Читать книгу The Dangerous Love of a Rogue - Jane Lark - Страница 12

After breaking her fast, Mary retired to the drawing room with her mother, her sister-in-law Kate and her sisters, while the boys were at lessons upstairs. She chose to sit on a sofa in the sunshine, beside her younger sisters, Helen and Jennifer, who were busy working on embroidery samplers. Mary guided them.

“Excuse me, Your Grace.”

Mary looked up. Mr Finch stood just inside the door, a small silver tray balanced on his fingers.

Kate held her son on her lap, and had been amusing him with a wooden rattle while Mary’s mother sat on the same sofa, with Mary’s youngest sister, Jemima. They’d been studying a picture book.

They all looked up.

“What is it Finch?” Kate asked.

“A letter for Miss Marlow,” Mr Finch intoned.

“Mary?” Her mother looked in Mary’s direction, a question bright in her eyes. Who?

Mary stood, heat flaring in her cheeks. She received letters regularly from a variety of friends, and her cousins, but they came with her father’s and John’s post.

She took the letter from the tray, her skin glowing.

Mr Finch turned to leave.

The writing was unfamiliar. But… Surely not…. It was large, bold strokes. She broke the blank seal and looked at the bottom of the page.

D. F.

Drew Framlington.

Her heart pounded against her ribs.

Her family had noticed her absence last night. She’d told them she had gone to the retiring room. Even so her father had admonished her for not telling her mother. They had warned her of rousing unnecessary gossip.

Kate had interjected then, saying she’d experienced such things and would not wish them on Mary.

By the time they’d come home, Mary had been thoroughly chastened, and been made to feel painfully guilty. She’d cried herself to sleep, then woken barely an hour later, thinking of the things she’d let him do, and what he’d said.

Holding the letter she crossed to the window.

“Who is it from?” her mother asked.

Mary glanced back. “Lord Farquhar.” Daniel, one of her friends, she’d known him since her come out, her mother knew him too.

Her mother smiled with a fond look, before turning her attention back to Jemima and the picture book.

Mary longed to take the letter up to her room but that would look odd. Instead she sought seclusion on the window seat, slipping her feet from her shoes and then lifting them on to the cushion before her.

My dear Miss Marlow,

Has any man told you what a treasure you truly are?

The rogue, he actually referred to her fortune in a pun. She smiled, more amused than angry.

What I would give to make you mine, you cannot imagine. I am yours, a hundred times over. I adore you. Your ebony hair and your alabaster skin. Your eyes, as blue as a summer sky, or an azure sea, so pale they are like ice. They make me shiver when you turn your gaze upon me, turn it my way often and forever, Mary dear. Make me yours, make me love you. If love is what you want, bring me to your heel. I will come. I will beg for you if that is what you wish, only never turn your smile away from me, that is what I live for, to see your perfect smile.

And your lips, I have not yet spoken of those…

It was nonsense of course, all nonsense, and it went on and on, profoundly expressing her beauty and his adoration, while not once claiming to love, but pleading for her to give him the opportunity to fall in love. It begged her to tame him. It asked her to show him how. Then he finished it all with a silly poem.

When she folded it and lifted her gaze, a smile curved her lips.

He’d not been deterred by her dismissal yesterday. That gave him credit. He was more serious about choosing her than she’d thought. He could have simply transferred his attention to another wealthy woman.

“What did he say, Mary?” her mother asked.

Mary looked across the room. “He is gushing, Mama.” It was becoming far too easy to lie. She rose from the window seat, and slipped her shoes back on.

Her mother smiled. Her sister-in-law Kate looked up and smiled too.

“Are you interested in Lord Farquhar?” her mother asked, with a curious look.

Mary laughed. “Heavens no, but it is flattering.”

“Let me see!” “Let me read it!” Her sisters cried.

“No!” Mary clutched the letter to her breast as they rose and rushed over.

“It’s personal,” her mother admonished. “Helen, Jenny, sit back down and leave your sister alone.”

Fortunately her parents were not in the habit of reading her post. They trusted her.

A sharp pain cut deep into Mary’s chest.

She did not deserve their trust anymore.

