Mary Balogh - Slightly Wicked

And so he persevered, playing Miss Effingham’s silly flirtation games with her, charming her friends, jollying along all the young gentlemen who continued to make him feel like an octogenarian at the very least even though he was only a few years older than most of them.

He had firmly set aside his guilt over Judith Law. What had happened between them had not been seduction, and she had gone to some lengths to deceive him. He had done what was proper and made her an offer. She had refused. There was no more reason for feeling responsible for her. But he knew Horace Effingham’s type. And he knew that tea spilling incident had been deliberate on Effingham’s part.

Rannulf had guessed that the man would pursue his lecherous intent at the earliest opportunity.

It had become quickly apparent to him on the wilderness walk both that Effingham was maneuvering to get her alone and that she was resisting his efforts. And then they disappeared altogether. Fortunately Branwell Law was within hailing distance and was easily persuaded to go back to attend his ailing sister.

A few minutes later Law was back, Effingham with him, announcing that his sister was indeed feeling weak but that she had insisted upon returning to the house alone. And yet, Rannulf observed a couple of minutes after that as they strolled past another seat and view down to the house and park, she was not going to the house—or looking either weak or weary. She was hurrying away from the back of the house.

A picnic tea was set out on the front lawn when they left the wilderness walk. Everyone milled about, mingling and laughing and wandering off in groups. Rannulf took the opportunity to be free of Miss Effingham’s empty, boastful chatter for at least a short while and withdrew with his plate to the terrace, where his grandmother and Mrs. Law were seated side by side.

“I wonder where Judith is,” Mrs. Law said, searching for a sight of her granddaughter.

“Did Branwell Law not inform you, ma’am?” Rannulf asked. “She was feeling somewhat weary after a while and returned to the house for a rest. She would not let him accompany her.”

“But she is missing her tea,” Mrs. Law said. “I must have Tillie take a tray up to her. If you would be so good, Lord Rannulf—”

He held up a staying hand. “If I may make so bold, ma’am,” he said, “may I suggest that it might be better to allow Miss Law to rest in quiet for a while longer?”

“Yes, indeed,” she agreed. “You are quite right. May I trouble you to fetch that plate of pastries, Lord Rannulf? Your grandmama did not take one, but I am quite sure she must wish to try them.”

He brought the plate, offered it to his grandmother, who shook her head, and to Mrs. Law, who took three, and returned the plate to the table. No one’s attention was on him, he noticed with a quick glance around. Lady Effingham was talking with Mrs. Hardinge, and Miss Effingham was in a laughing group with Miss Hannah Warren, Lord Braithwaite, and Jonathan Tanguay.

Rannulf slipped around the corner of the house before someone could notice him and around to the back. There was no sign of her. Where had she gone? he wondered. Had she returned yet? Perhaps she really was resting in her room by now. There was a tree-dotted hill in the near distance. He squinted ahead to it but could not see her there. It looked like a quiet place to go anyway. He lengthened his stride and made his way toward it.

She must indeed have returned to the house, he thought a few minutes later as he climbed the last few feet to the top of the hill and looked around appreciatively at the view. And it was just as well. He had not really been hoping to meet her, had he? For what purpose? He had not thought of asking himself that until this moment.

There was a lake down below. It looked neglected and overgrown but rather lovely nevertheless. He was surprised it had not been connected to the wilderness walk. He was trying to decide whether to go down there or not when he saw her. She had just appeared from beneath the overhanging branches of a willow tree. Swimming. She was on her back, kicking lazily, her hair spread about her like a dark cloud.

Ah. She had come here to be alone.

He should respect her privacy.

But he found that his legs were carrying him down the far side of the hill nonetheless.

It was a feeling rather than anything she saw or heard—a feeling that she was no longer alone. She opened her eyes and turned her head with some dread, fully expecting that Horace had somehow followed her here.

For a moment she felt intense relief when she saw that it was Lord Rannulf Bedwyn who was sitting beside the pile of her clothes under the willow tree, one leg stretched out before him, the other bent with one arm draped over his knee.

Her clothes! She moved swiftly until she was treading water, only her head above the surface. She lifted her arms to sleek her hair back over her head and then, seeing them bare, returned them hastily to the water, spreading them out below the surface to balance herself.

How foolish, foolish of her to risk swimming here in her shift.

“I am not,” he said quietly though his voice carried clearly across the water, “going to run off with your clothes. Or force myself on you.”

“What do you want?” she asked him. She was intensely embarrassed even though they had spent a day and two nights... But that seemed like more than a lifetime ago. It seemed like something that must have happened to someone else.

“Some quiet time,” he said. “Did he harm you?”

“No.” Except that she had splashed around for several minutes, trying desperately to get herself clean.

“I would come and join you,” he said. “But alas, my absence will appear ill-mannered if it is too lengthy.

Why do you not come here and join me?”

She was amazed—and alarmed—at how very tempting the suggestion was. They had nothing more to say to each other and yet... and yet he had saved her from a potentially nasty situation on the wilderness walk. And despite his admission a few days ago that he was a philanderer, she knew somehow that she could trust him not to force unwelcome attentions on her. He had just said so.

