Improper Advances (39 page)

She raised her brows. “Did he ask you to plead his case?”

“Yes,” he admitted. “What’s more, he sought assurance that your Beauclerk relations approve the match. My brother Fred was with me. He told Rushton that our opinion wouldn’t alter your decision, because you’re damnably stubborn.”

Oriana smiled at Lord Frederick Beauclerk’s pungent phrasing—for a clergyman, he was refreshingly impious.

“But I can’t approve the earl’s wish to sell your house,” Burford added. “The freehold of a London residential property is too valuable to discard.”

“That’s not for him to choose,” she said pithily. “And never will be. I belong at the King’s Theatre in the Haymarket, not at Rushton Hall.”

Her anger simmered, and not even a second Newmarket victory by Burford’s horse Weymouth improved her mood. When Rushton came to the paddock to congratulate the Beauclerks, she did not smile upon him.

He held his glass of celebratory champagne aloft, and said in a low voice, “To our future happiness.

Mine will be assured if we declare our betrothal here, in your cousins’ presence.”

She stared into his unfathomable eyes. “I refused you, Rushton. Burford and Cousin Fred know that.

So does Dare. You misled him into thinking we were engaged.”

His smile was perfunctory. “I warned him away.”

“You did more than that. And you were misleading
me,
when you said he was gossiping on your grouse moor. Did you hear Dare, or any of the other sportsmen, utter my name?”

“I did not.”

A sigh escaped her.

“I believed—still believe—you will be better off as my baroness than as Corlett’s mistress. We have been friends so long, you simply need more time to feel comfortable about a different connection between us.”

He was forcing her to speak directly, without regard for his pride or his position. “My lord, your manipulations have broken my faith in that friendship. You seek to change me—to wrest away my very past.”

“A past that you secretly deplore,” he responded. “As my wife, you will occupy the position that you might have held, had you been lawfully born.”

“My mother and father never made me feel ashamed—not about them, nor myself. My Beauclerk cousins accept me as a part of their family.
You
are the one who regards my origins as disgraceful, and my career as a blemish. You assure me that our marriage would improve my social standing, and yet you want to shut me away at Rushton Hall. I need more than that.”

His lips thinned in a humorless smile. “Your many conquests have spoiled you. Must I make some grand, dramatic gesture to convince you of my affection? I thought an honorable proposal of marriage was the greatest possible compliment.”

“So did I,” she responded, “until you tarnished it with falsehood.” Anger made her voice so strident that she hardly recognized it as her own. “I’m leaving for London straightaway to rescind those instructions to your solicitor. I will never give up my house. I shall continue to live as I choose—to do whatever I please. Whether I’m in a public place, or in my private bedchamber.”

“You’re going to him, aren’t you?”

“I’m going
home.”

“Wait.” The earl reached for her hands, his face a cauldron of emotion. “If you care so much for the Manxman, tell him. Don’t hold back, as I did, until too late.” His silvered head bowed. Without looking at her, he said, “That is the most difficult, the most agonizing speech I have made in all my life.”

“I thank you for it,” she said gently.

She would follow the advice he’d given so unselfishly.

She could no longer let pride or fear restrain her. With the same recklessness and candor she expected from Dare, she must proclaim her love for him. Whether or not he intended to leave England, she owed him the truth.

As her post chaise turned off Oxford Street into Charles Street, Oriana pressed her face to the window. Her square was a peaceful oasis in the midst of London’s noise and bustle, and never had she been so relieved to return to it. She stepped out of the carriage and paid her post-boys, earning compliments for her liberal payments. One removed her trunks from the vehicle and set them down by the area railing.

Entering the house, she found a collection of large packing cases standing in the hall, with
J.

Broadwood
stencilled on the side. Somebody had taken delivery of a pianoforte, or a harpsichord. Both, it seemed.

She also found a stranger seated on the hall bench, his hat resting on his knees. He wore a clergyman’s bands at his neck, and a black coat and breeches.
A prospective buyer,
she thought, her optimism fading.

“Sir, if you’re here to look over my house—”

“Madame St. Albans!” He bounded up from the bench.

Her mind blank, she focused on the long thin nose and dark, close-set eyes, which reminded her of a whippet. “Have we met?”

