Midnight Marriage: A Georgian Historical Romance (Roxton Series) (10 page)

“May I compliment you on your dancing, Miss Cavendish. Or was it the skill of your partner which showed you to best advantage?” drawled a pleasing masculine voice, its owner hidden deep in the long shadows of the building.

Deb waved away the linkboy.

“Why am I not surprised to find you lurking in darkness, Mr. Hesham?” she asked conversationally, although she was annoyed at feeling oddly elated her injured duelist had sought her out despite her angry rebuff earlier that day. “Is it that adventurers prefer the exciting company to be found in alleyways to that to be had under the bright lights of a dance floor?”

Julian grinned. “You find me living up to a reputation I neither want or deserve. Come closer. I don’t bite, my dear.”

“Why did I not spy you on the dance floor?” she asked in a voice she hoped sounded disinterested. “Do you dislike dances, sir?”

“I dislike being the center of attention.”

“Indeed! I hope you are worthy of your own high opinion.”

“It is your opinion of me that matters,” he said calmly as he guided her further into the shadows. When she tried to withdraw her gloved hand he would not let her go.

“Forgive me,” Deb apologized and dared to look up at him. It was a mistake. The light in his green eyes was all gentleness and she quickly looked away. “That remark was exceedingly stupid and uncalled for.”

“I’ve come to take my leave of you, Miss Cavendish.”

Deb gave a start. “You—you are going away?”

He smiled at her quick look of dismay. “For a few days. To reassure my parents I am alive and well.”

“I see,” she said, keeping the disappointment from her voice. She drew a little away, her bare shoulders suddenly cold, and shivered. “Of course you must go to them. They will be anxious after your health.” She caught his smile and added defiantly, “Not that you need justify your absence to me—”

“May I call on you when I return?”

“—as we are the merest of acquaintances.”

“Mere acquaintances, Miss Cavendish?” he inquired lightly. “You, who have seen me stripped of this decorative façade?” He drew her up against him. “I meant every word I said to you this morning. No. Don’t bite my head off. I am
not
an adventurer and I am
not
in jest. I am in earnest.”

“If you care anything for me you will have done with this taunting!”

“I assure you my intentions are wholly honorable,” he whispered near her ear.

Deb’s throat constricted. Why did she feel emotionally vulnerable with this man when others had tried and failed? She wanted to be angry with him. At the very least, to be able to coolly rebuff him as she had Robert Thesiger. She had never permitted emotion to rule good sense and yet here she was going weak at the knees with a complete stranger! What lunacy had come over her? Not since she had run away to be with Otto in Paris had she felt like scattering caution to the four winds. She had let her heart rule her head upon that occasion and never regretted her decision. Otto had needed her and she had loved him dearly. But Otto was her brother and there was never any doubt that her sisterly devotion would be returned with brotherly love. But this was different. This gentleman was not her brother.

Indeed he was so unlike a brother that the sensible course of action was to demand that he unhand her at once and flee back inside to the light and crowds within the Assembly Rooms. And yet she stayed within the circle of his embrace. His sheer physicality, the warmth of him, the faint smell of his masculine cologne, stirred in her feelings and sensations that threatened to overwhelm her. She tried to rally herself before she said or did something that could not be undone.

“If you are an honorable gentleman you would do well to keep your distance. I… I have a checkered past! I ran away from home when I was sixteen,” she blurted out, speaking to the complicated knot in his cravat. “I’m considered by good society as an
eccentric
.” When he remained silent she peeped up at him, adding, “An eccentric like my cousin Henry, the scientist, and my brother Otto, who was a great musician. You cannot seriously want—”

“—you?” he said, smiling into her eyes. “Most certainly I do.”

“—a female who plays a viola with her nephew in the forest—”

He laughed in his throat. “—without her corset!”

“—against the wishes of her brother Gerry.”

“Ah, the one snag in my eagerness for us to be man and wife without delay.”

Deb blinked. “Not wearing my corset?”

Julian smiled to himself catching the apprehension in her voice, yet he made himself look very grave. “No, not your corset,” he said levelly and pinched her chin. “Although, as your husband, I will demand you wear one in public. Yet, in private…” He stooped to kiss her mouth and momentarily unable to master his self-restraint pulled her hard up against his chest, wanting again to feel the pressure of her long stockinged legs wrapped around his thighs. “Damn these layered petticoats…”

“Please! No!” she demanded and pushed back, though she had instinctively returned his kiss. “I’ve never—You mustn’t think that just because I want you to-to—
kiss
me that I am—I’m the sort of female who wants to be taken advantage of!”

