The Bride's Seduction

Chapter Three

What are they staring at me for? Marina glanced down, convinced that her bodice must be gaping or that she had spilled butter sauce on the silk. A rapid glance assured her that everything was as it should be. But now Mama was regarding her with a fond smile and Lord Mortenhoe was positively...no, not blushing, he was far too assured for that. But his colour was certainly up and that spark of controlled anger was back in his eyes.

There was a stir as the footmen brought in the next course and Marina turned her attention to what they were doing. By the time she had nodded approval to Bunting and turned back again, her mother was conversing with Mr Philpott, and Lord Mortenhoe was patiently waiting to offer her a dish of asparagus.

‘Thank you.’ She took some spears, then, without allowing herself to consider too carefully what she was saying, asked, ‘Did something in the conversation just now anger you, my lord?’

‘Did I appear angry? I beg your pardon, Miss Winslow.’ His eyes were a calm hazel now and the flash of green was gone.

‘No, not angry,’ she corrected herself, struggling to find the right words. ‘You had your...dangerous look. Your eyes turn green then—did you know?’

One dark brow rose slowly and Marina felt colour staining her cheeks. ‘Forgive me, my lord, that was an impertinent observation.’

‘Not at all, merely perceptive. I apologise if I appeared dangerous. Lady Winslow had made a perfectly innocent remark that happened to touch a nerve, that was all. My momentary irritation was with myself for my own weakness.’

‘What...?’ Marina shut her mouth with a snap. She had been within a whisker of asking what the sensitive subject was. Whatever has come over me? she thought frantically. It was this man, that was the trouble. She looked at him and felt an immediate affiliation, a sense that she could tell him anything, ask anything, rely on him.

‘What did she say? That was what you were about to ask me, was it not?’ He ignored Marina’s flustered murmur of denial. ‘Lady Winslow referred to the fact that I am unmarried and implied that perhaps I should be seeking to remedy that.’

‘Ah.’ He did not seem annoyed now, but she could quite understand that he might well be. How on earth to turn the subject?

‘She is quite right, of course,’ he said calmly, slicing through an asparagus spear.

‘Oh.’ Marina gave herself a little shake; she really could not sit here uttering monosyllables like a dummy. If his lordship wished to confide in her, then so be it. ‘Perhaps there is a lady with whom you have an understanding?’

She watched his profile and saw the black lashes sweep down, momentarily hiding the betraying eyes. When he looked at her, the hazel gaze was clear and friendly. ‘I believe I am far from understanding women, let alone reaching an understanding with one.’

He had turned her question very neatly and she experienced a sense of relief that she could step on to safer ground. ‘We are not so difficult to fathom, my lord.’

‘You smile, Miss Winslow, you are obviously mocking me.’

It was he who was mocking her, she was certain. ‘No, I would not dream of it. Everyone is different, of course, but I think that all women would want to feel wanted, needed, to have a loving family and to know that they are useful in whatever way they can be.’

‘That is very laudable, ma’am, but I cannot help but feel we are back to ladies not admitting to enthusiasms! What about rank and status, riches and luxury? Do ladies not covet those?’

Marina felt that she should piously point out that covetousness was a sin, but the crinkle of humour at the corner of his eyes made the unspoken thought seem prissy. ‘To have enough money to indulge in little luxuries is very pleasant, of course.’

‘And rank and status?’

‘Those would bring great responsibility,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘but I can see that they might have a certain allure.’ He smiled and she laughed back at him. ‘But you are teasing me again, my lord; I can tell.’

‘Why should I do that?’ Justin’s voice dropped, became warmer. ‘You speak as though you are immune to such temptations and I see no reason why you should be.’ She opened her mouth to protest, but he carried on remorselessly. ‘You are about to remind me of your advanced age and that is, if you will forgive me saying so, a nonsense. Now, Miss Winslow, may I tempt you?’

‘T...tempt me?’ What with, for goodness’ sake?

‘These almond fritters look almost irresistible to me.’

