Slightly Wicked (23 page)

“I tried very hard not to let this happen,” he told her.

“I know.” She smiled again. “I’ll never blame you. Not for anything.”

He took her hands then, raised them and crossed them above her head, laced his fingers with hers, and lowered all his weight onto her. Her legs, he realized, were twined about his. He worked in her with deep, rhythmic strokes, reveling in her soft, wet heat encasing him, thankful for her initial relaxation, even more thankful for the way she took up his rhythm after a while, pulsing about him with inner muscles, drawing him toward what would be a powerful and powerfully satisfying climax.

He moved his head and kissed her.

“Come with me,” he said.

“Yes.”

It was the only time it had happened in his life, he realized, he and his woman cresting the tide of passion together, crying out together, descending into satiety and peace together. He felt blessed beyond words.

He lifted himself off her, took her hand in his, and drifted off to sleep for a few minutes. When he opened his eyes again, it was to find that her head was turned toward him. She was looking at him with a half-smile. She looked flushed, contented, and utterly beautiful.

“Well, that settles something,” he said, squeezing her hand. “After this business is all over and settled, we are getting married.”

“No,” she said. “That was not entrapment, Rannulf.”

His eyebrows snapped together in a frown.

“What
was
it exactly?” he asked.

“I am not sure,” she said. “There has been some . . . madness between us in the last few days. I cannot presume to know why you wished to call on me yesterday morning, but I can guess. It would have been a dreadful mistake. I might have said yes, you see.”

What the devil?

“Saying yes would have been a mistake?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “Look at us, Rannulf. We are so far apart on the social scale that even in the best of circumstances a match between us would be considerably frowned upon. But these are not the best of circumstances. Even if Branwell did not steal all that jewelry and even if he and I can be cleared of all blame, he is still in disgrace, and we are still poor. I grew up in a country rectory, you in a duke’s mansion. I could never fit into your world, and you could never stoop to mine.”

“Do you not believe in love as the great equalizer?” he asked. He could hardly believe that he, Rannulf Bedwyn, was actually asking such a question.

“No.” She shook her head. “Besides, there is no real love. Only some liking, I believe, and some . . . some lust.” Her eyes held his.

“That was why this just happened?” he asked her. “It was just lust?”

For the merest moment her glance wavered.

“And liking,” she said. “We
do
like each other, do we not?”

He sat up on the edge of the bed and buttoned up the flap of his breeches. “I do not usually bed women simply because I like them,” he said.

“But there is also the lust,” she said. “The mutual lust. You found it hard to lie in bed with me, Rannulf, without touching me. I found it hard too. Lust is not something only men feel.”

He did not know whether to be furiously angry or to laugh. If he could ever have predicted this conversation, it would have been with their roles reversed.
He
would have been the one carefully deflecting any suggestion that it had been a love encounter and not simply sex.

“I take it we are done sleeping,” he said, getting to his feet. “Get dressed, Judith, while I see about hiring a carriage for the rest of our journey. And do
not
run away this time.”

“I won’t,” she promised.

         I
t was late afternoon by the time they reached London. They had exchanged no more than a dozen sentences all day. Judith had had one more bleakness to add to all her other worries.

She could not marry him. She had almost been seduced by madness a couple of days ago. It had seemed almost possible. But no longer. No, she could never marry him. Nevertheless she was glad the events of the past week had at least enabled her to like him and to admire his nobler qualities—and they were many. She was glad of this morning. She was glad she loved him. Her stolen dream had been restored to her and would surely sustain her for a lifetime once the pain was over. There was going to be pain, she knew.

She had never been to London before. She knew it was large, but she had never dreamed that any urban area could be this large. It seemed to go on forever and ever. The streets were all lined with buildings and crowded with people and vehicles and the noises of wheels and horses and people shouting. Any wonder she might have felt was quickly submerged beneath terror.

However was she going to find Branwell?

She had, she supposed, expected that she would simply stop at some inn or other public building, ask for directions to his lodgings, and follow them without any trouble at all—and all within a few minutes of her arrival in London.

“Does it ever end?” she asked foolishly.

“London?” he said. “It is not my favorite place in the world. Unfortunately one sees the worst of it first. You will find Mayfair quieter and cleaner and more spacious than this.”

“Is that the area where Branwell lives?” she asked. “Will we find him at home, do you suppose?”

