AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Though the words were rational enough, there was an edge of despair in the tone. Nonetheless, Lady Bertram only nodded and remarked, "Basil comes out of the adventure quite a prodigy of virtue. How very distressing that must be for him, after devoting so much time and imagination to wickedness."
"Has he?" Alexandra couldn't help asking. "I mean, has he always been wicked?"
"My dear child—you don't mean to tell me he's pulled the wool over your eyes?"
"Of course not. I was only wondering if he was always so."
The countess hesitated, but only for a moment. Then, without mincing matters—yet without dwelling on them either—she gave her goddaughter a concise history of Basil's career from the time he entered Oxford.
When she had done, Miss Ashmore nodded as though the account was only confirmation of what she'd known all along. She smiled, very winningly indeed, and asked for news of Family and Society—in short, all the sorts of things a young lady who'd been out of England for six years would want to know.
A week later, as Alexandra reclined upon a chaise longue trying to read a book, she found herself wondering where Basil was and what wickedness he could be up to now. Sense and Sensibility lay neglected on her lap while she debated whether his new ladybird was an actress or an opera dancer and whether her eyes were blue or brown or even green like Alexandra's own.
But what concern was that of hers? She hadn't really expected him to visit her, had she? Still, she'd thought he might at least call on his own aunt. The days had passed, and there was no sign of him. Doubtless he was too busy with his dissipations.
She was a fool to wait and brood like Miss Austen's painfully passionate Marianne, pining in vain for her faithless Willoughby. At any rate, there were far better things in store for Alexandra Ashmore. Tonight she would dine with the Deverells and meet a young gentleman who'd been invited especially on her account.
"Randolph is all well and good, my dear," Lady Bertram had told her. "If you come to have a care for him, so much the better as you'll please yourself and your father all at once. But I'd rather you looked around a bit first. Marriage is usually a permanent arrangement, you know."
Tonight it was proposed that Alexandra look at one William Farrington, Marquess of Arden, heir to the Duke of Thorne, and "as handsome a devil as you're like to meet," according to Aunt Clem.
"He's all on pins and needles to meet you, my dear. He caught a glimpse of you the other afternoon as you left Madame Vernisse's and pestered Maria day and night for an introduction."
Alexandra closed Miss Austen's book with a resigned thump. Well then, she'd look at him, and he'd look at her. It would be pleasant if he was handsome and even more pleasant if he was also relatively intelligent—though that might be too much to hope for. Her experience of idle, upper-class English gentlemen had led her to conclude that they were exemplars of the evils of inbreeding and, in short, not very bright.
Mr. Trevelyan was bright, however. He did listen, too, and his answers were never patronising even if he did tease dreadfully. She missed his teasing, missed looking for the reality in his theatrical effusions and the bit of truth in his charming lies, just as much as she missed for once being treated by a man as an intellectual equal.
There had even been those rare occasions when she'd startled him out of his formidable composure. She'd certainly surprised him that last night in Prevesa. Apparently, he'd taken her words to heart, for he'd been scrupulously well behaved through the whole voyage. She didn't like to admit it, but she wished he'd been a little less well behaved.
That was the problem. She might have reasonably pleasant thoughts about him, except that the memory of his embrace kept intruding. Perhaps it wasn't terrible to enjoy being kissed—not when one was kissed so beautifully by so experienced a gentleman. With all that experience to inform it, perhaps a kiss should be enjoyable. Practise does make perfect after all. Still, the heat and breathlessness and sudden, frightening urgency of it—well, that wasn't proper. No, that part could not be proper.
Which was, of course, why respectable young women did not go off alone with gentlemen and get themselves kissed.
What started as a lovely kiss was bound to turn into something else, something that led to ruination.
It was humiliating to admit even to herself that she'd been—at least at the moment—willing to risk such ruin. She flushed at the memory. Pride, not regard for her virtue, had stopped her. She was afraid they'd be caught and forced to wed. Yes, Mr. Trevelyan did make her think wicked thoughts, and yes, he was very attractive, and yes, his kisses were lovely. But as a husband—one who'd resent and hate her for entrapping him, who'd humiliate her with his mistresses—he was out of the question.
How careless of him to begin it in the first place, to think only of amusing himself, and leave her to worry about the consequences. But why not? Hadn't she behaved like a common lightskirt? What was wrong with her anyhow? Was she wicked? Was she infatuated with him? Or was it only that he was so skilled a seducer?
Yes, that must be it. She was the innocent victim of his wiles.
While the innocent victim of Basil Trevelyan's wiles was staring obliviously at Miss Austen's book, Mr. Trevelyan himself had been having a highly agreeable conversation with Mr. Weston of Bond Street. Basil was just finishing his business with the tailor when Lord Arden sauntered in.
The marquess's enthusiastic greeting caused Basil to look at him suspiciously. While their families were intimate, and the two young men had grown up together and caroused and gambled together, they were rather too much alike to trust each other overmuch. Thus, no real intimacy had evolved between them despite many opportunities.
In a very few minutes, the mystery was solved. "I say, Trev," Lord Arden drawled as they left the tailor's shop and made their way to Watier's, "who is that perfectly stunning creature your aunt's taken in?"
Only a week and she'd called herself to Arden's attention. Naturally. Every rogue remaining in London must have sensed her presence in their midst, just as experienced hounds would sniff out a fox. Basil pretended to think very hard.
"Stunning creature?" he asked ingenuously.
"Why, you sly devil. Of course you know who I mean, is this some sort of family secret? Your aunt refuses to be at home to me, and Maria won't say a word, only tells me I might come to dinner tonight and perhaps the young lady will be there. You must tell me who the mysterious beauty is."
"If Lady Deverell is determined to tease you, then I certainly won't spoil her fun." What the deuce did the woman mean by inviting one of London's most notorious rakeshames to dinner with Miss Ashmore? Arden's reputation was worse even than Basil's. The marquess had both enormous wealth and exalted rank and took full advantage of the privileges attached thereunto.
Not, certainly, that Basil could have expected an invitation. Lord Deverell, Isabella's father, was hardly likely to welcome into his home the young man who'd threatened his wife's reputation and his daughter's future.
"Then you do know," Lord Arden said, calling Basil back to the present. "Well, I must be content to look upon it as a delicious mystery. Obviously, I dare not describe her to anyone and invite rivals. Not, of course, that there's anyone in town at this time of year. Still, I expect she will be there tonight. Maria can't be as conscienceless as all that. Come now, you must give me a clue. Is she a relation? Part French, maybe? Lived abroad most of her life?"
"Possibly," was the unhelpful reply.
"What a close-mouthed fellow you've got to be, Trev." There was a speculative gleam in Lord Arden's grey eyes. "But then I daresay you've got your eye on her yourself. Our tastes have always been remarkably like. Still, you must know she's not your type—not at all."
"And what, precisely, do you think is not my type?"
"Why, the price is too high, Trev. Marriage. Your aunt's standing guard, after all. No slip of the shoulder in this case, I'm afraid."
"Then why are you so eager to meet her?"
"Because I’ve ta
ken it into my mind to marry. Actually, she's put it into my mind. You know that my Respected Parent has been growling at me the last decade at least to be married and get heirs. He's been throwing that insufferable Honoria Crofton-Ash at me this age. Fortunately, my mother believes that a young man must sow his wild oats."
