The Harem Bride (3 page)

“
Then send whatever footman is on his
feet,” Lord Rocksley barked. “My guests are to be gone as quickly
as they can crawl out of their beds. Mrs. Wilton may feed any who
have the stomach for food, and then they are to be off. The party
is over.” Weakly, the earl wiggled his fingers to indicate his
orders were not yet finished. “What is the hour?” he
asked.

“
Gone eleven, my lord.”

Jason sighed, gritted his teeth. The frown
lines on his noble forehead deepened. “Kirby, you will inform Miss
Blayne that I will see her in my study at one o’clock. See that
Mrs. Wilton provides Miss Blayne and her maid with whatever food or
other comforts they desire, but under no circumstances are they to
leave their room until the time of our appointment. And since it is
doubtful all our guests will be departed by that time, see that a
footman, not one of the maids, accompanies Miss Blayne to my study.
Is that clear?”

“
Perfectly, my lord,” intoned the most
proper Daniel Kirby. “Does my lord have any further
orders?”

“
Go.” Jason waved an impatient hand,
shooing his valet out the door.

“
So,” breathed Gant Deveny as the valet
left the room, “can it be that the most notorious rake in
the
ton
is actually
married
?”

“
I suppose it never occurred to you
that my orders for my guests to leave included you?”

“
Not a bit of it,” said Lord Brawley,
serenely. “I suspect you are in need of as much support as you can
get. That is what true friends are for, are they not?”

Lord Rocksley told his closest friend
precisely what he could do with his offer of support.

“
Now, now, dear boy, no need to get
twitty. You can’t blame me for being fascinated. We have been
acquainted how long? Seven years, eight? And not one word about a
wife hidden about in the bushes. I am agog, old chap, simply
agog.”

“
Then may you strangle on your
curiosity, for I shall not assuage it!” With a great heave, Jason
sat up, dangling his feet off the side of the high four-poster, his
arms stiff, clutching the bedcovers on either side for support. He
forced back the bile rising in his throat, then swore, most
colorfully.

“
Perhaps I should speak to Miss Blayne
. . . or should I say, Lady Rocksley,” Lord Brawley offered, lips
twitching, his fine hazel eyes dancing with amusement.

“
Take yourself off,” the earl growled.
“Perhaps by tea time I shall be able to appreciate what you find so
humorous in this situation, but at the moment I wish you in
Hades.”

Gant Deveny grinned outright. As he left, he
proffered a wave of his hand so audacious, Jason picked a
candlestick off the bedtable and flung it after him. Fortunately
for the fine Persian carpet, it was not lit.

The earl and his guests were not the
only late risers at Rockbourne Crest. Miss Penelope Blayne,
exhausted by her journey across England from her home—Miss
Cassandra Pemberton’s
former
home—in Kent, also awakened late. Breakfast had arrived on a
tray borne by a pink-cheeked maid who must have been as Methodist
as Mrs. Wilton, for she looked as if she had never drunk anything
stronger than milk in her sixteen or seventeen years of life. A far
cry from the debauchery Penny had glimpsed as she and Noreen were
escorted to their rooms last night, for the party had spilled out
of the drawing room, the card room, various salons, and, she
suspected, even the bedrooms. Mrs. Wilton’s basilisk stare had
failed to slow the shrieks of painted ladies in various states of
undress, running shrieking and laughing through the stately halls
of Rockbourne Crest, with equally disheveled gentlemen in hot
pursuit. Gentlemen. It truly did not seem possible the pack of
animals Penny had seen last night could be considered
gentlemen.

Jason had done it on purpose, of
course. If he wished to disconcert her, he had come close to
achieving his goal. Bad enough he controlled Aunt Cass’s
money—
her
money—but never had
she thought him so low as to greet her in such a fashion. She had
loved him, for heaven’s sake. Adored him. He was her hero, her
savior. The knight on a white charger with whom she had planned to
spend her life.

And here she was, trapped in her room while
satyrs and demi-reps roamed the corridors, and her husband of ten
years had to drink himself into near oblivion just to greet her at
the door.

