But she touched his arm, and the contact froze him. A wild image of her rounded form lying beneath him as he pressed his length into her softness filled his head. That couldn’t be a true memory, he knew. Was he still delirious? His body seemed to know hers.
“You’ve been ill,” she was saying, speaking slowly and firmly as if to a small child or a village idiot.
“I—” he began, but she was crowding him, moving him inexorably backward, and the only way to continue forward would be to push past her and perhaps hurt her.
His entire being recoiled at the thought.
So, slowly, gently, she maneuvered him into the scarlet room until he was staring down at her bemusedly by the bed again.
Who was this female?
“Who are you?” he repeated.
Her brows knit. “Can’t you remember? I’ve already told you. I’m Beatrice—”
“Corning,” he finished for her impatiently. “Yes, that I understand. What I don’t understand is why you’re in my father’s house.”
A wary expression crossed her face, so quickly he almost thought he’d imagined it. But he hadn’t. She was hiding something from him, and his senses were put on the alert. He glanced uneasily around the room. He was cornered here if an enemy attacked. He’d have to fight his way to the door, and there wasn’t much room to maneuver.
“I live here with my uncle,” she said soothingly, as if she sensed his thoughts. “Can you tell me where you’ve been? What has happened to you?”
“No.” Brown eyes stared up through a mask of blood, dull and lifeless. He shook his head violently, banishing the phantom. “No!”
“It’s all right.” Her gray eyes had widened in alarm. “You don’t have to tell me. Now, if you’ll just lie down again—”
“Who is your uncle?” He could feel some imminent danger raising the hairs on the back of his neck.
She closed her eyes and then looked at him frankly. “My uncle is Reginald St. Aubyn, the Earl of Blanchard.”
He gripped his knife harder. “What?”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “You need to lie down.”
He grasped her arm. “What did you say?”
Her pink tongue darted out to lick her lips, and he realized, incongruously, that she smelled of flowers.
“Your father died five years ago,” she said. “You were thought dead, so my uncle claimed the title.”
Not home, then, he thought bitterly. Not home at all.
“WELL, THAT MUST’VE been awkward,” Lottie said with her usual bluntness the next afternoon.
“It was simply terrible.” Beatrice sighed. “He had no idea, of course, that his father was dead, and there he was holding that huge knife. I was quite nervous, half expecting him to do something violent, but instead he became very, very quiet, which was almost worse.”
Beatrice frowned, remembering the pang of sympathy that’d shot through her at Lord Hope’s stillness. She shouldn’t feel sympathy for a man who might strip Uncle Reggie of his title and their home, but there it was. She couldn’t help but ache for his loss.
She took a sip of tea. Lottie always had such good tea—nice and strong—which was perhaps why she’d fallen into the habit of calling round the Graham town house every Tuesday afternoon for tea and gossip. Lottie’s private sitting room was so elegant, decorated in deep rose and a grayish sort of green one might think was dull but was actually the perfect complement for the rose. Lottie was extraordinarily good with colors and always looked so smart that sometimes Beatrice wondered if she’d bought Pan, her little white Pomeranian, just because he looked so smart as well.
Beatrice eyed the little dog, lying like a miniature fur rug at their feet, alert to the possibility of biscuit crumbs.
“The quiet gentlemen are the ones you have to watch out for,” Lottie stated as she judiciously added a small lump of sugar to her tea.
It took a second for Beatrice to remember the thread of their conversation. Then she said, “Well, he wasn’t very quiet when he first appeared.”
“No, indeed,” Lottie said contentedly. “I thought he’d strangle you.”
“You sound rather thrilled by the prospect,” Beatrice said severely.
“It would give me a tale to dine out on for a year or more, you must admit,” Lottie replied with no trace of shame. She sipped her tea, wrinkled her nose, and added another tiny lump of sugar. “No, it’s been three days, and I’ve heard nothing else but the story of the lost earl bursting into your little political tea.”
“Uncle Reggie said we’d be the talk of the town,” Beatrice said dolefully.
“And for once he’s right.” Lottie tried her tea again and must’ve found it palatable, because she smiled and set aside her cup. “Now tell me: is he or is he not truly Lord Hope?”