“We sang together—last winter. Before I came to St. Anne’s, Soho, I was a Vicar Choral at St.

Paul’s Cathedral. It was Mr. Attwood, the organist, who introduced us. But I don’t expect you to remember.”

“The night of the Bach oratorio,” she said, though her recollection of the choristers was hazy at best.

“Do these cases belong to you? There’s been a mistake, so if you wish to purchase my house—”

“No, ma’am, I’m waiting to be paid my fee. I’ve just performed a wedding.”

“Here?” The answer came in a loud burst of merriment from the servants’ hall. “I’m too late,” she murmured in regret.

She started down the stairway, only to find the passage blocked by a large body surging up from below.

“Dare!”

A relieved grin brightened his damaged face. “Welcome home. As ever, your timing is impeccable.”

“It couldn’t be worse,” she contradicted. “My maid has married your valet, and I wasn’t here.”

“They refused to wait any longer. A sentiment I understood perfectly.” Taking her arm, he spun her around.

“What are you doing? I want to see Suke.”

“Later. Right now, I need you more than she does.”

“Do those boxes in the hall belong to you?” she asked, while he marched her back up the steps.

“They’re yours.” He towed her through the hall to where the clergyman stood. “Wait here, sir—I may require your services once again.” Still clutching Oriana’s hand, Dare led her to the parlor and shut the door.

“Are you responsible for this appalling mess? Oh, Dare, what have you been doing?”

“Sir Joseph suggested that I revise and illustrate my treatise on Manx rocks, and I’ve begun preliminary notes and sketches.”

While he sorted through the rough drawings scattered across the chairs, Oriana slipped her reticule off her wrist and placed it on the mantel shelf next to a lopsided stack of books. “Where did these come from?”

“Sir Joseph’s library. His assistant let me borrow them.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “I was worried I might miss you, that you’d be in Deptford, preparing to set sail.”

‘The
Dorrity
is on her way to the island, and so is Ned, with all my furniture.” Going to her writing desk, he shoved aside a sheaf of pages. “Now what the devil have I done with—ah, here it is.”

He handed her a printed certificate with their names clearly inscribed upon it:
Oriana Vera St.

Albans Julian, widow,
and
Darius Gilchrist Corlett, bachelor. A
marriage license.

“How did you get it?”

“Couldn’t have been simpler. Wingate and I went to Doctors’ Commons and answered some questions. We each paid five pounds, and left with one of these.” Carefully, he pried the license from her grasp. “I decided it might be convenient to have one in readiness, just in case Miss Mellon is correct about your secret longing to be a wife.”

A sudden blush put fire in her cheeks. “Harri and I often jest about husband hunting.”

“To me, however, you’ve rigorously denied any interest in wedlock. You refused Rushton, you said, because you don’t care to spend the rest of your days buried in the country, cut off from the theaters and racing. Wasting your talent, and giving up your low-cut gowns.”

“I never meant to sound so frivolous,” she defended herself. “The real reason is that I don’t love Rushton enough to make those sacrifices.”

“If he loved you, he wouldn’t require them,” Dare countered. “A marriage should be founded on tolerance and trust. Compromise. Humor. And a passion like the one I feel for you, and you seem to feel for me.”

She couldn’t speak, and she couldn’t wrest her gaze from his. “Perhaps,” she said in a very odd voice, “you should record your philosophies in a treatise.”

“Not till
after
our wedding. I must test my theories before I publish them. Oriana, do you love me? I don’t want a wife who doesn’t.”

“Yes,” she answered. “That’s why I came back to London—to say all the things I should have said a long time ago, but didn’t know how. I’m used to singing them in front of an audience, not speaking them.”

“Please try,” he urged.

“I’ve kept my feelings to myself because—because I couldn’t imagine you would remain faithful to Ana St.

Albans, the disreputable singer. You want to marry someone like the virtuous widow, Mrs. Julian.”

“I didn’t propose in spite of who you are, but
because
of who you are.”

“What about that highbred heiress you’ve always wanted, with the large fortune?”

“I despair of finding one who can play the instruments I purchased at Broadwood’s,” he responded.