She’d been beyond foolish last night. She would have lost her family’s respect forever if she’d been caught with Lord Framlington. She would have been utterly ruined. She would have had to marry him.

But, then, surely, his discretion was another point in his favour. Even his letter did not contain anything which would force her hand.

Last night he could have had what he wished, her hand in marriage, her money, if he’d arranged for someone to discover them.

Surely that he had not arranged it – that he would not act without her consent – meant he was honourable despite his reputation. Then he must also – to some degree – care for her.

“May I take this letter up to my room, Mama, so I can put it in my travelling desk?”

“Of course, sweetheart.” Her mother gave her another fond look.

Mary fled the room with sinful, wrong notions, spinning in her head. If only she knew his address she might write back.

No! No! I have finished with this foolishness.

* * *

Fate played an odd game on Mary at the Fosters’ ball; as Mary stood talking with Miss Emily Smithfield, Lord Farquhar asked Mary to dance the first set.

She accepted with a shallow curtsy, smiling at him, then glanced back to give Emily, who invariably ended up the wallflower once more, an apologetic smile. Emily was the shy type, too quiet, but as she had only come out this season, she was still finding her place in society.

Mary looked back to see if Emily had found another companion to speak with, and caught her mother watching. The look in her eyes resembled the one in the drawing room that morning. Her father’s eyes glistened in the candlelight when she looked at him.

They thought she carried a torch for Lord Farquhar and he for her.

Mary turned away.

Lord Farquhar carried his torch for her good friend Lady Bethany Pope.

Oh heavens, lying never brought any good. It was always found out. The only time she’d lied in her childhood was when she’d accidently broken her mother’s perfume bottle. She’d hidden the broken bottle and claimed no knowledge of it. They’d known because she was the only one who smelt of the perfume.

She’d been in more trouble for lying than for breaking the bottle.

She’d never lied again – until the day of the Jerseys’ garden party.

Lord Farquhar’s eyes twinkled with good humour as he led her on to the floor. She liked her friends. She’d formed a good set last season. She glanced back at poor Emily. She was sure Emily would become settled, her friends were loyal, happy people, and generous in nature, all of them – yet none of her male friends carried an air of mystery, as Lord Framlington did. She selfishly wished for a life that was more exciting than this.

Her heart ached with a bitter sweet sadness. Lord Framlington made her long to unravel all the things he kept hidden. He was exciting…

Yet she had not even known his given name until she’d been about to leave him in the glasshouse.

The image of his eyes as he’d asked her to say his name aloud caught in her memory.

He was… vital… consuming heat… danger – and mystery. All other men were bland compared to him. How could she carry a torch for a bland man when there was Lord Framlington to compare to?

She would probably never marry, and then if she never married her whole life would be dull.

“You do not look quite the thing this evening, Mary. You look distracted. Is anything wrong?”

Lord Farquhar’s fingers gripped hers as they passed each other in the format of the country dance.

She had not even spoken to him since they’d walked on to the floor. “Nothing is wrong. But thank you for asking. I am merely tired, I have attended too many entertainments…”

“You can never attend too many…Are your shoes pinching? You may have too much dancing if your shoes are pinching…”

Mary laughed at his attempt to cheer her but stupidly it sent her tumbling into the doldrums.

If she never spoke to Lord Framlington again she would have to endure an entire life of dullness?

“I should be honest. It was not I who noticed. Bethany did. She sent me to cheer you up.”

“Ah.” Mary glanced at Bethany, who now stood beside Emily, then she looked back and smiled at Lord Farquhar.

She must cease longing for Lord Framlington. This was enough to make her happy. It had to be, and happiness was enough. Even if inside she spent her life screaming for excitement.

When the dance drew to an end Lord Framlington entered the ballroom, as her group swapped partners then formed the next set.

He walked with a group of men. They stopped and looked about the ballroom.

One gentleman’s gaze passed over her, then jolted back, stopping on her for a moment before he turned to the man next to him, his lips tilting in a smirk. Then they all looked at her.

She turned away.

Lord Framlington had spoken of her to his friends, then. What had he said? She hoped he’d not told them anything.

