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Authors: Elizabeth Essex

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BOOK: A Sense of Sin
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“You could. But then, I just might make an offer to marry you, and then you’d have to choose between your ruinations—mine or society’s. An unpalatable choice, I should think.”
Celia’s heart was in her throat, stuck there, stoppering her breath.
“I
will
scream. I—”
“You go right ahead. For here we have Miss Burke, your friend, whom you asked to meet you here, as a witness. She will say you are taken in an hysterical fit. What say you, Miss Burke?”
Melissa whirled around as Celia stepped from the shadow of the window. The girl’s face was as mobile as a clockwork, moving, ticking along until she found the appropriate time. “Celia, my dear friend. Thank God you’re here.”
“It’s true, isn’t it, Melissa? It was you. You started those vile rumors that sent Emily to her death.”
For a moment Celia thought she was going to continue to bluster and deny. Then Melissa tossed her blond curls and tried to look down her nose at Celia. “Don’t be so naive. The rumors were no more than you earned and deserved, being so secretive, scurrying about in your woods, whispering to each other all the time. People were already thinking it.”
“Why? Why did you do it?”
“Why not? I needed the money, but I don’t suppose you, with all your wealth and privilege and relations, would understand that.” Her tone was scathing. “I must live, Celia, and to do so, I must have money. But to get money, I must marry. But to marry, I must have money, to buy clothes and a house and respectability, so I can meet a rich eligible young man to marry. So I can have money. All those young men falling at your feet. All those men whom you—you who have everything—disdain. Well, I want them and there is no reason I shouldn’t have them.”
“No reason except it was simply wrong. It is all founded on lies and deceit.”
“Of course you would think so, which is why I had such pleasure in blackmailing you, so full of scruples and moral surety. Well, I can’t afford your scruples, Miss Burke. As for the lies and deceit, the Bank of England works on lies and deceit—why should I be any different?”
Celia had never felt such cold, hollow disillusion.
“Oh, you needn’t look so affronted. It wasn’t personal.”
“Of course it was personal, Melissa. Your own jealous words have just proven it. You want what you think I have. You feel entitled to it.”
Melissa quirked her lips and raised her eyebrow in a sneering fashion, but gave no answer.
“Now,” Viscount Darling broke the silence, “we come to the conclusion, in which I tell you, Miss Wainwright, in no uncertain terms, to stop. If one word—one further breath of trouble comes to Miss Burke or myself about any of these matters—I will ruin you. I will see you hounded out of this country. Your letters warned us particularly to remember how fickle the ton is, how much they love to see a spotless reputation being dragged through the mud. Nothing half so entertaining as a downfall. Wasn’t that what you said?”
Melissa had no answer.
“Go away, quickly and quietly, or you shall find yourself a victim of your own practice. Do you understand? Do you agree?”
“What choice do I have in the mat—”
“
Do you agree?
”
Melissa swallowed, finally intimidated by the barely leashed force of the Viscount’s anger. “Yes.”
“Then you may go. And do not come back. Your days in the ton are over.” He unlocked the door and held it open.
Melissa picked up her skirts and stalked out with all the vitriol and dignity of an exiled queen.
“Well.” Celia had to work to draw enough breath back into her lungs. “That, I can only hope, is the end of that. Thank you, Viscount Darling. I am grateful.”
“I like grateful.”
Celia, despite the growing pain in her chest, would make it easy for him. She owed him that much. “We have accomplished our goal and we can part as friends.”
“Friends.” He said the word as if tasting it for the first time, as if he hadn’t been the one to say it all those weeks ago. “I don’t think I’ve ever been friends with a young lady before. Certainly not with one I have tried to seduce.”
She felt the predictable heated flush flare up her neck.
“We have been strangely intimate for friends,” he said.
“Yes, we have been intimate friends, but we have not been lovers. At your insistence.”
“It wouldn’t have been right. There was too much misunderstanding—”
“I know. So let us part as friends.” She put out her hand for him to shake.
Del took her hand, his palm eclipsing hers. He moved his fingers ever so slightly, so he could feel the pulse in her wrist, strong and constant. That’s what she was beneath her deceptive exterior of beauty—strong and constant. Resolute.
