Slightly Wicked

Chapter V

“Look at it,” she said, her voice filled with soft wonder.“ Have you ever seen a more glorious sight?”

She was at the open window of their private sitting room, both elbows resting on the sill, her chin cupped in her hands, watching the sun set beneath an orange, gold, and pink sky. She was wearing a striped silk dress of cream and gold in what he was coming to recognize as her characteristic simple yet elegant style. Her hair, loose down her back, seemed dark in contrast.

He was constantly surprised by her. Who would have expected an actress to marvel at a sunset? Or to show such bright-eyed delight in a bonnet that was exquisitely pretty but by no means either ostentatious or costly? Or to giggle over a cheap, ugly snuffbox and spend the last penny of her traveling allowance on it? Or to make love with such obvious personal enjoyment?

“Ralph?” She turned her head and reached out one hand to him. “Come and look.”

“I was looking,” he told her. “You were part of the picture.”

“Oh, you do not need to keep on flattering me,” she said. “Come and look.”

He took her hand in his and moved up beside her at the window. The trouble with sunsets was that darkness followed quickly upon their heels. Just as the trouble with autumn was that winter was not far behind. And what was making him so maudlin?

“The sun will be shining tomorrow,” she said.

“Yes.”

Her hand tightened about his. “I am glad it rained,” she said. “I am glad the stagecoach overturned. I am glad you did not take shelter at the last town.”

“So am I.” He slipped his hand from hers and draped his arm loosely about her shoulders. She leaned in against him, and they watched the sun disappear over the edge of a distant field.

He wanted to bed her again. He fully intended to do so, as many times during the night as his energy would allow. But tonight he did not feel the urgency he had felt last night or the lusty exuberance he had felt this afternoon. Tonight he felt almost—melancholy. It was not a mood he was accustomed to feeling.

They had indulged in two energetic bouts of sex after returning from the shops—on clean sheets, he had observed. They had slept a while and then dined in private. She had acted the parts of Viola and Desdemona for him. And then she had noticed the sunset.

It was getting late. Time was running out, and he felt regret that he could not pursue their affair until it reached its natural conclusion, perhaps in a few days, perhaps not for a week or longer.

She sighed and turned her head to look at him. He kissed her. He liked the way she kissed, relaxing her mouth, opening it for him, responding to him without demanding mastery. She tasted of wine even though she had drunk only one glass this evening.

It was while he was kissing her that he conceived his idea. His brilliant idea. His obvious idea.

“I am coming with you tomorrow,” he said, lifting his head.

“What?” She gazed back at him, heavy-eyed.

“I am coming with you,” he repeated.

“On the stagecoach?” She frowned.

“I’ll hire a private carriage,” he said. “There must be one available here somewhere. We will travel in comfort. We—”

“But your friends,” she said.

“They will not send out any search parties,” he told her. “They do not even know exactly when to expect me. I’ll come with you to York. I have a burning desire to see you act on a real stage with other actors.

And we are not finished with each other yet. Are we?”

She stared at him. “Oh, no,” she said. “I could not so inconvenience you. A private carriage would cost a fortune.”

“My purse is fat enough,” he said.

She shook her head slowly, and he had a sudden thought.

“Is there someone waiting for you?” he asked her. “Another man?”

“No.”

“Anyone else, then?” he asked. “Anyone who is likely to be offended by my accompanying you?”

“No.”

But she continued the slow head shaking. He considered another rather lowering possibility.

“Are we finished with each other?” he asked her. “Or will we be after one more night together? Will you be glad to be free again and on your way alone tomorrow?”

The head shaking continued, he was relieved to see.

“I want more of you, Claire,” he said. “More of your body, more of you. I want to see you act. I will not stay forever, only for a week or so until we are both satisfied. You are an independent woman who does not like to be tied to one man—I can see that. I am a man who enjoys brief affairs and then is content to move on. But tomorrow is too soon. Besides, you really cannot be looking forward to climbing into a stagecoach again and taking your place beside another bony holy man.”

Her head was still. For a moment she half smiled.

“Tell me you want more of me,” he said, moving his mouth closer to hers.

“I want more of you.”