“Probably not,” he said. “Gentlemen do not usually spend much of their time in their rooms.”

“I hope he comes home sometime this evening,” she said, all of yesterday’s anxiety returning in full force again. “Whatever will I do if he does not? Will his landlord allow me to wait in his rooms, do you think?”

“He would probably have an apoplexy if you were even to suggest it,” he said. “It is not the thing for young ladies to call upon young gentlemen, accompanied only by another gentleman, you know.”

“But I am his sister.” She looked at him in amazement.

“I daresay,” he said, “landlords meet any number of
sisters
.”

She stared at him, speechless for a minute.

“What will I do if I cannot see him today?” she asked. “I cannot ask you to sit outside his rooms all night in the carriage. I—”

“I am not taking you to his rooms,” he said. “I’ll go there alone some other time.”

“What?” She looked at him in incomprehension.

“I am taking you to my brother’s,” he said. “To Bedwyn House.”

“To the Duke of Bewcastle’s?”
She stared at him in horror.

“Bewcastle and Alleyne may be the only ones in residence,” he said, “in which case I’ll have to think of somewhere else to take you—my Aunt Rochester’s probably, though she is something of a dragon and would have your head for breakfast if you did not stand up to her.”

“I am not going to the Duke of Bewcastle’s,” she said, aghast. “I came here to find Branwell.”

“And find him we will,” he said, “if indeed he came to London. But you are
in London
now, Judith. This is the height of impropriety, our riding alone together in a carriage without any maid or chaperon. But it will be the last such impropriety while you are here. I have my reputation to think about, you know.”

“How absurd,” she said. “How absolutely absurd. If you will not take me to Bran, then set me down and I will find my own way there.”

He looked maddeningly cool. He was slightly slouched down in the seat, one booted foot propped against the seat opposite. And he had the gall to grin at her.

“You are afraid,” he said. “Afraid of facing Bewcastle.”

“I am
not
.” She was mortally afraid.

“Liar.”

The carriage lurched to a halt as she was drawing breath to make a sharp retort. She glanced beyond the window and realized that they were indeed in a quieter, grander part of London. There were tall, stately buildings on her side of the carriage, a small park on the other, more buildings beyond it. It must be one of London’s squares! The door opened and the coachman busied himself setting down the steps.

“This is
Bedwyn House
?” she asked.

He merely grinned at her again, vaulted out of the carriage, and reached up a hand to help her out.

She was wearing a shapeless cotton dress that had been folded inside her bag all day yesterday and worn inside a carriage all day today. She had not brushed or replaited her hair since this morning. It had been squashed beneath her bonnet all day. She must look an absolute fright. Besides all of which she was Judith Law from the rectory at Beaconsfield, fugitive and suspected thief, on her way to meet a duke.

The door was open by the time she alighted from the carriage. A moment later a very stately looking butler was informing Lord Rannulf that his grace was indeed at home and was in the drawing room. He led the way up a grand staircase. Judith thought her knees might well have buckled under her if she had not just been called a liar when she had claimed not to be afraid and if Rannulf’s hand had not been beneath one of her elbows.

A footman opened a set of huge double doors as they appeared at the top of the staircase, and the butler stepped between them.

“Lord Rannulf Bedwyn, your grace,” he announced. His eyes had alit on Judith downstairs for one brief moment but had not drifted her way since.

Horror of horrors, Judith saw as she was led through the doors, the room had more than one occupant. There were four to be exact, two men and two women.

“Ralf, old fellow,” one of the men said, jumping immediately to his feet, “are you back already? Did you escape Grandmama’s clutches intact yet again?” He stopped abruptly when he saw Judith.

He was a tall, slender, dark, remarkably handsome young man, only his prominent nose identifying him as Rannulf’s brother. One of the ladies, a very young, very beautiful one, looked very much like him. The other lady was fair, like Rannulf, with long, curly hair worn loose. Like him she was dark-complexioned and dark-browed and big-nosed.

They were fleeting impressions. Judith studiously kept her eyes from the other man, who was just then rising to his feet. Even without looking at him she could sense that he was the duke.

“Rannulf?” he said with soft hauteur, sending shivers of apprehension along Judith’s spine.

