The Chadwick Ring (3 page)

Ginevra’s glance flew upward in astonishment to meet his. He never changed, she observed, flushing deeply. His eyes were that same unnerving, penetrating blue that always disconcerted her, and now they were alive with malicious amusement. With considerable effort Ginevra regained her composure enough to answer seriously, “I regret, my lord, that nowadays my domestic duties leave me little time for church.”

“What a pity,” Chadwick drawled. “In London a show of religion has become quite the thing among the
ton.
Many a man makes a point of staggering home from his club in time to lead the household in morning prayers.”

Ginevra stared at him. She muttered under her breath, “Not you, I’ll wager.”

Chadwick heard her. His eyes sparked. “No, Miss Bryant, not I. I think you correctly analyzed my feelings in that regard the very first time we met.”

Sir Charles followed this exchange with some confusion. “Daughter,” he asked sternly, “are you being disrespectful to our guest?”

Before Ginevra could answer, Lord Chadwick interposed smoothly, “Of course she isn’t being disrespectful, Bryant. She and I are merely recalling a conversation we enjoyed years ago.”

Ginevra’s father settled back against his desk, clearly bewildered. Chadwick continued to survey the girl with an air of cool calculation that made her increasingly uneasy. His glance lingered on her honey-gold hair, tied back with a brown ribbon into a thick knot almost too heavy for her slender neck. He dismissed her unattractive dress with a faint disdainful snort. Ginevra’s first impulse was to conceal herself from those azure eyes raking her slight body, but instead she straightened her thin shoulders and forced herself to face him, meeting his insolent gaze with an air of self-possessed dignity she was far from feeling. She murmured, “I am sorry I was not here when you first arrived, my lord. Is there any way I may serve you?”

One black eyebrow arched quizzically, and Ginevra knew that Lord Chadwick was rigorously repressing whatever comment had first occurred to him. He reached into a pocket of his waistcoat and withdrew a small leather pouch, which he emptied into his palm. “I think it best if we come straight to the purpose of my call,” he said. “I believe, Miss Bryant, that you are familiar with this. I should like to return it to you.”

Ginevra stared at the heavy jewel-encrusted ring glittering in the man’s large hand. Her delicate finger still bore marks on the place where the ring had resided for the past year, but she had never expected to see it again. She choked, “But ... but I sent that back to you with the letter I wrote when ... when Tom...”

“Yes,” the marquess dismissed irritably, “your action was most commendable and circumspect, but now I’m returning the ring to you. I want you to keep it.”

Ginevra retreated from his proffering hand. “But I can’t keep it!” she cried, and she wondered why her father did not intervene. “It would be wrong! That’s the Chadwick betrothal ring, to be worn only by the marchioness or the intended of the heir. You can’t just give it to me.”

Lord Chadwick made an impatient gesture, and the gems flashed in the firelight. “Obviously you don’t understand,” he said coldly. “It is in the guise of the Chadwick betrothal ring that I wish you to wear this.” Ginevra stared at him, her golden eyes troubled. He continued implacably, “Miss Bryant, I am sure that you are old enough to realize that the alliance between you and my son was arranged primarily so that Dowerwood might eventually be annexed to my estate at Queenshaven, something I have long desired. I still do desire it.”

Ginevra bit her lip, thinking hard. “Then ... then are you saying, my lord, that now although Tom is dead, you still want Dowerwood, and therefore you ... you wish me to marry your other son, Bysshe?”

The marquess scowled. “No, Miss Bryant. In truth I did suggest such a match to your father, but only if he would agree to delay until Bysshe is eighteen. The boy is not yet sixteen, younger than you and far too immature to assume the responsibilities of wedded life. I want him to finish his schooling first, perhaps see some of the world. After all, I can attest personally to the folly of an extremely youthful marriage ... However, your father does not agree with me.”

Ginevra looked at Sir Charles. She felt a rising sense of irritation that the two men could so plot her life without consulting her. It was not as if she were still a child of twelve! Curiously she asked, “Why wouldn’t you want me to marry Bysshe, Papa?”

He cleared his throat with difficulty. “Tr-try to understand,” he stammered nervously. “I ... I’m sure young Bysshe is a fine boy. But I cannot in good conscience consent to such a delay in the nuptials. If anything should happen to him before you are wed—pray God it does not!—you would be past twenty, still unmarried, and quite on the shelf. No, child, I would be remiss in my duty if I did not make your future secure
now
.”

Ginevra stared at her father. Something was wrong. This sudden concern for her future rang false. Oftimes in the past she had wondered if her father even cared what became of her. He seemed only half-aware of her existence.

