A Season for Love (20 page)

“
Are you implying,” asked the duke
quite softly, “ that I do not enjoy the company of my wife and my
daughter?”

“
No, oh, no!” Jenny Carlington’s
fingers flew to her mouth.

The Duke of Longville stepped behind
his wife, carefully fixing the opal necklace around her exceedingly
stiff neck. “You know, Jen,” he said in a simple conversational
tone that frightened her far more than his roar, “I may not have
made it clear that I am not an idle twit like your brother.”
Ignoring his wife’s indignant gasp, he added, “It so happens there
are some among the
ton
’s
so-called decadent noblemen who actually lead this country. And
some of us, oddly enough, are in charge of the war against the
miraculously resuscitated Little Emperor. I happen to be one of
them. I am not out carousing. I am not gaming. I am not seeing
Harriet Wilson or any of her cohorts who excel in sins of the
flesh. I am, in fact, attending meetings or dinner parties at which
all the guests are male, and each one thinking he knows exactly how
to keep Boney from re-taking Europe.”

“
You might have told me so!” Jen
declared. An odd combination of fury and relief poured through her
as she recalled all the nights she had cried herself to sleep,
picturing her husband in the arms of some petite and exotic
chère amie
.

The duke busied himself looking for the
earrings that matched the opal necklace. It took all his
considerable courage to admit, as he handed them to her, “You are
quite right, my dear. I have been answerable to no one for far too
long. Amy—my first duchess—was endlessly jealous, questioning me at
length about every woman to whom I so much as doffed my hat on Bond
Street, even at church. It was . . . unpleasant.” The duke
attempted a wry smile. “Which is no excuse at all for shutting you
out. You have brought warmth and life to this house, Jen, and I am
grateful for it. You have every right to know where I am going and
why, just as you are so careful to inform me where you and Caroline
will be.”

It was an immense concession, and Jenny was
wise enough to recognize it. Even more happily, she believed him.
For, when being perfectly honest with herself, the continuing
enthusiasm her husband brought to the marriage bed was not that of
a man who had had his needs well satisfied elsewhere. The Duchess
of Longville was still blushing over her wayward thoughts when her
husband draped her claret velvet evening cloak about her shoulders
and they hastened down the stairs to meet Tony and Caroline who
were waiting below.

“
Am I allowed to say it is quite
splendid?” Caroline hissed in Tony’s ear as they walked along
pathways lined with lanterns and torches, while smaller lights
seemed to twinkle from the trees themselves. The latter, Caroline
noticed, unabashedly craning her neck, appeared to be exotic paper
lanterns strung on long ropes from tree to tree.

“
Do not become too polished, my dear,”
Tony shot back. “You will be in danger of becoming as dull and
listless as all the rest of society’s offerings on the Marriage
Mart.”

Caroline rapped the viscount on the arm with
her fan. “Unfair, Tony! You keep telling me I must obtain town
bronze and then you fault me for acquiring it.”

“
Then pray exclaim over the gardens,”
Tony told her roughly, “so I may castigate you for a country miss
or, perhaps, even a cit.”

“
You are inconsistent, my lord,”
Caroline offered loftily.

“
The devil you say,” the viscount
muttered under his breath.

“
I heard that! Oo-oh!” Caroline’s sharp
response faded to awe as they entered the spacious courtyard
between two crescent-shaped tiers of private boxes where guests
might partake of Vauxhall’s famed suppers featuring layers of
finely shaved ham. From a broad balcony on one side wafted the
sweet sounds of a string orchestra.

For such a large party, Lord Frayne had
reserved three boxes adjacent to each other. Under cover of the
flurry of arranging the seating, Caroline whispered to Tony, “You
will not forget your promise about the Dark Walk?”

“
Quiet!” the viscount said from the
side of his mouth.

“
You promised.”

“
Later, blast it, Caroline. Later.” He
looked up to discover his sister favoring him with a very odd look
indeed.

