Читать книгу Regency Affairs Part 1: Books 1-6 Of 12 - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 18

Nevertheless …

Pandora pulled her hand from within Rupert’s grasp before stepping away from him, finding she was able to breathe more easily when not in his close proximity. ‘Has it occurred to you that perhaps Patricia realised her mistake once she was married to your father? That perhaps she was, and still is, in love with you?’

‘I assure you, that woman loves only one person—and that’s herself.’ Rupert’s mouth twisted contemptuously. ‘And whatever motive is behind her machinations, with regard to me, she won’t lose sight of that fact.’

Pandora bit her lip. ‘If that’s true—’

‘It is.’

She couldn’t doubt him when he spoke so certainly. ‘Then it is indeed a sad state of affairs and you have my every sympathy, but—’

‘Don’t repeat your refusal yet, Pandora!’ Rupert rasped forcefully as she was about to do exactly that. ‘Think about it, overnight perhaps, and let me know your decision tomorrow, in the clear light of morning.’

A frown creased her brow. ‘Might I be allowed to finish?’

He straightened at the rebuke. ‘Of course. I apologise.’ He made her a bow.

Pandora nodded coolly. ‘I was about to say that marriage to me may release you from one unacceptable situation, but it will most certainly place you immediately in another. Namely, you would find yourself married to a woman it’s strongly rumoured was unfaithful to her previous husband. Indeed, it’s well known that her husband was killed during a duel he fought with the man believed to be her lover, who also died.’

Rupert couldn’t help but be aware that she used the terms ‘strongly rumoured’ and ‘the man believed to be her lover’. And was that previous husband without fault or blemish himself? He already suspected Barnaby Maybury was far from innocent, and if Rupert had not spent most of the day seeking out Pandora, he might by now have had proof that he was not.

She gave him a startled glance. ‘Would any fault or blemish on his part excuse such behaviour by his wife?’

Rupert studied her through narrowed lids, once again aware that those deep violet-coloured eyes appeared to be hiding many secrets—secrets which the stubborn set of her mouth told him she had no intention of confiding in him.

Secrets, which if Pandora did agree to become his wife, he was equally as determined to exact time and energy in extracting from her!

If she were to become his wife …

A circumstance which didn’t look at all likely at this moment, resulting in Rupert feeling all the more determined that she would accept him!

‘That would depend upon what those faults had been,’ he finally answered her slowly.

She tapped one small foot on the floor. ‘As I have said, there are dozens—probably hundreds—of women in society who would be only too happy to accept a proposal of marriage from you, so why do you persist in pressing me?’

‘I believe hundreds may be an exaggeration, Pandora.’ Rupert eyed her mockingly. ‘As to why I have chosen you over any of them …’ He took a determined step towards her, at once aware of the flush that entered her cheeks and the shallowness of her breathing, evidence—if he should need it—that she was as susceptible to the physical attraction that undoubtedly existed between them as he was. ‘These past few days have shown me that we would deal very well together, Pandora. Both in bed and out of it.’

Her eyes widened as she gasped. ‘You should not talk openly of such things!’

This woman was a complete enigma, Rupert decided somewhat ruefully—which was perhaps one of the reasons for his interest. On the one hand she had been a wife for three years and a widow for one, and not a faithful wife either if rumour were to be believed, and on the other she reacted to any of his more risqué remarks as a young girl might just out of the schoolroom, to the point that she blushed and could no longer meet his gaze. It was, Rupert acknowledged, as intriguing as it was frustrating—as well as succeeding in making him more determined than ever to know all of her secrets.

‘All I’m asking is that you take the time to think on the advantages of becoming my wife, Pandora, before you refuse me out of hand,’ he reasoned softly.

Her cheeks coloured prettily. ‘Advantages?’

‘I wasn’t actually referring to those advantages,’ he teased. ‘As my wife, my Duchess, there would no longer be any need to remove yourself to the country, or for you to relinquish the comfort of your new friendships with the Duchesses of Clayborne and Woollerton,’ he continued quickly as she would have spoken. ‘Something which I am sure you have no real wish to do.’

