Surrender to the Marquess Page 17

  *

  The meal passed in a blur. On one level Sara made unexceptionable conversation first to Lucian on one side, then to the vicar who had been invited for the evening, on the other. Both men were interested in cricket, so it was easy to engage harmlessly with that. On the other level she was wrestling with her feelings for the man sitting so near that she could feel his familiar heat all down her right side.

  All she could think about as dinner wended its way through what seemed like interminable courses was that she must sit down with Lucian, quietly, calmly—without touching—and ask him why he had proposed marriage. He had said he would propose again when they were both dry and this time she hoped that he would explain just why he thought it even likely, let alone a good idea.

  He watches you, Marguerite had said. And you watch him.

  Finally, her mother stood up and led the ladies out to the drawing room where the doors were open to the terrace and the warm evening air. The men joined them after half an hour and people began to stroll outside or break up into small conversational groups around the drawing room.

  Sara joined Lucian as he stood looking at a picture in one corner. ‘I think we can safely escape now.’

  They did so by the simple expedient of going out on to the terrace, then ducking into the dining room and out again into the deserted hall. ‘I like your parents’ approach to a house party,’ Lucian said as they walked slowly along to the far door that led into the library. ‘Very relaxed.’

  ‘I would have thought you would disapprove and expect something more…starched-up.’

  ‘I do not know where you get the impression that I am starched-up,’ Lucian remarked. He turned to face her and bent to snatch a kiss. ‘I would not have thought my behaviour merited that epitaph.’ When she did not answer immediately he asked, ‘Do you think me a hypocrite? I was very strict with Marguerite because she is young and not out. And I strongly disapprove of adultery and of seducing single girls.’

  ‘I am glad to hear it. No, I do not think you a hypocrite and it was unfair to say that about being starched-up. I suppose it is your attitude to duelling. I live in dread of finding that you have called Ashe out over that punch when we arrived.’

  ‘He was within his rights to resent me and to want to protect you.’ Lucian shrugged. ‘I may well return the favour should we find ourselves in the stable yard with no ladies around, but that is different.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it is. You would thump each other black and blue and emerge firm friends, I suppose. The masculine mind never ceases to amaze me.’ She was still shaking her head and laughing as Lucian opened the door into the study for her to step inside.

  The room was unlit, except for the two lamps left burning on the side tables, but the curtains were still drawn open and there was more than enough light for Sara to see the young man who started up from the comfortable old leather sofa that stood with its back to the door.

  He had obviously been lying on the sofa and what he was doing there was all too obvious from his open shirt, missing neckcloth and tousled hair. Gregory?

  There was a muffled shriek and Marguerite sat up beside him, clutching the bodice of her gown to her half-exposed bosom. Behind Sara Lucian said, ‘What is wrong?’ She could feel him pressing close as he tried to see past her as she blocked the way.

  Sara was about to close the door on them and at least allow them to get themselves decent before Lucian got his hands around Gregory’s throat when there was the sound of footsteps.

  ‘I am sure Eldonstone has a good globe or an atlas in the library. I can show you exactly where my nephew Alfred is posted in India, Marjorie dear.’

  Lady Thale. Sara whirled around, pulled the door to and leaned back against it, giving the panels a painful warning thump with her elbow while she was about it. If those two inside had not managed to escape through the window by now they would have to take their chances.

  ‘Kiss me.’

  ‘What? Here? Now?’

  ‘Kiss me. This is an emergency.’ She could not wait for any further protests—or to worry about what happened next—the two ladies would come around the corner at any moment. Sara threw her arms around Lucian’s neck, pulled his head down and kissed him with fierce determination.

  From behind them as they stood embracing there was a shriek, then, ‘Lady Sara! Lord Cannock?’

