Treasured Vows (22 page)

“This is a most successful soiree, Mr. Morgan,” Lady Sudbury said.

“You won’t believe who is here,” Lady Fitzgerald chimed in, her normally somber expression alive with excitement. “Everybody who is
anybody!
”

Lady Hollywise tugged on his coat sleeve and whispered, “That was the Earl of Lofton who just shoved you aside. Twenty thousand a year, and holds Prinney’s ear. The House of Lords doesn’t move without Lofton’s say-so. Brummell may even put in an appearance. And maybe Prinney himself!” The woman practically quivered at the thought.

And that was when Grant heard it—the faint jingling
of bells. He looked around for his wife and then realized the sound was much closer. In fact, it was coming from Lady Sudbury.

As if reading his thoughts, she giggled and said, “Do you like them?” She held up her fingers so that he could see she had rings sporting tiny bells on every finger. “I have them on my toes, too.” She lifted her skirts, and he realized that she was running around his parlor in her bare feet.

“We’ll all have them by tomorrow,” Lady Dumbarton announced. “We would have had them today, but Marian refused to divulge her source.” She gave Lady Sudbury a glare for her perfidy.

“Oh, la,” Lady Sudbury said. “I’ll take you all on the morrow and we shall jingle merrily on our way! Well, Mr. Morgan, we must go mingle.” She emphasized
mingle
to rhyme with
jingle,
then giggled at her own joke. “Don’t you like our new hairstyles? Your wife did them. She is so clever—”

“Where
is
my wife?” Grant demanded.

“Oh, she’s somewhere around here,” Lady Dumbarton assured him. Leaning closer, she confided happily, “I don’t remember ever having such a good time in my life. Such a stimulating group of people!” She drifted with the others into the crowd.

At that moment Dame Cunnington’s loud cackle sounded over the crowd, and Grant turned in her direction. That was when he spotted another Indian-scarfed figure talking to a tall brunette beauty in the corner of the room. Certain that the shorter woman must be Phadra, Grant made his way toward her and, once he found himself close enough, grabbed her elbow somewhat forcibly.

The woman looked up in surprise, and he was
completely stunned to find himself staring down into the sweet features of his youngest sister. “Jane?”

“Oh, Grant, it is so good to see you!” she cried, and kissed his cheek. “Rosalind is going to be so upset that she wasn’t able to come.”

“How is Rosalind?” Grant asked, his attention momentarily diverted by the thought of his middle sister.

“She hasn’t had the baby yet, but the midwife assures her and David that it can happen at any moment. By the way, she sends her love and says that she deeply appreciates the money you sent, although it wasn’t necessary.”

“Not necessary? Has Oxford decided to pay its tutors more than it has in the past? Or has David chosen a different career?”

Jane blushed and smiled. “You know they need the money.”

“So why are you here and not helping Rosalind? Is Timothy with you?”

“No, parish duties forbade him the opportunity, although he sends you his best. Actually, Anne and I came because we were concerned about you. Even Rosalind thought it best.”

“You’re here to check up on me?”

She placed both her hands on his arm, her face wreathed in smiles. “Oh, but we aren’t concerned any longer. Phadra is wonderful, Grant! We’re having so much fun getting to know her. She’s perfect for you!”

“Perfect for me?” Grant repeated blankly. “Where is Anne?”

Jane frowned. “The last I saw of her, she was arguing
with some poet, a De Quincey, in your study. Do you know him?”

“I haven’t made his acquaintance,” Grant observed dryly.

“He’s fascinating, but when he started smoking this little pipe filled with cloves and then Anne asked if she could try it…well, I left.” She looked doubtful about whether she should have shared this information with her brother.

“Anne is smoking?” he asked incredulously. He’d always considered her one of the most moderate of souls.

Jane nodded but protested, “Cloves. Nothing vile like tobacco.”

“I’ll go talk to her about this,” Grant grumbled, and would have stormed off in the direction of his study, except that the woman Jane had been talking to pointedly cleared her throat, and Jane grabbed his arm.

With complete solicitousness she said, “Oh, I’m sorry, Countess, I should introduce you. Grant, this is the Countess Raisa von Driesen. Countess, this is my brother, Grant Morgan, whom you were asking about.”

Grant immediately whirled at the mention of the woman’s name. “
The
Countess von Driesen?”

The sloe-eyed beauty smiled knowingly and held out her hand. “It is a pleasure,” she said in a seductive voice.