He raised her hand up slowly and pressed a kiss to the top of her gloved hand, and then to the turn of her wrist. Her scent rose again, floral and exotic, laced with citrus. With lemon. He wanted to peel off every layer of her clothes and search her body for those warm pulse points of scent. “We cannot part as friends. Because, you and I, Miss Burke, have unfinished business.”
Her mouth fell open, her lips parted in surprise. Without thinking he pulled her toward him and lowered his mouth to hers. She turned her head at the last moment, and his kiss landed gently on the soft skin of her cheek. Her skin, against his, was so deeply, intoxicatingly soft. A slight pillow of a cheek, whispering its balm across the incipient roughness of his beard.
His eyes shuttered closed and he inhaled deeply, drawing her scent, her essence into him.
She drew away.
He let her go, bemused, startled even, by his almost spiritual reaction to her. His mind went back to that first moment, when he had been so full of hate, so willing to believe the worst of her, and yet his body had recognized her immediately.
This one. This one alone will do. This is what I want.
She almost stepped back, and then she moved, as light, erratic, and unpredictable as a butterfly and alit, with the same sense of delicate discovery, upon his mouth. Her lips were soft, so soft, softer than he remembered. He did not have adequate feelings for the fathoms of sensation when her lips settled so sweetly and tentatively upon his.
He could not stop himself from at last, at long last, taking her face in his hands and cradling the fragile strength of her jaw between his palms, angling her head to draw her deeper to him. Every nerve in his body stretched towards her, anxious to catalogue every sensation, every nuance he had denied himself. His tongue explored the texture of her lips and when he pressed a small kiss to the corner of her mouth she opened to him. The sweetness of her mouth flooded him. He delved deeper, again and again, starved for the taste and feel of her. His hand crept up to the nape of her neck to entwine in her dark silken curls.
He wanted to kiss her everywhere, to taste each and every inch of her skin. His mouth slid along her cheek and he was startled to taste the damp salt of tears.
“Don’t,” he murmured as he thumbed the tears away. “Please, love, don’t.”
“Exactly the word I was thinking.
Don’t
.” A father’s enraged voice, followed by the firm closing of a door. “Now step away from my daughter.”
Even as Del’s arms reached instinctively to pull her behind him, even as he leaned towards her to give her the protection of his body, she jumped in front of him. As if she, this exquisite piece of human frailty, thought she needed to protect him from her father.
“We were saying good-bye, Papa, the Viscount and I. So you may take me home now, please.”
“I don’t think so, Celia. That is not what good-bye looks like. That looked very much like hello. As in, hello, Viscount Darling. I am Lord Thomas Burke, Celia’s father, and I shall expect you to attend me tomorrow morning. Do I make myself clear?”
“I shall deem it an honor to wait upon you, my lord.”
“No,” Celia gasped. “This is entirely unnecessary, Papa. You misunderstand.”
“No.” Her father’s voice was more than firm, it was unyielding. “It is you who do not understand, Celia. This is not a discussion. Your mutual lack of discretion has ended that possibility. You are being talked about. You will return to your mother now.”
“Papa. Viscount Darling—”
“Now.”
As soon as Celia went through the door, she understood what her father had said. Any number of people loitered casually in the hallway, which only minutes ago had been entirely deserted. She felt her face flame.
But she drew on composure like a cloak. She used her high color and made it her camouflage. She forced herself to achieve a brilliant, almost intoxicated smile, as if there were nothing going on behind the library doors she didn’t think was perfectly wonderful. She would get through the rest of the evening without anyone being the wiser.
Her mother made only the slightest of double takes when Celia went to her. “Papa desires to go, Mama. He has gone to collect the carriage.”
Her mama’s nostrils flared slightly—she had always been able to smell a lie—but she gave nothing else away. She made unhurried good-byes while Celia stood radiantly by.
Celia continued to smile her way around the ballroom. She followed the linked chain of whispers until it came to moor upon Melissa Wainwright, who had clearly not quit the ballroom. Oh, she was pleased with herself, Miss Wainwright was. It was clear from the look of triumph curving her lips into a smug smile, she had orchestrated this. Yes, even now, one of Celia’s acquaintance was speaking from behind her fan into Melissa’s ears.
