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The Dangerous Debutante
Morgan looked down at her riding habit. “It’s only dirt,” she said, not concerned in the least, and quickly redirected her attention to the vast expanse of greenery that had sprung up so unexpectedly in front of her, as if ripped from the countryside by some giant hand and then carefully placed in the middle of London. “I’ve read about this. It’s Hyde Park, isn’t it? Where everyone goes to see and be seen?”
“At the fashionable hour of five in the afternoon, yes. We, however, are somewhat tardy, it having gone at least seven by now. Luckily, there’s not too many of the ton out and about, and you might even make it to your brother’s door without setting off a small scandal.”
“That shouldn’t please you,” Morgan reminded him.
He would have to tread carefully here. What had begun as a lark, and a definite interest in bedding this beauty, had, somewhere between coercing her into traveling to Tanner’s Roost with him, and arriving in London, become eminently more important to him.
“Truth to tell, Morgan, I’ve had second thoughts. I don’t think you should be so eager to shock society. After all, you might enjoy the Season. You could be a Sensation, you know.”
“Oh, yes, I know that,” Morgan answered without conceit, and Ethan bit the inside of his cheeks to keep from laughing. “But it isn’t as if I was going to go very far in society anyway, so that won’t happen. We’re mere commoners, you understand, and I won’t have to bother with the rules of Almacks and the like, or the queen’s drawing room. And it’s not as if I’m here under orders to capture myself a husband.”
“Really?”
Morgan busied herself brushing at the velvet of her jacket. Why did she keep talking to this man, babbling like some ridiculous twit? Why couldn’t she feel comfortable with him, as she did with Jacob? Even superior to him, as she did with Jacob, with any man who’d ever come into her orbit?
She was aware of Ethan Tanner, and that, she’d been discovering these past few hours, was something totally alien to her. She’d never considered trying to impress any man. Her looks had always done that for her, with little or no effort on her part.
And she couldn’t seem to shock him, which was highly disconcerting, because she liked her admirers feeling off balance, and herself in command. She’d try again.
“Oh, all right, Ethan. They may not have said anything, but I know they want me married off. Quickly. Before I do something horrible, such as deciding to set myself up independently, so that someone isn’t always saying ‘Morgan, you shouldn’t,’ and ‘Morgan, ladies don’t do that,’ and ‘Morgan, for God’s sake, behave.’”
She raised her head, grinned at him. After all, since she couldn’t seem to stifle herself, better to tell him truths that would keep him from searching for other truths she could never share. “I’m quite a handful, and they want me to be someone else’s handful, I think, preferably before the poor bugger figures out that his life will never be in his own charge again.”
“Poor bugger, is it? I don’t even know this eventual poor bugger, but I already feel sorry for him.”
“And it’s not that they don’t love me, because they do,” Morgan hastened to add, rolling her eyes at his last statement. “And I understand. Really. I’m not an…an easy person. Why, much as I believe you’d be rather formidable, I’m reasonably certain I could have you as much under my thumb as poor Jacob in, oh, less than a fortnight. And that’s after forewarning you!”
Ethan heard the words, the jovial warning—that he saw as a challenge—but felt fairly sure that he also heard some hurt Morgan tried to hide with her smile, her casual shrug as she admitted she wasn’t an “easy person.” He certainly did believe her to be a complicated person.
The question that had been nagging at him these past few hours, however, had been did he need another complication in his already complicated life? Morgan Becket was an unexpected delight, unlike any woman he’d ever met. Open, a little too honest, and with a native intelligence that was often missing in other females, or else carefully hidden, because debutantes, God forbid, would never wish to appear smarter than the men they were out to trap.
But Morgan, he suspected, could prove to be his torment if he let her, if he indulged himself in her luscious body, her active mind. Could he afford to find himself thinking of her as more than a titillating diversion, an added confusion to anyone who might look at him and suspect him of being anything more than he’d carefully taught them to believe?
Was nothing simple in these trying times? Not even bedding this incredible beauty he felt sure he could quickly convince to become a willing partner, no matter that she’d all but challenged him to believe he could tame her?