“I think he must be,” Beatrice said slowly, choosing a biscuit from the tray on the tiny table between them. Pan raised his head and followed her hand as she transferred the pastry to her plate. “But so far no one who actually knew him from before the war has seen him.”
Lottie looked up from selecting her own biscuit. “What, no one? He has a sister, doesn’t he?”
“In the Colonies.” Beatrice bit into her biscuit and said somewhat indistinctly, “There’s an aunt as well, but she’s somewhere abroad. Her butler was rather vague. And Uncle Reggie said he’d met Hope, but the viscount had been a boy of ten or so at the time, so it doesn’t help.”
“Well, then, what about friends?” Lottie asked.
“He’s too ill to go out yet.” Beatrice bit her lip. It had taken all her powers of persuasion to keep Lord Hope in the scarlet bedroom this morning. “We have sent word to the man who said he witnessed Hope’s death—Viscount Vale.”
“And?”
Beatrice shrugged. “He’s at his country estate. It may be days before he can come.”
“Well! Then you shall simply have to play nurse to a wickedly handsome man—even if he has far too much hair at the moment—who is either a long-lost earl or a black scoundrel who might imperil your virtue. I must say I’m terribly jealous.”
Beatrice glanced down at Pan, who had discovered a fallen lump of sugar near her chair. Lottie’s words made her think of the viscount’s body on hers and how very heavy it had been. How she had, for a small second, almost feared for her life.
“Beatrice?”
Oh, dear. Lottie was sitting bolt upright, her nose practically twitching.
Beatrice affected an unconcerned look. “Yes?”
“Don’t you yes me, Beatrice Rosemary Corning. You sound as if butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth! What happened?”
Beatrice winced. “Well, he was somewhat delirious that first afternoon . . .”
“Ye-es?”
“And when we took him to a bedroom—”
“Something happened in a bedroom?”
“It really wasn’t his fault—”
“Oh, my goodness!”
“But somehow he pulled me down on the bed and he fell, too.” Beatrice glanced at Lottie’s excited face and closed her eyes very tightly to say, “On top of me.”
There was a small silence.
Beatrice peeked.
Lottie was goggling at her and seemed—miraculously—speechless.
“Nothing happened, really,” Beatrice said somewhat weakly.
“Nothing!” Lottie found her power of speech to nearly shout. “You were compromised.”
“No, I wasn’t. The footmen were there.”
“Footmen don’t count,” Lottie said, and rose to yank vigorously on the bellpull.
“Of course footmen count,” Beatrice said. “There were three of them. What are you doing?”
“Ringing for more tea.” Lottie looked critically at the demolished tea tray. “We’ll need another pot and a new plate of biscuits, too, I think.”
Beatrice looked down at her hands. “The thing is . . .”
“Yes?”
Beatrice took a breath and looked
at her suddenly sober friend. “He was rather frightening, Lottie.”
Lottie sat down, her pretty lips tightening. “Did he hurt you?”
“No. At least”—Beatrice shook her head—“for a moment I couldn’t breathe. But that was nothing. It was the look in his eyes. As if he wouldn’t mind killing me.” She scrunched her nose. “You must think me a fool.”
“Of course not, dear.” Lottie bit her lip. “Are you sure he’s safe to have in your uncle’s house?”
“I don’t know,” Beatrice admitted. “But what else are we to do? If we throw him into the street and he is the earl, we’ll be judged most harshly. He might bring criminal proceedings against my uncle. I have taken the precaution of posting guards at his door.”
“That sounds wise.” Lottie still looked troubled. “Have you thought what you’ll do if he is the earl?”
The maid trotted in at that moment, distracting Lottie and saving Beatrice from having to answer her friend. The truth was that her chest began to tighten in a panicked sort of way when she thought of what the future might bring. If the man in the scarlet bedroom was Viscount Hope and if he succeeded in taking back the title, both she and Uncle Reggie would be out of their home. They’d lose the estates and monies they’d become used to in the last five years, and that would aggravate Uncle Reggie terribly. What would such a situation do to him? He might protest that the apoplexy attack he’d had was nothing, but she’d seen his white, sweaty face and the way he’d gasped for breath. Just the memory made her press her hand to her chest. Dear God, she couldn’t lose Uncle Reggie, too.
