Duchess Quartet - A Wild Pursuit Part 6

"If you repeat that comment one more time, you'll never see me again." His voice was calm, but the fury there made the marchioness blink.

She rallied quickly. "Don't be a fool!" she said sharply. "In my estimation, the gossip probably didn't cover half of what she did. I know for a fact-" Her eyes widened, and Sebastian saw that she had only just grasped the full ramifications of the situation.

"You to marry her! You, who killed her husband?"

"I did not kill her husband," Sebastian said, standing taller. "Rawlings's heart failed him on my unexpected entry to the chamber."

"You killed her husband," his mother said. "You entered that room looking for the bed of your d.u.c.h.ess-oh, don't give me that folderol about a false wedding certificate. I don't believe common gossip. You had been bedding the d.u.c.h.ess, but you crawled into the wrong bedchamber and encountered a husband. I call that killing the man! In my day"-she said it with grim triumph-"a man ascertained whose door he was entering before he did so."

Sebastian suppressed a grimace. "I mistook the room," he said stolidly, "and it had an unfortunate effect."

"Then why in the name of blazes should you marry the woman? A mistaken notion of paying for your crimes? If so, I shall have the vicar speak to you. Because one can overemphasize the doctrine of reconciliation, and marrying a doxy simply because one killed her husband is Going Too Far."

Sebastian sighed and looked about him. He was tired of standing like a schoolboy before his mother. She was perched on a thronelike chair in which the Regent would have felt comfortable, fitted out with claw feet and serpentine arms. He spotted a reasonably comfortable chair in the corner and strode over to fetch it.

"What are you doing?" his mother barked. "I didn't give you permission to sit down, Bonnington!"

"My name is Sebastian," he said, putting down the chair with a decisive thump and seating himself directly before her. "My name is Sebastian, and I am your son. Your only son. It would make me feel a great deal more comfortable if you did not refer to me as having killed Lord Rawlings. He had a weak heart, and the doctor had given him until the end of the summer. It was truly unfortunate that I was the cause of his seizure-and I would give anything to have not instigated that episode. But I did not kill him."

The marchioness blinked. Her ever-courteous, ever-proper, almost boring son appeared to be showing a little backbone for the first time in his life. She didn't know whether to be pleased or horrified.

She chose horrified.

"The only man with whom I have ever been on a first-name basis was your father," she said with some distaste, "and that only in the most intimate of situations. You, Bonnington, are my son, and as such should offer me only the greatest respect."

He inclined his head. "And that I do, Mother." But he stayed seated. He had her looks, that son of hers. When she was young, men wore their hair powered and women wore patches. But it would be a pity if Sebastian powdered his hair. He had her hair, the color of suns.h.i.+ne, that's what Graham called it. Of course, Graham hadn't been bad-looking either. Those were his deep-set eyes looking at her. After her first husband died, she had married the most handsome man in London, and if Graham Bonnington wasn't a lively conversationalist, he knew his place. He listened to her. She said enough for both of them.

She thumped her stick on the floor. The stick made some of the younger servants quite ill with anxiety, but her son merely glanced at the floor, as if checking for scuff marks. She decided to stay with the most crucial point.

"You cannot marry a doxy out of some misplaced sense of obligation. The Bonningtons are an ancient and respected family. Make Lady Rawlings an allowance, if you must. The estate can certainly bear the cost."

"I intend to marry her," Sebastian said. "But not out of obligation."

"No?" She invested the word with as much scorn as she could.

"No. I love her."

The marchioness closed her eyes for a moment. The day had begun with the unpleasant shock of seeing her son in England, and it was rapidly turning into something truly odious.

"We don't marry out of love," she sat flatly. "Marry a decent woman, and you can always see about Lady Rawlings later."

"I love her, and I will marry her."

"I believe I have fallen into a comic opera. And I detest musical theater. Are you planning to break into song?"

"Not at this moment."

"Let me see if I understand you: you feel yourself to be in love with a doxy who has shared her bedchamber with half the men of London, and whose husband you didn't kill, but certainly helped to his grave?"

