Indiscreet (23 page)

“Shame!” several voices said at last.

Viscount Rawleigh and his two friends returned to the ballroom, where by chance the quadrille was coming to an end. They had timed their business well.

•   •   •

IT
took a while after he had loved her to recover breath and energy enough to speak. She could easily have slipped into sleep as she usually did, but she did not want to sleep just yet. She suspected that such moments could be precious to the marriage they must somehow build into something meaningful. At such moments there was a tenderness between them that had been aroused by their physical union but which was not entirely physical in itself.

“Rex?” She cuddled her head more comfortably against his shoulder and spread her hand over his chest. It was warm and still damp from their lovemaking.

“Mm?” He rubbed his face against the top of her head. “Am I slipping? Have I not put you to sleep tonight?”

“I have realized,” she said, “that sleeping immediately after robs me of some pleasure.”

He chuckled. “You learn fast,” he said. “Incidentally, I have noticed that before.”

She liked it when they talked teasingly to each other. There were all sorts of possibilities for healing and for the growth of friendship and affection when two people could tease each other.

“You did not mind my inviting your friends to dinner
tomorrow?” she asked. “I should have consulted you first, but I made the suggestion to Lord Haverford when I was dancing with him, and somehow the idea blossomed.”

“I would have done so myself,” he said, “but I would have felt obliged to invite an equal number of ladies—it seems that I have something in common with Clarissa, perish the thought. I would not have wanted to bore you with all male guests and all male conversation.”

“But I want to know about your friends,” she said, “and your experiences with them. Not that I want to pry into any secrets or worm my way into a friendship that is precious among the four of you. I just want to know you better, Rex. I want to know about your childhood too and your life with Claude and Daphne. I want to know more of what it is like to be a twin.”

“Claude is not happy,” he said.

“He always seemed contented enough,” she said.

“I mean recently,” he said. “I have not heard from him since we left Bodley, yet I know that about him, you see. It is part of being a twin.”

She thought about it for a moment. “And what does he know about you recently?” she asked. She was sorry, then, because he hesitated in his answer. She did not want him to lie to make her feel better. But she did not want the truth—not now, at this moment.

“He saw me sullen and rather bitter,” he said quietly. “I believe he will know that my mood has changed. That I am content.”

Content. He might have used a far worse word. She consoled herself with that fact.

“Catherine.” He lifted her chin and kissed her softly before lifting his head away again. “I must learn to know you too. For so long you were a total stranger to me, a mystery. I want to know about Harry—he is a fine young man. And about Lady Withersford. About all the people who were important to you. I want to know who Lady Catherine Winsmore was. But not tonight. Can it wait until tomorrow? You have worn me out, I am afraid. You are an energetic lover.”

The description pleased her. And she was tired too—within a hairbreadth of sleep. But she could not leave it at that. There was warmth between them because they had loved and because they had taken steps to reach out to each other in ways other than merely the physical. But she could not leave it at that.

“Tell me about Miss Eckert,” she said, her face pressed to his shoulder.

He sighed after a short silence, during which she braced herself for his anger. “Yes,” he said. “Someone was bound to tell you. I should have done so myself before now. I am sorry, Catherine. We met during the year between the Peninsula and Waterloo, and were betrothed within a month of meeting. Then I went off to Belgium with the armies and she wrote me there breaking off the engagement. She did not marry the—the man who came between us, but we did not revive our relationship. It was destroyed.”

“Sir Howard Copley,” she said.

“Yes.” The muscles of the arm holding her bunched before relaxing again.

“Did he— What happened exactly?” she asked.

“I am not sure,” he said. “My guess is that he thought her fortune larger than it actually was and discovered the truth before it was too late. At the time I thought that she had merely been dazzled by good looks and charm during my absence.”

“And now you are not so sure?” she asked him.

“I knew of him as a wastrel and a rake,” he said. “I had heard of his sullying the reputations of other women. I believe your name was even mentioned. But even so I never—until very recently—suspected that perhaps there was more to it than what Horatia said in her letter to me. She said she was in love with him.”

“You think she was not?” she asked him. “You think perhaps she felt obliged to break off the betrothal and gave a reason you would be most likely to accept without question?” She could feel Horatia Eckert's pain as if it were her own.

He swallowed. “I pray I am wrong,” he said. “I would have nothing to do with her when I returned to England.”

“As she had planned,” she said.

