Mary Balogh - Slightly Scandalous

She bent over her letter again.

The rain had eased to a light drizzle by the afternoon. Lady Holt-Barron still did not like the idea of their getting their shoes and hems wet or of having to carry an umbrella rather than a parasol, but the Upper Rooms were little more than a stone's throw away, and staying at home was an unattractive alternative to the prospect of tea and conversation with their peers. They walked to the Rooms.

The tearoom was fuller than usual, probably because the weather discouraged outdoor exercise, but they found an empty table and nodded politely to various acquaintances while the tea was set before them. Within five minutes the Earl of Willett was seated with them. He had come, he explained, to assure himself that Lady Freyja had taken no harm from her dash across country yesterday.

"Hallmere really ought not to have encouraged you," he said. "He ought to have remembered that you are a lady and are therefore compelled to ride sidesaddle."

Freyja regarded him with haughty disdain-and noticed that the subject of his complaint was just then entering the tearoom, looking handsome and distinguished in brown and fawn. She was thoroughly alarmed by the mode of heightened awareness into which her body immediately launched.

Hallmere really ought not to have encouraged you.

No, he ought not. But she had not needed much encouragement, had she?

She set about pointedly ignoring him. He was escorting three ladies-Lady Potford and two strangers, the elder of whom was wearing mourning and smiling sweetly about the room while she leaned heavily on his arm. But although Lady Potford soon sat down at a table with a few of her acquaintances, the marquess and the other two ladies remained on their feet and circulated slowly about the room. He was apparently presenting them to Bath society.

The earl stood and bowed when the group approached their table. Freyja looked up and met the marquess's eyes, her own cool and-she hoped-very slightly disdainful. His smile was looking somewhat more strained than usual, she noticed.

"Lady Holt-Barron, Miss Holt-Barron, Lady Freyja Bedwyn, the Earl of Willett," he said with great formality, "may I have the honor of presenting my aunt, the Marchioness of Hallmere, and my cousin, Lady Constance Moore?"

The aunt was the one on his arm.

"How do you do?" she said. "It is a wonderful pleasure to be in Bath and to meet all of dear Joshua's friends."

She clung to his arm as if she were too frail to stand alone. She smiled sweetly and spoke in the sort of high-pitched whine affected by ladies who fancied themselves permanently indisposed. In Freyja's experience they almost invariably outlived all their more robust relatives-and drove them near to insanity while they still lived.

Lady Constance, a neatly clad and coiffed, sensible-looking girl, curtsied and murmured a how-do-you-do.

"How do you do, ma'am, Lady Constance?" Lady Holt-Barron said graciously. "You have come up from Penhallow to take the waters, have you?"

"Perhaps they would improve my health," the marchioness said. "My spirits have been low since the passing of my dear Hallmere. But I came with the purpose of seeing my dearest nephew, ma'am, and of enabling him to become reacquainted with his cousin. Constance was little more than a girl when Joshua left home to seek adventure five years ago. Five weary years," she added with a sigh that sounded weary indeed.

Ah. The woman had come with the intention of marrying off her daughter to her nephew and so securing her home and her place in it, then, had she? Freyja looked more closely at Lady Constance Moore. And then she transferred her gaze to the marquess. He was looking steadily back at her, his lips pursed, a suggestion of laughter in his eyes. It was an expression that acknowledged his awareness of her understanding of the situation.

"We are staying at the White Hart Inn," the marchioness was saying in answer to a question Lady Holt-Barron must have asked. "I was told it is the best."

"Hallmere," the earl said, "I must commend you for escorting Lady Freyja home safely from your ride yesterday. I must confess that I was filled with trepidation on her behalf when you took her away from the party we had formed and went galloping across the hills with her. But you returned her safely to Lady Holt-Barron's and so no great harm was done."

Freyja was caught between amusement and exasperation.

The marquess raised his eyebrows. "Actually, Willett," he said, "to my everlasting shame I must confess that it was Lady Freyja who won our race by a full head, and so it might be said that it was she who brought me safely back from our ride. I am much obliged to her for that."

"I am only thankful," Lady Holt-Barron said, fanning herself with her linen napkin, "that I knew nothing of this race until after it was well over. I do not know what I would have said to the Duke of Bewcastle, Lady Freyja's brother, if she had fallen off her horse and broken every bone in her body."

"Oh, never say it, ma'am," the marchioness said, sounding on the verge of a fit of the vapors. "Horse racing is extremely dangerous, especially for a lady. I hope you never persuade Constance to go galloping across country with you, Joshua, dear."

Her voice was faint, but her eyes were fixed sharply upon Freyja and bored into her like twin needle points. Freyja raised her eyebrows with quelling hauteur.

Gracious heavens, she thought, I am being warned off. How very diverting!

The Marchioness of Hallmere, she decided, was a lady who liked to have her own way and would get it by any means at her disposal. It would not be a comfortable thing to have such a person as a mother-or as an aunt. It would be interesting to see how successfully she was able to maneuver the marquess.

The group moved on to the next table.

"The marchioness is a very genteel sort of person," Lady Holt-Barron said approvingly.

"It is highly commendable in her to have come all the way from Cornwall to pay her respects to the nephew who has succeeded to the title of her late husband," the earl said. "It would be very proper for him to offer for his cousin."

Freyja met Charlotte's glance across the table, and her friend half smiled. Charlotte had wanted to know yesterday after the ride what had happened. And of all the things she might have spoken of-and had written of this morning at great length to her relatives-Freyja had blurted just three words.

"He kissed me."

Charlotte had clasped her hands to her bosom, her eyes dancing with merriment.

"I knew it," she had said. "From the very first moment-that hilariously awful scene in the Pump Room-I recognized the attraction you feel for each other. And now he has kissed you. I might feel mortally jealous if it were not for Frederick, even if he is very ordinary-looking and quite unromantic, the poor love."

"And I kissed him," honesty had forced Freyja to add. "But it meant absolutely nothing, Charlotte. We were both agreed on that when we spoke of it afterward."

Charlotte had merely chuckled and whisked herself off to change her dress.

Despite the heavy rain that had kept his grandmother at home during the morning, Joshua had walked to the White Hart and escorted his aunt and cousin to the Pump Room, where he had introduced them to the few people who had braved the elements and where Mrs. Lumbard and her daughter had greeted them with obsequious enthusiasm. Afterward, he had escorted them back to their hotel and had breakfast with them. He had taken them shopping on Milsom Street and returned them to the hotel after two hours, empty-handed. The prices in the shops were outrageously high, his aunt had complained. He had taken luncheon with them before returning to his grandmother's.

But he had promised to take them up again later to convey them to the Upper Rooms for tea. Afterward, although it would have been more convenient to drop them off at the White Hart and return to Great Pulteney Street in the carriage with his grandmother, his aunt invited him in, explaining that there was some business she really must discuss with him. And so his grandmother returned home alone.