Chapter 21

The dinner that preceded the ball was a grand occasion. The distinguished members of the Howard party were seated in the places of honour, so she was not obliged to be in any very close proximity to the Duke, a fact for which she was excessively grateful.

Everyone present had made some sort of effort to dress according to the prescribed theme, although most of the older guests had done so by the use of colour, rather than by donning any outlandish costumes. Alice was miserable in white and silver, and Mary Debenham glittered coldly in a priceless lace court dress of quite recent vintage, which, it must be admitted, suited her icy blonde prettiness very well. There were other ladies in low-cut gowns from the previous century – it seemed that the attics of Castle Howard had also been raided for the purpose – and as a result Georgie did not feel so very out of place, though she might have wished that her dinner neighbours would raise their gazes to her face occasionally. Yes, she felt a wild impulse to say, breasts! Two of them – a matching set! Clearly a novelty where you are concerned! I must not, she resolved, have another glass of wine. For several excellent reasons.

The Mauleverers had, as hosts, made a particular effort with their costumes. Lady Blanche had reserved for herself a striking silver gown in which, with powdered hair, she rather resembled Madame de Pompadour, and her children were both dressed chiefly in black, which flattered their pale complexions and striking dark red hair. Young Mr FitzHenry looked very handsome, and many of the ladies present were quite obviously conscious of the fact. Alice was seated by him, and seemed to find his attentions greatly to her liking. Georgie had the fleeting thought that if he instead of his uncle were of a mind to pay court to her friend, she would be by no means so reluctant or so frightened.

But Georgiana had no eyes for him. How could she? The Duke was in full court dress of black velvet heavily embroidered with silver, with white ruffles at neck and wrist, and his long hair, which he had not chosen to powder, was drawn back into a short queue. Perhaps he'd grown it for the purpose. His eyes were bright behind his plain black mask – a mask she thought she recognised – and when he saw her watching him his lips quirked, and he raised his wineglass to her with a courtly inclination of his silvered head. She feared she coloured as she responded, and hoped he did not perceive it beneath her mask. She was mortified that he had caught her staring, but he was so very arresting in the costume that she had not been able to stop herself. He was always handsome in modern dress, especially in evening dress, but the contrast of sensuous velvet and delicate lace with his powerful, athletic frame was something piquant, entirely new, and powerfully attractive. Definitely no more wine, she told herself.

He claimed her for the second dance, a fitting and in sober truth unavoidable tribute to her rank. Lady Georgiana Morpeth, conscious of her delicate condition, was not dancing. She sat to one side observing the throng and gossiping with Louisa and some of the other ladies past their first youth, several of them gently fanning themselves as the heat in the great hall increased with the press of bodies. The guests who came from close by had arrived, and filled the room, and as Lady Blanche had said the effect of so much black, silver and white by candlelight was enormously striking. Georgie had danced the first set with a young Howard or Stafford, who had flirted in a decorous fashion that did nothing to trouble her composure, but she feared that the Duke would be a very different matter.

He took her hand and bowed over it. ‘Ma dame,' he said softly. ‘Vous êtes ravissante ce soir.'

She closed her eyes briefly as she swept him a full curtsey, and prayed for strength. His voice was seductive enough in English; French was more than a woman could be expected to endure. ‘I could say the same of you. You must be conscious of the effect you create in that outfit – it is as though Casanova walks among us again. I hope Miss Templeton is swept by away your charms this evening. Do you dance with her next?'

They took up their places. ‘I can't remember. But I shouldn't think she would be: she has hardly shown any evidence of succumbing to my allegedly irresistible allure up to now.'

‘She's frightened of you.'

His mouth thinned below the mask as the music began and they moved apart, and then together. ‘You exaggerate, surely? She is merely timid and a little shy of me because we are not yet well acquainted. I have felt no temptation to overstep the bounds of propriety with her, nor done the least thing to cause her any alarm.'

‘I do not exaggerate. She finds even conversing with you intimidating, and the prospect of being alone with you positively terrifying. Which might be a problem in the future you have planned, I'd have thought.'

‘Did I choose poorly? Again? How maladroit I appear to be. You must bear a share of the blame, for I am sure Miss Debenham would have been more receptive.'

‘Oh, I have no doubt of it.'

