The Dangerous Debutante

CHAPTER FOUR

THEY HADN’T GONE a half mile before the thrill of being on Berengaria’s back, even on a sidesaddle, had faded enough for Morgan to wonder what on earth was wrong with her.

What had caused her to so easily agree to ride off willy-nilly with this man she did not know, to go to a place she did not know, to do—well, nothing was going to happen. The man was an earl, for pity’s sake.

Or at least he had said so, then had convinced Jacob to trust him. Which wasn’t much of an endorsement, for Jacob trusted her, too.

At least they were still on the main road, or what she believed to be the main road.

When she got straight down to it, she didn’t know much of anything. Except that Chance was probably going to ring a peal over her head that her papa would hear all the way back in Romney Marsh.

No longer able to enjoy her view of the countryside or the fresh, sweet smell of the country air, Morgan slid her gaze toward the earl—if he really was an earl.

He sat Alejandro as if born to the saddle, controlling the stallion simply by being in that saddle, moving effortlessly, as if the two had become one, man and horse looking so stunningly complete together.

Morgan felt heat running into her cheeks as another thought struck her. Alejandro and Berengaria also looked good together, the bright and the dark.

But not as good as she and Ethan Tanner would fit together. Her dark to his light. He, so very English. She, so very Spanish, at least the parts of her she’d taken from her mother. Her true father could have been English, for her skin was lighter than Spencer’s, at least. But her sire could also have been Austrian, or Russian, or any one of the mongrels that had relieved himself of his seed inside her two-penny-a-poke mother.

No. She wouldn’t think of that. She was Morgan Becket, of Becket Hall. Ainsley Becket was her father. She was who she believed herself to be, and now that she was grown she would become what she wanted to become. A person in her own right, free of the past.

And what did any of this matter now? She had to keep her concentration on the moment, and this moment seemed terribly important.

“How do I know you’re really the earl of wherever you said you’re the earl of?” she heard herself ask, her lips moving before her brain could even hope to catch up, let alone shove a gag in her mouth.

Ethan, who had been amusing himself imagining Morgan Becket’s reaction to meeting his mother—he could learn a lot about her when he saw that reaction—found her question highly amusing.

“You doubt me, Miss Becket?” he asked as he looked over at her, one eyebrow raised speculatively. “Are you saying that I don’t have the presence, that ineffable air, of a peer of the realm? And that’s Aylesford, by the by. Aylesford’s not much in the great scheme of things, I’ll grant you, but we’re rather proud of it nonetheless.”

“I’m sure you are,” Morgan said, knowing he meant his words as a bit of a setdown, even a reprimand, and then ignoring that fact as unimportant to the moment. “So, my lord, you were simply out riding?”

“And then stopping for a cold mug and a slice of ham, yes. Which reminds me, I’m hungry. I believe you’ve made me miss a meal, Miss Becket.”

“How terrible for you. I seem to have been nothing but trouble to you, my lord. Perhaps we should simply part ways now?”

Ethan smiled, finally understanding her problem. “You’re afraid of me, Miss Becket? How wrong of you. And, although it’s unconscionably rude to point this out, how very tardy of you. You should have run screaming from me some time ago. It’s miles too late now to think about your possibly precarious position.”

Morgan laughed, in real delight. “Whose precarious position, my lord? I am quite safe. It’s you who should be concerned. Out here, alone with my protectors.”

Ethan laughed along with her, happy to see that she was far from missish and wasn’t going to suddenly go all hysterical on him. “You mean that unwashed cub up behind us on your coach?”

“No, not Jacob. You have him thoroughly cowed, and you’re even proud of your achievement, which you shouldn’t be, because Jacob could be cowed by an angry ladybug. I meant one of my papa’s most trusted men for more years than I’m alive. Saul.”

Ethan frowned, trying to remember who Saul might be, and then smiled as he recalled a gray-haired hulk of a man who had climbed up into the box with some difficulty, as he carried the weight of too many large dinners with him. “Your coachman? You consider him your protector?”

“Indeed, yes,” Morgan said, barely able to keep from bouncing in the saddle, because she was about to take that smug, satisfied smile off his lordship’s handsome face. My, how she loved to win! She really ought to consider scraping up some maidenly modesty from somewhere, now that she was to be a debutante. But how boring that would be….

She turned on the saddle, calling back to the coach, which was no more than twenty yards behind them, as Jacob knew to keep close. “Saul! His lordship would very much like to see Bessie.”

“Bessie?” Ethan also turned in his saddle, looking back over his shoulder, toward the coachman. “What’s a—my God.”

