DD-Michaels-END.rtf (23 page)

"Oh, no," Morgan said, because she was basically honest, if not always modest. "He's wild for me. I'm wild for him, for that matter. Nothing's changed there."

Julia was confused. "Then why wouldn't you marry the man, if he wants to marry you?"

Morgan wished she had a ready answer for that question, but she didn't. After all, how could she say, in her brother's presence, that she wasn't sure she knew the difference between love and lust? Or much cared, when she got right down to the thing. She and Ethan wanted each other. Why wasn't that enough, without all this business of rushing to the altar? Why did wanting the one always seem to mean accepting the o
th
er? She'd make a horrible wife. Didn't they all
know that?

"That's not the point, Julia," she said quickly. "He lied to me just now. Well, he lied to me when we first met, but I only found out about that lie now. I don't know why he
did, but he did, and
I'm going to discover why. Otherwise, he can't go to Becket Hall, and if he doesn't go, I'm not going. If I've learned one thing in this life, it's that the family must come first to all of us."

"Very commendable, Morgan," Chance said, at a loss for anything else to say.

"Yes, I know. But then it occurred to me that you feel the same way, Chance, and yet you seem all hot to get Ethan to Becket Hall, don't you? So maybe you know something I don't know, but should."

Julia looked at her husband, who was in the process of rubbing at his temple. "Headache, darling?" she asked, unable to hold back a smile. She'd warned him Morgan was too intelligent to simply be shipped off willy-nilly without asking a few pertinent questions. Even a lovesick Morgan was too intelligent for that.

Chance sighed, then tried to be reasonable. "Morgan...
l
ook. You're leaving tomorrow morning. It's all arranged. I can't have the two of you wandering around London looking for places to make public spectacles of yourselves. Or did you really think I believed that nonsense about you falling off Berengaria? You haven't taken a tumble in ten years."

He thought, but did not add:
It's an entirely different kind of
tumble
I'm worried about here.

Morgan leaned forward in her chair. "You're not listening, Chance. He
lied
to me. He told me he's never been to Romney Marsh."

Chance blinked. "What?"

"I said, he told me he's never been to Romney Marsh. But, when
his mother was here earlier, she said he has been, and then he tried to pretend she was mistaken, but he didn't fool me. He
lied.
It was so obvious. He looked as if he wanted to stuff a rag in his mother's mouth, to shut her up. I pretended not to notice, but I think he noticed that I noticed."

"I believe I may have just caught your headache, darling," Julia told Chance. "When was his lordship's mother here? I wasn't told anyone had come to visit."

"She wasn't exactly here," Morgan explained automatically. "She stayed outside in her coach."

"Why would she do that?"

Morgan rolled her eyes. "Does it matter? She had the head of an ass in the coach with he
r
—
m
aybe she didn't want to leave it alone."

Now Julia blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Wait," Chance said, feeling the conversation taking a path not necessary to get them wherever in hell they were going. "Morgan? Does it matter that his lordship's mother stayed in her coach?"

"No," Morgan said, happy to be off the subject. "What does matter is that Ethan lied to me and there was no reason for it. At least not one I can think of offhand. But a lie is a lie, and I don't like them. And, as I already said, my next thought, naturally, was to think of you, brother dear. You've been entirely too happy to send me off with Ethan. You know something, don't you?"

Chance was torn. If he didn't tell Morgan the truth, Aylesford's lie could very possibly put an end to this intense infatuation that was, frankly, almost embarrassing to watch. He couldn't consider that to be a bad thing.

But if he didn't tell her the truth, yet insisted they travel to Becket Hall, she'd be watching Aylesford's every move, and that could ruin everything.

So he'd tell her. Except if he told her, she'd be more infatuated than befor
e
—
w
omen adore heroes, even if Ethan Tanner wasn't much
more
than
a glorified messenger.

And if he told her the truth, she'd still follow after him everywhere he went while at Becket Hall, just so she wouldn't miss anything.

"Damned no matter what I say," Chance muttered under his breath, then realized that both his wife and his sister were looking at him strangely.

"You said something, darling?" Julia asked.

"I asked if I could borrow that fruit knife, and slit my throat with it," Chance said, then stood up, looked sternly at his sister. "Morgan, what I'm about to tell you is not to be repeate
d
—
o
r acted upon by you. You understand? Lives may very well depend on your discretion, which is enough to have me reaching for that knife."

"Lives depend o
n
—
E
than ?
So you knew about this? About his he?"

"Not his lie. Not precisely that. But, yes, I know something."

"I knew it! There's some sort of
plot
here, something that has to do with Romney Marsh? With Becket Hall?
That's
why you were so quick to send me off with him? Oh, that's rotten, Chance. You're both rotten. Plotting together, the two of you? I didn't think you even
liked
Ethan."

"You're jumping to conclusions, Morgan," Chance told her.
"
This is the king's business. It has nothing to do with whether or not I like his lordship. And who said I didn't like him?"

Morgan shrugged, momentarily diverted, then quickly got back on point, her mind racing. "This sudden trip to Becket Hall is a ruse, isn't it? I knew Ethan couldn't be as useless as he pretends to be. He's much too smart to be useless, insists too often that he's useless. Don't tell me he's looking for smugglers, too. Didn't we have enough of that last year? Is the Red Men Gang showing itself again? Is that it? But what would Ethan have to do with any of that?"

"Not smugglers, Morgan," Chance told her, sitting down once more. "And, before I tell you, you have to swear to me that you won't say anything. Not
to Ethan, not to Eleanor or the others, not to anyone. You won't say anything and, more importantly, you won't
do
anything. Do I have your word?"