‘It does make me wonder, could any of my prospective brides ever meet with your approval?' he said silkily. ‘You are inconsistent, Rosalind. You do not want me for yourself – or you do, in truth, but you dare not – but you are so very quick to find fault with all my other choices.'

‘That is unfair!' she hissed. ‘I am not at all jealous, I assure you! Mary Debenham would be a disastrous match for any man of sense.' His mouth quirked again, and he made a graceful, ironical little bow in acknowledgement of the inadvertent compliment without losing his place in the dance. She ignored it and swept on. ‘And I cannot believe that even you really wish to marry a woman who hates dogs and dreads intimacy with you so much that she plans to make it bearable by telling over household chores in her head all the while!'

He let out a little snort of incredulous laughter. ‘No!' she said. ‘I assure you, sir! On both counts!'

‘Well, if I were truly to wish to live up to my deplorable reputation, I could say that I am confident such measures will not prove necessary. But I take your point, my dear – it's perfectly true that I have no wish to figure as an ogre in my own marriage bed. The picture you paint, dogs aside, does sound rather fatiguing, and not hugely enjoyable for either of the parties involved. And,' he added, his silver eyes glinting wickedly behind the mask, ‘you have excellent reason to know that I am never selfish when it comes to pleasure.'

‘Hush!' she whispered fiercely, though his words set the blood thrumming in her veins. She did have every reason to know it, and the pictures and sensations his words evoked were a delicious torment, at such a time and in such a public setting. She was sure he was aware of the effect he had on her, that was the worst of it, and he was laughing at her as the dance ended.

Alice was indeed his next partner, and Georgie was all too conscious of her white, rigid little face – the Duke's expression she could not read – as she took her place in the set close by them, and turned in the figures with Mr FitzHenry as her partner, thankful he appeared to have given up his previous attempts to flirt with her in the face of her obvious and consistent lack of interest. She could not help but feel guilty as she beheld Alice's barely concealed distress, knowing she could free her friend from the fears that haunted her with little more than a word. A significant glance, a nod would do it. But at what cost to herself?

It was all too much for her suddenly, and when the dance was ended she made an excuse to her waiting partner and slipped from the crowded room, rejecting his offers of assistance. She made her way through the empty picture gallery and found the door that she had used with Alice the evening before. Escaping into the garden, she crossed to a stone bench and sat, drinking in the reviving sea air and gazing blindly at the moonlit scene. But she was not left in peace for long.

‘This was my mother's favourite spot,' said the voice she had been half-expecting to hear. She sat still and watched him approach, and thought as he did so that this was surely his natural element: the rhythmic sound of the crashing waves on the beach far below, the velvet darkness, the everyday objects transformed into something strange and eerie by the moonlight. Every fibre of her body was aware of his proximity and her blood sang in her veins at the prospect of his touch, however much she might tell herself that it should not be so. It was so; perhaps it always would be.

‘I wondered if you would follow me.'

‘That's not quite true, is it, if you are honest? You knew I would. Because I cannot keep away from you, and you do not want me to.'

‘I should want you to,' she sighed, tacitly acknowledging the truth of his words. He was very close now.

‘We never want what we should, have you not observed? How convenient it would be if we did. I think you and I are alike in that. The tantalising little patch you wear beside your eye is La Passionnée, you know, and it suits you perfectly. The rules of society are clear enough, and dinned into us from our earliest childhood, but you, quite as much as I, struggle to follow them, even though the penalties for transgression are all too obvious, for women so much more than for men. Perhaps you would find it easier,' he said gently, ‘if you could make for yourself a way of life that allows you to blur such boundaries, rather than trying and failing to conform over and over again. Your aunt has done so, after all. I consider it admirable, though I am sure she would care nothing for my approval, the way she and her poetess manage to live entirely as they please, and do it with such insouciance that nobody even thinks to censure them.'

‘They are not done yet,' she said drily, struggling to maintain her composure as she always did when he was close by. ‘We will see if their latest start pushes them beyond the bounds of what society will accept at last. I hope not. Because it's dangerous, living as you please. Look at Lady Georgiana Morpeth's mother, the late Duchess of Devonshire, if you wish for an illustration.'

