Slightly Dangerous (29 page)

Instead . . .

Well, she seemed to have got all hot and flushed somewhere between Bertie’s carriage and the front doors of Lindsey Hall. And her bonnet was very definitely askew—she could see several more inches of the underside of the brim on the left side than on the right. And now that she was walking again she could feel that her cloak had got twisted awkwardly about her, bringing her dress with it so that when she glanced downward she could see that far too much ankle—fortunately encased in her new half-boots—was showing on one side.

And hadn’t she
prattled
at him when she entered the house instead of waiting for him to greet her and then smiling at him with cool, gracious dignity?

Yes, indeed she had. She had prattled—loudly enough for them all to hear every word. And then she had met every brother and sister he possessed as well as their spouses and the impossibly arrogant Marchioness of Rochester with twisted clothes, a bonnet askew, hot cheeks, and a child in her arms who was not even her own.

It was enough to make one want to weep.

It was enough to convince the Duke of Bewcastle without further ado that
no
man, least of all himself, would
ever
want to be her dream man.

And then
that
thought made her want to weep even harder.

15

W
ULFRIC WAS VERY CAREFUL DURING TEA IN THE DRAWING
room to focus the bulk of his attention upon every newly arrived guest except Christine Derrick. He was careful to have her seated far from the head of the long table during dinner, between Alleyne and Joshua, while he had Lady Elrick on his left and Lady Mowbury on his right.

He did not want any of his family suspecting that she was, in fact, the guest of honor.

Characteristically, she was dressed simply, in a high-waisted, short-sleeved evening gown of pale green with but a single flounce at the hem and a modestly low neckline. She wore no jewelry and no adornments in her hair. She was decently, prettily clad, but even his partial eyes could see that she did not match in splendor any of his sisters or sisters-in-law or, indeed, any of the other ladies present. Yet her section of the table, as first Joshua and then Alleyne conversed with her, fairly sparkled with wit and humor—or so it seemed to Wulfric, who could not actually hear a word of what was being said.

When the gentlemen joined the ladies in the drawing room after dinner, Mrs. Derrick was sitting in one corner of the room, away from the fire, with Eve, Rachel, and Mrs. Pritchard. Her eyes met Wulfric’s briefly, and he was not surprised when they laughed at him as if to say that her attempt to be unobtrusive and to observe humanity rather than be one of its number had been foiled.

He did not hold her gaze but gave his attention to his other guests and somehow found himself after a few minutes performing the unspeakably tedious task of turning pages of music for Miss Hutchinson while she played the pianoforte—competently but somewhat nervously, it seemed to him. After she had finished and he had complimented her, he strolled away in order to accept a cup of tea from Judith, who was pouring, and then found himself in conversation with his aunt and Miss Hutchinson again, though the former, after a mere couple of minutes, suddenly claimed that Rochester was beckoning her and swept away with all her hair plumes nodding.

Rochester, Wulfric could see, was playing cards with Weston, Lady Mowbury, and Mrs. Pritchard and was probably unaware that his wife was even in the room.

Miss Hutchinson, who had already been showing signs of nervous discomfort, looked as if she were on the verge of swooning quite away as he addressed his conversation exclusively to her. Morgan approached them, a smile on her face, but almost before Miss Hutchinson could turn to her in relief like a drowning person being thrown a rope, Aunt Rochester came swooping back down upon them and bore Morgan away on some slim pretext.

This, Wulfric, decided, was quite intolerable. It was more than a decade since he had last been the object of his aunt’s matchmaking efforts.

“Miss Hutchinson,” he said, “I see that a group of young people is gathering about the pianoforte. Would you care to join them?”

“Yes, please, your grace,” she said.

His aunt, he thought, must have taken leave of her senses if she believed a match was possible between this girl and himself, but he knew that when she made up her mind to something, she was not easily deterred. If he did not wish to find himself tête-à-tête with Miss Hutchinson again in five minutes’ time or less, he had better take an active role in his own salvation and find some alternative. And so he did what he wished to do.