Spite, pure and crystalline, and as sharp as a blade, lanced through Celia. It was natural that she should feel such an emotion and she shook off the impulse to suppress it. Miss Wainwright had done nothing for months but try to harm Celia. It was time Melissa took a dose of her own bitter medicine.
“Oh, Miss Wainwright. Allow me to say good evening to you.”
Melissa’s smug smile held for another moment or two as Celia advanced upon her.
“Going so soon, Miss Burke? You poor dear. There seemed to be such a dreadful commotion in the library.”
Celia allowed her brows to rise and she turned to look back at the hallway from whence she had come. “A commotion?” Easy enough to refute as there had been none.
“Why yes. I was told quite distinctly that you were alone with Viscount Darling. The Vile Viscount.”
“Yes, yes I was. I find his character has been quite wrongly maligned. Don’t you, Miss Wainwright? After Viscount Darling was so kind to help you out of your
dreadful
trouble?”
Melissa tried to brazen it out. “You admit that you were quite alone with him?”
“Oh, yes. We had a lovely conversation, Miss Wainwright. About you.”
All conversation in the vicinity had stopped. Mouths had fallen agape and every ear was turned to catch the byplay between them, but at least as many people had turned to scrutinize Miss Wainwright as were looking at Celia. Good. Let Melissa taste what she had so stupidly and callously begun.
Out of the corner of her eye Celia could see her mother advancing with the stately confidence of a ship of the line. “But here is my mama, come to bid you good-bye, for I doubt we shall ever see you here again.”
Celia took her mother’s arm and out they sailed, smiling as if nothing in the world could possibly be wrong.
C
HAPTER
20
D
el arrived at Widcombe House on foot. Gosling, who knew everything about how one ought to conduct such things, had advised using the town coach with the addition of the family coat of arms emblazoned on the side. Del didn’t think anything was going to impress Lord Thomas Burke. And it took less time to walk. If Celia could do it in the middle of the night, surely he could do it in the middle of the day.
When he knocked, Del was shown directly to a small book room, at one end of a larger library. As he entered, Lord Thomas did not get up. Del was sensible of the subtle signal, and did his future father-in-law the courtesy of letting the man intimidate him. Del remained standing in front of Lord Thomas’s desk.
“My lord.” He bowed. “I thank you for agreeing to see me today. I have come to request the honor of your daughter’s hand in marriage.”
Lord Thomas did not invite him to sit. “It gives me great pain, Viscount Darling, to inflict you upon my daughter as a husband. You are not at all what I would have chosen for her. Nor are you in any way what she would have chosen for herself, were she still free to do so. Your actions have robbed her of that opportunity.”
The accusation that Celia would not have chosen him stung. But he wouldn’t degrade himself further by asking what her father thought she did want. It was enough to know she
had
wanted him bloody well enough to sneak across Mayfair and practically strip herself naked in his bedchamber.
“I will do everything in my power to see your daughter wants for nothing.”
Lord Thomas was not impressed by Del’s declaration. “Yes, but will you be able to make her happy? Do you have
any
idea what makes her happy?”
Del would bet long odds he knew a thing or two, about which Miss Burke’s father had no earthly idea. Only one would he voice in public. “Botany.”
“Ah. Very good. You surprise me, Viscount Darling.” Though Lord Thomas was not as surprised as Darling would have thought.
“As do you. I had not thought her parents knew of her interests.”
“Good Lord, man,” Lord Thomas scoffed. “She has a work room in an old barn on my property and an assortment of equipment for specimen collection, not to mention she corresponds regularly with other botanists and lately with members of the Royal Society. Do you really think all that could go on if I were unaware of it? If I had not given my tacit permission?”
“Then you approve?”
“Obviously. She could not have pursued her studies otherwise. But the more important question at this juncture is whether you approve? Or even understand?”
“I foresee no reason why I might interfere with her interest.”
“Can you not? Then I think you have not thought seriously about marriage and what it will entail. But of course”—Lord Thomas let out a sound of disgust—“you would not have thought of marriage at all, were your hand not forced.”
