Slightly Dangerous (37 page)

The duke bowed and greeted the new arrivals and offered them seats, all without moving from his place or in any way relaxing his frosty demeanor. But then, he rarely did.

Christine looked very directly at him. How
dared
he be irritated this morning at her speaking with the Marquess of Attingsborough and allowing him to help her mount her horse. How
dared
he! For a moment his glance met hers, and hers did not waver. He was the one who looked away.

As well he might, nasty man! Did he believe he owned her merely because she had agreed to come to Lindsey Hall and had been in private conversation with him a few times?

“We have just been marvelously entertained in the drawing room,” Hermione said. “Lady Rannulf is a magnificent actress. For a few minutes I quite forgot that she was not indeed poor Desdemona about to be murdered by Othello. And Hector performed some of his magic tricks. I always watch with the greatest concentration, determined that
this
time I will see exactly how he does them, but I never can. How can a piece of string become two pieces and then one again when he never puts his hands near his pockets and has his sleeves rolled back?”

“Hector has had that skill since he was a boy,” Justin said with a laugh. “He used to drive Mel and Audrey and me to distraction in the nursery, but he would never let us in on the secret.”

“It is all illusion,” the Duke of Bewcastle said. “The acting and the magic. It is the trick of making the beholder take the appearance for the reality. It is something that takes dedication and skill.”

“Well,” Justin said, “it is beyond my understanding. But I am sorry to have missed Lady Rannulf’s performance. Perhaps she will repeat it some other evening.”

“Some people, for example,” the duke said, ignoring Justin, “have the skill of saying one thing and meaning another.”

“Irony can frequently be amusing,” Basil said. “You are right, Bewcastle. Some people are masters of the art, and some of our greatest writers use it to perfection. Alexander Pope leaps to mind. ‘The Rape of the Lock’ has always set me to chuckling.”

“And some people,” the duke continued as if Basil had not spoken at all, “have the gift of speaking the truth and convincing their listeners that it is a lie.”

Hermione, Basil, and Justin looked politely at him, having nothing to say this time. Christine continued to stare steadily and coldly at him. He was arrogant and self-absorbed, she thought. She did not know now why she had come to think that perhaps there was more to him. Some of the illusion of which he spoke, perhaps?

She had no idea why she had been invited here.

“It has been my distinct impression,” the duke said, “that Mrs. Derrick is generally considered a flirt.”

“The devil!” Justin jumped to his feet.

Hermione’s hand went to the pearls about her neck.

“I believe you owe my sister-in-law an apology, Bewcastle,” Basil said stiffly.

Christine sat frozen to her chair.

The duke grasped the handle of an evening quizzing glass in his long fingers.

“I trust you will all hear me out,” he said, sounding almost bored. “Do be seated, Magnus.”

“Not,”
Justin said, “until you have apologized to Chrissie.”

The ducal glass was raised all the way to the ducal eye.

“Did I say that
I
considered her a flirt?” he asked haughtily.

Justin sat, but it was clear to see that he was furious. Christine smiled reassuringly at him before returning her gaze to the duke again, hoping it was as steely as his own.

“It is what you called her yourself, ma’am,” he said with a slight inclination of the head in Hermione’s direction, “at Schofield last year. However, I must confess that that was the only occasion on which I have heard her actively called a flirt. I have, however, heard a tedious number of times that she is
not
a flirt.”

His silver eyes came to rest on Christine for a few moments. She glared steadily back. She would dearly have liked to jump to her feet and crack her hand across his cheek, but she doubted her legs would support her. And she was so short of breath that she was almost gasping.

“You told me, ma’am,” the duke said to Hermione, “that Mrs. Derrick had flirted with every gentleman at the house party and that she had flirted with
me
by walking in the laburnum alley with me in order to win a wager she had with the other young ladies. I beg you to try to recall what put both ideas into your head. Was it entirely your own observation and conclusion? Or did someone so forcefully and passionately assure you that she was
not
flirting that your suspicions were aroused and your conclusion drawn?”

