The Harem Bride (22 page)

With a sharp wave of his hand, the earl sent
everyone scampering from the room, leaving him alone with his
countess. Still glowering, he snapped, “If you think for one moment
I would allow you to be ripped to shreds by those tabbies or leered
at by their husbands—”

“
As bad as that?” Penny asked, turning
at last to look directly at him.

“
Take that foolish bonnet off,” the
earl ordered, a trifle irrelevantly. “Let me have a look at you. A
nice touch, the white rose,” he added more softly.

Ah, yes! he thought as his wife removed her
bonnet. Here was the woman he had secretly hoped would exit the
post chaise that winter night in Shropshire. What, he wondered, had
inspired this transformation . . . could it possibly have been
himself? “Penelope . . .,” he began and then, most unfortunately,
thought better of displaying his sudden surge of youthful
eagerness.

“
Penelope,” he said in a tone amended
to a calm reasonableness he was far from feeling, “I know you have
lived in isolation for far too long, and you are most certainly
entitled to spend the Season in town, but I must tell you this is
not the year to do so. By next year this nasty
on dit
instigated by Yardley—you recall young
Yardley, the idiot, do you not?—will be old news. My close friends
are already helping to combat the rumors, and I see now I shall
have to enlist the aid of my mother. She is a formidable dowager, I
assure you. By next year we will have come about, and you and I
shall do the Season in style. I promise you, Penelope, truly we
will.”

“
But surely if they see me—”

“
They will see what they want to see,”
Jason responded grimly. “You must recall even the truth is not all
that exonerating. Your Aunt Cass was always considered an
eccentric, and there’s no way around the fact you
were
part of the Sultan Selim’s
harem. If Yardley had kept his mouth shut . . . but that’s of no
account now. I cannot call him out without making the—”

“
Call him out!” Penny cried. “Surely
you would not. You could be killed.”

Light gleamed in his lordship’s eyes. “Would
you mind, Penelope? Would you truly mind?”

“
Idiot,” Penny murmured, lowering her
sky blue eyes before they could give away all her secrets. “You
must know that once was quite enough for you to risk your life for
me.” Abruptly, she turned her attention to pouring out the
tea.

Absently, the earl accepted his cup,
fixed just the way he liked it. “Very well,” he said at last, “I
suggest a compromise. But do not say I did not warn you. You may
stay in town tonight. This afternoon we will drive in the park at
the hour when at least half the
ton
takes to Rotten Row in an effort to see and be seen. You may
be roundly snubbed, but you
will
be seen in a setting where we may move on if anyone is rude.
And . . . yes, tonight I shall take you to the opera. We will
invite Brawley and perhaps one or two others, for there, too, you
may be seen for the lady you are in a situation where we can
control who enters my box.”

“
I trust Mrs. Coleraine will not be one
of the party.”

The earl’s temper flared . . . and
died, as he noticed his wife’s lips twitch in an effort to keep her
countenance.
The minx!
“She
will not,” he said shortly. “And, after that, it is back to
Shropshire for the both of us, I think, for, truthfully, I have not
the heart to send you back alone.”

At this, Lady Rocksley’s lips trembled with
another emotion entirely. “Will you truly come with me? That is all
I ever wanted, you know. For you to—” Horrified by what she had
nearly let slip, Penny broke off, fixing her concentration on her
tea and a tasty almond macaroon.

Lord Rocksley promptly took advantage of this
opportunity to study his wife. Her light golden brown hair gleamed
in the sunlight illuminating the drawing room through a series of
floor to ceiling windows overlooking a fine garden. Her enticing
figure was perfectly accented by the cut of the blue gown, so
similar in color to the garments once worn by Gulbeyaz. Her lips
were full and marvelously pink, though it was plain to see she wore
no paint, as had the child-woman in the seraglio. Her lashes dusted
cheeks flushed with color not brought on by the heat from the
nearby fireplace. And her chin . . . ah, yes, that was as set and
determined as ever. Or was it? Was that a quiver he detected?

