Rogue in Red Velvet (33 page)

“Was, sweetness, was.” He glanced down and frowned. “Damn, I thought I heard a rip. I’ve torn the lower flounce of your petticoat. Do you have pins?”

“Of course.” She reached into her pocket and found the small packet that most women had about them for just such an emergency. He took it with a smile. “Now what did you do with my wig?” He looked around. “Ah yes.” He picked it up and paused before a large pier-glass ensuring it was properly in place. It took him but a second or two, then he was back with her, kneeling at her feet and lifting her petticoat but not for the same reason he had done earlier.

The door opened.

Connie, lost in a dream, started in alarm. He stared up at her, a warning in his dark eyes. She had to trust him now, because that was what he was asking her. To trust him.

Expressions of shock marked the various people crowding around the doorway. Some smiled. They were crowding in to view her downfall. At their head stood Miss Stobart, triumph on her face. “I knew they’d come in here.” she said shrilly. “I saw them. He makes a habit of luring females into empty rooms at balls. Or maybe
she
lured
him
, don’t you think, sir?”

She’d brought Lord Downholland with her. Her last attempt to regain the inheritance for her betrothed. Lord Downholland merely stared at them.

What astonished Connie was the sight of Alex swiftly closing his hand over the packet of pins. They were his excuse. He only had to say he was helping her mend her skirt and he was free to leave, unhindered.

He stayed where he was, kneeling before her.

Heat flooded through her when she realized what the people staring at them would think. By not insisting they lock the door, she’d taken the decision away from him, just as he had her, even though she hadn’t meant to do it. He didn’t look as unhappy as she imagined he would.

“I hadn’t planned to perform this before an audience.”

Amusement lacing his low tones, he turned back to her. He took one of her hands and placed a kiss on the back of it, then retained it, pressing it warmly between his own. “Mrs. Rattigan, would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

She gaped then remembered to close her mouth. It took her a moment to find her voice. “You can’t mean that.” Not in public, where her rejection could mean his public ridicule.

“Never more serious. You have stolen my heart and my senses. I want nothing more in this world. Please say yes.”

His gentle urging melted her but it was the expression in his eyes that convinced her. He meant it. This wasn’t for sport, wasn’t to avenge himself against Miss Stobart, wasn’t because he’d been forced into this situation in any way. He meant every word.

And because she wanted this more than anything else in her life, she said, “Yes. Yes please. Oh, Alex!”

He got to his feet, clasping her hands.

She wanted more, to celebrate the moment with a full embrace. She laughed shakily. “I should have said, ‘Lord Ripley, you honor me with your proposal. I can do nothing but accept your most flattering offer.’” She tore her gaze away from his, to her godfather. “Will you say I said that the first time, if you please?”

Miss Stobart colored an interesting shade of plum and she’d forgotten to school her expression. She scowled, revealing her age, appearing as nothing more than a child in her mother’s clothes.

Connie almost felt sorry for her, but Louisa’s act of spite negated that. “Well what did you expect?” she snapped. “For his lordship to get to his feet and walk away? Do you really know him so little?”

Stobart really was a stupid woman. Or wilfully blind, which amounted to the same thing.

Alex wouldn’t have left her. She’d seen his sincerity. He would have asked her, had perhaps been planning to all along. If she’d seen any doubt in his face, any at all, she’d have refused him. That would have been acceptable, except they’d been alone but she was a widow, not an innocent miss and a little latitude could be allowed before she would have compromised herself.

They could have pulled it off. Nobody would have known what had transpired here tonight. But he’d wanted to and the thought warmed her from the inside out.

“Do you wish us to announce the happy event tonight?” asked Lord Winterton.

She hadn’t noticed him coming in. Strange how a man dressed so flamboyantly could move so discreetly when he wanted to.

“If you wish it. I think it might be best, because I have plans for our marriage sooner rather than later.” Alex glanced at her, smiling fondly. “Now I have her, I’m not letting her go.”