Saul, still with the reins wrapped around his beefy hands, had reached down into the depths of the box, to come up with Bessie—a short, lethal-looking crossbow, loaded and ready to loose an equally short, lethal-looking arrow straight into Ethan’s back.

“Thank—thank you, Saul!” he called out, waving to the man. “Bessie’s…quite beautiful. Truly impressive.”

Saul, his expression still fierce, lowered the weapon. Ethan couldn’t hold back the relieved sigh that escaped his lips as he looked at Morgan, although he was fairly certain he’d have an itch directly between his shoulder blades until they’d arrived at Tanner’s Roost.

“Do you have any idea how far one of those arrows can travel?” she asked him, her glee so clear Ethan wondered briefly if Adam hadn’t possibly had second and third thoughts before he took that apple. “I’ve seen Saul put one neatly through a—”

“Yes, I’m sure you have,” Ethan said quickly, then attempted to turn the conversation to something she’d said earlier, something that interested him very much. “Where did you say Becket Hall is located, Miss Becket?”

“Romney Marsh, directly on the Channel. Only a few dozen miles from Maidstone as the gull flies, as they say. Or an entire world away from here or anywhere else, as others say.”

“I’ve been to Camber, if we can really consider that a part of the marsh,” Ethan said, struggling with himself to not take another peek over his shoulder, to see if Saul seemed happy, pleased with his place in the world, and not liable to want to shoot anything at the moment. “That was a few years ago, for an uncle’s interment. I don’t know which was more depressing, the young widow trying to corner me in the morning room, or the cold, gray weather. And it was July, I believe.”

“I’ve never been to Camber,” Morgan said, ignoring the rest of what the earl had said, considering it wiser to ignore most anything he uttered, as a matter of fact. She’d much rather look at him than listen to him, because what he said was often nonsense or provocative, or both, but looking at him could become a lifelong obsession.

“Ah, but now you’ll be able to say you’ve been to Tanner’s Roost, just as one day, perhaps, I will be able to say I’ve visited Romney Marsh and even Becket Hall,” Ethan said, indicating that she should turn her mount to the right, head between two huge stone pillars and onto a smaller roadway that was, all in all, in much better condition than the main highway.

He didn’t realize he had been worried that she’d balk at the last minute until he felt his shoulders relax when she turned her mount onto the drive.

Saul followed, but even Saul and his crossbow didn’t serve to contain all of the butterflies now fluttering inside Morgan’s belly as they proceeded along the twisting lane cut through the trees, the branches overhead so dense they nearly blocked out the sunlight.

Romney Marsh was open. A person could see for miles and miles; a person could breathe there. Most importantly, strangers approaching Becket Hall from either land or sea would be noticed—and prepared for—a good quarter hour before they arrived.

“Are you certain your house is in here somewhere?” she asked, trying to sound faintly amused, when all she could think was that a person could ride into these woods, never to be seen again. Not only that, but Tanner’s Roost would be almost impossible to defend. Didn’t that bother the earl? Or perhaps only those who knew they needed protection ever considered such subjects.

“As this is my property we’re riding through now, I’m fairly certain the Roost is still here, as it was here at breakfast time, which seems so long ago now, Miss Becket, thanks to you,” Ethan answered lazily, knowing he could barely wait to see her reaction to his family home.

Morgan blinked. “What sort of a man blames a female for his empty belly? Oh, never mind, you all do, don’t you, just as if feeding you is our purpose in life. And you’re saying that this is all yours?”

“Again, with gratitude to my mother, for marrying so well. You’ll be meeting her, you know, when we get to the Roost, which you should be able to see just as we get past this final curve in the drive.”

“Uninvited guests aren’t welcome at Becket Hall,” Morgan said, beginning to worry about his lordship’s mother, and the reception she’d get when she was introduced to the lady she’d call…what did one call the mother of an earl? She knew the answer, had been well drilled by Eleanor in all the titles, but her mind had gone suddenly, frighteningly blank.

If her sister were here now, she’d probably not even say, “I did warn you.” Because Elly was a good person, with a good heart. Morgan knew she should strive to be more like her. She also knew she’d have the same luck with that as she would in an attempt to fly up to the moon.

“My mother feels quite the opposite when it comes to visitors.” Ethan ran his gaze over Morgan’s gracefully erect upper body. Would he be doomed to hell for wishing his mother away from Tanner’s Roost, so he could be alone with this intriguing woman? Probably. “She’s always happy to welcome guests, and there are usually several of them wandering about the hallways.”

Morgan shook off her worrisome thoughts and concentrated on the earl once more, feeling that paying him any less than her full attention could end with her deep in trouble. “And now there’s one more, although I won’t be staying above an hour, unless you are an inordinately slow dresser, as I’ve heard that society gentlemen can spend several hours just in tying their neck cloths.”

