A Virtuous Lady (2 page)

Briony's eyes filled with tears. She wished with all her heart that she had paid more heed to her mother's instructions, that she had been more biddable, more tractable, that she had cherished more the sweet hours of companionship that they had shared as a family.

But on that warm July morning brilliant with sunshine, as she and her brother, Vernon, had lazily watched their parents boating on the calm waters of Lake Windermere and had waved to them negligently from the
sunbaked
shore, who could have foreseen the tragedy that was too soon to overtake them? Who could have foreseen the sudden squall that had blown ferociously in from the west searing the sky with tongues of forked lightning and whipping the waves to a raging whirlpool? Who could have foretold the awful horror of that day? Briony, watching terrified and soaked to the skin from the shore, had seen it all. She would never forget it. It had been her constant nightmare.

Blinking back the hot, sudden tears, she managed a tremulous smile. "Good night, Nanny, and thank
you.
. .
for everything."

Nanny
MacNair
picked up an armful of mending and came to kiss her charge on the brow. "May God bless ye, my wee lamb," she soothed, "and sweet dreams to ye." Briony was left to her solitary reflections.

She and her brother, Vernon, had been raised by strict Quaker tenets, even though their father had remained of the Anglican persuasion. She knew that there were "gay" Quakers who enjoyed music and dancing and who wore garments of every color of the rainbow. But her mother had not been one of those. Jane Langland had been a conservative and had raised her children in the conservative, Quaker tradition. And since they were Quakers, they were not judgmental of their neighbors but ever ready to see the best in everyone. If they were strict, and they were, it was in adhering to their principles in their own conduct. Towards others' foibles they were gentle and forbearing. At least, thought Briony, they were supposed to be. But theory and practice did not always
coincide,
leastways not in some of the Quakers she had met at the quarterly and half-yearly business meetings to which she had accompanied her mother. Her father and brother, naturally, had always absented themselves—not their dish, so they said.

Briony grew restless. The room was hot and stuffy. She threw back the blankets and moved to open the sash window. A cool, late, autumn breeze sent her hurrying to don her dressing gown. Her chamber was at the back of the house and, from the
window,
she could see the River Thames glowing with a mysterious luster. She imagined the river, as it had been in Tudor times, filled with long barges of laughing courtiers and their ladies being conveyed to Hampton Court. Sir Thomas More had traveled this river coming from his manor downriver in Chelsea, past the old Palace at Richmond to Henry
VIII's
magnificent new residence.

The orchestra was playing the second waltz of the evening. She would have to learn the steps of all the dances, but she had not the least intention of ever dancing anything as vulgar as the waltz.

Briony did not censure her uncle and aunt, Sir John and Lady Grenfell, for holding a ball in their splendid
palladian
mansion. Nor was she envious that her cousin, Harriet, was at that moment decked out in dazzling finery and hanging on the sleeve of some dashing blade. Briony Langland did not choose to go to balls—not yet
And
her uncle and aunt were content for the present to give Briony her head. But Master Vernon, at seventeen and two years younger than his sister, had no such scruples. He had accepted his invitation to the ball with alacrity.

No, Briony did not like balls. But she did like books, and there was nary a one to be found in the room that her Aunt Esther has assigned to her. Her own books were in transit from her home in Shropshire and could not be expected until the end of the week. If she only had a book to read, she thought desperately, she could postpone the persistent nightmare which haunted her sleep. Somehow she must procure one.

Being a redoubtable lass, as Nanny would say, and not in the least shy or lacking in initiative, Briony determined to make her way unobtrusively to her uncle's library, which was well away from the assembled guests,-and choose something at her leisure.

Avoiding the cantilevered, public staircase on which she might meet some stray guest, she moved with her usual, unhurried grace along the uncarpeted landing, her little high-heeled slippers clicking sharply on the newly sanded floor, and she passed through the doorway leading to the servants' staircase. In a matter of a few minutes, she had descended to the ground floor.

Pulling her dressing gown more, snugly around her, she removed her satin slippers and, clutching them securely in her free hand, tiptoed through the deserted hall. From the floor above could be heard the chatter of the merry throng. Briony retrieved
a candelabra
from the hall table and crossed into the cavernous book room, shutting the door firmly behind her.

Within the sheltering confines of her uncle's favorite Queen Anne, wing armchair, Briony stirred. As she struggled from the dark, slumberous depths to wakefulness, her eyes flickered open, and for a long moment she gazed uncomprehendingly at the candles sputtering halfway down their sprockets in the silver wall sconces flanking the gilt- edged mirror above the fireplace. The muffled whisper of a moan, low and drawn out, on the other side of the book room door slowly penetrated her consciousness, and she made an effort to rouse herself, her silky lashes blinking rapidly to banish the vestiges of sleep from her eyes.

"Hugh?" The disembodied voice was soft and sultry. "Don't you care that my reputation may be in tatters? Our absence is bound to be noted."

The thread of girlish laughter which followed divested the remark of any real censure. Briony heard the rustle of some piece of feminine apparel, then a soft protest which was cut off by a low bark of wicked, masculine laughter. Her brows drew together. She was not such an innocent that she did not understand the significance of what was transpiring on the other side of the library door. The door knob rattled, and Briony came fully alert. She had no wish to come face to face with the couple who were intent
on . . .
she let the thought die half formed in her mind. The situation was too distasteful to contemplate. When she saw the doorknob turn, her hands tightened on the book in her lap, bringing it to her bosom, and she rose swiftly to her feet. The door was pushed roughly open, and Briony squared her shoulders and lifted her chin a fraction, prepared to brazen out the inevitably embarrassing interview. Nothing happened. For some inexplicable reason, the owners of the throbbing voices delayed their entrance.