She looked at him to find that he was looking directly back at her, his eyebrows raised, a quizzing glass in one long-fingered hand and half raised to his eye. He was dark and slender like the younger brother, with the family nose and eyes of such a pale gray that it might be more accurate to describe them as silver. His face was cold and haughty, apparently without any humanity. He looked, in fact, much as Judith had expected him to look. He was, after all, the Duke of Bewcastle.

“I have the honor of presenting Miss Judith Law,” Rannulf said, his hand tightening about her elbow. “My sisters, Miss Law—Freyja and Morgan. And my brothers, Bewcastle and Alleyne.”

The ladies looked at her with haughty disdain, Judith thought as she curtsied. The younger brother was looking her over slowly with pursed lips, obvious appreciation in his eyes.

“Miss Law,” he said. “This is a pleasure.”

“Ma’am,” the duke said more distantly. His eyes had moved to his brother. “Doubtless you left Miss Law’s maid downstairs, Rannulf?”

“There is no such person,” Rannulf said, releasing her arm. “Miss Law ran away from Harewood Grange near Grandmaison after being accused of robbing her own grandmother, and I rode after her. We have to find her brother, who may have the jewels but probably does not. In the meantime she must stay here. I am delighted to find that Freyja and Morgan have come up from Lindsey Hall so that I don’t have to take her to Aunt Rochester’s.”

“Oh, I say,” Lord Alleyne said. “Cloak and dagger stuff, Ralf? How splendid!”

“Miss Law,” the Duke of Bewcastle said, his voice so soft and cold that she was surprised the air did not freeze into icicles about his head, “welcome to Bedwyn House.”

CHAPTER XX

         D
oubtless,” Wulfric, Duke of Bewcastle said, one hand spread elegantly about the bowl of his brandy glass, the other loosely holding the handle of his quizzing glass, “you are about to explain, Rannulf, why I am playing host to a suspected jewel thief, who also happens to be young, female, and unchaperoned?”

“And also well above the ordinary in the looks department,” Alleyne added, grinning. “There you probably have explanation enough, Wulf.”

Bewcastle had invited Rannulf to follow him to the library after the housekeeper had been summoned to show Judith to a guest room. Such invitations were rarely issued for purely social purposes. Alleyne had come along too, uninvited. His eldest brother ignored him now and focused his languid attention on Rannulf—though the pose was deceptive. He was, as usual, keen-eyed.

“She is Judith Law, niece of Sir George Effingham, Grandmama’s neighbor,” Rannulf explained. “She was living there at Harewood Grange as a sort of companion to Lady Effingham’s mother, her own grandmother. There has been a house party there for the past two weeks. Miss Law’s brother was a guest—a young jackanapes who lives a life of expensive idleness, well beyond the means provided him by his father, a country rector. My guess is that the family is very close to being ruined.”

“Miss Law, then,” Wulfric said after sipping his brandy, “was a poor relation at Harewood. Her brother is up to his neck in debt. And their grandmother owns—or owned—expensive jewels.”

“They disappeared during a ball,” Rannulf said. “So did Branwell Law. And one piece of jewelry as well as an empty velvet bag that usually held the most expensive jewels were found in Miss Law’s room.”

“Incriminating indeed,” Wulfric said softly, raising his eyebrows.

“Too incriminating,” Rannulf said. “Even the rawest of amateurs could have done better.”

“Oh, I say,” Alleyne said cheerfully, “someone set them up for a fall. Some dastardly villain. Do you have any idea who, Ralf?”

The duke turned toward him, his glass halfway to his eye. “We will not turn this into a farcical melodrama if you please, Alleyne,” he said.

“But he is almost right,” Rannulf told him. “Horace Effingham, Sir George’s son, tried to force himself on Miss Law during a garden party at Grandmaison a week or so ago. He would have succeeded too if I had not happened along just in time and given him a bit of a thrashing. On the night of the ball he attempted revenge by almost trapping me into compromising his sister and being forced to offer for her—Miss Law saved me from that fate. It was during the same ball that young Law abruptly left Harewood and Mrs. Law’s jewels disappeared.”

“Splendid stuff,” Alleyne said. “And while all that excitement was going on in Leicestershire, I have been stuck here shepherding Morgan about to see all the famous sights.”

Wulfric had released his hold on his quizzing glass. He was pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and middle finger, his eyes closed.

“And so Miss Law ran away and you followed after,” he said. “When was that, Rannulf?”

“Yesterday,” his brother said.

“Ah.” Wulfric removed his hand and opened his eyes. “And dare one ask where you stayed last night?”

