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  He remembered the time they had spent together in London—which seemed as though it had happened years before, rather than months—and the bright, honest, fearless qualities he had seen in Margery then. It had been her warmth and generosity of spirit that had drawn him to her in the first place, helpless to resist the need he had for her, wanting her sweetness to illuminate his own life.

  Becoming Lady Marguerite had changed her, not merely superficially with the clothes, the jewels, the dancing and the patina of polite conversation. She had become more wary of people, more guarded. Henry felt a pang of shame that he had played his part in that, in trying to make Margery into someone different. The truth was that she had always been more than good enough for any role, be it lady’s maid or countess. Her grandfather had been wise enough to recognize that. He had not.

  Yet beneath the silks and laces, Margery was still the same person. Last night he had tasted again that warmth and generosity in her. She had given herself to him wholly and without reservation. She had reached out to him. She had held nothing back and he had taken because he had such a hunger for her.

  He knew, although she had not said so, that she must love him. Despite her claim that she had been motivated by no more than lust, he knew differently. She argued that she was no lady and so was not governed by the moral precepts of society, but Henry knew in his heart that Margery would never give herself to a man she did not love. It was not in her nature. She was too generous to hold anything back, so when she had given her body she had also given him her love.

  She loved him but she would not marry him.

  He rested a hand on the top bar of the fence and looked out across the river. The sunlight on the water dazzled him. The house slumbered in its hollow. Wardeaux was beautiful. He did not need Templemore.

  But he did need Margery. There was a longing in him that only she could satisfy. It was not love, that brittle, foolish emotion that he had felt for Isobel so long ago, and he was grateful for that. Love was not something he recognized or wanted in his life. He had surrendered everything when he had been young and in love, he had lost his good sense and his self-respect, his name and his honor. Isobel had taken them all and tarnished them beyond recognition, and he would never allow anyone to do that again.

  His feelings for Margery were different. They were not something he had ever felt before. They were compounded of a raging desire that could not be sated and a need to protect and care for her, to claim her and hold her safe. He did not like the way it made him feel. It made him vulnerable and he detested that but he had to accept it. He needed Margery by his side.

  Margery wanted love. It was the one thing that he could not give her. He paused for a moment, wondering if it was selfish in him to insist on marrying her when there might be another man prepared to give her his love. He decided that it was selfish. And that it made no difference.

  He had to persuade Margery to change her mind about marriage. The action he had been too scrupulous to take that morning had become a necessity. He would have to seduce her into accepting him.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The High Priestess: A secret is revealed

  LONDON FELT DIFFERENT.

  It was not simply that it was June now, and all the trees bore fresh green leaves and some were ridiculously pretty in their pink and white blossoms. Margery was accustomed to seeing London in all seasons, wreathed in the fog of winter or when the dusty heat of August had taken the shine off summer.

  It was not even that she was now one of the richest heiresses in the ton, and so of course everything looked different, from the pile of invitation cards that threatened the mantelpiece with collapse to the displays of flowers that the cart delivered fresh each morning, from the smart open phaeton in which she went driving in the park to the rainbow array of gowns folded in her wardrobe.

  No, the difference, of course, was Henry. He was gone from her life and it seemed bleak and lacking color without him.

  Margery tried to pretend. She went to dress fittings in Bond Street where the modistes tried to give her clothes rather than sell them to her because she was the sensation of the Season. She wore the Templemore diamonds in their new setting, and all the other jewels that had graced the necks of her mother and her grandmother before her.

  She had the best box at the opera and the theater and anywhere else she chose to go. She rode on Rotten Row with Chessie and Jem and she drove with her grandfather to the exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art and to lectures and concerts.

  The Prince Regent entertained her at Carlton House and declared her to be utterly charming. People begged for invitations to the balls she attended and crowds thronged the streets to catch a glimpse of her, and all of it was worth less than nothing because Henry was not there.

