Beguiled

“I’ll never forget,” he said, chuckling. “The only times I’ve ever known real fear were when you greeted me with the words ‘My lord, I must speak with you.’”

They’d argued countless times about Lily, especially in the beginning, when he’d returned to Cardemore Hall after an absence of fifteen years to find himself responsible for not only his family’s titles and estates, but also for a small, pale, silent child who was brought to him by a serving maid only a few minutes after he’d arrived home. He’d never before seen the sister to whom his mother had died giving birth, although he’d learned about her, also about his mother’s passing, several months after both had occurred. His father hadn’t known what to do with a mute girl child, George had probably been too busy with his own affairs to give his young sister much thought, and Margaret hadn’t been allowed to interfere. Lily had been given into the care of the servants and, as long as she was kept clean and fed and out of the way, was mostly ignored. Despite the fact that her inability to speak in a normal voice had been caused by an unfortunate incident when she was but a tiny child, she was treated as if she’d been born an idiot. But Cardemore had known, from the moment he’d looked into her lively blue eyes, that an intelligent mind hid behind her silence.

For her part, Lily had taken in her elder brother’s dark, scarred face, his hulking size and his filthy clothes, and had smiled a smile of beguiling, welcoming sweetness, unwittingly making the first crack in a heart that had long since been pronounced unassailable. It had been his intention, until that moment, to see his brother buried, gain the title that he’d always disdained and promptly sell every thing of value before taking his spoils and returning to the life he’d chosen. As he stared into the trusting little face that reminded him so much of his mother’s, the idea evaporated as quickly as if it had never existed. He’d hated his father and his rigidly perfect brother and everything about the nobility that had made his mother age with such cruel rapidity; he’d come to hate everything associated with the name Cardemore; but perhaps he and Lily could make something out of the wreckage they’d inherited from their ancestors. They could certainly try.

Margaret made it easier when she insisted upon moving into Cardemore Hall with Isabel to run the household for him and to take over Lily’s care. She turned off the servants who found it impossible to treat their new master with respect and quickly put the fear of God into the rest. She loved Lily with a mother’s tender care, as well as with a mother’s vigilance. They’d fought over everything, from doctor’s opinions about Lily’s inability to speak to which teachers and methods would profit Lily the most. And when they weren’t arguing with each other, they were arguing with the doctors and teachers.

“Was I so fearsome?” Margaret asked in a low voice, so near to him that he could feel the heat emanating from her tall, elegantly curved form. “I have to admit that I didn’t trust you overmuch in the beginning. I was afraid, for years, that you would disappear the way you had when you were a boy. Lily adored you so much, she would have been badly hurt if you’d left. It was hard enough when you finally did go, although she was old enough then to understand how many duties you must perform as the Earl of Cardemore, and why you had to come live in London.”

He didn’t give a damn about his duties as the Earl of Cardemore and never had, which was a truth he devoutly hoped kept all his sainted ancestors continuously spinning in their respective graves. It had been she, Margaret, and the torture of being with her every day, loving and wanting her and not being able to bring himself to do so much as touch her, that had driven him away from Cardemore Hall five years ago. “I’ve tried to visit as often as I’m able,” he said. “If I thought Lily needed me, I’d stay for as long as necessary.”

“Oh, Aaron, I know that.” Gently, she set a hand over the one he pressed against the table. “You’ve been wonderful to Lily, and to Isabel and me. I’ve long since learned to trust you completely.”

He couldn’t speak. He could barely draw in breath. All he could do was stare at the cool, smoothly feminine hand pressed over his own ugly, hairy paw and feel a tingling sense of wonder.

“We’ve missed you, Aaron. Lily and Isabel and…me. All of us.”

Some long-honed instinct made him realize that the library door was about to open only a moment before it did. Pulling his hand free, he turned in time to see his butler enter the room.

“The gentlemen you were expecting have arrived, my lord. I’ve put them in your study.”

“Thank you, Willis. I’ll be there in a moment.”

Margaret was already gathering her things. “I’ll leave you to tend your business, Aaron. You do keep the strangest receiving hours.” She stopped at the library doors. “One night while we’re here, you must put a few hours aside and play a game of chess with me. Do you remember how we used to play?”

He nodded. “I remember that you generally beat me.”

She laughed. “My only area of victory over you.” She put her fingers on one of the door handles. “Good night, Aaron.”

“Margaret,” he said, stopping her. “Don’t worry about Lily. Everything is going to turn out very well, I promise you.”

She gazed at him for a searching moment. “I know better than to ask that you accompany us to any of the outings the girls have been invited to, but I would make one request of you.”

“Anything.”

“Will you dance with Lily at the girls’ comeout ball? I know it’s been a great many years since you had your lessons as a boy, but surely you remember enough to partner her in a country dance? It would mean a great deal to her.”

He let out a groaning sigh, knowing full well that if anyone else had asked this of him he’d have dismissed them without a thought.

“One dance,” Cardemore told her. “Only one.”

The warm smile she gifted him with before she left the room was more than worth the regret he felt at giving the promise.

Chapter Five (#ulink_96e1204c-8147-5ef3-8b74-c0ed987f3789)

The early-morning air was bracingly cold, and the two lone men mounted on horseback in Hyde Park shrugged more closely into the warmth of their coats while their steeds moved impatiently beneath them.