“Then it is settled.” He kissed her swiftly. “We will leave here together tomorrow. I will come to York and see you act. We will spend a few more days in each other’s company, perhaps a week. Maybe longer. As long as it takes.”

She half smiled again and touched her fingertips to his cheek.

“That would be very lovely,” she said.

He set his hand over hers and kissed her palm. Who would have thought yesterday morning when he left Aidan’s, bound for Grandmaison, that he was riding straight into the arms of a new mistress and a hot affair? He had cursed the mud and the threatening rain, but both had turned into blessings.

“Ready for bed?” he asked.

She nodded.

He was feeling rather weary. Four times last night and twice this afternoon had taken some toll on his stamina and doubtless on hers too. But now tonight need not be as frantic as he had expected. They need not stay awake all night, taking full advantage of every moment. They had days and nights ahead of them, as many as they needed.

“Come, then.” He took her hand again and led her in the direction of the bedchamber. “We’ll enjoy long, slow love-making and then sleep, shall we?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice low and husky and curling about him with a warm, sensual promise.

It was already light outside though it was probably still very early. The stagecoach was to leave from the posting inn at half past eight, the landlord had reported last evening, though he had assumed that Mr. and Mrs. Bedard would not be traveling on it.

They would not. But Judith Law would if she possibly could.

She could not go with Ralph. Where would they go?

The adventure was over. Her stolen dream was flat and empty. Dull pain settled like a heavy hand on her chest. Soon she must wake him and suggest without seeming too urgent about it that he go out to hire a private carriage. She did not have the courage to tell him the truth or even another lie. She was too much of a coward to tell him no, that she would not go with him, that she would continue her journey alone and by stage instead.

Telling him the truth would be the honorable thing to do and perhaps the kinder.

But she could not bear to say good-bye to him.

He had slept deeply all night long after they had finished making slow, almost languorous love. She had lain beside him all night, staring upward, occasionally closing her eyes but not sleeping, watching the window for signs of daylight, willing the night to last forever to prolong her agony.

It was hard to believe that just two mornings ago she had been the Judith Law she had known all her life.

Now she no longer knew who Judith Law was.

“Awake already?” he asked from beside her, and she turned her head to smile at him. To drink in the sight of him, to store memories. “Did you sleep well?”

“Mmm,” she said.

“Me too.” He stretched. “I slept like the proverbial log. You certainly know how to wear a man out, Claire Campbell. In the best possible way, of course.”

“Will we make an early start?” she asked him.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and crossed to the window.

“Not a cloud in the sky,” he reported after pulling back the curtains. “And hardly a puddle left in the yard down there. There is no reason to delay. Perhaps I should go out in search of a carriage as soon as I have dressed and shaved. We can breakfast afterward, before we leave.”

“That sounds like a good plan,” she said.

He disappeared behind the screen and she could hear him pouring water from the pitcher into the bowl.

She willed him to hurry. She willed time to stand still.

“Have you ever had sex in a carriage, Claire?” he asked. She could hear laughter in his voice.

“I certainly have not.” Just two days ago the question would have shocked her beyond words.

“Ah,” he said, “then I can promise you a new experience today.”

A few minutes later he appeared again, fully dressed in shirt, waistcoat, and coat with buff riding breeches and top boots, his damp hair brushed back from his freshly shaven face. He strode over to her side of the bed, bent over her, and kissed her swiftly.

“With your hair all over the pillow like that and your shoulders bare,” he said, “you are enough to tempt even the most ascetic of saints—of which number I am not one. However, business first and pleasure after. A carriage makes a very... interesting bed, Claire.” He straightened up, grinned at her, turned, and was gone.

Just like that.

Gone.

The silence he left behind him was deafening.

For a moment Judith was so devastated that she could not move. Then she sprang into action, jumping out of bed, darting behind the screen, dragging her clothes with her. Less than fifteen minutes later she was descending the stairs, carrying her reticule in one hand, her heavy portmanteau in the other.

The innkeeper, who was washing off a table in the taproom, straightened up and looked at her, his eyes focusing on her portmanteau.

“I need to catch the stagecoach,” she said.

“Do you?” he asked.

And then his wife came through a doorway to Judith’s left.

“What has happened, ducks?” she asked. “Been rough with you, has he? Spoken harsh words, has he?