“You see?” Justin cried before Hermione could answer. “I told you this morning that this is the way it has always been, Bewcastle. You are referring to me, are you not? I wish I had
never
spoken up in Chrissie’s defense. I always seem to have done more harm than good.
Always!
But this is it! I’ll never do it again.” He looked across at Christine, apparently on the verge of tears. “I am sorry, Chrissie.”

But she was looking at him, arrested.

“We all know,” Hermione said gently, “that Justin is very fond of Christine. Perhaps even in love with her. And we have always known that he can see no wrong in her. He would defend her even if he had actually witnessed some blatant indiscretion. It is an endearing quality in him. But he hardly inspires belief. Pardon me, Justin. I know you have always meant well.”

“If there is one word apart from
flirtation
that seems to have become associated with Mrs. Derrick through all the stories I have heard of her marriage and through all that I have known of her in the last year,” the duke continued, “it is the word
Justin
.”

“What are you suggesting?” Justin jumped to his feet again. “You filthy—”

The Duke of Bewcastle, quite unperturbed, had his glass to his eye again.

“I am suggesting that you sit down, Magnus,” he said, and, incredibly, Justin sat.

“I would ask you to think, Elrick,” the duke said, “about all those occasions during her marriage when Mrs. Derrick was perceived by her husband and by you and Lady Elrick to have been flirting or behaving in an indiscreet manner with other gentlemen and ask yourself whether you or your brother or your wife ever saw incontrovertible evidence that she was guilty or ever received any complaint from another person. I ask you to remember if you ever directly heard any unsavory gossip about her.”

Christine was feeling cold even though she was well within range of the fire’s heat. And she was no longer looking at the duke. She was watching Justin.

“I hardly think our private family business is your concern, Bewcastle,” Basil said.

Christine could hear Hermione swallowing. “It was Justin who always told us,” she said. “He brought the news from the gentlemen’s clubs and other places, gossip that would not be spoken when Basil or Oscar was present. He was always angry and upset. He always defended Christine and insisted that there was no truth in any of the stories or rumors. He always . . .”

She set one hand over her mouth.

“Justin,” Christine said, “what have you done?”

It was all very simple really. Very, very simple. And almost undetectable.

“I was told this morning,” the duke said, “as I rode home from Alvesley with Magnus that Mrs. Derrick must not be blamed for responding to the attentions of the Marquess of Attingsborough or accused of being a flirt, since the man concerned is an experienced rake. I was told she cannot help the effect she has on men like Attingsborough and Kitredge and myself. That is just the way she is—though she
is
understandably ambitious to win for herself the highest-ranking title she can acquire. I was told that if he knew of hundreds of indiscretions of Mrs. Derrick’s instead of dozens, he would defend her every time because that is what friends do. I was told that though Mrs. Derrick was alone for more than an hour with a gentleman the day before her husband’s death, he had willingly provided her with an alibi because he trusted her.”

“Justin.” Christine had not taken her eyes from his face. “You quite deliberately wrecked my marriage? You drove Oscar out of his mind? You actually drove him to his death?”

“You cannot believe that, Chrissie!” he cried, his eyes wild. “I am your friend. I am the only one who understands you. I
love
you!”

Basil cleared his throat.

Hermione held the fingertips of one hand against her forehead. Her eyes were closed.

“This is too much like a nightmare,” she said. “It
cannot
be true. It surely cannot. And yet I know it is. You were so convincing, Justin. We always felt
sorry
for you. And we did not believe a word you said.”

“You!” Justin pointed accusingly at the duke. “You, Bewcastle! You called Chrissie a strumpet this morning.”

“And then rode on to the stables,” the Duke of Bewcastle said, raising his glass to his eye once more, “so that you could savor your triumph in private.”

“And then you came and told me,” Christine said, “that his grace would make a horribly jealous and possessive husband since he had been irritated by the fact that the Marquess of Attingsborough had escorted me outside the house and helped me mount. Justin! Oh, Justin. Poor, poor Oscar!”