Despite the acute ache in his loins he let her go saying patiently, “I’ve no intention of taking advantage of you, my dear girl. I am here to make certain that that circumstance doesn’t befall you.” When she continued to regard him with uncertainty he sighed and said flippantly, “The snag isn’t your corset, or put more correctly, lack of one, my doubting beauty, but
Gerald
. He may be your brother and a Cavendish but he is a bore and a toady and his French tongue grates on the ear. I will not have him to stay with us over a weekend. Dinner, yes, but not to sleep under my roof. Never.”

Deb relaxed and tried not to giggle. “Gerry? A snag? Are you ever serious?”

He tilted her chin with one finger. “I have never been more so.”

Deb colored painfully. “And what of the loaded pistol?”

“Ah. Two snags. No loaded pistols. If you’ve a taste for shooting, by all means take to my pheasants, but no pistols.”

She swallowed and made one last halfhearted attempt to turn him away by admitting, “I am under my brother’s guardianship until my twenty-first birthday. He would never agree to-to…”

“Have I been mistaken in you, Miss Cavendish?” he murmured as he brought her back into the circle of his embrace and this time kissed her very gently. His mouth barely brushed against her slightly parted lips. “I thought you and I were like-minded souls. That you too believed in love at first sight…”

His words registered somewhere at the back of her mind as she craved another kiss, a proper kiss: the promise in the light, feathery touch of his salty mouth on hers so deliciously wicked that she felt strangely exhilarated, as if he had heightened all her senses at once. But it was the warm, tingling feeling from somewhere deep within her that was the real surprise. That and the knotted feeling in her chest that threatened to choke the life out of her.

“Damn your conceit, sir,” she murmured as her arms went up about his neck and her mouth hungrily met his.

The shadows cast in the moonlight were no protection against the inquisitive patrons taking their leave of the Assembly Rooms. Half a dozen pairs of eyes had riveted themselves to the stooped broad back of the Marquis of Alston. To enable a better view of the embracing couple, a gentleman dressed in puce velvet waved his Malacca cane about at two linkboys and ordered them to shine light upon that side of the building. Movement and sound ceased under the portico. Shocked and outraged to find an embracing couple kissing in the shadows, several matrons put up their fans at the sight; such licentious behavior was not to be tolerated at an Assembly Ball. One titled lady, a Methodist with two eligible daughters in tow, went so far as to loudly voice her opinion so that even those standing in the street could hear her venomous tongue.

“Yes, you may blush, Rachel, as every female in Bath must blush at such wantonness! I thought we were at the Upper Assembly Rooms, but it is obvious we have strayed into a bordello!”

There was a snort of laughter from a nondescript gentleman closest the doors and a nervous giggle from one of the ladies. Then all at once farewells were picked up where they had left off because the Marquis had turned a broad shoulder, careful to keep Deb shielded from curious glances, and glared at the onlookers in speechless fury. He fixed a disdainful gaze on the titled Methodist lady.

Lady Reigate noticed that the group on the portico had fallen silent and that all veiled eyes were turned in her direction. She wondered why and glanced back at the couple half in shadow. She received a momentous shock. She was sure it had to be a trick of the light, for the gentleman’s angular features and tall wide frame so reminded her of the Marquis of Alston that this gentleman could very well be his twin. But everyone knew the Marquis lived in Paris… Or did he?

Lady Reigate had another look at the immobile gentleman. He was regarding her with such an expression of haughty contempt that instinctively she dropped into a respectful curtsy, not willing to chance that he wasn’t the Duke of Roxton’s heir. When she straightened his broad back was to her. Outrageous expectations of her eldest daughter one day becoming a duchess came to a crashing end.

Deb was fussing with her mussed hair and pinning up a few stray curls, and although she had heard Lady Reigate’s spiteful remarks she missed the woman’s curtsy to rank because the Marquis’s tall frame had shielded her from the curious onlookers spilling out onto the portico. With her hair pinned up again, she stepped out from behind him, grateful the crowd was dispersing, and in time to see Lady Reigate’s carriage set to.