“Gentlemen don’t arrange their own neck cloths, Miss Becket, any more than they would take the pressing iron to them. We pride ourselves in being exceedingly and unremittingly useless. I know I do.”

And then, as Morgan struggled for an answer to such a damning admission delivered so joyfully, they were out from under the nearly quarter-mile canopy of trees and into the sunlight once more. An enormous expanse of lawn appeared, with a castle sitting on a gentle rise of earth smack-dab in the center of it.

Morgan was instantly diverted by the sight. “A castle. It’s an actual castle! All those turrets, and all with flags flying from them. How…how extraordinary!”

Ethan grinned, even as he had planned to remain expressionless, no matter what her reaction. “I ordered the moat filled in with dirt soon after I came into the title, which has cut down some on the damp but, yes, Miss Becket, a real castle. I take it you’re impressed? I’d been wondering about your reaction. Now, if you’ll please walk your mount in while I rush off to alert my mother? She enjoys guests, but hates being caught unawares. I’ll alert one of the staff, and he’ll arrange care of the horses and escort you to the drawing room.”

Before Morgan could answer, Ethan was gone, and she was dealing with Berengaria, who wanted to follow. Morgan pulled on the reins as her black mare danced in a full circle, then watched as Ethan and the magnificent Alejandro abandoned the drive, to ride across the freshly scythed acres of lawn toward the castle.

The sight had her breath catching in her throat. The snowy horse, its mane and tail caught by the breeze, its hooves throwing up green-and-black clumps of earth. The rider, the full sleeves of his white shirt billowing in that same breeze. Both outlined so clearly, first against the lush green of the grass, then against the dark, cold gray stone of the castle.

And she’d been wondering why she’d so blithely followed this man? How could she be, when the answers were so obvious?

Morgan hadn’t even noticed that Saul had brought the traveling coach up beside her until she heard Jacob say, “It’s like the drawings in the books in Mr. Ainsley’s library, isn’t it, Morgie. A fairy castle. Not even real. Morgie? You hear me?”

Morgan swallowed with some difficulty, then nodded, not trusting her voice. Lightly tapping her heel against Berengaria’s flank, she moved forward. She followed the path set by the earl, allowing Berengaria her head, just a little, so that they approached the castle at a maidenly, if eager trot. Her mount’s shod hooves made sharp, echoing contact with the thick planks of the lowered drawbridge that spanned the now wildflower-and-grass-clogged moat, and Morgan delighted in the sound.

Once she was inside the castle walls, a young boy wearing scarlet livery and a powdered wig approached, and reached for the mare’s bridle. “Afternoon, miss. His lordship says you’re to be taken straightaways to the drawing room, if that’s all right, miss.”

“Yes, thank you.” Morgan raised her leg slightly, lifting it out of the sidesaddle, then leaped gracefully to the cobblestones of the large courtyard, not even considering that she should wait for assistance, let alone that anyone would think she needed it.

As Berengaria was led away, Morgan turned in a slow circle, attempting to drink in her surroundings. She wasn’t an expert on medieval architecture, and had never wished to be, but this castle seemed awfully…young.

Castles, Morgan felt sure, should look ancient, and weathered. With moss perhaps, and definitely with ivy. And there should be more castle, too. Things like keeps and bailiwicks, whatever they were. And an array of stone outbuildings. This was just a huge stone box topped with fanciful turrets on all four corners, and with a sort of half house, half castle stuck inside.

New, if stones could look new.

A very large toy. A plaything. A child’s fantasy. As Jacob had said, a fairy castle…

“This way, miss,” the footman prompted her.

Morgan looked behind her, to be sure Jacob and Saul and the coach were on their way across the drawbridge, then followed the servant beyond the flagstone courtyard and up a few wide steps, into the castle.

The stone hallway was huge, and seemed to go up and up forever, until it disappeared into darkness. Morgan had a moment of silliness, wondering if there was an echo in the hall, and what the footman would do if she cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled “Bally-hoo!”

“This way now, miss.”

Biting her lips to hold back a giggle, she had only a few moments to take in the huge wooden tables and straight-back chairs that lined the hall, barely enough time to gawk at the dozen or so suits of armor, and no time at all to wonder if a retreat wouldn’t be prudent, before following the servant.

And it only got worse…or better, if she had set out on a hunt for the ridiculous. The drawing room had stone walls, and window embrasures that had to be four feet deep. The walls were hung with huge tapestries, and when she sat down, the furnishings, completely wooden, proved as uncomfortable as they were ugly.