Never you mind about them. Men always speak without thinking. You got to learn to wheedle your way back into his good graces. You can do it like nothing. I seen the way he looks at you. Fair worships you, he does.”

Judith pulled her lips into a smile. “I have to leave,” she said. But she had a sudden thought. “Do you have paper, pen, and ink I can use?”

Both of them stared at her in silence for a few moments, and then the innkeeper bustled behind the counter and produced all three.

She was wasting precious minutes, Judith thought, her stomach muscles knotting in panic. He might return at any moment, and then she would have to speak the words to him. She could not bear to do that. She could not. She scribbled hurriedly, paused a moment, and then bent her head to add one more sentence. She signed her name—Claire— hurriedly, blotted the sheet, and folded it in four.

“Will you give this to Mr. Bedard when he comes in?” she asked.

“I will that, ma’am,” the innkeeper promised her as she bent to pick up her portmanteau. “Here, I’ll send the lad from the stables with you to carry that.”

“I have no money to pay him,” Judith said, flushing.

The landlady clucked her tongue. “Lord love you,” she said, “we will add it to his bill. I could take a rolling pin to his head, I could, frightening you like this.”

More precious moments were lost while the stable lad was summoned, but finally Judith was hurrying away in the direction of the posting inn, her head—clad in her new bonnet—bent low. She hoped and hoped—oh, please God—she would not run into Ralph on the way.

And yet half an hour later, as the stagecoach—a different one with a different driver and mostly different passengers— pulled out of the inn yard and onto the road north, she pressed her nose to the window and desperately looked about her for a sight of him. She felt sick to her stomach. Yesterday morning’s headache had returned with interest. She was so depressed that she wondered if this was what despair felt like.

Rannulf returned to the inn forty minutes after leaving it, having arranged for the hire of a tolerably smart carriage and two horses at an exorbitant price. They were to be ready for him within the hour. There would be time for breakfast first. He was ravenously hungry again. He hoped Claire was not still in bed—he was also feeling lusty and she had looked very inviting when he left their room.

He took the stairs two at a time and threw the door wide. The bed was empty. She was not behind the screen. He opened the door to the private dining room. She was not there either. Dash it all, she had not waited for him but had gone down to breakfast already. But when he got to the top of the staircase he stopped suddenly, frowned, and turned back. He stepped inside their bedchamber and looked around.

Nothing. No clothes, no hairpins, no reticule. No portmanteau. His hands curled into fists at his sides and he felt the beginnings of anger. He could not pretend to misunderstand. She had slipped away and left him. Without a word. She had not even had the backbone to tell him that she was going.

He went back downstairs and came face to face with both the innkeeper and his wife, the one staring at him with apparent sympathy, the other with compressed lips and angry glare.

“I suppose,” Rannulf said, “she has gone on the stagecoach.”

“Skittish,” the landlord said. “A new wife, see. Some of them are like that, until they are properly broken in.”

“Wives are not horses,” his wife said severely. “I suppose you quarreled, and I suppose you said some nasty things. I just hope you did not hit her.” Her eyes narrowed.

“I did not strike her,” Rannulf said, hardly believing that he would stoop to defend himself to servants.

“Then you had better ride after the coach and eat some humble pie,” she advised. “Don’t you scold her, mind. You tell her you are sorry and you will speak gentle to her for the rest of your natural-born life.”

“I will do that,” he said, feeling remarkably foolish—and furiously angry deep down. She had not had the decency ...

“She left a note for you,” the landlord said, tossing his head in the direction of the counter.

Rannulf turned his head to see a folded piece of paper lying there on the bare wood. He strode across the taproom, picked it up, and unfolded the paper.

“I cannot go with you,” the note read. “I am sorry I do not have the courage to say so in person. There is someone else, you see. Respectfully yours, Claire.” She had underlined the one word three times.

So he had been bedding and making merry with someone else’s mistress, had he? He nodded his head a couple of times, a mocking smile playing about his lips. He supposed it had been naive of him to believe that a woman of her looks and profession was without the protection of some wealthy man. He crumpled the note in one hand and stuffed it into a pocket of his coat.

“You will be wanting your horse, sir,” the innkeeper informed him. “To go after her.”

