Forbidden (8 page)

She felt the loss of his touch first as he let her slide gently
to the ground. She stumbled, disoriented and confused, and he steadied her. She
could see his face in the moonlight now, see the vivid shock in it before a
frightening blankness replaced it.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He was breathing hard and his tone was
rough. There was a note of furious anger in it but Margery instinctively knew it
was at himself, not her. “I’m very sorry. That should never have happened.”

The pleasure vanished. Margery felt cold all of a sudden,
shivering in the summer breeze, shamefully exposed in the silver moonlight. She
pulled up her bodice, tidying it with fingers that shook.

It felt as though her mind was trembling, too, at the enormity
of what she had almost done. The thoughts, the images rushed in on her; she
could see herself abandoned to all modesty and sense, pinioned against the broad
oak, half-naked in Henry’s arms, begging him to ravish her.

Icy shame seeped through her, yet at the same time the blazing
demand of her body could not be denied. It felt as though she were split in
half, part shamed, part wanting. She could neither make sense of it nor put back
those sensations that had almost devoured her. She could not go back to the way
she had been before.

She reached for her spencer, struggling to slip it on, making a
small noise of distress as it slid from her grasp. Henry helped to arrange it
about her shoulders and she felt profoundly grateful for the scant cover it gave
her. His hands lingered against her bare skin for one long, aching moment and
she shook. Even now, full of shock and mortification, she could feel the flutter
of desire echo through her body. She did not know how she could have behaved so
badly. It seemed impossible. And yet her body was awakened now and it possessed
a dark and disturbing set of desires that were quite beyond the control of
reason.

She wanted to run but Henry was too quick for her and caught
her arm.

“I’ll take you back.” His voice was his own now, cool again,
distant, while she still felt lost and utterly adrift.

“No.” She could not bear to be with him another moment. She was
so embarrassed she thought that she would melt with it. Those wicked, delicious
sensations of his mouth tugging at her breast…the mere memory of it turned her
hot. She did not know how she could have permitted it but she wanted to permit
it all over again. She was a wanton and worse still, she actually
wanted
to be wanton. She was bad through and through.
And how lovely that felt. No wonder the church deplored such licentiousness. No
wonder everyone warned about the dangers of lust.

“I’m not leaving you here.” Henry’s tone brooked no argument.
He walked beside her to the gate and waited patiently as she tried to turn the
key in the lock. She was all fingers and thumbs. Eventually he sighed, took the
key from her and locked the gate behind them, quickly and efficiently.

They walked back to Bedford Street an impeccably respectable
two feet apart. They did not speak. The five minutes it took felt like an hour,
but at least it gave the heat in Margery’s blood time to cool. She could see
what had happened now and mostly it made her feel like a fool. She had met a
handsome gentleman and she had liked him rather too much for her own good. She
had been in some danger of tumbling foolishly into love with a man she did not
really know. As if that were not bad enough, she had discovered that far from
being indifferent to carnal pleasures, she rather liked them. In fact she liked
them a lot. And between liking and loving she had almost been undone.

“Goodnight, Mr. Ward.” Once she was within sight of the area
steps Margery was itching to be gone. She knew she would not see Henry again.
Her silly Cinderella dream was over and she had almost been fatally burned by
it. There was a reason why maidservants were warned to steer clear of handsome
gentlemen. It was all too easy to tumble from virtue. She knew that now.

Henry put out a hand and touched her wrist, a light touch that
seemed to sear like a flame. “Margery,” he said. “There is something you should
know.”

He’s married,
Margery thought. She
felt another thud of disappointment and grief. Of course he was. Well, she had
learned her lesson good and proper tonight.

“Best not,” she said. She pressed her fingers to his lips to
silence him and smiled even though there was a prickle of tears in her throat.
Better to pretend that she had not been hurt. She did not want him knowing that,
as well.

“Goodbye, Mr. Ward,” she said.

She hurried down the steps without looking back and closed the
door behind her.

Before tonight she had been an innocent but she had not been
naive. She had possessed no sexual experience herself but she knew full well
what happened between a man and a woman. She had witnessed plenty of passion in
the lives of her scandalous ladies. The mistake she had made was to assume that
such passion would never touch her, that she, plain Margery Mallon, was an
observer in love, not a participant.