She turned to Lord Chadwick again, who was watching her narrowly. Squaring her shoulders, she said, “Papa. My lord. Since the two of you seem to have reached an impasse, I think perhaps it is time that
I
decided what steps are necessary to make my future secure.”

The marquess nodded his head deeply in an insolent bow. “A most laudable aim, Miss Bryant, except that you are mistaken about its necessity. We have not yet reached an impasse. There is a solution, albeit a drastic one. I still want Dowerwood, and consequently I must take the sole alternative left me.” He paused, and Ginevra stared up at him, her heart creeping into her throat as she tried to deny the notion forming in her mind. Even before Chadwick spoke again, Ginevra was slowly shaking her head, her amber eyes wide with horror. She took a step backward, half-turning as if to flee from him. The marquess smiled grimly. “Yes, Miss Bryant,” he drawled, his deep voice heavy with irony, “I see you understand at last. I am asking you to do me the great honor and joy of consenting to become my wife.”

2

Ginevra stared at Lord Chadwick. Her eyes were riveted to his long, narrow face, a sardonic mask carved from old oak, the lines radiating from his aquiline nose and thin lips deep and uncompromising. She had known him all her life but she had never really looked at him before. When she and Tom were children she had thought casually that her playmate favored his father, but now as she studied the marquess’s features, the harsh planes of olive skin stretched tight over strong, high cheekbones and a stronger jaw, she searched in vain for some elusive resemblance to her lost friend. The boy’s blue eyes had “been gentle, but on his father those same eyes, set deep under straight black brows, shuttered by heavy lids, were piercing, hypnotic. Even their raven hair, at first glance so similar, showed the contrast between parent and child: Tom’s ruffled curls had been as soft and innocent as the fur on a newborn lamb. Lord Chadwick’s hair gave him the pagan look of a Roman idol before whom that lamb might be sacrificed.

Ginevra stood immobile, captive to the marquess’s mesmeric gaze. Her hands clenched tightly over her breast, vainly pressing her pounding heart back into her body. She began to tremble as if she stood in a high wind. Tears stung behind her eyes, and her jaw ached with the effort to keep from blubbering out her fear like an infant. Lord Chadwick watched impassively as the tension built in her. He watched and waited.

Suddenly Ginevra shrilled, “
No
!” and tore away from him. She flew across the room to her father, who hovered anxiously beside his desk, and she flung herself into his arms, sobbing. But the protection she sought from him was not forthcoming. Flushed with embarrassment, Sir Charles pushed her away roughly and barked, “Compose yourself, Ginevra, this is the outside of enough!”

She stumbled backward, catching her slipper on the Turkey carpet, too stunned by her father’s rejection to brace herself. Chadwick’s large hands caught her from behind and steadied her before she fell, but instead of being grateful she flinched from his touch. Her liquid eyes blinked reproachfully at Sir Charles. She sniffed, “Papa, how can you even permit such a suggestion? Marry Tom’s
father
? The idea is ... it’s disgusting!”

“Daughter!” Sir Charles gasped, aghast and humiliated by this unexpected rebellion from his usually tractable child. He crimsoned as he glanced uneasily at the marquess, who fortunately seemed unperturbed by Ginevra’s words. He murmured, “Forgive us, my lord. Obviously I have been remiss in disciplining the graceless wench. I should have beaten her more when she was younger.” He grasped Ginevra’s shoulders bruisingly and shook her. “Girl, you will beg his lordship’s pardon at once.”

Ginevra gaped, stupefied. In all her life her father had never struck her or even spoken harshly to her—perhaps, she realized with wonder, because she had never crossed him in anything before. This sudden revelation of an alien side to her father’s character shocked her almost as much as the outrageous match he proposed.

Mutely she continued to stare at her father as if he were a stranger, and in frustration he shook her again. Chadwick’s face darkened as he watched her head snap back on her slender neck. His voice became dangerously soft. “Don’t bully the girl, Bryant.”

Sir Charles sputtered, “But, my lord, I must do something. She is insolent and unreasonable.”

“No, she is just confused. In truth we did spring this proposal upon her without warning.”

Sir Charles’s grip tightened on her shoulders as he hastened to defend himself to Chadwick. “I am her father,” he declared stiffly. “It is her duty to accept my decisions without question.”

The marquess’s eyes narrowed, moving from Sir Charles’s flushed countenance to Ginevra’s, paper-white. The man abruptly released his daughter, and she swayed slightly. Lord Chadwick said scathingly, “I’m sure that, given time, the chit will accept the wisdom of our plans, Bryant, but right now it will do no good to badger her. Allow us a few moments alone so that I may speak to her privately, to reassure her...”

