Jo Beverley - [Rogue ] (19 page)

"How did you come to let the horse go?" she asked.

The boy looked up warily then obviously decided to trust. "He snapped at me. I got scared...." In a mumble he added, "I don't like horses. Ruddy great brutes."

Beth stared at him. "You don't—? But then why are you working in the stables, Robin?"

"He put me there."

"Who?"

"Lord Arden. He brought me in and gave me a job in the stables."

Beth had only the faintest notion of what he meant, but one thing was clear. "If you don't like the work the marquess will surely find you something more congenial, Robin. Especially as you are not suited to working with horses. I'll speak to him—"

"No!" exclaimed the boy, eyes wide. "Please, ma'am. Don't do that. He promised I can work with his horses!"

"But you don't like horses," Beth pointed out.

The boy looked away, stubbornly mute, and Beth frowned in bewilderment. "So you don't wish me to speak to the marquess on your behalf?" she said at last.

"No, ma'am." He stood and wiped his face on his sleeve. The effect was to smear rather than clean. "I'm sorry for bothering you, ma'am. Please don't say nothink to him."

Beth was genuinely touched. She suspected that this waif was as much astray at Belcraven as she and, for some reason, as bound. "I won't, Robin," she assured him. "But if you need help you must ask for me and I will do what I can."

"Thank ye kindly, ma'am," he said and ran off.

Beth sighed. Would the marquess really beat the boy again, she wondered, and perhaps more severely? She didn't like to think so, and yet many masters would feel themselves well within their rights. She knew so little of Arden, but she did suspect him to be capable of violence.

And what was she to do about it? She was so unused to violence that she wanted to hide from it, to hide even from the thought of it, but she couldn't live like that.

Beth rose and stiffened her resolution. Despite the awkwardness of her situation she would keep an eye on the matter of Robin Babson. She could not spend the rest of her life turning a blind eye to violence and cruelty, and Lord Arden would have to come to understand that.

* * *

The marquess returned on the day of the ball. When he strode into the duchess' boudoir, where she and Beth were taking tea, Beth almost saw him as a stranger. He looked quite unlike the cold, forbidding despot she had built in her mind.

He had taken the time to change, of course, but there was something of the outdoors and exercise still about him. He was relaxed, and the exhilaration of the drive was still in his eyes.

Had he heard about his horse? she wondered. And what had happened to poor Robin? She could not believe he was just come from a scene of violent retribution.

He kissed his mother's cheek and grinned at her. "You are blooming,
Maman.
We should force you to hold grand entertainments more often."

"Silly boy. You are the last of my children to marry. I hope not to do this kind of thing again."

He was still smiling when he turned to Beth, but the warmth became impersonal. "Elizabeth. I hope you are not being run ragged by all this."

If this aloof tone was the best he could do, thought Elizabeth, they were in the suds. "Of course not," she said, assuming a lively manner. "But anyway, this all has the attraction of novelty for me, my lord. I never realized the amount of hard work involved in celebrating a wedding."

"Only the wedding of the heir to a dukedom," he said dryly. Beth thought she detected a genuine dislike of pomp. How strange. More and more Lucien de Vaux was becoming a conundrum she very much wanted to solve.

"So after the wedding we can live quietly?" she queried.

He produced a creditably fond smile, but it covered implacable intent. "I hadn't planned on it, no. We have the pride of the de Vaux to consider, my dear. Will you dislike a life of fashionable entertaining very much?"

The silent message was that her likes and dislikes carried no weight with him at all. Oh God, thought Beth, they were back to their old ways. Quicksands indeed. They never said what they meant and never meant what they said.

She turned away, making a business out of pouring him some tea. "If I do dislike it," she said as she passed him the cup, "you will be sure to hear of it... my dear."

After a startled moment he smiled in a genuine manner. "I fear I will... my sweet despot." Cap that, his eyes said.

Beth was tempted but didn't know where it would all end. The marquess was not a man to bow out of a conflict. She contented herself with fluttering her lashes and aiming at him a sweet, hopefully simpering, smile. She had the satisfaction of seeing his lips twitch with genuine humor.

Beth noted the duchess watching them with a misty smile and thought, don't build on this too much, Your Grace. We are both learning well to be actors.

"I have brought you some eligible men,
Maman,"
said the marquess. "I hope you don't mind."

"Mind! Of course not, you dear boy. There can never be too many eligible men. Who? And where are they?"

"Amleigh, Debenham, and Beaumont. I've left them in the morning room enjoying more substantial refreshment."

The duchess frowned slightly, though there was a twinkle in her blue eyes. "The last time Lord Darius was here he attempted to build a champagne fountain. And Mr. Beaumont has always caused a great lack of attention among the younger maids."

"Well," said the marquess turning sober, "he will doubtless be a focus of interest again but in a different way. He's lost his left arm."

The duchess mirrored his sobriety. "Oh, the poor man. How is he?"

"Well as always, really. And he manages nearly everything. He don't like to be fussed."

"I'll tell Gorsham," said the duchess. "And I'll go odds it will only increase his attraction among the maids and every other female in the vicinity. I look to you to control your guests, Lucien."

"Of course,
Maman,"
he said with a boyish grin. "I gather you wish this to be a devilish dull affair."

His mother laughed. "Of course I do not. How would anyone believe it was
your
betrothal ball if it went off smoothly, you wretched boy? Go away and look to your friends before they find mischief."

He kissed her cheek again before he left, but Beth only received a slight wave of the hand. She looked up to see the duchess studying her enigmatically. Nothing was said, however, and soon she was sent to her room to prepare for the evening.