Penny gagged on her toast and blackberry jam,
Noreen swiftly appearing to pat her vigorously on the back. After
her coughing subsided and she had wiped away her tears, Miss Blayne
waved off the remainder of her breakfast and sat, staring glumly at
the very fine pastel embroidery of the heavy quilt on her bed. Eyes
narrowing, she looked more closely. Very fine embroidery indeed.
She lifted her eyes to survey the room she had barely noticed the
night before. Noreen had locked both doors . . . yes, there had
been two of them. One into the hall and one at the far end of the
dressing room, where Noreen would sleep. Too exhausted for
curiosity, both women had donned their nightclothes and found their
beds, tumbling into sleep on the instant.

But now . . . Penny examined the room with
care. Disoriented as she was from the recent upheaval in her life,
as well as the prospect of a long-postponed confrontation with her
husband, it took some time for the truth to become apparent.

Her bed alone was a work of art, as were the
furnishings around her. From what she had seen of Rockbourne Crest
last night, it was likely a seventeenth century edifice, built when
stately homes still thought first of defense. But this room has
undoubtedly been redecorated during the time of George II or the
early days of George III. Even with its heavy winter fabrics, it
was light and airy. At the windows and from the canopy above her
head, hung masses of rose velvet, fringed and tied back in cream
cord. The headboard, footboard and the underside of the wooden
canopy were cream, with a delicate painted pattern of tiny pastel
flowers and leaves. A tall chest, a dressing table, and two
bedtables, were painted in a similar manner, while other, smaller
pieces of furniture scattered about the vast room were exquisite
examples of Chinoiserie—the most ornate piece, a fine cabinet, set
against a wall-size mural of delicate flowers, a stream, and
stylized trees done in the Oriental manner. The fireplace, in which
a cheery fire was taking the chill off the gray day, was of white
marble, finely carved in a design of cherubs, birds, flowers, and
grapes.

Penny brushed a crumb from her nightgown,
then peeked over the edge of the bed. The carpet was also in the
Eastern style, a mix of cream and rose accented with pale green and
rich burgundy. Vaguely, she remembered the exquisite softness of
it, the depth to which her toes had sunk last night as she had
crawled into bed.

Oh, no, heaven help
her!
The thought struck like the cut of a sword. Her
heart did a very queer flip-flop, rushed up to dizzy her head, then
plummeted to her toes. She very much feared she was in the
countess’s suite! In the rooms belonging to the wife of the Earl of
Rocksley. There could be no other explanation for the magnificence
around her.

“
Noreen,” she called sharply, “where
does the second door go?”

“
Into another dressing room, Miss. I
peeked, you see, and caught the eye from a valet too niffy-naffy
for his own good, I can tell you.”

“
Do you think . . . can it be . . .
?”

“
Oh, aye, Miss. ‘Tis his lordship’s own
room, his valet told me so in no uncertain terms. Horrid man.
Thinks he’s so grand, he does.”

Penny, shuddering, subsided onto her
pillows.

An hour later, having received the earl’s
command and dressed accordingly, Penny sank onto the deep-set
window seat and looked out the mullioned windows toward the bare
beds of the formal gardens, the bentwood trellises stark against
the mulched earth and pebbled paths. Beyond was a pond, its
graceful curves outlined in drooping willows that managed, in their
winter state, to look like a fine charcoal sketch. The pond, of
course, was as gray as the bare willow branches, under a sky that
exactly matched Penny’s spirits. She wished she had never come to
Rockbourne Crest. She had all the qualifications to be an
outstanding governess. French, after all, was only one of the
languages in which she could converse. She could play the piano,
sketch, and recite history with all the skill of someone who had
seen most of the world’s great historical landmarks. And at maps
and globes . . . ah, she was quite certain there was not a
governess in the kingdom who could better her knowledge.

Penny sighed and ducked her head. She lacked
the one quintessential quality of a governess. She was not humble.
She had a quick wit and a sharp tongue, well-honed by her Aunt
Cass’s example. She would not last as a governess above a day.

