She shook her head wordlessly.
‘It features you – our carriage drive together. It isn’t saying or implying anything to your particular discredit, but you are quite recognisable in it, and so… The purpose of this exercise we undertook was not to damage your reputation but to enhance it. Therefore it is time, I believe, to announce our engagement, so that I may give you some protection. If you are not thinking better of it?’
‘Why should I be?’ she prevaricated. Now that it came to it, she felt almost a sense of panic. It had seemed like a light, easy sort of thing to do, almost a game, and now it did not. Especially if this man was still in love, or otherwise involved, with someone else whom he could never marry.
‘It is a grave step.’ His face reflected his words, and no wonder.
‘It would be, if it were real,’ she shot back. She was all on edge, irritated by Sophie and now by him, though she knew that there was no sense in it. He was only doing what she had suggested he do. He was playing his part to perfection, and she must do the same.
‘It is still a grave step, for all the world will believe it is real.’ In her distraction, she’d not invited him to sit down and now he crossed the room to her side and stood uncomfortably close. It was because he was so very tall and broad, she thought. Because she certainly was not frightened of him. ‘You were right, it seems, that your scheme was more apt to help me than you. It has already done so, and I am sensible of it. I am not sure you are able to say the same.’
‘That’s not entirely true. The men – I will not say gentlemen – do not harass me so, as you have noticed. They are scared of you, I think. That is an improvement.’
‘I pray it may not be only temporary. Perhaps our engagement should be a long one, so I can offer you some protection from them, at least for the rest of the Season. I wish I could send them all to the devil for their foul impertinence.’ His words were fierce but his tone was gentle, and she found herself blinking away a fugitive tear at the care he showed for her. This virtual stranger. He took her hand, the lightest of touches; he did not clasp it tightly. ‘Thank you,’ he murmured. ‘You are very brave, Amelia, and I honour you for it.’ He raised her hand to his lips, as he had done with Sophie’s a moment or two ago. A butterfly kiss, no more, and with no greater significance than a graceful show of thanks. Surely.
Her hand had been kissed before, and more than once, gloved and ungloved – before the pins and the stamping shoes, she had suffered that indignity a dozen times, and hated each one. This was just the slightest of caresses, a mere brush of the lips across the sensitised skin, and yet at the sudden intimacy of the touch, flesh to flesh, she shivered as she had never done before. Not in revulsion, this time.
He might easily have misinterpreted her movement. Slight as it was, he must have felt it, for he still held her. He might have released her and stepped away with a word of apology. But he looked down at her and his green eyes darkened. His expression was serious, as it generally was, but not grim, not now. If anything, he seemed almost dazed, his featured open and softened in a way she had never seen before. ‘It has been almost eight years, Amelia,’ he whispered, ‘since I kissed a woman. Or wanted to.’
‘Do you want to now?’
‘I must confess I do.’
‘I’ve never been kissed,’ she said with disastrous honesty. ‘Not once. It is most frustrating that my bad reputation is entirely undeserved. When men have tried, I have stabbed them with pins. Hairpins. Long ones.’ Why had she started babbling of hairpins when he spoke of kisses?
‘Do you have a pin on your person now? Just in case?’
‘No.’
‘Would you care to go and fetch one? I can wait.’
Was hejokingwith her again? That made it twice.
‘No,’ she said, not joking, and with a boldness that surprised herself, put her hands either side of his face. Then she pulled his head down so that she could kiss him. Her first kiss would be one she chose for herself – he could give her that, if nothing else. It seemed important, suddenly, to claim this moment.
Apparently, it wasn’t something you needed to learn to do. Kissing. Or she didn’t, with Marcus, in any case. You could just do it by instinct and it could be good. So good. His strong arms came out to hold her, and she melted into them in irresistible impulse and wrapped her arms about his neck, where they seemed to belong. His lips were not immobile under hers; they were warm, responsive, delicious, and she tasted them with unbridled delight. It was plain to her that he liked it too. They tasted each other, and lost themselves in it, entirely absorbed in pure sensation.
