Читать книгу Regency Affairs Part 1: Books 1-6 Of 12 - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 17

Pandora stared across at Rupert uncomprehendingly, sure she could not have heard him correctly. He certainly could not possibly have just asked her to— No, whatever nonsense had just left those chiselled lips had been stated; the arrogantly Rupert Stirling did not merely ask!

Even so, she knew she could not have heard him correctly. That the toplofty, the elegant Rupert Stirling, Duke of Stratton, Marquis of Devlin, Earl of Charwood, etc., etc., could not possibly have just stated he wished for her, the scandalous Pandora Maybury, to become his Duchess!

‘Whilst in some ways I find your silence a welcome relief, I also find it less flattering than even your earlier insults,’ he drawled into the tense silence.

Pandora blinked before focusing her narrowed gaze upon him. ‘Is this your idea of a joke?’ she challenged. ‘Because if it is, then it’s in very poor taste.’ She moved impatiently to the middle of the bedchamber. ‘I believe I must ask you to leave now.’ She eyed him frostily.

Not quite the response Rupert had been hoping for; and how ironic that the first—and hopefully the last—marriage proposal he made, should be seen as nothing more than an attempt at mockery on his part! Yes, this was definitely less than flattering to him …

‘Would you mind explaining exactly why you think I would ever consider the idea of marriage to any woman to be in the least amusing?’ he asked.

Those violet eyes flashed her displeasure. ‘Because of who I am, sir. Or what the ton considers me to be, at least,’ she added with slight bitterness.

Having learnt all that he could of this woman in the last few days, Rupert was now only too well aware of the contempt with which the ton had treated Pandora since the death of her husband and her lover, of how most had preferred to forget her very existence during her year of mourning, and for the main part gave her the cut direct since her return to society some weeks ago, only the Duchesses of Clayborne and Woollerton choosing to seek out and value her company.

None of which Rupert found in the least a hindrance to Pandora becoming his Duchess. In fact, he would much prefer to know the true nature of the woman who was to become his wife rather than to rudely discover it after the event.

He raised his brows. ‘And exactly what is that, Pandora?’

She gave him a vexed glance. ‘My husband and Sir Thomas Stanley both died in a duel.’

‘Yes …?’

Her mouth tightened. ‘Surely my meaning is obvious?’

‘Not to me, no.’

‘Oh, please!’ she scoffed. ‘I am disgraced, sir. Only accepted into certain homes of the ton because my friends insist upon it. Why should you, or any other gentleman, ever wish to ally yourself to such a woman, let alone offer her marriage? Indeed, the fact that you have twice now entered my bedchamber uninvited shows the complete lack of regard in which you also hold me!’

Rupert watched through narrowed lids as Pandora moved restlessly about the bedchamber, her cheeks having paled to a delicate ivory and making those violet-coloured eyes appear almost purple. ‘Or it could convey the eagerness I feel to share your bed?’

She eyed him sharply, suspiciously, for several long seconds before sighing wearily. ‘Any member of the ton would happily tell you that there’s no need for you to offer me marriage in order to achieve that.’

‘And I believe I’ve already assured you—many times—that I rarely, if ever, listen to the opinions of the ton,’ Rupert drawled. ‘I certainly have no intention of seeking their approval regarding my choice of wife.’

‘Then you are a fool, sir.’ She paced agitatedly, the colour now back in her cheeks, blonde curls bouncing with each step she took. ‘Your very name would be tainted by association.’

Rupert looked down the length of his nose. ‘I am the Duke of Stratton, madam, and if you were to accept my marriage proposal you would become the Duchess of Stratton; ergo, there would be no name remaining by which I might be tainted.’

‘You—’

‘Yes, Pandora, it is I who must decide whom and when I shall marry.’ His top lip curled back in haughty disdain. ‘None of the ton were privy to the intimacy of your marriage, were they? Nor were they present during your liaisons with Stanley—or, at least, I presume they weren’t?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Pandora snapped her impatience with that last remark.

He nodded tersely. ‘I would rather know the truth of my future bride than otherwise.’

The truth? The truth was so very different from what any of the ton imagined!