‘I know,' he replied. ‘Believe me, I do not mean to belittle your fears. Her life was undeniably tragic, and I understand why it preys upon your mind. But Devonshire piled cruelty on cruelty – to make her greatest friend his mistress, to keep her living under their roof… You do not need me to rehearse the whole sorry story. It hardly helps my case, I am well aware, as an example of what supposedly civilised men can do to the women they marry.'

Once again, she resisted his invitation to turn the conversation to more personal matters; she feared he was about to renew his suit and she did not know if she had the strength to resist him for long when she so craved his touch, his mouth on hers. ‘I was not old enough to discuss it with my mama, naturally, but Louisa has told me that Mama believed her friend would never have involved herself with Lord Grey if Devonshire had not treated her so badly for so many years. She was very unhappy, and confided in Mama a great deal.'

She thought his face was unwontedly troubled behind the mask, though it was hard to be sure in the moonlight. ‘Georgiana,' he said softly, ‘I am conscious that I am making you unhappy by a lack of consideration. I am certainly all too aware that I made a sorry hash of my proposal. Babbling of Leaky Sue like a simpleton – I would not wonder if it gave you a disgust of me. I know what you fear, and my behaviour since we met has given you little reason to think me a man of sense, much less one of feeling or any shred of decency. But let me ask you this one last time – can we honestly not find some way to make things work between us?' He took her hand and drew her to her feet, and when she stood he did not release her, but raised her gloved fingers to his lips and kissed them with intense concentration. ‘I must always make a sad mull of things when it comes to you. You make me nervous, you know,' he confessed with a wry smile, still gazing down at her hand where it lay in his, rather than looking up and meeting her eyes.

‘Nervous, you?' she scoffed, clinging perilously to her composure, unbearably conscious of his nearness, of the sheer physical power of him, and how his body called out to hers, how the mere touch of his hand, the brush of his lips, left her wanting so much more.

‘Something about your presence,' he said, releasing her, but only so he could cup her face and draw her closer, ‘makes me lose my head and say outrageous things I do not really mean, or do not wholly mean. I beg you not to pretend you do not understand me, for I know you are affected in the same manner. Or you would not have told me you were a widow, on a certain memorable occasion, or as good as invited me to put you across my knee and spank you.' He was close enough to see the dark flare of desire in her eyes as memories flooded her, and he laughed, very low. ‘Now, you see, the way things generally proceed between us, I would immediately add, "an invitation I look forward to accepting", or some such nonsense, and you would make pretence to be shocked, while all the while intrigued, and both of us aroused, and sharing that knowledge. And this is all very well – it is more than that – but Georgiana, please tell me, I implore you to tell me, how I am to marry another woman, any other woman, when this, whatever it is, this physical connection, call it lust if you wish, is alive between us? I must ask you one final time, before I commit myself to a course that I fear will lead to unhappiness and regret for many, would it be fair to that other woman, or for that matter fair to either of us?'

‘I know it would not,' she admitted, shaken by the force of his words.

His hands were still about her face, holding her gently but inexorably as he looked deep into her eyes. ‘I do not want to marry any other woman, no matter who she might be,' he told her. ‘I do not commonly use words such as right and wrong, for I gave up that privilege long ago. But it seems to me entirely wrong to crash into another woman's life, uprooting her from all that is familiar and comfortable and asking her to put her future, her whole chance of happiness in my power, when all the while there is this madness in me, and I know that I would abandon her without a second thought to follow you across the world if you asked me to. Or even if you did not.'

‘Would you?' she said wistfully. She could not help herself.

‘Georgiana, you know I would…' It was almost a groan, and then their lips met. Her arms slid around his neck, and he released her face to clasp her to him, his big hands tight on the boned bodice of her gown below her breasts, holding her fast, holding her exactly as she needed to be held, as their mouths fused in mutual need. She pressed herself against him, wanting to be closer still, pushing her fingers deep into his silky hair and freeing it from its restraining band. ‘Georgiana…' he whispered again against her mouth, and then he kissed his way along her jawline, and she threw back her neck, letting him take her weight, surrendering herself to his strong arms and inviting him wordlessly to explore her throat, her almost entirely exposed breasts, with his lips and tongue and teeth.

He was tasting her skin at the point where her neck met her bare shoulder when a sound behind them penetrated their reverie. The Duke raised his head, Georgie opened her eyes, and they saw in mutual shock that they were no longer alone.