Henry’s kisses, Henry’s touch, had changed all that.

CHAPTER SIX

The King of Pentacles: A man who holds considerable responsibility,
wealthy and shrewd

H
ENRY
WALKED
TO
S
T
. J
AMES
,
the cool night air
helping to clear his head. On the way, he repeated every creative curse he had
learned in a long and active army career. There was a sharp edge of anger in him
and something that felt disturbingly like guilt. It was not an emotion that
generally troubled him but tonight he felt plagued by it, guilty for deceiving
Margery when she had been so candid with him and guilty for coming so close to
seducing her. And he had been so close. He had been within a whisper of
dishonoring her. He did not know what had possessed him. It was the first time
in his entire adult life that he could remember being at the mercy of his
passions. Really, it was quite inexplicable.

Henry raked a hand through his hair. He wondered if the fact
that Margery was denied to him had acted as some sort of perverse incentive to
make her fatally attractive to him.

Damn it all to hell and back.

He liked Margery. He had not expected to like her. He had not
wanted to like her. It was unnecessary; all he had to do was fulfill his duty in
reuniting her with her grandfather, and that did not require any emotion at all.
He mistrusted emotion. Too often it was a sign of weakness.

Truth was, he liked Margery very much and that was most
definitely a weakness. She possessed candor and sweetness and he found her very
appealing. She had almost made him believe that in this harsh world such
generous qualities still existed. Almost he was persuaded that Margery could
make the world a sweet and sane place for him once again.

He shook his head sharply. He had lost those illusions in his
youth. The world was not a sweet, sane place and his impulse to take Margery and
lose himself in her was foolish and misplaced. It had almost led him to do
something unforgivable.

He straightened his shoulders. Tomorrow he would go to Bedford
Street and acquaint Margery with her inheritance. He would escort her to
Templemore and then he would be gone from her life. It was the best way. It was
the only way. He would forget the beguiling softness of her body and the scent
of her hair and the generosity of her nature that had worked on his parched soul
like dew falling on dry ground. He would forget it because there was no
alternative. In fact, tonight after he had spoken to his cousin, he would go
directly to Celia’s bed and forget Margery in the most fundamental ways
possible.

The cold lack of response in his body told him that it was not
Celia he wanted, no matter how willing, no matter how skillful. He swore under
his breath. The sooner he had done his duty in delivering Margery to her
grandfather the better. He would return to his home at Wardeaux, immerse himself
in his latest project and forget her.

The quiet opulence of White’s welcomed him. Henry felt a little
odd, as though he were an impostor. Once, he had taken all the discreet luxury
for granted, the deep armchairs, the excellent brandy, the smell of money,
privilege and power. After tomorrow, his title and a handful of land was all
that would be left to him. His lost inheritance would be the talk of the ton, at
least until the next scandal came along. He did not particularly mind; society’s
gossip had always been a matter of supreme indifference to him. What he did mind
was losing Templemore, not from pride but because he loved it.

“Henry!” His cousin Garrick Farne was waiting for him. Garrick
was eight years his senior, his cousin on his mother’s side. He pushed out a
chair with one lazy foot, gesturing to Henry to join him at a table scattered
with the day’s newspapers and adorned with a half-full bottle of brandy and two
glasses. “I had almost given up on you,” Garrick said. “Not that I am
complaining. Our appointment saved me the tedium of Lady Dewhurst’s rout.”

“My apologies for keeping you waiting,” Henry said. He shook
his cousin’s hand.

Garrick made a dismissive gesture. “Always a pleasure, Henry,
late or not.” His dark eyes appraised him. “We see far too little of you, but I
know that you dislike Town.”

Henry settled in the chair and accepted the glass of brandy
Garrick proffered. “I hope that Merryn is well?” he said. He liked Garrick’s
wife. She was a bluestocking with an intelligence as sharp as Garrick’s own.

Garrick smiled. “Merryn is very well, thank you,” he said. “She
is
enceinte
.”

“Congratulations,” Henry said. He knew how much Merryn wanted a
child. She and Garrick had been wed several years and there had been much
speculation on when they might set up their nursery.

