Mary Balogh (40 page)

“No,” she said. “None whatsoever.”

“Mary Gregg, Lady Mornington,” he said, “widow of Colonel Lord Mornington of the Guards, former mistress of the Earl of Clifton, bluestocking, hostess of one of the most respected literary salons in London. Is that all of it? Is that who Mary Gregg is?”

“Of course not,” she said. “Those details do not tell you who I am, only what I am or have been. And not all of those are true even. You do not know me at all, my lord.”

“Touché,” he said.

Her hands were still spread on his chest, she saw, though he no longer held them prisoner there. His own hands were now at her waist.

“I do not want to be having this discussion with you,” she said. “I believe this waltz is almost at an end. I have promised the next dance to someone else.”

“If it were not dark out here,” he said, “I should open your card to find out if you tell the truth, Mary. But no matter. The waltz has not quite ended. Kiss me.”

She stared at one of her hands. “Please,” she said. “Let me go. I do not want to have to scream.”

“Kiss me,” he said, and he lowered his head to kiss her neck below one ear.

She closed her eyes and swallowed.

“Kiss me.” He whispered the words an inch from her mouth.

“Please,” she said.

“Mary,” he whispered against her mouth. “Mary.”

“Please,” she said. And one hand was on his shoulder and moving up behind his neck, and her head tipped to one side, and her lips trembled against the light pressure of his.

“Mary,” he said. “Kiss me.”

She kissed him, her hand bringing his head forward, her mouth opening as his tongue came to meet it. And the ache was there again, intensified a hundredfold, and she knew that he could satisfy it. That he would satisfy it. One of his hands had slid down her back and brought her against his swelling groin. She pressed herself closer.

And then both her hands were against his shoulders, pushing firmly, and she turned her head to one side.

“Now be satisfied,” she said. “Now have done and go away. Please!”

“You were humoring me?” he asked.

“How else can I be rid of you?” she said.

“Mary,” he said, “you lie through your teeth. Your body is far more honest than you. Your body admits that it wants me, that it is fated to be mine. Why will you not admit it, too?”

She turned her head back to look at him. “The physical is the only aspect of life that matters to you, is it not?” she said. “If I were to admit that, yes, I am attracted to you at the basest physical level, you would exult, would you not, and feel that that was all-sufficient? It would not matter to you that I do not like you, that I do not respect you, and that I would despise myself for the rest of my life for giving rein to my basest instincts.”

“You would deny the body, then?” he asked. “It is an unhappy thing to do, Mary. We have to live inside our bodies for the rest of our lives.”

“Some of us,” she said, “also have minds to live with. And consciences, too.”

His smile was somewhat twisted. “Ah,” he said, “it was obliging of you to explain that. I have often wondered what can give meaning to the lives of those who do not indulge their bodies as I do.”

She swallowed.

“I want you, Mary,” he said, “and I mean to have you. Not just from selfish whim, but because I know that you want me, too, and because I hold the strange belief that we can find a measure of happiness together. Stop fighting me. It is a useless struggle, I do assure you.” He dropped his hands to his sides and took one step back from her. “But enough for tonight. It is time for me to find a few bottles from which to drink deep, and a few wealthy and foolish young bucks to separate from their fortunes at the tables, and a willing whore with whom to enjoy what remains of the night.”

“I can live without having the details spelled out to me,” she said coldly.

“Well,” he said, “that is what you expect of me, is it
not, Mary? Is it not better to know for sure than merely to imagine? If I did not tell you, you might fear that you were doing me an injustice in your imagination.”

She frowned. “You hate yourself, don’t you?” she said.

He sneered and drew breath to speak. But the words were never uttered.

“Lady Mornington,” the voice of Viscount Goodrich said from just beyond the potted plant, “may I escort you back into the ballroom, ma’am? Or would you like me to throw out your, ah, dancing partner first?”

One side of Lord Edmond’s mouth lifted in a smile. He stood quite still and looked into Mary’s eyes.

“We have been conversing,” she said. “But the waltz is at an end, I hear. I would be thankful for your escort, my lord.”