So, since she had become accustomed to eating
well and having a roof over her head—and since she had an intimate
knowledge of the narrow confines of a kept woman’s life—she had
come to Rockbourne Crest. She had known, of course, that Jason did
not want her. After all, had he ever, in ten long years, given any
indication that he wished to live with her as husband and wife?
Therefore, she would do as she had planned. She would ask
Jason—Lord Rocksley—to provide a cottage in the country and a
modest maintenance. Surely, that was not asking too much.

Too much. Too
much
. Penny Blayne Lisbourne, Countess of Rocksley,
stayed on the window seat, her bleak thoughts echoing through her
head, until the same pink-cheeked maid brought nuncheon. To any and
all efforts Noreen O’Donnell made at conversation, Penelope refused
to reply. She simply chewed her food, tasting nothing, and looked
off into space. Her much-traveled Irish maid and companion might as
well have been nonexistent.

The Countess of Rocksley saw only a great
yawning void as her intelligence, sharpened by Miss Cassandra
Pemberton’s constant prodding, dictated that she remain
independent, while her heart yearned for something else altogether.
Except, of course, she had loved him too well and too long to ever
be a burden. Therefore . . . the circular trap snapped closed,
dictating her ignominious exile to a lonely cottage in the
country.

“
It’s time,” Noreen said. “A footman’s
come to take you to his lordship.”

Penny pushed back her chair and stood,
nervously brushing down the skirt of her gray silk gown.
Fortunately, her trunks had been brought up not an hour since and
Noreen had hastily pressed out the wrinkles in this severe mourning
gown. Miss Cassandra Pemberton, meticulous to a fault, had
specified in her will that no one was to wear black. “I have had a
good life,” she stated. “I need no crows to herald my passing.” Her
niece had heeded her instructions. She wore the stark charcoal gray
gown to mourn the passing of her marriage to the Right Honorable
Jason Lisbourne, Earl of Rocksley.

He had been right. The glorious golden child
he had married was gone. As his wife moved toward him with all the
regal bearing of a queen marching toward her execution, Jason rose
from behind the barricade of his burled walnut kneehole desk and
studied her with open interest. Her once silver blonde curls had
darkened, though the wisps of sandy gold now framing her face could
not be called unattractive. If only the mass of her hair were not
pulled back into a coif more suitable for a governess or maiden
aunt.

And the rest of her? Jason had to concede
that far more character now shone from the fine symmetry of her
face than from the soft, unformed child of sixteen. Child? A
misnomer, surely. Miss Cassandra Pemberton had never really allowed
Penelope Blayne to be a child.

His wife’s eyes were still that clear
remarkable shade of summer sky blue he remembered so well. Those
wide, intelligent blue eyes . . . and the masses of silver gilt
hair that tumbled over his fingers and inflamed his
twenty-one-year-old body to a peak of embarrassment from which he
had never recovered. He had, in fact, spent the past ten years in
riotous efforts in other women’s arms to erase his wedding night
from his mind.

And her mouth? If it were not pursed
into a persimmon pose, as if his mere presence had polluted the
room, he judged it, too, would be the same. Magnificently formed, a
Cupid’s bow, inviting, nay,
promising
pleasure to the man bold enough
to—

Enough! He was no longer a callow
fledgling on the Grand Tour, and she was no schoolroom miss. For
better or for worse, each of them had grown and changed, putting
childhood behind. Very likely, living so long with Cassandra
Pemberton, little Penelope Blayne had acquired as much worldly
cynicism as he himself. They were adults now, meeting to discuss
something which should have been settled long ago. And now, as
then, the power was his. He could do with her as he wished. The
trouble was . . . the infinitely vexing trouble was he had once
seen her totally helpless, solely dependent on his actions. This
beautiful Golden Girl, raised on the principle of feminine
independence by Miss Cassandra Pemberton, had been reduced to a
commodity to be bought, sold, or given as a gift. Now he himself
had the power of a sultan, the right—the
duty
—to decide her fate.

And he did not want it. Cassandra Pemberton
was an evil genie who had cut up his peace and ruined his life. And
was now managing to continue her Machiavellian machinations from
the grave. There was only one way around this impasse, and he hated
it, because it was exactly what the scheming old witch wanted.