And she truly didn’t want to discuss the matter at the moment.
So when Lottie plopped back down on her exquisite white and rose striped settee and looked at her expectantly, Beatrice smiled and said, “I thought we were to discuss Mr. Graham and the veteran’s bill today. I’ve had word that Mr. Wheaton would like to have another secret meeting before—”
“Oh, pooh on Nate and the veteran’s bill.” Lottie pulled a tasseled gold silk cushion on her lap and hugged it. “I’m sick to death of politics and husbands as well.”
The maid bustled back in with a laden tray at that minute. Beatrice watched her friend as the fresh tea things were arranged. Lottie always spoke carelessly, but Beatrice was beginning to worry that something was really wrong between her and Mr. Graham. They’d had a fashionable marriage, of course. Nathan Graham was the scion of a rather new wealthy family, while Lottie came from an old but impoverished name. Theirs had been an eminently practical union, but Beatrice thought it had been a love match as well—at least on Lottie’s part. Had she been wrong?
The maid bustled out again, and Beatrice said softly, “Lottie . . .”
Her friend was pouring the tea, her gaze resolutely fixed on the teapot in her hand. “Did you hear that Lady Hasselthorpe cut Mrs. Hunt dead at the Fothering’s musicale yesterday? I’ve heard wild speculation that it signals Lord Hasselthorpe’s disapproval of Mr. Hunt, but one can’t help wonder if Lady Hasselthorpe did it entirely accidentally. She is such a ninny.”
Lottie held out a full teacup, and maybe it was her imagination, but Beatrice thought she saw pleading in her friend’s eyes. And what could she do? She was a maiden who’d reached the overripe age of four and twenty without ever receiving an offer. What did she know about matters of the heart anyway?
Beatrice sighed silently and took the teacup. “And how did Mrs. Hunt respond?”
THE PROBLEM WITH marriage, Lottie Graham reflected, was that there was such a difference between what one dreamed the matrimonial state would be like and, well, the reality.
Lottie sat back down on her settee—Wallace and Sons, bought just last year for a truly scandalous sum—and stared at the cooling tea things. She’d seen Beatrice to the door after babbling at her dearest friend in the world for a solid half hour. Poor Beatrice must heartily regret coming over for their weekly tea.
Lottie sighed and plucked the last biscuit from the plate, crumbling it between her fingers. Darling Pan came to sit beside her skirts, his foxy little face grinning up at her.
“It’s not good for you, so many sweets,” Lottie murmured, but she gave a bit of the biscuit to him anyway. He delicately took the treat between his sharp little teeth and retired with his prize beneath the gilded French armchair.
Lottie slumped into the settee, laying her arm wearily along the back. Perhaps she expected too much. Perhaps it was girlish fantasies that she should’ve outgrown long ago. Perhaps all marriages, even the very best like her own mama and papa’s, ultimately settled into dreary indifference, and she was simply being a ninny like Lady Hasselthorpe.
Annie, the head downstairs maid, came in to gather up the tea things. She glanced at Lottie and said hesitantly, “Will there be anything else, ma’am?”
Oh, God, even the servants sensed it.
Lottie straightened a little, trying to look serene. “No, that’ll be all.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Annie curtsied. “Cook was wanting to know if there’ll be one or two for supper tonight?”
“Just one,” Lottie muttered, and turned her face away.
Annie left the room quietly.
She sat there, draped on the settee, for some time, thinking wild thoughts until the door opened again a bit later.
Nate strolled in and then stopped. “Oh, sorry! Didn’t mean to disturb you. I didn’t know anyone was in here.”
At Nate’s voice, Pan emerged from under the armchair and pranced over to be patted. Pan had adored Nate from the very beginning.
Lottie wrinkled her nose at her pet and then said rather carelessly to Nate, “I didn’t know you’d be home for dinner. I just told Cook there’d be only one.”