It could not have been a concern for the proprieties that prompted Sophie to leave them alone together for only a very few minutes, for she had none. It might have been an imp of mischief that caused her to return so quickly, or perhaps pure, uncontrollable curiosity. Or it could have been that her formidable and unwelcome visitor overwhelmed all her best efforts to keep her out. Sophie was a powerful woman too, but she was young yet, and inexperienced, socially, compared with a dowager at the height of her powers. She could perhaps have stopped Lady Keswick by the use of ruthless physical violence, but in no other manner. ‘Amelia, here is your Aunt Keswick to see you,’ she said with forced lightness as she opened to door. And then, ‘Oh,merde!’
15
Marcus could feel that Amelia would have sprung instantly away from his embrace when they were so rudely interrupted, but he let her go only slowly, reluctantly. Their goose was cooked. It was not as though there was much point in pretending that they hadn’t been locked in each other’s arms when they plainly had. He said, with what he thought was reasonable composure for a man with a most inconvenient and damnably persistent erection, ‘Lady Wyverne, Lady Keswick, I trust you will both pardon me. The fault is all mine, but Lady Amelia has just consented to be my wife, so perhaps on this occasion, I may be forgiven.’
‘Do you have her brother’s consent to address my niece, sir?’ the Dowager asked awfully. He had not been called ‘sir’ in a way that intimidated him so much since he had left school; he could only be glad that Lady Keswick, unlike his schoolmasters, didn’t appear to be currently in possession of a cane or strap. It was hard to know what she might do or say next, but he was still standing on his feet, so it could have been worse. He’d been wounded in battle and survived it. He could do this.
‘I do, ma’am,’ he responded readily. ‘He was good enough to give it a day or two ago, when we discussed the matter. I have his permission. So I am not quite lost to all decency, I assure you.’
‘Hmm,’ she huffed enigmatically. And then she said, ‘Well, it is highly irregular, but one must make allowances, I suppose, for natural ardour and… so forth. Congratulations, Lord Thornfalcon, you have shown good judgement in your choice of bride. I am pleased for you too, Amelia. And you will recall, child, I am sure, the advice I gave you a little while ago about the inadvisability of long engagements. What I have seen today in this room makes my opinions even more pertinent. Don’t you agree, Lady Wyverne?’
The Marchioness appeared to be imperfectly stifling mirth, but she responded promptly enough. ‘Of course I do, Lady Keswick. You are always so wise. I am sure you will recall that my own engagement was of extremely short duration: only as long as was needed for the banns to be called, in fact.’ Though Marcus supposed that this was true or the lady would not have said it, he didn’t find it to be a particularly helpful comment in the circumstances, and from a glance at Amelia’s horrified face, he thought she must be feeling the same. A moment ago, he’d suggested a protracted engagement, and she’d tacitly agreed, or at least raised no objection. A betrothal lasting several months – to the end of the Season and beyond – would benefit both of them, surely. But now matters appeared to be getting out of hand with alarming speed.
Lady Keswick nodded in majestic agreement. ‘Three weeks is a perfectly adequate length of time, I consider, if there is no impediment to a marriage. And if there is some impediment, three years will not be long enough. I trust, Thornfalcon – since we are to be related, I am sure there can be no objection to me addressing you thus – that there is no such impediment. It would have been unwise and unkind in you to offer for my niece’s hand, let alone subject her to your incontinent embraces, if matters were otherwise.’
The appalling old besom means Lavinia, he realised. Lavinia might be said to be a pretty substantial impediment – she’d certainly think so herself.
‘No,’ he said rather hollowly. ‘There is no impediment. And I am confident my mother and my sister will be very glad when they hear the news.’
If he had hoped to draw her away with this red herring, he was to be disappointed. ‘Judith has always been a woman of tolerable good sense,’ Lady Keswick said, ‘except when she married your father, of course, Thornfalcon, for he was a man who would neither be driven nor led, but I suppose the match was made by your grandparents with worldly considerations in mind, so one cannot blame her for it. I am sure she will agree that your betrothal need not be of unnecessarily long duration. For several excellent reasons.’