“And who has watched Mount Vesuvius erupt. And who happens to be a neighbor of Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society. He means to propose me as a member. Living in Soho Square might improve my chances of election, it’s so very convenient for all the scientific meetings and dinners at his house. And the sad truth is, I can no longer afford to stay at Morland’s,” he said with dubious sincerity.

“You needn’t marry me to get a London house,” she said. “I suspect you could purchase the entire square if you wanted.”

“My banker won’t let me. In future I must practice stringent economies, and curtail my expenses as best I can. This is your chance to prove that you’re no fortune hunter, because mine is hopelessly tied up, and I can’t get my hands on it just now.”

“Then I’d better have Rushton instead,” Oriana said playfully. “He offered a very generous settlement.”

Humor warmed his eyes, belying his sober tone when he told her, “I’ll provide you with enough pin money to supply essentials—the annual edition of the
Racing Calendar,
a few yards of lace to make a petticoat flounce. I fully understand that you’ll want to set fashions in Douglas and Castletown during the winter. Don’t you think you can do it with the gowns you possess already?”

Not really caring whether or not he was serious, she said thoughtfully, “I daresay London modes would create a sensation at island assemblies, even if they were a season behind.”

He took her into the music room. “I won’t take this away from you, either. If you want to delay the marriage until you’ve had your season at the opera house—”

“I don’t care about that.”

“No? How can you be so sure?”

“Being asked to return is my triumph,” she responded. “After I considered Mick Kelly’s offer, I discovered my reluctance to stir up old scandals. Rushton was right when he predicted that I would be miserable if I returned to the King’s Theatre.”

“Make no mistake, I still want you to give those benefit concerts.”

Oriana stared at him. “As Lady Corlett?”

“You’ll draw larger crowds if you appear on the bill as Ana St. Albans.”

Pressing her fingers down on the ivory keys of the pianoforte, she said, “My mother told me that if I wanted to be wife and singer both, I must wed another professional. Marriage, I believed, would curtail my career, not preserve it.”

“It might be an unconventional thing for a ladyship to do, but I can’t imagine anyone objecting if you sing and play on behalf of a worthy cause like the Benevolent Society for the Relief of Distressed Miners.”

“Mr. Sheridan permitted his first wife, Elizabeth Linley, to sing in public after they married,” she recalled. “But that was many years ago.”

“I’m not merely permitting,” said Dare, “I’m encouraging you. However, if you dislike the notion, we’ll find some other way to raise funds.”

We.
That tiny, magnificent word reassured her that their marriage would be the true partnership she desired, based upon passion and love, and this profound, soul-stirring need.

An entire lifetime of lovemaking,
she thought when Dare began kissing her. At night she would slumber in his arms, and in the morning she’d wake up at his side. They would share a home openly—no more stealth, and no shame. She would belong to a man as unshakable as a Manx mountain, whether confronted by her evasions and uncertainties, her motley collection of friends and cousins, or an obnoxious man from her past. Before meeting him, she had endured a lonely, self-absorbed existence, and because of him her future would be unimaginably fulfilling.

He surfaced from their heated embrace to say, “Marry me, here and now. There’s a parson with his prayer book in the hall, and a host of witnesses downstairs.” He kissed her again. “I’ve already supplied you with the ring.”

She returned to the adjoining room for her reticule, and emptied its contents onto a chair cushion.

Among the pile of sparkling ornaments he’d bestowed in Newmarket, she found the gem-encrusted band and handed it to him. “Call in the priest and tell the servants to meet us in the drawing room. I’ll not conduct my wedding in the midst of so much untidiness.”

When he hurried away, she confronted the looking glass hanging over the mantel. Beneath her hat, her chignon was in fairly good order, but she rearranged some of the tendrils that had escaped it. A carriage costume for a wedding dress—for the second time. She wouldn’t bother to change her gown, for she was as eager as Dare to seal their love with all possible haste. She clasped her crystal necklace around her throat, and replaced her earrings with the ones he’d given her.

His summons brought all of her servants trooping into the drawing room. Suke, her pretty face glowing with joy, entered on her husband’s arm. The clergyman read through the service with feeling, and after Dare slipped the ring on Oriana’s finger, he joined their hands and declared them man and wife. The framed oil portraits of King Charles and Nell Gwynn smiled upon the proceedings.