She saw an intent in his gaze she wasn’t at all sure about but the dark, glowing promise heated her desires.

Julius took her free hand and bowed over it formally. “May I be the first to offer my heartiest congratulations?” He turned. “Perhaps we could leave the happy couple with Lord Downholland to hammer out the details.” He walked towards the door and then turned back at the last moment, as the spectators had reluctantly filed out. “I haven’t congratulated my best friend and one of my dearest new friends.” He offered his hand and wrung Alex’s comprehensively when he gave him it. “You won’t regret it.” He released Alex and leaned in to kiss her cheek. “Welcome to the family, Connie. Such as it is.”

She noticed the subtle but delicious scent of citrus and musk. On the whole, she preferred Alex’s scent. Alex smelled of male arousal and sandalwood. It aroused her just thinking of it.

Julius turned and left.

Alex gazed down at her, smiling. “I want the wedding as soon as possible. Do you have anything planned for tomorrow?”

She gaped at him for a bare moment.

Her godfather took that moment to speak. “It might have escaped your notice but tomorrow is Sunday, so you can’t marry then. But you can sign the contract on Monday, if I call on my man of business. I had one drawn up for Connie’s marriage to—” He cleared his throat. “It was a fair and reasonable contract and we may, if you like, use it as the basis for the new one.”

Alex gave a nod. “Then that’s what we do.” He spared Lord Downholland a glance. “Without that morality clause. I want Connie cared for and sure she’s going into the marriage with all her rights protected. We’ll marry on Tuesday.”

“Sir, the banns!” Lord Downholland protested.

“I have a special license. I obtained it when I arrived in London from the visit to your house. It has Connie’s name on it. My other task for tomorrow is to arrange for the ceremony.”

“Alex, are you…” Connie tried, overwhelmed by the speed of events and her own emotions.

“Perfectly.” He raised her hand and kissed it. “I should also inform my father. I told him of my intention to court you, so this won’t come as a surprise to him.”

“He’s on his way,” said Lady Downholland as she entered the room. “Word is already spreading but I sent a messenger to the house he is visiting tonight.” She swept forward and enclosed an overwhelmed Connie into her soft, scented embrace.

Connie didn’t think she could take much more. Her head spun with recent developments. She’d reconciled herself to going home to Cumbria, managing without Jasper and most of all without Alex. Now she doubted she’d see her house in some time, or, from the way Alex was looking at her, anywhere but the inside of a bedchamber. She didn’t feel sorry about that part at all.

“We should steel ourselves for the congratulations of our friends and acquaintances.” Alex lifted his arm, an invitation for her to rest the tips of her fingers on his forearm. Instead, she put her palm over it and squeezed a little. She needed proper support and she needed to know that he was under all that magnificence. Some connection with reality. “Shall we face the terrifying marauding hordes?”

The thought of comparing polite society to ancient warrior tribes made her smile and she was still smiling when he took her back into the main room. Although they were not so vulgar as to give them a round of applause, Connie felt the approbation of several people, mostly the ones without eligible females in their immediate family. Several congratulated them as they moved through the crowd, Connie inching a little closer to Alex as they passed through to the supper room and Alex found cool glasses of wine for them both. In that short journey, Connie began to grow aware of what it would be like to not only be the wife of Alex as Lady Ripley but in time, the Countess of Leverton. She didn’t know how she felt about any of it but decided to give herself time, not to accept it all so quickly.

Except that on Tuesday, dreams would become reality.

Julius appeared, a plateful of delicacies in his hand. “I ordered this made up for you.”

Immediately Alex led her to a table and made her sit. “I should have thought of that.”

Julius grinned. “I think I know why you didn’t.” He reached out and when Alex held out his hand, Julius dropped a key into it. “I don’t use it much these days. It’s yours, if you wish. Although I know you don’t care about discretion, I think Connie might.”