He strolled toward the corner of the room where Christine Derrick was for the moment sitting alone. He stood before her, looking down at her and marveling anew that she was actually here at Lindsey Hall. For a few ghastly moments after the Renables had entered the house alone this afternoon, he had thought she must have changed her mind and not come after all. And then when she had stepped inside, flushed and breathless, her bonnet askew, her dress and cloak bunched up on one side, the child clutched in her arms, and had immediately launched into speech, he had thought the old thought—she simply did not know how to behave. But at the same time he had had the curious feeling that if there were any sunshine outside at all on such a gloomy day she must have brought it all inside with her.

He had never expected to fall in love. He had certainly never expected to develop an attachment to someone so very ineligible. And so he was quite unprepared to deal with the emotional turmoil that doing both had brought with it.

“Well, Mrs. Derrick,” he said now.

“Well, your grace.”

“I trust,” he said, “all is to your liking? Your room? The service?”

“I have the loveliest room,” she said, “with the loveliest view. Your housekeeper has been exceedingly kind to me. She has even insisted on assigning me my own personal maid, even though I assured her that I did not need one.”

He inclined his head. His housekeeper, of course, had taken her orders from him. He had chosen that room specifically for Christine Derrick, partly because he had thought the Chinese silk wallpaper and screens and the cheerful green and gold bed and window hangings would please her, and partly because he had wanted her to be able to look out upon the fountain surrounded by spring flowers, and upon the long, straight driveway beyond. It was, he always thought, a particularly stately view of the park. It was also the view he had from his own windows, though there were three rooms separating his apartments from hers. And he had guessed that she would not have a maid with her. She would be the only lady in his home who would not. It simply would not do.

He seated himself on a chair close to hers and arranged the tails of his coat neatly behind him.

“I trust,” he said, “you had a pleasant journey.”

“Yes,” she said. “Thank you.”

“And I trust,” he said, “you left your mother well? And your sister?”

“Both, thank you,” she said.

“And your sister at the vicarage?” he said. “And your nephews and niece?”

“They are all well, thank you.” She half smiled at him and her eyes laughed outright. “So is Charles—the vicar.”

When had he begun to take delight from that way she had of laughing at him?

“I am glad to hear it.” The fingers of his right hand found the handle of his quizzing glass, and for a moment her eyes followed the gesture and made him conscious of it.

He was not a particularly sociable man. He avoided entertainments and trivial conversation whenever he could. He was, nevertheless, a gentleman and therefore adept at making polite conversation when he needed to do so. This evening there was certainly need. He was entertaining houseguests in his own home. And they had all—even his brothers and sisters—been invited here because of this woman, because of his need to have her here and somehow woo her.

He could not think of a thing to say to her.

“I was surprised,” she said, “to find the nursery so full of children, many of them very young.”

“My brothers and sisters,” he said, “have been somewhat prolific during the past few years. But you must not fear that the house will be overrun with them or that you will be called upon again to tend any of their needs. They belong in the nursery and will be kept there by their nurses.”

His own family, he had decided, must make less free of the house with their offspring now that his other guests had arrived.

“I must not fear,” she said softly. “They will be kept in the nursery. How convenient it is for the very wealthy to have nurseries and nurses to help them forget that they even have children—except for the succession.”

“You would prefer to have them constantly underfoot, then?” he asked her. “Forever interrupting adult conversation and trying adult patience?”

“In my experience,” she said, “the situation is more like to be reversed. Adults constantly interrupt a child’s conversation and try a child’s patience to the limit. But adults and children
can
coexist to the mutual happiness and benefit of both.”

“And so,” he said, “adults must board magic carpets with children and flap their arms with them as they fly over the Atlantic Ocean without getting their feet wet?”

“Oh, dear,” she said, flushing, “so you
did
see some of that lesson, did you? It was unkind of you to stand against the fence at just the place where the sun would be behind you and make you virtually invisible. Did you disapprove, then? Did you think me undignified? Would it have been better to have the children sit in disciplined rows on the grass while I stood to assert my physical and intellectual superiority? Would it have been better to give them a verbal history of the fur trade in the interior of the North American continent beyond Canada and to describe to them the canoe routes taken by the voyageurs and the riverbed they follow and the flora and fauna they pass? To give the children a list of the food they take with them and the trading goods they carry to exchange for furs? And would I then have been justified the next day in my annoyance over discovering that not a single child remembered a single detail of the lesson?”