“At a posting inn.” Rannulf’s eyes narrowed. “Look, Wulf, if this is an interrogation into my—”

His brother held up his hand and Rannulf fell silent. One tended to do that with Wulf, he thought, irritated with himself. A single gesture—even the simple raising of an eyebrow would do it—and Bewcastle commanded his world.

“You have not considered,” Wulfric asked, “the possibility of a clever trap, Rannulf? That perhaps the lady is poor, greedy,
and
ambitious?”

“If you have any other observations of that nature,” Rannulf said, sitting forward in his chair, his hands on the arms, “you had better keep them to yourself, Wulf, if you do not want to be looking for your teeth a moment after.”

“Oh, bravo!” Alleyne exclaimed admiringly.

Wulfric merely curled his fingers lightly about the handle of his quizzing glass and raised his eyebrows.

“I take it,” he said, “that you are enamored of the lady? The daughter of an impoverished, soon to be ruined, country clergyman? Red hair and certain, ah, generous endowments have turned your head? Infatuation does tend to have a blinding effect on the rational mind, Rannulf. Can you be quite sure you have not been so blinded?”

“Horace Effingham volunteered to pursue the Laws to London,” Rannulf said. “My guess is that apprehending them will not be good enough for him. He will want to find evidence that will prove beyond all doubt that they are the thieves.”

“If he intends to plant it, we will thwart him,” Alleyne said. “I know him by sight, Ralf—a toothy, oily individual, right? I am delighted to discover that he is a villainous cur. I say, life has brightened considerably since this morning.”

Wulfric was pinching the bridge of his nose again.

“What I need to do,” Rannulf said, “is find Branwell Law. I doubt he is in his rooms at this time of day. He is more likely out somewhere trying to make his fortune on the turn of a card. But I’ll go around there anyway to see.”

“That is what servants are for,” Wulfric said. “It is almost dinnertime, Rannulf. Miss Law will doubtless feel even more uncomfortable than she did earlier if you are absent from the table. I will have a servant sent around, and if he is at home, you may go there in person later.”

“She is determined to go there herself,” Rannulf said.

“Then she must be dissuaded from doing so,” Wulfric said. “How is our grandmother?”

Rannulf sat back in his chair. “Dying,” he said.

Both his brothers gave him their full attention.

“She will not talk about it,” he said. “She is as elegant, as independent, as active as ever. But she is clearly very ill indeed. Dying, in fact.”

“You did not speak with her physician?” Wulfric asked.

Rannulf shook his head. “It would have been an invasion of her privacy.”

“Poor Grandmama,” Alleyne said. “She has always seemed immortal.”

“This business with Miss Law, then,” Wulfric said, “must be cleared up without delay. Our grandmother will need you back there at Grandmaison, Rannulf. And I will want to see her once more. The bride she has chosen for you is perhaps the Miss Effingham you referred to? The family is of respectable, though not brilliant, lineage.”

“She has changed her mind,” Rannulf said. “Grandmama, I mean. And she knew I was coming after Judith.”

“Judith?”
his brother said softly, his eyebrows rising again. “Our grandmother approves of her? Normally I have great respect for her judgment.”

But not for his brother’s? Rannulf thought ruefully. He got to his feet.

“I’ll send a servant,” he said.

J
udith was up early the following morning, though she had slept surprisingly well all night. The guest room assigned to her was one of opulent splendor. It even had a spacious dressing room attached to it. The large four-poster bed was soft and comfortable and smelled faintly of lavender. Even so, she had not expected to sleep.

Being at Bedwyn House was surely the most embarrassing experience of her life. Lord Rannulf’s brothers and sisters had all been perfectly well mannered during dinner and the hour in the drawing room that had followed it. But she had felt very far out of her depth. The thought of leaving her room this morning was daunting indeed.

Branwell had not been found. A servant had been sent around to his rooms last night, but he had not been there. When she had said that she would go in person this morning, the Duke of Bewcastle had raised his quizzing glass to his eye, Lord Rannulf had told her it would not be at all the thing, and Lord Alleyne had smiled at her and advised her to leave all to Rannulf. It was not what she had come here to do. But if the thought of leaving her room was daunting, the thought of leaving Bedwyn House was doubly so.