“I hope you won’t mind me saying this,” said Lord Daltry, the words puffing small clouds into the air, “but this is the damnedest idea you’ve ever had.”

“I didn’t ask you to come along,” Lord Graydon replied calmly. “And I’m not keeping you here. Go home to your warm bed, if you like.”

“And leave you to the mercies of two country-bred females?” Lord Daltry asked with mock dismay. “What sort of friend would I be? Besides, you need me to occupy Lady Isabel while you make your apologies to Lady Lillian. I can’t see the chit keeping her mouth closed long enough for you to so much as say good-morning unless I keep her otherwise engaged.”

Lord Graydon smiled. “You’re a good fellow, Matthew, but I’m perfectly capable of managing two young females without any help, thank you.”

“You might be able to handle Cardemore’s sister,” Lord Daltry agreed affably, “but I’d wager a pony you can’t handle Lady Isabel Walford, even if you could catch up to her long enough to get her attention, which is unlikely.” He shifted in his saddle and scanned the horizon. “The girl rides like a demon. Not even the grooms can keep up with her.”

Lord Graydon looked at him with surprise. “You’ve seen her ride?”

A stain of color crept across Lord Daltry’s handsome face. “Ah, well…yes, I have. Yesterday, as it happens.” At his friend’s accusatory grin, he added insistently, “Cerberus needed exercising.”

“At this ungodly hour?” Graydon asked, laughing. “Matthew, in all the years we’ve been acquainted, I’ve never known a mere horse to get you up so early. Certainly not when you could just as well send a groom to exercise him.” Leaning toward his discomfited friend, he added in a conspiratorial tone, “Lady Isabel’s caught your interest, has she?”

“That mannish female?” Lord Daltry was indignant. “Have you lost your senses? The very idea makes me shudder.”

“I found her to be quite charming,” said Graydon.

“Charming,” Daltry grumbled, “is not the word Lady Isabel brings to mind. God’s feet, here she comes. Look! Do you see?”

Graydon saw, and gave out a soft whistle as a slender, sapphire-clad figure, bowed low over the neck of a magnificent black steed, raced full out across the empty park.

“What did I tell you?” Lord Daltry demanded angrily, pulling up his horse’s head. “Dratted female’s going to break her neck.”

“She’s magnificent,” Graydon declared with admiration. “What a seat—she must’ve been born in the saddle.”

“Seat, my eye,” Daltry said. “What her seat needs is a good paddling. Of all the foolish, brainless—Damnation! She’s not going to take that fence?”

Graydon opened his mouth to reply that, yes, indeed, she was, but never said a word. Daltry had already taken off after the girl, presumably to rescue her from harm. The effort would prove a needless one, Graydon imagined, as it was obvious that Lady Isabel was a skilled rider. Returning his attention to the direction from which Lady Isabel had appeared, he was greeted by the sight of Lady Lillian, followed by two grooms, riding at a more sedate, ladylike pace. She had seen and recognized him and now was gazing at him warily, clearly uncertain as to whether she should continue on or turn back.

“Lady Lillian,” he said when they’d neared each other, “what a fortunate occurrence. Good morning.”

God’s mercy, he thought as his senses registered her beauty anew. She was almost too good to look at. The proper black riding outfit she wore only served to accentuate her white-blond hair and crystalline eyes. Such beauty would certainly gain her favor in the eyes of any normally blooded gentleman, while with the ladies of the ton…well, some of them were bound to be obdurately jealous. He began to ponder how he would manage to get around those particular ladies when he belatedly realized that he and Lady Lillian were simply sitting in silence, and that her expressive face had taken on a look set somewhere between caution and embarrassment. She lifted one hand suddenly toward her wrist, as if to grasp hold of something—her glove, he thought, or perhaps a bracelet—then stopped, biting her lower lip with obvious distress.

With a mental shake, Graydon smiled too brightly and said, in an equally bright tone that made him inwardly cringe, “What a pleasurable accident to have met you here.”

Oh, gad, he thought as her eyes filled with bewilderment. He’d already said something like that. He’d never known, until that moment, how much he always depended on women to make conversation.

He was about to speak again, to say only heaven knew what, since he didn’t have an idea, when she lifted one gloved hand and touched her lips, tentatively, with her forefinger. She hesitated as color mounted in her cheeks, and then she pointed at him, then at some flowers beneath a nearby tree and then at herself. Pressing her hand flat above her left breast, she made a slight bowing motion with her head.

“Oh,” said Graydon, mortified that he was unable to understand whatever it was she was trying to tell him. This was horrible. He felt like an idiot. “Uh…yes.”

Her face was flaming now, but she drew in a breath and repeated the motions, pointing first at him, then the flowers, then herself. By the time she finished, realization had blissfully struck.

“The flowers I sent?” he asked. “You liked them?” When she nodded he uttered a laugh, relieved. Unable to keep the grin off his face, he said, “I’m glad if they brought you pleasure.”

She placed her hand over her heart and made the bowing gesture again, and he said, “You’re very welcome.”

Her answering smile made him feel dizzy, as it had on the floor at Almack’s, and a flood of reassurance waved through him. Perhaps this wasn’t going to be quite as bad as he’d thought.