“And as for you, young man,” she assayed playfully to Donald, tapping him coquettishly on the arm with her intricately painted silk fan. She was dressed in an elegant ballgown of cloud-pink brocade with touches of gold, and even Megan had to admit that she was looking quite beautiful. Donald smiled as foolishly at her as he did at everyone else. “I am sure you are as aware as I am that Weston is likely to be extremely wroth with you. However, you may count on me to stand as your friend. It’s been so long since we were wed, I don’t doubt that he has forgotten just what it is to be young and in love. I will endeavor to remind him, and thus explain to him why you must need announce your engagement so precipitately, instead of referring it to him for approval in the usual way.”
“Th-thank you, ma’am,” Donald said rather doubtfully, beginning to look alarmed at the inevitable prospect of an interview with Weston. The Earl was a dangerous man to cross, and Donald began to feel that announcing his engagement to the Earl’s ward in such a hurly-burly fashion might not have been just the best way to get in on the man’s good side. But Megan had insisted that, if he wanted to marry her, this was the only way to go about it. Weston, it seemed,
was determined not to let her marry for years, and she wanted to marry Donald, oh, so much. Therefore, Donald would have to be as resolute and brave as she knew he was and circumvent Megan’s stern guardian by a public announcement. After such a declaration, there could be no drawing back. The scandal would be ruinous. Donald, infatuated beyond belief and incredulous that this vision of loveliness actually wished to marry him, allowed himself to be persuaded. And it was now too late to alter anything about it. A gentleman could not cry off from an engagement, not that he wanted to, so he would just have to brave Weston’s wrath as best as he could, and hope that the coming close connection between them was enough to keep Weston from calling him out. The Earl was reputed to have a trigger temper and an aim truer than William Tell’s.
“If you will excuse us, Lady Alicia, this set is just forming,” Megan said desperately, spying Justin’s formidable figure approaching. Lady Alicia cast a comprehensive glance over her shoulder, her eyes alight with a combination of malicious enjoyment and triumph.
“Certainly,” she almost purred, and moved with stately grace to meet Justin as Megan practically dragged Donald into the dance.
Donald danced as he did nearly everything else: with mediocrity. Megan smiled and nodded in response to his comments as he led her through the dance, hearing scarcely a single word he said. She was growing more
apprehensive by the second of what Justin’s reaction would be to her engagement. He would be furious, she knew, and since she could not tell him the real reason behind her sudden, urgent desire to marry, she would have to make him think that she had fallen in love with Donald. Acknowledging that Justin knew her and her responses so well, that would be no easy task.
He was waiting for her when she came off the dance floor on Donald’s arm. Megan, with a feeling of inevitability, saw him watching her. She could not avoid him forever, so it might be best to get this initial confrontation over now, while she was protected from the full explosion of his wrath by the presence of so many watching eyes.
Donald’s eyes widened as he saw Justin, and knew that the meeting he was now dreading with all his heart was upon him.
“My—my lord,” he achieved as Justin strolled to meet them, his tall figure intimidating and the slight smile which curved his lips looking more like a snarl. Justin spared him a brief, dismissive glance.
“I shall have plenty to say to you tomorrow,” Justin told him in a gravelly voice, his eyes cold as winter as they flicked on the younger man’s reddening face. “You may call upon me at Weston House at ten o’clock. Megan, my dear, I would like a few words with you NOW, if you please. If, of course,” his glance at Donald was ironic, “Lord Winspear can be persuaded to excuse you.”
Donald nearly swallowed his tongue in his attempts
to assure Justin that he would be only too happy to do so. Justin made no effort to conceal the contempt with which he looked at him, and even Megan threw him an annoyed look. Why couldn’t he show more poise? Justin was reducing him to the status of a wayward schoolboy with little more than a single look from those heavy-lidded eyes.
“If you’ll forgive me, my lord, I prefer to dance,” Megan interrupted Donald’s stammers to stare defiantly at Justin. She clutched Donald’s arm in such a grip that it would fairly have been torn from its socket if he had attempted to leave her. “I’m sure whatever you have to say to me will keep until tomorrow.”
