Mary Balogh (31 page)

“Francis!” she said.

“I know,” he said, sighing, “it is broad daylight. But we can pretend we are in China, Soph. I imagine it must be dark down there.”

“I would blush all the way to my toes,” she said.

“I know,” he said. “That is what I want to see. Well, if it is not to be that, we must go off somewhere and have our daily quarrel. We have not had it today and the day has been dreadfully dull.”

“It has not!” she said indignantly. “Do you call arriving in Rushton and seeing Papa again and finding that his note really meant what it said and discovering that Mama had already had the baby and that I am a sister and you a brother-in-law—do you call that all dull?”

Lord Francis yawned loudly, steering his wife in the direction of their rooms.

“I see how it is,” she said hotly. “My family means nothing at all to you. You have always had brothers, and now you have sisters-in-law and nephews and nieces. You do not know what it is like to grow up alone, with even one’s parents living apart. You do not know what it is like to long and long for a brother or a sister. You think all this is dull?”

“It begins to get more interesting,” he said, closing the door of their sitting room behind them.

“And now it seems that at last Mama and Papa are back together again,” she said, “something I have dreamed of for years and years and something we schemed to bring about last year. Now it has happened, and you call it dull, Francis? Or beginning to get more interesting?”

“Very much more interesting,” he said, taking her face between his hands and running his thumbs across her lips.

“And don’t think you can kiss me now and all will be well,” she said. “You have done that every day of our married life and I have always been foolish enough to give in to you. But this is my family you are calling dull. My mama and papa and brother. It is me you are calling dull. Stop it!”

He was feathering kisses on her mouth.

“This is all very, very, very interesting,” he said.

“Stop it!”

“Fascinating.”

“Don’t.”

“Indescribably gloriously wonderful.”

“Don’t start doing that with your tongue,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Because it always weakens me,” she said severely. “I want an apology from you.”

“You have it,” he said. “Abject, servile, groveling apologies, Soph.”

“You make a mockery of everything,” she said, her arms creeping up about his neck.

“No, I don’t,” he said. “One thing I don’t make a mockery of, Soph. Two. My feelings for you and what is inside you. We had better not break the news right away, by the way.”

“Why not?” she said. “I cannot wait.”

“They might find it a little bewildering,” he said. “All on the same day becoming parents and learning that in six months’ time they are to be grandparents. We had better wait a day or two at least.”

“My brother is going to be an uncle in six months’ time,” she said. “I wonder what his name is, Francis.”

“Do you think you could wonder in a supine position?” he asked. “I think you are going to have to get over this maidenly aversion to daylight, you know, Soph. And I’ll tell you why. I have every intention of
doing what your papa is doing now, when you are doing what your mama is doing now.”

“You would not,” she said. “I would die of mortification.”

“ ‘Here lies Lady Sophia Sutton,’ ” he said, “ ‘who passed from this life, at the age of nineteen years, of mortification when her husband gazed at her naked breast with an infant attached.’ Do you think it would make a suitably affecting epitaph? Churchyard viewers would weep pailfuls when they passed by it, don’t you think?”

Sophia giggled.

“Ooh,” he said. “Not good. Not good at all, Soph. You are supposed to be clawing at my eyes by now so that you would not notice that I have walked you through to your bedchamber and am laying you back on your bed. Let me think of something quickly to revive this quarrel.”

“You do not really mean to, do you?” she asked as her head touched the pillow.

“Look at your naked breast in naked daylight, or make love to you at a time when I don’t first have to search for you in the darkness?” he said. “Both, actually, Soph.”

“Just kiss me,” she said, stretching up her arms to him. “That will be enough for now, Francis. Doubtless Papa will be coming for us soon.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I have locked all the doors. We can tiptoe along to your mother’s room again in half an hour’s time and nobody will be any the wiser about what we have been up to. Now, let’s see if I have been making love to a woman all these months or to a crocodile or worse.”

“Don’t be horrid,” she said. “Don’t look!”

“Mm,” he said. “It is all woman so far. Of course, one never knows what the next inch of fabric removed might
reveal. This is most interesting. I am sorry I ever called the day dull, Soph.”

“Oh,” she said. “I shall die. Don’t look so deliberately, Francis, and with that odious twinkle in your eye. I would like to blacken it for you. I really would. You are the most horrid man I have ever known. I should never have married you. I should have married a toad before considering marrying you. I should have …”

“Eels, snakes, rats, buffaloes, elephants,” he said. “I would not advise elephants, though, Soph. Too heavy. Especially when you start swelling as you will soon. Mmm. All woman after all, my love. And sure enough, blushing all the way down to the toenails. I love every rosy inch of you, you know, and shall proceed without further ado to prove it to you.”

“I hate you,” she said. “I really do.”

He grinned at her. “Enough quarreling for one day,” he said. “Time to kiss and make up, Soph. Tell me that you love me.” And he lowered his head to hers.

“Mm,” she told him.

“Good enough,” he said.

T
HE THUNDERSTORM WAS ENTIRELY TO BLAME
. Without it, all the problems that developed later just would not have happened. Without it she would never in a million years have taken him for a lover.

But the thunderstorm did happen and it raged with great ferocity for all of two hours, seeming to circle London instead of moving across it and away. And so all the problems developed.

Because she had spent the night with him.

Because of the thunderstorm.

She had never been afraid of storms as a child. While her elder sister had gone racing into the comforting arms of their nurse at the first distant flash of lightning, she had always raced for the nearest window and flattened her nose against it to enjoy the show until the storm got closer and she had been warned away from her perch. And then she had sat in the middle of the room, waiting in eager anticipation for the next bright flash and counting the seconds until the crash of thunder told her just how close the storm was.