Fifteen minutes after getting out of bed, Judith was on her way downstairs to the breakfast room, wearing a dress that one of the servants must have ironed during the night. She braced herself to meet the whole family again, but the room was empty, she discovered with great relief, except for the butler, who bowed to her from beside the sideboard and then suggested what she might like to eat from a dizzying array of warming dishes. He poured her a cup of coffee after she had sat down.

It was a relief to be alone, but she was going to have to go in search of Lord Rannulf after breakfast. She needed him to direct her to Branwell’s lodgings. She hoped he would accompany her there too.

She was not to remain alone for long. Before she had taken more than a few bites, the door opened to admit Lady Freyja and Lady Morgan, both dressed in elegant riding habits. Judith was terrified of both of them—and thoroughly despised herself for being awed by aristocratic arrogance.

“Good morning,” she said.

They returned her greeting and busied themselves at the sideboard.

“You have been out riding?” Judith asked politely when they seated themselves.

“In Hyde Park,” Lady Freyja said. “It is insipid exercise after having the whole of the park at Lindsey Hall to gallop about until a few days ago as well as the countryside beyond it.”

“You were the one who insisted that I wanted to come to town, Free,” Lady Morgan said, “even though I protested.”

“Because I wanted you to see some of the sights,” Lady Freyja said, “and rescue you from the schoolroom and Miss Cowper’s clutches for a week or two.”

“Nonsense!” her sister said. “We both know
that
was not the reason. Miss Law, I
do
wish I had your color hair. You must be the envy of all your acquaintance.”

“Thank you,” Judith said, surprised. She had been feeling embarrassed that she had no cap to wear. “Did Lord Rannulf ride with you? I am waiting for him to escort me to my brother’s lodgings this morning. I hope to be able to begin my journey home this afternoon.” Though how she was going to get there she did not know. She would have to beg the stagecoach fare from Rannulf, she supposed.

“Ah, yes,” Lady Freyja said. “I was to tell you when I returned that you are not to worry your head about a thing, that Ralf will take care of it all for you.”

Judith jumped to her feet, scraping back her chair with her knees. “But Branwell is
my
brother,” she said. “Finding him is
my
concern, not Lord Rannulf’s. I will
not
stay here like a good little girl, not worrying my empty little woman’s head, letting a
man
take care of my business for me. I am going to find Bran whether there is someone here to direct me to his lodgings or not. And I do not
care
that it is not the thing for a lady to call upon a gentleman alone in London. How absurd when the gentleman is her own brother. Excuse me, please.”

She was not given to displays of temper, but the sense of helplessness that had dogged her ever since she arrived at Harewood almost three weeks ago was finally too, too much.

“Oh, splendid!” Lady Freyja exclaimed, looking at her with rather surprised approval. “I have done you an injustice, Miss Law—at least, I sincerely hope I have. I took you for an abject clinging vine. But you are a woman after my own heart, I see. Men can be the most ridiculous creatures, especially
gentlemen
with their archaic notions of gallantry to ladies. I’ll come with you.”

“So will I,” Lady Morgan said eagerly.

Her sister frowned at her. “You had better not, Morgan,” she said. “Wulf would have my head. It was bad enough that I brought you to London without consulting him first. His voice was so quiet when I went to the library on his summons that it was almost a whisper. I
hate
it when he does that, especially when I cannot restrain myself from yelling back at him. It puts one at
such
a disadvantage—as he well knows. No, you really must stay at home.”

“There is no need for either of you to accompany me,” Judith said hastily. “I do not need a chaperon.”

“Oh, but I could not possibly deprive myself of the fun of calling at a gentleman’s lodging,” Lady Freyja assured her, setting her napkin beside her half-empty plate and getting to her feet. “Especially when there are stolen jewels and avengers in hot pursuit to add to the excitement.”

“Wulf will have your head anyway, Free,” Lady Morgan predicted.

Judith and Lady Freyja set out from Bedwyn House a short while later. They walked until they were well away from the square, and then Lady Freyja hailed a hackney cab and gave the driver Branwell’s address.

Judith found herself intrigued by her companion. Lady Freyja Bedwyn was dressed now in a smart green walking dress, her fair hair piled up beneath a fetching hat that Judith guessed must be in the very newest fashion. She was a small woman, and should have been ugly with her incongruously dark eyebrows, dark complexion, and prominent nose. But there was something that rescued her face from ugliness—an unconscious arrogance, a certain strength of character. She might almost be called handsome.