Justin smiled urbanely. Only Megan could read the grim warning in his eyes. “So you prefer to dance, do you, my charming ward?” He purred. “Then of course you shall. I’m sure Winspear here will excuse you to dance with me.”
Justin’s maneuver was so deft that Megan was not sure exactly how he managed to detach her from Donald and steer her onto the dance floor where he pulled her into his arms. The musicians had struck up a waltz; it was only the second time that she had danced it, the first being shortly after her arrival in London, at Almack’s with the permission of the patronesses. For the first few minutes she was so taken up with minding her steps that she could only spare an occasional dagger-glance for Justin. He danced as well as he did nearly everything else, his big body leading her in the graceful turns of the waltz with careless mastery.
“Smile, my own,” he murmured satirically. “Else people might think we’re quarreling.”
Megan looked up at him to see that a polite smile was plastered on the straight mouth. One had to be quite, quite close to see the glittering hardness of his eyes.
“Now why should they think that?” She gave him a smile as blatantly false as his own while their eyes clashed. Being held so close to him in public was playing havoc with her senses; his hard arm around her waist, his large strong hand enfolding her small one, the occasional brush of his thighs against her skirts sent tingles chasing up and down her spine. Three months ago she never would have dreamed that it was possible to feel like this about a man; now she wondered with a sudden sense of despair how she would ever manage to live the rest of her life without him. But for the sake of the child she was carrying, she had no choice. She had to marry quickly, and she could not marry Justin. Lord Donald could secure her child’s future, and her own, in a way that Justin never could even if he wanted to. Donald offered her a life of respectability, and her child a chance to be born and grow up in all honor. Justin could offer only dishonor to them both.
“Suppose you explain yourself, my darling,” Justin said after a moment. At the endearment, Megan’s fingers curled involuntarily into the charcoal gray velvet of his coat. Beneath her hand she could feel the
tensing of his shoulder muscles as he responded to the instinctive movement.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said mendaciously, her eyes flickering away from the slight, false smile that still twisted his mouth. Her head did not quite reach his shoulder, and it was a simple matter to regard the snowy folds of his neckcloth as if she found them fascinating. Simpler by far than looking up to meet those gleaming eyes.
“Don’t you, my own?” Something in the timber of his voice made Megan shiver. He was angry, furiously angry, and he meant her to know it. She dared a quick glance up into his dark face, and saw that his jaw was clenched tightly while his eyes smoldered. That hideous smile was still pinned firmly to his lips. He added, “Then you must allow me to elucidate: What the hell do you mean by allowing that puppy to make such an announcement? It will cause the devil of a dust when I refute it, as I have every intention of doing as soon as I kick his ass all the way back to Lincolnshire.”
Megan smiled at him, and saw his eyes narrow into twin golden slits.
“I love him, Justin,” she said with as much conviction as she could muster. “I mean to marry him.”
“The hell you do!” The exclamation brought several heads swinging in their direction. Justin stared down at her, and Megan noted that, for the moment at least, his face was innocent of that frightening smile.
“You love me,” he added in a hoarse voice. Megan saw hot color stain his high cheekbones. A stab of feeling so intense that it shook her pierced Megan to the heart. It took every ounce of her willpower not to melt against him there and then, to tell him the truth about the child they had made, and beg him to do with her and their child as he would. But her love for the child, growing inside her, stopped her. Justin was a grown man, and would forget her in a little while if she was out of his reach. Her baby would be helpless, dependent upon her for whatever its life would bring. She had to choose the baby, even though the choice threatened to break her heart.
“I have no stomach for being your paramour, Justin,” she answered quickly. His arm tightened around her waist almost convulsively, and for a moment Megan felt the hard muscles of his chest against her breasts before he loosened his grip, allowing her to put a more decorous distance between them.
“Don’t you, my own? If my memory serves me correctly, so far you have managed to stomach it very well indeed. Divinely, in fact.”
Megan looked around, her face coloring a little at the thought of anyone else hearing those sneering words. They would be left in little doubt of what she had been to Justin.