  Sara untangled herself from Lucian as slowly as possible, ‘Lady Thale, Mrs Montrum—oh, my!’ She managed a flustered, fluttering gesture that was only partly play-acting. What had she done? ‘Oh, you must be shocked, but believe me, you are the first to know our secret.’ She beamed at them and kicked Lucian on the ankle as she clutched his arm. ‘Lucian… Lord Cannock, I should say, is just on his way to speak to Papa.’ Under her hand she felt his muscles tense like iron.

  ‘A betrothal!’ Mrs Montrum advanced on them, hands outstretched. ‘What a marvellous union, so suitable in every way. Now, you are a very naughty fellow, Lord Cannock, but one cannot be too critical of a young man in love, can one? Not when he has such honourable intentions.’

  ‘You may rely on us to look suitably surprised and delighted when the news is announced,’ Lady Thale added, nodding approval. ‘Come along, Marjorie, we will go and consult the atlas while we recover from the excitement. It would not do to return to the drawing room and betray this little secret, now would it?’

  ‘So kind,’ Lucian murmured, opening the door for them.

  Sara held her breath, but there was no shriek of horror, so Gregory and Marguerite must have made their escape and managed not to leave any incriminating items of clothing behind them in the process.

  ‘What was that about?’ Lucian demanded, towing her none too gently back along the corridor and into the empty dining room. ‘Why did you kiss me—and kick me? And why the sudden change of mind about marriage? Not that I am not delighted that you have come to see it as I do—’

  ‘I have not changed my mind, but it was the only thing I could think of on the spur of the moment.’ Could I have done something different? Fainted? Have I only created an even worse problem? ‘Gregory and Marguerite were in the library.’

  She apparently did not need to draw him a diagram. ‘How bad was it?’ Lucian demanded.

  ‘Bad enough. They still had some clothes on.’

  ‘I will kill him, I swear it.’ His fists were clenched and Sara could well believe it. ‘We go to all this trouble, impose on your parents, gatecrash a party and the blo—confounded fool can’t keep his breeches buttoned for a week.’

  ‘Killing him is not going to help and you know it.’ Sara kept her back to the door, even so. ‘I strongly suspect Marguerite is leading him about by the…er…nose, as it were, and he is almost as young, and, I suspect, as inexperienced, as she is. I am sorry about telling Mrs Montrum and Lady Thale that we were betrothed, but I do draw the line at ruining my own reputation with two of the biggest gossips of the ton. We can always decide we do not suit after a week or so.’

  ‘Why should we do that?’ Lucian enquired. He rested one hip against the sideboard and folded his arms. At least, she thought, he was not bent on murder any longer. ‘If we had got inside the library just now, I fully intended asking you to marry me again and doing it properly this time.’

  ‘And I fully intended asking you why you would ever think of such a thing,’ Sara retorted. ‘One minute you are more than happy for us to be lovers, the next you are proposing to marry me.’

  ‘It occurred to me that I would be driven to drink by some sweet little innocent no older than my sister and with probably even less sense. You, on the other hand, have a great deal of sense and would make a very suitable wife.’

  How very flattening. It was wonderful to find a man who valued sense, flattering that he attributed some to her, but even so, the most practical young lady wanted something rather less prosaic and more passionate in a proposal. Sara did not point that out: she did not need him spouting romantic nonsense he did not believe.

/>   ‘We would drive each other mad within days. I need my freedom, Lucian, and that includes the freedom to do things that you will not find suitable for your wife. I know what a good marriage is like and I do not want to settle for second best.’ That was probably not the most tactful way to put it and Sara realised it as soon as the words were out of her mouth. ‘I mean, the marriage would be second-best, not that you would be.’

  ‘So I am good enough to sleep with, but not to marry?’ Lucian enquired coldly.

  Chapter Seventeen

  ‘It is not a question of good enough, you exasperating man! Being lovers and being husband and wife are two very different things.’

  ‘A married couple cannot be lovers? I suspect that you are thinking with your emotions, Sara, not working this through and considering the benefits.’