  She had met a number of people who had known her mother and some who even remembered her as a child. It was odd and disconcerting to hear them speak of her, because she still had recovered no more memories of her childhood and wondered if she ever would. There had been no more strange accidents since she had come to London. She had told Jem about the fire and the shooting in the woods and he had said that, from what he had heard, Lord Templemore had probably sired a host of bastards who were jealous of her because they were not inheriting the family estate, and that she should not regard it because he was sticking close enough to protect her from anyone. He was indeed attentive to her, and he was also relishing the influence his position gave him in the ton. The ladies swooned over him.

  Margery’s come-out ball had been arranged to take place at the end of June, a fortnight after her arrival in Town. It would be one of the last balls, the culmination of a glittering round of social events and activities. The cream of the ton had been invited and there were reports that those who had not received one of the gold-embossed cards had wept tears of rage and frustration. Some had begged, stolen or bought tickets. It promised to be the crush of the Season.

  “You look lovely,” Chessie whispered to Margery as they paused at the top of Templemore House’s grand stair. She tweaked a wayward curl back into Margery’s diamond tiara and beamed at her. “Truly, Margery, you are the most beautiful debutante.”

  “And the oldest one London has ever seen,” Margery said wryly. She looked at her reflection in the long pier glass and a stranger stared back at her. The girl in the mirror was tiny but elegant, a perfect miniature, as her grandfather had once said.

  She was wearing a gown of cream silk with silver gauze embroidered with tiny diamond stars. They caught the light and shone like glittering raindrops. There were diamonds in her tiara and around her neck. Her feet were clad in cream evening slippers with diamond heels. Her hair was a fine golden-brown and shone like a swatch of rich silk. Her gray eyes were sparkling, her complexion was pink and cream as a china doll’s. She looked happy. She looked rich. Even Lady Wardeaux was smiling with approval.

  Margery almost stretched out her hand to touch the mirror, to check that she really was the girl standing there under the gleaming candlelight of a hundred chandeliers. It seemed impossible, but it was true.

  In a change from normal etiquette, her grandfather had decreed that the guests should arrive first and then he would escort Margery down the stairs and present her to them. It seemed like the most pretentious nonsense to Margery and as she listened to the roar of the crowd in the huge hall and reception rooms below she almost turned tail and ran.

  Suddenly she longed for Henry with a sharpness that caught her breath and left a hollow beneath her heart. She wanted to lean on his strength and feel safe and protected. She wanted him by her side. The force of the impulse shocked her. She missed him dreadfully.

  Her grandfather came to join her, handsome in a claret-colored velvet evening jacket that was, so Lady Wardeaux muttered, at least fifty years out of date. They started to descend the broad and sweeping stair together with Lady Wardeaux, Chessie and Lady Emily following them down. A sea of faces swam before Margery’s eyes. Everyone was gazing upwa
rd, staring at her. Over the past fortnight she had attended balls every night of the week, and met everyone from royal dukes to politicians to poets to men who had made their fortunes in trade. This was her greatest ordeal, for they were all waiting for her now, all watching her. There was a tight band about her chest. The tiara pinched her temples. The candlelight swam before her eyes. She was terrified.

  A wave of applause started to ripple through the assembled guests, swelling and rolling toward Margery like the tide. Her grandfather was smiling; he looked so proud. And suddenly Margery did not care if it was all pretense, if people were only smiling and clapping because she was rich and eligible and her grandfather was one of the most influential peers in England. He was happy and that was all that mattered to her now.

  She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek and the applause doubled as the guests roared their approval. They reached the bottom of the stairs and were immediately engulfed. The press of people was overwhelming, all wanting to congratulate her and to shake her grandfather’s hand. Margery smiled until her face ached, smiled and chatted and felt an increasing sense of unreality. The noise was deafening. There were so many faces.