Morgan shivered, the riding habit that had been just perfect for the day suddenly feeling thin and inadequate, because the castle interior seemed to have its own weather, a very different temperature from the outside. With no sun to warm her, she looked longingly at the huge stone fireplace that was, alas, without a fire.

The man lived like this? He forced his mother to live like this?

“I’ve blundered into a madhouse,” Morgan whispered to herself. “And no one in my family will be the least surprised.”

She then picked up her gloves and riding crop, deciding a hasty escape would be the only way to maintain her own sanity. She was halfway to her feet when the earl entered the room, stopping not six feet inside the doorway.

Ethan lifted a finger to his lips for a moment, warning Morgan to silence, then smartly turned to face the doorway.

This was the moment. Morgan Becket would either delight in his mother, or run screaming from her. You could tell a lot about a woman from the way she reacted to a man’s mother. Especially his mother.

Another liveried servant, this one older, thinner and terribly bent, entered the huge chamber, loudly tapped the floor with the long staff he carried, and announced in a rusty voice, “Hear ye, hear ye, presenting her ladyship, Druscilla, Dowager Countess of Aylesford!”

Ethan executed a rather elegant bow, and held it, then turned his head toward Morgan. He gifted her with a smile and a wink before turning his attention back to the doorway, which she then did as well…just in time to see the dowager countess make her appearance.

“God’s teeth,” Morgan whispered under her breath as she blinked, blinked again, and then hurriedly dropped into a curtsy.

She hadn’t run, screaming, from the room. Ethan grinned. So far, so good.

The woman who’d swept into the large room had once been very beautiful, and still was, in a faintly faded sort of way. Her son very much resembled her, as far as it went, and it didn’t go far, because the dowager countess seemed to have come from another time, one long since passed.

She was dressed in a sort of costume, her crimson brocade gown finished with huge, puffed velvet sleeves slashed through with ivory silk. A matching brocade beret covered most of her pale blond hair, and there was a huge emerald-and-diamond pin in the shape of a dragon attached to the very front of the thing. Her neckline was clogged with what could be a dozen different necklaces, and she had a heavy gold chain around her waist, from which hung a two-foot-long painted stick that ended in a clutch of red-tipped ostrich feathers.

She looked wonderful. She looked ridiculous. And when she winked at Morgan, just as her son had done, she seemed very aware of how bizarre she must appear.

“Welcome to Tanner’s Roost, my dear,” the dowager countess trilled. “How wonderful to have a fresh victim!”

Morgan looked to Ethan, who merely shook his head and scolded his mother. “Maman, don’t scare the girl off now that I’ve just found her.”

“Oh, stuff and nonsense, Ethan. Look at that chin, that proud carriage. This one doesn’t frighten easily—do you, dear? Now go away and clean up your dirt, if you really plan to desert your poor mother and ride to London, and Miss Becket and I will have a little natter. Won’t we, Morgan—I will call you Morgan, because it’s such a lovely name. Except perhaps for Morgan Le Fay, or whatever that harridan’s name was. Ethan? You’re still standing there. Shoo!”

“He looks like any guilty son, doesn’t he?” Morgan commented as Ethan quit the room, enjoying herself again. She should have agreed to leave Becket Hall sooner, and would have, if she’d known being out and about in the world could be so very amusing. Then, waiting until the dowager countess had seated herself before sitting down beside her, she added, “Now, what is this about a new victim, my lady?”

“Druscilla, my dear. Just call me Druscilla. Everybody does. I do hope you’ll have time to meet some of my friends, although I doubt that, as Ethan warned me that you are pressed for time if you are to beat dusk to London. We’re practicing for tomorrow night’s performance—my guests and myself, that is. Not that you’ll be missing a marvelous treat by not lingering here to watch us. Poor Algernon makes for a very timid Henry, I’m afraid. Shall I tell you a secret? If Algernon had really been the king, he would have sent Anne Boleyn off to her chambers with no more than a mild scold and cold porridge for her dinner.”

The earl’s mother lifted the painted stick, pushed on a small button near the base, and the lush feathers opened into a fan, which she then began waving under her chin.

“Warm in here, isn’t it? I don’t know how the ladies of old Henry’s court stood it, I really don’t. All this heavy velvet? And you’d positively weep if you saw the ridiculous underpinnings those poor creatures were forced to endure, although I was thoroughly shocked when I realized what they didn’t wear. Perhaps a welcome breeze up under their skirts cooled them somewhat. In any case, it must have come as at least a little something of a relief when Henry chopped off their heads—took a bit of the weight off their shoulders, as it were.”