Slightly Dangerous (26 page)

Christine had rejected his offer of marriage, though he had made it four separate times in four different ways within fifteen minutes and even then refused to believe that she could be serious. He promised himself a journey into Gloucestershire after the parliamentary session was adjourned for the summer, when he hoped to renew his acquaintance with Mrs. and Miss Thompson and to find Mrs. Derrick in a kinder frame of mind.

It was all very vexing, even though Melanie laughed merrily over an account of it afterward and Christine joined her.

“You are just too attractive for your own good, Christine,” Melanie said, dabbing at her eyes with a lace-edged handkerchief. “If Kitredge were only thirty years younger and handsome—and intelligent and sensible. But he is none of those things, is he, and I daresay he never was. I thought you looked very romantic riding off with Bewcastle yesterday, except that you were all bundled up inside his coat with your hair dripping about your ears, and he had a brow of thunder. I do not suppose he was at all amused at being forced to ride to your rescue.”

“No,” Christine said with a sigh. “He was not.”

And then they both went off into whoops of laughter again, though Christine’s spirits were down somewhere in the soles of her slippers.

Thank heaven they were returning home tomorrow. But that thought only succeeded in making her feel more depressed.

And then, in the middle of the afternoon, when she was upstairs packing her own bags even though Melanie had tried to press the services of a maid on her, a footman tapped on her door and informed her that her ladyship requested her company in the drawing room below. When she went to see what it was that Melanie wanted, she discovered her friend seated on one side of the fire, smirking with self-satisfaction, and the Duke of Bewcastle just getting to his feet from the chair at the other side.

Christine’s spirits, firmly lodged in the soles of her slippers, did an uncomfortable little flip-flop.

“Mrs. Derrick.” He bowed.

“Your grace.” She curtsied.

Melanie remained silent and continued to smirk.

“Ma’am,” he said, directing his silver gaze on her, “I trust you took no harm from yesterday’s adventure?”

“That is a very kind euphemism,” she said. “I assure you I took none—except to my dignity.” She had almost collapsed into a fit of the vapors when she had taken off his coat and caught sight of herself in the pier glass in her room.

But surely he had not come just to ask after her health. They had said good-bye yesterday. At least, she had. She had noticed that he had not. It had inexplicably saddened her that he had not said at least that much to her when they were parting for the rest of their lives.

“I wonder, Mrs. Derrick,” he said, “if you would care for a stroll in the park with me?”

“A stroll?” With her peripheral vision she could see that Melanie’s smirk now looked as if it had been painted on her face.

“A stroll,” he repeated. “I will escort you back here in time for tea.”

Melanie was tapping her lorgnette against the wooden arm of her chair.

“That is remarkably civil of you, Bewcastle,” she said. “Christine has not had any fresh air today. We had visitors all morning.”

But his grace kept his eyes on Christine, his eyebrows raised. If she said no, she would be teased to death after he had left. And if she said yes, she would be teased to death after she returned. She really had not wanted to see him again. She
really
had not.

“Thank you,” she heard herself say. “I will fetch my bonnet and pelisse.”

Five minutes later they were out on the street walking in the direction of the park, her arm through his. She had forgotten how tall he was, how forbidding his presence. She had forgotten how powerful an aura he projected. But she had not forgotten that she had shared deep intimacies with this man. She suddenly felt robbed of breath. And really she had nothing to say to him that she had not said yesterday, and he could have nothing to say to her.

Why on
earth
had he asked her to come walking with him?

At least while they were out on the street there were plenty of people and activities on which to fix her attention. But soon enough she found herself alone with the Duke of Bewcastle in a silent and empty Hyde Park—at least it seemed empty where they were, a fact that the chilly, blustery weather may have accounted for.

She turned her head and looked up at his profile.

“Well, your grace,” she said.

“Well, Mrs. Derrick.”