Grant was so stunned to discover that his youngest sister, the wife of a country vicar, had been talking to the most infamous courtesan in London that he left the countess’s hand hanging in the air until Jane anxiously placed his hand against the countess’s.

“My—ah, pleasure,” Grant managed to choke out, completely nonplussed when the brazen woman pulled his hand to her lips and openly tongue-kissed the palm.

“I have heard so much about the father…and about the son,” the countess whispered. She appeared ready to slobber over his hand again, and Grant jerked it away.

“Yes,” Grant said with a frown. He looked down at his sister. “I’ve got to go find Anne. You’re sure she was
smoking?
”

“Oh, I shouldn’t have told you! Actually, I don’t know. She may have changed her mind and only tried the snuff. She just wanted to try something different, Grant. She says she so rarely comes to the city anymore and occasionally longs to do something daring.”

With a low growl, Grant turned and started to head to the study. Then he stopped, retraced his steps back to Jane, took her hand, and dragged her with him, ignoring her protests at leaving Countess von Driesen standing alone.

He pulled his sister out into the hall, where he saw a raspberry-colored Indian scarf on the head of a woman holding a tray of champagne glasses. Phadra. He reached for the other woman, but the face she turned up to him wasn’t his wife’s.

Frowning, he snapped, “Do I know you?”

The woman’s eyes opened wide in alarm until Jane gently said, “It’s all right, Meg. This is my brother, Mr. Morgan.”

Instantly the girl smiled and bobbed a decent curtsey. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Morgan. I’m your wife’s new lady’s maid, Megan Hartly.”

Lady’s maid!
The blood coursing through his veins took on a dangerous sizzle. Phadra had hired a lady’s maid after he had expressly told her there was no money for such things—or for champagne and wild parties at which his sisters took snuff and talked to courtesans, for that matter!

“Where’s my wife?” he asked in a low, dangerous voice.

Jane pulled back. The young maid’s eyes opened wide but she managed to whisper, “She’s in the supper room, sir.”

The supper room? “Do you mean the dining room?”

Meg nodded. “Mrs. Morgan instructed me to call it the supper room. She said that it sounds more elegant.”

Grant turned to the dining room door and was surprised to discover it closed. He was certain that it had been open earlier. “Where’s Wallace?”

Meg bobbed another curtsey and said, “He’s down in the kitchen helping Jem. It’s a great deal of work to keep all of these glasses filled.”

Grant only vaguely heard her complaint. Instead his complete attention was drawn to the closed dining room door. He crossed to it and tried the handle. The door was locked.

Locking the door to the dining room didn’t make sense unless Phadra was planning some grand surprise. If she had something in mind for him bigger than his finding his house full of people, he didn’t think he’d be able to recover.

He rattled the handle and ordered, “Phadra, open this door.”

At the sound of his voice his wife made a muffled
response. Then came a loud male grunt, and a second later Phadra cried out in a clearer voice, “Grant? Grant, help me!”

“What the devil—” He took a step back and rammed the door with his shoulder. The lock gave and the door flew open, banging against the wall. Quickly recovering his balance, he was shocked to see Phadra standing on one side of a food-laden table, her hand clutching a skewer as if to ward off Lord Lofton, who stood on the other side. Her chest heaved with exertion. Her eyes snapped with anger.

It didn’t surprise Grant that she also had wrapped an Indian scarf shot through with gold around her unruly flaxen curls, but instead of looking silly, as most of the other women did, she looked regal and utterly individual. Even her dress, a classic design in layers of maize- and peacock-colored cloth as light as the sheerest linen, emphasized her uniqueness…until Grant realized that it hadn’t been designed to hang off one shoulder, as it now did.

Lofton had been making love to his wife.

Under his own roof. In his
supper
room!

He looked from the damning evidence to Lofton. The bastard had the courage to smile benignly and make a great pretense of removing an imaginary bit of lint from his sleeve. He looked up at Grant without any pretense of apology and said, “Your wife is quite delightful, Morgan. Such a challenge, but then we’re both swordsmen and understand the chase, don’t we?”

There was no mistaking the double entendre in Lofton’s use of the word
swordsmen.

Grant was pleased to discover that the control
over which he prided himself was completely in place—even as he crossed to Lofton’s side in two long strides, grabbed his high-and-mighty lordship by the seat of his breeches and the collar of his shirt, and, with almost superhuman strength, dragged the yelping bastard out of the room.

