Jo Beverley - [Malloren] (7 page)

After a while, Rosa took up music duty at the harpsichord, and Lord Brand joined her to play a duet. He did not have equal skill, but listening to the melded notes, seeing the bodies side by side, the occasional glances, Diana felt a deep quiver of envy.

She had never realized how exact the phrase “speaking glances” truly was. She swallowed and looked away.

Did her guests have everything they needed?

Was the marquess still apart?

Was he eyeing her darkly and plotting revenge?

Of course he wasn’t. He was playing whist with Lord Bryght, Elf, and Lord Walgrave. Interestingly, Lord Walgrave was playing as the marquess’s partner, not his wife’s.

Diana wandered over to watch, and being skilled at cards, soon saw that Lord Bryght and the marquess were players of extraordinary skill. No doubt their family knew never to let them partner each other.

When the hand finished, the marquess looked up. “Do you wish to play, Lady Arradale?”

As he began to rise and she demurred, Lord Walgrave rose. “Please, dear lady, rescue me. It’s like eating a chicken between three tigers.”

His wife chuckled and turned to Diana. “Truly, it would be a kindness. He doesn’t have the lethal instinct.”

Since Lord Walgrave had already moved away to speak to Lord Steen, it would be awkward to object. Diana took his seat across from the marquess.

Another freak connection, or was there a conspiracy here? She shook off that thought. The adjoining rooms were her own doing, and nothing had contrived their solitary single status, or this partnering over cards.

“I didn’t know whist could be so dangerous,” she remarked lightly as Elf dealt.

“You haven’t asked what stakes we play for,” the marquess pointed out, eyes resting on her almost speculatively.

Her shoulders twitched, and to counteract it, she sat up straighter. It occurred to her that this was the most intimate situation they had ever been in, sitting close and unavoidably face to face.

“And what stakes
do
we play for, my lord?” she asked, fanning her hand and assessing her cards.

“Love.”

She looked up sharply.

“Points,” Elf said simultaneously and in quite a different tone. “My brother doesn’t permit gambling within the family.”

Diana looked only at him, the thread stretched taut. “Isn’t it dangerous to gamble with love, my lord—in a family?”

“Or the safest place to do it. Appropriate, then,” he said, laying down a card, “that I play the ace of hearts.”

Diana watched the cards instead of him, as everyone discarded low. “Not King of Hearts?” she asked lightly as she gathered their trick.

“Perhaps that, too,” he said, playing the card.

As she placed those cards in front of her, she looked straight at him. “Oh, do say you have the
knave
as well, my lord.”

His lips twitched. “Whatever I have, I play low.”

The play came toward her. There was no way he could know she held the queen, but when she played it—her only remaining heart—she felt as if he had forced the move. She was also aware during the rest of the hand of speculative interest from his brother and sister on either side.

Plague take the man, he was flirting with her! Why? Whatever his reasons, plague take her own absurd reaction. She took the last trick and smiled calmly at him. “Our hand, love or not.”

He gathered the cards and shuffled, long fingers deft within the froth of lace, one large ruby flashing in candlelight. Aware of staring at their beauty, of sudden curiosity about how they would feel in contact with her skin, she looked down at her own hands, glittering ring on every finger.

He began to deal. “I do not insist on my rules in your house, Lady Arradale. If you would prefer to play for stakes …”

She met his eyes, smiling calmly. “Not at all, my lord. The pleasure of the game is in the skill of it.”

“My thought entirely, my lady,” he said as he picked up his hand. “And you play very skillfully indeed.”

Heart suddenly pounding, Diana swallowed and fixed her attention firmly on her cards. Skillful or not, she was too sensible to play flirtatious games with him.

Three days, though.

Despite her new friendship with Elf, Diana wished the three days over.

She and the marquess won decisively. They had the luck of the cards, but there was also a fine meshing of skills, almost an ability to read each other’s mind. She’d seen Elf and her brother exchanging more looks, and had wanted to protest,
This is nothing. This is just good card play.