Sir Charles glared at the other man with the sullen resentment of a schoolboy caned in front of his classmates. “Are you telling me what to do in my own home?” he blustered, trying hard to regain his composure. Chadwick, more than several years his junior, had the unnerving ability to make him feel as if he were in short pants again.

Chadwick looked down his long nose at him and the girl, who stood transfixed, still rigid with shock. He said soothingly, “Forgive me if I have offended you, Bryant. The situation is admittedly ... awkward, and I thought I might be able to ease it some. Until now, I fear, both you and I have been somewhat lacking in ... tact, don’t you agree?”

“Yes, yes,” Sir Charles mumbled at once, gratefully grabbing at the olive twig. “We men understand ... naturally you wish to speak to ... I’ll fetch her maid...”

“By all means, fetch her maid,” Chadwick said impatiently. “The proprieties must be observed. But first, allow us a few moments of privacy, I beg you.”

Sir Charles hastily took his conge, acutely aware that he had not acquitted himself well.

Alone with the marquess, Ginevra studied the faded arabesques on the dull red rug she stood on. Her cheeks were stained with tears wrung out of her by her father’s extraordinary behavior, and she refused to look up, lest Lord Chadwick see them. She thought she would endure the rack before she would cry in front of that cold, arrogant man.

The room was still, the silence broken only by the whisper of the low fire in the grate. When the marquess spoke, his voice was surprisingly gentle. “Does he often manhandle you in that fashion?”

Ginevra’s small, firm chin trembled despite her efforts to control it. “No,” she said hoarsely. “Never.”

“I thought as much. Obviously your father is even more desperate than I suspected.”

Her amber eyes flicked up in alarm. “Desperate? What do you mean?”

Chadwick’s mouth tightened. He looked at the girl thoughtfully. In her brown dress she reminded him of a yearling doe at bay. He sighed, “Please sit down, Ginevra. You seem exhausted, and we have much to discuss, you and I.”

She stiffened. She did not like him using her name; it sounded as strange as “Miss Bryant” had done all those years before. His deep voice gave the syllables a caressing, intimate quality she was anxious to deny. Now that her father in his bewildering mood had left the room, Ginevra’s courage slowly returned, like blood seeping back into numbed limbs. She lifted her head and began primly, “My lord, I never gave you leave to—” The glint in Chadwick’s blue eyes silenced her. She plopped unhappily onto one end of the settee and glanced sidelong at the tall man facing her.

He drawled, “My girl, I have known you far too long to need permission to call you Ginevra.” After a moment he added dryly, “Of course, you may, if you wish, call me Richard.”

Ginevra’s nervousness was fast turning to indignation. The cheek of the man! She clenched her fists buried in the folds of her bombazine skirt, and peeking through her lashes she muttered acidly, “I think not, my lord. I would never be so familiar. I was always taught to respect my elders.”

For a long moment the marquess stared at her, then astonishingly he gave a yelp of laughter. “Oh, little Ginnie,” he cried, “I thought you were gone forever.”

She blinked uncomfortably. “I don’t know what you mean.”

He sat down beside her. One arm rested lightly along the back of the settee, almost touching her shoulder, as he surveyed her coolly. Ginevra moved back a few inches, a bright spot of color washing each cheekbone. Chadwick’s lips twisted. He said, “Ever since I first noticed you cowering behind the beech tree in the garden, I have been wondering what could have become of that impudent and utterly delightful little girl who once asked me if I were the devil. There seemed to be no trace of her in the somber, circumspect young woman you are now.”

Ginevra was acutely aware of long fingers drumming on the top of the cushion, bare inches from her. She said, “Everyone has to grow up, my lord.”

“A pity,” he sighed. “I was very fond of that little girl—as I was also fond of a certain fledgling intellectual with a taste for highly improper poetry.”

Ginevra flushed. “I wish you wouldn’t remind me of that. I feel ashamed each time I think of that book. I realized you were quite correct in your estimate of it, once I became more mature.”

Chadwick murmured, “Too mature, Ginevra? Are you really so grown up? Or are you merely older?”

“I don’t understand you.”

“I’m sure you don’t.” He caught one of her burnished curls and toyed with it.

Ginevra whispered huskily, “Please don’t do that.”

He dropped his hand. He observed, “You’re a cross-grained little wench, Ginevra. You have the look of a woman, beautiful even in that impossible dress, and I know that for years you have performed the household duties of a woman, yet temperamentally you are still a green girl, as innocent and ignorant of ... life as any schoolroom miss half your age.” His voice became softer, more insinuating. “I think I shall have my work cut out for me, teaching you to be a wife.”

