DD-Michaels-END.rtf (22 page)

The countess sighed, but Morgan felt sure she could see the hint of a smile teasing the corners of her mouth. "I will say, it isn't often one sees a duke on his backside in the gutter. And it was a rather large puddle, too."

"Ethan knocked him down?"

"Oh. Oh, yes. Definitely. One moment the man was standing there,
grinning
at his companion, and the next, my bandboxes were scattered everywhere and Ethan was standing over the man, ordering him to take back his words. I've rarely come to town since then, and never to Bond Street. I have to protect my son, you understand."

"It sounds as if he does a very good job of protecting
you.
And the duk
e
—
t
hat is, the man didn't call him
o
ut?"

"No, of course not. He may have been a boor, but he wasn't a fool, and swore to anyone who dared ask that he'd trippe
d
—
o
r so Ethan told me later. Ethan has quite a reputation, you understand. Wi
th
both the sword and the pistol. I shouldn't call him out, I know. Now, since Ethan will be sticking his head back in here at any moment to inform me that his prized Friesians can't be kept standing much longe
r
—
m
ay I have your promise to visit me next month? I've yet to set the exact day for our performance, I'm afraid."

"I would be delighted, ma'am," Morgan told her sincerely. "I am returning to Becket Hall tomorrow for a visit, but if you were to write to me once you've settled on a date, I will most definitely be there."

The countess frowned. "You aren't staying for the Season? Does Ethan know?"

"Yes, ma'am," Morgan said, wondering how much she should say. But
,
then, Ethan had been the one to leave her alone with his mother. "Your son will be traveling with me. I'm looking forward to showing him Ro
m
ney Marsh, as he's never traveled there."

"Never... But, isn't Dymchurch somewhere in the marsh? Yes, I'm sure it is. He has traveled there or near there at least two or three times in the past year alone, I'm sure of it. I wouldn't know why he'd say anything like that."

"No, I wouldn't, either," Morgan murmured quietly just as the door swung open and Ethan stuck.his head inside to, as she'd predicted, remind his mother that his team had been left standing long enough.

"Ethan," his mother said, placing a
hand on his arm. "It's Dymchurch, isn't it? Where you've been visiting this past year?"

Ethan covered his mother's hand with his own, his smile indulgent, even as his heart skipped a single beat. "Dymchurch? No,
Mam
an,
you must have confused the name. I'm ashamed to admit I haven't stepped inside any church in a very long time, dim or otherwise. And, for your sins,
Maman,
neither have you."

The countess blushed beneath her fetching straw bonnet. "Now you're making me sound the heathen," she complained, obviously diverted.

But Morgan was not. Dymchurch was no more than a long stone toss from Becket Hall. Also directly on the coast. Also very much in Ro
m
ney Marsh. Yet he'd told her he'd never been there, had joked about once traveling to Camber for a funeral, but that was all.

He'd lied to her.

Why?

What else had been a lie?

Suddenly the reason for their trip to Becket Hall seemed not as clear-cut as it had when she'd read Chance's letter to their father.

Morgan had been a Becket longer man she'd been a woman madly attracted to a man, and a lifetime of loyalty and necessary secrecy weighed more than desire, had to weigh more than anything else in this world. If there was a choice to be made, there could be no question how she would choose. None.

But she hadn't expected, could not have known, that this obvious choice would hurt so much....

Keeping her smile bright and her tone light, Morgan kissed the countess goodbye, and then stood on the flagway next to Ethan as the coach rolled away from the curb, into the late afternoon traffic.

"She wants me to be her guest at Tanner's Roost, to see her performance of
Midsummer Night's Dream
,
"
she told Ethan as they reentered the house.

"And could you think fast enough to come up with a believable excuse?" Ethan asked her, following her into the drawing room.

Morgan smiled, shook her head. "No, I accepted with my thanks. Do you mind?"

"Not at all," he said, closing the double doors to the foyer before crossing to Morgan, taking her hands in his. "Are you all right? After this morning, I mean. I must be out of my mind to hav
e
—"

She pressed her fingertips against his mouth for a moment. "Don't apologize, Ethan. Don't ruin it. Now, don't you want to kiss me?"

"Not in your brother's house, no," Ethan answered honestly. "We're beyond mere kisses, Morgan, yet still not where we might go. The next time I kiss you, I don't think I'll be able to stop until we've explored all that there is between us."

Morgan stepped closer to him. "Afraid you'll have no choice but to throw me down here on this fine carpet
,
and have your wicked way with me?"

"Quite the reverse, imp," he said, lifting her hands to his mouth, one after the other. "I'm afraid you'll throw
me
down onto this fine carpet and have your wicked way with me."

There was a new game being played out in the drawing room in Upper Brook Street.

A dangerous game of make-believe.

Tease her, make her forget what she heard.

Tease him, pretend you believe what he said.

She danced away from him, picking up the ivory-sticked fan Alice had been playing with earlier, and opening it, waving it beneath her chin. "La, sir, I fear I don't understand your meaning."

"The devil you don't," Ethan said, shaking his head. "I've got a few matters of business to settle before we start off in the morning to charm your family into believing I'm a harmless fellow, so I'll take my leave now, with your kind permission."

"Chance wants us to spend one night on the road, to give his letter time to reach Becket Hall, and for Papa to send outriders to meet us. Perhaps also to give my brothers time to clean and load their pistols before they're introduced to my hopeful suitor. Did he tell you that?"

