Beyond A Wicked Kiss (46 page)

"Marriage?" Ria had to swallow hard to dislodge the word from her throat. "Were you advocating or opposing?"

"I was proposing."

This time Ria did not try to force a response. She came perilously close to gaping at him.

"I see that you are not prepared to answer the question I put to you in every one of my letters." Before she could give any indication that this was true, West stood and turned his back on her. He drew a short, steadying breath. "It is just as well," he said, striding toward the bell pull. He gave it two sharp tugs. "I have gone about the thing badly. It deserves a prettier speech, even if I am to be rejected." Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that Ria was hardly yet recovered. She looked paler now than at any time since she entered the room. "When did you last eat?" he asked. "Did you make the journey from Gillhollow in two or three days?"

"Three," she said, shaking off her torpor. "And it does not matter when I ate last. I am not hungry. But I should like to know if you have a pretty speech at the ready."

"No."

"Will you not say it plainly, then?"

"Will you marry me?"

"That
is
plain."

"I believe I mentioned that." He regarded her closely, but for once Ria's thoughts were shuttered from him. "Well?"

"No," she said quietly.

"That is also plain."

She nodded, her smile slightly rueful. "I think I should like to hear the prettier speech."

"Of course." West opened the door to his valet's knock. "Rouse Mr. Blaine. I want a light repast for my guest. I will also need a cab that can take Miss Ashby to the residence on Oxford Street. Make certain the driver is not deep in his cups and gives a good accounting of himself. Mrs. Corbell should accompany her and see that everything is made ready there."

Ria started to protest, but West stepped into the hallway and gave the last of his instructions to Finch there. When he reentered the room, Ria was visibly resigned to him having his way.

"I did not think you would send me away," she said. "I suppose that was foolish of me."

"I am not sending you away. I am sending you away for what remains of the night. You cannot stay here. There is no suitable chaperone, and you are familiar with the house where the duke lived when he was in town. I have not cared to make it my home, but there is no reason you cannot stay there. In the morning I will send a letter around to Lady Northam. I think she will be willing to accompany you as necessary so that we may meet without rumor attaching itself to us."

"You are my guardian. There is no reason I cannot be alone in your company."

"Rumor knows no reason. I have heard so much idle talk taken as fact among the
ton
that it would fill all the betting books in London if it were recorded. It is necessary to look no further than Eastlyn's coil to be certain of the truth of it. The gossips had it for months that he was engaged, and where did that set him but squarely before the altar?"

Ria raised one eyebrow. Her tone was wry. "I hope he was happier about the turn of events than you seem to be."

West gathered the threads of his patience. "I am not unhappy about it, but as you are the one set so intractably against marriage, I am honor bound to put the consequences of rumor before you."

"That is very good of you, but I sincerely doubt my presence in town will be noted."

"I think it will. There is a reception in Colonel Blackwood's honor tomorrow evening. The East India Company and certain very happy members of parliament are thanking him for his assistance in raising support for the Singapore settlement. It is East's tinkering, of course, that made it possible, but the colonel is ultimately responsible and will accept the accolades that East cannot. I should like it if you would plan to attend."

Ria blinked. "Has finding Jane Petty interfered with your receptions and galas and musicales?" She saw a muscle jump in West's jaw but went on without pause. "I suppose that you must honor your obligations to go to such events, but I cannot see that I will have a free moment to do the same. I must prepare for the governor's meeting three days from now and do whatever I can in the meantime to locate Jane. I thought that you—" She broke off when his glance became so sharp she thought it might cut her.

"Go on," he said. "Say it all."

"I thought that we would search together. I came here with that uppermost in my mind. Even without knowing about the missing letters, it was clear to me that we were found out. Mr. Beckwith did not say as much, yet I cannot ignore the odd nature of his visit to the school. I thought you should know before we are in the meeting together. It could be awkward at best, calamitous at worst."

Ria took a deep breath. It shuddered through her upon release. "I apologize for intruding upon you. You may well comprehend now that I didn't know I was unexpected. I
wrote.
I
knocked.
And I can find my own way out. The hack has probably already been summoned." She was halfway to her feet when he ordered her to sit. "I am your ward, Your Grace, not your subject." She straightened, her chin coming up in the same motion, and started off in the direction of her cloak and gloves. "In the event you decide to offer marriage again—and in the event I decide to accept—know that I am unlikely ever to be a biddable wife."

West felt as if all the air had been driven from his lungs and the last vestige of reason pounded from his brain. He stepped in front of the door when she approached and blocked her exit. "Until I recover my wits," he said, "a show of force is all that is left to me."

"Have the courtesy or good sense to step aside."

He didn't move.

Ria laid her cloak across her shoulders and began to put on her gloves. "You are being ridiculous."

"Quite possibly. You will perhaps not credit it, but it does not disturb me in the least. I will also have my say, Ria, and you will listen."

In her agitated state, Ria was finding it difficult to manage her kid gloves. She pulled on them with clumsy fingers, stretching the leather, cursing softly under her breath when they would not settle smoothly over her hands but twisted uncomfortably instead.

West enclosed Ria's hands in his, stilling them in a sure clasp. When she looked up at him, bewildered and uncertain, he gave her benefit of his most steady reassurance. He meant to have his way, and he meant her to know it.

"Will you detain me at the point of your knife?" she asked.

"If it comes to that, yes." He squeezed her hands gently. "Sit with me, Ria. Please."

She nodded once. Her sense of loss was quite real as he released her hands and guided her to the bench. He removed her cloak and waited patiently for her gloves, then he placed them on the chair he had occupied so he could take his seat beside her.

"You have said a great deal that I must answer," West said. "It is difficult to know how to begin."