She spread her hands over her face and felt a cool hand come against the back of her neck—Hermione’s.

“Nobody loves you as I do, Chrissie,” Justin said. “But of course, you are always dazzled by looks. First Oscar and now Bewcastle and a whole host of other handsome men in between. And look at me—or rather
don’t
look. No woman ever does, least of all you. You never took me seriously. I can’t bear to see you with other men who don’t appreciate you properly. Chrissie, I
love
you.”

Christine removed her hands in time to see the Duke of Bewcastle lean over Justin’s chair and then straighten up again, without any apparent effort, Justin’s neckcloth in his firm grasp and Justin’s person dangling above the floor so that he could touch it only with his toes.

“I share your skill in one particular way, Magnus,” his grace said so softly and so coldly that Christine shivered. “I have never been quite sure what love is, but I certainly know what love is
not
. Love does not destroy the beloved or cause her endless suffering.”

Christine’s hands were over her face again. But the hot tears oozed between her fingers and dripped onto her lap.

“I would like to shake you like the rat you are until you are limp and lifeless,” the duke said in the same voice, “but you are a guest in my home, as are other members of your family, including your mother. Your family may deal with you as they see fit later, but for now you will make any reasonable excuse you can invent to leave my house before breakfast tomorrow. And, if you are wise, you will keep yourself for the next decade or two as far away from my sight as you are able.”

Christine was aware of Basil getting to his feet.

“But before you leave, Justin,” Basil said, “before you leave both Lindsey Hall and England, that is, I will see you outside the house. Now.”

“Basil—” Hermione said as Christine looked up.

“You will remain here, Hermione,” he said. “And you too, Christine. Justin? Outside!”

Justin stopped before Christine’s chair, his face ashen and distraught. There were tears in his eyes.

“Chrissie?” he said.

A truly amazing and shocking thing happened then. The Duke of Bewcastle’s foot came up and caught him in the seat of his breeches, lifting him half off his feet and sending him staggering after Basil, who was stalking from the room.

There was a moment of silence after they had left. Then the duke bowed to them.

“I will leave you alone,” he said. “You will not be disturbed.”

But before he left the room, he paused before Christine’s chair, as Justin had done, and set a large linen handkerchief in her hand.

Christine and Hermione sat side by side for a few moments.

“Christine,” Hermione said at last, “how can I ever expect you to forgive us?”

“I was as deceived as you were,” Christine said. “He was
my
friend. For those few years before Oscar died, he was the only person I trusted.”

They were both in tears then, crying their eyes out in each other’s arms, crying for the lost years and the lost friendships, for the unnecessary death of a weak, tormented man, for their own gullibility in falling for a scheme that was so fiendishly simple it had succeeded utterly.

When their tears were spent Christine blew her nose in the borrowed handkerchief.

“I do hope Basil will not get hurt,” she said. “How foolish of him to take Justin outside.”

“Basil is a man,” Hermione said fondly. “How else can a man react to such a revelation? I hope he pounds Justin to a pulp.”

They both laughed rather nervously and then shed a few more tears.

20

S
UNDAY
—E
ASTER
S
UNDAY
—
PASSED IN RELATIVE PEACE
. There was church in the morning, family activities in the afternoon, and a quiet evening of music, conversation, and reading.

No one remarked a great deal on the sudden disappearance of Justin. He was reputed to have made his apologies to the Duke of Bewcastle over a suddenly remembered engagement in town, and, as his mother said, Justin had come and gone as he pleased all his adult life, so doubtless he had a good reason for leaving now. Everyone accepted Basil’s sheepish explanation that he had hit his right cheekbone and grazed his knuckles when he fell out of the bathtub in his dressing room—or, if some did not believe him, they kept their suspicions to themselves.

Justin, Basil had assured both Christine and Hermione when he had rejoined them in the library, looked far worse than he. After saying it, he had hugged first Hermione and then Christine—very tightly and for a long while.

“Oscar loved you, Christine,” Basil had said, his voice sounding rather choked. “He did love you to the end, even if he stopped trusting you.”