‘No …’ A light of hope had entered those violet eyes at this last realisation.

Not terribly flattering to Rupert’s own charms, he acknowledged self-derisively, but so determined was he now to secure this woman as his wife that he was not above using any means at his disposal. ‘I will leave you now, Pandora, in order to allow you to consider my offer in peace and solitude.’

‘Oh, but—’

‘I will call again tomorrow for your answer. Your servant, ma’am.’ He made her a formal bow—a completely incongruous politeness considering the two of them had now been conversing in her bedchamber alone for an hour or more!

‘I— Yes.’ Pandora was now too flustered, both by Rupert and his conversation, to do any more than instinctively make a curtsy before ringing the bell for Bentley.

Only to severely admonish herself the moment he had departed her bedchamber in the company of her butler, for not being more insistent that he accept her refusal to his marriage proposal. As things now stood, she must now expect another visit from Rupert Stirling tomorrow!

Which was perhaps what she had really wanted all along …?

Pandora dropped down weakly on to the side of her bed, her thoughts ones of confusion and contradictions. The scandal that still surrounded her past dictated that she could not marry Rupert Stirling. Could she …?

As he had pointed out, if she agreed to marry him, she would no longer be the scandalous Duchess of Wyndwood but the far more respectable Duchess of Stratton, the wife of a man whom no member of the ton would ever dare to challenge regarding the woman he chose to take as his wife, let alone insult that wife within his earshot or out of it.

And as Rupert had also so succinctly pointed out, if she became his wife, then she would no longer have to remove herself from society and retire to the country, or give up the friendships she had with Sophia and Genevieve; after years of not daring to form close friendships, for fear those friends might ask questions about her marriage, she had come to value these two new friendships all the more highly.

Looked at in that particular way, there were no disadvantages to becoming Rupert Stirling’s wife.

Except Rupert Stirling himself …

He was, without doubt, the most annoyingly arrogant man she’d ever met—as well as being the most wickedly handsome and exciting!

As such, how could she, a woman with little or no experience of such things, ever hope to engage his interest for any longer than it took him to bed her and just as quickly become bored by her? Which, she feared, would then place her in a marriage as unhappy as her previous one had been, if for totally different reasons.

No, Pandora could not, in all conscience, accept Rupert’s offer of marriage, and she would tell him so when he called upon her tomorrow.

The matter now settled in her mind, Pandora felt a renewed determination to remove herself from London, and continued with her plans accordingly.

‘—seem to be quite yourself this evening, Rupert?’ Lord Benedict Lucas—Lucifer—prompted lazily that same evening as the two gentlemen sat sprawled in chairs at their club on either side of the small fire burning in the fireplace to dispel the chill of the evening.

Rupert had trouble bringing his attention back to the man sitting opposite him, evidence that he was indeed distracted this evening. ‘Perhaps, Benedict, that’s because I am seriously contemplating the idea of marriage.’

The other man raised dark brows. ‘You are?’

‘Don’t look so surprised, Benedict, when we are both all too aware of exactly the reason I am in need of a wife.’

His friend grimaced. ‘And do you have a particular lady in mind?’

Rupert’s mouth quirked. ‘One with mesmerising violet-coloured eyes.’

Benedict sat up abruptly, all laziness gone from his posture. ‘You surely can’t mean Pandora Maybury?’

Rupert smiled at his friend’s obvious surprise. ‘The very same.’

‘I—but—I’m aware that she attended the opera with you yesterday evening—who in the ton is not!—but— My dear chap, are you sure she is the right choice of bride for you?’ Benedict looked slightly rattled. ‘I mean to say—what of the past scandal?’

Rupert’s humour faded, his eyes becoming glacial. ‘I have long valued our friendship, Benedict, and sincerely hope I will continue to do so for many years to come, but I’ll not allow even you to talk disparagingly of the woman I have asked to become my wife.’

His friend’s brows rose at the iciness of his tone. ‘You have already asked her?’