  Gradually she came to realize that while everyone smiled and complimented her, many of those smiles did not reach the eyes. People watched her for the slightest slip that might betray her upbringing. She knew that behind her back they laughed at her. She had seen some of the caricatures of herself in the papers, dressed as a maidservant cleaning the Templemore diamonds with a feather duster.

  There had been other cartoons making fun of her childhood and her career in service. Her grandfather had told her not to regard them, to treat them with aristocratic disdain, but that did not come easily to Margery.

  It was with some relief that she saw the Duke and Duchess of Farne, Lord and Lady Rothbury and Lord and Lady Grant approaching her.

  “Thank goodness!” she said, as Joanna Grant came over and gave her a hug, followed by her sisters, all chattering and smiling, glorious in their cascade of silks and jewels.

  “This is all so splendid, Margery, my love,” Joanna said, grabbing Margery’s hands and spinning her around. “You are the success of the Season!”

  “I feel such a fraud,” Margery confessed. “These grand occasions terrify me.”

  “Well, you carry it off perfectly,” Tess Rothbury said, eyeing the silver-and-cream gown with the greatest approval. “And you look simply stunning. There isn’t a bachelor in the room who doesn’t want to elope with you on the spot.”

  “I think they would rather bundle my money into the carriage to Gretna than me,” Margery said, laughing.

  “The word is that you are very choosy,” Joanna said. “Can it be true that you have had nineteen proposals of marriage?”

  “Twenty,” Margery said, shame-faced. “Viscount Port proposed this morning.”

  “They say you will marry either Plumley or Cumnor,” Tess said. “They are taking bets on it at Whites. Of course, Lord Plumley is rich as Croesus, but they say that he snores fit to wake the dead. Happily I would not know, but the neighbors do complain.”

  “The Duke of Cumnor is the most eligible peer in Town,” Joanna put in. “But he is still tied to his mama’s apron strings.” She gave a little shrug. “Not a promising sign.”

  “It is a sad fact that almost no gentleman meets my sisters’ stringent criteria,” Merryn Farne murmured. “Apart from their own husbands, of course. It seems that between us we have already snapped up all the most desirable gentlemen in the ton.”

  “There is Lord Stephen Kestrel,” Joanna said. “But I do believe he has a tendre for Chessie Alton.”

  “I hope so,” Margery said. “Chessie deserves to be very happy.”

  “Well,” Tess said, “then it seems you are destined to remain a spinster, Margery. Oh, but wait!” Her eyes lit up. “We forgot the most eligible choice. Lord Wardeaux, of course. By door of the refreshment room, talking to Garrick.”

  Lord Wardeaux.

  Margery turned hot. Then she turned icy cold. She looked up. Tess had not been mistaken. Henry was leaning against a pillar, looking breathtakingly splendid in his black-and-white evening dress. He was indeed talking to the Duke of Farne but he was looking directly across the room at her and his gaze never wavered from her face.

  Margery was not at all sure how a mere look could make her feel so dizzy, as though she had forgotten to breathe. But it did. And as Henry started to cross the floor toward her she felt even dizzier and more breathless still.

  She heard Tess give a little sigh. “Is he not sinfully handsome? So dark and intense!”

  “He must be,” Joanna said dryly. “Normally you never notice any man apart from your husband.”

  “I had quite a tendre for Lord Wardeaux myself when I was younger,” Merryn admitted. “Naturally it was his engineering projects that I admired the most.”

  “Of course you did,” Tess said. “His engineering projects were frightfully attractive.”

  Henry was bowing to them.

  “How are you, Henry?” Merryn said, reaching up to kiss his cheek. She caught Tess’s eye. “What?” she protested. “He is Garrick’s cousin. It is perfectly acceptable for me to kiss him!”

  Henry was still looking directly at Margery. He took her hand and pressed his lips to the back of it. Margery worked extremely hard to repress the quiver of sensation that flickered along her nerve endings. One touch was all it had taken to reawaken her longing for him.

