Slightly Dangerous (30 page)

He was rather taken aback by the firm assurance of her statement.

“Those are strong words, Mrs. Derrick,” he said. “Would you rather be dead than marry a man who had engaged your affections, whether he were a duke or a chimney sweep?”

“But my affections are
not
engaged,” she said.

“There is a way some people have,” he said, “of seeming to answer a question without actually doing so at all.”

“I do not believe,” she said, “that I could be happy married to either a duke or a chimney sweep, your grace. It thus behooves me to be very careful that I do not develop an affection for either. For of course the dilemma would be a nasty one, would it not? Would I rather be dead than marry the man I loved—only because he was a chimney sweep or a duke? Would I become the heroine of a grand tragedy in the style of Shakespeare if the answer were yes, do you suppose? But I would not even know it, alas. I would be dead and floating down a river with my hair spread over the surface all about me—if I had not cut it all off.”

His heart plummeted.

She did not mean to have him, and she was warning him—as she had done in Hyde Park—that there was nothing he could do to persuade her to change her mind. It was a rare challenge she presented to him. He could not dangle either his title or his enormous wealth before her, and he did not know how to woo a woman simply as a man. And, even if he could do it, she would still be immune to him just
because
he was also a duke and a very wealthy man.

She was a supreme realist, Christine Derrick—though perhaps she was wrong too. If there were practicality on the one hand and a dream on the other, why choose practicality? Just because it was sensible? Why not the dream? Why not live dangerously?

And was this really he, Wulfric Bedwyn, who was having these thoughts and dreaming of rebelling against all that had ordered his life for more than twenty years? And living dangerously?

But he had invited her here, had he not?

He feared that he was a little more than just in love with Christine Derrick. He very much feared that she had become essential to his happiness. And that in itself was a strange, alarming thought. He had never looked for happiness. He had never considered it important. He had never even really believed in it. Or perhaps he had. During the past three years he had seen each of his siblings find it and live with it. He had seen the wild and sometimes cold, even heartless, Bedwyns grow into the still wild, but contented, almost domesticated Bedwyns. And, without fully realizing it, he had felt left behind and ever so slightly resentful.

And lonely.

The silence had stretched for too long, and it was clear that she was not going to break it.

“It is to be hoped, then, Mrs. Derrick,” he said, “that if you are ever the subject of a drama, it will be as the romantic heroine rather than as a tragic one. Perhaps there is a schoolmaster somewhere who will attach your admiration and the undying love of your heart. I wish you happy with him. In the meanwhile I shall do my best to give you and your fellow guests a memorable holiday here.”

All traces of laughter had gone from her eyes. She leaned forward in her chair again.

“I think,” she said, “you wear a mask that is at least a foot thick. It is virtually impenetrable. Have I offended you?”

“I beg your pardon?” His glass was halfway to his eye.

“Your eyes are like ice chips again,” she said. “The eyes are usually the weak point in any disguise, you know, because the wearer has to see out into the world and must leave them exposed no matter how thoroughly he covers up every other part of his person. But your eyes
are
your disguise, or at least a large part of it. I cannot see even a glimmering of your soul by gazing into them.”

If his eyes were ice, then they were freezing his whole person. He looked back at her in the only way he knew how—with cold hauteur. How could he look at her any differently? How could he risk . . .

“Perhaps, Mrs. Derrick,” he said, “I should wear my heart on my
sleeve,
and you would not be obliged to look into my eyes at all. But I forget—I have no heart.”

“I do believe, your grace,” she said, “we are quarreling. But you are doing it in your own inimitable fashion by growing colder and more toplofty rather than more heated like the rest of us lesser mortals. It is a pity.”

“You would like to see me in a rage, then?” He raised his eyebrows.

“I think I would like it very much,” she said.

“Even if it were directed at you?”

She regarded him thoughtfully, her head tipped to one side, a smile lurking in the depths of her eyes.

“Yes, even then,” she said. “I could fight you if you were in a rage. You would be horribly dangerous, I suspect, but I could perhaps communicate with the real man if you were to lose your temper—if there
is
a real man and not just a duke through to the very core of your being.”