“Thank you.” Garrick inclined his head. “Merryn is very
relieved. I think she was afraid we might never have an heir for Farne.”

One of Garrick’s sisters had died in childbirth. The provision
of an heir for a grand estate was often a dangerous affair and the pressure to
provide one was huge.

“I imagine that you would rather have Merryn than any number of
heirs,” Henry said.

It was a well-known fact in the ton that Garrick’s second
marriage had been a love match. Many people thought Garrick odd for it. Some
pitied him. Garrick did not give a damn and Henry admired him for that.

Garrick shrugged. There was a ghost of a smile about his lips.
“How perceptive of you, Henry,” he said lightly. “As long as Merryn is in good
health I am sure all will be well.”

The silence settled between them, comfortable as it often was
between old friends. There was no sound but for the tick of the clock on the
mantel and the hiss of a log falling in the grate. A servant passed by,
soft-footed.

“I have news for you, too,” Henry said, after a moment.

Garrick raised a brow. “You’re getting married. I heard the
rumors.”

“Not anymore,” Henry said. “Your rumors lag behind the
times.”

“Thank God,” Garrick said. “Better to embrace holy orders than
Lady Antonia Gristwood.”

“Don’t preach,” Henry begged. “It is not given to us all to
marry for love.”

“You made one mistake,” Garrick said mildly.

“A colossal one,” Henry said, “given that my father was one of
many men enjoying my wife.”

He took a mouthful of the brandy. It did not wash away the
taste of betrayal. Drink had not helped at the time, although he had tried to
lose himself in it. It did not help now.

“Your father was a first-class cad,” Garrick said with
unimpaired calm. “And Isobel was somewhat indiscriminate in her affections.”

Henry laughed.
Indiscriminate
did
not even start to cover the licentious abandon with which his wife had indulged
herself. Which was why he had been determined that the second time he married it
would be to a cold-blooded aristocrat who understood the meaning of duty. The
emotional chaos of his first choice would never be repeated.

He moved his shoulders uncomfortably against the high velvet
back of the chair. He seldom thought about Isobel these days. Revisiting the
mistakes of his youth was a pointless exercise. Regretting the past achieved
nothing.

Suddenly restless, he got up and moved to the window, pulling
back the thick red velvet curtains that shut out the London night. He looked out
into the dark. Shadows pressed against the window. Above the city he could see
the stars hard and bright as diamonds, as they had been a half hour ago when he
had almost taken Margery beneath that ridiculously romantic sky.

He sighed. Perhaps there was something dangerously seductive
about nights like this. Not that he should be susceptible. Yet, it was at a ball
on such a night ten years before that he had first met Isobel Cunningham, the
daughter of an impoverished country gentleman, beautiful, sweet-natured,
charming, all the things he had thought he had wanted in a wife.

He had been nineteen, a year into his studies at Oxford,
romantic by inclination despite—or possibly because—he had witnessed the
miserable hash his parents had made of their arranged marriage. He winced now to
think of all the bad poetry he had written for Isobel. He had actually composed
a love song as well, with harpsichord accompaniment. He shuddered at the
memory.

In the end, his wife’s sexual indulgence had become so
notorious that his godfather had paid her to go away. The Earl of Templemore had
bribed her lavishly, dismissively, like a rich man throwing some coins to a
beggar in the street. Isobel had taken the money. She had gone abroad with her
new fortune and become the mistress of a German prince with an enormous castle
on the Rhine. She had died a year later in a carriage accident when she was
running away with the prince’s groom. Her death had been as lurid a scandal as
her life, and Henry’s name was a laughing stock, his romantic dreams
shredded.

Henry had promptly enlisted in the army to fight Napoleon, much
to his godfather’s fury. For a while he had wanted to get himself killed, but
the passionate anger soon wore off, leaving nothing but cold indifference in its
wake.

A cynical smile twisted Henry’s lips now. He had been a fool.
Marriage, as the Earl of Templemore had said to him, had nothing to do with
love. Love was nothing but a weakness.

Garrick was watching him speculatively. “So, if you are not to
wed, what is your news?”