It occurred to Jason that he had, perhaps, a
motive other than compassion for treating his wife with kindness.
Possibly even a reason beyond his vague urge to settle down and set
up his nursery. Here before him was the woman of the dreams, the
one he had feared lost forever. And, surely, she had not come all
the way to London and bought trunksful of new clothes merely to
please herself?

Tonight, he and the White Rose—he and
his
wife
, he amended—would be
alone together in their adjoining suites of rooms upstairs. The
perfect opportunity to accomplish what had been so long delayed.
Jason’s mind flooded with exotic images. Dancing girls, diaphanous
silks, his wife crawling beneath the undulating quilt . .
.

“
Do you think we might visit Lord
Elgin’s marbles?” his countess inquired, eyes shining with an
eagerness she had never turned on him. Not even in the seraglio,
dammit, where her “acting” had never gone beyond a charming shyness
and a startling display of skill.

His married life was doomed. There could be
no other interpretation of the cross purposes that dogged their
steps.

With considerable effort, the Earl of
Rocksley took himself at hand. “Of course, my dear,” he responded
coolly. “I believe they are at Burlington House now. I will send
round a note to ascertain if we might view them before our drive in
Hyde Park.”

Marbles!
He
had as good as offered his wife a reconciliation, and all she could
talk of was Elgin’s blasted marbles.

What, after all, did it matter? He would see
she gave him a whole passel of children, as Lady Elgin had done
before her lord cast her aside. See if he wouldn’t, by God!

“
A sad spectacle, was it not?” the Earl
of Rocksley asked his wife, who sat glum beside him as he tooled
his way up Piccadilly toward Hyde Park. “I, too, was
shocked.”

“
So much beauty reduced to a ramshackle
shed without so much as a single window,” his countess sighed. “To
be forced to peer at the greatest sculptures in the world by
lantern-light! Yet at least those in the shed are protected,” Penny
conceded, “while the large pieces outside are fully exposed to
England’s iniquitous climate. It is a tragedy, my lord. You
must
urge Lord Elgin to
sell.”

“
You did not see the marbles when they
were in Park Lane? I assure you the shed there was a veritable
palace compared to what we have just seen.”

“
No.” Penny shook her head. “We made a
brief visit to London in the spring of 1808, but Aunt Cass
adamantly refused to look at the marbles. I even slipped away one
afternoon, with only Noreen at my side, and attempted to get in,
but the young men guarding the place were quite fierce. Only
serious students of antiquities might view the marbles. They turned
me away as if I were a mere fly buzzing about their
treasure.”

“
Good God, did they really?” the earl
murmured. “No doubt you should have gone armed with Miss
Pemberton’s lethal parasol.”

“
Jason!” Penny chortled. “If only you .
. .”

“
Yes?”

The Countess of Rocksley squirmed a bit, went
so far as to bite a knuckle on one properly gloved finger. “If
only,” she said at last, “you showed your humor to me more
frequently. You can be so charming to others, you see, but . .
.”

“
But to my wife I am an ogre.” The
earl’s tone was flat, bereft of any hint of humor.

“
Here., and in Shropshire as well, you
. . . you tend to look at me as if you cannot imagine who I am or
what I am doing here. It is very lowering, I assure
you.”

Once again, all Jason could see was that
blasted white rose! Why the devil women were allowed to hide behind
huge bonnet brims while men had their every expression constantly
on display? Glumly, the earl decided that was why most men solved
the problem by learning never to display any emotion at all.

“
I shall endeavor to improve my
attitude,” Jason returned stiffly as he skimmed his pair of
perfectly matched grays through a gate into the park at a pace that
could be matched only by the most skilled whips. In the process he
brought to a halt the progress of a portly gentleman on a bay
stallion, two stylishly dressed couples strolling toward the gate,
and a landau containing two elderly ladies, whose coachman forgot
himself enough to toss an outraged epithet at the earl’s rapidly
retreating back.