“You become offensive, ma’am,” he said softly, and felt unmistakable anger tighten inside him like a hard ball.

“Do I?” Her eyes widened. “Have I hurt you? Have I angered you? I think I hope I have done both. I did not invite myself here, your grace. I did not wish to accept your invitation, and I was quite candid with you about that. You asked me to give you a chance to prove that there is more to you than you have yet revealed to me. I have not seen anything yet. But when I accuse you of wearing a mask, of hiding yourself behind icy eyes and an arrogant demeanor, you become colder still and throw my own words back at me so that I will squirm with discomfort—
but I forget—I have no heart,
you say. Perhaps you are right, then. Perhaps there
is
no mask. Perhaps I have been right about you all along.”

He leaned a little closer to her.

“By God,” he said, “we
are
quarreling. And though you are sitting there half smiling and talking softly and I am my usual icy self, we will be drawing attention to ourselves if we continue. We
will
continue, but not here and not now. If you will excuse me, I must mingle with my other guests. May I escort you to someone’s side? Lady Wiseman’s, perhaps, or Lady Elrick’s?”

“No, thank you,” she said. “I am quite contented here.”

He got to his feet and bowed to her before moving to one of the card tables, where he stood looking down at Lady Renable’s hand without at all seeing it.

He had certainly bungled that encounter, he thought. He had intended spending ten minutes or so with her, making her feel comfortable in his home and in his company, beginning to show her that he was human, and he had ended up . . .
quarreling
with her. Was that what they had been doing? He never quarreled and no one ever tried quarreling with him. No one
dared
. Was that part of her fascination to him—that she did dare?

But did he still find her fascinating? She
had
been offensive. She knew nothing about civility, about leaving well enough alone. She had talked about masks and eyes and ice chips. She had implied that he was not only without heart, but without soul too—
I cannot see even a glimmering of your soul.

He felt—he drew a sharp, almost hissing breath—rather like weeping.

Lady Renable looked back over her shoulder at him and laughed as she replaced into the fan of cards she held in one hand the card she had been about to throw down. She selected another instead.

“You are quite right, Bewcastle,” she said. “That was definitely not the card to play.”

Justin Magnus had joined Mrs. Derrick in her corner, he could see. They were talking and laughing together. She looked happy and at ease again. Wulfric clamped his teeth together so that he would not grind them, and fought jealousy.

That would be the final humiliation.

16

A
FTER EVERYONE ELSE HAD RETIRED TO BED, THE
Bedwyn siblings and their spouses remained behind in the drawing room—with the exception of Wulfric, who had withdrawn to the library, his own private domain.

“I wish Wulf had stayed here with us,” Morgan said.

“The only marvel,” Freyja said, “is that he stayed all evening until everyone else withdrew without finding some excuse to slip away.”

“Well, I would think he
would
stay,” Rannulf added, lowering himself to the floor at Judith’s feet and tipping his head back onto her lap, “after inviting a houseful of guests here. Does anyone understand why he chose Elrick and Renable and all the rest? I have no objection to any of them, but they don’t seem quite Wulf’s type, do they?”

“Does Wulf
have
a type?” Alleyne asked.

“He is probably very thankful now that he
did
invite a houseful and not just family,” Aidan said, squeezing onto a large chair beside Eve and setting one arm about her shoulders. “Aunt Rochester is in full matchmaking mode. It is hard to know for whom one ought to feel more sorry—Amy Hutchinson or Wulf.”

“He would devour her for breakfast the morning after their wedding,” Freyja said scornfully. “Josh, do come and help me get these absurd plumes out of my hair. They are hopelessly tangled.”

“You are supposed to say please, Free,” Rannulf told her.

“You needn’t glare at me, sweetheart,” Joshua said, grinning at her as he sat on the arm of her chair and batted her hands out of the way before setting to work on the plumes. “I am not the one who just accused you of bad manners.”

“Perhaps,” Eve suggested, “we ought to do something to help out—to keep Amy out of Wulfric’s way and Wulfric out of hers.”

“Aunt Rochester would fight back with every weapon in her arsenal,” Alleyne said. “She means business.”