Could she confide the ‘intimacy of her marriage’ to Rupert Stirling, of all people? If he believed her, then it would clear her of every accusation that had ever been made against her a year ago. If he believed her …

Would anyone believe Pandora if she were to claim that her three years of marriage to Barnaby Maybury had been nothing but a sham from start to finish? A smokescreen behind which Barnaby hid his true inclinations? Even more shocking, would anyone believe, accept, that the duel, fought by Sir Thomas Stanley and Barnaby a year ago, had not been over her at all, but another man with whom they had discovered they were both … intimately involved?

Pandora had learnt the shocking truth of her husband’s inclinations on her wedding night, when he had come to her bedchamber for the sole purpose of telling her that he would not be joining her there ever again, that the mere idea of touching, let alone making love to, a woman’s body totally and utterly repulsed him.

Pandora had been stunned, sickened, when Barnaby had gone on to reveal that he’d only told her these details of his private life at all because his having settled all her father’s debts now meant she could never tell another living soul as to the true circumstances of their marriage if she did not also wish to bring about the ruination of her own father. The humiliation Pandora had suffered, at this shocking knowledge of her husband’s desire for other men, had ensured her silence on the subject even after her father had died.

Just as Pandora had not even attempted to clear her own name of scandal a year ago, knowing that the cost of doing so would be the happiness of three other innocent people, that it was far better if everyone believed she was the guilty one than for Sir Thomas’s widow and two children to suffer from being placed in a position of ridicule rather than pity.

And it was because of that latter concern she knew she still couldn’t tell Rupert the truth now …

Her chin rose proudly. ‘Is there not another lady who might have every reason to expect to become your wife?’

Rupert’s nostrils flared at the mere thought of the woman to whom Pandora so obviously referred. Patricia Stirling. His father’s widow. The same woman society believed Rupert to have been openly living with this past nine months since his father’s death.

A woman that Rupert knew he wouldn’t touch intimately again if she were the only female left upon this earth.

Which she was not, thank God! ‘If you’re referring to my father’s widow, then say so, damn it!’

‘If you insist!’ Those violet eyes flashed. ‘Should you not, in all conscience, be making this marriage proposal to her?’

‘I assure you, madam, that where Patricia Stirling is concerned, my conscience is completely without blemish,’ Rupert said levelly.

‘Indeed?’ she said sceptically.

‘Indeed.’ A nerve pulsed in his jaw. ‘Nor is it acceptable, to me or society, that I should marry my father’s widow.’

Pandora eyed him scornfully. ‘Then perhaps you hope to use marriage to another woman as a means of disguising your … unorthodox relationship with your own stepmother?’

‘Now that you’ve found your tongue again it appears to have become that of a viper!’ Rupert eyed her chillingly.

Those ivory cheeks bloomed with colour. ‘I’m not the one responsible for creating the gossip concerning the two of you, your Grace!’

‘Neither am I!’ he insisted, knowing exactly who was to blame for what society thought of his present living arrangements. ‘Might we forget about Patricia for the moment and continue with our previous conversation?’

She raised golden brows. ‘A conversation in which you have suggested I might consider marrying you?’

Rupert’s jaw tensed at the derisive incredulity in her tone. ‘Yes.’

‘Then, no, I don’t believe we can forget the existence of the woman who, if I accepted you, would be the third person in the marriage. The French have a term for such things, I believe?’

‘Ménage à trois,’ he supplied tightly.

‘Quite so,’ Pandora acknowledged tautly, her cheeks still hot and flushed. ‘Would that be the arrangement I might be expected to accept in a marriage between us, your Grace?’

‘No it damn well would not!’

‘There’s no need to swear—’

‘There’s every reason, damn it!’ Rupert glared at her coldly. ‘For your information, I have not laid so much as a finger upon Patricia since the day I learnt she was my father’s wife. Nor do I intend ever to do so again,’ he added icily.

Pandora’s brows rose sharply at his vehemence. ‘I find that very hard to believe.’

‘Nevertheless, I assure you it is the truth.’

Was it possible—could it possibly be that Rupert was as much an innocent victim of society’s gossip as Pandora was herself? Not that she believed for one moment that he was an innocent—the talk regarding his exploits this past ten years or so could not all be false! But was it possible that he might be innocent in regard to Patricia Stirling, in the same way that Pandora was innocent about ever having been intimately involved with Sir Thomas Stanley whilst married to Barnaby?

Despite the vehemence of Rupert’s denial, Pandora had difficulty believing that to be the case when he and Patricia now lived openly together and had done so since the death of his father.