She wasn’t sure that was true, however, so by the time she went up to bed, her nervousness about his bedchamber had reached the snapping point. It was just a room, and someone had to sleep in it, but still, as her maid stood waiting to undress her, she looked at the adjoining door, wishing she could see through it.

On this side the door was gleaming mahogany inlaid with decorative woods. On the other side, she knew, it was sparkling white paint with flower decorations on the panels, and details picked out in gold.

Beyond the door lay a lady’s bedchamber of the most flowery
type. The colors were all white, pink, and gold, with shell-pink draperies swagged up by plaster cupids. It had been created for her mother and kept unchanged through the years, perhaps in memory of magical times.

What was his reaction?

Curiosity warred with caution, and curiosity won.

After all, the marquess had been coming upstairs not far behind her. He could hardly have undressed already.

She turned the key and knocked.

After a moment, the door opened, and he stood there coatless. His cravat was still tied, his waistcoat still buttoned, and yet with the full sleeves of his shirt exposed, he seemed shockingly underdressed.

And mildly, but forcefully, astonished.

Diana swallowed and put on a hostess’s smile. “I hesitate to disturb you, my lord, but I did want to be sure you had everything you required.”

His eyes rested on her a moment, then moved behind, where she knew he could see her bed, dark, solid, and masculine. He, on the other hand, was framed by white, pink, and gold. In dark gray waistcoat and breeches, and with that other essential darkness which surrounded him, he was truly midnight in lace.

“The hospitality of Arradale is perfect as always, my lady.”

Oh, perdition. This had been folly and was now embarrassing, but to rush away and slam the door would make it more so. “We had to use every room, my lord. I hope you are not uncomfortable in such a feminine setting.”

A brow rose. “I believe I have slept in such surroundings before.”

Hades! Diana colored, and hurried into speech. “Your room was my mother’s, of course, before my father’s death. Doubtless I should have it redecorated in a more neutral style.”

“Why not wait, and let your husband choose his setting?”

Diana raised her chin. “You know I have as little intention as you of marrying.”

“Ah, yes.” His eyes rested on hers. “In that case, you should certainly change the room, and your own as well.”

“My own?” She turned and looked, as if something might suddenly be wrong with it.

“Take possession of it for yourself. You are not your father. Stay there.”

She turned back to see him order his valet to move the long cheval mirror in front of her. Suddenly Diana saw herself, standing in the ornate white doorway. It hadn’t occurred to her before, but she—trying yet again to be supremely feminine—was dressed in creamy white embroidered in pink, and wore gold and pearls. She matched his room, and contrasted as sharply with her own behind her as he did with his.

“I don’t want a bedroom in pink and white,” she said to herself.

“You have wealth and power. Your choices are infinite.” A simple gesture of his beautiful hand seemed to open doors all around her.

She was still standing there, looking at herself in her inappropriate setting—lace against midnight—when he said, “Are your hostess’s instincts satisfied, Lady Arradale? I fear we will all be expected to rise early tomorrow to engage in prenuptial festivities.”

She snapped her wits together. “Yes, of course. Good night, my lord.”

He bowed. She was accustomed to bows, but she had the unnerving feeling that the Marquess of Rothgar had perfected every degree of bow. “Good night, Lady Arradale. Though your setting is dark, may your dreams be light.”

He closed the door.

She turned the key.

And may yours be dark, damn you!
Even so, she was not angry except because he might have had the last word. Instead, a place deep inside suggested that she leave the door unlocked.

Folly. Utter folly! Had she not decided to keep her distance?

As Clara began to undress her, however, Diana had to accept
that when she’d opened that door a part of her had hoped he would continue the earlier flirtation.

How appallingly weak. She’d charted her course and must stick to it!

Yet, as her gown came off, then her stays, Diana couldn’t help playing with wicked ideas.

An unlocked door.

Lord Rothgar invading her chamber in the night.

Invading her bed, touching her with those long, skillful hands.

He would be cool in his mastery. He would never embarrass her with fervor or false passion, and that image of cool mastery sent a shiver through her, a shiver of pure longing.

