A Virtuous Lady (9 page)

"Why have you brought me here?" The question came from Briony. One moment they had been in the chandeliered dining room brilliant with candles preparing to select a plateful of delicacies from the glittering, heavily laden table and in the next instant Briony had been unceremoniously ushered through a door into a small, dimly lit saloon.

Ravensworth closed the door gently behind him and Briony repeated her question. "Why have you brought me here?" She gazed up at him with clear, untroubled gray eyes.

"Because," said Ravensworth softly, "there is something of a private nature I wish to say to you and I have no intention of broaching the subject under the curious ears of the ton."

"What subject?" Briony asked innocently.

They were standing at the threshold of the door and Ravensworth caught her arm and directed her firmly to a sofa against the wall. "Please be seated," he requested in his familiar voice of authority. Briony sat down.

As he looked into the depths of her unclouded, trusting eyes, it was suddenly borne in upon Ravensworth that his proposal was more difficult to articulate than he had at first supposed. He began rather diffidently. "Miss Langland . .
.Briony
, you are no doubt aware that my father, the Duke, intends me to marry well."

"Oh quite."

Ravensworth made a deprecating gesture with his hands. "I owe it to my House and Name."

"Of course," said Briony in some mystification. "I believe you have mentioned the matter on several occasions."

His lordship then began, rather
haltingly,
to assure the lady that although she could never bear his name, his heart would be hers forever. Briony listened in growing confusion as the
Marquess
restlessly paced back and forth and enumerated all the benefits that would accrue to her if she consented to form "a liaison"
With
him.

"A liaison?"
Briony tentatively reiterated.

The
Marquess
sat down beside her and impetuously drew her hands into his. "My darling girl, you know my circumstances. I offer you my protection. I promise that I shall cherish and take care of you. You shall be my own true wife in everything but name." He watched her closely, as if half fearful of her response.

Briony was sure that she had misunderstood. She turned upon him one of her steady, clear-eyed gazes and Ravensworth's own gaze faltered.

"In simple terms, my lord, tell me what it is you want of me," she said with deceptive calm.

The
Marquess
began again, trying to couch his thoughts in words that would convince her of the folly of refusing his offer. "And such an arrangement is not uncommon where there is a wide disparity in station between a man and the woman he wants. But think of your own happiness!" he went on persuasively. "You need never be the Poor Relation again. I shall make handsome provision for you, Briony, yes even a settlement. I cannot bear to think of you living out your life on the charity of others." Her calm manner emboldened him. "Briony, we could travel in Europe. I would take you to Greece, and when your relatives become accustomed to the idea, we could settle in England, in my house in Kent. You would like it there, I think."

An icy rage descended upon Briony. She could not believe the words she was hearing. "But if I should marry someone—"

He cut her off without a qualm. "That is highly improbable. I don't wish to appear brutal, my dear, but how is such a wish to be accomplished? You are a penniless orphan. You have no dowry. Your looks and manners are not such as are likely to Hake' in Society." His voice exuded confidence. "Come now, you observed this evening how small your chances are of catching a husband. It takes a man of discrimination to appreciate your singular qualities. I am that man. You will never receive a better offer than mine. For your own sake, I beg you to accept it."

"Do I understand, Lord Ravensworth, that you are asking me to be your mistress?"

The words were spoken quietly but distinctly, and for the first time Ravensworth felt a twinge of disquietude. "Briony," he replied sternly, "you must know that is not how I think of it."

"Then you are
not
asking me to be your mistress?" Briony queried politely.

He gave a little sigh of exasperation. "If you wish to put it like that, then yes, I am. But in my mind you would be my own, true wife."

"Ah yes!
A wife who is not really a wife.
Should we have children?" she asked ingenuously.

He watched her closely.
"If you wish it."

"Do
you
wish it?"

He brought her unresisting hand to his lips. "Yes," he said simply.

"You would wish bastards on me?"

His lordship flushed an angry red. "Briony, I wish you would refrain from using these coarse expressions! They offend every feeling of delicacy."

"Forgive me. It is a Quaker failing. I have always been in the habit of using plain speech."

She withdrew her hands from his warm clasp and stood up with a semblance of tranquility which she was far from feeling. Emotions of anger, wounded pride, and bewilderment seethed in her breast. When she addressed him, her tone was scathing.

"I am sorry to be so disobliging, Lord Ravensworth, but there are a number of reasons why I feel compelled to decline
your.
. .
well-meant offer." Her voice shook with repressed rage.

Ravensworth's eyes narrowed to dangerous slits when he heard her words of refusal.

"In the first place, I have no vocation to be a mistress. Pray forgive me. I collect that such plain speech wounds your sensibilities."

Ravensworth's jaw clenched. "I do not want a woman who has a vocation to be a mistress," he retorted bitingly. "Why do you insult yourself and me like this? If I had wanted such a woman, do you imagine that I would have approached you?"

"In the second place," continued Briony, deliberately ignoring everything that his lordship had said, "I would not form a liaison with you, no, not even a legal one, should you be the last man on earth." Her voice rose on a note of hysteria and she dug her nails into her palms in an attempt to master their involuntary shaking. She found it difficult to breathe and wished only to be rid of his hateful presence.

Ravensworth reached out and captured one of her hands. He laughed softly. "You are angry with me. I have been too hasty. You need time to consider my proposal."

Briony choked back the hot words that sprang to her lips. She would not give him the satisfaction of discovering how much he had wounded her. She tried to disengage her hand but he held it more firmly.