Laid out on her bed Beth discovered a beautiful gown, the one the duchess had ordered from London and that the marquess had been sent to collect. Beth had approved the selection without much interest, but the picture in
Ackerman's Repository
had not prepared her for the beauty of the garment.

The ivory figured silk, inset with satin panels edged in pearls, glowed and shimmered in the candlelight. Beth had never even seen such an exquisite gown in her life. When she touched it it rustled and slithered against her fingers in an orchestration of sensuality. Redcliff hovered over the gown with all the pride and protectiveness of a mother with a new baby.

By the gown rested a bouquet of pink and ivory roses packed in damp moss, and a small package.

"What is this, Redcliff?"

"'Tis from the marquess, I believe, miss," said the woman with a knowing smile.

Beth felt a strange reluctance to open it. It would, surely be a gift and perhaps not one she wished to accept. But she had no choice.

It was a fan. With a turn of her wrist Beth flicked it open. It was a work of art. Ivory sticks carved into lace supported fine silk painted in the Chinese style. The pin was gold and the endpieces were overlaid with mother-of-pearl. She turned her hand again and it flowed smoothly, as a good fan should, back into its closed position.

It was an elegant, appropriate, well-thought-of gift. For some reason that disturbed her. What was her husband-to-be? The scholar or the rake, the friend or the man of violence? Perhaps all of these. A man could quote Sallust and still be a brute.

Redcliff wanted her to rest, but Beth preferred to read, a pastime denied her recently. Mrs. Brunton, however, did not suit her mood, and she picked up some volumes of poetry she had brought from the library. Dipping here and there she came across Pope's
Rape of the Lock:

Say what strange motive, Goddess! could compel

A well-bred Lord to assault a gentle Belle?

O say what stranger cause, yet unexplored,

Could make a gentle Belle reject a Lord?

What indeed? thought Beth, on reading these relevant lines. Most people would think her mad. Most people would not realize how painful it was to be thrown into such foreign circumstances, no matter how luxurious. On the brink of what to most young ladies would be a night of triumph, Beth Armitage wanted only to be back in her small, chilly room at Aunt Emma's preparing a project for the next day's classes.

When Redcliff indicated it was time, she took her bath in delicately perfumed water. She dried herself and dressed in stays, silk stockings, and shift. Then the maid assisted her into the gown. It was as if it had a life of its own; it flowed and hissed and demanded only the most graceful, the most elegant movements.

She had not realized how fine the fabric was. It was true that over her shift the outfit could not be considered revealing, and yet it did not hide her figure as she would wish. She had not realized how low the neckline was, nor how cleverly shaped to emphasize her breasts. It did not seem at all proper, but she had to wear it.

She had insisted that a cap be ordered to match, but it too proved to be a shock.
Cap
was obviously a word open to interpretation. This was merely a bandeau of matching silk and pearls upon a stiffened frame. It was trimmed with satin ribbons which formed a love knot at one side.

"Should I dress your hair in a knot behind?" asked the maid.

A knot sounded very decorous, and Beth agreed, but when it was done Beth knew it had not helped. With her hair drawn tightly up, her neck appeared more slender, and when the diamond necklace was clasped around it, positively swanlike. Resigned, Beth allowed the maid to assist her into the long kid gloves and fasten the bracelet over one wrist. Redcliff then clipped the pendant diamonds onto her ears and pinned the brooch in the center of the knot of ribbons on her bandeau.

It only remained to step into her satin slippers and stand before the mirror. Beth knew what she would see. It was Beth Armitage at her prettiest—slender but well-rounded, clear-skinned and glossy-haired. The problem, as she had known, was that she still was no beauty. She did well enough and her hosts would have no cause to blush for her, but this, the best that could be done for her, left her still just a passably pretty young woman. She would rather not appear to have tried.

She was surprised when told the marquess had come to escort her downstairs but accepted her fate with resignation. Tonight was their acting debut.

She had forgotten to wonder what he would look like. Her breath caught at the sight of him in formal black and pure white, his tanned skin and golden hair thrown into brilliance. She felt that little tremor inside which warned her again that she was not immune to his charms.

Why should she wish it when he was to be her husband?

Because it was a matter of pride not to go willingly into slavery.

"How pretty you look," he said in a friendly way.

Nerves abraded, Beth responded sharply, "I could say the same to you, I think. Fine feathers do make fine birds, do they not?"

His eyes flashed, but his smile never faltered. He drew her arm into his and they began their walk.

"Are you suggesting, Miss Armitage, that under this magnificence, I am a mere sparrow?" His tone was still light.

She glanced up at him. "Too small. A rooster, perhaps?"

He met her look and, though he continued to smile, his eyes were chilling rapidly. "You assume I will not take vengeance when you are in all your finery? You could be right. But perhaps I will hold a grudge."

That was too close to the mark. Beth knew she was guilty of holding onto her resentment. "Then we can be a pair of broody hens," she said bitterly, "sitting on our grievances until they hatch into disaster."

She intended it to be a kind of peace offering and perhaps he took it that way for he laughed. "I refuse to be any species of fowl. I prefer to be thought of as a hawk. Noble hunter, sharp of claw."

That was too frightening an image. "I'm sure you do," Beth said tartly, "but I think it is more a case of a magpie, snatching at small glittering things of no particular value."

"And you, my dear," he retorted, good humor fled, "to stretch the analogy a little, are developing into a harpy, all teeth and claws."

Without warning he opened a door and swung her into a room. A bedroom.

Beth looked up at him wide-eyed, fear shivering along her nerves. Why could she not control her clever tongue? Why could she not remember he was quite unlike any man she had ever known?

He was dangerous.