"This is your last warning, Mother." He said it through clenched teeth. "You speak of the woman I intend to marry, who will be marchioness after you. Speak so again, and you will have no part in our life."

The marchioness rose with some difficulty-the gout in her left foot was growing worse by the moment-and thumped her stick for good emphasis, although it seemed to have little effect. She was pleased to note that her son rose when she did. At least he hadn't discarded all manners.

"The day you marry that doxy, I shall disown you," she said, as if she were commenting on the weather. "But I am quite certain that you knew that would be the outcome. I may remind you that my portion is not inconsiderable. Any child you-"

Sebastian groaned inwardly. The other shoe had dropped.

"By G.o.d, the woman is enceinte! I'd forgotten that trollop is carrying a child. Tell me you are not planning to marry Esme Rawlings before that child is born!"

Sebastian toyed with the idea of threatening to marry Esme tomorrow, an action that would make her unborn child his heir. But he didn't want to be responsible for his mother having heart palpitations. Miles Rawlings's death already weighed heavily on his conscience. More to the point, Esme still refused to marry him at all.

"Lady Rawlings has not accepted me," he admitted.

A look of grim satisfaction crossed his mother's face. "Well, at least someone is showing intelligence. Of course she won't accept you. You killed her husband." She began to stump her way toward the door. "I don't know where you got this devilishly self-sacrificing side to you. Your father didn't show any penchant for that sort of nonsense."

Suddenly Sebastian felt his temper, which had been growing at a steady rate, flare into life. He walked around his mother and stopped before the door.

"Move aside!" she said.

"I will make Esme Rawlings marry me. She will accept me because she loves me as well. Moreover, I shall expect you to attend the wedding and behave in a respectable fas.h.i.+on."

"There won't be a wedding," his mother replied calmly. "I felt a momentary anxiety, true. But from what I know of her, Esme Rawlings is as intelligent as she is dissolute. She won't marry you. She won't even think of it. I've no doubt but what Rawlings left her warm enough in the pocket, and a woman like that doesn't need a protector, or yet a husband either. Now if you'll excuse me, I will return to my chamber."

And she walked past him.

Sebastian spun on his heel and walked over to the other side of the room. He looked down at his clenched fist, pulling it back on the point of putting it through the window. His mother had said no more than Esme herself had done, although she had never said he wasn't the one to father her child. But she probably thought it. How could a man serve as father to a babe when the whole world-his mother included-thought he'd killed the child's true father?

Sebastian Bonnington had faced few obstacles in his life. Thanks to his mother, he was both remarkably beautiful for a man and rigidly aware of proprieties. When other men strayed to mistresses and gambling, losing their estates and their minds in dissolute activities, he had watched and not partaken. Before he'd met Esme, in fact, he had never even felt the urge to commit an indecorous act.

He shook his head, staring blindly at the garden. Oh, he loved Esme's delicious curves and her beauty, but it was her eyes that he found irresistible. There was no other woman in the world with eyes at once seductively enchanting and secretly sad. They had taken his head, robbed his heart, and stolen his senses. Something about her made him love her, w.i.l.l.y-nilly.

And if to love her and to marry her was indecorous or foolish, he had no choice in the matter. All he had to do was convince her of the same.

Chapter 7.

A Saint, a Sinner, and a Goat.

Lady Beatrix Lennox was bored. There wasn't a man to flirt with in the entire house. Lord Winnamore was eligible, but he was hopelessly besotted with Arabella. Too old, naturally, although he was curiously attractive in a ponderous kind of way. But Bea would never, ever take a man from her G.o.dmother. She wasn't proud of many of her characteristics, but she had always been loyal.

Bea drifted over to the mirror and practiced a seductive pout. She had dressed herself for a walk, but she didn't know why: there was nothing she found more tedious than the countryside. In fact, the very idea of traipsing through a meadow, gazing at cows, filled her with boredom.

Yet here she was, dressed up like a trussed turkey. In fact, distinctly like a turkey, given that she was wearing a walking dress of Austrian green, exuberantly adorned with ribbons. Little bows marched all the way up her bodice, the better to emphasize her bosom (amply padded with cotton). But there was no one in the house to enjoy it.