Henry resumed his seat and reached for the brandy.

He looked up and met Garrick’s perceptive dark gaze. “Lord
Templemore has found his lost heir,” he said. “His granddaughter is alive and
well.”

Garrick put down his glass with a snap that spilled the brandy.
His eyes narrowed with incredulity. “I had no notion that Lord Templemore was
still searching for his granddaughter.”

“He never gave up looking for her,” Henry said.

“And now he has found her.” Garrick shook his head. “Good God,
how extraordinary. This will set the ton by the ears.” He checked himself. “Good
God,” he said again, more quietly. “Well, thank you for giving me due warning
before the news hits the scandal sheets, Henry. Who is the fortunate lady who
will inherit the richest title in the country?”

“Her name is Margery Mallon,” Henry said. “She is currently
Lady Grant’s personal maid. Apparently she was found as a child and adopted by a
family in Berkshire.”

Once again Garrick looked winded. “A
maidservant?
Wait—” He leaned forward in his chair. “I know Miss
Mallon. I met her several years ago.” He smiled. “In those days she was maid to
Lottie St. Severin.”

“If Templemore hears that, he will be reassessing his
granddaughter’s respectability,” Henry said. Garrick’s half brother Ethan Ryder,
Baron St. Severin, was a notorious rake who had scandalously set Lottie up as
his mistress before marrying her. “It would probably be best keep that quiet,”
he added. “There will be enough gossip without a rehearsal of Miss Mallon’s
checkered employment history.”

“Miss Mallon was also maid to Lady Devlin and Lady Rothbury,”
Garrick said dryly, “so I think that any attempts to keep quiet are doomed to
failure.”

Henry almost choked on his brandy. Even he was starting to
reconsider Margery’s apparent chastity. It was hard to see how she could have
worked for so many scandalous ladies and preserve her innocence. Yet she had
been innocent, radiantly so. He knew that. She had been untutored and sweet and
eager in his arms. Henry shifted uncomfortably, aware of his growing arousal. He
could not get an erection in White’s. There were some things that were simply
unacceptable, frightfully bad form, and that would be one of them.

“Are you feeling quite well, Henry?” Garrick was looking at him
closely.

“I am perfectly well, thank you,” Henry said. He took a
reckless swig of the brandy, saw Garrick’s brows shoot up and hoped his cousin
would assume he was drowning his sorrows.

“I feel sorry for Miss Mallon,” Garrick said unexpectedly.
“What an inheritance. A tyrannical grandfather, a fortune that will be more of a
curse than blessing and a family history riddled with tragedy.” He sat back in
his chair, cradling his brandy glass in his hands. “I assume that you—and
Churchward—are absolutely certain she is the rightful heir?”

“We are.” Henry spoke a little shortly and saw amused
comprehension spill into his cousin’s eyes. He had wanted to warn Garrick of the
impending scandal. He did not want to talk about the detail. He might move on
from the loss of Templemore but there was no need to rub salt into his own
wounds.

“I remember the murder of Lady Rose and the loss of her child,”
Garrick said somberly. “I was only in my teens but a tragedy so great makes an
impression on everyone it touches.”

Henry remembered the tragedy, as well. Templemore had been
enveloped in a terrifying dead calm. There had been no outbursts of emotion, of
course; the earl and his relatives were too well bred to show grief. Henry,
eleven years old, had tiptoed around everything and everyone, aware of something
terrible that was never mentioned.

“They said it was a highway robbery that went wrong,” Garrick
said, “but I sometimes wondered.”

Henry frowned. “You think it was deliberate murder?”

Garrick shrugged slightly. His face was in shadow. “I don’t
believe in random coincidence as a general rule,” he said. “Who benefited from
Lady Rose’s death?”

“I did,” Henry said dryly, “since I became Templemore’s
heir.”

Amusement lit Garrick’s eyes. “I acquit you. You would have
been a most precocious murderer.” He stretched. “What will you do now that Miss
Mallon will inherit Templemore?”

“Work,” Henry said tersely. “Wellington suggests that I work
for the Board of Ordnance.”

“Explosives?” Garrick asked.

“Mapping and coastal fortifications,” Henry said.