"Hugh! Not so fast!"
Another soft protest which the gentleman did not hesitate to disregard.
Then after a moment, Briony heard the bemused tones of the thwarted lover.

"As I recall, Adele, you were the one who suggested this rendezvous. If you wish me to retire to the card room, you have only to say so."

Evidently, the lady demurred, for Briony could tell by the sounds of their labored breathing that the passionate embrace had been resumed. The delay gave her the few moments she needed to look around for some means of concealing herself. It was then that she remembered the newfangled contraption her uncle had so recently acquired. The idea had come to him when he was visiting
Osterley
Park, the grand house of their near neighbors, the Earl and Countess of Jersey. He had taken one look at the modern convenience in George Villiers' impressive library and nothing would do until he had installed one in his own abode. It was his pride and joy.

Briony glided soundlessly to the far wall. At the edge of one shelf of books, her fumbling fingers found a bolt. She drew it back and pulled. The wall of shelves became a door and Briony passed through, pulling it softly behind her. Her place of concealment was not one that she was happy to occupy for it happened to be her uncle's private water closet, reserved for the gentlemen when they wished to relieve themselves when business or brandy had kept them too long at their ledgers.

As the darkness closed around her, too late, she realized that she had left her high-heeled slippers on the floor beside the commodious wing armchair in front of the fireplace. But not for the world would she return to retrieve them. There was nothing she could do but exercise a little patience. She determined to wait it out until the couple in the library took it into their heads to remove to some other part of the house. She hoped it would be soon, for the frigid marble floor beneath her naked toes had brought the goose bumps quivering along her arms and shoulders. She shivered and pulled her dressing gown closer to her slender form in a vain attempt to stave off the cold.

The long minutes dragged by, and Briony's teeth began to chatter. The chill in that dark, tomb-like vault was fast becoming unendurable. She put her ear to the wall, but heard nothing save her own ragged breathing which the arctic temperature had induced. She grew impatient.

With the greatest circumspection, she opened the door the merest crack, hopeful that the unwelcome intruders had taken themselves off. She was to be disappointed. Her ears were assailed by the soft grunts and groans of the besotted lovers. Briony swung the door wider and peeped out. The shameless pair had ensconced themselves on her aunt's best satin brocade sofa, which held pride of place, flanked by two long windows, on the opposite wall. The gentleman, if such he could be called, had pinioned the writhing lady beneath him on the couch. Briony drew back, deeply disgusted by such a show of unseemly behavior. Another soft protest from the lady, and Briony decided that she had had enough.

She raised the leather-bound volume high above her head and tossed it with all her strength against the fireplace wall, where it rebounded with a crash. Adele emitted one long, shrill scream and then there was silence.

"Damn!" exclaimed Hugh Montgomery,
Marquess
of Ravensworth.

With shaking fingers, Briony secured the door to her
hiding place, clamping her teeth together to stifle the gurgle of nervous laughter which sprang to her lips.

The
Marquess
raised
on one elbow and with feline grace uncoiled himself from the clutches of his frozen companion. He got to his feet slowly. As he straightened his cravat, his lazy glance roved around the shadowy room, missing nothing. It came to rest on the rug in front of the empty grate, and a smile, slow and devilish, played across his generous mouth. He glanced down at his silent partner and his smile faded.

'Tidy yourself, woman!" he growled, his insolent eyes taking in her blatant dishabille.

Adele pushed to a sitting position, one hand smoothing down the hem of her crushed, silk gown, the other adjusting the fine Brussels lace which barely covered the swell of her ample bosom. "What was it?" she asked on a thread of a voice, her amber eyes wide with apprehension as they glanced around the gloomy interior. They came to rest on the hard-chiseled features of the man who towered above her, and her gaze lingered, then swept over him, savoring the powerful sweep of his broad chest and shoulders and every corded muscle of his lean flanks and thighs. Hugh Montgomery's leashed sensuality was evident in every spare line of him. She watched as the aristocratic features relaxed into a grin at some private reflection, and Adele's breath tightened in her throat. He was so unconsciously virile. His air of unshakable confidence had a calming effect on her ruffled sensibilities. She reached out to pull him down. Long fingers grasped her wrist and she was unceremoniously yanked to her feet.

He chuckled softly. "Not now, Adele, or hadn't you noticed? Our secret tryst is no longer . .
.secret
." He placed a warning finger against his lips. "Be a good girl and run along. I'll catch up with you later."

The lady opened her mouth to protest her dismissal, but one glance at Ravensworth's cocked brow, so eloquently
sardonic, and she suppressed the impulse.

"Is that a promise?" she asked hopefully.

"I beg your pardon?" It was obvious that Ravensworth had already lost interest in her.

She made an effort to control her rising pique. "I collect that Viscount Avery is playing a trick on us. Your friend doesn't much care for me, does he?"

Ravensworth's tone was perfectly amiable.
"Since you ask, no.
But don't let it trouble you.
Chacun
a son
gout,
and Avery's palate is known to be a trifle . . . fastidious."

Adele was not quite certain that Ravensworth had paid her a compliment. As she puzzled over the problem, trying to decide whether she should act insulted or come back at him with some devastating^ witty rejoinder, if only she could think of one, she found her elbow in an iron grip and she was led uncompromisingly to the door.

But the lady was not about to give up so easily. She had used every feminine wile she could think of to lure him back to her bed, and she had almost succeeded. Not that the
Marquess
ever pretended to be constant as a lover. He had a roving eye which he never made the slightest attempt to conceal from the bevy of titled ladies and opera dancers who coveted the privilege of warming his bed.