“That’s all right.” Nate straightened from Pan and gave her one of his wide, easy smiles—the smile that had first made her heart quicken. “I’m dining with Collins and Rupert tonight. I just stopped in to see if I’d left that Whig pamphlet here. Rupert’s interested in seeing it. Ah. There ’tis.”
Nate crossed to a table in the corner, where a messy pile of papers lay, snatching up the pamphlet in evident satisfaction. He returned to the door, engrossed in the pamphlet, and only as an afterthought did he look up as he was about to leave.
He frowned rather vaguely at Lottie. “I say, that’s all right, isn’t it? I mean, me dining out with Collins and Rupert? I thought you were attending some other social event when I made the plan.”
Lottie lifted her brow and said loftily, “Oh, don’t mind me. I’m—”
But she was talking to his back.
“Good, good. Knew you’d understand.” And he was out the door, his nose buried in that wretched pamphlet.
Lottie blew out a breath and threw a small cushion at the door, making Pan start and yip.
“Married two years and he’s more interested in dinner with a couple of boring old men than me!”
Pan jumped onto the settee beside her—which he was strictly forbidden to do—and licked her on the nose.
Whereupon Lottie burst into tears.
FOUR AND TWENTY and never even an offer.
The thought repeated in Beatrice’s head all the way home, a nasty little chant. She’d never put her unmarried state into such blunt terms before. Where had the time gone? It wasn’t as if she spent her days mooning about, waiting to start a life when the right gentleman finally presented himself. No, she led a busy life, a full life, she reminded herself, albeit somewhat defensively. Because Uncle Reggie had been widowed the last ten years, she’d practically grown up learning to hostess for him. And while political teas, dinners, house parties, and the yearly ball might be a tad dull, they were quite a job to manage.
To be fair, she had been courted. Just last spring, Mr. Matthew Horn had seemed quite interested—before he’d shot himself in the head, poor man. And she’d once come very close to an offer of marriage. Mr. Freddy Finch—the second son of an earl, no less—had been dashing and funny and had kissed her so sweetly.
He’d escorted her for the better part of a season several years ago. She had enjoyed their outings—had enjoyed Freddy—but not, as she finally realized, in any special way. She was happy to go with him on a carriage ride, but if he had to call off for some reason, she was only a little disappointed. Her own complacency she might’ve lived with, but she’d suspected that Freddy’s emotions were no more entangled than her own, and she couldn’t live with that in a marriage. When she married—if she married—she wanted a gentleman who was wildly, passionately in love with her.
A man who would never abandon her.
So she’d broken it off with Freddy, not in any dramatic way, but simply by seeing him less and less often, eventually drifting away from him. She’d been correct in her assessment of his emotional attachment, too, because not once had Freddy protested her drawing away. A year later, he’d married Guinevere Crestwood, a rather plain lady who ran a tea party like an army campaign.
Was she jealous? Beatrice stared out the carriage window while she examined her feelings, taking care to be quite honest with herself, for she despised self-deception. She shook her head. No, she could honestly say that she was not jealous of the new Mrs. Finch, even if her toddlers were quite adorable. The adorable toddlers might grow up to have Guinevere’s enormous canine teeth for one thing, and for another, well, Freddy was funny and charming and quite nice-looking, but he hadn’t been in love with Beatrice. Perhaps Freddy had fallen passionately in love with Guinevere, but Beatrice rather doubted it.
And that was the crux of the matter, was it not? None of the gentlemen whom she’d driven in carriages with and danced with and strolled with had been interested in her with any real depth of feeling. They complimented her gowns, smiled as they danced with her, but never truly saw her—the woman behind the facade. Perhaps a marriage without passion was enough for Guinevere Crestwood, but it wasn’t enough for her.
She remembered now coming home from a ball, a year or more ago, and strolling into the blue sitting room and just gazing at Lord Hope’s portrait. He’d seemed alive with passion. Next to him—even as a flat, painted image—all the other gentlemen she knew faded into the background like transparent ghosts. He was more real, even then when she’d thought him long dead, than those flesh-and-blood gentlemen who’d squired her only hours before.