A Virtuous Lady (16 page)

"'The man I give myself to," mimicked his lordship derisively. "Listen to me, Miss Briony Langland. The man you give yourself to will be me or you will give yourself to no man." His tone gentled. "Don't you understand anything at
all, you foolish girl?" He bent his head to her face, his gaze lingering on every feature, and Briony felt his breath warm against her temple. "Briony?" he murmured hoarsely, as if asking her permission for something.

Although she was not afraid of him, she recognized vaguely that he posed some kind of threat, and that if she allowed him to make love to her, there would be, could be, ho turning back. She hesitated. His lips brushed her eyes and
Briony's
will to resist him weakened. Her pulse quickened and she could feel the familiar tingling sensation as it began its slow spread from the pit of her stomach. Her breath came in ragged, uneven gasps. She noted her symptoms with a peculiar detachment as if she were a doctor observing the onslaught of some illness in a patient.

"Briony?"
His voice was gently persuasive and it stirred something deep within her. Her sigh was a curious blend of resignation and anticipation. She turned her face up to invite his kiss. Strong arms pulled her close and his mouth covered hers with tantalizing gentleness. Without thinking, she arched into him, fitting her curves snugly to the planes of his lean frame. Her arms crossed behind his neck. Kissing Hugh Montgomery, thought Briony dizzily, was the most splendid pleasure that she had ever experienced.

He drew away from her with some reluctance and Briony was disappointed.

"Tell me what you are thinking!" he said huskily, his eyes devouring her.

She sighed languidly. "I am thinking that I like kissing you better than anything."

"Better than your passion for snuff?" he asked with a tease in his voice.

She gave him a superior smile. "When I take snuff, only my nose tingles. When you kiss me, the tingling develops into a positive quake."

Her answer seemed to please his lordship immensely. He bent his head to kiss her again and Briony felt the anticipation within her grow to an insatiable longing.

"Now
tell me what you are thinking," he asked at last.

Her voice was dreamy. "I want more."

"More what?" he murmured provocatively against her hair.

Briony tried to focus her thoughts. She could not say with any certainty what it was that she wanted. But she knew that only he had this strange power to stir her to an intoxicating' delirium. "I don't
know
. . ..
More
of you," she replied, impatiently pulling his head down to hers.

"My darling girl," he said unsteadily before lowering his lips to claim hers. "I want
all
of you."

She could hear his heart beating close to her ribs, racing as erratically as her own. There was a new urgency, a hunger in his mouth as he lowered it to explore the contours of her throat and the soft swell of her breasts. A wild excitement surged through Briony. Ravensworth felt her response and his touch grew more ardent, more possessive, willing her, compelling her to yield to him with unrestrained abandon. Briony became suddenly afraid, confused, and she strained back, searching his face for reassurance. 'Tell me what you are thinking," she said breathlessly, trying to read the expression in his half-hooded eyes.

"What I am thinking, my bewitching wench," groaned the unwary gentleman with devastating candor, "is that if I do not bed you soon, I shall become demented."

Briony's
lashes fluttered as she assimilated what Ravens- worth's words might portend. On feeling her slight withdrawal, his lordship became suddenly aware into what quagmire his unguarded tongue had led him. He tried to retrieve his position.

"Briony, no!
You mistake my meaning. I mean you no dishonor. You must know what I intend for your future."

Her cheeks stained scarlet and unshed tears stood brightly in her eyes. She pulled back in an effort to disengage herself from Ravensworth's clasp. "Pray, say no more," she said stiffly. "My wits must have gone a-begging." She essayed a shaky laugh. "I know what manner of man you are. I am at fault for permitting you to take such liberties. This is madness. I am a stranger to myself." She shook her head as if to clear her mind of some derangement. "There can be no place in my life for a man of your character," she went on in a sob. "We are like oil and water." She made a desperate effort to pull away from him. "Turn me loose!" she commanded, the tears spilling over at last.

"Briony, listen to me. I beg your forgiveness . . ."

Sounds of rapid footsteps could be heard on the stairs.

"Hell and damnation!" swore Ravensworth harshly. He released her abruptly and turned back to the fire, striking a casual pose. A flushed Harriet burst into the room. One look at the angry sparkle in the lady's eyes told her companions that the walk with Avery had restored more than her spirits. Avery
came
racing into the parlor a moment behind her.

With studied composure, Harriet picked up the abandoned
Times
and settled herself in one of the chairs flanking the fireplace. She opened it with a violent rustle and made a pretense of reading it. Avery smiled sheepishly at the others.

Dinner, although far better fare than they had anticipated in such an unpretentiously outfitted establishment, proved to be an embarrassingly silent meal. It was with a sense of relief for all concerned when the ladies finally excused themselves and left the gentlemen to the best brandy the house had to offer.

When the gentlemen were alone, Ravensworth cocked an inquisitive eyebrow. "Well?" he asked.

"Catastrophe!" responded Avery glumly.

"She refused you?"

"Oh no, she accepted me." Lord Avery laughed mirthlessly. "I expect that she will fling my offer in my teeth tomorrow morning."

'Then what went wrong?"

Lord Avery pondered. He sighed. He looked shiftily at Ravensworth. "From something I said, Harriet formed the opinion—a mistaken one, I take leave to tell you—that I blamed her cousin Briony entirely for the pass they are in."

"She is wholly to blame!" Ravensworth growled savagely, drinking back his brandy in one gulp. "You don't offend me by saying so! She has no notion of how to go on in Society! Like mother, like daughter, I don't doubt. Her father should have beaten her more often when she was a child."

"From what I hear, it isn't likely that she was beaten at all."

"That can be soon mended," Ravensworth threatened. He refilled his glass and emptied it almost on the instant.