“Yes, but— Ah, it does not matter,” he said.

She felt deep sorrow for Miss Eckert and pain for herself. She asked the question she ought not to ask.

“Do you still love her?” she whispered.

“No,” he said quite firmly. “No, Catherine. I feel sorry for her, but pity is not love. And I feel guilty that I was not as perceptive as I might have been in seeing through what was very possibly a lie. I was too caught up in my own pain and humiliation. But I do not love her. She was there tonight, as I suppose you were aware. I could see her only with pity.”

She could not help the elation she felt, though she remembered Miss Eckert's eyes.

“She still loves you,” she said.

She felt him draw breath to answer, though he said nothing.

“Forgive my questioning you,” she said. “I had to know.”

“Yes.” He kissed the top of her head. “I feel sorry for her, Catherine, but she must make her own future. My future is in my arms here and I have the feeling that it is going to consume all my energy. Not just physical energy, you understand.”

Yes, she did. They were precious words. Words of hope and commitment. Just a month ago, when she had married him, she had not expected any more than the protection of his name. She had not expected commitment.

“I am just glad of one thing,” she said. “I am glad he is not in town this year—Sir Howard Copley, I mean. I feared he might be. I hope he never comes back. I hope I never have to see him again.”

His arm tightened again. “You have nothing to fear from him, Catherine,” he said. “You have me to protect you now. I will protect what is my own with my life if necessary.”

That was part of what she was afraid of. Coming face-to-face with Sir Howard would be dreadful indeed for her. But what would happen if Rex ever met him, knowing what he now did, both about her and about Miss Eckert? There would quite possibly be a challenge and a duel.

And perhaps Rex would not be the one to walk away from it.

She shivered.

“I really must be slipping,” her husband said. “Are you cold?
Or is it just the mention of his name? Either way, I had better think of a way of warming you up, had I not?”

He turned her and came on top of her and thrust inside her without foreplay, something he had not done before. He was learning her needs, she thought. His weight and the hard fullness of him inside her were wonderfully comforting. And the knowledge that he would bring her to passion again made her put aside dark thoughts.

She sighed as his mouth found hers.

“Relax,” he said against it. “No participation is required. This is purely from me to you.”

Ah, he knew that too. That she needed the gift of his body and his strength.

H
E
had always hated the day before a battle—though no battles had been fought by appointment, it was usually obvious to a seasoned soldier when one was imminent. He had always hated it because, busy with preparations as one had always been, there had been too much time for thought, too much time for fear. He had always scorned those soldiers who professed to feel no fear—on the assumption that it was unmanly to be afraid. On the day before a battle he had always been dry-mouthed and weak-kneed with fear. His stomach had always been queasy.

He felt fear on the day following the Mindell ball—the day before the duel with Copley that he himself had deliberately provoked. He had, of course, rejected Nat's offer to do it for him.

“After all, Rex,” Nat had said with a careless shrug, “I have
no one dependent upon me. And I always did enjoy a good scrap, especially against a bastard like Copley.”

No, he was not sorry he had done it. He would do it all over again if necessary. And it was certainly not something he would allow someone else to do for him, even one of his dearest friends.

But he was afraid. Afraid, of course, of dying—only a fool would pretend not to fear death. But afraid too of failing to avenge the terrible wrong that had been done to Catherine and the anguish she had suffered over the conception and death of a child. But fear, as on the day before a battle, gave him energy and clarity of thought. It made him attentive to duty and to detail.

A morning call on Eden confirmed the fact that the challenge had been taken up. Copley's second had already called and all the details had been worked out. Nat and Ken were there too. Lord Rawleigh discussed his new will with them, talking quite openly and calmly about the possibility of his death. His will provided more than adequately for Catherine's future. Her father and her brother would probably give her the emotional support she would need. His friends undertook to provide any further protection that might be necessary.

They went with him to take his will to his man of business. Then they spent an hour with him at pistol practice—he had not fired a pistol since selling out of the cavalry.

During the afternoon he paid calls with Catherine on the ladies with whom he had left his card in the days before the ball and on a few others who were known to be at home to visitors. And at the fashionable hour they drove in Hyde Park in his curricle. If he was to die tomorrow, he would do all in his power
today to ensure her acceptance back into the
ton
. They were rejected nowhere. And a few invitations had arrived this morning.