‘Yes,’ he clipped.

Benedict gave a slightly dazed shake of his head. ‘Then why did you not just tell me that congratulations are in order?’

‘Because they are not. The lady has yet to give me her reply,’ he explained curtly at Benedict’s questioning glance.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Benedict frowned. ‘One would have thought she would have snatched up such an offer so fast you might have lost an arm—or some other vital part of your anatomy!’

Rupert looked pensive. ‘One would have thought a lot of things about Pandora, but it’s now my considered opinion that many of those thoughts would be entirely wrong.’

Benedict eyed him curiously for several long moments before stating, ‘You like her.’

‘I would hardly ask any woman to become my wife whom I did not desire,’ he said evasively.

‘No, I mean you really like her, and not just the beauty of her mesmerising violet eyes or her looks,’ Benedict murmured speculatively.

If he did—and to date Rupert had not allowed himself to think about the subject too deeply—then it was not something he intended to discuss, even with a friend as close as Benedict Lucas. ‘For obvious reasons I am in need of a wife and, because she suits my requirements, I have chosen Pandora Maybury to become that wife,’ he said in a bored voice.

‘And your requirements are …?’

‘Beauty, brains and desirability.’

‘Beauty, brains and desirability …’ Benedict repeated slowly. ‘And what of the ability to produce your heirs? As you know, her marriage to Maybury, although of several years’ duration, was also childless.’

That was a subject Rupert had given even less thought to than his liking for Pandora! Nor did he wish to think about it now. Indeed, Rupert found the idea of Pandora being intimate with another man, even her previous husband, to be utterly distasteful. Which was a decidedly odd state of affairs, coming from a man who could not now recall even the names of some of his own past lovers.

‘I believe that’s a subject for Pandora and me to discuss once we are married,’ he said brusquely.

‘Not before?’

‘My mother once told me that children are a blessing to a marriage, not a God-given right.’

‘And if your new bride fails to give you your heir?’

‘Then she will no doubt earn the heartfelt gratitude of my second cousin Godfrey, who will go on to inherit the title,’ Rupert dismissed. ‘Tell me, what do you know of Maybury himself?’

Benedict shrugged. ‘Not much. He was two or three years our senior, I believe, and not a close acquaintance. I only remember him as being a slender fellow and a bit of a stick in the mud.’

None of which was any help to Rupert whatsoever in his desire to know more of the dead man. ‘Never mind, I’m sure that I’ll be able to persuade Pandora to speak of him herself once we are better acquainted.’

Benedict raised dark, speculative brows. ‘You believe she does mean to accept you, then?’

‘I have no intention of allowing her to refuse me,’ Rupert announced with grim finality. ‘But enough of that, Benedict—how goes it with you?’

‘As always, slowly and carefully.’ His friend shrugged broad shoulders. ‘Now let me tell you of a piece of fine horseflesh I saw at Tattersalls yesterday.’

Rupert accepted the change of subject for the dismissal it was, knowing and accepting that Benedict was not allowed to talk of the work he carried out secretly for the Crown.

Quite why Rupert instructed his driver, much later that night, to travel back to Stratton House by a route that would take him past Pandora’s home, he was unsure. But instruct him he did, only to see that, despite it being after one o’clock in the morning, her house was once again ablaze with candlelight.

Pandora really should talk to her household staff about this profligate waste of—

What the …?

The front door of the house had just been opened by the elderly butler, in order, it seemed, to allow another gentleman to step outside. A man who was dressed completely in black, from his shoes to the hat he was just placing upon his head. As if he did not wish to be seen or recognised?

‘Halt the carriage.’ Rupert sat forwards to give a tap on the roof of his carriage in accompaniment to the instruction. ‘I said stop the damned carriage!’ he repeated harshly when the groom either failed to hear or obey that first instruction.

Rupert barely waited for the carriage to stop before throwing open the door and leaping out on to the cobbled street, his evening cloak billowing about him as he strode forwards confidently to confront the man dressed in black. ‘You, there! Yes, you,’ he confirmed as a pale face was raised to look in his direction. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘And who is enquiring, might I ask?’ came back the cool response.

