Miss Grantham's One True Sin (The Regency Matchmaker Series Book 2) (18 page)

"Lucky horse," he said, apparently reading her thoughts. "Too bad she's a mare," he said. "I vow a stallion would appreciate you better."

Marianna gave a sound of frustration, but to her dismay it came out sounding more like a moan of passion. She was too angry to speak.

Chapter
Thirteen

T
HERE

was nothing more
to do but straighten her spine, nudge Dover into a walk, and approach the garden party with as much dignity as she could salvage. She was so busy scanning the crowd for her parents—who, to her considerable relief, were not there!—that she was abreast of the tables set out upon the lawn before she remembered again that she was riding astride.

Saints and sinners!

She pulled on the mare's ribbons and worried about how she was going to dismount without showing too much of her chemise—or other things—but she didn't worry about it for more than a moment before a pair of large hands encircled her waist and pulled her off balance. Marianna gasped as she slid into Trowbridge's warm embrace. His scent—no cologne, just woods and fresh linen—filled her nostrils. His strong hands lingered, and she danced lightly away from him.

The assembled guests looked upon the two of them with varying expressions of amusement, mild astonishment, and intrigue. But then Ophelia hastened forward to congratulate Marianna on winning the race in the bold, brash style that only she could pull off, and the others followed suit, murmuring their congratulations with anything from polite regard to openly admiring fascination.

Marianna wasn't quite certain if the race had made her an Original, or if she'd won herself a reputation as a hoyden instead.

She tried to act as self-confident and nonchalant as if she had just been taking tea with the patronesses of Almack's and the royal princesses rather than disgracing herself in front of God and the entire, blessed
ton
. She managed to accept everyone's congratulations with what she hoped was a beatific smile. She even allowed herself to be cajoled into relating the part of the race they had not been able to see: how she had outwitted the Viscount by taking a shortcut and then nearly unseated herself in the wood. Trowbridge said almost nothing and kept the stocking hidden away. Everyone listened so attentively and laughed so gaily that before she realized quite what was happening, Marianna was enjoying herself—until something drew her attention from what she was saying and she glanced up at the manor, eyes drawn inexplicably to a high window. There, two figures stood watching her. Her parents. And they were not smiling.

Amid a shower of protestation, she excused herself as quickly as she could and made for the house. Trowbridge appeared beside her and slipped his arm under her hand. She allowed the contact until they were inside the house and out of sight and earshot of the guests. Then she jerked her hand away and stomped toward the stairs.

"Where are you going?" Trowbridge's deep voice echoed off the marble floor and columns.

"To find my parents. I must apologize to them."

Just as Marianna's foot hit the first tread, Trowbridge's hand clamped onto her arm and he tugged her into the library and shut the double doors. Knowing protest would do her no good, Marianna set her jaw and stood mute, refusing to meet his eyes.

"What must you apologize for?" he demanded.

"You can drag me in here against my will, my lord, but you cannot make me speak." She crossed her arms in front of her to emphasize her point.

Trowbridge mirrored the movement, but then he spoiled the effect by pacing before the fire. "You enjoyed the race. Admit it."

Marianna said nothing.

"You enjoyed the thrill of the chase, the speed, the strategy, the challenge, the danger. And most of all, you enjoyed besting me. I wager that you would do it all over again if you had the chance."

She threw her hands up in exasperation. "You are wrong." She shook her head. "I did only what I had to do. What you
forced
me to do. I acted only to neutralize the threat you presented. I did not enjoy it."

But even as she said the words, she knew they were not entirely true. She
had
found the speed exhilarating, the competition invigorating, the applause and excitement of the crowd satisfying. But she certainly would not wish to repeat the experience, and that meant she hadn't enjoyed the race. Didn't it?

Trowbridge rubbed his slightly cleft, shadowy chin. "I wager that all your life you have been told that frivolity, gaiety, and spontaneity are wrong."

"Rubbish," she said, knowing he was right. She hadn't played much as a child. She had spent her days learning to be a lady instead, for that was what had most pleased her parents. She had always tried to be a good daughter. How many times had she watched with a secret longing as the laborers' children played, splashing and laughing and chasing one another on the white sandy beaches, while she stood quietly nearby, itching in her gloves and whalebone stays?

