Under a New Year's Enchantment. Barbara Monajem
from which his voice had come. It met something with a clang—fortunately not Garrick’s head, which wasn’t made of metal, although evidently he had returned from the war about as intelligent as a lump of lead.
“You disgust me,” she said. She picked up her skirts and stormed away without another word.
* * *
Garrick Westerly stared into the night. Dora? Damnation, what had he just done?
Her footsteps died away. The chilly breeze flapped the canopy overhead, and in the distance a fox yowled. He should go after her and explain. He set out in pursuit, but as he exited the far side of the ruins, the sound of voices stopped him short.
“Miss Southern?” asked a female in sharp, disapproving tones. “Whatever are you doing outdoors at this time of night?”
“It’s just as I told you, Mother.” That was the vain, redheaded Miss Concord, the most persistent of the female guests at this disaster of a house party. So far she had stalked him in the corridors day and night and even hidden in his bed in the hope of trapping him into marriage. He’d managed to get rid of her each time, but it had been a close-run thing. “She followed Lord Westerly out here. She tried to steal him from me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Theodora said. “I’m not the slightest bit interested in Lord Westerly.”
That stung. Theodora wasn’t one of the too-young ladies assembled to tempt Garrick into marriage, but he’d known her forever. He liked her, and she’d had a tendre for him long ago. The one woman Garrick cared about in the entire household, and look what he’d done. He couldn’t have blundered worse if he’d planned it in meticulous detail, copied it in triplicate and passed it to the most inept of his commanding officers for approval.
“Then why are you out here?” Mrs. Concord demanded.
“To see the remains of the Roman villa,” Theodora said.
He let out a breath. This was just the sort of thing Theodora Southern would do, but if he made his presence known, it would only serve to confirm their absurd suspicions. Best to pretend he’d never been outdoors at all. He wouldn’t have been if his friend Lord Valiant hadn’t spotted a lantern bobbing its way toward the ruins. Garrick didn’t want anyone messing about up here, so he’d followed straightaway.
“Nonsense,” Mrs. Concord said. “No respectable woman would venture out alone at night to look at a bunch of mouldy old stones.”
“They’re not stones, but pillars of tile for an under-the-floor heating system,” Theodora said. Garrick had forgotten that she knew something about the Romans, thanks to her scholarly father.
Mrs. Concord made a rude noise. “Surely you don’t expect us to believe that. It’s obvious why you were here.”
“Everyone knows I decided long ago to marry only for love, so your supposition is absurd,” Theodora said. “However, believe what you like. I certainly don’t care what you think of me.”
Miss Concord muttered something which Garrick didn’t catch.
Theodora’s voice came clear and crisp on the night breeze. “You are entitled to your opinion, Miss Concord. Now it’s your turn to listen to mine. Stop angling for Lord Westerly. He is a rude, unpleasant man who has made it clear that he doesn’t wish to marry you or any of the others. If you ruin your reputation trying to catch him, you will suffer the consequences. He simply doesn’t care.”
That this was true didn’t make it any more palatable from the lips of Dora Southern, who had once been his friend.
* * *
Theodora felt the repercussions of her unwise comment almost immediately after returning to the great hall. Mrs. and Miss Concord had arrived a little earlier and set the gossip in motion. Several heads turned to stare at her. Someone pointed at her gown. When Theodora glanced down, she saw to her dismay that she had acquired a sizeable mud stain, no doubt when she’d fumbled her way out of the pit. One young woman giggled behind her fan. Maynard Buxton leered, but since he always did so, that was no surprise.
Her heart was thumping unhappily by the time she reached the wassail bowl, where Lucille Beaulieu ladled spiced ale to a queue of amorous villagers. Something about Lucille made men clamour for her, and it wasn’t merely her exotic appearance and violet eyes. Lucille fended them off with aplomb; she didn’t seem to mind being leered at.
Theodora minded very much and noticed to her alarm that Maynard Buxton wasn’t the only one doing it. The notorious Lord Valiant Oakenhurst, who had spent the war as a spy and assassin, was the only man with kindly rather than curious eyes. No doubt he sympathized, because although the women sighed over his sensual beauty, most of the gentlemen avoided him.
“What are they saying about me?” Theodora whispered in French.
Lucille shrugged in her typically languid way, and the queue of wassailers breathed a collective sigh. “There are two stories going about. Which would you like to hear, the bad or the worse?”
“Don’t tease me, Lucille. What are they saying?”
“That you tupped Lord Westerly in the ruins. That was Miss Concord’s story.”
Theodora felt herself go as red as the holly berries on the table decoration.
“You are now a scarlet woman, both literally and figuratively,” Lucille said with a little chuckle.
“It’s not funny,” Theodora said, as a visitor who had been the soul of politeness in the past glanced knowingly down the bodice of her gown.
Lucille smiled at the man, whose attention fixed immediately on her instead. “Miss Concord is a fool. Does she not realize that if Lord Westerly had really taken your virginity, he would feel obliged to marry you? Her mother shushed her, saying that your only folly was setting your cap at a man who doesn’t want you. She said that when you went to the ruins, he spurned you immediately.”
Theodora groaned. Either way, the consequences were likely to be unpleasant, but she would almost rather be seen as a wanton than a desperate spinster. She had inherited a small fortune from her godmother and therefore didn’t need to wed. After a brief engagement, forced upon her by family members and terminated when her betrothed died in a hunting accident, she had decided to marry only if she fell in love. Her family had accepted this decision, but most others, such as Mrs. Concord, refused to take her seriously. To them, marrying only for love made no sense at all.
“What do you care what these obnoxious Concord people think of you?” Lucille said.
“I don’t, but I shouldn’t have said so when they accused me of setting my cap at Lord Westerly. A mistake, but I was already overset, and my tongue took over for my common sense.”
“You were upset? Why?”
“Because when Lord Westerly found me at the ruins, he did accuse me of trying to trap him into marriage.”
“With so many women wishing to marry him, what else is he to think?”
“He should know me better than that! He used to be my friend, but it never even crossed his mind that I might be there for scholarly reasons. It is so mortifying.”
Lucille gave a very Gallic shrug. “What he thinks of you is his problem, not yours. Why let it disturb you?”
Theodora’s face heated again. “Because once upon a time it was true.” At Lucille’s inquiring look, she added, “I fell madly in love with him at fifteen—almost sixteen. He was twenty and about to go off to war. I asked him to marry me before he left, and—”
“You asked him to marry you?”
Theodora nodded shamefacedly. She swallowed her embarrassment. It was ridiculous to mind so much after more than ten years.
“How delightfully forward of you,” Lucille said.
* * *
Garrick