“Jane, open the front door,” he ordered calmly. His sister, her eyes wide in astonishment, hurried to comply. Once the door was wide open, Grant tossed the yelling Lord Lofton out his front door and down his steps as if the worldly Corinthian was nothing more than a mangy, flea-ridden tomcat.

Grant brushed his hands together in satisfaction.

“What have you done?” Alexei Popov’s accented voice screamed in horror.

The young poet charged through the crowd that had gathered to watch Lofton’s humiliation. “Do you realize that you have just insulted one of the lions of society? That you’ve ruined this salon and disgraced my dear Edith?”

In answer, Grant grabbed Popov by his silver-trimmed lapels and sent him flying out the door after Lofton.

But his sense of satisfaction evaporated a moment later when he turned to confront the rest of the party. They stood as still as statues, expressions of shock frozen on their faces.

It was then that he realized that he might have just sent his career sailing out the door with Lofton.

Phadra stood poised in the dining room doorway. She looked from him to her guests and then back to him. Two bright spots of color stained her cheeks. Her lower lip trembled dangerously.

“Phadra?” Grant said as he took a step toward her.

She shook her head, then gathered her skirt in her hands and ran through the crowd and up the stairs. Grant charged after her.

G
rant shoved several guests aside in his race to reach his wife. Dame Cunnington appeared to be the first to gather her wits and started haranguing him from her sedan chair about how she’d never been so insulted in her life and would see that his “betters” at the bank heard about his outrageous behavior. The other guests watched him pass in mute disbelief.

The door to his bedroom slammed shut when he was halfway up the stairs. The sound made him angry. What right did she have to slam
his
bedroom door? He had only come to her defense.

So why was it that when he reached the closed bedroom door, he felt as if he had to knock?

Conscious that everyone downstairs was probably straining to hear what was being said, he tapped softly.

No answer.

He rapped, the sound more forceful.

Still no answer.

Leaning close to the door, he said in a low voice. “Phadra, I am coming in. We have to talk.”

“Go away.”

“You can’t tell me to go away from my own room,” he shot back, not even bothering to keep his voice low. He turned the handle and entered. Phadra sat in the window seat, the dim candlelight reflecting off the gold threads in the scarf wrapped around her hair and making them glow. She turned away quickly and stared out the window when he entered, but not before he’d caught her wiping her eyes with the back of her hands.

Phadra crying? She never cried—or at least he’d never thought of her doing so. Lofton must have been more forceful than he’d imagined.

He shut the door. “Are you all right?” he demanded.

She seemed to be memorizing the lamp posts on the street below. The sound of their guests departing drifted up from the streets. Amid the good-byes and laughter, he thought he heard his name mentioned. This story would be all over London in an hour. The noise of coach wheels turning on the cobblestones grated on his nerves.

He was in no mood to hear his wife say, “How could you have done that? How could you have thrown him out like that? He’s a leading patron of the arts.”

Grant frowned, irritated that only a few minutes before, he too had started to wonder if it had been such a wise idea. “Lofton attacks my wife under my own roof, and you’re saying that I don’t have the right to throw him out? What would you have had me do? Invite him to use the bedroom?”

A flush spread across her cheeks, but her eyes snapped with indignant anger. She stood, her hands clasped tightly in front of her. “Don’t you think you may have overreacted?”

“Overreacted? I come home expecting a nice quiet evening, and instead I find my house full of radicals, drunks, and courtesans, all guzzling champagne and teaching my sisters how to smoke and take snuff. No, I don’t think I’m overreacting,” he said, aware that his voice was one note below a bellow. “What the blue blazes were they doing here, anyway?”

She squared her shoulders. “Dame Cunnington invited them.”

“Really? So Dame Cunnington paid for all the champagne and the food?”

Phadra looked as if she’d rather cut off her right hand than answer. She tilted her chin in that defiant way she had. “No.”

Grant leaped upon that admission to justify all of his rash actions this night. “Certainly you can understand my anger, madam.”

“No, I can’t. Perhaps Dame Cunnington invited herself, but I was proud to host them. I welcomed the opportunity.”

“You ‘welcomed the opportunity,’ ” Grant repeated, his disbelief patent.

“Yes, I did. Dame Cunnington is a very powerful woman. Even the bank ladies agreed. I thought that by honoring her wishes tonight, I’d help you gain her favor. I thought you would want that after the disaster at the Evanses’ ball. My only desire was to help you win favor with powerful, influential people so that they could see how wonderful you are and help you become knighted. I wanted to help you.”