Perhaps with him she could coolly surrender. Surrender to seduction, and finally experience all the physical mysteries she so longed to know, without losing her dignity or control.

She shivered, and pulled the wrap Clara gave her close around. She must not think things like this. They were wicked, and more dangerously, they could lead her into folly.

And yet, the wicked thoughts would not stop, stirred, she knew, by the peculiarity of having a man there—and such a man—where a spouse should be.

If she hadn’t turned the key, would he have taken that as an invitation? She had no idea how these things were done. She shook her head. He had no interest in her. She could have left the door wide open and slept undisturbed. And, she told herself, she had no interest in him other than the fact that he was a very attractive man, and she was weary of virginal ignorance.

If she could experience the joining of man and woman once, perhaps it would stop buzzing in her mind and she could concentrate on other matters. Important matters to do with the earldom, and business, and the welfare of her people.

He was right about her room, however. She’d never thought before that it wasn’t truly hers. It was still as her father had left it. She had moved into it, and left it untouched, to help her become what he had been—the earl.

Looking around the sober room, tears stung her eyes, and she could curse the man who had opened her eyes to this. The moment, however, could not be reversed.

She saw that she was trying to be two people—the earl, and the woman. Somehow, for sanity, she had to blend the two, to become a womanly earl. That was the role she had chosen for the rest of her life, and she must embrace it wholeheartedly.

A womanly, virginal earl.

Ridiculous to feel tears spill at the thought.

T
he wedding went off perfectly, even the reception afterward at Rosa’s parents’ home. Diana had been nervous about this, for Coniston Hall was a farmhouse. It was a large farmhouse belonging to a prosperous gentleman farmer, but still, it lacked spacious rooms intended for entertaining, especially rooms intended for entertaining the nobility.

She’d offered Arradale, of course, but everyone had refused. The general opinion, in typical northern fashion, was that the grand Malloren family must take them as they were.

And the grand Malloren family had. The wedding finery had been nicely judged for the occasion, and they mixed comfortably with all. They were even joining in the country dancing in the cleared and decorated barn, cheerfully welcoming any and all partners. She herself had partnered the vicar, Squire Hobwick, Rosa’s brother-in-law Harold Davenport, and her own estate manager, all the while itched by a wish that the marquess would appear and ask for a dance.

She still felt him as a dark threat, but also as a teasing, tantalizing promise.

“If you ever change your mind, my lady …”

For a mercy, he did not appear, and when she returned to the bustling house seeking refreshment, she saw him sitting with some local gentlemen in the paneled parlor. She felt an absurd urge to rescue him, to drag him out to the more youthful amusements. He was not a staid older man.

She pushed the notion away—she must stop thinking of him all the time!—and joined the ladies on the other side of the parlor where a maid was serving gingered lemon water.
Held in ice from the Arradale icehouse, the drink was deliciously cool. Diana sipped and tried to fix herself on the talk around her, but it was mostly of husbands and children, and her mind and eyes kept drifting toward Lord Rothgar.

He was making no attempt to be one of the locals. Of course. He would never attempt anything so foolish any more than she would. Apart from that distancing aura which always surrounded him, everyone here knew his rank and powers. He was not trumpeting his rank either, however.

He’d chosen clothing of a lighter shade—a suit of buff-colored cloth which nicely suggested country pursuits while the cut and elegant braiding rang of fashionable London. The ruffles at throat and wrist were moderate and of fine linen rather than lace, but that in itself set him apart. The local men, dressed in their best, were more ostentatious but not at all more fine.

Most of the men wore powdered wigs, but then most of them kept to the old fashion of shaven head and wig all the time. It was easier than wearing their own hair long, and hid the thinning hair of passing years. Lord Rothgar, in fact all the Malloren men, kept their own hair, and for this occasion they had all chosen to do without a wig or powder.

A pleasantly informal touch, and yet again it set them apart. Of course, they were fortunate to all have excellent heads of hair.

Strong, she thought, considering the marquess’s dark hair, waving back from his high brow to be tied neatly with a black bow at his nape. Loose it might spring beneath the fingers …