At least, she thought with foolish vanity, she was wearing her new blue dress with the matching pelisse and the gray bonnet she had worn to the wedding. She particularly liked the bonnet. The underside of its brim was lined with pleated blue silk and tied with blue ribbons that matched her outfit.
At least
she was not dressed like a scarecrow as she had been during the summer. Or in dripping, clinging finery as she had been yesterday.

They walked for what seemed like half a mile in absolute silence. It was ridiculous—as well as unnerving. She could be back at the house now packing her bags. He could be wherever he usually went on an afternoon in early March. They could both be comfortable.

“Sometimes,” she said, “people engage in the game of staring each other down, the object being not to be the first to look away. You and I have indulged in it once or twice, though I daresay it was never a game to you. You simply expect that lesser mortals will lower their gaze when it encounters yours. But is
this
another of those games, your grace? Out-silencing each other? Each determined not to be the first to speak?”

“If it is,” he said, “then I believe you would have to agree, Mrs. Derrick, that I have won.”

“And so you have.” She laughed. “Why on earth did you ask me to come walking with you? After yesterday—and after last summer—I really would have thought myself to be the very last person on earth you would wish to spend time with.”

“Then perhaps you would have thought wrongly, ma’am,” he said.

They walked another hundred yards or so in silence.

“This at least,” she said at last, “is a game I will never win. I confess myself curious. Why
did
you ask me? It was obviously not for conversation.”

Two gentlemen were riding toward them. They both drew their horses off the path, exchanged greetings with the duke as they passed, and touched the brims of their hats to Christine.

“My brothers and sisters and their families will be joining me for Easter at Lindsey Hall,” he said abruptly.

She stole a glance at him. “That will be pleasant for you,” she said, wondering if it would be. She could not really imagine him surrounded by brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces. What were they like? She could not remember meeting any of them. Were they like him? It was a thought that for the moment amused her.

“I have considered,” he said, “inviting your brother- and sister-in-law too and your cousins by marriage.”

She did not just glance at him this time. She gazed fully at him, all amazement. She knew he was a friend of Hector’s, but she had not realized he had any close acquaintance with the others.

“But I need you to help me decide,” he said.

“Me?” She continued to stare at his stern, cold profile.

“I will invite them,” he said, “if you will come too.”

“What?”

She stopped walking and turned to gaze fully and wide-eyed at him. But there were four people approaching this time, again on horseback, and the duke took her arm and drew it through his again before walking on with her until the riders had passed, again after a flurry of greetings. Then he released her arm and they both stopped walking.

“I cannot invite you alone,” he said. “It would be grossly improper, even though my own family will be with me. I cannot invite you with your mother and sisters and brother-in-law. We are not betrothed. And so I must invite you simply as a peripheral member of a family I wish to have join me and my family for the holiday.”

Anger was beginning to curl its fist about her stomach.

“Do you mean to seduce me, then?” she asked him. She did not add the word
again
. What had happened between them one night last summer had not been seduction.

“At my home?” he said stiffly. “With my family and your late husband’s in residence there? You presume to think to know me, Mrs. Derrick. If you can ask such a question, you know nothing about me at all.”

“And for the same reasons, I suppose,” she said, “you will not renew your offer there that I become your mistress.”

“I will not,” he said. “I ought never to have made it. I have no wish to make you my mistress.”

“Then what?” she asked him. “Then
why
? You
cannot
still wish to marry me.”

“I wonder,” he said, “if you presume to know the thoughts and intentions and wishes of all your acquaintance, Mrs. Derrick. It is an annoying character trait.”

She clamped her lips together, stung. She turned and walked slowly onward. The wind was blowing in her face, but she lifted her chin and welcomed the cold blast.

“I would like your assurance,” he said, falling into step beside her again, “that if I invite your late husband’s family to Lindsey Hall, Mrs. Derrick, you will accept your own invitation.”

“But why?” she asked him again. “Do you wish me to see what I missed by refusing you?”