"He did," Ethan answered, opening the doors to the foyer once more. "He even suggested an inn to stop for the night and wait for the outriders. He didn't add that Saul and Bessie would be sleeping outside the door of your bedchamber, but I heard the words, anyway."

Morgan's laugh was clear and pure, even as she felt herself going dead inside. "It's a shame we can't make the journey in one day, but it woul
d
mean setting a fairly bruising pace, and driving across the marsh in the dark. I can't wait to show you Ro
m
ney Marsh. You'll see that not everyone lives in a castle in the middle of a forest."

Ethan had his back to her when she said the words, accepting his curly brimmed beaver and gloves from a footman. He turned to her, searched her face for any hi
n
t of suspicion, and found none. "I look forward to the experience." Then he stepped closer, whispered into her ear, "I look forward to every experience with you."

It had been only a little lie..
.
if the countess hadn't been entirely mistaken, so that it was no he at all. And yet now, Morgan felt a quick, hot surge of anger, of betrayal, whip through her. She couldn't play the game a moment longer. "Is that so, my lord? While I, on the other hand, look forward t
o
—"

"Miss Morgan?"

Morgan whirled on her childhood friend.
"What? "

"Excuse me, Miss Morgan," Jacob said, his eyes downcast, "but Miss Alice is asking for you."

Morgan wanted to kiss Jacob for the interruption. She'd almost made a horrible mistake, given in to the impulse to call Ethan a liar. "Oh, yes, of course. Thank you, Jacob." She turned to smile brightly at Ethan. "I promised to read to her before I have to begin dressing for this evening. So, if you'll excuse me, my lord?"

"I had been about to leave anyway, Miss Becket," Ethan reminded her, longing to touch her, longing to hold her, longing to get back whatever the hell had gone missing in the past few minutes. Longing to tell her anything she wanted to know. "But you were saying?"

"Saying?" She shrugged her shoulders. "No, I don't think so, my lord. And it certainly couldn't have been anything important, not if I've already forgotten."

She offered him her hand, he bowed over it, and was gone after a softly murmured, "Until tonight."

"Jacob," she said, still looking at the door that had just closed on Ethan's back. Part of her wanted to run after him; part of her wanted never to see him again. All of her hurt. Hurt badly. "We watch him like a hawk watches a hare."

She turned to look at her friend, her jaw set. "Understand?"

"Just like you say, Morgie," Jacob told her, caught between confusion and a
joy he couldn't conceal. "Like two hawks, we'll watch him. You can count on me."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Chance approached his wife from behind, leaning over the back of the couch to sneak a kiss from her. "Um
m,
you taste good. Smell good, too. Peaches."

Julia used the small knife to slice more of the succulent fruit from the peach in her hand, and held it up to her husband. "Only one piece for you, I'm afraid. I'm ravenous."

Chance came around the couch to sit
down beside her, noting the pair of peach pits already in the small bowl in
his wife's lap. "Obviously. And
yet, just
this morning, I distinctly heard you say you'd never eat again."

Julia spoke around a mouthful of peach. "I was wrong. And I simply had to have peaches. They cost the earth, by the way, so be prepared to see the household budget shattered."

"I think the budget can handle a few peaches. Even a plum or two, if you're so inclined. Now come here, sweetings. There's a bit of juice on your lip and
I
—"

"Chance!"

He closed his eyes, his lips a scant inch from
h
is wife's. "Strange how it never before occurred to me to have
a
lock
put
on the morning room doors," he said, then turned to look at his sister. "You bellowed
,
Morgan?"

Morgan crossed the carpet and plopped herself down in a chair facing the couch. "I didn't bellow. I just wanted to be sure I had your attention. It's about my trip home," sh
e
told him, crossing one leg over the other, ignoring Julia's quiet tsk-ts
k
at this obvious breach of ladylike posture.

"What about the trip home? You've already agreed to go back to Becket Hall for a visit. With your
beau,
no less," Chance said, which earned him a sharp dig in the waist from his beloved's elbow.

"That was your idea, not mine, remember? I was never asked, I was
told,"
Morgan pointed out, reaching to take a peach from the bowl on the table between them. "Oh, and by the way, no matter what Ethan said to get you to agree to send me back, he is
not
going there to ask for my hand in marriage. I've already warned him not to do that."

Julia felt fairly certain her eyes had begun to pop out of her head. "But......but that's the entire purpose of the trip, even though you're supposed to pretend you aren't aware of that fact, then be suitably surprised. Surely Chance explained this to you. He told his lordship he can't ask him. He has to ask your papa, Morgan. That's the way it's done."

"If it's to be done, yes, I suppose so," Morgan admitted around a healthy bite of peach. "Which it's not. Going to be done, that is."

Chance and Julia exchanged looks.

"You're no longer seeing his lordship?" Julia then asked, frowning.

"Oh, I'm still seeing him. I'm going to be watching him very closely. He's up to something. I thought this was all happening much too fast, and you'd agreed much too easily, brother mine."

Chance spared a moment to wish his sister was a featherbrained ninny interested only in clothing and balls and finding a rich husband. "Really? Up to something? And what would that be?"

Morgan looked at the half-eaten peach, wondering why she'd thought she was hungry. "I don't know. I just know he wants to get to
B
ecket Hall, and that I may be a part of his plans, but I'm definitely not all of the plan. I only know that I very much resent being
used
.
"

Julia put
her hand
on Chance's leg, to stop him
from speaking. "Are you saying he has only pretended to b
e
..
.
interested in you?"