Ginevra crimsoned. She stared mutely at her fingers, nervously pleating neat folds into the brown silk of her skirt. At last she choked, “I mean you no disrespect, my lord, but I have no wish to marry you.”

He studied the top of her bent head, the thick, wavy hair that gleamed like antique gold against the drab fabric of her dress. In a museum he had once seen intricately carved bracelets of barbaric design, booty from the Spanish, who in their turn had plundered them from the Incas. Even after three hundred years the bracelets retained the deep luster, the compelling beauty that had made men kill to possess them. And here shimmering before him was that same gold, living... He asked, “Is it the married state itself that you fear?”

She whispered hoarsely, “No, my lord. I hope someday to have a husband.”

“Then why not me? In Town I am considered exceedingly eligible. I have a great deal of money, my title is ancient, and I’ve never done anything too outrageously scandalous—although I will concede that very little outrages the
ton
.”

Still Ginevra did not look up. When she spoke, her voice was muffled and distorted, as if she had to force it through her constricted throat. “Might not this marriage be enough to ... to outrage the
ton
? You are Tom’s father. Surely that is reason enough to make talk of a union between us ... unseemly. Besides ... you are too old.”

Chadwick snorted and cocked one eyebrow. He said dryly, “I am thirty-five, Ginevra—substantially older than you, but hardly
too
old.” He put a long finger under her tremulous chin and tilted her head upright. “Disabuse yourself of that notion at once, my girl, or I shall be forced to take steps to prove to you how very wrong you are.”

As she gazed at him, Ginevra’s amber eyes were over-bright, her cheeks hectic. She stammered, “V-very well, I’m sorry I said you were too old. But the fact remains that you are the ... the father of the boy I was once pledged to. The very idea of us marrying is indecent. No matter how much you want Dowerwood, I am shocked that you could suggest such a match.”

The marquess studied her defiant face. His cynical blue eyes softened. He said gently, “But child, the idea was not mine, it was your father’s.”

She gasped. “No. You are lying.”

Chadwick’s lips thinned. He said coldly, “I told you the first time we ever met that I would not lie to you, and I meant it. Three weeks ago I was in London to confer with Castlereagh, and I received a communication from your father. He repeated his condolences on the loss of my son; then he pointed out that while Tom was dead, the union between our two families need not be.”

Ginevra shook her head. “You must have misunderstood him. Papa would never be so callous, so insensitive.”

“A man will be anything, if his need is great enough.”

Ginevra bit her lip. “But what need could my father possibly have to make him so transgress the boundaries of decency as to—”

Abruptly Chadwick jumped to his feet. Startled by his action, Ginevra lapsed into silence as he stalked to the window, his hands jammed deep into his pockets. He pushed aside the heavy velvet draperies and stared blindly into the gathering twilight. When he spoke, his voice was I harsh with irritation. “Ginevra, I grow excessively weary of your harping about ‘decency.’ I have made you an honorable proposal of marriage. You may not like the idea, and I admit that when I first called on your father I had no such notion in mind, but the fact remains: the offer has been made. It is now up to you to accept or reject it as you wish, but for God’s sake, spare me your missish prattle about morality!”

Stung, Ginevra sank back against the cushions. Through her long lashes she gazed at his back, the wide shoulders lithe and powerful under his superbly tailored jacket, the muscular thighs, and long legs encased in gleaming boots. His every movement bespoke strength and grace. Ginevra shivered. She had seen him subdue an unruly horse with only a word, and even the most obstreperous of men would hesitate to cross him. Against the twelfth Marquess of Chadwick a mere girl would be utterly helpless.

Quietly Ginevra rose and crossed the room to his side. He was glowering into the darkness and did not look down at her. She gazed up at him, and her nerves knotted deep inside her. This man her husband? No. Never. He was too big, too ... too virile, and he had the ruthless profile carved on Roman coins. Timidly she touched his sleeve. He scowled at her. “What now?”

She tried to smile and failed. “Again I ... I must beg your forgiveness, my lord. I have been unbearably rude.” She fell silent once more, hoping he would help her by saying something, anything. When he did not speak, she stumbled on: “I ... I know that you have honored me greatly with your proposal, but I im-implore you, let me consult privately with my father before I give you an answer.”

After a moment he shrugged. “Very well. When?”

Ginevra took a deep breath. ‘Tonight,” she said. “After dinner I will speak to Papa, and then I will give you my answer.” She stared at him, her wide amber eyes pleading mutely for his understanding.

He studied her face intently, and his harsh features relaxed. “Oh, little Ginnie,” he sighed, reaching with long fingers to trace the dainty line of her cheekbone, “if only you and I had—”