Mary Balogh - Slightly Wicked

“This is your final word?” he asked her.

“Which of the ones I have spoken do you not understand, Lord Rannulf?” she asked, still staring directly at him.

But before he could say anything more, he became aware of someone else in the arbor. He looked up to see the same footman as before standing just inside the arch, clearing his throat. Rannulf raised his eyebrows.

“I have been sent to summon Miss Law to the sitting room, my lord,” he said.

“Thank you,” Rannulf said curtly. But as he turned to offer his arm to Judith Law, she hurried across the lowest terrace and up to the next, holding her skirt up with both hands and totally ignoring his very existence.

He did not follow her. He stood looking after her, heady with relief. Though why he should feel relieved he did not know. He suddenly remembered that one way or another he was going to have to marry someone this summer.

He was feeling ruffled. And still plagued with guilt. And more than half aroused, dammit.

Harewood Grange was buzzing with noise and activity when the carriage set Judith and her grandmother down on the terrace. All the expected guests had arrived, they discovered. Most were already in the drawing room, taking tea with Aunt Louisa, Uncle George, and Julianne. Only a few latecomers were still in their rooms, changing their garments. Many of their numerous trunks and bags and hatboxes were still strewn about the terrace, servants and strange valets darting about to take them as quickly as possible to their relevant rooms.

“I am far too fatigued to put in an appearance, Judith,” her grandmother said. “I feel one of my migraines coming on. But you must not miss joining the gathering. You may help me up to my room if you would be so good and then run and fetch a cup of tea for me and perhaps a little cake or two—the ones with the white icing, my love. After that you must put on a pretty dress and join Louisa and Julianne in the drawing room and be presented to all the guests.”

Judith had no intention of doing any such thing. She spied the opportunity for her first hour of real freedom since her arrival at Harewood, and she would not squander it. She hurried to her room after Tillie had been summoned to settle Grandmama in her bed for an afternoon sleep, changed quickly into one of the few dresses that had not yet been subjected to alteration, an old lemon-colored cotton that she was attached to, threw off her cap and replaced it with her own straw bonnet, and hastened down the back stairs, which she had discovered during several errands to the kitchen in the past few days. She slipped out through the back door and found herself facing the kitchen gardens, vegetables on one side, flowers on the other. Beyond, grassy lawns stretched away to a tree-dotted hill. Judith walked toward it and then lengthened her stride, raising her face to the sun and to the light breeze, which felt good lifting the hair at her brow and her neck, which were usually covered by her cap.

Was she quite, quite mad to have turned down a marriage proposal? From a man who was titled and wealthy? From a man with whom she had lain? Whom she found achingly attractive? With whose memory she had expected to fill every dream for the rest of her life? Marriage was every woman’s ultimate goal, her dearest hope being that marriage would bring her security and children and a tolerable measure of comfort, perhaps even companionship.

For the past few years Judith had waited patiently to meet a man willing to marry her, someone acceptable to Papa and tolerable to herself. She had very sensibly never expected her dreams of romance to become reality. Yet today—a little more than an hour ago—she had refused Lord Rannulf Bedwyn .

Was she mad ?

The hill was not a high one. Even so, it provided picturesque views across the surrounding countryside.

From the top she could see in all four directions. The breeze was a little stronger up here. She faced into it, closed her eyes, and tipped back her head.

No, not mad. How could she have accepted when he had not even tried to hide his resentment at being forced into offering for her? When he had made his contempt for her lowly social standing so obvious?

When he had quite openly confessed that what had happened between them was no unusual occurrence for him ... and that such encounters would continue even after his marriage?

How could she marry a man she actively despised?

Even so, she thought, spying water below the hill on the far side and making her way down toward it, there had been some sort of reckless madness in her refusal—pride overriding common sense. Common sense now reminded her that even if marriage to Lord Rannulf had led to being hidden away in some forgotten corner while he continued with his life of philandering, it would at least have been marriage. She would have become the respected mistress of her own home.