“Mary?” Philip Smyth took her hand and pulled her into motion as the music began. She was one step behind everyone, her heart racing as nausea tumbled in her stomach and light-headedness made her feel as if she might collapse.

But she did not give in to her weakness for the dark-haired, vibrant brown-eyed Lord Framlington, she lifted up her chin, caught up the step and continued, focusing on Philip and smiling as hard as she could.

When the music drew to its crescendo and ended in a brisk flurry, relief and a desire to reach the safety of her mother swamped Mary. But before she had chance to ask Philip to take her back, a shadow fell over her. She turned. John’s cousin, from John’s father’s side, stood beside her, Lord Oliver Harding, with another man.

“Miss Marlow.”

She had met Lord Harding at several events but he’d never paid her any particular attention. He was older than John and not interested in John’s young half-siblings.

Mary curtsied. “Lord Harding.”

He smiled, bowing only slightly then he turned to the gentleman beside him.

Heat burned beneath Mary’s skin. He was one of the men who’d entered with Drew.

“May I introduce Mr Harper to you Miss Marlow, he begged an introduction. Mr Harper, Miss Marlow, is my cousin’s sister.”

Mary searched for a memory of the man’s name but could recall nothing. She’d never seen nor heard of him before.

He gripped her hand, then kissed the back of her glove. Goosebumps ran up her arm, like a cold breeze had swept in to the room.

Bowing her head, to avoid his gaze, she curtsied a little.

When she rose and looked at him, she met piercing, assessing, blue eyes.

His blonde hair gave him a look of innocence, but his eyes denied it entirely. He was a rogue, of the worst sort, the sort who did not even bother to court wealth. That was why she’d not seen him before, because he was not the type of man to attend sedate functions. Even the card room here, she was sure, would not play deep enough.

He was a man who danced only with sin – and Lord Framlington’s chosen companion…

“May I have this dance, Miss Marlow?” If she refused it would be obvious to everyone around them as the sets had already formed and she would have to leave the floor alone. Philip had turned away.

Her mouth was too dry to answer. She nodded, anxiety spinning in her gut. Why would he single her out? What had Lord Framlington said?

“You’re very beautiful, Miss Marlow. More so than I’d thought, I admit. Now I can see why he is so smitten.”

“He?” Her cheeks heated with a deeper blush as they took the first steps of the dance moving forward then back. Then they turned to make a ring of four with the couple to their left.

Mary faced Lord Framlington.

Ah. So this was the game?

They completed a full circle, hands joined as a four and then she turned, looking at Lord Framlington and walking towards him as the dance required.

“Miss Marlow,” he acknowledged her with perfect formality.

Her fixed smile faded.

The next move was a closer turn, shoulder to shoulder, he pressed close. Heat scorched down her arm, and burned inside her, her heart thumping hard. She opened her mouth to breath, but there was no air.

“Mary,” he leant a little to whisper to her ear. “Did you receive my letter?”

“Yes.”

“Will you write to me?”

There was no time to answer. They were parted by the figures of the dance.

She faced his friend again, her heart pounding as she sought to watch Drew through the corner of her eye. There were no other moments to speak with him, and the rest of the dance seemed endless as the complicated patterns moved Drew further and further away.

* * *

During supper, Drew stood apart from everyone, hands in pockets, as he watched those eating. Miss Marlow was in the bosom of her family, again, surrounded, laughing and happy. Happy? Now there was a word, a word like, love. Had he ever known what it was to be happy? How the hell did he know who was happy?

He’d laughed last night, though, laughed and got very drunk. He’d called at White’s after he’d left her, searching for his friends.

They’d not been at White’s, but he’d tracked them down in a gambling den not far from St James.

He’d dragged them all from their game, and Peter and Harry from the whores draped about them, and taken them back to his bachelor residence for a more intimate night of masculine companionship.

On the way there he’d explained his plight.

How was he to convince the girl to love him? How did a man use romance and not sex to woo a girl?

Harry, particularly, had laughed heartily.

Drew could see the humour in the situation, the renowned seducer smote by a lack of love.

What the hell did he know of love?

His friends had spent the next three hours in drunken hilarity, advising him on the subtleties of love, and its difference from desire.

