Beyond Seduction (43 page)

"Wasn't it? The boy's half convinced I drove you away. Least, that's what he tried to convince himself.

I guess boys want to love their fathers no matter what."

Nic rubbed his hands over his face. He reminded himself he didn't come here to fight. He would not let her push him to it.

"Maybe I was angry," he admitted as calmly as he could. "Maybe I left in part to strike back at you. There was more to me than my failings, but that was all you seemed to see. It was hard for me to be around that."

"I only wanted you to live up to your potential."

"I know," he said, "and you're probably the reason I'm not completely pathetic now. But your ideas

about my potential are not the same as mine. I'm proud of what I can do with these two hands. I've brought something into the world that wasn't there before. Something good, Mother, not just something that will sell.

"On the other hand"—he paused for a long, deep breatli— "you're right about my not fulfilling my responsibilities. I'd like you to help me with that, if you would."

"You're asking me for help."

"Yes. I need to learn to be the marquis."

"Need to?" she repeated.

Nic shoved his hands into his pockets and struggled not to clench them. "You always could strike to

the heart of things."

"And you could always evade it." Her knees creaked as she bent to retrieve a glove that lay on the

rough slate floor.

"Not this time. I've come to stay, for a while anyway. I brought Cris with me. He's waiting up at the house."

She stared at him, measuring his use of Cris's name. "I imagined it was you he went to when he ran away."

"Oh," he said. He shifted to his second foot. "I hadn't thought... But of course the school must have notified you when he went missing. I suppose I should have written you, let you know he was all right."

"I knew better than to expect a letter," she said so blandly his temper rose. If she knew better than to expect a letter, why was she always haranguing him by the post? And what sort of guardian let a fifteen-year-old boy wander off without raising every possible alarm? She hadn't known for certain Cris was with him. He hadn't known himself. Anything might have happened!

But he swallowed all that back. No doubt she knew better than he how well Cris could take care of himself. Which of them had the right of it hardly mattered.

"I shall try to be a better correspondent in the future," he said. "What I'd like now is to take a share in running the estate."

"Just a share?" she said, judgment in the word.

"My share," he clarified. "And don't pretend you really want me to take over. You know damn well

you like running this place as you please."

"I run it well," she said, her face going red with anger. "I've sweated myself to the bone to keep Northwick in fighting trim."

He smiled and she huffed at him, but they both knew he'd made his point.

"So." Eyes narrowed, she slapped the gardening glove against her thigh. "You still haven't told me

why you 'need' to be the marquis."

Before he even spoke, the blush rolled hot and unstoppable up his face. "There's a woman,"

he mumbled.

For the first time since she'd seen him, his mother smiled. Her expression conveyed a mixture of

gloating and affection. The gloating he expected. The affection he had not seen for quite some time.

Then again, maybe he'd been too defensive to see how much she cared.

"Not just 'a' woman," she crowed. "A woman couldn't get you to do all this."

Twenty

No one came to see her, not even her brothers' wives. Merry had been popular in her way; eccentric,

yes, but a companion most people enjoyed. Now she'd become a social leper. Despite her father's

efforts to quiet the earl of Hyde, whispers ran like wildfire through the upper strata of society. Merry Vance had run away with a painter and lived like a mistress in his home. She'd traveled with him and

slept with him and laughed in the face of every rule that mattered—at least to them.

Merry didn't give a toss for the rules, but the rejection of people she'd thought her friends could not

help but wound her.

Two notes arrived, one from Nic's friend Anna and another from Edward Burbrooke's wife. Both were kind but since both had had relationships with gentlemen who spurned her, she didn't much want to see either one. They were too manifestly what she was not: women who held their men.

I chose this, she told herself. I might not have guessed how hard it would be, but I chose it.

Crying over the milk she'd spilled would gain her nothing now.

Left to herself, she spent long hours in the family stables, riding the horses, grooming them, soaking up their simple animal code of right and wrong. All she needed there were two strong arms and a will to work. Once the grooms gave up their efforts to stop her, she could not fear she would fall short.

Finally, the second week after her return to London, Isabel Beckett paid her a call. She seemed nervous to be there, but hugged her tight and long. Merry cried a bit, as did her friend. When they saw each others' tears, they laughed and hugged again.

"I can't tell you how sorry I am," Isabel declared. "Andrew was so angry when he found that last letter, he couldn't keep his fury to himself. I don't even know how many people he told. Only your father's influence finally convinced him to stop." Annoyance twisted her pretty face. "He tried to forbid me to

see you, but I told him he'd be sleeping in the guest room until he let me. I knew he'd give in. To tell

the truth, though, I didn't expect him to hold out so long!"