Dammit all, he wanted his breakfast .

“Yes,” he said. “I will.”

“It is all ready,” the man informed him. “I took the liberty after your good lady left of—”

“Yes, yes,” Rannulf said. “Give me your bill and I will be on my way.”

“And her a new bride just two nights ago,” the landlord’s wife said. “I changed the bedding, sir, as you may have noticed. You did not want to be laying on bloody sheets last night, did you, now?”

Rannulf was facing the counter, opening his purse, his back to her. For a moment he froze.

Bloody sheets?

“Yes, I did notice,” he said, pulling out the required sum plus a generous vail. “Thank you.”

He recited every obscenity, every profanity he could think of as he rode away from the inn a few minutes later, supposedly in pursuit of his skittish, high-strung wife.

“Bugger it,” he said aloud at last. “She was a damned virgin .”

When Judith was set down in the village of Kennon in Leicestershire during the afternoon, it was to the unsurprising discovery that no gig or cart or servant from Harewood Grange was awaiting her. The house was three miles away, she was informed, and no, there was no safe place to leave her portmanteau. She must take it with her.

Tired, hungry, and heartsick, Judith trudged the three miles, taking frequent stops to set her portmanteau down and switch hands. She had brought very little with her— there was not a great deal to bring—but it was amazing how heavy a few dresses and shoes and nightgowns and brushes could be. The sun beat down on her from a cloudless sky. Soon thirst became even more pressing than hunger.

The driveway up to the house seemed interminably long, winding as it did beneath dark overhanging trees, which at least provided some welcome shade. The house itself, she could see when it finally came into sight, was something of a mansion, but then she had expected it to be. Uncle Effingham was enormously wealthy. It was why Aunt Effingham had married him—or so Mama had once said when cross over a letter she had perceived as condescending.

A servant answered Judith’s knock at the front door, looked at her down the length of his nose as if she were a slug the rain had brought out, showed her into a salon leading off the high, marbled hall, and shut the door. She waited there for well over an hour, but no one came or even brought her any refreshments.

She desperately wished to open the door and ask for a glass of water, but she was foolishly awed by the size of the house and the signs of wealth all around her.

Finally Aunt Effingham came, tall and thin, with improbable black curls framing the underside of the brim of her bonnet. She looked very little different than she had eight years ago, when Judith had last seen her.

“Ah, it is you, is it, Judith?” she said, approaching close enough to kiss the air next to her niece’s cheek.

“You have certainly taken your time. I was hoping for Hilary since she is the youngest of you and would probably be the most biddable. But you will have to do instead. How is my brother?”

“He is well, thank you, Aunt Louisa,” Judith said. “Mama sends her—”

“Gracious heaven, child, your hair!” her aunt exclaimed suddenly. “It is quite as gaudy as I remember it being. What a dreadful affliction and what a trial for my brother, who has always been the soul of propriety and respectability. What was your mama thinking of to buy you that bonnet when it merely draws attention to your hair? I will have to find you another. Did you bring caps to wear indoors? I shall find you some.”

“I do have—” Judith began, but her aunt’s gaze had moved below the offending bonnet and hair to her niece’s cloak, which had been opened back for some coolness. Her eyebrows snapped into a horrified frown.

“What,” she exclaimed, “was my sister-in-law thinking of to send you to me dressed like that?”

Beneath her cloak Judith was wearing her plain muslin dress with its modest neckline and fashionably high waist. She glanced down at herself in some unease.

“That dress,” her aunt said in thunderous tones, “is indecent. You look like a trollop.”

Judith could feel herself flushing. For two nights and the day in between she had been made to feel both beautiful and desirable, but her aunt’s words brought her crashing back to reality. She was ugly—embarrassingly ugly, as Papa had always made clear to her though he had never used words quite as cruel as Aunt Effingham’s. But perhaps she really did look like a trollop. Perhaps that was why Ralph Bedard had found her desirable. It was an excruciatingly painful thought.

“I will have to inspect your clothes,” Aunt Effingham said. “If they are all like this, I will have to have them taken out at the seams and somehow made more modest. I hope Effingham is not going to be forced to pay for new dresses for you. Not this year, at least, when he has already been put to the expense of Julianne’s presentation to the queen and come-out Season, and we fully expect the additional expenses of a wedding and bride clothes for her.”