‘They are,’ Marina agreed, seizing the opening with gratitude. ‘They are quite the best of Cook’s specialities and I defy anyone to refuse another once they have sampled one.’

The meal proceeded harmlessly, much to Marina’s relief, with conversation about the difficulty of finding a really reliable cook, the latest balloon ascension and if the weather could be expected to continue so fine.

Eventually Lady Winslow rose, gathered the attention of the other ladies with a glance and made her way out of the dining room. Marina followed meekly at the back, unsure whether she was glad or sorry the meal was over.

Conversation in the drawing room was animated, for it seemed that Mrs Thredgold had heard the most fascinating intelligence about the Brighton Pavilion, now supposedly reaching completion after years of building work, and was anxious to share it with the other ladies. As she was too deaf to hear their replies and raised her own voice almost to a shout, a number of cross-conversations were soon in process, allowing Marina to muse on her conversation with Lord Mortenhoe in peace.

If she had not known better, she would have thought he had been flirting with her. Perhaps he was, she thought, a little frown line appearing between her brows. Men did not flirt with Marina any more, a circumstance she accepted without rancour. Men flirted with young, pretty girls and even when she had first come out she had known herself not to be pretty. And they expected girls to giggle and flirt back, to make sheep’s eyes over the edge of their fans and gaze at them as though they were wonderful.

Marina had rapidly discovered that she was really very bad at flirtation and that nothing would persuade her to gaze with wide-eyed admiration at some callow youth simply because he was male, had a title and a respectable degree of wealth—she felt rather an instinct to laugh at them. She also discovered that sensible, poorly dowered young ladies with a satirical twinkle in their eye eventually found themselves seated firmly on the shelf.

‘May I sit here, Miss Winslow?’ The men had entered the room without her noticing.

‘Yes, of course, my lord.’ Please go and talk to Mrs Hinton, my lord. Mrs Hinton is pretty and amusing and will flirt very elegantly with you.

But Lord Mortenhoe appeared oblivious to the fact that her friend had left a carefully judged space on the sofa next to her and sat down beside Marina, settling back and regarding the drawing room with every appearance of approbation.

‘This is a very charming room, if I may say so.’

‘Why, thank you, my lord.’ Marina could not help but feel flattered. The room had cost her much work and careful budgeting, but she did feel that it had turned out well and showed no sign of having been created on a shoestring.

‘And may I presume to deduce from that modest look that you are the creative hand behind it? I suspect that Lady Winslow relies very much upon you.’

‘Mama does let me run things more or less as I will, my lord. I find it interesting to manage the household.’

‘Then perhaps I might ask you for some advice—can you recommend a good agency for domestic staff? I will be engaging a complete household for a rural estate shortly and it is not something with which I have much experience.’

‘My goodness! A complete household? I would have to think about that, for there are several agencies that I could recommend and I think that it would be prudent to approach more than one. You have acquired a new shooting lodge, I imagine?’

Now, what have I said to amuse him? Lord Mortenhoe’s lips quirked in a wry smile. He really did have the most expressive mouth. I wonder what it would be like to be kissed...

‘No, not a shooting lodge, a mansion of, if I recall correctly, twenty bedrooms.’

‘My goodness, that is large.’ Marina wrenched her eyes and her unruly imagination away from Lord Mortenhoe’s mouth. ‘Then you will most definitely need more than one agency. There are no staff there at present?’

‘I am not sure, I must ask your brother, but I imagine only a skeleton staff, and he will doubtless wish to retain them and move them to one of his other establishments.’

‘My brother? You mean Charlie is selling you a house?’ Marina’s brow furrowed, then cleared. ‘Then he must be selling Knightshaye. I had no idea it was not entailed like everything else.’

‘It used to be in my family. Your father acquired it, I am retrieving it.’ Marina shivered. Lord Mortenhoe’s voice was pleasant and unemotional, yet she felt a sudden frisson of danger as though a blade had been drawn hissing from its sheath.