  ‘Of all the patronising things to say, Lucian Avery.’ She pushed away from the door and took one furious step towards him before caution stopped her where she was. Too close and they might well end up kissing again and that simply turned her brain to pottage. He had made it very clear that he wanted marriage for three reasons—one, he desired her, two, she was suitable and, finally, by needing no courtship she would save him a great deal of trouble and effort. ‘Marriage should involve emotions. I do not want some coldly calculated suitable match, I want a marriage of friends, of lovers, of shared interests and passions. Of equals.’

  ‘Men and women can never be equal, we are different.’ He straightened up, too, and came to stand in front of her, reached for her and drew her, stiff but unresisting, into his arms. ‘Delightfully different.’

  ‘I had noticed.’

  Sara resisted the temptation to rest her forehead on his chest. Just because marriage to Lucian would be a disaster it did not stop her wanting him, stop her wishing it could work.

  She tried to explain. ‘Men are usually larger and stronger, women have different anatomies with all the consequences of that, but everything else is simply differences we allow to exist or which society imposes. Gentlemen normally get a better education, so of course you are often better informed and have a firmer grasp of many subjects. Men are allowed freedoms that women are not, so you can become fitter, more adventurous, can travel more widely, have a say in political affairs. But…’ She paused to draw breath. At least he hadn’t begun arguing yet.

  ‘I have a good education, thanks to my parents’ enlightened views, and I have built on that. I know that as a woman there are limits on what I can do in public, I know I have no vote and no power. But I do have a brain and I do have opinions and I must and will decide how I live my life. If I married you we would constantly be at odds. You would want to decide everything, you would be mortified if I behaved unconventionally, you would never believe I could stand up for myself if I was attacked, physically or verbally.’

  ‘Marriage is a compromise, I imagine. Your experience of that is greater than mine.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sara agreed cautiously. She had expected a flat rejection of what she had said, not talk of compromise. ‘Yes, even when you believe you are in accord, there are still compromises to be made.’

  ‘If I promised equal decision-making in all aspects of our life together, promised to discuss everything fully with you and to take your opinions seriously, would you compromise by being at least as conventional a marchioness as your mother is and allowing me to leap to your defence whenever you are threatened or slighted? If we could agree on that, would that help you to decide? You are a woman of courage, Sara. Take a risk, follow your instincts.’

  I love him, I desire him, I like him. Is that enough to risk the rest of my life on? Marrying Michael was so…safe. No doubts, no real compromises, an escape from a world that was alien and where I did not fit in. Now…I could cope with that world. Was I timorous before when I thought I was brave and bold? What are my instincts telling me? If I say yes, this is for the rest of our lives.

  Lucian took half a step back as though to reassure her that he was not pressuring her. ‘Stop biting that beautiful lower lip of yours,’ he chided. ‘Or I will have to kiss it better.’

  She came up on tiptoe and leaned in to press her lips to his. I love you. Is that enough? It felt right. Right but frightening. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes?’ Lucian caught her up, whirled her round and spun down the length of the room with her laughing, clutching at his shoulders.

  This was such a different man from the one she had first met. He is happy, she realised. The thought of marrying me makes him happy. He set her on her feet at last, both of them laughing. Sara felt slightly weak at the knees, perhaps from the spinning, perhaps from the decision she had made.

  ‘I must go and find your father before those two old hens cannot resist cackling their secret. But first, I need to find Marguerite and knock some sense into the pair of them.’

  Not literally, she sincerely hoped. He would never lift a finger to his sister, but Gregory was battered enough. ‘If you go and find Papa, I will locate Marguerite and give them both a trimming. I know I have no standing yet—but perhaps as your betrothed I might be allowed to help with this?’

  ‘With my abiding gratitude,’ Lucian said. ‘Tell Farnsworth he is within an inch of a horsewhipping now and if he steps out of line one more time I will not hold back.’