The letter had been Peter’s idea.

He’d leaned back in his chair, lifting his glass of brandy and grinning. “What you need my friend, is a bloody good poet. Prose is your key. All women fall for it. They like to be told their eyes are like this, their lips like that, they love to have their beauty praised.”

Between them then, through much laughter, they’d constructed the basics of the letter. The prose, had in fact, been mostly Peter’s. This morning Drew had re-written it with a sober hand and sent if off.

Yet, having played a part in the game of catching Mary Marlow, his friends had declared their interest in attending the next ball. They were eager to see the outcome of this new, more tactical, game. They’d considered it brilliant luck that Mark knew the Harding twins, Pembroke’s cousins, and then another plot had begun to spin, one to gain Drew access to Mary at the ball.

The Hardings were not as high in the instep as the Pembrokes. Lord Oliver had not even lifted an eyebrow at Mark’s request.

The plan was, once Mark had the introduction he would introduce the others and then they’d all dance with her, and if Drew merely passed her during moving sets, her family would not suspect any particular intent.

But the reality proved frustrating. He could only speak to her for an instant here and there.

He’d asked if she had the letter, if she’d write, if she’d missed him, she’d had no chance to answer anything to any real degree. Then he’d resorted to brushing her shoulder with his fingertips once.

It was hardly enough to win him a wife. He was not going to be able to convince her to take him like this.

Turning on his heel he walked from the supper room, he needed to think, he needed to settle his mind. He’d go for a smoke. Then he realised, suddenly, in a blinding thought, he’d asked her to write, but she didn’t know his address. He could hardly put it in a letter, her parents might see it.

Changing direction then, he searched out a footman in the hall, and asked for a quill, ink and paper to be brought to the gentlemen’s smoking room.

He let her dance with her friends, for the first and second dances after supper, but then he asked Peter to lead her out.

The dance was a pattern of four. Drew picked a quiet little wall-flower of a woman to partner him.

Two movements into the dance he and Peter swapped partners. It was not a requirement of the dance. He’d agreed the move with Peter to gain longer access to Mary.

Of course Mary realised instantly what they’d done and her jaw dropped on the verge of exclamation, but he caught her fingers in his as part of a turn and squeezed them hard. It effectively silenced her. The little wall-flower seemed to think they’d made a mistake. She was smiling at Peter as though she thought him foolish, but then knowing Peter, he was probably charming the girl and making her think he was the one who’d planned the swap.

“Lord Framlington,” Mary whispered in a harsh tone. “Why are you playing this game?”

He bent his head and although he felt like being harsh in return because she had returned to distancing him with the use of his surname, he softened his voice to honey. Some elements of seductive skills could still apply when making a girl fall in love… by convincing her you suffered the same condition… “My dear, it is no game. I told you, I want you for my wife. I am not backing down. Steadfastness is surely an element of love.”

Lord Framlington bore arrogance tonight. He obviously did not like losing. She had enough brothers and male relations to know how stubborn they could be.

“It is no statement of love to want to win at any cost.” She did not like being used like a puppet.

“You are on your guard, Mary, darling. I told you, I will not hurt you.”

“Anything between us will hurt me, when it will hurt my family…”

“But what if it hurts you and I more to be held apart. Does my steadfastness not express my heart’s devotion?”

“You are determined, Lord Framlington, I give you that. But devoted, I question, I do not think you devoted to anything beyond my dowry.”

“Call me, Drew–”

“Lord Framlington.”

His eyes shone with condescending humour. “Must I be set back so far?”

“You have not been set back at all. There is simply no going forward. Is there? Our—”

“Affair…” He leaned forward and whispered the word. It vibrated through her nerves.

She took a breath. “Hardly that, but whatever it is; it is over – and was always folly. I cannot hurt my family.”

“Folly,” he whispered. “I have heard it said, Miss Marlow, that each of us has a soul mate, and if I am yours, if we are each-others, would you throw that away because your family did not like the man of your heart, and hurt that man, who ought to be higher in your heart – your future husband. Families rear us; then they are meant to become second in our lives.”