All the men
knew
, of course. There was a certain look in their eyes that assured Lord Rawleigh of that fact, though nothing was said in the presence of the ladies. None of the ladies knew.

In the evening his friends came to dinner and the four of them talked unabashedly about their friendship, about some of their experiences together in the Peninsula and Waterloo. They talked because Catherine insisted upon it and because she was very obviously interested. She did not retire alone to the drawing room at the end of the meal in order to leave them to their port. They all sat on together and then adjourned together to the drawing room for another hour or so.

If he could have chosen how to spend what might well be his final evening, the viscount thought, he could not have done better than this—to spend it in company with his closest friends and his wife. He felt a pang of longing for Claude. Could his brother feel his uneasiness? Would he sense . . . But he would not indulge in such thoughts now any more than he had ever done during the war.

His friends did not stay late. They all planned to be up very early in the morning, they explained, having dared one another to watch the sunrise from horseback. They made a great show of persuading him to rise with the lark and ride out with them, begging Catherine's pardon, assuring her that they would not drag him out so early ever again. All three of them were shamelessly charming. She, of course, realized it and laughed at them all. But she did not understand what was really going on.

He made love to her when they went to bed. Holding her afterward—he was thankful that she was not inclined to talk, as she had been the night before—he wanted to say the words to her that would complete what he had just said with his body. But he would not burden her with them. Not when tomorrow she might have great enough burdens to bear without that.

He held her close until she was asleep and then set himself to endure the hours of dozing and dreaming and waking that always preceded battle.

•   •   •

“TOBY,”
she said, cupping his head with her hands, “I am a neglected wife. He took himself off even before dawn to ride with his friends and has doubtless gone somewhere to breakfast with them and will just as doubtlessly go on to White's with them afterward. We will be fortunate if he sees fit to return for luncheon.”

Toby cocked his ears, puffed eagerly into her face, and wagged his tail.

“But I am not offended,” she said. “You must not think that. It is right that he lead his own life and that I lead mine—provided we also spend time together, of course. But the trouble is, Toby, that I have had no life of my own to lead since I married him. That fact is irksome, is it not, after all those years of independence?”

Toby whined eagerly.

“Yes,” she said, “you are quite right, of course. It is time you and I ventured out together for a walk.”

Standing still with his head being held was too restricting for Toby. He pulled away and began a circular tear about the morning room, pausing hopefully at the door with each revolution.

Catherine laughed at him. “If you do not wish to accompany me, Toby,” she said, “all you have to do is say so, you know.”

They walked out together a short while later, Catherine's maid with them. Toby, on a leash, was indignantly trying to pull Catherine's arm from its socket. When he was finally released in Hyde Park, he raced about so exuberantly that the maid laughed and Catherine joined her.

They met very few people and none whom Catherine knew. It felt so wonderful to be out walking again. Hyde Park at this time of day was like a piece of the country. One could forget that it was surrounded by the largest, busiest city in the world. It was a beautiful, sunny day. Catherine was sorry that she had not suggested getting up to ride with the men. But perhaps not, she thought. She must respect her husband's male friendships as she would expect him to respect her female ones—with Elsie, for example. She must not always be hanging on his sleeve.

She did not want to go home immediately. But where else could she go? Elsie's? Elsie lived too far away. She would have to go home and have the carriage called out. Daphne lived within walking distance of the park. Catherine brightened. She would go and call on Daphne.

When she and her maid and Toby arrived at the house, though, it seemed for a while that they had come in vain. Sir Clayton Baird's butler was not at all sure that Lady Baird was at home. But he came back with the invitation to go up to her
ladyship's private sitting room. Toby, looking indignant again, was led off to the kitchen by the maid.

Daphne, red-eyed and distraught, threw herself into Catherine's arms before the door could even close behind the latter.

“Have you heard anything?” she cried. “What has happened? Is he dead?”

“Daphne?” Catherine looked at her in amazement. “What is the matter?”

Daphne looked wildly at her. “Rex?” she said. “Is he dead? Clay went out ages and ages ago to find out for me, but he has not come back.”

Catherine could feel a buzzing in her head. The air of the room felt icy in her nostrils. “Rex?” she asked faintly.

And then Daphne's look became one of horror as she helped Catherine to the nearest chair and lowered her into it. “You did not know?” she said. “Oh, what have I done? He is fighting a duel with Sir Howard Copley, Catherine. Early this morning. With p-pistols,” she wailed.