"
D'you
still mean to have her?" asked Avery, studiously examining the diamond ring on his finger.

"If I can persuade her, and I shall," responded Ravensworth gloomily as if the thought of winning the lady gave him no pleasure at all.

"You know she will make your life hell."

"I can handle her," said Ravensworth recklessly, the effects of the brandy imbuing him with false confidence. "Should we make our home in the jungles of darkest Africa," he added in an attempt at levity, "I am sure that Briony and Society will rub along together quite tolerably."

Lord Avery smiled. "Harriet wouldn't like that. She dotes on the girl. If you don't mind my saying so, Ravensworth, I don't think Briony is good for Harriet."

"My dear boy," said Ravensworth cordially, "no need to persuade me. Briony isn't good for anybody. She creates murder and mayhem wherever she goes. Look at me. Until I met her, I was a reasonable sort of chap, wouldn't you say?" he asked rhetorically. "Rarely in a foul temper, good company when my friends came to call? I hadn't a care in the world. Yes," he said reflectively as if he were nostalgically remembering the golden days of his youth, "life was uncomplicated then. I enjoyed the occasional dalliance with the bolder beauties of questionable virtue—what man
doesn't? My mistake was in letting my eye fall on a virtuous, mild-mannered miss. Be warned by my fall from grace, Avery," he commanded, striving for sobriety. "She's got me so addled," he added on a more ill-humored note, "that I don't know right from wrong anymore. The only time I feel half sensible is when I'm completely insensible in my cups."

"I'll drink to that," replied Avery punctiliously, holding his glass out for Ravensworth to refill from the half-empty bottle.

Two bottles of brandy later, the stupefied gentlemen assisted each other to ascend the staircase, which they swore had become inexplicably steeper. They fell into their respective beds fully clothed, not even remembering to remove their mud-spattered
topboots
. Denby, thought his lordship hazily, was, thankfully, not present to witness his master's disgrace.

The next morning dawned gray and threatening, "
a
day for lying a-bed," the landlord brazenly informed the ladies with a sly wink as he presented them with a note in Ravensworth's bold script. The curt scrawl intimated that their lordships did not expect to join the ladies before noon since both were feeling a trifle under the weather.

The cousins were not deceived. They had been wakened in the night by the unholy revels of Lords Ravensworth and Avery as they had
beat
an unsteady path to their chambers. That the gentlemen might be suffering the after-effects of the previous evening's gross intemperance brought a grim smile of satisfaction to the cousins' lips, for while Ravensworth and Avery had freely indulged themselves in the port and brandy, they had denied even a drop of anything stronger than
ratafia
to the girls. Such cavalier treatment was not calculated to please.

"Poetic justice!" remarked Briony to Harriet, quickly scanning the few remaining lines of the short epistle. Ravensworth had added a caveat warning the ladies in the strongest possible terms to remain out of the public eye (and harm's way) in their private parlor until such time as they were ready to continue their journey. Their
abigail
—
underlined heavily several times—was to be in their
company at all times to act as their chaperone. It was impossible, however, to comply with this last gratuitous impertinence since Alice had wakened that morning with a raging fever and could not rise from her bed.

When the girls had finished their meager breakfast of toast and hot chocolate, leaving the congealing kippers, ham, and scrambled eggs for the gentlemen to consume at their leisure, they repaired to their chamber, where Alice lay tossing and turning on the small trestle bed which had been set up to observe the proprieties in the bedroom the ladies shared. As was to be expected, Lords Ravensworth and Avery had the luxury of their own private chambers.

Briony saw at a glance how severely the poor girl was suffering and insisted that she be moved at once to her own larger, more comfortable bed. Harriet was left to look after this office while Briony went in search of the landlord to solicit a bowl of thin gruel and a cup of hot tea for the invalid. That she had to disregard Ravensworth's injunction to remain out of the public rooms troubled her a little, but she reasoned that it would be positively heathenish not to do all that she could to alleviate the poor girl's distress.

For most of the morning, the ladies took turns ministering to their hapless maid. The threatening storm broke over them and the rain came down in torrents so that Harriet and Briony could not relieve the monotony of their vigil, even if they had wished to, by taking a turn in the yard, notwithstanding Ravensworth's instructions. When Alice fell into a deep slumber, however, Briony passed the time in washing the dust of their journey from her hair and she left it to dry loosely around her shoulders. For some reason, Ravensworth strongly objected to
Briony's
unbound tresses and she had taken pains while under his lordship's escort to dress it modestly in a smooth coil at the nape of her neck. With Ravensworth indisposed and keeping to his bed, however, Briony grew bold.

By late afternoon, and still no sign of the gentlemen, it became evident that Alice's condition had worsened and a doctor
must needs
be summoned. This was not as simple a matter as would have been the case under normal circumstances since the storm, which gave no sign of letting up, had made the dirt roads well-nigh impassable and the inn had been filling up with travelers bent on finding a place to rack up for the night before they were stranded in some deserted stretch of road. Briony was deputized in the absence of their lordships to go in search of their coachman and instruct him to find a physician.

She stood irresolutely on the half landing listening to the hilarity that issued from the public dining room. From the ribald
phrases that came to her ears,
it was evident that
a party of young bucks had taken over the ground floor of the establishment and were
intent on making a night of it. Not a lackey was in sight to do her bidding. It was too bad of Ravensworth, she thought, her ire rising, to leave them in such straits.

She made her way to his chamber and rattled on the door. "Ravensworth!'' she called as loudly as she dared
. "
Ravensworth! Get up, I tell you!" Nothing happened. She tried the door. Finding it unlocked, she opened it a crack. "Ravensworth!" she hissed irately. "Ravensworth, will you get up? We need a doctor for Alice. If you don't get up, I myself shall go and fetch him."