“You mustn’t mind our resident Methodist,” she said conversationally. “She barely acknowledges my existence, yet her pride won’t allow her to ignore me because I am a Cavendish. And Cavendishs do not lurk in shadows with men of unknown social consequence.” She frowned. “I hope she won’t mention this to Mary…”

“I think you will find that Lady Reigate has a pressing London engagement and must quit Bath immediately.”

Deb put up her brows. “How do you know her ladyship by name? I did not tell you.”

All the coldness went out of Julian’s voice. He grinned and chided Deb under the chin. “You may have found me in the forest but I am not a mushroom.”

“Oh! Yes, how silly of me!” Deb said, flustered. She looked at him from under her long dark lashes, saying hesitantly, “I expect you know Lady Reigate from London and she—”

“—has two daughters of marriageable age,” he interrupted and smiled to himself when she nodded and looked anywhere but up at him. He drew her closer. “But I have no desire to kiss them.”

This pleased Deb more than she cared to acknowledge. Still, doubt lingered. “Tomorrow you will regret—”

“Never. When I return I am going to take you for a carriage ride.”

“And after that?”

“Ah, that depends on how you conduct yourself.”

She plucked a stray hair from the lapel of his embroidered waistcoat. “And if I fail to conduct myself…?”

He chuckled and lightly kissed her forehead. “Then we shall dispense with the formalities and ride straight into our future.” He made her a bow, slightly stiff in its execution. “Now, Miss Cavendish, if you would permit me to propose—No, that sounds stuffy. Deb, will you—will you do me the honor of being my wife?”

“Ah! There you are, Miss Cavendish,” hailed a voice from the portico.

Mr. Thesiger came lightly down the steps carrying Deb’s cloak over one arm.

Immediately, Deb stepped into the light without giving her injured duelist a response and met Robert Thesiger half way, eager that he should not find her conversing with a stranger in the shadows. She had no wish to answer questions, nor did she want to deal with Robert Thesiger’s disappointment and censure at what would be seen by all, even the most free thinking residents of Bath, as most unladylike behavior. She was so flustered at such an awkward circumstance that she sighed her relief when Lady Mary followed Robert Thesiger out under the portico and hailed her with a wave of her fan. “There’s Lady Mary. I must go to her.”

Robert Thesiger placed the cloak about her shoulders, while he continued to peer into the darkness of the narrow lane. He was certain he had detected a large shape move off and knew his eyes had not deceived him when there was the sound of footfall on the uneven cobbles disappearing down the laneway.

“My dear Miss Cavendish, you’re shivering,” he purred, making a mental note to question the linkboys for a description of the stranger in Miss Cavendish’s company. “I’d never forgive myself if you were to catch cold. Allow me to escort you to Lady Mary’s carriage.”

Before she had gathered her wits she found herself beside Lady Mary, with Robert Thesiger ushering up the rear. A fleeting glance over her shoulder confirmed that her injured duelist had indeed vanished into the night, just as magically as he had appeared at her side in the Octagon room. With a sinking feeling, she wondered what tomorrow would bring, if indeed her injured duelist would ever return to Bath to take her for the promised carriage ride.

F
IVE

T
HE
D
UKE OF
R
OXTON
signed his name to the document and handed it to his secretary to fix the ink with a wash of sand. That being the last order of business, his Grace put the quill in the silver Standish and waved away the hovering secretary, who stood by his chair holding a Malacca headed cane and with a supportive arm ready to assist him to his feet.

The Duke had never needed assistance before and he wasn’t about to start needing it now, despite his physician’s insistence that the use of a cane would make walking less of an effort and thus help regulate his breathing, and this in turn would ease the congestion in his lungs. It made perfect sense, but to a nobleman who had all his adult life, up until a month ago, woken with the sun, was astride a horse every morning and kept late hours, the trappings of the sick and dying were to be resisted until the last breath left his body. His secretary knew this, but fresh from graduating from Oxford, he was eager to please. He was also in awe of his noble employer and, the Duke had to smile to himself, a little in love with the Duchess: but who wasn’t in love with his beautiful wife? If he was truthful with himself, it was her vitality, youth and eternal optimism that gave him the iron will to live for many more years to come.