Except, of course, Mr. Fairfax-Lacy.

Mr. Fairfax-Lacy had one of those lean, well-bred faces that would have looked as attractive in an Elizabethan ruff as it did in fas.h.i.+onable garb. His grandfather probably wore one of those huge collars. Still, Elizabethans in portraits always seemed to have slightly piggish, avaricious eyes, whereas Fairfax-Lacy had- A curt voice made her jump. "Lady Beatrix, your G.o.dmother is going to the village for a brief visit. Would you like to join her?"

Talk of the devil. She turned around slowly and gave Mr. Fairfax-Lacy a smouldering look, just for practice. The one that began just at the edge of her eyes and then turned into a promise.

He looked unmoved. Indifferent, as a matter of fact. "Lady Beatrix?"

A pox on his well-bred nature! He really was a Puritan. Or perhaps he was simply too old to play. He had to be forty. Still, the combination of her reputation and personal a.s.sets had made Bea widely admired by the male gender, irrespective of age.

She sauntered over to him and put her hand on his arm. His eyes didn't even flicker in the direction of her bosom, something she found quite disappointing, given the amount of cotton she had bundled under her chemise. "I would rather take a walk," she said. He was much better looking than a cow, after all; his presence might make a country stroll palatable.

"It has been raining on and off all day. Perhaps tomorrow would be a more pleasant experience for you."

"Oh, but I love rain!" she said, giving her sweetest smile, the one that always accompanied outrageous fibs.

Sure enough, he responded like a parrot: "In that case, I would be enchanted to accompany you." But was there a trace of irony in that enchanted? Did the Boring Puritan have a little bit of depth to him after all?

Bea thought about that while the footman fetched her spencer. Luckily her walking costume came with a matching parasol, because the idea of allowing even a drop of rain to disorder her face or hair made her s.h.i.+ver.

It was appalling to see how wet it was outside. Bea could hardly say that she didn't want her little jean half-boots to touch the ground, given as she'd squealed about loving rain. So she picked her way over the cobblestones in front of the house, hanging onto Mr. Fairfax-Lacy's arm so that she didn't topple over and spoil her spencer with rainwater.

At least he seemed to be enjoying himself. She sneaked a look, and he was smiling as they started down a country lane-a messy, dirty little path guaranteed to ruin her boots. Oh well. Bea had had lots of practice saying goodbye to people and things-her sisters, her father-what was a pair of boots? She let go of Fairfax-Lacy's arm and tramped along on her own. The path was lined with sooty-looking, th.o.r.n.y bushes with nary a flower to be seen.

He wasn't exactly the best conversationalist in the world. In fact, he didn't say a word. Bea had to admit that the landscape was rather pretty, with all those sparkling drops hanging off branches (waiting to destroy one's clothing, but one mustn't be squeamish about it). And the birds were singing, and so forth. She even saw a yellow flower that was rather nice, although mud-splattered.

"Look!" she said, trying to be friendly. "A daffodil."

"Yellow celandine," her companion said curtly.

After that, Bea gave up the effort of conversation and just tramped along. Helene was welcome to the Puritan. In the city there was always someone to look at: an old woman peddling lavender, a dandy wearing three watch fobs, a young buck trying to catch his whip. Bea found the street endlessly amusing.

But here! This lane had only one inhabitant.

"h.e.l.lo, there," Fairfax-Lacy said, and he had a gentle smile on his face that she'd never seen before. He had nice creases around his eyes when he smiled like that. Of course, it would all be rather more attractive if he weren't scratching a goat.

The man ignored her cotton-enhanced bosom and saved his smiles for a goat! Still, the goat seemed to be the only object of interest, so Bea poked her way across the lane. The animal stuck its wicked-looking face over the gate and rolled an eye in her direction.

"He looks quite satanic," she said. She'd seen that face before, in the grandest ballrooms in London. "Evil, really."

"He's just an old billy goat," Fairfax-Lacy said, scratching the goat under his chin. The goat had a nasty-looking beard, as if it had been partially eaten while he wasn't watching.