There was no point in answering. Del’s reputation alone was enough to suppose he had never thought seriously of marriage.
“A small word,
interest
.” Lord Thomas continued to eye him with something less than affection. “Have you seen her work?”
“Just once, though I was not sure at the time, it was hers.”
“Typical of her. Do you know enough about it to know it is good? Very good. And that it is a serious, scholarly undertaking?”
“I know she has ambitions for fellowship in the Royal Society.”
“She told you that? She must trust you a good deal more than I thought, to share that information.”
“She does. I accompanied her to a colloquium of the Royal Society in which she was an invited speaker.” It was stretching the truth, but he wanted to prove to Lord Thomas he knew a thing or two about his daughter even her father did not know. He knew a lot of things about his daughter that the man did not know, but then again, this was hardly the time.
“Has she indicated she would welcome a marriage with you?”
Other than stripping naked in his bedroom, no. But the discussion that night had not touched upon marriage. “I have not had the honor of asking Miss Burke yet.”
“No, you haven’t. You were too busy taking the honor of putting your tongue down my daughter’s throat to ask if she’d welcome your suit.”
Del felt his face heat at such plain speaking. “I will not deny I find your daughter exceptionally attractive. That is why I should like the honor of marrying her at your earliest convenience.”
“Yes, it must be done. There is nothing else for it.” Lord Thomas passed a hand over his eyes. “You will procure a special license. And you will act the besotted bridegroom for all the world to see.”
“Yes, sir.”
Lord Thomas let out a long, unhappy exhalation. “Have you come prepared to apprise me of your finances and hammer out the marriage settlement?”
“I have instructed my man of business to wait upon your pleasure at your earliest convenience.”
“I have no
pleasure
in this, but we’ll have him for a start. As you are heir to your father, you will need the Earl of Cleeve, and his man of business, to be a party to the settlement.”
“I will inform him of your request, sir.”
“I shall expect you to attend as well, Viscount Darling. You can’t get out of this so easily.”
Del clenched his jaw. “It is well known my father and I are estranged.”
“Is that what you call it? Ha. Well, the time has come for you to be un-estranged. You will not take my daughter into a house divided by the petty quarrels of a rebellious son.”
Del could not even fight for his pride. Still Lord Thomas sat behind his desk, poking him like a bear in a cage.
“Well, best get on with it. Go to your father’s house—he’s in town by the by. He’ll be expecting you. Send me word directly when you both might next attend me to finish the financial arrangements.”
“Yes, sir. May I also be allowed a moment to speak to your daughter privately?”
“No. Get your father here and then we’ll see.”
Del did not do as Lord Thomas asked, and wait upon his father. Instead, they met for the first time in over a year on the pavement outside Widcombe House before their appointment with Lord Thomas Burke. Del had again walked from North Row, and it appeared his father had done the same from the family residence only one and a half blocks away on Grosvenor Square. What tidy neighbors they all were.
He bowed to his father and waited for him to speak.
“Rupert,” his father acknowledged him. “Hell of a fix you’ve gotten yourself into. You look well. Your mother will be pleased. You will call on her this afternoon if you can remember where the house is.” The Earl of Cleeve turned and gestured in the direction of the family mansion with his walking stick, just to make his point.
“Your servant, sir.”
“Good.” The Earl turned for the door. “Let us proceed.”
The portal was opened immediately and they were shown into the Marquess of Widcombe’s library, where Lord Thomas Burke waited.
The butler announced, “My lord, the Earl of Cleeve and Viscount Darling to see you.”
The Earl of Cleeve walked in without ceremony and straightaway gave his hand to Celia’s father. “Thomas.”
Lord Thomas shook it grimly. “Barney.
Del nearly choked. He didn’t think he had ever heard his father referred to so familiarly, but then again, they
had
spent the better part of the past ten years apart. He kept towards the back of the room as the others took their places—his father and Lord Thomas seated in chairs facing each other in front of the large mahogany desk, and each of their men of business at the book table in the center of the room.
“So.” The Earl of Cleeve settled comfortably into an armchair. “I find my son is to marry your daughter.”
“He is. There’s no help for it. Found him with his tongue down her throat. Takes after his father.”