“Is it the fact that I will see you in your shift?” he asked when she did not immediately approach the bank. “I have seen you in less.”

If she told him to go away, would he go? She believed he probably would. Did she want him to go? She swam slowly toward him. No. If she was perfectly truthful with herself, the answer was no.

She set her hands on the bank and hoisted herself up, setting a knee on the grass when she was able.

Water streamed off her. Her shift clung like a second skin. She turned and sat, her feet still dangling in the water.

“Perhaps,” she said without turning, “you would be good enough to hand me my dress, Lord Rannulf.”

“You would only get that wet too,” he said, “and be no better off than you are now. It would be wiser to leave it until you are ready to return to the house and then remove the shift first.”

“Are you suggesting—” she began.

“No, I am not,” he told her. “I did not come here to seduce you, Miss Law .”

Why had he come? For some quiet time, as he had claimed? Was it pure coincidence that he had found her here?

She was aware of him getting to his feet and shrugging out of his coat. A moment later it landed, wonderfully heavy and warm, about her shoulders. And then he sat down beside her, crossing his legs and looking both informal and relaxed.

“Has he bothered you between three evenings ago and this afternoon?” he asked.

“No.” She shook her head. “And I do not expect him to bother me again. I believe I made myself clear today.”

“Did you?” She was aware that he was gazing at her profile even though she did not turn her head to look at him. “Why did you not make yourself clear to me?”

“Just now?” she said. “You told me—”

“When I offered you a ride,” he explained. “When I suggested that we take a room together at the inn by the market green.”

She could not think of a suitable answer even though he waited for her to speak. She drew her feet out of the water, clasped her arms about her raised knees, and lowered her head to rest her forehead against them.

“That was different,” she said lamely at last. But how was it different? Perhaps because she had sensed from the very first moment that if she had said no he would not have pressed the point? But how had she known it? And was it true? “I wanted the experience.” But it was a dream she had wanted.

“You would have taken that experience with Effingham, then, if he had come riding along instead of me?” he asked.

She shivered. “No, of course not.”

He did not speak again for a while and when he did, he changed the subject.

“Your brother is a fashionable young gentleman,” he said, “and moves in fashionable circles. Even fast circles, if one may judge from his friendship with Horace Effingham. He is enjoying the idle life of a guest while you are here as a type of glorified servant. Do I detect a story behind those contrasting details?”

“I do not know,” she said, lifting her head and staring across the water. “Do you?”

“Is he the black sheep of the family?” he asked. “But do you love him nevertheless?”

“Of course I love him,” she said. “He is my brother, and it would be very hard to dislike Bran even if he were not. He was sent away to school and university for a gentleman’s education. It is only natural that he would wish to mingle with other gentlemen on a basis of equality. It is only natural that he be somewhat extravagant until he discovers what he wants to do with his life and settles to some career. He is not vicious. He is just...”

“Thoughtless and self-absorbed?” he suggested when she could not think of a suitable word. “Does he know that he is responsible for your being here?”

“He is not—” she began.

“You do altogether too much lying, you know,” he said.

She turned her head to look indignantly at him.

“It is not your business, Lord Rannulf,” she said. “Nothing to do with my life or my family is your business.”

“No, it is not,” he agreed. “By your choice, Miss Law. Have your sisters suffered a similar fate to your own?”

“They are all still at home,” she said, feeling such a wave of homesickness suddenly that she had to dip her forehead against her knees again.

“Why you?” he asked her. “Did you volunteer? I cannot imagine anyone was eager to come here to suffer the kindly affection of your aunt.”

She sighed. “Cassandra is the eldest,” she said, “and our mother’s right hand. Pamela is the third of us and the beauty of the family. She could not have borne to leave, not to be the center of everyone’s admiration—not that she is unduly vain about her looks. And Hilary is too young. She is only seventeen.

It would have broken her heart to have to leave our mother and father—and it would have broken all of our hearts too.”

“But no one’s heart will be broken by your absence?” he asked.

“One of us needed to come,” she said. “And they did all shed tears over me when I left.”

“And yet,” he said, “you would defend that extravagant young puppy of a brother to me?”

“I do not need to,” she said, “or to censure him. Not to you .”

And yet she was not really angry with him for prying or for understanding the situation so well. It felt treacherously good to have someone interested enough in her life to ask questions about it. Someone who understood, perhaps, the extent of the sacrifice she had made voluntarily . . . though of course she would have been the chosen one even if she had not offered to come.

“Where did you learn to act?” he asked. “Does your family engage in amateur theatricals at the vicarage or rectory or wherever it is you live?”

“Rectory,” she said, lifting her head again. “Oh, dear, no. Papa would have an apoplexy. He is fanatically opposed to acting and the theater and declares that they are the work of the devil. But I have always, always loved acting. I used to go off on my own into the hills, where I would be neither seen nor heard, and throw myself into different roles I had memorized.”

“You seem to have memorized a great deal,” he said.

“Oh, but it is not difficult to do,” she assured him. “If you act a part as if you are that character, you see, then the words become your own, the only logical ones to speak under those particular circumstances. I have never consciously memorized a part. I have simply become various characters.”