“Would you keep your voice down?” she demanded in a fierce whisper. “You have no right to say such things to me here, of all places.”
“Where would you prefer that I say them to you, my darling? In my bed?”
Megan gasped, and tried to pull away from him, not caring about appearances or anything else except that she put as much distance between herself and Justin as possible. His arm tautened into a steel band as he forced her to continue in the movements of the dance.
“Let me go,” she raged at him, trying her best to pull away. She retained just enough presence of mind to keep her voice low. Justin’s grip did not loosen an iota. Looking up at him furiously, she saw that his eyes were glittering with anger even while that travesty of a smile curled his lips.
“Oh, no, my darling,” he answered softly, and the words seemed to apply to far more than his present unbreakable grip. Megan quivered in his hold, but knew that there was no possible way to break it until he was himself ready to let her go. Justin was a strong man; against him, she was as weak as a baby chick.
They danced silently for some minutes, dipping and swaying and turning in beautiful rhythm while the musicians played the lilting tune. Many eyes were upon the tall, powerfully muscled man, handsome in his formal evening dress despite the rather menacing smile on his face, and the slender, lovely young girl in the satin ballgown. Megan was oblivious to the looks they were receiving; she was conscious only of the proximity of Justin’s beloved body, the familiar
man-smell of him, the achingly pleasurable touch of his arm around her waist. All her bravado threatened to leave her as she felt her full skirts swishing about his long legs, sensed rather than saw the intimacy with which he bent over her.
“So you don’t wish to be my paramour.” There was a quality to the musing statement that brought Megan’s eyes swinging up to his. He did not sound angry, or even particularly mocking. He sounded almost—tender. The violet of her eyes deepened to purple as she stared questioningly into his golden ones.
“What would you say if I asked you to be my wife?”
The question, put in an off-hand manner in that oddly tender tone, made Megan’s heart stop. She blinked at him disbelievingly, wanting what he offered her so much she could have died for it. To be Justin’s wife, to have his baby in all honor, to give it his name and see it grow up under his guidance, that was the stuff of which dreams were made. But, Megan reminded herself with a sudden, painful return to reality that there was one very large obstacle in the way: Lady Alicia, Justin’s wife.
“I would say that I have as little stomach for bigamy as I have for being your paramour,” she responded tartly, tramping ruthlessly on those wayward dreams of hers. This surprised a genuine grin out of Justin.
“You never say the expected thing, do you, my darling?” he asked, still with that slight grin playing
about his handsome mouth. “Is that any way to respond to a gentleman’s proposal of marriage? The proper answer is, I believe, ‘Oh, my lord, this is all so sudden!’ ” His falsetto imitation of a simpering girl’s voice would have made her laugh if she had not been feeling so heartsore.
“When I receive a proper proposal, then perhaps I will return a proper answer.” Megan’s voice was cool. She did not appreciate his mockery.
“What, to your mind, constitutes a proper proposal? Do you want me to go down on my knees?” He was still smiling, Megan saw, but the passion that blazed from his eyes stunned her. He almost looked as if he were serious.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said sharply. “You know perfectly well that you can’t offer me marriage, even if you would. Or have you forgotten your wife?”
“No, I haven’t forgotten Alicia,” Justin said. The golden blaze of his eyes was threatening to make Megan go weak at the knees. “But I could get a divorce. It’s been done before; it’s not impossible.”
“The scandal… ” Megan whispered, wide-eyed. The idea tempted her so much she could have screamed. To be Justin’s wife would be everything she had ever wanted.
“I don’t give a damn about the scandal.” Justin’s hand tightened on hers. “Do you?”
Megan said nothing, just stared up at him, dumbfounded.
“Of course, it would take a while,” he continued
softly. “Maybe several years. Would you wait for me, Megan?”
There it was, the fly in the ointment. Even if he was serious about getting a divorce, even if it could in fact be done, it would take several years. And she didn’t have several years. This baby was going to put in an appearance in a little more than seven months’ time, and unless she married someone quickly it would carry the stigma of bastardy for the whole of its life. For herself, she would have waited for Justin forever, if need be. For her baby, she could not.