He studied her and then smiled knowingly. "The race was my way of forcing you to taste what it is like to be me. To force you to savor your own wildness. And” —he cocked his head to one side and his dark eyes gleamed— "and perhaps now that you have your own disgraces to live with, you will be more forgiving of mine—especially since, like me, you quite enjoyed your misbehavior."

"I did not!"

"Do you mean to tell me that you are so concerned about what others think of you that you will not even admit to yourself when you're letting go and having fun?"

"Yes ... no!
Oh
... ! You know perfectly well what I mean."

"Yes," he said, his flawed eyebrow arching, "I am certain I do." He raked his roughened hand through his dark, unruly hair. "It seems I was mistaken. It is not that you will not admit you are having fun—"

Marianna gave a sharp satisfied nod. "Humph!"

"—it is that
you cannot have fun at all
. You don’t let go of your proper little false persona. Ever. Not even when you are alone. You, Mary, are so busy worrying about what other people expect of you that you have no real personality, no individuality, and no sense of adventure."

"I do so have a sense of adventure! I became a teacher at a boarding school, did I not? I made up—" She glanced at the door and lowered her voice to a whisper. "I made up stories to tell my parents. That was adventurous."

"No," he said, crossing his arms over his broad chest once more. "It was not adventurous, it was cowardly."

"Cowardly!"

"Aye, for instead of deceiving your parents, you could have stood up to them and demanded they give you time to make a love match. Again, you were too concerned with what others would think of you. No, Miss Grantham, the only way you will ever have any real adventure is when it is thrust upon you—and then you will not have the freedom to well and truly enjoy it. You cannot be honest with yourself. You are afraid to really live."

"
How dare you?
"

"Freely, Miss Grantham. I freely dare anything I please. And that," he said, "is the difference between us."

"I can think of a few more," she said, allowing her voice to vibrate with sarcasm.

Once more, he allowed his gaze to slide slowly, seductively down her body, and then he grinned. "So can I."

Marianna scowled and spun away from him, slamming the library doors closed behind her. She had to calm herself before she spoke with her parents.

NO AMOUNT OF inner calm would have helped.

Her mama and papa had been playing cards with one of the older couples during the race and might have missed it but for one undisciplined Trowbridge servant who had come whooping into the front hall and calling to the other servants that “the Lady Trowbridge-to-be” was racing against their master.

"Papa, Mama . . ." she began as soon as she found them alone in the yellow salon.

"Sit!" her father ordered, his expression stormy. "Not one word. Your mother and I witnessed the entire disgraceful incident."

Her parents’ faces were as red as love apples. They were beyond furious.

"You have disappointed us again, Marianna," Violet Grantham intoned, her voice as sharp as her husband's.

Marianna endured their hour-long lecture stoically, as usual, staring down at her hands, counting the individual tufts of thread in the thick yellow and cream carpet under her feet, and not daring to tell them that she had raced only to save what was left of her reputation. She knew that would require an explanation about the blue stockings, and there was no escaping the guilt for that transgression. The fact was that if she hadn't fashioned the outrageous stockings in the first place, the race could never have happened.

When they finished scolding her for the race, they began scolding her about having chosen True Sin for a husband. As she'd promised, Ophelia had explained to them the peculiar advantages of being allied to the notorious True Sin, but the house party guests had apparently been regaling the Granthams since early yesterday afternoon with stories of True Sin's infamous exploits.

"Why you would choose to chain us to him is beyond me," her mother said. "The stories we have heard of him are shocking."

Her father had stopped talking at all, a sure measure of his anger.

Marianna looked at her hands and fidgeted. "I did not know about those things when we—when we became engaged."

"Did not know about them?" her mother cried. "Did not know about them! How could you not know about the man having offered
carte blanche
to Lady Jersey right in front of the Prince
at Almack's?
No ... I do not believe it. You are not stupid. You must be lying."

Marianna remembered her mother saying she
was
stupid two days ago, but she said nothing, of course.

Her mother waved her silver-gloved hand. "And that
outlandish
woman—what is her name? Delia? Orphea?"

"Mrs. Ophelia Robertson?"

"That's the one. Insufferable woman. Whyever did you choose to stay with her when the duenna we chose for you turned up her toes? She's not even a titled lady! Do you know she married a servant?"