"Oh, Isabel!" Merry exclaimed, seeing the glitter of pain beneath her friend's outward triumph. Despite Isabel's complaints, Merry knew she liked her stuffy husband. "I'm the one who's sorry. I never meant

to come between you and the earl. I should have guessed I might, but I swear I never meant to. Believe me, if you felt you had to avoid me, I'd understand."

"Phooey," said Isabel, with a toss of her sleek blond head, "what sort of friend would I be if I did that?"

A wise one, Merry thought, much too grateful to say the words out loud.

*  *  *

When Ernest joined the trickle of visitors. Merry received her former suitor in the Corinthian-columned magnificence of the green salon—hardly a cozy venue but one that reminded her in no uncertain terms just where she was. Perched on the edge of a carved mahogany chair, poor Ernest looked as if he'd

rather have met her in a dungeon. She couldn't help smiling at his chagrin. She was surprisingly happy

to see him, almost as happy as she'd been when Isabel came to call.

Friends were worth the world, she thought, especially friends who stood by one when times were hard.

"You look different," he said.

"Do I?" Giving in to the urge to tease him, she smoothed her hair like a skilled coquette. "Perhaps the scandal has lent me an air of glamor."

Ernest wagged his head like a thoughtful bear. "No. You don't look glamorous, you look pretty."

"Pretty, eh?"

"Yes," he said staunchly, then pulled a rueful face. "I suppose whatever that blackguard did to you couldn't have been all bad. Unless"—he cleared his throat and drummed his fingers on his knees—

"dare I impute your rosy glow to my presence?"

The words were so awkward, so un-Ernest-like, Merry had to bite her lip against a laugh. "You sound

like a boy who's been coached to flatter his elderly maiden aunt."

Ernest flushed to the roots of his flaxen hair. "I meant every word. I'd like to think my being here makes you happy."

"It does," she assured him. "These days my friends are few and far between. If your gallantry didn't inspire my admiration, your bravery certainly would."

Ernest sighed as if her compliment filled him with gloom. He released the grip he'd taken on his knee to place his hand gently over hers. "I have to ask," he said. "Lord knows I've come to accept that you

don't love me, but I'd be a heel if I turned away when you needed me most." He patted her fingers as

if she were a frightened child. "Merry, won't you agree to be my wife?"

For the space of a breath, she was tempted. Here was the most reliable man she knew. His passion

might not be grand but it was steady. She doubted he had the imagination to want a wife who'd offer

him more than fondness. She'd have to rein in her spirits, but she'd be accepted again. Forgiven.

Marrying him would, however, be the most abominably selfish thing she'd ever done.

Taking a moment to gather herself, she covered the hand that had covered hers and met his sky-blue gaze.

"Someone will love you," she said, "with all her heart and soul. You're too good and too strong for that not to happen. God willing, you'll feel the same for her. I cannot marry you and rob you of the chance

to know that."

"But you need me!"

"I need you to be my friend, not let me ruin your life to fix a mess I made. For heaven's sake, you could kiss your political career good-bye if you married me now."

"Maybe the kind of career my father has in mind, but I've never been one for shaking hands and making speeches. I enjoy the work I do for your father better. Behind the scenes. Hammering down the details."

"But I thought— It was my understanding that Papa would sponsor you for the Commons if we married."

"Yes, and I probably would have gone along if this hadn't happened. Gone along and been miserable.

You aren't the only one who's had time to think lately about what kind of life you want to lead, about what kind of person you want to be. My father will simply have to get over his disappointment."

His face bore a harder expression than Merry had ever seen him wear.

"Your father didn't want you to come here today, did he?" she guessed. "He wants you to sever our connection."

Ernest shrugged, his evasion telling her more than words about the state of things with his father. Wistfully, he touched one curl that had slipped free of her coiffure. "Are you certain I can't change

your mind?"

"Quite," she said with her fondest smile, "though I cannot express how much your asking means."

Her certainty must have sunken in. He rose, not so much upset as disconcerted. He had braced himself for the sacrifice, and now it was not required.

"Very well," he said, "I shall not ask again. I warn you, though, I take my responsibilities as friend very seriously. In the days to come, you may see more of me than you like."

"Impossible!" she declared, and rose on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.

True to his nature, Ernest bowed stiffly and took his leave. As he shut the wide door behind him,

another sound, subtle but unmistakable, caught Merry's suspicious ear: the swoosh of a skirt on a

polished parquet floor. Someone had been standing behind the drawing room's second door, the one

that led to the shuttered ballroom.

No servant would be there now, not with so little prospect of its use. In any case, the identity of the eavesdropper could not be in doubt.

Apparently, Merry's mother had not given up on saving her from herself.