Julianne was Judith’s eighteen-year-old cousin, whom she had also not seen for eight years.

“How is Grandmama?” Judith asked.

Her grandmother lived with Aunt Effingham. Judith had not seen her since she was a child. She had only vague memories of a gaudily clad, jewel-bedecked lady, who had talked a great deal, laughed loudly, hugged her grandchildren at every excuse, and told them stories and listened to their prattle. Judith had adored her until it had become obvious to her that her mama and papa found Grandmama a trial and something of an embarrassment.

“With a large number of houseguests expected here within the next few days you will be able to make yourself useful keeping her company,” Aunt Effingham said briskly. “You will not have much else to do since you have never been brought out or introduced to fashionable society and would feel uncomfortable joining in the activities of the house party. And you will, of course, wish to do all in your power to show your gratitude to Effingham for offering you a home here.”

Judith had hardly needed the reminder that she had been brought to Harewood as a poor relation to serve the family in whatever capacity they decided upon. She was to be her grandmother’s companion, it seemed. She smiled and thought she would surely faint soon if she did not have something to eat or drink.

But how could she ask even for a glass of water?

“You may come up and pay your respects to her,” Aunt Effingham said. “She has already had her tea in her own rooms since Julianne and I were out paying calls. We were all expecting you to arrive days before this, though we were hoping for Hilary, of course. I cannot imagine why my brother delayed so long in sending you and thus releasing himself from one financial burden.”

“The stagecoach I was on overturned in the mud two days ago,” Judith explained. “I was then delayed by the rain.”

“Well, it has been very inconvenient not to have you here just when you could have been making yourself most useful,” her aunt said.

The door opened again before her aunt had reached it, and a very pretty young girl came into the room.

Eight years had transformed Julianne from a pale, rather uninteresting child to a small, slender but shapely young lady with a heart-shaped face, large blue eyes, and soft blond curls.

“Which one is it?” she asked, looking her cousin over from head to toe. “Oh, you are Judith, the one with carroty hair. I was hoping Uncle would send Hilary. We expected you days ago. Mama was dreadfully annoyed because Tom had been sent into the village to fetch you and did not return home for all of four hours. Mama accused him of drinking inside the inn but he denied it quite vehemently. Mama, I want my tea. Are you never going to come? One of the servants can take Judith up to Grandmama.”

I am happy to see you too, Julianne, Judith thought silently. It was also evident to her that she was not being included in the plans for tea.

Her new life, it seemed, was going to be very much as she had pictured it.

Rannulf had stopped for breakfast and again for luncheon. It was during the latter meal that his baggage coach and his valet finally caught up with him. It was late afternoon by the time he rode through the gates of Grandmaison Park, past the empty dower house just inside, and along the straight, wide driveway to the main house. He was shown up to his grandmother’s private sitting room. She got to her feet and looked him over as he strode into the room, still in his riding clothes.

“Well,” she said, “and about time too, Rannulf. Your hair needs cutting. Give me a hug.” She held her arms open.

“I was held up for two days by the infernal rain,” he informed her. “My hair grew four inches in the damp air while I waited. Are you sure I will not crush every bone in your body?”

He wrapped his arms about her tiny waist, lifted her off her feet, and kissed her cheek with a loud smack before setting her back down.

“Impudent boy,” she said, straightening her dress. “Are you dying of hunger and thirst? I have given instructions that food and drink are to be brought up within five minutes of your arrival.”

“Hungry as a bear,” he told her. “And I could drink the sea dry, though not, I hope, even a single cup of tea.” He rubbed his hands together and looked her over. As usual she was looking as neat as a pin. She seemed smaller, though, and more slender than ever. Her hair, in its elegant coiffure, was as white as her lace cap.

“And how,” she asked him, “are your brothers and sisters? I have been informed that Aidan has married a coal miner’s daughter.”

Rannulf grinned. “But even if you were to look ever so closely, Grandmama, with the aid of a lorgnette,”

he said, “you would not be able to detect one speck of coal dust beneath her fingernails. She was raised and educated as a lady.”

