Mary Balogh - A Masked Deception

He had held her afterward and soothed her and whispered words of love. They had not slept. Soon he had lifted her on top of him and brought her new and unexpected delights as he taught her to straddle his broad, strong body, her knees drawn up under his arms, while he took her again. Afterward, he had eased her legs down to lie either side of his, and he cradled her against his chest. They had slept that way, still joined together.

Margaret had, in fact, come dangerously close to being caught in the light of dawn. When they had woken up, she had tried to climb off both him and the bed, but he had turned, with her still in his arms, until she was trapped beneath him. And soon she had been a willing prisoner, giving and giving what she wished so desperately to spend her whole life giving him.

Even when she was finally dressed and groping for the door, Richard had scrambled, naked, off the bed and reached it ahead of her. He had held her in a bruising hug for several minutes, not saying a word, not attempting to kiss her. Finally, he had let her go.

Margaret felt that she would never quite forgive herself for causing him that pain. She wiped a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand.

"Here you are, my dear," Brampton's voice said from the opening in the wall behind her. "I have to visit some of the cottages down by the river to approve some repairs. I thought you might like to ride there with me. We should be back in plenty of time to greet our guests."

Margaret turned and Brampton again had that unsettling sensation of drowning fathoms deep in her eyes, which were wide with an expression he had not seen in them before.

"I should like it of all things," she said calmly, rising to her feet and accepting her husband's arm.

The first few days of the house party were filled with noisy gaiety. All the invited guests arrived that first day except Devin Northcott, who traveled to his parents' home two days later and finally joined the Brampton Court set on the following day.

The older ladies quickly established the blue salon as their domain. There they exchanged the latest on-dits from town, shared stories of their children and grandchildren, and did some shameless matchmaking.

"My dear Isabella," Lady Romley said on one such occasion, "don't you think that Susanna Kemp and your dear son Charles would make a handsome pair?"

"She has ten thousand a year," the dowager mused. "Do you think he might form an attachment, Hannah?"

"I distinctly observed him smile at her twice during dinner last evening," her friend reassured her.

"Ah, it would be so comfortable to have all my children well established," the dowager sighed, smugly aware that Lady Romley still had two daughters to be provided with husbands.

"Of course, he does seem uncommonly fond of the earl's sister-in-law," Lady Romley commented slyly.

"Charlotte? Just a silly chit! Charles has a better notion of what is due him, never fear, Hannah," the dowager replied tartly.

"Rumor had it a while ago that Devin Northcott was about to offer for her," said Lady Romley.

"Very unlikely," the dowager decided. "Devin must be immune to all the little misses of the Season after avoiding them for ten years or more past."

"She has no dowry?" quizzed the other.

"But little," the other replied. "I have considered suggesting to dear Richard that he might marry her to the vicar of St. Stephen's. It is Richard's living, you know, Hannah, and the new man needs a wife."

"Ah," Lady Romley commented, "the gel will be grateful for that. Fetching little thing!"

The younger ladies spent much of their time wandering around, trying to look pretty. They kept to their rooms most of the morning, sleeping and preparing to meet the day. In the afternoon they wandered in the gardens, took carriage rides to various parts of the estate to see the views from the hills or to have a picnic, or sat indoors to gossip-usually about one predominant topic.

"However do you tell the twins apart?" Annabelle asked Faith wide-eyed. "I should not know which one was my betrothed!" She giggled.

"But they are both so handsome," Susanna commented. "And, Lady Brampton, is it true that Captain Adair is to return to Spain soon?"

"I believe he hopes to return before winter sets in," Margaret replied.

"How romantic it would be to follow the drum as a soldier's wife," Susanna sighed.

"It would be most disagreeble and uncomfortable you may be sure, Susanna," Lady Lucy commented as she stitched at a sampler.

"Is Mr. Northcott to come to dinner again this evening?" Faith asked of no one in particular. "I do think he casts the other men in the shade with his elegance."