Although she looked at Lord Edmond, she was speaking to the viscount. She stepped to one side and around the former. He did not move, either to help or to impede her progress.

“Good night, Mary,” he said softly. “Thank you for the dance and for the conversation.”

“Good night, my lord,” she said, and she set her hand on the viscount’s sleeve.

H
E DID NOT
believe in love. Love brought only pain and bitterness. Love ruined lives, deprived them of all meaning and direction. He believed only in lust, only in the satisfaction of the body’s cravings. And yes, she had been right. Only the physical mattered. Nothing else. Not mind. Not conscience. What did he care for conscience? Conscience had tormented him once upon a time, until it had seemed to be a toss-up whether he would end up in Bedlam or in hell, dead by his own hand. Somehow he had steered clear of Bedlam, and his
hand had shaken like an autumn leaf when he had set the dueling pistol first against his temple and then inside his mouth. He had been too much the coward to pull the trigger.

Yes, he believed only in lust. She was damned good in bed, better than anyone else he had ever had, and so that was why he craved more. It was her body he craved. He cared nothing for her mind or her feelings or for all those other elements that were a part of her in addition to her body. He wanted her body. Lust was all.

He did not believe in love.

And yet in the two days following the Menzies ball, liquor seemed to have lost its power to make him drunk and gaming to amuse him and whoring to give his body ease. And so he gave them up, hurling a full decanter of brandy into his fireplace late on the second night—the night of her literary salon, which he had stayed away from—having already thrown in a winning hand at Watier’s before the game was quite won so that players and spectators alike had gaped at him in disbelief.

And before going home and smashing the decanter, he had taken a delicious little whore into his scarlet room, sat down to watch her undress, and then ordered her to dress again while he stalked from the room to summon his carriage. He had paid her twice her usual fee—merely for undressing in his sight and dressing again out of it.

Her body had been twice as luscious as Mary’s.

On the third day he called at Mary’s house and sent up his card. He repeated the call for the following six days. Each time she was from home and he left without disputing the message. Once he saw her driving in the park in Goodrich’s barouche. He deliberately redirected his horse so that he would pass her, and he raised his hat and gazed steadily at her until she flushed and acknowledged him with a nod. Then he rode on without even attempting to engage her in conversation.

The word was out that Goodrich was courting her in earnest.

He made no move to discover where she was likely to be during the week. He wanted her body, not her. There were a thousand women in London alone with bodies more attractive than Mary’s, and many of them willing bodies, too. He would choose another woman and teach her to perform as Mary had performed for him, and better. She did not want him. Well, then, he would forget her. She did not matter to him. He believed only in lust, not in love.

But he sat in his dressing room late one night, staring at his boots and remembering that she had kissed him at the Menzies ball and that for a few moments she had been hot and willing in his arms, his for the taking. And he woke more than one night aroused for her and remembering her at the ball pressing herself against his groin, wanting him inside her.

He cursed her and damned her. He conjured up a mental image of her and ruthlessly criticized every aspect of her appearance. Her legs were too short, her hips too narrow, her breasts too small, her whole body too dumpy, her hair too unfeminine, her face too plain, her eyes too … He shook his head. Well, she had one good feature. One! And she was too old and too prim and too everything else he did not like.

It was almost laughable that he, who had always been considered something of a connoisseur of women, could not shake from his memory a woman whom no one in his hearing had ever called pretty or lovely or attractive or bedworthy. He would be the laughingstock if it were known—as it well might be if he did not forget her soon—that he had determinedly pursued the very plain and ordinary Lady Mornington and been rejected. People already knew such a thing of Felicity Wren, but at least Felicity was breathtakingly beautiful.

But Mary! His lips curled with contempt—contempt for his own reactions to her.

On the night of her next literary evening—she had a lady novelist and a more reputable poet than Pipkin on her guest list, he had heard—he arrived at her house again. But he did not take advantage of the fact that she held open house. He sent in his card with a note scribbled on the back. And he waited for her reply, wondering what he would do if she ignored it or sent a message that she was not at home.