  Sara ran upstairs. She had no great hope of finding Marguerite in her bedchamber and was not disappointed when the room was empty. Nor was there anyone in Gregory’s bedchamber. Cursing that she was going to have to search the entire house for them, and then probably find they had taken refuge in the summerhouse, Sara went to her own suite to repair the damage that Lucian’s kisses had doubtless created. When she pushed open the door to her sitting room the two young lovers were there, one each side of the cold hearth as though a respectable distance might make things better.

  Sara closed the door and advanced on them. ‘Thank goodness I have found you. What did you think you were about? Gregory, you know perfectly well that this is our one chance to safeguard Marguerite’s reputation and have your early marriage accepted without gossip. Have you any idea how close you came to being discovered by two of society’s most avid tattlemongers?’

  ‘It was my fault,’ Marguerite admitted, waving aside Gregory’s protests. ‘I suggested we discuss tactics and we were, honestly, Sara. Just talking. Gregory had been working in the library earlier and we decided that if he pretended to go back after dinner I could discover him and be shocked and lecture Lucian about it in public and everyone would see that I was becoming emotionally involved with Gregory and then he would come in and I would fly to his side and he would take my hand and…’ She shrugged. ‘We would play it by ear, but I think by the time we had finished Lucian would have had to take us both away to discuss Gregory’s intentions and everything would be perfect.’

  ‘And I kissed her because it was such a good idea and to give her courage before she went back to the drawing room for the big scene. And it got out of hand,’ Gregory confessed, looking as hang-dog as a young man with a piratical scar and eyepatch could.

  Was I ever this young? Sara wondered. And yet these two had conceived a child together and had survived weeks on the Continent and, if it had not been for the accident, might well have begun married life in a respectable, if humble, manner.

  ‘I do not think tonight would be a good night for the plan, but you might try it, say, the day after tomorrow. Another day of being seen to fret over Gregory’s well-being and “helping” him would make it more convincing,’ Sara suggested. ‘And let us pray it succeeds, because I, for one, cannot stand the strain on my nerves much longer.’ And the guests would think that Lucian’s happiness over his own betrothal had made him soft-hearted towards the young lovers if he gave his consent once her own betrothal was known.

  ‘Marguerite, I suggest you go back down to the drawing room. Gregory, a strategic retreat to your bedchamber is in order and I advise you to avoid being alone with Lord Cannock tomorrow—he was muttering ab
out horsewhips when I last saw him.’

  *

  Lucian gave his appearance a hasty check in the hall mirror, ran a hand through his hair and straightened his neckcloth under the interested gaze of a passing footman before braving the drawing room again. His heart was thumping and he realised he had not felt this nervous since he was a raw youth. Sara had agreed to marry him. He should be delighted. He was delighted—she was everything he needed, had hoped for, in a wife. But there was a nagging doubt now where before there had simply been certainty. Did she need more than he could give her? Could he live up to the expectations of this complicated woman? Marriage was for life and it would change their lives for ever.

  Lucian gave himself a brisk mental shake. He knew what he wanted and Sara was no green girl who did not know her own mind. He strode into the drawing room and found his quarry was standing, one foot on the fender, glass of port in his hand, arguing the rival merits of snipe, woodcock and grouse as game birds with a group of the male guests.

  Lucian waited for a lull in the conversation. ‘Might I have a word, Eldonstone?’

  Sara’s father turned, one grizzled eyebrow raised. ‘Of course. My study?’

  ‘If you don’t mind, sir.’

  When they were alone Sara’s father waved Lucian to a chair. ‘Port? Brandy?’

  ‘Brandy, if you please.’ There was no cause to feel that knot in his gut. He was an excellent match for Sara and there was, surely, no reason to fear her father’s approval would be withheld. Not that he needed it with a widow who was of age, but it would distress her immeasurably if her family were hostile.

  ‘I have come to ask your blessing,’ he said as the older man handed him the glass. ‘I have asked Sara to marry me and she has very graciously consented.’

  ‘Have you, by God?’ Eldonstone sat down. His expression was impossible to read.