It took forever. By the time everyone had
eaten, enjoyed a leisurely stroll to take in the evening’s featured
concert, in addition to a quite splendid patriotic display
demonstrating what Wellington would do to Bonaparte the second time
around, not even the promise of fireworks could keep Lady Caroline
from fidgeting. Soon the evening would be over, and she had not yet
seen the infamous Dark Walk. Every time she glanced at Tony, he was
looking elsewhere. Quite deliberately, she was certain.

As the drama on stage ended in a burst of
fireworks, Tony turned to the members of their party. “I suggest we
each follow our own inclinations,” he said. “Some may wish to
dance, others may wish to indulge in more food or even a game of
whist. Still others may wish to explore the grounds before the
grand fireworks finale. Does that meet with your approval, Your
Grace?” the viscount inquired, ever mindful of his highest-ranking
guest.

“
Excellent,” the duke pronounced after
a swift glance ’round at the other guests. “Shall we meet at our
supper boxes after the fireworks?”

The members of the viscount’s party seemed to
melt away, almost instantly dissolving into dark shadows, drifting
along the various labyrinthine pathways of Vauxhall Gardens.
Caroline was certain, however, that she had seen Sir Chetwin wink
at Tony before he and Mr. Trimby-Ashford followed the path taken by
the three other young ladies in their party. A quick survey of the
concert area showed everyone doing the same, a vast crowd of people
moving purposefully toward whatever entertainment was closest to
their hearts, all with their backs turned, leaving her alone with
Tony, Viscount Frayne, who suddenly seemed to have metamorphosed
into a villain out of one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels.

He held out his arm, his grin appearing quite
evil. “The Dark Walk, it is,” he declared. “Exactly as
promised.”

“
Are you sure you can find it?” Absurd
question. The Dark Walk had undoubtedly seen a good deal of
Viscount Frayne.

Tony, glaring, crossed his arms over his
chest. “Do you, or do you not, wish to see the Dark Walk?”

“
I wished to go to the Cyprian’s Ball,”
Caroline reminded him. “The Dark Walk was the sop I received
instead.”

“
Delightful,” Tony mocked. “Then shall
we join the duke and duchess for a rubber of whist?”

“
When will you take me to a gaming
establishment?” Caroline demanded.

“
When hell freezes over.”

Tony neatly caught the delicate arm that was
about to let fly with what he suspected would be a
far-from-delicate blow to his cheek. In a swift, but firm,
maneuver, he pinned Caroline’s arms to her sides. With seeming
nonchalance, in the posture of two lovers rather shockingly
entwined, he maneuvered his companion away from the concert
area.

The Dark Walk was a haven for lovers,
usually illicit lovers who were anxious to indulge in a bit of love
play away from the prying eyes of spouses or other eagle-eyed
family members. Gentlemen entered the Dark Walk with someone else’s
wife, with
dem-reps
, with the
most daring debutantes or desperate young ladies in their third or
fourth Seasons. Gentlemen seldom entered the Dark Walk, however,
with young ladies seething with rage. In fact, by the time they
reached the walk that was lit only by moonlight and an occasional
lamp shining through tree branches from some distance away, Tony
had decided he was shockingly demented to be here at all. Only a
few feet onto the path, and already he could hear rustling in the
bushes, furtive sighs and moans and . . . well, sounds he could
only hope Caroline mistook for noises from small creatures of the
night.

Since she had stopped struggling, Tony loosed
her hands. Caroline did not, he noted, attempt to throw off the arm
he kept close around her shoulders.

“
It
is
dark,” she conceded in a whisper. A shadow moved. “Oh! Is
that? . . .” Tony increased their pace. “There were two people on
that bench, were there not?” she hissed as they left the writhing
shadows behind. “Tony?”

“
Yes.” He could only hope Caroline’s
eyes had not yet adjusted to the dark. “Perhaps we should return to
the supper area and enjoy a dance or two,” he suggested, pausing in
the middle of the path.

“
I wish to see it all,” Caroline
declared. “I must understand what men see in women who will come to
such a place. What is the attraction of such . . . such
clandestine
activities?”

