A Virtuous Lady (26 page)

"You will be a daughter-in-law after the Duke's heart," said Miss Brown conversationally to Briony. "Your father- in-law has a thing about herbs, I collect. His gardens at
Dalbreck
Hail are famous in Yorkshire. But your husband will have told you about his father's passion for gardening."

Briony's
ears pricked up. "I know nothing at all about the Duke except that he is rather forbidding."

"Forbidding?
The Duke of
Dalbreck
?
What gammon! Someone has been hoaxing you, my dear. He's as gentle as a lamb. Ask Lord Ravensworth."

"Do you know him?"

"Not well. He does not come into company since his wife died. He can't bear to tear himself away from his seat in Yorkshire. I'm told that he is often mistaken for the gardener. Like you and I, he likes nothing better than to don old togs and putter about the
herbary
."

"No, really?" asked Briony, mentally revising her picture
of His Grace. "But still, a man of his consequence must be disappointed that his son has not looked higher for a wife." She realized, too late, that she had spoken her thoughts aloud.

"Not a bit of it," said Miss Brown, genuinely shocked. "He dotes on his son. Why, Ravensworth's mother was the daughter of a country squire. It was a love match and a great shock to the old Duke, who
was
conscious to a degree of his own consequence. The present Duke isn't a bit like that. He is much freer and easier than, well, even Lord Ravensworth. He doesn't stand on ceremony. I am certain you will get along famously together."

"Shall we?" asked Briony thoughtfully. Miss Brown's description of her father-in-law was not at all what Ravensworth had led her to believe. She tried to recall the circumstances of when she had first heard the Duke's name mentioned. Yes, the weeks leading up to the night that Ravensworth had tried to make her his mistress. He had said then that he could not make her an offer of marriage because—
What
was it?—his father, the Duke, expected him to marry someone of his own station. Dawning comprehension had
Briony's
cheeks flushing a becoming pink. The unmitigated impertinence of the despicable liar! It had been his excuse for not offering her marriage—a sham to manipulate her.

She was brought out of her reverie by a question from Lady Adele. "I beg your pardon? I am afraid I was woolgathering. What was it you wished to know?" asked Briony politely.

"Merely your opinion, my dear.
We are discussing whether it is ethical for a lady to use any means at her disposal to catch the attention of a gentleman for whom she has developed a
tendre
?"

"Honesty is always the best policy," replied Briony rather primly.

This brought a howl of protests from the
ladies,
and a flood of personal anecdotes on how to bring a reluctant gentleman up to scratch. Briony listened to their good- natured banter with an indulgent smile.

"It seems that we are willing to go to almost any lengths in quest of our quarry," said Miss Brown gaily, "broken-down carriages, books or gloves dropped at the opportune moment, fainting spells or sprained ankles when the right pair of strong arms is there to catch us. What a bunch of hussies we are, to be sure."

"Don't you believe it," said Lady Susan, a red-haired,
freckled
girl who was known to have five brothers. "Men are worse. They will stop at nothing to achieve their ends. Our tactics are child's play compared to theirs. I've heard my brothers discuss their flirts and worse—those ladies whom we gently bred girls are supposed to know nothing about.
The more unattainable the object of their desire, the more desperate their attempts to gain it."

"What is the worst they can possibly do?' asked Briony, her interest caught.

"Well, I heard once of a lady who was abducted, but gentlemen don't generally go to
that
extreme. However, I believe that compromising a lady is a ploy that is quite common. Of course, a woman's reputation is easily ruined but a gentleman's honor in such situations is never seriously damaged whether or not he offers marriage."

"How can that be?" asked Briony in some perplexity. "I don't think I quite understand what you infer."

"Simple," said another lady, breaking into the conversation for the first time. "If a man does tarnish his reputation a little, who cares even? He gets the name of being a bit of a rake, but he is not cut or ostracized by Society. It even enhances his reputation among the ladies, clods that we are."

"But a woman caught in the same position is utterly ruined if the gentleman refuses to marry her," said Lady Susan. "So any gentleman who is determined to have a particular lady needs only to arrange things to suit himself. Of course, heiresses are the worst target. Some pretend to be paupers to escape the toils of unscrupulous fortune hunters!"

"So it behooves all young ladies to be properly chaperoned at all times!" said one of the matrons in a reproving tone. "Then your reputations will be above reproach. But you girls never pay the least heed to what we chaperones say," she ended on a note of resignation.

"I see," said Briony, lapsing into one of her meditative silences. Her thoughts were in
a turmoil
. She had no clear idea of what her new knowledge signified. Only one thing was perfectly obvious. Ravensworth was an inveterate liar. He had lied to her to inveigle her into becoming his mistress and he had lied to her when he had persuaded her to marry him to save him from ruin. The man had as smooth a tongue as the Devil. The bright sparkle in the lady's eyes and the rosy bloom suffusing her normally pallid complexion gave her an animation which she seldom achieved.

As he entered the drawing room with the rest of the gentlemen, his lordship feasted his eyes on Briony and thought her as pretty a picture as he had ever beheld.

It did not take long for Ravensworth to perceive that Briony was in high dudgeon. Her eyes refused to meet his, and every attempt on his part to engage her interest was met with dogged rebuff. He soon gave it up, for he had no wish to impart the intelligence to the other members of the house party that he had come to cuffs with his wife.
Briony's
cool demeanor was not calculated to placate her husband's acknowledged mercurial temper, and by the time they had climbed into their carriage for the homeward drive, hostilities on both sides were on the point of being resumed. It was his lordship who fired the opening salvo.