“And Bewcastle?” she asked. “Does he show any sign of taking anybody’s daughter to the altar?”

“Wulf?” he said, “Not him. And pity help the woman he decided to offer for. He would freeze her between the bed-sheets.”

“Ha!” his grandmother said. “That is all you know of the appeal of men like Wulfric, Rannulf. And is Freyja still pining for that viscount?”

“Ravensberg? Kit?” he said. “She socked me in the jaw when I suggested that she was, but that was a year ago, when his betrothal to Miss Edgeworth was new, before he married her. Kit and his viscountess are in expectation of an interesting event within the next few months, which may or may not be a painful thing for Freyja. But she does not wear her heart on her sleeve.”

“And how is Alleyne?” she asked. “As handsome as ever?”

“The ladies seem to think so,” he said, grinning.

“And Morgan? Wulfric will be having her brought out soon?”

“Next year when she is eighteen,” he said. “Though she declares she would rather die first.”

“Foolish girl,” she said and paused while a maid carried a tray into the room, curtsied, and withdrew.

The drink was not tea, Rannulf saw with some satisfaction. He helped himself and resumed his seat after his grandmother with one raised hand indicated that she would neither eat nor drink. Ah, the moment of truth had come, he thought with an inward sigh of resignation, sensing that the preliminary courtesies were at an end and she was about to get down to business.

“Aidan is the wise one,” she said, “even if he has chosen a coal miner’s daughter. He must be thirty years old, and it is high time he started setting up his nursery. And you are eight and twenty, Rannulf.”

“A mere fledgling, Grandmama.” He grinned at her.

“I have found someone very eligible for you,” she said. “Her papa is only a baronet, it is true, but it is an old, respected family and there is no shortage of money there. She is as pretty as the day is long and has just been presented this past spring. She is ready to make an advantageous match.”

“Just been presented?” Rannulf frowned. “How old is she?”

“Eighteen,” his grandmother said. “Just the right age for you, Rannulf. She is young enough to be easily molded to your will, and she has most of her breeding years ahead of her.”

“Eighteen!” he said. “A mere infant. I would rather choose someone closer to my own age.”

“But that age has grown so advanced,” she said tartly, “that any woman close to it will be at least halfway through her breeding years. I want to be assured that my property will be secured in you and your line, Rannulf. You have brothers, all of whom I hold in deep affection, but I decided long ago that you were the one.”

“I have years left in which to oblige you,” he said. “You are just a spring chicken, Grandmama.”

“Saucy boy.” She clucked her tongue. “But I do not have forever, Rannulf. Far less than forever, in fact.”

He looked keenly at her, his glass halfway to his lips. “What are you saying?” he asked her.

“Nothing to concern yourself with unduly,” she said briskly. “Merely a little trouble that will doubtless take me eventually, perhaps a few years earlier than if I were forced to wait for old age to take me off.”

His glass was down and he was on his feet before she could hold up a very firm staying hand.

“No,” she said. “I want no sympathy, no soft words, no comfort. It is my life and will be my death and I will deal with both myself, thank you very much. I merely want to see you well married before I go, Rannulf. And perhaps, if you are very dutiful and I am very fortunate, I will see your first son in his cradle before I go.”

“Grandmama.” He raked the fingers of one hand through his hair. He hated to think of his own relatives as mortal. The last time it had been his father, when he was only twelve years old. He closed his eyes as if to shut out what she had clearly implied. She was dying.

“You will like Julianne Effingham,” she said. “She is a pretty little thing. Just your type, I would guess. I know you came here fully intending to shrug off my matchmaking attempts, Rannulf, as you have always done in the past. I know you believe yourself to be quite unready for matrimony. But give it a try, will you, this possibility of a suitable match? For my sake? I ask only that you promise to try, not that you promise to marry her. Promise me?”

He opened his eyes, looked down at her, surely far thinner than she had been when he last saw her, and sighed.

“I promise,” he said. “I’ll promise you the earth and the sun and moon too if you wish.”

“The promise to meet and court Miss Effingham is quite sufficient,” she said. “Thank you, my boy.”

“You must promise me one thing too,” he said.

“What?” she asked.

“Not to die anytime soon.”

She smiled fondly at him.