An uncomfortable feeling crept into Grant’s mind that quite possibly Phadra could be telling the truth about her justification for hosting the soiree. He squelched the thought. “Even if you thought such a thing, what made you think I could afford it?”

“I paid for it.”

Immediately his gaze flew to her ring finger. Phadra held her hand out for him to see the gold band and its fake emerald. “I still have it,” she said proudly. “I used what was left of the five hundred pounds you gave me.”

“I gave you five hundred pounds?”

“Yes, you did. At the inn after we were married. I offered to give back the money from the sale of the emeralds, and you told me to keep it.”

“I did?” Grant searched his mind, trying to remember having said something so stupid.

“Yes, you did, and I have used the money as I think best—or at least I’d hoped things would go well tonight. I’d hoped that we would make a good impression. How was I to know that Lord Lofton was brazen enough to attack me in the supper room with a houseful of people outside the door?”

“You should have shouted the minute he turned the lock on the door.”

“I was shocked at his effrontery, but I thought I could handle it. I thought I could reason with him.”

“Not dressed like that, you couldn’t.”

Phadra stood still, as if suddenly turned to stone. She found her voice and said in slow, measured words, “What do you mean by that?”

Aware that he was treading on new and possibly dangerous territory, Grant took the time to remove his jacket and throw it on the bed between them. He
pulled at his shirt cuffs before deciding that he was completely justified in his feelings. He looked at her. “I’m saying that I don’t necessarily blame Lofton for reaching a wrong conclusion.”

“And what exactly is wrong with the way I’m dressed?”

“Proper young matrons don’t walk around with their hair swirled up in scarves. Or in dresses that leave absolutely nothing to the imagination,” he added, his eyes lingering on the way the soft material emphasized Phadra’s lush curves, the high rise of her breasts, the length of her legs. Suddenly he didn’t feel as anxious for a fight as he had only a second before.

She placed her hands on her hips, her brows coming together in anger. “I suppose you’d prefer me to wear those awful, stiff ruffled things Lady Evans chose for me.”

Grant shifted uncomfortably. “Well, no…I mean, maybe. Certainly if you’d been wearing something like that, I wouldn’t have had to defend your honor.”

“You had to defend my honor because Lofton is vulgar and rude, not because of anything I was wearing. You can’t convince me that anywhere in a book on manners there is an injunction that states that if you like the dress your hostess is wearing, you should try to take it off her over the roast veal!”

Anger surged inside him. “Is that what Lofton tried to do?”

“Grant, that’s not the point! He shouldn’t have behaved that way regardless of what I was wearing.”

He shook his head. “You don’t understand how the male mind works.”

“Do you think the female mind works any differently?”
With studied nonchalance, she added, “I saw that countess lick your hand as if you were a piece of marzipan.”

Hot color flooded his face. “You saw that?”

“I did—and so did everyone else in the room. But notice that I’m not standing up here demanding that you wear gloves.”

He frowned and took a step away from her. “That would be ridiculous. The woman is an infamous courtesan. Her lovers are legion and her reputation ruined.”

Phadra tapped her foot impatiently before saying, “And what description would you give to Lofton? The man boasts of his conquests as being in the hundreds. Do you believe he is more circumspect in his encounters than the countess?”

Grant didn’t like the way this conversation was going—especially since all he wanted to concentrate on was removing the rest of his wife’s dress, laying her out on the bed, and making mad, mindless love to her. With that intent in mind, he edged his way around the bed toward her, saying, “Phadra, you are talking apples and oranges.”

“I’m saying that you can’t apply one standard to me and another to yourself,” she retorted, moving several steps away from him. “Be honest. Between the two of us, you are the prettier one—”

“Men are not pretty,” he interrupted, irritated that they were still talking and not doing something far more interesting.

“They are to women,” she said, and held up a hand to ward him off while she made her point. Grant stopped and crossed his arms over his chest, impatient for their little argument to be done.

The look in her eyes told him that she didn’t appreciate his attitude, but she continued, “Don’t think that just because we are the softer sex, we are any less rapacious in our desires. When the two of us are together in a public place, no woman even notices me because they are so busy lusting after you.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s true. I’ve lost count of the number of gloves and kerchiefs dropped in your path while I’ve been standing right next to you, but I don’t expect you to wear a mask over your head or do something to disguise the width of your shoulders or the strength in your thighs—”

“Phadra, this is nonsense!” he interrupted, embarrassed at her listing his physical attributes.