Ria waited, offering no encouragement for him to begin at all. She wanted nothing so much as to leave.

"I see," he said softly. "You feel I have betrayed you, then. It is understandable. I am also finding it difficult to reconcile that we are not to blame for the lack of letters between us. I find myself thinking that if you had written more often, another letter would have slipped through. I think I should have written daily, hourly, then perhaps you would have received one and known something of my thoughts.

"Do you know I grieved because we had not made a child between us? No, don't say anything. Let me say it all. I grieved, true, and at the same time I was glad of it. I could not brook the thought of you bearing my bastard child, nor did I have the stomach to force a marriage upon you that you did not want. You know it is not my way to try to convince others that I am in the right of any matter, yet I broke with my own beliefs and began a campaign to convince you that marriage would suit. I described all the benefits of marriage, the reason it exists, the purpose of sustaining it, how it brings a certain order to society and security to a family. I wrote that you would not find me intolerable as a husband, that I would settle your inheritance on you so that you might always have control of it. I knew it would be important to you not to abandon the school, and I offered my assurances that you could involve yourself in its operation, even as my duchess. It occurred to me that your influence might be more widely felt in that position than as the headmistress, so I set out to persuade you of the same.

"I put forth every conceivable argument to prevail upon you to accept marriage, or at least I thought I had. Lady Elizabeth—Lady Northam now—she said something that made me realize I had neglected to mention one thing of import."

West caught Ria's chin when she would have turned away and brought her around to look at him. Her beautiful blue-gray eyes were luminous with unshed tears, but their expression was still shuttered. He thought she wanted to hope but was afraid to.

"Shall I put it before you plainly, Ria?"

She nodded.

West watched as Ria's small movement caused a tear to slip free of her lower lashes and slide down her cheek. She seemed to be unaware of it, neither raising her hand to brush it aside, nor blinking back the others that threatened to follow in its wake.

"I love you," he said. "That is what I had not written in support of a marriage between us. It is what I did not say when I asked you to marry me earlier. It is because I love you that I could not let you leave without hearing me out, and it is because I love you that I will still ask you to leave when I am done. I wanted to believe it was understood between us, that I did not have to say the words aloud, but that does not acquit me of being a coward for failing to do so."

West let his hand fall back to his lap and watched her follow the movement. "I do love you, Ria."

She closed her eyes a moment, pressing her hand to her throat. Emotion made it difficult for her to speak. Whispering in a reed-thin voice, she said, "Ask me again."

He knew what she meant. "Will you marry me?"

"Yes." She launched herself into his arms. "Oh, yes."

"It was not a pretty proposal."

"It was perfect." Ria said this against his neck as she buried her face there. "Perfect."

He pressed his smile against her silky hair. "Does this mean you have developed a tendre for me?"

Ria drew back, her features set solemnly, even gravely. "A tendre? That is inadequate to describe what I have felt for so long. There is tenderness and passion in my heart. There is affection and wanting and sometimes a sort of helplessness that I cannot feel differently toward you. There is such a surfeit of love that it has made me afraid. I have been afraid of what price I would be asked to pay for it, afraid it was unwanted, afraid to embrace it, enjoy it, or even exploit it. With so much to fear, what was left to me but to guard it closely, hide it occasionally even from myself, and hope you would not tease the truth from me and immediately regret that you had done so? A tendre is what I felt when I was yet a young girl, and I would steal into the duke's gallery to look upon your portrait and imagine you were looking back at me."

Ria's solemn expression faltered and her slight smile was shaped by guilt. "I do not think I could become so angry with you if it were still a mere tendre that attached you to my heart. I am quite certain it is love that provokes that other response."

"Is that so?" he asked wryly. "I shall endeavor to remember it."

Ria began to speak, but the arrival of the repast West had ordered interrupted her. She did not know what effect confession had had on her soul, but it had most definitely whet her appetite. It was all she could do not to fall ravenously on the tray of vegetable broth and warm bread that was carried in. West did not share in the generous portions they were given, and Ria could not induce him to do so. She was aware that he watched her instead and derived some amusement from her carefully measured bites. It was a certainty he knew how hungry she was.

Out of the corner of her eye, she gave him a significant look. "If this is what you mean to do at every meal, I will be moved to murder.
Your
murder, you understand. No one else's. You must not attend me so closely."

Grinning, he poured himself a cup of tea. He carried the cup to the fireplace and poked at the logs. "Is it acceptable for me to speak?" he asked, glancing back at her.

"As long as you are not in expectation of a reply. I mean to continue eating." She tore off a chunk of bread and dipped one corner into the broth. "Go on. I am listening."

West didn't doubt that she could listen to him. What he remained skeptical of was her ability not to insert a comment or question. "It is about tomorrow's reception. Sir Alex Cotton will be there. As will Herndon." He replaced the poker and turned around. The piece of bread Ria had torn off from the loaf and sopped in the broth simply hovered in front of her open mouth. Droplets of broth fell back in the bowl. She seemed to be unaware of holding it in her hand.

"They are both heavily invested in the East India Company and had a great deal to lose if the settlement did not proceed. They will be present to extend their thanks to the colonel for making it possible, and I will be there to mark their trail afterward. Still, I do not mean to misrepresent my interest in going there. I would have attended this reception regardless of their presence. It is merely fortuitous that we will cross paths. Eastlyn is my friend and deserves my loyalty, my support, even my admiration. Colonel Blackwood has been my mentor, my confessor, my fiercest advocate and critic, and when he cannot help himself, more father to me than my own. So, yes, I will pause in searching for Jane Petty long enough to stand by the people who have stood by me. If you believe I have failed you in some way because I cannot fail them, then you should know that I will fail you again... and again."