It had never occurred to her to fear storms until she was in Spain with her husband during the Peninsular Wars, camped out in wet and muddy misery with the rest of his division. Lightning had struck so close to their tent that it had killed the four soldiers in the very next
one to theirs. She had screamed and screamed in Lawrence’s arms, returning to sanity only when shouting voices beyond their canvas shelter had indicated that tragedy had struck with the lightning, though miraculously it had missed them.

She had been calm then in the face of death. But ever after that, storms had paralyzed her with terror. And Lawrence was no longer there to comfort her. He had been killed more than seven years before.

Mary Gregg, Lady Mornington, had accepted an invitation from her friend Penelope Hubbard to make up a party of eight to Vauxhall Gardens to listen to a concert and to enjoy the beauty of the pleasure gardens. The party had been organized by the new wife of one of Mr. Hubbard’s friends, and the lady had found herself with an uneven party of seven at the last moment. She needed another lady, whom Penelope had promised to provide.

Mary really ought to come, Penelope had said. She had been down lately and was in danger of becoming a hermit. A rather ridiculous fear in Mary’s estimation, since she still held her almost weekly literary evenings and never refused an invitation to an entertainment that promised stimulating conversation.

But she
had
been down. Dreadfully down. Marcus had met his wife again after a fourteen-year separation and had fallen in love with her again—not that he had ever stopped loving her. Mary had always known that. He had never made a secret of the fact. Just as she had never made a secret of the fact that she had loved Lawrence and still grieved for him.

But she and Marcus had been close friends for six years. They had not been lovers, though it seemed to be the general belief that they must have been. But now they could no longer be friends, just because they were of different genders and he was hoping for a reconciliation with his wife. Mary was finding the emptiness in
her life hard to bear. She had not realized quite how much he had meant to her until he was gone.

Yes, she was very down. And so she accepted Penelope’s invitation even though the prospect of an evening at Vauxhall did not appeal to her a great deal. It appealed even less when she discovered who one of the other guests was. Lord Edmond Waite! She could not understand why Mrs. Rutherford would have invited such a man.

Lord Edmond Waite, youngest son of the Duke of Brookfield, was everything that Mary most despised. He was a libertine and a gamester and a drunkard—and a jilt. She did not know the man, of course, and she was willing to concede that rumor and gossip were not always reliable sources of information. But not everything she had ever heard of him could be untrue, she thought. And she had never heard any good of him. None. It was said that he had been all but betrothed to Lady Dorothea Page, that they had been intended for each other since her infancy. And yet he had gone running off with Lady Felicity Wren, if rumor was correct, and had in his turn been jilted when she had married Mr. Thomas Russell. Lord Edmond was not held in high repute by the
ton
. Only his wealth and rank ensured that he was still received at all. And not everyone received him even so.

Mary did not relish the thought of spending an evening with a party that included Lord Edmond in its number. But she had no choice except to make a scene and go home. Good manners prevented her from doing that. She set herself to avoiding him and conversing with the other members of the party.

“I believe it is going to storm,” she remarked to Mr. Collins before the concert came to an end. The air was still and heavy. Ominously so.

“I do concede you may be right, ma’am,” he said, looking up at the sky, dark and invisible beyond the
light of the colored lanterns that lit the boxes and hung from the trees. “We will have to hope that it does not break before we return home.”

“Yes,” she said. Rachel would have to sleep in her room with her. It would be some comfort to have her maid there, though not nearly as satisfactory as a man’s arms. Marcus had always come when there was a storm brewing, and he had always stayed with her until it was safely past. She returned her attention to the music of Mr. Handel.

It was very obvious to her that a storm was approaching, though no one else seemed at all concerned about it. Rather, everyone appeared to be enjoying the unusual warmth and stillness of the evening. And Mary did not know whether to be impatient to be gone and home to the relative safety of her house or to be glad that she was in company with seven other people and surrounded by dozens of others. But then, of course, she had been surrounded by many thousands of other people in Spain. Numbers did not ensure safety against lightning.

Penelope and her husband got to their feet when the concert was over and suggested a stroll along the lantern-lit paths of the gardens.

“It is such a beautifully warm evening,” Penelope said.

“It is going to storm,” Mary said.

“Do you think so?” Penelope, too, looked up to the invisible sky.

“Good,” Mr. Hubbard said. “A storm will clear the air. It has been very hot and muggy for two days now.”

“But let it wait another hour or two yet,” Mr. Collins said, also getting to his feet and offering his arm to Mrs. Rutherford on his other side.

The four of them went off walking. Mary glanced at the other three occupants of the box. They were arguing with great animation over something, and Miss Wetherald was doing a great deal of laughing. Without at all
meaning to, Mary caught Lord Edmond’s eye and he got to his feet.

“Ma’am?” he said, reaching out a hand for hers. “Would you care for a stroll?”

She certainly did not care for any such thing. Not with him, at any rate. But how could she refuse without seeming thoroughly rag-mannered? She could not.

“Thank you,” she said, smiling and taking his hand so that he might help her to her feet.

He was a handsome man in a way, she supposed. He was tall, perhaps a trifle too thin, though he had an athletic body for a man who must be in his mid-thirties. His dark hair was thick, not thinning at all, his face narrow with a prominent aquiline nose, rather thin lips, and eyes of a curious pale blue. Many women would find him attractive and undoubtedly did. She did not. She took his offered arm.