“Women are even bold enough to ogle a man’s
equipment.
” She let her eyes drift down to his nether region before saucily admitting, “And you, my dear sir, are very well equipped—but I don’t demand that you wear looser breeches or longer waistcoats, do I?”

Grant blinked, surprised at her boldness. He backed up a step, fighting the urge to cover his groin, and stated flatly, “If you insist on emulating anyone, I’d prefer you follow Lady Dumbarton’s lead and not the Countess von Driesen’s.”

“Why, certainly, Grant. I’ll be more than happy to do so,” she said with sweetness that immediately put him on guard. “After all, Lady Dumbarton is the one who compared you to her favorite stallion.”

“The devil, you say!” Grant exclaimed, and then felt himself turn a bright and burning shade of red. He hoped Phadra couldn’t see how embarrassed he was.
Imagine, my wife and a group of ladies sitting around and talking about me as if they were
—his
mind searched for an apt comparison—
as if they were a group of men sitting in a coffeehouse, leering at women.

What was worse, Phadra stood there, hands on hips, eyes dancing with laughter, apparently feeling no remorse at embarrassing him this way.

The laughter died in her eyes and was replaced by sudden realization. She said with mild surprise, “You don’t like the way you look, do you?”

He frowned. “I like the way I look.”

“No, you don’t,” Phadra said with a shake of her head. “I’ve always known that you aren’t particularly vain about your looks, but now…” Her brow crinkled as she puzzled over the problem. “It’s not a lack of vanity, is it? You just don’t like to look at yourself.”

He took another step toward the door. “Phadra, this conversation has turned silly.”

But Phadra wasn’t listening. Instead she searched the room with her eyes before her clear, direct gaze met his. “There’s no mirror in here. In fact, this afternoon we had to borrow a mirror from Wallace in order to do our hair. Your sisters mentioned that they took all the good mirrors with them when they married and that you’d never had the need for a mirror.”

“So I don’t have a mirror. What does it matter?” he asked in clipped tones. “I’m not a vain man.”

Phadra walked thoughtfully over to his wardrobe and opened it.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

She ran her hands over the sleeves of the coats hanging there. “All your clothing is the same. The same colors, the same cut.” She turned to him. “When we first met, my initial thought was that you
wear your clothing the way most men wear a uniform. I thought it had something to do with your being a banker, but it’s more than that, isn’t it? You do it so that you can spend as little time as possible on your appearance.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about—”

“This morning,” she interrupted, “you were bathed, dressed, and out the door in less than ten minutes.”

“So?”

“So you spent hardly any time at all on anything other than what was necessary. You didn’t primp. You didn’t spend time on yourself.”

“I was clean and shaved,” he protested,

“But you didn’t take any
extra
time.”

“Oh, don’t be ridicul—”

“I’m not being ridiculous,” she said with a stamp of her foot. “I’m now realizing something important about you. You don’t even talk about yourself.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t. You never talk about what you feel or think except to tell me what you want—such as to earn a knighthood and become a director at the bank. But you rarely talk about
why
those things are so important to you.” She slid him a pensive glance. “Except for that night in the Evanses’ garden when you told me about your father.”

Grant shifted his weight. It was only when he bumped into the door handle that he realized he’d edged his way to the door.

Phadra leaned against the bedpost. “I remember thinking later that night that it was strange you hadn’t already achieved those goals. I mean, with your extraordinary looks, you could have contracted
a suitable alliance without having to resort to Miranda Evans. But you won’t trade on your looks, will you? You told me that too, that day in the museum. ‘I don’t trade on my looks.’ Those were the exact words.” She paused and looked him in the eye. “Why not, Grant? Why don’t you like the way you look? Is it because everyone says you look so much like your father?”

Grant placed his hand on the door handle and then removed it quickly, as if he’d touched a hot poker. Was he really so disturbed by her words that he’d let her chase him from the room? He stood his ground. “I didn’t come up here to discuss this. I came up here to tell you that from now on I expect my orders to be obeyed.”

“Obeyed?” she repeated as if she hadn’t heard him correctly.

Grant took a step into the room, feeling a need to exert more control, to keep her sharp mind away from subjects too uncomfortable for him. “From now on, I expect you to consult me before you throw parties like this one tonight.”