"Aren't you worried that you will catch fleas?"

"Not particularly, given that goats don't carry fleas."

Well, that was an exciting exchange. Bea was just standing there, thinking about how hairy the goat's ears were, when the beast suddenly turned its head and clamped its yellowing teeth on the sleeve of her spencer. Luckily it was belled, in the Russian style, and he didn't manage to chomp her arm, although that was undoubtedly his intention.

"Help!" she shrieked, tugging at her spencer. The goat rolled its eyes at her and bared its teeth but didn't let go of her sleeve.

Instead, he began to back up, and a second later Bea found herself plastered against an extremely wet fence, desperately trying to pull her sleeve away from the monster's mouth as it tried to back into the field.

"Do something!" she bellowed at Fairfax-Lacy. She was shocked to see that he was trying to conceal the fact that he was laughing. Quite overcome by laughter, in fact.

"You b.l.o.o.d.y beast!"

"Me or the animal?"

"Either! Get-this-animal-now!"

"At your service!" He hopped over the fence and approached the billy goat. But for all the fact that Fairfax-Lacy had been on the very best of terms with the animal a moment before, it wasn't very loyal. As soon as Fairfax-Lacy got close, the goat's rear leg shot out, caught him on the hip, and tossed him into a mud puddle.

Bea was trying to get her left arm out of her spencer. It was difficult trying to squirm out of the garment while hanging onto a fencepost. But even with such pressing business at hand, she stopped to have a laugh at Fairfax-Lacy's expense.

He shot her a level look and got up. He was plastered with mud from his shoulders to his knees. Even his hair was flecked with brown.

Bea was laughing so hard that her stomach hurt. "What sort of mud is it?" she called out, breaking into a fresh storm of giggles.

"The kind women slap on their faces to improve their complexions," he growled over his shoulder. "May I bring you a handful?" This time he managed to avoid the goat's kick, but he couldn't get close enough to grab her spencer. Every time he approached the animal, it bared its ugly yellow teeth and kicked at him again.

Finally Fairfax-Lacy turned back to her. "Take it off."

"What do you think I'm trying to do?" Bea cried, all laughter disappearing from her voice.

"He's eaten the sleeve already."

"b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l!"

"You swear far too much," the Puritan said.

"I swear just as much as I wish to," Bea retorted, starting to unb.u.t.ton. The goat hadn't given an inch; it just stood there chewing on her sleeve as if he was making a supper of it.

"You're going to have to help me," she finally said sourly. "I can't unb.u.t.ton the rest without letting go of the fencepost. And if I do that he'll undoubtedly drag me straight over the fence." She eyed Fairfax-Lacy. "Not that I want you anywhere near me. Does that mud smell as potent as it looks?"

"Yes," he said, sauntering over to her.

He was the most infuriating man. This was literally-literally!-the first look he'd given her that acknowledged her as a woman. In fact, it was as if he were seeing her for the first time. He didn't look Elizabethan at all. He looked...

Bea's stomach took a funny little hop, and she felt a wave of unaccountable shyness. So she kept her eyes down as he unb.u.t.toned the rest of her spencer. It was all very romantic, what with the odoriferousness of his person and the grinding sound of a goat munching her extravagantly expensive garment.

Once it was unb.u.t.toned, she managed to squirm the rest of the way out of her left sleeve, and then quickly shed the right. One could have sworn that the goat had been waiting for that moment. The very second her body was free of the spencer he took a bigger bite and then bared his teeth in a smile.

Bea felt a wave of anger. "Go get him!" she ordered the Puritan.

He laughed. He was still looking at her as if she were a person, rather than an annoying insect, but Bea didn't let that distract her.

"Then I shall do so myself," she said, unlatching the gate and pus.h.i.+ng it open. There was a ghastly squis.h.i.+ng noise as her boot sank into brown muck. Bea ignored it.

He closed the gate behind her and leaned on it with a huge grin on his face. She thought about sticking her tongue out at him and rethought it. She was twenty-three, after all.