"Never say so," Annabelle objected. "Did you not note the high points of Mr. Rodney Langford's collars last evening? I know it was not Mr. Kenneth Langford, because you were holding his arm, Faith. And did you not see his striped satin waistcoat and stockings? I like to see a man in the height of fashion. Mr. Northcott is too-too-"

"Staid?" asked Charlotte helpfully.

"There, you see?" Annabelle said triumphantly. "Charlotte agrees with me."

"I did not say that," Charlotte pointed out.

The men spent most of their days out riding, or fishing, or playing billiards indoors. Their conversation was, significantly, about horses and hunting and the latest boxing mills they had witnessed, about cards and gambling and the latest bizarre bets that had been entered in the books at the clubs.

"I say," said Ted Kemp, "did you see Bill Bruiser give Hatchet Harry a leveler in the ring last week? Two minutes into the first round. Harry had pounded Bruiser like a punching bag in the stomach. Bruiser did not even bat an eyelid. Then one left hook and bam! Blood pouring from Harry's nose and Bruiser being carried from the ring shoulder high."

"A damned waste of time I called it," said Charles. "It took an hour to drive out to the mill and another half-hour to find a parking spot. The whole thing was over before a man had started to watch."

"Who is going to win the race to Brighton?" Rodney Langford asked.

"What race?" asked Sir Henry.

"Viscount Harley's son and old Sangster to race their curricles from London to Brighton Saturday next," Rodney explained.

"It will probably end with a couple of broken necks," Lord Romley commented.

"Sangster's favored on the odds, I hear," said Kenneth Langford.

Very little of their conversation concerned the ladies.

The evenings were a time that the whole party spent together. After dinner, when the gentlemen had rejoined the ladies after their port, there would be pianoforte music and singing, or cards, or some impromptu dancing, or merely conversation. Once there was a lively game of charades. It was during these evenings that the older ladies gathered some of their ammunition for the next day's gossip.

Lady Romley noticed that Annabelle and Ted sat together at the pianoforte singing quietly together long after everyone else's attention had moved on to other matters. She noticed that Faith and Kenneth did not speak to each other for the whole of one evening. She noticed that Charlotte rarely talked to Devin Northcott, but that she followed him everywhere with her eyes. And she noticed the Devin spent most of his evenings talking with Lady Brampton.

The dowager Countess of Brampton noticed that Susanna tried in many ways to fix her interest with Charles. She noticed that her daughter-in-law looked tired. She definitely had the look of one who was enceinte, she confided in an undertone to her friend the next day ("so wonderful for dear Richard to have an heir at last, Hannah"). She noticed Charlotte disappear through the French windows one evening with Charles while most of the others were at cards. And she noticed them returning more than half an hour later.

"Charlotte, my love, do you wish to rescue a drowning man?" Charles had said. "Come and walk in the garden with me."

"What, does Susanna Kemp not compare with your Juana?" Charlotte asked cheekily when they were outside. She tucked her arm comfortably through his.

"Have you heard of the difference between night and day, brat?" he asked.

"You really are being most cruel to all the ladies, you know, Charles," she scolded gaily. "Here they all are, falling over themselves trying to ensnare you, and you will not even warn them that you are betrothed."

"Should I wear a sign?" he asked. "And can I help it, my love, if I was born with quite irresistible charm?"

"And with incredible immodesty," Charlotte commented to the stars.

They went to sit on the stone wall surrounding the fountain in the rose garden.

"Juana is really coming to England," Charles announced.

"Oh? When?" Charlotte clapped her hands.

"She was not sure of that. The war had disrupted life in Spain. It may be weeks or only days before she arrives in Portsmouth. She may even now be on the seas. She is to send me a message when she arrives. I can be there from here in four hours or less."

"Charles, do you not think it would be wise to tell your mama or his lordship that she is coming?"

"No, I do not," he answered. "It will be time enough for them to know when she is here. They cannot possibly see her and not fall in love with her on the instant."

Charlotte could not help but feel that he was looking at the situation through a lover's eyes, but she kept her counsel.