“
Caroline,” the viscount said with a
sigh, “may I point out that
you
are here on the Dark Walk? With me?”

“
That is quite . . . different.” Lady
Caroline paused before continuing with renewed vigor. “You cannot
tell me,” she declared, “that the other women on this path are here
because they wish to better understand the outrageous inclinations
of men.”

Viscount Frayne, who was beginning to
relish the intellectual stimulation, quite forgetting his opponent
was an eighteen-year-old barely out of the schoolroom, countered
swiftly. “Not at all,” he drawled. “They come to
enjoy
the outrageous inclinations of
men. And some ladies enter the Dark Walk to goad their companions
into indulging those very same outrageous inclinations. Loving and
being loved, Caroline, are not bad things. Contrary to everything
you have been taught, they can even be enjoyable when the love is
merely lust. As long as no one is hurt—as long as the walk remains
truly dark—then it is not such a terrible thing.”

“
And when people
do
get hurt?” she demanded.

“
Then it is wrong,” Tony responded.
“But sometimes,” he added, quite seriously, “the hurt is only in
someone’s mind. It is not real at all.”

“
You think my mother . . . exaggerated
my father’s faults.”

“
That is the general assumption,” Tony
responded softly.

“
And you, of course, have never before
strolled down the Dark Walk,” Caroline accused, shying away from
what she strongly suspected was the truth.

“
I,” said the viscount, “am not
married. Strolling with a lovely lady down the Dark Walk is not
forbidden. In fact,” he added, dropping into an entirely different
tone of voice—admiring and seductive—“I am finding this evening’s
excursion the most intriguing and delightful of a goodly number of
sojourns down this particular path.”

“
It will not end like those two on the
bench back there,” Caroline told him tartly. “Or,” she added,
looking over his shoulder, “like the two—merciful
heavens!—the
three
in the
bushes behind you.” As she spoke, two sets of high-pitched giggles
rang out above a rumbled baritone.

Tony grabbed Caroline about the waist,
hustling her down the path so fast she was swept right off her
feet, the toes of her slippers barely skimming the ground. “You did
not see that,” he told her. “Never, ever, tell your papa or Jen
you’ve even heard of the Dark Walk.”

“
I am not yet ready for Bedlam, thank
you,” Caroline sniffed. “Nor for being rusticated to Castle
Longville. You may put me down now,” she announced, a bit
breathless. She was discovering the Dark Walk was quite insidious,
putting dreadful thoughts into a young girl’s head. Thoughts that
played havoc with the strict and conventional upbringing of a
modest young lady from Little Stoughton.

Tony released his grip about her waist, but
gave her no opportunity to catch her breath. Grasping her hand
tightly in his, he strode down the path at such a pace she almost
had to run to keep up with him. Disaster was inevitable. The
viscount missed a turn, careening into another couple closely
entwined on a marble bench tucked back against a tall hedge. “I beg
your pardon,” Tony muttered, backing off, momentarily disconcerted
and unable to find the path.

“
Frayne?” hissed a voice from the
bench. “Is that you? What have you done with Caroline?”

“
Marcus?” Tony choked out. “May I ask
what you’ve done with my sister?”

“
Don’t be foolish, Tony,” the duchess
snapped, albeit a bit faintly, “I am right here.”

“
Papa!” Caroline burbled.
“
You
are on the Dark Walk . .
. I thought you were playing whi . . .” Her voice trailed into
shocked silence. She had never been so embarrassed in her life.
Papa and Jen. At
their
age!

“
I believe we are
de trop
,” the viscount murmured. “Come, Caroline,
let us see what other amazing sights we shall find on the Dark
Walk.”

Head down, unable to look at the duke or his
bride, Lady Caroline followed. Near the end of the walk, where a
modicum of light fell from a lamp post not far away, Tony tugged
Caroline down onto an empty bench. “Caroline,” he said gently,
“surely you did not think that your father and Jen . . . well, that
Longville did not wish to have any more children.”