‘I am the Duke of Stratton and a friend of the lady whose house you have just left in the early hours of the morning,’ Rupert answered haughtily, determined to know exactly what this gentleman had been doing in Pandora’s house at one o’clock in the morning. He knew what it looked as if the fellow had been doing and it was completely unacceptable to him!

The other man eyed him calmly. ‘Indeed?’

‘I have said so, yes,’ Rupert bit out icily.

A challenge the other man met for several seconds before turning to look enquiringly at Bentley as he stood in the doorway behind them, receiving a brief nod of confirmation for his trouble. ‘In that case, I am Constable Smythe, and this is my deputy,’ he added as a younger man in uniform stepped out of the house behind him. ‘We were called to attend these premises earlier tonight after her Grace’s home was broken into and a fire set in that lady’s bedchamber,’ the constable continued evenly.

‘Good God!’ Rupert felt the blood drain from his face. ‘Is Pandora all right?’

‘Her Grace has not been harmed above breathing in some of the smoke from the fire. She is badly shaken, of course—’ Constable Smythe broke off his explanation as Rupert turned on his heel and hurried inside the house.

‘I really am perfectly all right, Henley,’ Pandora assured huskily, and not quite truthfully, as her maid fussed over her as she sat in one of the armchairs in the small parlour which adjoined her bedchamber.

Pandora had been awoken a short time ago to find that the curtains about her bed were ablaze, the heat and choking smoke making it difficult for her to breathe, let alone escape the flames. Only her terrified screams had saved her, bringing Bentley and several of the other servants running to her bedchamber, the elderly butler sweeping her up in his arms and hurrying from the room whilst Cook organised the maids in putting out those flames with bucket after bucket of water brought up from the kitchen.

Even now, over an hour after the flames had been fully doused, Pandora could not bring herself to so much as look at the scorched remains of her bed. Even more disturbing was that the constable Bentley had insisted be called to the house, upon discovering there was also a broken window in the room that had once been Barnaby’s study, had proceeded to question as to whether or not the fire might have been started deliberately, rather than Pandora’s original explanation that she must have somehow fallen asleep and inadvertently knocked over the candle on the table beside her bed.

Pandora had dismissed the constable’s notion as being nonsense, of course. It was unthinkable, inconceivable, that someone could ever deliberately wish to harm her in that dreadful, shocking way.

‘What is all that noise, Henley?’ Pandora frowned her confusion as she heard the sound of raised voices outside in the hallway.

The older woman looked petrified as she turned towards the door.

‘You don’t suppose that he has come back?’

Pandora looked taken aback. ‘Who has come back?’

‘The monster who tried to burn you to death in your bed!’ Henley cringed back as the voices outside grew louder.

Pandora gave a shudder at the lurid way the other woman described the events of earlier, aware that it might all too easily have come true if Pandora hadn’t woken coughing from inhaling too much smoke and then seen the rapidly spreading flames that surrounded her. As it was, her bedcovers and, indeed, the bed itself had almost been consumed before the flames had been brought under control and then extinguished, leaving the bedchamber blackened, and the whole house still filled with the smell of smoke.

Not that Pandora had any ideas of sleeping in her bedchamber tonight. In fact, she wasn’t sure, after the constable had put forward his theory of what might have happened, that she felt safe at the idea of sleeping in this house ever again!

‘—do not remove yourself immediately I shall be forced to physically remove you!’

‘Her Grace is badly shaken—’

‘And you will be shaken until your teeth rattle if you do not step aside by my count of three—’

‘Bentley, I’m sure you may safely allow his Grace the Duke of Stratton entrance,’ Pandora called out wearily as she now all too easily recognised the reason for the disturbance.

Rupert, having been assailed with the smell of smoke as soon as he entered the house, now gave the overprotective butler one last deathly glare as he finally stepped aside in order to allow Rupert to throw open the door to what appeared to be a private parlour. Certainly there was no bed in it, just several small and comfortable-looking chairs and delicate tables bearing books and vases of flowers.