‘That is good for all of us, I am sure,’ she commented, more for something to say than anything else.

‘Indeed? Do you dislike it so?’

‘I have never been there—in fact, I do not believe Charlie has either. No, I meant it is good that you have been able to get it back and that Charlie has realised money on it.’ His profile looked somewhat forbidding, so, in an effort at lightness, she added, ‘I shall have to tease a new pair of dining-room curtains out of my brother on the strength of the sale.’

‘I should imagine you could tease rather more than that out of him should you try, Miss Winslow. Your brother strikes a hard bargain. But the deal has not yet been concluded.’

Was that resentment in his voice? No, not that, more a wry admiration. Perhaps that was why she had sensed so much tension on his first visit—Charlie had set too high a price and they were still negotiating. But the thought of what realising the value of a large mansion would do for the shaky family fortunes was thrilling—just so long as Charlie did not promptly gamble it away. Why on earth have Charlie and Mama not mentioned it?

‘Have you ever been there?’

‘It was my home until three weeks after my eighth birthday.’

‘Then it must have a most sentimental attachment for you,’ she said warmly. ‘I am so glad you are regaining it. Is it as you remember it? I always find that going back to places I knew as a child is most disconcerting—they either seem bigger or much smaller than I recall.’

‘I have never been back.’ He seemed to hesitate, then added, ‘I swore as we drove away that I would never return until I owned it again.’

‘What a very determined little boy you must have been.’ She smiled at the thought of the childish resolution.

Justin turned to look at her and she almost drew back at the look in his eyes. There was the ghost of pain there, overlaid by an iron-hard will. ‘And now I am a very determined man,’ he remarked evenly. Then, with a smile that transformed his face, ‘But I do not want to bore you with business, Miss Winslow. Might I hope to find you at home tomorrow afternoon if I called to take you driving in the park?’

‘So soon?’ His eyebrows rose in sharp interrogation and Marina had the fleeting thought that she had said something to surprise him. ‘I mean, I may not have assembled all the details of the agencies you will need by then.’

‘But that is not why I invited you to drive with me.’ His smile was producing the most extraordinary sensations, as though her skin was suddenly too hot, or someone had drawn a piece of velvet across it. Once again she had the illusion that they were alone in the room. I really must stop looking at his mouth.

‘It is not?’ Can he be flirting with me? Surely not, not with Priscilla Hinton, lovely, sophisticated and very willing to engage in such an activity, only an arm’s reach away. No, he was simply being kind to the sister of the man with whom he was doing business.

‘No. I only had the desire to drive in pleasant company. Has anyone ever told you that you are a most soothing companion, Miss Winslow?’

‘Soothing? Why, no.’ And why, even if she did possess this quality, would a fashionable gentleman wish to seek it out? Marina was mystified. ‘I think you are teasing me again, my lord.’ Soothing, now she came to think about it, sounded somewhat staid.

‘I have said the wrong thing; perhaps a young lady does not wish to hear she is soothing. Possibly I should have said lovely, charming...’

A gurgling laugh escaped Marina’s lips. ‘Now I know you are talking fustian! Here is the tea tray. Please excuse me, Lord Mortenhoe, Mama will wish me to pour.’

‘Might I assist you?’ He was on his feet before she could answer.

‘Oh...thank you.’ Marina poured tea and handed him two cups. ‘For you and for Mrs Hinton. Do you take milk or lemon?’

‘Lemon, thank you.’ In the face of two tea cups almost thrust into his hands Lord Mortenhoe carried them across to Priscilla Hinton and, as Marina hoped, was invited with a pretty smile to sit beside her.

Marina dispensed the rest of the tea and came to rest next to Mr Philpott, with whom it was possible to carry on the most comfortable conversation without the slightest discomfiture. Mr Philpott, a serious but kindly man, neither flirted nor teased but spoke in measured tones on dull and unexceptional subjects of interest that allowed one to survey the room and ensure that the company was all provided with refreshment and suitably entertained.