No, there must be another reason he was now suggesting marriage to her, and the only reason she could think of was her original conclusion; Rupert hoped marriage to another woman would divert attention from his scandalous relationship with his young and beautiful stepmother.

Having suffered through one loveless sham of a marriage, she had no desire to repeat the experience! ‘My answer to your proposal must be no—’

‘Why must it?’ he cut in.

‘Surely it is obvious, sir?’ Pandora said as he once again glowered down the length of that arrogant nose at her.

‘Not to me, no,’ he barked.

She sighed. ‘We’ve only been acquainted with each other for a matter of days, and I trust you do not think me so naïve as to believe you have fallen madly in love with me during that time?’ In truth, Pandora’s naïvety, if not her innocence, had been completely shattered upon her wedding night. ‘Any more than I can claim to have fallen madly in love with you,’ she added firmly, very aware, that under different circumstances, she might well have done just that …

Rupert Stirling could, if he chose, be as charming as he was wickedly handsome. His manner towards her yesterday evening, when they’d arrived back from the theatre to find someone had broken into her home, had been both kind and protective. As for those moments of shared intimacy that had followed here in her bedchamber and those earlier today in his carriage …

She had been but twenty years of age when she’d married Barnaby Maybury, and totally naïve in the ways of men. Yesterday evening, and earlier today in Rupert’s carriage, were the only two occasions upon which she had known even a taste of physical pleasure. A very enjoyable taste of physical pleasure, which caused her breasts to tighten and swell once again just at the memory of it!

But she was no longer that naïve and newly married woman. Her girlhood dreams, of having a man fall madly in love with her and for her to love him as passionately, no longer existed. As such, she could not—dare not—allow herself to be seduced by thoughts of the physical pleasure Rupert now tempted her with. ‘I believe this conversation is over— Rupert?’ She gave him a startled glance as his fingers curled tightly about her upper arm.

‘Yes, I’m Rupert.’ His teeth were bared in a humourless smile. ‘Not Barnaby Maybury. Not Sir Thomas Stanley. But Rupert. And, as such, I don’t think I’ve ever so much as attempted to be less than honest with you during our brief … acquaintance, have I?’ He deliberately used the same term Pandora had earlier, those silver eyes now glittering coldly as he looked down at her, his cheekbones as sharp as blades in the tautness of his cheeks.

‘Not that I am aware, no.’ Pandora conceded warily.

He gave an acknowledging inclination of his head. ‘Nor will I attempt to be so now. You have asked why I wish to marry you, and so I’ll tell you, and then leave it for you to decide whether or not you can accept those reasons as being sufficient for us to marry. Does that sound reasonable?’

It sounded … cold, detached, perhaps even calculated … ‘Are you sure you wish to confide those reasons to me when I have already refused your offer?’

The tension lessened slightly in his aristocratically handsome face, his grasp loosening on her arm. ‘Perhaps when you have listened to my reasons, you might reconsider that decision.’

Somehow Pandora doubted that very much! ‘I should tell you that my plans to leave London in the next few days are well advanced. Nor do I have any intention of changing them.’

He nodded. ‘I have already taken note that most, if not all, of your personal effects have been removed from this room.’

Pandora smiled wanly. ‘One of the reasons for that might perhaps be because many of them were broken beyond repair.’

‘You still have no idea who or why?’

‘Absolutely none.’ She shrugged.

Rupert might have no idea who either, but he had his own thoughts as to why her home might have been broken into four times in the past year. Someone, in all probability Maybury’s mistress—who no doubts had a key to Highbury House, which was the very reason Rupert had arranged to have the locks changed earlier today—had left behind some sort of incriminating evidence here upon learning of Maybury’s sudden death. Quite what that evidence might be, Rupert as yet had no idea, but he intended to find out the identity of this woman at the earliest opportunity.

‘We digress,’ he dismissed now as he released his hold upon Pandora’s arm. ‘Perhaps you would care to sit in that chair whilst I tell you of the reasons I must marry?’

‘The reasons you must marry?’ Pandora repeated dubiously as she moved to perch on the edge of the chair.

Trust Pandora, a woman whom Rupert had discovered these past few days to possess a sharp intelligence, to latch on to the relevant word in his statement. ‘Must marry,’ he confirmed bleakly, ‘if I am ever to be rid of a particular and unpleasant thorn in my side.’

Those violet eyes widened. ‘Patricia Stirling?’

Rupert gave a tight smile. ‘Just so.’