His words struck her like a slap – and if I am yours, if we are each-others, would you throw that away because your family did not like the man of your heart, and hurt that man…

That was bloody prophetic. Where the hell had it come from? Drew would be spouting this drivel as second nature soon. But he would do anything to win her, including prattling, idiotic, poetic words.

The dance separated them for several movements. But his gaze clung to her face.

She was intoxicatingly beautiful. Whenever he looked at her a jolt sparked in his chest as well as his groin. His thoughts were forever transfixed by the woman while he was in her close proximity and even when he was not.

He had to win her.

He did not want to choose another woman. He’d chosen her last season, nearly a whole year had already passed, he would not wait another year and he’d no intention of letting her slip through his fingers.

He refused to accept no from her.

He needed her and not simply for her money.

Did she not understand that?

Aware his gaze had hardened to glaring, he whispered, harshly, “Am I not good enough for you? Did you not like my verse?”

Her lips parted slightly. They drew his gaze. If they’d been alone, he would have kissed her, drawn her into his arms and never let her go. She was his. She just didn’t know it yet, but he knew it. His eyes lifted to hers again. “You are meant for me. Why can you not see it?” Forget the drivel about souls and fate and love, this much was true. He was certain that she was the only woman he would be happy with. Lord, without her, he would never even be able to claim the word, happy!

Her lips pursed.

“I tried to tell you in that letter, what I think, how I feel—”

Her fingertip grazed his lips, to silence him, as she passed him in a turn.

Good God! Did she not know he would give anything to have her?

“I read your letter, I know what it said.”

Drew’s heart missed a beat. The look in her eyes spoke of sympathy.

Did it mean he had hope?

“Write to me,” he urged. “I’ll speak to you when I can, but in the meantime write.” The notes of the dance drew to a close.

“I do not have your address, I—”

He captured her fingers, lifting her hand to kiss it, and as he did so, he slid the small folded piece of paper he’d written his address on into the wrist of her glove.

“You do.” He met her gaze over her bent knuckles as he gripped her fingers. Then he let her hand fall and bowed briefly before turning away.

* * *

Mary watched him return to his friends, her heart racing.

“Miss Marlow.” The man who had led her into the dance, Lord Brooke, was at her side offering his arm.

She lay numb fingers on it.

They’d orchestrated the whole night, he and his friends.

“There are a dozen other heiresses he could court…” she said.

“But none as beautiful.”

“So that is what draws him, wealth and beauty?”

They walked across the floor, towards her parents, slowly, as people formed sets for the next dance.

Lord Brooke leaned closer. “Is it not his looks which draw your eyes to him?” It was not a whisper, his deep baritone made her skin prickle, and the note of condescension stirred anger inside her.

“Miss Marlow.” He straightened, lifting her fingers from his arm, as her parents came into view. “It has been a pleasure.” He bowed.

Then like Drew he walked away.

“Who were you with?” her mother asked, coming forward.

Mary, glanced across the room. Lord Brooke, Lord Framlington, Mr Harper and Mr Webster were leaving the ball.

Mary faced her mother. “Lord Brooke, Mama. Oliver introduced his friend to me and his friend introduced Lord Brooke.”

“And his friend was?”

“Mr Harper.” The slip of paper tucked within Mary’s glove itched. Had the whole endeavour been to slip her his address?

“Mr Harper? I think his father’s money came from sugar plantations.” Her father had moved beside her.

She shrugged. “I have no idea, Papa. We danced, we did not share life histories.”

He smiled. “No, I suppose not, but if it was that Mr Harper, avoid him, he has an appalling reputation, and Lord Brooke too. Avoid them both in the future.”

“Yes, Papa.”

She had been right; Lord Framlington consorted with men whose reputations matched his. His had been earned then, surely.

Her breath slipped out through her lips – and, he’d left his address within her glove. She would be the worst fool to communicate with him.

Her father’s fingers, tapped her beneath the chin. “Cheer up, sweetheart, there are plenty of decent men about, and here is one. I believe Lord Farquhar wishes a second dance.”

Mary turned. Daniel was approaching with a broad smile.

Why could not cupid aim steady arrows at her heart, ones which led to trustworthy men, rather than dangerous predatory rogues?