Cleeve inclined his head at Lord Thomas with what Del could only describe as a mischievous, schoolboy grin. “Naturally. I understand Miss Burke is an exceptionally beautiful young woman.”
“She takes after her mother.”
“Naturally. The delightful Lady Caroline. I trust your lady is in good health?”
“The best. She would not countenance otherwise.”
That response gained a bigger smile from Del’s father. “Of course.”
Clearly, there was history between these men, and perhaps even Lady Caroline, Del knew nothing about.
“And your lady,” Lord Thomas returned, “the Countess?”
“She gets on better and better, thank you, and will continue apace, now that her son is home.” He shot Del a potent glance before saying, “This is her first trip back to London.”
He did not say,
since Emily’s death and our year of mourning,
but Del felt the words even unsaid.
“Thank you for letting me know so quickly we were needed”—the earl shot another glance at his son—“to celebrate.”
Del was annoyed with the clubbiness of their banter. They were making a joke of him. “My lord, shall we get on with it?” he asked without finesse.
“By all means,” his father answered.
Lord Thomas scowled. “Yes, then speak up and tell us, Viscount Darling, what you have to offer.”
It seemed to take hours. The Viscount, his father, and their men of business had arrived at eleven o’clock in the morning. The clock was nearing two in the afternoon when at last the butler came to ask Celia to attend her father in his study.
When she went downstairs Viscount Darling was by himself. Since the awful night at Fenmore House she had seen nothing of him but the glance she had of him walking up Grosvenor Street. She’d watched from her third-floor bedchamber window, whence she had been banished while the situation was settled between gentlemen.
“Viscount Darling.”
He bowed correctly. “Miss Burke.”
They stood awkwardly for a long moment. At least she felt awkward. It didn’t help that he stood there assessing her, saying nothing.
“I am very sorry for all this trouble.”
“As am I.” He was solemn and clearly very, very unhappy with the state of events.
“I tried to explain to Papa we wouldn’t suit.” It was all her fault. If only she hadn’t kissed him. If only she’d done the right thing and not given in to the impulse to touch him one last time. She didn’t want to regret the kiss. She didn’t want to know one impetuous, glorious, lovely kiss had led to this awful state of affairs. She didn’t want to know she had trapped him with her incaution. She had trapped herself as well.
She wanted to remember the bittersweet tenderness of the kiss. It was only her third. Though they had all come from the same man, they had been nothing alike. The first had been all rough possession, heated and thrilling, the second over almost as soon as it began, while the third kiss, the one that had sealed their fate, had pierced her soul with its generosity and shocking affection.
Celia tried to latch on to that thought. He must have
some
affection for her. He would never have consented to taking her for a wife otherwise.
“Why won’t we suit, Miss Burke?” His voice was quiet and low.
She was back to being Miss Burke, when only two days ago she had been Celia. “You are very much a man of the world, so obviously at home in London, where you have a great deal of acquaintance. I wish only for quiet country living, where I can continue my studies. I would always be uncomfortable here, in your world.”
“I own a house in the country. You will be comfortable there.”
She noted very precisely he made no mention of himself. She must accustom herself to it. “Oh. Thank you. Where will you live?”
He tipped his head back slowly, so he might regard her with patronizing haughtiness the way he had that first night, in Widcombe’s book room. “Wherever my business takes me.”
“I see. Your family’s house is in Gloucestershire, I believe?” What a horrible conversation they were having.
“Yes, my family’s house is in Gloucestershire.”
“So you see we will not suit, for I had hoped not to leave Devon. My work is there.”
He regarded her silently, his deep blue eyes narrowed in displeasure for a very long time before he spoke. “But we must marry. There is no going around it or putting it off, I am told. Not even for your work.”
The silence in the room was like the morning fog, entirely impenetrable. Celia had no skill, no charm to deal with the wall that was his discontent. “I am sorry, Viscount Darling.”
“Yes, Miss Burke. So am I.” He bowed and took his leave.
They were married two days later at the fashionable St. George’s Church in Hanover Square. The high-toned church was a sop to Lady Caroline, who, robbed of the fashionable wedding she would have preferred for her daughter, had to settle instead for a fashionable church.
BOOK: A Sense of Sin
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