“Thank you, Julius.”

“We’ll expect you when we see you, Connie.” He bent and brushed his lips over her hand. “Welcome to our distinctly odd and reprehensible family.”

“Thank you.”

Alex glanced at her and leaned closer to speak to her alone. “Would you stay with me tonight?” Considering the measure of interest shown in them by the other people in the room he took a considerable risk even saying that much.

Her mind went back to those blissful hours in the small room in the house in Covent Garden. She could be true to her upbringing or true to her heart. “Yes.”

“Then we leave soon.”

“Yes.” She wanted to bury her face in the welcome darkness of his coat, forget everything else except him.

She applied herself to the food Julius had thoughtfully acquired for her and she was just finishing the last tiny pastry when Alex, who had been conversing quietly with Julius said, “Ah, father.”

She found a napkin and touched it to her mouth before glancing up. She’d never thought of Lord Leverton as formidable before, but she did now.

Clad in the society wear of elaborate, flared coat, embroidered waistcoat, breeches and clocked stockings, Lord Leverton looked like what he was, an aristocrat, born of aristocrats, sure of his place in the world.

All things that Connie was not. She stumbled when she got to her feet and Alex was quick to cup her elbow and steady her.

“Tomorrow, Ripley, I want to speak to you.”

“Yes, sir. Mrs. Rattigan is staying here tonight as the guest of the duke and duchess. She is tired by the day’s events and she needs to rest.”

Leverton nodded. “I see. Very well.”

“You might want to attend the Downhollands’ house at noon on Monday, sir. We’re signing the contract. We’ve agreed to marry on Tuesday.”

Chapter 20

It appeared someone had apprised the Duchess of Kirkburton of Connie’s presence in her house that night. She also knew about Alex. The subtle way the lady glanced at him after she said she was delighted to offer the shelter of her humble house to a weary guest—all said in the iciest tones—told her that. A maid took her to the room and she wasn’t entirely surprised to find Saxton there.

She’d brought Connie’s nightclothes, her dressing case and a change of clothes for the morning. “They said to bring them here, ma’am. I’m to sleep upstairs.” She usually slept in a room close to Connie’s but this wasn’t an ordinary London town house. This was more like a grand country house somehow transposed to the city. A very grand house.

On her journey here from the main state rooms Connie had glimpsed the gleam of gold in rooms quiet and unoccupied and the glitter of crystal. This room was just as grand, dominated by a huge four-poster, made of old wood heavily carved and gilded. The rest of the furniture was to match, with heavy red velvet drapery. Worse, it was all spotless, even under the bed. That meant the duchess was a hard mistress, something Connie had suspected once she’d met the diminutive virago.

Saxton divested Connie of her evening clothes, helped her into her night-rail and a loose robe and washed the powder out of her hair and the cosmetics from her face.

Feeling better, more like herself, Connie leaned back in the chair before the dressing table, with its formidable array of crystal bottles and silver brushes and pots and closed her eyes to allow Saxton to brush her hair and braid it ready for the night. She still wondered what she was doing here and if he would come but at least she had some respite to try to make sense of her life. “You’re a good lady’s maid, Saxton.”

“Thank you,” said a warm male voice she knew well.

She jerked forward, yanking the brush from her hair. “Where’s my maid?”

“If you want her back, I’ll call her for you.” His eyes gleamed.

“She won’t gossip.”

“I know that but it went against the grain for me to creep in once she’d gone and you were in bed. You’re mine, Connie. After Tuesday I’ll have the right to say so publicly.”

A thrill passed right through her but she suppressed it and tried to think of the practical. “You meant it? Tuesday?”

“Assuredly. I’d do it on Monday if I could but I want to ensure it’s all done as it should be. But tonight, sweetheart, belongs to us.”

“What would her grace say if she caught us?” Despite her determination to face this business like the lady she would shortly become, Connie quailed at the thought of it.