“No.” She shook her head. “And I do not expect him to bother me again. I believe I made myself clear today.”
“Did you?” She was aware that he was gazing at her profile even though she did not turn her head to look at him. “Why did you not make yourself clear to me?”
“Just now?” she said. “You told me—”
“When I offered you a ride,” he explained. “When I suggested that we take a room together at the inn by the market green.”
She could not think of a suitable answer even though he waited for her to speak. She drew her feet out of the water, clasped her arms about her raised knees, and lowered her head to rest her forehead against them.
“That was different,” she said lamely at last. But how was it different? Perhaps because she had sensed from the very first moment that if she had said no he would not have pressed the point? But how had she known it? And was it true? “I wanted the experience.” But it was a dream she had wanted.
“You would have taken that experience with Effingham, then, if he had come riding along instead of me?” he asked.
She shivered. “No, of course not.”
He did not speak again for a while and when he did, he changed the subject.
“Your brother is a fashionable young gentleman,” he said, “and moves in fashionable circles. Even fast circles, if one may judge from his friendship with Horace Effingham. He is enjoying the idle life of a guest while you are here as a type of glorified servant. Do I detect a story behind those contrasting details?”
“I do not know,” she said, lifting her head and staring across the water. “Do you?”
“Is he the black sheep of the family?” he asked. “But do you love him nevertheless?”
“Of course I love him,” she said. “He is my brother, and it would be very hard to dislike Bran even if he were not. He was sent away to school and university for a gentleman’s education. It is only natural that he would wish to mingle with other gentlemen on a basis of equality. It is only natural that he be somewhat extravagant until he discovers what he wants to do with his life and settles to some career. He is not vicious. He is just...”
“Thoughtless and self-absorbed?” he suggested when she could not think of a suitable word. “Does he know that he is responsible for your being here?”
“He is not—” she began.
“You do altogether too much lying, you know,” he said.
She turned her head to look indignantly at him.
“It is not your business, Lord Rannulf,” she said. “Nothing to do with my life or my family is your business.”
“No, it is not,” he agreed. “By your choice, Miss Law. Have your sisters suffered a similar fate to your own?”
“They are all still at home,” she said, feeling such a wave of homesickness suddenly that she had to dip her forehead against her knees again.
“Why you?” he asked her. “Did you volunteer? I cannot imagine anyone was eager to come here to suffer the kindly affection of your aunt.”
She sighed. “Cassandra is the eldest,” she said, “and our mother’s right hand. Pamela is the third of us and the beauty of the family. She could not have borne to leave, not to be the center of everyone’s admiration—not that she is unduly vain about her looks. And Hilary is too young. She is only seventeen.
It would have broken her heart to have to leave our mother and father—and it would have broken all of our hearts too.”
“But no one’s heart will be broken by your absence?” he asked.
“One of us needed to come,” she said. “And they did all shed tears over me when I left.”
“And yet,” he said, “you would defend that extravagant young puppy of a brother to me?”
“I do not need to,” she said, “or to censure him. Not to you .”
And yet she was not really angry with him for prying or for understanding the situation so well. It felt treacherously good to have someone interested enough in her life to ask questions about it. Someone who understood, perhaps, the extent of the sacrifice she had made voluntarily . . . though of course she would have been the chosen one even if she had not offered to come.
“Where did you learn to act?” he asked. “Does your family engage in amateur theatricals at the vicarage or rectory or wherever it is you live?”
“Rectory,” she said, lifting her head again. “Oh, dear, no. Papa would have an apoplexy. He is fanatically opposed to acting and the theater and declares that they are the work of the devil. But I have always, always loved acting. I used to go off on my own into the hills, where I would be neither seen nor heard, and throw myself into different roles I had memorized.”
“You seem to have memorized a great deal,” he said.
“Oh, but it is not difficult to do,” she assured him. “If you act a part as if you are that character, you see, then the words become your own, the only logical ones to speak under those particular circumstances. I have never consciously memorized a part. I have simply become various characters.”
She fell silent, rather embarrassed by the enthusiasm with which she had just explained her passion for acting. She had wanted desperately to be an actress when she grew up until she had learned that acting was not a respectable career for a lady.
Lord Rannulf sat quietly beside her, one wrist draped over his knee, the other hand absently plucking at the long grass. She thought of him as he had looked earlier, his head bent over Julianne, listening attentively to her chatter.
“Does it amuse you,” she asked, “to toy with Julianne’s affections V The words were out before she fully realized she was about to speak them aloud.
His hand stilled. “Does she have affections to be toyed with?” he asked in return. “I think not, Miss Law.
She is after a titled husband, the richer and more socially prominent the better. I daresay a duke’s son who is independently wealthy seems like a brilliant catch to her.”
“You do not believe, then,” she said, “that she looks for love or at least hopes for love? That she has some tender feelings? You must be a cynic.”
“Not at all,” he said. “Merely a realist. People of my class do not choose marriage partners for love.
What would happen to the fabric of polite society if we started doing that? We marry for wealth and position.”
“You are toying with her, then,” she said. “My uncle is a mere baronet. His daughter must be far beneath the serious notice of a duke’s son.”
“There you are wrong again,” he told her. “Titles do not tell the whole story. Sir George Effingham’s lineage is impeccable, and he is a wealthy man of property. My grandmother believes that the alliance will be perfectly eligible.”
Will be?
“You are going to marry Julianne, then?” she asked. She had not fully believed it until this moment despite all Aunt Effingham and Julianne had said.
“Why not?” He shrugged. “She is young and pretty and charming. And well born and rich.”
She did not know why her heart and her mind raced with such distress. She had been given her own chance to have him and had refused him. But of course she knew. She could not hear the thought of his being with Julianne. She is young and pretty and charming . And also empty-headed and vain and selfish. Did he deserve better, then? Everything he had told her about himself said no. And yet. ..
“Of course,” he said, “Miss Effingham and her mama will be disappointed if they hope to see her a duchess one day. I am second in line now, but my elder brother married recently. In the nature of things it is altogether probable that his wife will be breeding soon. If she produces a boy, I will be pushed back into third spot.”
She knew the look that would be on his face, and sure enough, when she glanced at him she saw the familiar mockery there.