“Might I suggest,” Gervase said, taking up a stand before the fire, his back to it, “that Wulfric is a match for the dragon aunt? The idea of our taking a hand in his salvation seems mildly absurd, does it not?”

Most of his in-laws snickered their agreement.

“What we would need to do,” Morgan said, frowning in concentration, “is find a diversion—someone else for Amy or someone else for Wulf.”

“I cannot like Mowbury for the part,” Aidan said. “I have never known a man with his head so lost in the clouds. I doubt he has noticed the girl’s existence. And his brother must be shorter than she is by a whole head—
and
he is a younger son and would not fit Aunt Rochester’s expectations.”

“Which does not entirely exclude him as a possible suitor,” Judith pointed out.

“He is also thin and balding,” Freyja said bluntly, “and would surely not fit
Amy’s
expectations.”

“It has to be Wulf, then,” Morgan said. “We have to find someone else for
him
.”

“
Chérie,”
Gervase said fondly, “we would have as much chance of success as King Canute did with holding back the tide.”

“And,” Freyja said, “Mrs. Derrick would seem to be the only candidate available for the diversion.”

That silenced them all for a few moments. Then Joshua chuckled, handing the last of the gold plumes to Freyja as he did so.

“I would have paid a fortune to witness Wulfric fishing her out of the Serpentine,” he said, “and then taking her home on his horse. I would wager he was
not
delighted.”

“She made rather a grand entrance this afternoon too,” Aidan said. “I thought Aunt Rochester’s eyeball was going to pop right out through the lens of her lorgnette.”

“I was afraid that Wulfric would freeze her into an icicle,” Morgan said. “But she took no notice of him, did she? She looked a fright, but she had gone to the rescue of that child instead of coming to make her curtsy to us all and then she greeted us with the greatest good cheer.”

“One has to admire her spunk,” Freyja said. “Joshua says we are a formidable lot when we are all lined up together. He says we could be as effective as a firing squad without any of the mess of guns and blood.”

“Mrs. Derrick is a jolly good sort actually,” Alleyne said. “She has some lively conversation and a healthy sense of humor.”

“She is as far from being Wulf’s sort as it is possible to be, though,” Freyja said, feeling her unruly coiffure with one hand now that the plumes were all gone and grimacing over the tangles. “Can you imagine him allowing himself to be paired with her even if Amy were the only alternative?”

There was general laughter as they all attempted to picture just that.

“He did spend some time talking with her this evening, though, Free,” Rannulf pointed out, “and the very reason was that he was running away from Amy—or rather from our aunt.”

“But he would not let it happen again,” Freyja said. “No, we have to find someone else for him.”

“But there
is
no one else, Free,” Morgan pointed out, “unless the Earl of Redfield has invited guests to Alvesley for the holiday. Perhaps Lauren’s cousin is staying there.”

“Lady Muir?” Rannulf said. “I once fancied her myself.” He tipped back his head and grinned upside down at Judith. “But then I met Jude and forgot her very existence.”

Judith shoved at his head.

“I am not so certain that Mrs. Derrick
is
wrong for Wulfric,” Rachel said suddenly. “She is a widow and far closer to him in age than Amy is. I think she is pretty, though not in any
ton
nish sense. And we must all have noticed how lively she is, how warm in manner, how ready to laugh. There is a certain sparkle about her that might be just what Wulfric needs.”

“Wulf?”
Rannulf looked blankly at her. So did everyone else.

“Wulfric loves very deeply,” she said. “He just needs someone who can help him show it openly.”

Rannulf laughed and Joshua chuckled.

Alleyne went to sit beside Rachel, took her hand in his, and laced their fingers together.

“Rachel has held this strange belief about Wulf,” he said, “from the moment she first set eyes on him.”

“I was the only one who saw his face,” Rachel explained, “when he set eyes upon Alleyne for the first time after believing for several months that he was dead. The rest of you saw only that he hurried across the terrace at Morgan’s wedding and hugged Alleyne. I saw his
face
. And if anyone wants to say in my hearing that Wulfric is a cold man and feels no deep emotion, I am here to argue with that person.”