sour, and the negative aspects of the previous evening sat solidly at the front of her mind.

Why could she not act a prim and proper innocent? Perhaps she should take lessons from Miss Swinnamer's mama. Why could the marquess not see that a fighting spirit and a little worldly wisdom did not make her a trollop?

She remembered what he had said about her being a shrew. He couldn't really like a shrew. He couldn't like someone he didn't trust, and he had shown on the terrace that he didn't trust her at all.

She sighed bitterly. It seemed to be as he had said. Words once spoken had a life of their own. They could not be unsaid. Every time Beth and the marquess were on edge, that dreadful evening on the terrace came back to haunt them.

On top of her misery at this was her anger that he made no claim to purity of any kind and yet felt free to castigate her for some vague form of misdoing. She knew he was behaving according to his code, but the temptation to lash out at him was tremendous.

And then, of course, she would be called a shrew.

The d.u.c.h.ess sent for Beth to share a late breakfast in her suite, and she felt obliged to go. Some bread and coffee made her feel better, but the d.u.c.h.ess's cheerful chatter was hard to respond to.

"I was pleased to see you and Lucien so at ease," the d.u.c.h.ess said. "His few days in Town did him good, as I knew they would. He's more himself and that should make it easier for you, my dear. And there isn't much more of this falderol to endure. We have a week of festivities here, culminating in the reception for all the local people, and then we will remove to London. Then it will be only two weeks to your wedding."

Two weeks. b.u.t.tered bun turned to sawdust in Beth's mouth. She had known the date set for the event, but now it loomed frighteningly close. "It is all rather rushed," she protested. "It will cause talk."

"Yes, but the duke wants it done," said the d.u.c.h.ess apologetically. "And your first child will be born after the nine months, so the speculation will end then."

Beth swallowed, and the d.u.c.h.ess looked at her with shrewd eyes. "My dear, do you know about marriage? I feel I stand in the place of a mother to you."

"I know all about marriage," said Beth hastily and then saw the shock in the d.u.c.h.ess's eyes. "I mean, I have read widely."

"What extraordinary books you must come across," the d.u.c.h.ess remarked. "But even so it is easy to be... confused on such a subject. My older daughter, Maria, thought that the act of sleeping in a bed with a man caused babies. By the time I talked to her, she had already convinced Graviston that they should have separate bedrooms because she snored. She thought her troubles were over."

Beth was aghast. "How could you force her into such a distasteful marriage?"

"Distasteful?" said the d.u.c.h.ess. "Oh no, it was a love match. But Maria felt, being but eighteen, that she did not want children just yet. Having heard that 'sleeping together' caused babies," the d.u.c.h.ess explained with a twinkle, "she thought she could have Graviston's kisses and all they promised without consequences."

Beth desperately wanted to ask whether she could have the babies without the kisses and all they promised, but she lowered her eyes.

The d.u.c.h.ess looked at the young woman thoughtfully. "Do you know, Elizabeth, I think I will you give you my little talk anyway. Books can be so unreliable."

And she did so.