Mama, to Marina’s surprise, was regarding her with a less than approving expression. When she had her daughter’s attention, she swivelled her eyes to focus on Mrs Hinton’s sofa and produced a frown.

Marina responded with the slightest of shrugs. She was more than happy to see their two most distinguished guests amusing themselves, although, now she was watching them, it did seem rather fast of Priscilla to be popping a morsel of her almond cake between Lord Mortenhoe’s lips. There was nothing he could be expected to do about that, of course, other than accept it with good grace.

He seemed to sense her gaze upon him and turned his head to meet her eyes, holding them with his own as he slowly licked a crumb of cake from his lower lip. Marina felt herself drawn in as though she had risen to her feet and taken a step towards him. Her skin was hot again with that strange velvety sensation and she broke eye contact with a shiver of alarm.

She sipped her tea, marvelling at her own lack of propriety in reacting so. But no one has ever flirted with me before, not like this. I do not know what to do.

No, that was not strictly true. Gauche young men had attempted to flirt with her when she was equally gauche and just out, but, with neither liking nor aptitude for it, she soon found herself eclipsed by more confident, assured and beautiful young ladies such as her friend Priscilla Wilde, now Mrs Hinton. The trouble was, she realised, that either she had not liked the young gentlemen enough to suspend her natural reticence or she found the posturing and play-acting funny, but could find no one with whom safely to share the joke.

But Lord Mortenhoe did seem to be a man who would know immediately what the joke was, and was also someone who could make flirtation rather stimulating. Probably it was the fact that he was older than those callow youths and simply more experienced.

Just how experienced? Marina wondered, watching him over the rim of her tea cup while listening with every appearance of attention to Mr Philpott speaking about the health of the King. Had Charlie introduced her to a rake? The thought made her smile; in the safety of her own home a rake seemed more interesting than alarming. The gentleman in question looked up as she did so and answered the smile with one of his own, a fleeting look of warmth and communication.

Bunting entered, a footman with fresh hot water on his heels. Goodness! Was that the time? It only seemed moments since she had poured the first cups. Marina glanced round hastily, half-expecting to see her guests looking reproachfully into empty teacups. But no one appeared to have noticed her abstraction. With a murmured excuse to Mr Philpott she rose and refreshed the teapot, then began to circulate around the room, checking to see who would like another cup.

This time, much to her surprise, her cousin got to his feet and helped ferry the drinks to and from the tea table. ‘Why, thank you, Hugh.’ Marina tried not to sound too surprised at his thoughtfulness.

‘Thank you, Cousin Marina,’ he responded as they stood together at the table. ‘Papa has been thinking about what Lord Mortenhoe said, and says that he wonders he never thought of horse breeding himself. And he says he will send me to Ireland, to a friend of his with a stud out there so I can buy my first horses with his guidance.’ Hugh’s normally sullen countenance was transformed by a broad grin he appeared quite unable to control and Marina’s heart warmed to him. ‘My own horses—think of it!’

‘Do not thank me—it is all due to Lord Mortenhoe’s suggestion. Why do you not tell him yourself? Here, take the cups for him and Mrs Hinton.’ The youth hastened over to the seated couple, his grin replaced with a frown of concentration as he attempted not to spill the tea. As he approached, Priscilla Hinton got to her feet, waving Lord Mortenhoe back into his seat and, taking her cup from Hugh, strolled over to join Marina.

‘My dear! I had no idea, you sly thing.’

‘What do you mean?’ Marina checked that the other guests were comfortable and steered Priscilla to a distant corner. ‘Don’t be provoking, Pris.’ Despite being as dissimilar in most things as they could be, the two young women had been fast friends for years, ever since they had shared a piano teacher and dancing lessons.

Priscilla was an elegant blonde with fine blue eyes, an open and spontaneous manner and a love of frivolity, luxury and fun. Marina could never get her to take anything seriously other than the acquisition of a rich husband, a duty Pris took with the utmost earnestness as being the passport to all the things she enjoyed most.