Pandora’s brows rose. ‘I don’t understand …’

‘No one but two close friends, and my lawyer, are aware of what I’m about to tell you now.’ Rupert began to pace the bedchamber. ‘Let me start by telling you that you are correct in supposing that I once had an intimate relationship with my stepmother when she was still Patricia Hampson.’ His mouth twisted self-derisively. ‘A mistake on my part for which I have paid most dearly, I do assure you.’

‘Go on …’

Rupert breathed out heavily. ‘I will start at the beginning.’

‘That is invariably the best place to begin.’

He shot Pandora a chilling glance for her shot at humour. ‘I’m not a man accustomed to discussing my mistakes.’

‘And I’m sure they are so few in number that you won’t mind making an exception in this case.’

‘Pandora!’

‘I’m sorry, Rupert.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘It’s only that you looked so—so disgruntled, at admitting to having ever made even a single mistake!’

Rupert was more than disgruntled, he now had every reason to rue the day he had ever set eyes upon the beautiful but scheming Patricia Hampson, let alone shared her bed.

‘Perhaps you will understand that disgruntlement when I have better explained the situation to you.’ He grimaced. ‘I took up a commission in the army … oh, seven years ago now. It was a hard life, but it was there that I formed my close friendships with Lucifer and Dante. We went into battle together, we drank and laughed at our victories, and all never knowing if the next battle would be our last …’ His thoughts drifted off to those somehow halcyon days.

He had not been well acquainted with Lucifer and Dante until they had joined his Regiment at the same time, but fighting together, drinking together, wenching together, had formed a close bond between the three of them, until they were now closer than brothers.

‘I should have seen what Patricia was about when we were introduced during one of my brief sojourns home.’ He gave a self-disgusted shake of his head. ‘She was the youngest daughter of an impoverished Baron from Devonshire and had already been out in society for several years. Within minutes of our introduction she made it obvious to me that she was ripe for—well, having fun, shall we say? An offer I was fool enough to accept.’ He frowned as she raised mocking brows. ‘I don’t mind admitting, that where that woman is concerned, I was indeed the fool you called me earlier, Pandora.’

‘I didn’t mean to be unkind, Rupert.’

He sighed. ‘For several weeks after we met Patricia and I were … together privately. And then it became time to return to my Regiment. At which time she made it obvious why she hadn’t accepted any of the marriage proposals she had so far received. It seemed she had been waiting for a gentleman of suitable rank to make that proposal. And she had decided I was to be that gentleman.’ His gaze hardened. ‘An expectation I felt no hesitation in firmly squashing.’

Pandora’s eyes were wide. ‘But was she not now ruined because of her association with you?’

‘This is more difficult than I had imagined …’ He looked decidedly uncomfortable. ‘Whatever you may think of me, Pandora, I am a gentleman, and a gentleman does not usually discuss a lady’s … virtue, with a third party.’

Pandora looked at him blankly for several moments, then a deep blush warmed her cheeks as his meaning suddenly became clear to her. ‘You were not her first lover.’

‘Far from it,’ Rupert conceded tightly. ‘Nor did I have any doubt that I would not be her last, either. I’m sorry if this makes you uncomfortable, Pandora.’ He winced as her gaze shifted away from meeting his. ‘I’m merely trying to explain why the idea of marriage to Patricia never so much as entered my head. I— She did not take my rejection well.’

‘No, I don’t suppose that she did.’ Pandora didn’t know the Dowager Duchess of Stratton well, but she had met the other woman on several occasions in the past and, although beautiful, Patricia Stirling’s nature was too different from her own, too brittle and flirtatious, too worldly, for Pandora to ever have warmed to her, let alone made a friend of her.

Rupert’s eyes were now as cold as the ice they resembled. ‘I’m afraid there was an argument, during which she threatened that I would pay for my refusal to marry her. I dismissed the threat as meaningless at the time and left to rejoin my regiment as I had intended, without giving her threat so much as a second thought. Which was definitely a mistake on my part.’ Once again he looked bleak. ‘The next letter I was to receive from my father informed me of his forthcoming marriage, to none other than Patricia Hampson!’

Pandora gasped softly. ‘That was her revenge upon you, to marry your own father?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Rupert could still remember the shock of receiving his father’s letter, of reading of that gentleman’s intention of marrying the same woman whom Rupert had so recently bedded.

‘Could you not have prevented the marriage?’