He stood in the hall of her house and bowed to Sir Henry and Lady Blaize as they entered and handed their outdoor garments to the butler before making their way to the salon. He smiled arctically when Lady Blaize openly ignored him and Sir Henry merely frowned and bobbed his head in what might have been a greeting.

Old fools! Did they think he cared?

The outside door opened again to admit the Viscount Goodrich at almost the same moment that Mary stepped out of the salon, Lord Edmond’s card in one hand.

“Ma’am?” The viscount made his best bow to her before noticing either her frown or the fact that Lord Edmond Waite stood silently in the shadows.

“Ah,” Lord Edmond said. “The eternal triangle.”

The viscount turned sharply in his direction, and his eyes narrowed. “Lady Mornington,” he said, “is Lord Edmond Waite an invited guest?”

“I send out no invitations for these evenings,” she said.

“Do you want him here?” he asked.

She did not reply.

“Waite,” the viscount said, “you may leave under your own power or you may choose to be thrown out. It is all the same to me, though I think perhaps I would prefer the latter. Which is it to be?”

“The second, if you wish to have your nose flattened
in line with the rest of your face,” Lord Edmond said coolly. “I was unaware that this is your house, Goodrich. I wish for a word with Lady Mornington. I am awaiting her answer.”

“Her answer is no,” the viscount said. “You have five seconds to take yourself off.”

“Mary?” Lord Edmond spoke quietly and unhurriedly.

“I shall talk with him for a minute, my lord,” she said. “I thank you for your concern, but I am in my own house and quite safe.” She looked at Lord Edmond all the while she spoke.

“Perhaps I should stay with you to make sure of that,” the viscount said, and Lord Edmond smiled into Mary’s eyes.

“Thank you,” she said, “but that will not be necessary.”

“Scurry out of range of my fists while you still may,” Lord Edmond said.

“And that will not be necessary, either,” she said firmly. “There will be no violence or talk of violence in my home, gentlemen. Lord Goodrich, you will find several people gathered in the salon already. Lord Edmond, will you step this way, please?”

She led him across the hallway and into what must be a morning room. There was an escritoire against one window, its surface strewn with papers, several books carelessly scattered on tables, and an embroidery frame with a mound of many-colored silks on the arm of the chair before which it stood. It was clearly a room that was lived in. A feminine and cozy room.

She turned to face him as he closed the door quietly behind his back. “What is the meaning of this?” She held up his card in one hand.

“That if you were from home this time I would be obliged to kidnap you?” he said. “I hoped that it would
provoke exactly what it has provoked. I hoped that you would admit me.”

“To my salon?” she said. “You know you need no invitation there, my lord. You would not have been turned away. Though of course you would have been unwelcome.”

“Mary,” he said, “you do not know how you wound me. I am human. I have feelings.”

She laughed shortly. “Well, bless my soul,” she said, “and so do I.”

“I have given up gaming and drinking and whoring,” he said. “They have had no attraction for me in the past week. I took a girl to the room where I took you, Mary, and could do nothing with her except send her home with a handsome fee clutched in her hand. I could not lay her on the bed where you had lain and do with her the things I did with you.”

She flushed. He watched her swallow. “The great reformation,” she said. “Thirty years or more of debauchery wiped out in one week of abstemious living, and now you are worthy to take me as a mistress. Am I to fall into your arms?”

“If you wish,” he said. “I would be surprised, but I would close them about you fast enough.”

She laughed again. “Get out,” she said, “and stop wasting my time. I have guests to entertain.”

“Not quite thirty years,” he said. “But a goodly number, I will admit. A week has been more than an eternity. More than a week. Will you give me a chance, Mary?”

“A chance?” She laughed incredulously. “A chance for what?”

He shrugged. “A chance to show you that you will not have a drunken womanizer for a lover,” he said. “A chance to show you that there is more to me than you know?”

She closed her eyes. “I cannot believe this is happening,”
she said. “You try to convince me that a miraculous transformation has happened in your life, and yet you can scribble on the back of your card that you will kidnap me if I will not speak with you, and you threaten Lord Goodrich, who would protect me, with violence?”