  “Madam,” Henry said. She suspected he could read all too well the effect he had on her. There was a glint of wicked amusement in his dark eyes.

  “Ladies, we are de trop,” Joanna Grant said, smiling mischievously as she shepherded her sisters away.

  “Dance with me,” Henry said to Margery. He was already guiding her toward the floor.

  “I am to open the dancing with the Duke of Cley,” Margery said, looking around. The Duke was nowhere to be seen and Henry seemed disinclined to accept a refusal anyway.

  “Cley should have been more attentive,” Henry said, “if he did not wish to lose his chance.” Other couples were following them onto the floor, taking their place in the set.

  “I like your gown,” Henry said. His fingers touched her sleeve lightly and brushed her bare arm below the band of embroidered satin. “Cream rather than white.” His eyes met hers. “Almost virginal, but not quite.”

  Margery blushed hotly. She glared at him. “You have been here two minutes and already you are behaving very badly, my lord.”

  Henry’s fingers, warm and strong, interlocked with hers. His hand was sure on her waist as he spun her down the set of the first country-dance. Margery repressed a little shiver of longing. This was the Henry Wardeaux she remembered from their first meeting, the charming rake who could have taken anything from her, her heart, her soul, her love. One touch of his hand, one look, was all it had taken to undo all her efforts to forget him. She did not want to feel so vulnerable. It hurt too much.

  “I do not recall inviting you tonight,” she said, reaching for hauteur to defend herself against the emotional onslaught.

  “You did not,” Henry said. “Your grandfather did. He still outranks you, I think.”

  “I do not know why he would do such a thing,” Margery said.

  “He thought you were missing me,” Henry said. He raised his brows. “Were you?”

  The music separated them for a moment.

  “Well?” Henry said, as they came back together again. “You did not answer me.”

  “No,” Margery said. “I did not. I did not miss you at all.”

  Henry laughed. His fingers tightened on hers. She almost lost the beat of the music because she was assailed by so sharp a longing that it felt like pain.

  “You always did lie badly,” he said softly.

  Margery did not answer. She could not. She was aware only of the touch of his hand in hers and the way in which her willful heart sang to be near him again, ready to be
tray her in an instant.

  “When did you return to London?” She was aware that the other dancers in the set were watching them and that polite conversation, as Lady Wardeaux had been at pains to teach her, was a requirement of any couple in the dance.

  “I have been here almost a fortnight,” Henry said.

  Margery almost missed her step. Her heart was sore to realize that Henry had been in London almost as long as she had.

  “You did not come to see us—” she began, then broke off as she realized just how much of her feelings she had betrayed.

  “You have had so many admirers vying for your attention,” Henry said, “I am surprised you noticed.”

  The music had stopped. Around them the crowd ebbed and flowed. Henry took her elbow and steered her gently off the dance floor toward the open doors leading onto the terrace. Couples were strolling along its width, taking the summer air, so fresh and cool after the overheated press of the ballroom. Beyond the walls of the garden stretched the expanse of Hyde Park, falling into twilight, the shadows gathering beneath the trees. The sky overhead was a deep, dark blue, studded with stars to rival Margery’s diamonds.

  Henry took a glass of champagne from a passing footman and handed it to her. Margery took a gulp, feeling the bubbles burst on her tongue and fizz up her nose. She almost choked and wondered if she would ever master the art of being the elegant society lady.

  “So, have you chosen between the dozens of suitors begging for your hand?” Henry asked. “Fairness might prompt you to put them out of their misery.”

  “No,” Margery said. “I haven’t made my choice.”

  “Do you intend to?” Henry asked. He had turned slightly away from her, resting one hand on the stone parapet. “I remember you saying that you saw no necessity for marriage. But perhaps—” he tilted his head “—that was just with me?”

  Margery hesitated. The simple truth was that Henry had gotten into her blood so that she compared every man she met to him and found every last one of them lacking.