Slightly Scandalous (3 page)

He grinned, took the remaining three strides toward her, caught her up in his arms, swung her once about, and kissed her heartily on the cheek as he set her back on her feet. She shook her head, half in exasperation, half in acknowledgment that she might have expected as much of him.

"Saucy boy," she murmured.

"It is good to see you, Grandmama," he said. "It has been a long time."

"And whose fault is that?" she asked severely. "You have been gallivanting all over the Continent for years, if gossip and your infrequent letters have reported matters correctly, though how you could have done so while the wars were still being fought I shudder to imagine. It is a pity that it took the death of your uncle to bring you home to England."

The death of his uncle had brought Joshua his title and property and fortune-and all the burdens that came with them.

"It was not quite that, Grandmama," he said. "It was the end of the wars that brought me back to England. With Napoléon Bonaparte imprisoned on Elba and Englishmen free to roam about Europe at will again, there was no more fun to be had from dodging danger."

"Well, no matter," she said, shaking her head again. "You are home now, whatever the reason-or almost home, at least. It is as it ought to be."

"I have no intention of going to Penhallow if that is what you have in mind," he told her. "There are too many other places to go and other experiences to be lived."

"Oh, do sit down, Joshua. You are too tall to look up at." She seated herself. "You are the Marquess of Hallmere now. You belong at Penhallow-it is yours. You have duties and responsibilities there. It really is time you went back there."

"Grandmama." He grinned at her as he took the chair she had indicated and ran one hand ruefully down the stubble of one cheek. "If you intend to preach duty at me for the next week, I shall have to ride off into the sunset in search of another scrape to get into."

"You doubtless would not have to look far," she said. "Scrapes seem to come riding in search of you, Joshua. Your eyes are bloodshot. I suppose you did not sleep last night. I will not ask what else you did do last night apart from riding toward Bath in such a shockingly disheveled state."

He yawned until his jaws cracked-a most unmannerly thing to do in a lady's presence-and at the same moment his stomach rumbled quite audibly.

"You look an absolute mess, Joshua," his grandmother observed bluntly. "When did you last eat?"

"Sometime last evening," he admitted rather sheepishly. "I was forced to abandon my purse too, you see." He had been forced to make a few intricate and time-consuming detours about tollgates on his way.

"It must have been a large spot of bother indeed," she said, getting to her feet and pulling on the bell rope beside the hearth. "I am almost tempted to ask if she was at least pretty, but it would be quite beneath my dignity to do so. I shall leave you to the ministrations of Gibbs. He will feed you and shave you and then you may wish to sleep. There will be little else for you to do until your valet arrives with a change of clothes. I have several calls to make."

"Food and a shave and a sleep, in that order, sound quite like heaven to me," he said agreeably.

Lady Holt-Barron reveled happily in the coup of having enticed Lady Freyja Bedwyn, sister of the Duke of Bewcastle, to Bath as her houseguest. Charlotte was more pleased just to have a friend of her own age there.

"Mama would insist upon coming to Bath again, Freyja," she explained as the two of them strolled in the Pump Room early on the morning following Freyja's arrival while Lady Holt-Barron, ensconced at the water table with a glass of the famous waters in her hand, beamed with pride as she conversed with a group of acquaintances similarly occupied. "She believes that a month of the waters puts her in good health for all the rest of the year. I suppose she may be right, but Papa and Frederick and the boys have gone shooting, as they always do at this time of the year, and I would far prefer to be with them. I am so thankful you agreed to come."

There was not much opportunity for such private exchanges. The Pump Room was the fashionable place to gather each morning for exercise and gossip-and for the drinking of the waters for those so inclined-but really, Freyja discovered, the amount of exercise one gained from walking about the high-ceilinged, elegantly appointed Georgian room was minimal. In fact, one took a few steps and then stopped to greet acquaintances and converse with them for a few minutes before taking a few more steps and stopping again. And because she was a new arrival, and a titled one at that, she found that everyone wished to speak with her, to greet her, and to quiz her for news from beyond the confines of Bath.

The day proceeded in no more energetic a fashion. They went shopping on Milsom Street after breakfast. Freyja had never delighted in that almost-universal feminine obsession. She shuffled from dress shops to milliners' shops to jewelers' shops in Lady Holt-Barron's wake, an enthusiastic Charlotte at her side, and wondered what the reaction of all around her would be if she were to stop in the middle of the pavement and open her mouth and scream-as lustily as she had done two nights ago. She found herself smiling at the memory. She had never been a screamer, but there had been an enormous exhilaration in letting loose with that one and seeing the grinning, overconfident stranger dive out the window.

God's gift to womanhood put to rout.

"Oh, you do like it, Freyja," Charlotte said, noticing the smile. She was sporting a dashing hat with a startlingly bright scarlet plume in place of her own more modest bonnet. "I do too, and I do not believe I can resist buying it even though I already have more hats than I will ever need. Shall I, Mama?"

"If Lady Freyja likes it," Lady Holt-Barron said, "then it must be all the crack, Charlotte. And indeed it looks very handsome indeed."

During the afternoon they paid a few social calls and then took tea at the Upper Assembly Rooms, where there were more people to converse with. The Earl of Willett was there-he was staying in Bath with his uncle, from whom it was rumored he was like to inherit a hefty fortune. He had paid pointed attention to Freyja ever since Jerome's death, but she had never encouraged him. He was short and sandy-haired and sandy-eyebrowed and blond-eyelashed-though it was not his undistinguished looks that made him unattractive to her as much as his humorless, always rigidly proper demeanor. After all, she was no beauty herself. But she was never rigidly proper.

In the setting of Bath, though, where most of the inhabitants were elderly, she had to admit that the earl's youth was an attraction in itself. She greeted him more warmly that she would have done if they had met in London, and he seated himself at Lady Holt-Barron's table and made himself agreeable to all three ladies for well over half an hour.