Many people spoke with their lips alone. Mrs. Derrick spoke with her lips, her eyes, her whole face, her hands, and her body—and with everything that was inside herself. She spoke as she appeared to live—with eagerness, even passion. He watched her and listened to her with fascination.

“Actually, Mrs. Derrick,” he said, “I was charmed.”

“Oh.” Clearly he had taken the wind out of her sails. She had been preparing to argue with him. Perhaps, he thought belatedly, he should have baited her. “And yet you believe children belong in the nursery?”

“I wonder,” he said, “what the children upstairs would think if we invaded their domain at will. Would they perhaps come to the conclusion that in the main adults belong downstairs?”

She laughed. “That
is
a novel thought, I must confess,” she said. “At the vicarage Hazel is forever shushing the children because Charles is invariably writing and rewriting next Sunday’s sermon, and she is forever correcting their grammar or criticizing their posture or directing their activities. Perhaps they would be delighted to have a nursery as their very own domain.”

“I am not after all, then,” he said, “the monster you first thought me, Mrs. Derrick?”

“But we must compromise,” she said. “We adults must be allowed to enjoy ourselves free of children, and they must be allowed to enjoy
themselves
free of
us
. If we never see them, though, how can we learn from them? How can they learn from us?”

“
We
can learn from
children
?” he asked her.

“Of course we can.” She leaned a little more forward in her chair. “We can learn to see the world anew through their eyes. We can learn spontaneity and joy and wonder and silliness and laughter. And love.”

“All of which attributes,” he said, “I believe I lack, Mrs. Derrick.”

She sat back again and looked at him warily.

“I would not know,” she said.

“But I believe you do.” He half raised his quizzing glass. “Or so you once told me.”

“I ought not to have done so,” she said. “You ought not to have goaded me.”

“By asking you to marry me?” he asked softly, his eyes narrowing on her. “I was
goading
you?”

“In your nightly prayers, your grace,” she said, “you should give fervent thanks that I did not say yes.”

“Should I?” Her eyes were pure blue, he saw again. Like the sea on a summer’s day. He could easily drown in them.

“Look about you, your grace,” she said. “Look at all the ladies.”

He did so to oblige her. He even raised his glass to his eye. Freyja, he noticed, was looking quite magnificent tonight in a flowing gold gown with gold hair plumes and diamonds sparkling at her neck and ears and wrists and on several fingers. But she was only one of many. All the other ladies looked similarly elegant and richly clad.

“I have done so,” he said, lowering his glass and turning back to Christine Derrick.

“And now look at me,” she said.

He saw what he had already seen at dinner. Her gown was obviously new. It was more stylish than the clothes she had worn last summer. But it was simply styled and unadorned, and she wore no jewelry. Her shining dark curls had no ornament. Her cheeks were slightly flushed. Her eyes were dark-lashed and widely spaced and intelligent. Her freckles seemed to have disappeared. Her lips were soft and generous and slightly parted.

“I have done so,” he said softly.

“Now tell me,” she said, “that you do not see the difference.”

“I see all the difference in the world,” he told her. “None of those other ladies is you.”

“Oh.” The color in her cheeks deepened. “You are very clever this evening, your grace.”

“I beg your pardon,” he said. “Was there a script? Was I intended to say something else?”

“I am not of your world,” she said. “I once married into it, though only as the wife of a younger son. We never had much money, especially in later years, and Oscar died in debt. These new clothes, which I chose with great care and consideration to cost, were bought from a money gift my brother-in-law sent me when he knew I had been invited to Audrey’s wedding. I live contentedly in a small village. I teach. I am the daughter of a man who was a gentleman in name and education but not in substance. His father was a baronet, but my mother’s father was a physician. You can be
very
thankful, your grace, that I said no. And I can be equally thankful. I would rather be dead, I believe, than be the wife of a duke.”