•   •   •

CATHERINE
was alone at the cold, dark end of a long tunnel. Someone was coaxing her to the other end, chafing her hands, calling to her—leaving her. And then there were voices and something was being pressed against her teeth and fire was coming down the tunnel and forcing her, coughing and sputtering, up to the warm, bright end.

“She is coming around, ma'am,” a male voice said.

“Yes,” Daphne said. “Thank you. The brandy was just the thing. Leave the glass in case she needs more.”

Sir Clayton Baird's butler left the room after assuring his mistress that he would be just outside the door should she have further need of him.

“But Sir Howard is not even in town,” Catherine said foolishly as if the conversation had not just been interrupted by her fainting dead away. “And why would he want to challenge Rex?”

“He was at the ball,” Daphne said. “Did you not see him? And of course it was
Rex
who challenged
him
. I found out only this morning. Clay went out for news but he has not returned yet. Oh, where are you going?”

Catherine was on her feet, swaying, light-headed. She did not know where she was going. She had to find him. She had to stop him. She had to . . . “I have to tell him that I love him,” she heard herself say. What foolish words! She set a shaking fist to her mouth.

“Oh, Catherine.” They were in each other's arms then, sobbing on each other's shoulders.

It was too late to go looking for him. It was too late to stop him. It might forever be too late to tell him that she loved him. Duels were always fought at dawn, were they not? He had left home well before dawn.

“I have to go home,” she said. And suddenly there was a dreadful panic on her to be home. “I have to go.”

“I will come with you,” Daphne said.

It did not occur to either of them to wait for a carriage. Waiting was something neither could do. They hurried along the
streets together, heads down. Catherine did not even remember that she had left a maid and a dog in Sir Clayton's kitchen.

•   •   •

NOW
that the time had come, fear had given place to an icy calm. He had known it would. It had always been thus. He had not been afraid of unsteady legs or shaking hand.

Copley had brought one second with him. Nat and Eden and Ken were all there, all grim and white-faced. This must be worse for them, Lord Rawleigh thought with a flash of insight, than it was for him. They were not accustomed to inaction on the morning of battle. They were not accustomed to watching one of their friends fight alone. There was also a surgeon in attendance.

Viscount Rawleigh did not look at Copley as he removed his cloak and stripped off his coat and waistcoat. He looked him in the eye as Eden and Copley's second made the token gesture of attempting a peaceful reconciliation. He refused and Copley sneered. They were to stand back-to-back, take twelve paces each, turn, and fire after the signal.

“Tell Catherine,” he said to Eden at the last possible moment—she should know after all, he decided, exactly why he fought for her. He drew a deep breath. “Tell her that I love her.”

“You can tell her yourself later,” his friend said crisply. But he nodded.

A few moments later Lord Rawleigh was walking off his twelve paces, his pistol at the ready, steadying his mind on his decision to take careful and sure aim and not to follow the impulse to fire
quickly and wildly before he could be fired at. He would have the chance for only one shot.

Copley, though, had made quite a different decision. As they turned, he leveled his pistol, and well before the signal to fire could be given, he fired.

It was amazing what a valuable thing experience could be, Lord Rawleigh thought. Experience enabled him to know that the pain was too severe for the wound to be serious. If it had been, he would have felt no pain for at least a few seconds. Shock would have cushioned him for that long. His right arm hurt like the devil. He was aware of redness on his white shirtsleeve, though he did not look down. It was only a flesh wound. He doubted that the bullet had even lodged in his arm.

He was aware too, though he did not look, of Nat with a gun in his hand.

“You are a dead man, Copley,” he called in a voice Viscount Rawleigh had only ever heard on the battlefield. But he held his fire.

Lord Rawleigh was taking careful aim, ignoring the pain. He had a lengthy acquaintance with it and knew that pain alone did not kill. Copley had no choice but to stand and wait. He stood sideways to make as small a target as possible.

Time moved at one fraction of its normal speed. Space became a tunnel, almost a telescope. He was aware as he leveled his pistol of Copley's white and contemptuous face. In a matter of seconds a whole world of thoughts had found its way into his mind for consideration. He was tired of killing. He had always found himself vomiting for hours on end after a battle, knowing that he had killed men who had deserved death no more than he would have if they had killed him. He had killed to avoid being killed and to protect his friends and his men from death. He was not now in danger of death. Neither were his friends.