He waited the space of five heartbeats. "Morgan?"

She stood up, shaking her head. "No. I can't do that, Chance. I can't promise. Not when I don't know what I'm promising."

"Oh, for the love of Christ..."

"She's right, darling," Julia said, patting his thigh. "I think you have to first tell her, then ask for her promise. It's only fair."

"Fair? You can say
Morgan
and
fair
in the same
s
entence?"

Morgan held out her hands, motioning for silence. "Just tell me one thing. Did Ethan meet me by chance or by design?"

Her brother looked at her, saw the first bit of nervousness in his sister's eyes. "Your meeting was purely by accident, and well before...
b
efore anything else. Becket Hall was an afterthought."

Morgan smiled. "Thank you, Chance. That answers most everything. The rest I'll get from Ethan on our way to Becket Hall, so that you aren't betraying a trust."

"What makes you think
he'
ll
betray a trust? How do you know he'll tell you anything?" Chance called after her as she headed out of the room.

Morgan turned, grinned at him. "Oh, brother mine, you don't really want me to answer that, do you?"

"She's got you there, darling," Julia said, handing him a peach. "I think I'm sorry we're not traveling with them tomorrow. His lordship doesn't know it yet, but he's in for quite a journey."

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," Chance said, men took a large bite out of the peach.

"That's fine," Julia said calmly. "But please don't pretend not to hear thi
s
—
w
hen were you going to tell
me
what's going on, hmm?"

"Bloody hell..."

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Morgan strolled into Lady Beresford's ballroom on Ethan's arm, still smiling as she thought about Lord Beresford's appreciative stare (if the man wasn't an earl, she would have thought he had leered) as they'd gone through the receiving line at the top of the stairs. When she'd curtsied, he'd nearly fallen on her, he was so intrigued by the neckline of her gown.

Her mirror had already told her she looked well in the ivory silk. The neckline was very French, or so the modiste Chance had sent to Becket Hal
l
had told her, and extremely modern, cut nearly straight, with the short, tight, off-the-shou
l
der sleeves a part of the same bias-cut material.

She'd have some difficulty raising her arms very high, but the modiste had pooh-poohed that, saying that women have always had to sacrifice comfort for fashion.

One price Morgan had refused to pay had been that of a corset, which she'd flatly refused to wear with any of her gowns, much to her sister Eleanor's distress. "You're possibly a bit too
lush,
Morgan, to not be bound in some way."

Well, Lord Beresford didn't seem to mind that she was "too lush," and neither did any of the gentlemen who'd stood on the stairs behind and in front of her as they'd waited for the receiving line to inch its way up to the host and hostess.

In fact, Chance had asked he
r
—twic
e
—
i
f she was sure she wasn't chilly, and might want to consider wrapping her shawl around her shoulders.

And each time, Ethan had laughed.

She adored him
for laughing, for being pleased with the attention she was drawing from all sides. His pride was as obvious as was Chance's brotherly dismay.

And when, in the midst of the crush of people, Ethan had found a way to surreptitiously stroke a hand down her backside, his touch lingering as he lightly cupped her, she'd thrown back her head and laughed out loud, drawing even more attentio
n
—
a
combination of smiles, and frowns, and one low whistle from a gentleman standing three stairs above them.

Chance had glowered. Ethan had lifted her hand, pressing a kiss into her gloved palm. A gesture of ownership, she was sure, but one she'd allowed him, for the moment.

The ballroom they'd finally entered was a fairyland of pink tulle and sparkling candles that made the large room nearly as bright as day. Which was also wonderful, because all that candlelight seemed to be captured, then reflected, magnified, on the thousands of clever, tiny silver disks that had been hand-sewn into an all-over pattern of palest-yellow roses that fell from Morgan's high-waisted bodice to the scalloped hem of her de
m
i-train.

She'd needed no jewelry, and therefore wore none, choosing instead only a thin, yellow satin ribbon tied midway up her neck.

"Some women glow, Morgan," Ethan whispered to her as they stoo
d
—
-
posed, actuall
y
—
j
ust inside the ballroom as their names were announced by a liveried footman. "You sparkle, like sunlight dancing on the water. And your hair is driving me insane. I keep longing to touch it. To touch you."

Morgan kept smiling, kept her gaze wandering over the room. "You've been touching me, Ethan. With your eyes, for all of the time it took your coach to get us through the traffic."

"When I wasn't contemplating booting your brother and his wife out onto the cobblestones and ordering my coachman to take us to Grosvenor Square, yes. But you know that, don't you, minx, just as you know your poor brother is about to have a small apoplexy as he stares down your most ardent admirers. I think I'd best find him a drink. Go with your sister-in-law, and try not to get into too much trouble until I'm back, all right?"

Julia had overheard Ethan's last words, and agreed with him. She took charge, leading Morgan down the very center of the parquet ballroom floor, as she, too, had noticed all the attention, the looks, the whispers. Shame on her, but she
was
enjoying herself as she watched Morgan become an instant Sensation, just by being Morgan.

"It's rather fun, isn't it, Julia, teasing society." Morgan lifted one gloved hand to deliberately stroke the thick lock of hair that fell from her slightly off center part to caress the side of her face, curve in slightly as it just managed to touch the swell of her right breast. Louise had piled the rest of "this mass of hair!" on top of Morgan's head, wrapping it rather than curling it, then saying she'd done the best she could and she was going to have a small lie-down once everyone was gone.