"She ... she is my friend," Marianna said quietly.

"Friend. Hah! Some friend, allowing you to traipse about and become engaged to such a man. If she were a proper duenna and you a proper young lady, you—”

But Marianna had reached her saturation point and had stopped listening—a fact that became apparent, and she was finally released and sent her to her bedchamber like a naughty child. Marianna went gladly and stayed.

She curled up on the wide four-poster and buried her head under one of the down pillows, but no matter how fervently she wished to hide from everything, she kept remembering the awful censure in her father's eyes. Several hours passed, and though she was quite miserably sharp set after not having eaten any luncheon, her stomach was too upset for her to eat, and she finally fell into a deep and drugging sleep, missing the evening meal entirely.

SHE AWAKENED BEFORE the sun rose the next morning and sat near her window, watching the world come alive. Her parents were right. The Viscount Trowbridge was most unsuitable for any purpose, and she should have known it. The moment she heard his nickname, True Sin, she should have turned her head and found someone else. She had been foolish and imprudent, and her parents were the ones paying the price. There was no way she could avoid his influence now. No matter whom she married, the
ton
would always connect her name with True Sin, and no amount of assurances from Ophelia could convince her that
that
was a good thing.

She did not want to be an Original. She wanted to be a lady.

It was too late for that, though.

Yesterday's race, coupled with Trowbridge's suggestion that they may have been swimming naked in the brook together at night, would probably already be enough to keep the more respectable bachelors at bay. No
ton
mama would want her son connected to a hoyden, would she?

Marianna's only hope lay in convincing them that she wasn't a hoyden, after all.

From then on, she would be on her best behavior. Whenever any tonnish eyes were upon her, she would be the soul of propriety. Not only would she wear her gloves, but she would also not fidget within them, and she wouldn't get a single smudge on them.

She dressed even more carefully than usual, in a plain brown-flowered jaconet muslin gown and demure fringed cream shawl. She pulled her hair into its tight bun, making sure not one curl escaped to mar the smooth outline of her face, and pinned on a simple yet smart chip straw bonnet with brown velvet ribbons. She looked at herself in the cheval glass and gave a satisfied nod.

Proper. Almost elegant.

She was still a plain Miss, but she was a well-dressed plain Miss who knew how to conduct herself as a lady should. If she behaved herself, then with a little luck she would yet marry well. Her parents would be accepted into the
ton
along with her, and they would all live happily ever after, just like in the fairy stories.

A little after sunrise, a knock sounded on her door, and she opened it to a chorus of glum voices: the ABC's.

They were dreadfully put out at not having been allowed to see the race, and they complained bitterly, for she'd had little time with them since the arrival of the guests.

"Even Uncle Sin has abandoned us," Alyse said, and stuck out her lower lip. Marianna noticed that she had at least made an attempt to brush her long, dark hair.

"Yes, he went hunting early this morning, with some of the men from Town." Beatrice scowled and picked at her fingernail.

Framed in blonde curls, Eleanor's little face was full of concentration as she attempted to copy her sisters. She scowled, picked at her fingernails, and stuck out her bottom lip as she said, "Mr. Montethcue thaid they will not be back till after dark."

"A rat deserting a sinking ship," Marianna muttered. How dare he leave her alone to fend for herself after what he'd done to her yesterday? She could fancy him starting off that morning, leering up at the sleeping house in fiendish delight. He knew very well what a coil he was leaving her to face all alone.

"What ship?" Beatrice asked. "And how did it get so stinky?"

Marianna smiled and ruffled the girl's long, dark curly hair, and then distracted the three sisters by allowing them to open the boxes sitting on her dressing table.

The four of them shared exclamations of delight when the top came off the first box, revealing a breathtakingly lovely gown. And she was sure it wasn’t anything she had ordered. It was entirely colorless. With her pale looks, dressing entirely in white was not the thing. It made her look like a ghost, though, looking at the gown, she wished otherwise. Fashioned of layer upon layer of the sheerest, lightest, whitest muslin she’d ever seen, it was scattered with seed pearls and embroidered flowers.” Marianna’s eyes narrowed. Flowers that looked suspiciously like—”