“
I do not believe,” said Lady Rocksley,
“that scattering members of the
ton
like chaff before the wind is the way to go about improving
your attitude.”

“
You have turned into a sour Methodist
shrew, my dear,” the earl returned cordially. “Dress as finely as
you will, there’s a starched-up Evangelist beneath that
bonnet.”

The countess’s fuming reply was cut off,
unspoken, as the earl deftly maneuvered his way into the line of
fashionable carriages slowly circling the park. They were now much
too public for a quarrel, particularly as the eyes of every last
soul taking the air that afternoon widened at the sight of the
unknown woman sitting up beside the Earl of Rocksley. From those on
the bridle path to those taking a leisurely stroll, from the
occupants of sporting curricles and high-perch phaetons to the
elegant passengers of barouches and landaus, the earl and his
companion were the cynosure of every gaze. Was that . . .? Could it
be . . .? Surely not. The chit was much too civilized to be the
notorious Countess of Rocksley.

Meticulously, Jason nodded to every
person with whom he was acquainted—a rather high percentage of
those they passed—but he did not chance an introduction until they
were more than half-way round the vast park. Deliberately choosing
a lady of impeccable social standing augmented by a kind heart,
Lord Rocksley made her known to his bride. Though visibly startled,
the middle-aged matron recovered quickly, welcoming the countess to
London with becoming enthusiasm. The earl drove off, well-pleased,
as the lady was also known for her ability to chatter nineteen to
the dozen, and the identity of his mysterious passenger would soon
be known throughout Hyde Park and, within a day or two, the
entire
ton
as
well.

Another round of the park, a second
well-chosen introduction, and Jason was beginning to be pleased
with himself. Perhaps he had been drowning his sorrows prematurely.
Perhaps matters were not as bad as he had feared.

And then the atmosphere within the park
changed. Nods became perceptibly cooler. Some carriages speeded up
as they passed by, the occupants keeping their eyes straight front.
Full half the riders on horseback kept their chins in the air,
certain ladies going so far as to whisk their full skirts aside, as
if they might be contaminated by the proximity of the sultan’s
whore. Even those the earl recognized as Fair Cyprians out on the
strut seemed to shrink from his wife, as if she were a leper. And
then, as if fate were piling disaster upon ignominy, a carriage
pulled up beside them and a feminine voice cried out, “Jason,
Jason, my dear. Do hold! I wish to meet your charming
companion.”

Penny, by this time grateful for any kindly
face, proffered an immediate smile across the distance that
separated the carriages, even as her hand closed over the earl’s
arm in silent appeal, as he seemed about to move on without so much
as a glance in the lady’s direction.

“
Believe me,” he muttered, eyes fixed
on his grays’ ears, “you do not wish to meet the lady.”

“
Yes, I do,” Penny returned stubbornly.
“It is not as if there are people waiting in line to meet
me.”

As it turned out, the decision was
taken out of their hands as congestion among the carriages in front
of them forced the earl’s curricle to a halt directly next to the
stylish barouche beside them. Penny eyed the woman who had called
out to them with open admiration and felt a slight quavering of her
newfound
amour propre
. In
spite of her new clothes and new attitude, this polished gem of
the
ton
reduced her to the
level of a gawk from the country. The lady, of approximately her
own age, was garbed in a striking carriage dress of burgundy red
kerseymere, sparkling with gold buttons and gold lace in the
military style, every inch designed to set off as voluptuously
enticing a figure as Penny had ever seen. The plumes on her bonnet
were dyed to match, gracefully swirling into the air before curling
down to point the way to dark eyes set into a face that seemed to
promise a gentleman anything he might desire.

“
My lady,” the earl declared through
gritted teeth, “may I introduce Mrs. Coleraine and her escort,
Colonel Gibbons. And this is my wife, Lady Rocksley,” he added with
cool formality.

Mrs. Coleraine.
Daphne
Coleraine?