"I need no more time to consider your proposal, my lord," she said stiffly. "You boasted, yes boasted, that you were a man of honor. I believed you.
That for your honor!"
She snapped her fingers under his nose and he recoiled. "You have insulted me in every possible way! You may take your honor, sir, and go to the devil."

Ravensworth's brow was black with anger. He stood up to tower over her, and she shrank back to see the menace in his eyes.

"Let me go," she
cried,
her self-control almost at breaking point.

Cruel fingers dug into her shoulders as he turned her to face him. "I shall release you," he said grimly, "when you answer one, simple question. Do you care for me? Do you?" He shook her angrily. "Tell me, damn you!"

Briony longed to deny it, but she could not. She gave him a stricken look and remained silent.

"Oh Briony, Briony," he said with a harsh laugh, "how unfortunate for you that you are incapable of telling a lie."

He took her face between his hands and drew her closer. Briony stilled in his grasp. Something in his coiled, pantherlike stance warned her that to resist would be fatal. She was conscious for the first time of the sheer power of him and it frightened her. This was not the man who had been solicitous of her welfare in the foregoing months, the man who had placed himself in jeopardy to save her in a runaway carriage, but a stranger. She heard the soft, fearful panting in her throat and tried to stifle it.

"Briony," he said hoarsely as he bent his head to cover her trembling lips with his mouth.

Briony sobbed and hot tears spilled onto her cheeks. He brushed them away with an uncaring hand and his arms encircled her, pulling her hard against the whole length of him, compelling her to put her hands on his shoulders. She twisted her head to escape the hunger she sensed in his mouth, but he merely bent to kiss the soft depression between her breasts. Gently but inexorably his ardent lovemaking coaxed her to surrender to his possession, and Briony, trembling in his arms with an anticipation she did not understand, felt powerless to resist. When she parted her lips to allow his probing tongue to penetrate her mouth, she knew that she had lost.

"Tingling, my love?" he murmured provocatively.

Briony was dimly aware that his caresses had ceased. She looked into Ravensworth's blazing eyes and the look of triumph she saw reflected there moved her to shame.

"Let me go!" she entreated with quiet desperation. She averted her head as if his presence disgusted her.

"Briony, Briony, don't turn away from me," he chided, grasping her chin. He spoke softly. "You belong to me. You do understand that, don't you?"

She met his eyes squarely. "Once I thought we might be friends but
now . . ."
She left the sentence unfinished. Her voice vibrated with disdain. "I never thought to meet such cruelty from any man, least of all from a man of honor. You are contemptible. I despise you!" His hand dropped from her face as if it had been stung, and Briony wrenched herself out of his arms and flung out of the room.

His lordship sat down in the depths of the sofa. He would wait ten minutes or so, he thought, before following her. No need to rouse the suspicions of the whole ton. Let her cool her heels for a bit. He reached inside his coat pocket and retrieved a cigar. He lit it absently and drew smoothly on it. He really had no idea how to proceed if he wished to capture this girl. He closed his eyes and considered. She was beyond reason. How could she believe that his offer was insulting? He was destined to be a duke and
she
, to put it plainly, a chit of no consequence. Is that what she was after?
His title and fortune?
Was she just another scheming wench after all? No. That was out of the question! Every instinct, every nerve recoiled from such a suggestion. Miss Briony Langland was simply a virtuous lady. Damn it, he didn't wish her to be
unvirtuous
.
Why couldn't she understand?

It began to be borne in on his lordship that he had lost not only a battle but probably the war as well. What a devil of a coil to be in! The word "nemesis" came unbidden to his mind. He chewed on his lip unthinkingly. Avery, he thought, would die laughing.

When
Briony
flung away from Ravensworth, her one thought was to be rid of all the cruelly indifferent people who had inflicted such wounding humiliation upon her from the first moment she had crossed the threshold of the grand house. She pushed her way roughly through the crowded dining room, half expecting to feel Ravensworth's hateful hand upon her shoulder, but nothing impeded her precipitous flight. A few startled glances alighted upon her fleetingly as she elbowed her way through the crush, but the ton took little interest in the doings of a negligible
quizz
.

When she reached the large foyer, she hesitated, unsure of how best to accomplish her escape. Her warm mantle was in the ladies' cloakroom and it took her less than a minute to retrieve it and hasten past the startled porter who was guarding the entrance.

It never occurred to Briony to apprise Harriet or Aunt
Sophy
of her intentions. Her emotions were in such a tumult that she was
far
from considering the matter in a rational light. Briony was beside herself with fury and shame. Clutching her mantle firmly to her, she struck out across Cavendish Square, having no clear idea of where she was heading, nor did she care. She wanted only to put as much distance between herself and the despicable
Marquess
as she possibly could.

A cruel wind whipped her small figure, and Briony put her head down to escape its icy blast, but her pace never slackened for a moment. She was half running in her delirium, oblivious to everything but the host of confused thoughts which chased themselves across her mind. She did not hear the approach of the carriage
nor
the furious oath of the coachman until she was directly in the path of the rearing, screaming horses. By the time she was alerted to her danger, it was too late. She tried instinctively to twist away, but the hooves of the lead animal lashed out and struck her a glancing blow on the back, sending her spinning. She fell headlong on the road, the breath knocked out of her. She was half conscious of the commotion coming from the coach as doors slammed and the passengers called out their alarm. Briony attempted to rise to her knees, but she had not the strength. She looked up to see three anxious female faces hovering over her—the most beautiful faces that she had ever beheld in her life. She gave a tremulous smile. "Are you muses or angels?" she asked weakly before a dizzying blackness descended upon her.