"My dear Lady Freyja," Lady Holt-Barron said after he had taken his leave of them, her eyebrows raised significantly, "I do believe you have made a conquest."

"Ah, but, ma'am," Freyja said haughtily, "he has not."

Charlotte laughed. "I believe it would be a waste of your time, Mama," she said, "to try playing matchmaker for Freyja."

In the evening they returned to the Upper Rooms for a concert. Freyja was not averse to music. Indeed, there was much that had the power to enthrall her. Operatic sopranos did not. But, as luck would have it, the guest of honor was a soprano with an Italian name and a large bosom and a large voice, which she displayed at full volume throughout her recital. Perhaps she believed, Freyja thought, her eardrums contracting against the piercing high notes, that superior volume was to be equated with superior quality.

The Earl of Willett somehow contrived to sit beside her during the second half after conversing with her during the interval.

"One's hearing could be permanently affected by a performance such as this," she commented.

Alleyne or Rannulf would have answered her in kind and they would have found themselves after a few such exchanges fighting to contain the laughter attempting to bellow forth.

"Yes, indeed," the earl agreed solemnly. "It is divine, is it not?"

And this was only the first day.

The second began the same way, the only difference being that yesterday morning the buzz of excitement had been over Freyja's arrival in Bath, whereas today it was over that of the Marquess of Hallmere. Everyone waited with eager anticipation for his appearance in the Pump Room with the Dowager Lady Potford, his maternal grandmother. Freyja knew Lady Potford but had no acquaintance with the marquess. When the lady arrived, though, she came alone. The air of disappointment in the room was really quite palpable.

"He is a young man," Lady Holt-Barron explained, "and is said to be very personable. He is, of course, one of the most eligible bachelors in England." She looked archly at Freyja.

And so he would be deemed personable even if he looked like a gargoyle, Freyja supposed.

It took the arrival of someone new-preferably someone titled-to titillate the spirits of these people, Freyja thought with a great inward sigh as they left the Pump Room to return home for breakfast. She had surely made a dreadful mistake in coming to Bath. She would be insane within a fortnight-within a week! But she remembered the alternative-being at Lindsey Hall, awaiting the imminent announcement from Alvesley-and decided that she must somehow bear her exile for at least a month. Besides, it would be unmannerly to leave the Holt-Barrons so soon.

She could not, however, endure another morning of shopping. She made the excuse of some unwritten letters not to accompany Charlotte and her mother and did indeed, as a salve to her conscience, sit down at the escritoire in her room and write to Morgan, her younger sister. She found herself describing what had happened at the inn where she had spent a night on the way to Bath, embellishing the story considerably, though indeed the bare facts were sensational enough in themselves. Morgan would appreciate the humor of it all and could be trusted not to show the letter to Wulfric.

Wulf would certainly not be amused.

It was a lovely day for early September, if a little breezy. Freyja thought wistfully of a ride-the hills beyond Bath were made to be galloped among. But if she sent a servant to hire a horse and waited to have it brought around, Charlotte and her mother might already have returned from their shopping trip before it came and there would be a great deal of fuss over sending a groom with her for protection. She had never been able to endure having servants trailing along behind her while she rode. She decided to walk instead, and set out alone as soon as she had changed, her dark green walking dress swishing about her legs as she strode down the steep hill from the house on the Circus. Her bushy fair hair was confined in a coiffure that was almost tame beneath her feathered hat, which sat jauntily to one side of her head.

She strode through the center of Bath, nodding at a few acquaintances and hoping that by some ill fortune she would not encounter her hostesses and be forced to spend the rest of the morning in the shops with them, took a shortcut through the Abbey churchyard past the Pump Room and the Abbey itself, turned to walk along the river, and then noticed up ahead the very grand Pulteney Bridge, which she had forgotten, since she had not been in Bath for many years. On the other side of the bridge, she remembered now, was the splendidly wide and elegant Great Pulteney Street. And were not Sydney Gardens at the end of that?

She had not intended to walk quite so far, but she felt as if she were drawing air deep into her lungs for the first time in days, and she had no desire to return to the house just yet. She turned to walk across the bridge, looking briefly in the little shop windows as she passed, and then discovered that memory had not deceived her. A short distance ahead of her stretched one of the most magnificent sights of an admittedly magnificent city.

At the end of Great Pulteney Street she turned onto Sydney Place, intending to cross over to the Gardens. But then she noticed the sign indicating that Sutton Street was to her left and frowned and stopped abruptly. It did not take more than a few seconds to realize why that name sounded familiar. It was on Sutton Street that Miss Martin had her school for girls. Freyja hesitated, grimaced, hesitated again, and then struck off firmly along Sutton Street. She even knew the number of the house.

Five minutes later she was standing in a shabby genteel parlor, awaiting the arrival of Miss Martin herself. This was definitely not a good idea, Freyja decided. She had never come here in person before or written-or even allowed her solicitor to use her name.

Miss Martin did not keep her waiting long. She was as pale and tight-lipped and straight-backed as Freyja remembered her. Her dark gray eyes looked as steadily into Freyja's as they had ever looked, but now she dared to look with hostility only barely masked behind civility.

"Lady Freyja." She inclined her head but did not curtsy. She did not offer a chair or refreshments or express surprise or gratification. She did not point at the door and order her visitor to leave. She merely looked, an expression of polite inquiry in her face.

Well, Freyja thought, she liked the woman the better for it.

"I heard that you had a school here," Freyja said, masking her own embarrassment with more than usual haughtiness. "I was passing by and decided to call on you."

Asinine words!

Miss Martin did not dignify them with a reply. She merely inclined her head.