“I am not a great deal given to spite,” he said. “Besides, I am convinced that you would take one look at my home if that were my motive and laugh at me.”

“
Now,
” she said, “you are presuming to know
me
.”

“When you rejected my marriage offer,” he said, “you gave a lengthy list of all my disqualifications to be your husband.”

“Did I?” She could scarcely remember what she had said to him that day. She could only remember the terrible longing to run after him down the street after he had left—and the tears that had left her limp with grief.

“I have them by heart,” he said. “Any man who hopes to marry you, you told me, must have a warm personality, human kindness, and a sense of humor. He must love people, particularly children, and frolicking and absurdity. He must be a man who is not obsessed with himself and his own consequence. He must be someone who is not ice to the core. He must be someone who has a heart. He must be capable of being your companion and friend and lover. You asked me if I could be all those things to you—or any of them. You implied, of course, that I could be none.”

She could not remember saying any of those things. But she must have done so. They were exactly what she would have wished to say. But
he
had remembered. And in great detail.

She licked her lips. “I did not mean to be cruel,” she said. “Or rather, I suppose I did because I can remember feeling upset at the manner of your proposal. But I do not mean to be cruel now. I married once because I tumbled into love and was young and foolish enough to believe that that first euphoria of romantic bliss could carry me happily through the rest of my life. I do not intend to marry again. But
if
I do, it could only be to a man who has all those qualities you have just repeated to me. It is an impossibility, you see. No man could ever be all those things or quite fit that dream. And so I choose to remain single and free. I am sorry if I offended you. You do not seem like the sort of man who could be offended, especially by someone as lowly as me. But
if
I offended you, I am sorry.”

“I want to prove to you,” he said, “that I have at least some of those attributes you dream of finding in a man.”

“What?”

She stopped and spun to face him again. There was no one else in sight this time. Somehow, she half realized, they had strayed from the main carriage path and were on a more secluded footpath.

“I do not believe,” he said, “I am so lacking in all humanity as you believe I am.”

“I did not say—”

“
Human kindness
was your exact phrase,” he said.

She stared at him and suddenly remembered something that she had forced herself to forget. She remembered the look in his eyes as he left her in the garden outside Hyacinth Cottage, and some of the words he had spoken then—
Someone with a heart. No, perhaps you are right, Mrs. Derrick. Perhaps I do not possess one. And if I do not, then I lack everything of which you dream, do I not?
She remembered feeling as if her heart had broken.

“I was wrong to suggest that,” she said. “I beg your pardon. But you are very far from fulfilling my dream, you know. I do not say that to be offensive. You are as you are, and I am sure that in your own world you do very well indeed. You command respect and obedience and even awe. They are necessary attributes, I daresay, for an aristocrat in your position. They are just not attributes that I look for in a lifelong companion.”

“I am a man as well as a duke, Mrs. Derrick,” he said.

She wished he had not said that. She felt as if a giant fist had caught her a blow in her abdomen, robbing her of all breath and strength in her legs.

“I know.” She was whispering. She cleared her throat. “I know.”

“And you have not been indifferent to that man,” he said.

“I know.”

He touched the gloved knuckles of one hand to her cheek for a brief moment, and she closed her eyes and frowned. Much more of this and she would be bawling—or casting herself into his arms and begging him to propose marriage to her again so that she could have the pleasure of living unhappily ever after with him.

“Give me a chance,” he said. “Come to Lindsey Hall.”

“It would be pointless,” she said, opening her eyes. “Nothing can change—not you, and not my feelings toward you. And
I
cannot change.”

“Give me a chance,” he said again.

She had never heard him laugh. She had never even seen him smile. How could she marry a man who was eternally grim? And stiff and haughty and cold? He looked all those things now at this moment while begging her to give him a chance to prove otherwise.

“I would be consumed by you,” she said, and blinked her eyes furiously when she felt them fill with tears. “You would sap all the energy and all the joy from me. You would put out all the fire of my vitality.”