Pandora was seated in one of those armchairs and being fussed over by the same irritating woman from two days ago. Her golden curls were loose down the slenderness of her back and in complete disarray—golden curls that were indeed long enough to cover those generous firm breasts. Her violet-coloured eyes were so huge and dark they appeared purple in her pale, soot-blackened face and her silk-and-lace lilac-coloured robe also bore signs of the recent fire in the dark smudges upon the lace cuffs and hem, as did the matching satin slippers upon her tiny feet.

Indeed, Rupert could smell the smoke even more strongly in this room, easily guessing that her bedchamber was through one of the two doors leading off this room. Something he had every intention of viewing at a more convenient time. For the moment Pandora was his prime concern …

‘Please go,’ he softly instructed the woman Pandora called Henley, relieved when she instantly obeyed; he had even less patience to deal with the woman’s histrionics tonight. ‘Are you injured?’ Rupert instantly moved down on to his haunches beside Pandora before reaching out and taking one of her delicate soot-smudged hands into his much larger ones.

‘I wish that you had not shouted at Bentley,’ she reproved gruffly. ‘If not for him I might—’ She came to a halt, her throat moving convulsively as she swallowed. ‘It was he who braved the flames and carried me from my bedchamber.’

‘Then before I leave he shall have my apology and my heartfelt gratitude,’ Rupert assured firmly. ‘But, for now—are you injured above what I can see?’ he queried gently, having winced as he became aware of several patches of redness on her hands, as if she might have tried to beat out the flames with them before Bentley came to her rescue.

‘I am unharmed.’ Her voice sounded far more husky than usual, and in any other circumstances Rupert knew he would have found it sensually arousing. As it was, he was well aware that it was the dangerous inhalation of the smoke, which now caused Pandora to talk so throatily.

He now looked up at her searchingly, his mouth tightening as he saw the fear lurking in the depths of those purple eyes that looked directly back into his, a transparent delicacy to her ivory-coloured skin and the trembling of the softness of her bottom lip. Even her pointed and stubborn little chin seemed to have a new vulnerability about it.

Rupert made his decision quickly. ‘You cannot remain here.’ He stood up abruptly, his expression grim as he bent down to scoop her up effortlessly into his arms.

‘Rupert!’ Pandora squeaked in protest even as her arms moved up about his shoulders. ‘Where are you taking me?’ she gasped as Rupert walked purposefully from the parlour, only to come to an abrupt halt when they discovered Bentley standing guard outside in the hallway.

Rupert paused to address the older man with grave sincerity. ‘I believe I owe you an apology for my behaviour just now, and my sincere gratitude for your bravery earlier in regard to her Grace’s welfare, as well as your astuteness of mind in drawing this incident to the attention of the authorities.’

‘Her Grace has become as dear to me as either of my own two granddaughters,’ the butler answered stiffly. ‘As she is to all of us here who have been lucky enough to find employment in her household.’

Rupert nodded as he remembered how Pandora’s kindness had resulted in her hiring servants who might otherwise not have found employment—a kindness which had most certainly been to her benefit tonight. ‘Her Grace will return in the next few days in order to close up this house, after which you may be assured that there will be employment for all of you here in one of the Duke of Stratton’s households.’

‘Rupert—’

‘Yes, Pandora?’ He did not so much as spare her a glance as he turned towards the staircase.

She looked up into his grim countenance, not at all sure what he had meant by that last remark. ‘If, as you said, I am to return in a few days, then I must be going somewhere else.’

‘Indeed.’

‘Where?’

‘Home, of course.’

‘I—’ She blinked. ‘But I am already home.’

‘My home,’ Rupert stated. ‘It is my own home to which I am taking you, Pandora.’

She stared up at him in disbelief, sure that Rupert couldn’t possibly intend removing her from this house wearing only her satin and lace—and scorched—nightclothes!