His eyes still glittered with remembered anger as he told Pandora bleakly, ‘I was too late. The date for the wedding to take place had already passed by the time the letter reached me.’

‘And did you—were you ever able to discuss the matter with your father?’

‘And say what?’ Rupert grimaced. ‘That his wife had occupied my bed before his own?’

‘Well, no, of course you could not have said that, but—he had not heard any of the gossip in society concerning the two of you?’

Rupert shook his head. ‘My father had even less time for society than I and the two of us were never on close terms—I am too much like my mother, and the Duke and Duchess’s marriage was an arranged and never happy one. My father and I were ever uneasy in each other’s company, and as he didn’t already know, I didn’t feel I could tell him. I could not confide that his new Duchess and I had once been—intimate.’

‘No, I can see how you could not tell your father that,’ Pandora agreed. ‘And was the Duke’s second marriage a happy one?’

Rupert’s mouth became a bitter twist. ‘He was blindly besotted with his young and dazzlingly beautiful wife. As he was no doubt intended to be.’ He frowned darkly. ‘Patricia, on the other hand, took every opportunity available in which to attempt to entice me back into her bed.’

Pandora’s brows rose. ‘And did you ever—’

‘Don’t even suggest it, Pandora!’ he warned harshly, jaw tightly clenched. ‘I have told you, the woman repulses me. I would as soon touch a snake as I would her!’

He spoke so vehemently, and with such distaste, that Pandora could not doubt his revulsion. An entirely understandable feeling considering the circumstances under which that lady had married Rupert’s own father. ‘Did your father ever know of those attempts in regard to you, do you think?’

‘No, I’m sure he did not, thank God!’ Rupert said. ‘Indeed, the circumstances of this will dictate that he did not,’ he added heavily.

Pandora eyed him warily. ‘And is it—can it be that it is the circumstances of your late father’s will which now prompt you into proposing marriage to me, a woman you have known only a matter of days?’

Rupert looked at her with admiration, liking her more and more as he came to know her better. He might indeed have only known her for ‘a matter of days’, but in that short time he had already come to recognise that she was not only a beautiful and desirable woman, but that she also possessed an intuition, an intelligence, which rendered it impossible for him to ever suffer the boredom in her company as he did with so many other women. With all other women, in fact …

‘It is indeed,’ he admitted. ‘I wish you to understand that, although my father and I weren’t close, he was nevertheless a man I respected for the strength of his principles and admired for his astuteness and intelligence of mind.’

Pandora nodded, remembering the late Duke of Stratton as being a handsome man in his sixties. A man who had been much liked and approved of by the ton and whom she had once heard Barnaby describe as being much respected by the House for the sensibility and level headedness of his political views.

‘Unfortunately, with regard to his wife, those particular attributes of his nature were completely absent,’ Rupert continued harshly. ‘As such, the late Duke—being, in my opinion, of completely unsound mind where his young and beautiful wife was concerned—made a provision in his will which allows her to continue to live in any of the ducal homes until such time as I should marry!’

‘Ah.’ Pandora’s breath left her in a sigh as the truth of Rupert Stirling’s present—and what appeared to be scandalous—living arrangements now became clear to her. ‘And since your father died she has chosen to live in whichever of the ducal homes you also happen to occupy?’

A low growl escaped him. ‘Yes.’

‘Could you not have found other lodgings?’

Rupert shrugged. ‘I have tried staying at Lord Benedict Lucas’s residence with him, but ultimately found that it proved far too troublesome—if not confusing—when it came to the running of the numerous Stratton estates and investments, and that mistakes were being made which would not have happened if I had been in residence at Stratton House. Tiresome as it is, unpleasant as it is, I have been forced to suffer the Dowager Duchess’s constant presence in my homes for almost six months now.’

Pandora could never imagine herself throwing herself into the company of a gentleman, when that gentleman had shown her in every way possible that he did not desire her, or her company. Indeed, after their wedding night she and Barnaby, whenever possible, had chosen to live in separate residences. As such, it was inconceivable to her that Patricia Stirling should be so without pride that she now hounded Rupert by following him from house to house with only one intention in mind.

‘Would marriage to me really be such purgatory, Pandora?’

She raised startled lids as she realised Rupert was now standing close enough to reach down and take her hand gently in his before pulling her up to stand only inches in front of him, at once reminding her of how pleasurably he had made love to her such a short time ago, and of her own uninhibited responses to that passion …