Diane Gaston - Regency High Society Vol 7

What an arrangement, thought the man with envy. Some men have all the luck.

Morgana paused when reaching the door to the library. It was open a crack, and she could hear the girls’ voices and the reedy laughter of her grandmother, who undoubtedly found everything to be very lovely. Oh, to have her grandmother’s forgetfulness, to live in a present that was perpetually lovely. How much easier life would be. How much less painful.

The voices were not sounding happy, however. Katy’s shrill tones rose above the others. ‘We need Miss Hart! She will know what to do.’

Morgana glanced down at her hand, still holding her stockings. She stuffed them into a pocket inside her domino and stuffed her numbing despair along with them.

She opened the door. ‘I am here.’

Katy leapt up from her chair. ‘Gracious, Miss Hart!’ She looked her up and down. ‘Did you have a nice night?’

Lucy and Rose stared at her, and Miss Moore, seated near her grandmother, gave her a kind, knowing smile.

It felt as if someone had ripped off all her clothes in a public square, but she realised it was not making love to Sloane that made her feel exposed. It was the ache in her heart.

She tried for a vague smile. ‘A lady does not speak of such matters, Katy.’

Katy laughed. ‘Harriette Wilson had no trouble speaking about it.’

Morgana gave her a candid look. ‘But Miss Wilson is not a lady.’

Was it too late to convince them that they could be ladies? Oh, not ladies of the ton , perhaps, but respectable women who deserved men who loved them and who would never walk away?

Lucy stood up. Her face looked drawn. ‘Miss Hart, we must tell you about Mary.’

If something had happened to Mary while she was making love to Sloane. ‘What of Mary?’

‘It is nothing bad,’ assured Rose.

Lucy gave an imploring glance to Miss Moore.

Miss Moore beamed at Morgana. ‘It seems our Mary has run off to Gretna Green with Mr Duprey.’

‘That cowhanded sapskull…’ Katy shook her head ‘… how could she?’

Tears sprang to Morgana’s eyes. She walked over to Miss Moore. ‘Is it really so?’

Miss Moore handed her a letter. Mary wrote that she was sorry to disappoint Morgana, but Mr Duprey had proposed to her at the masquerade, promising to save her from such unpleasantness and give her a good home. He did not have a big fortune, she added, but Mary looked forward to making little economies to make his life pleasant. The letter then went on for a whole page, heaping praises upon Mr Duprey.

When Morgana finished she clasped the letter to her chest.

‘That slow-top could have purchased a special license here in London.’ Katy shook her head in disgust.

‘Gretna Green is romantic, is it not, Miss Hart?’ Rose directed her beautiful green eyes on Morgana. ‘It is good that she marries, is it not?’

Morgana smiled through her tears. ‘It is wonderful for her!’ She would miss the shy, gentle girl. Her loss was Mr Duprey’s gain—and Mary’s salvation.

Morgana thought of Sloane. ‘It is wonderful for her,’ she repeated. ‘Well done, Mary.’

Sloane’s horse was waiting for him when he tore back into the house. Elliot stood in the hall and the butler hovered in a doorway.

It was Elliot who handed him his hat and gloves. The look of compassion on the young man’s face nearly jolted him out of the towering rage that consumed him.

Morgana.

He grabbed his hat and gloves and thundered out the door, snatching the reins of his horse from the groom, and mounting in one easy motion. He fleetingly considered detouring into Hyde Park to ride off the storm inside him, but even a hell-for-leather gallop down Rotten Row would not suffice. He must simply wrest control back, push down the pain that kept shooting up through the anger.

Morgana.

He could not think straight. He felt as if she’d pushed him off a very high cliff. Hitting the ground, he had met with pain too intense to bear. She had refused him. Said she’d toyed with him. Accused him of being no gentleman.

His head told him not to believe a word of it. Morgana, a courtesan? Nonsense.

Did she concoct that story as an excuse to refuse his offer of marriage? She had wanted their lovemaking as much as he, but only when he’d mentioned marriage did she repeat her outrageous story. Sloane’s insides felt as if a dozen sabres had slashed him to ribbons and his head whirled with the suspicion that she wanted him to be the rake, not the gentleman. She craved the excitement, not the man. Sloane had gone through plenty of women like that, who’d made love to him so they could say they’d been seduced by the dark and dangerous Cyprian Sloane.

Sloane thought Morgana different. He could not have so thoroughly misjudged her when his skill at judging character had always been razor-sharp.

He turned a corner and, nearly colliding with a slow-moving coal wagon, reined in his steed and tried to pull himself together.

He had one thing clear is his head. If she carried his child, she would marry him, even if he had to drag her to the altar to do it. No child of his would ever be burdened by questions of paternity.

Sloane kept his horse apace with the curricles, carriages and wagons in the streets while he tried to push Morgana out of his mind. The immediate task was to confront his father. Ironic that the job at hand was defending the good name of the woman who merely craved his bad one.

He finally turned down the Mayfair street where his father resided, not precisely calm but at least resolved. Sloane pulled his horse to a halt in front of his father’s townhouse. Calling for a footman to see to the horse, he waited in the hall while another servant fetched David. His nephew did not keep him waiting and quickly drew him aside.

‘I am glad you are here.’ David wrung his hands. ‘They have not yet sent the message to the papers. There is still time to change their minds, though I am not sure what you can do to convince them.’

Sloane frowned. ‘Do you know when the Earl and your father conceived this plan?’

‘I do not know when the idea first occurred to them.’ David gave him an earnest glance. ‘I think it was right after Lady Cowdlin’s dinner party—’

Where Rawley had seen them both, Sloane thought.

‘—but they discussed it last night after our evening meal. I looked for you at the musicale , but you were not there. So I sent the message first thing this morning.’

Last night? Before the masquerade. No spy saw Morgana enter his house. Sloane expelled a relieved breath.

David’s expression suddenly changed into one of ill-disguised pain. ‘My father heard your offer for Lady Hannah’s hand would be imminent. Grandfather had words with Lord Cowdlin yesterday. You must know the Cowdlin family and our own have been close for many years—years you were absent. Grandfather does not wish you to marry into the family—’

A muscle contracted in Sloane’s cheek. Sloane had been ready to ruin Hannah’s life, just as his father now aspired to ruin Morgana’s. The similarity between himself and the Earl of Dorton sickened him.

David paced back and forth. ‘Grandfather ought not stand in the way of your happiness. I… I cannot fathom it.’

Sloane gazed at his nephew, who suddenly looked as young as the much-beloved toddler he’d envied so many years ago. He had nearly forgotten David and Hannah’s tragic love affair.

‘David, I am not making Lady Hannah an offer. I will not marry her.’