By great good luck she found a man who was not only rich but who adored her and whose chosen profession of diplomacy gave his young wife the perfect showcase for her charm, looks and love of entertaining.

Now she turned her aquamarine gaze on Marina and said reproachfully, ‘It is you who is being provoking, Mar! Here I am, your oldest friend, and you keep the most incredible news from me.’

‘What news? I cannot think of a thing that has happened since we went shopping last week that you would be remotely interested in.’

‘Lord Mortenhoe, of course! You attach an eligible suitor and do not breathe a word. Honestly, Mar, I feel positively hurt.’

‘Suitor?’ Marina regarded her friend with alarm. ‘He is no such thing, Pris, we only met yesterday. He is doing business with Charlie, buying some property.’ She took a deep breath—it was suddenly very important to disabuse Priscilla of this ridiculous misunderstanding. ‘I assure you, Lord Mortenhoe has no more interest in me than I have in him. In fact—’

She broke off at a sharp jab in the ribs from Mrs Hinton. ‘He is coming over.’

His lordship was indeed coming towards them. Marina found herself looking at him through her friend’s eyes: a powerful, assured, very masculine gentleman with looks that turned foolish female heads. And it seemed she was no more rational than the rest of them, for her heart was beating very strangely and she could feel the colour rising in her cheeks.

‘Ladies.’ He came to a halt just in front of them. ‘I must bid you goodnight. Mrs Hinton, it was a pleasure to meet you. Miss Winslow, I hope two o’clock will be a convenient time for me to call for our drive?’

‘Yes, perfectly convenient, my lord.’ It came out sounding squeaky, but at least it was a coherent sentence.

‘Then, until two tomorrow. Thank you for a delightful dinner party.’ He bowed slightly, turned and strolled over to take his farewell of Lady Winslow, his elegant figure tracked across the room by two pairs of eyes, one blue, the other grey.

‘Well?’ Priscilla demanded. ‘What did I say? And you still maintain he has no interest in you?’

Chapter Four

‘Yes,’ Marina said firmly. ‘He is merely being courteous because he and Charlie are negotiating some business and he will doubtless be in and out of the house for a while. That is all.’

‘Mar, there are times I utterly despair of you!’ Priscilla looked set to continue, but the clock struck the hour and she jumped to her feet with an exclamation of annoyance. ‘Look at the time—and I promised darling Henry I would be home before he got back tonight, poor hard-working lamb that he is.’ She looked down at Marina, biting her lip. ‘There is nothing for it, you need taking in hand, this is an emergency. I will cancel all my appointments and will be with you by ten tomorrow morning. Now, whatever you do, get a good night’s sleep, dearest.’

She bent, kissed Marina’s cheek and began to walk away, turning after a few steps to stare at her friend’s hair. ‘I wonder if I can get Monsieur Lamerre at such short notice?’ It appeared to be a rhetorical question, for she hastened off to her hostess and in a few moments was gone, along with the Philpotts.

Marina stared rather blankly after her, long after the door had closed, unconscious of the bustle surrounding the Thredgolds making their way off to their lodgings.

‘Miss Marina?’ It was Bunting, checking for any last orders or comments on the evening.

‘Thank you, Bunting, everything was delightful. Please thank the staff and especially Mrs Leeming. That was an excellent dinner, and at such short notice.’

Marina made her way over to where her mother and Charlie were chatting by the fireside, Charlie nursing a bumper of brandy between his palms.

‘I think I will go to bed now, Mama.’ Her parent smiled at her and nodded. Marina bit her lip, then added, ‘Lord Mortenhoe has invited me to drive with him tomorrow afternoon.’

‘That is nice, dear,’ Lady Winslow remarked comfortably. ‘Goodnight, my love.’

‘Goodnight, Mama. Goodnight, Charlie.’

Marina had reached her bedroom before anything about that exchange struck her as odd, but, as she sat in front of her dressing table while her maid removed the pins and bushed out her hair, she frowned at her reflection.