"Better cover that cold shoulder," he said, adjusting
Briony's
wrap. "We wouldn't want you catching a chill. Did you notice how the temperature suddenly plummeted?
Very unseasonable weather for this time of year."

As the evening could safely be said to be balmy, there was no mistaking the sarcasm behind Ravensworth's words. Briony, very much on her dignity, was not slow to join battle. "It is my perception," she began in a brittle voice, "that the temperature in this carriage will soon be so hot that you will be wishing yourself at Hades."

Ravensworth threw back his head and laughed. "Have I landed in the briars again, my sweet Briony?" he asked,
chucking her under the chin. "No, don't glare at me. How can I defend myself if I don't know what my offense is? You are surely not going to give me a scold simply because I silenced you at the dinner table? I take leave to tell you," he went on in a more serious vein, "that you gave me a few unquiet moments with your traitorous talk, but I think I convinced everyone that you would be loyal to your husband whatever your sentiments." He flicked her nose playfully but Briony was not to be deflected from her purpose.

"Sir, you are a liar," she said without preamble. "You lied to me when you said that your father would be averse to our match. You tried to make me your mistress by pretending that it was impossible for you to offer me marriage. But that was not the truth, was it, Ravensworth?"

Ravensworth's heart missed a beat. That particular deception had completely slipped his mind. It was evident that one of the ladies had put Briony wise to him. She would have discovered it sooner or later. He should have confessed the whole to her while he had the chance. "Briony, my
dear, that
is an episode that is best forgotten. I am not the man I was then. I was selfish, arrogant, if you like. I don't deny it. But I have changed. Why won't you believe me?"

"Oh?" said Briony with feigned sweetness. "And when did this change come about?"

Ravensworth drew her hands into his and answered with perfect sincerity.
"Almost immediately after I made that preposterous offer.
When you ran away and I had no knowledge of where you were or what had happened to you. Let me tell you, I went through hell. For the first time in my life, I realized that I cared for someone more than I cared for myself."

Briony firmly withdrew her hands from his clasp and smiled faintly. "Was that before or after you discovered that marriage to me would bring you a fortune?"

"What fortune?" asked Ravensworth
baffled.

"Come, come, Ravensworth. You can do better than that. You are no novice dissembler. On the contrary, you are the most accomplished liar it has ever been my misfortune to encounter. 'What fortune?"' she mimicked scathingly.

Ravensworth was thunderstruck. "Are you saying that I am a fortune hunter?" he demanded, his anger rising to match hers.

"Did you or did you not deliberately set out to compromise me to force me to marry you?" she countered.

Ravensworth's jaw clenched.
"Not exactly."

"What does that mean? Tell me the truth for once in your life."
Briony's
cool exterior cracked.

"It means that events turned out just as I wished. It was my intention to offer for you, but I wasn't sure that you would accept me on my own merits."

"What merits?" Briony howled. "I knew you for a libertine—a man of questionable morals. The first time I clapped eyes on you, you were attempting to have your way with that flaxen-haired doxy, a lady, so I thought at the time. Not long afterward, you had the effrontery to try to make me your mistress. You played on my regard for you, thinking I would set aside my scruples because it was impossible for you to offer me marriage. You cad! And you engineered our marriage in the most underhand way, pretending that it was my duty to marry you to save your reputation.
You unscrupulous devil!"

Ravensworth kept his temper on a tight rein. "Calm yourself, Briony. I don't deny that there is some justification in what you say. Haven't I admitted my faults already? If I was not completely honest with you, it was not without reason. The end justified the means. I knew you to be over scrupulous to a degree. If I concealed my true intentions from you, it was simply to secure our happiness. You would have refused my suit for the most frivolous of reasons. I knew that you had taken me in aversion simply because I was fool enough to offer you carte blanche. Your pride was wounded, nothing more. I have tried to make amends, to no avail. Perhaps it was high-handed in me to secure your consent to our marriage by pretending that I would be ruined if you refused, but I did it with the best will in the world—to save
you
from ruin."

"Did you so?" she asked crushingly. "Well, I take leave to tell you my lord, that the road to hell is paved with good intentions."

There seemed to be no suitable reply to this, and Ravensworth and Briony lapsed into an angry silence until the carriage rolled up to the main entrance of Oakdale. As he helped Briony alight, he made one last, futile attempt to breach her defenses. "Does this mean, my love, that you would rather not share my bed tonight?"

Briony stumbled and Ravensworth's strong arms caught her before she fell. The spate of invective which issued from those innocent lips would have daunted the most ardent admirer. Ravensworth, only slightly shaken, tweaked her ear and said teasingly, "I esteem a woman of passion. That you admit to hating me shows that you are weakening. It is only indifference that a lover fears."

As she stalked into the house with as much dignity as she could muster, the last thing she heard was Ravensworth's laughter mocking at her back.

The first of their visitors arrived the next morning. Ravensworth returned home to find Briony in the library pouring tea for two young gentlemen. Her brother, Vernon, he recognized almost instantly, but his companion was a stranger to him. Their conversation, he noted idly, was conducted in undertones. Ravensworth made his presence known and the startled glances of brother and sister gave him the distinct impression that he had disturbed them in the plotting of some nefarious scheme. His eyes flicked to Briony, and her shuttered expression and stammered introductions roused his suspicions even further.

"R-Ravensworth, are you here? May I present my c- cousin, Mr. John Caldwell, who is on a visit from C- Canada."

Vernon's companion had risen to make his bows. He was a well-set-up young man of about five and twenty with nothing of the gentleman of fashion about him. His plain but well-fitting black coat and beige leather breeches, unrelieved by any ostentation, won from Ravensworth a silent approval.