Instead of which she was a dependent of Uncle George, who hardly knew she existed, despised by Aunt Louisa and at her constant beck and call for endless years into the future. Only her grandmother made life tolerable for her at the moment. She gave herself a mental shake when she caught the self-pitying drift of her thoughts. There were worse fates. She could be married to a man who cared not the snap of two fingers for her and neglected her and was unfaithful to her and .. .

Well, there were worse fates.

The lake at the bottom of the hill was lovely and secluded. It was surrounded by long grass and wildflowers and a few trees. It looked quite neglected and was surely never used or even visited.

Perhaps, she thought, it could become her own private little retreat in the days and months and years ahead. She kneeled on the bank and trailed a hand in the water. It was fresh and clear and not nearly as cold as she had expected. She cupped some in her hands and lowered her flushed face into it.

She was crying, she realized suddenly. She almost never wept. But her tears were hot in contrast to the coolness of the water, and her bosom was heaving with sobs she seemed powerless to control.

Life really was unfair at times. She had reached out just once in her life and stolen a brief and magnificent dream. She had neither expected nor demanded that it be prolonged. She had wanted only the memory of it to last her the rest of her life.

Clearly it had been too much to ask.

Now it was gone, all of it. The memories were sullied— all of them. Because now he knew that she was not the bright star, the flamboyant actress he had found attractive despite her physical defects. And because she now knew that he was a man to be despised.

Yet he had just offered her marriage .

And she had refused.

She got to her feet and made her way back up the hill. She must not be missed. If she were, Aunt Louisa would surely make sure that she had no future chance for idleness.

Someone, she discovered when she arrived back at the rear of the house, had locked the back door. It would not open to all her efforts and a knock drew no response. She made her way around to the front, fervently hoping that everyone was still gathered in the drawing room so that she could slip up to her room undetected.

Two horses were being led off toward the stables as she rounded the corner to the front terrace, and a mountain of baggage was being lifted out of a baggage coach. Two gentlemen stood with their backs to Judith, one of them directing operations in impatient, imperious tones. She shrank back and would have disappeared back around the corner, but the other gentleman half turned his head so that she could see him in profile. She stared, unbelieving, and then hurried toward him, her reluctance to be seen forgotten.

“Bran?” she cried. “Branwell?”

Her brother turned toward her, his eyebrows raised, and then he grinned and hurried to meet her.

“Jude?” he said. “You are here too, are you? Famous!” He swept off his hat, gathered her up into a bear hug, and kissed her cheek. “Are the others here as well? I like the bonnet— very fetching.”

He was dressed in the very height of fashion and looked handsome and dashing indeed, his fair hair blowing in the breeze, his eager, boyish, good-looking face smiling fondly into her own. For a moment she forgot that she wanted to visit exquisite torture on every part of his body, down to the last toenail.

“Just me,” she said. “One of us was invited, and I was the one chosen.”

“Famous!” he said.

“But what are you doing here, Bran?” she asked.

Before he could answer her, the other gentleman came up to join them.

“Well, well, well,” he said, looking her over with the sort of bold scrutiny that would have had Papa scolding her afterward if he had been here to witness it. “Present me, Law, will you?”

“Judith,” Branwell said. “My second sister. Horace Effingham, Jude. Our stepcousin.”

Ah, so he had come, Uncle George’s son from his first marriage. Aunt Effingham would be gratified.

Judith had never met him before. He was a few years older than Branwell’s twenty-one and a couple of inches shorter—he was about on a level with her own height. He was a little stockier than Bran too and darkly handsome in an almost pretty way. His smile revealed very large, very white teeth.

“Cousin,” he said, reaching out a square, smooth hand for hers. “This is a pleasure indeed. Suddenly I am delighted that I succumbed to my stepmama’s persuasions and came to what I expected to be certain tedium. I brought your brother with me to help alleviate the boredom. I will take the liberty of calling you Judith since we are close relatives.” He carried her hand to his lips and held it there longer than was necessary.