As their horses slowly walked along the cobbled street beside the park, as if even their mounts were reluctant to put an end to this fairly intimate interlude in the midst of the metropolis, Ethan said, “Perhaps we should part ways once I’ve safely delivered you to your brother’s door.”
Morgan turned startled eyes on him, shocked to think she could win so easily. Was having him go away winning? She didn’t think so.
“Why? What did I say? I thought we were going to be friends, enjoy London together.” Then her gaze dropped, and all she felt was disappointment to learn that Ethan wasn’t the man she’d begun to believe he was. “It’s because I told you that we Beckets aren’t very important, isn’t it? You say you don’t care what anyone thinks of you, that you even go out of your way to be outrageous, but when it comes straight down to it, you’re still the earl, and you still want to be accepted by…by your peers.”
“Not accepted, Morgan. Tolerated is all I’ve ever aspired to over the years. I’m more surprised than I can tell you, but it’s your reputation I’m thinking of now. And now we turn onto Upper Brook Street and your brother’s residence, which may be all that will save my life, considering the way you’re staring daggers at me.”
She did long to slap his face. “My reputation? So how had you planned for our association to play out, Aylesford, before this attack of conscience, or perhaps vanity? Or, because of what I’ve told you, are you simply afraid Chance will see me as compromised and demand you marry me, see your title as a real coup for his sister?”
“So many questions. Depending on my answers, I would have to be a hardened seducer, a socially conscious twit or a bloody coward. Why not all three?”
Belatedly, Morgan realized that, while she had been testing him, he had been testing her. And, damn his eyes, she was fairly certain she had been bested in their contest to see which of them was the worst, the most unsuitable—or which of the two of them was to be in charge of their association.
Well, he might have put her down, but she was far from out, and was more than ready to begin again. “Why not, indeed. All three. Since that’s what you want me to believe.”
“Added to all the things you want me to believe about you,” Ethan told her as he motioned for her to turn toward the flagway. He quickly dismounted, and took Berengaria’s reins in one hand as he stood on the cobblestones, looking up at Morgan.
Yet again, Ethan understood, she’d seen through him, judged him correctly.
And she knew. She knew, just as he knew. They’d been going round and round since the first moment they’d looked at each other. And all to no effect. They could never be friends. They would have to be so much more than friends, or nothing at all.
“You’ve warned me away. I’ve warned you away. And now we’re here, at your brother’s door. What next, Morgan? We can’t keep on fencing like this, or we’ll exhaust each other. So, does it end here? Do you believe we should end here? We’ve both certainly given each other enough reasons to have it end here, whatever in hell it is we seem to have begun between us.”
Morgan fought back the urge to run her gloved fingers through Ethan’s dark blond hair. She’d known, from the first moment she’d seen him. And he’d known, as well. She wasn’t congratulating herself, being prideful in thinking that. He’d also known, from that first moment.
Dangerous Ethan. Dangerous Morgan.
Like recognizes like.
She wet her lips, spoke carefully. “Together, we could be very dangerous, to society, to each other. Mostly to each other. Couldn’t we, Ethan?”
He put a hand on hers as Alejandro gracefully stepped to his right, bumping up against his master, pushing him closer to Morgan.
“Damn horse,” Ethan said mildly, near enough now to see the deeper gray rings around Morgan’s pale gray irises. “I swear, he’s worse than my mother.”
She relaxed, only then realizing how frightened she’d been that this man, this so very different, so very intriguing man, had almost walked out of her life as quickly as he’d walked into it. Giving in, just this once, couldn’t be called total defeat.
She leaned down, her face within scant inches of his, and whispered, “You won’t leave now. Will you? Please.”
“I was only fooling myself if I thought I could. No, I’m not going anywhere, unless we go to hell together.” Ethan’s attention was now fixed on her full, slightly smiling mouth. “If I were to kiss you right now, could you promise Saul won’t loose Bessie on me?”
Something inside Morgan relaxed. Lose a battle, win a war. “I can’t promise that, my lord Aylesford. I suppose you’ll simply have to decide if the kiss would be worth taking that chance.”
Ethan’s slow, knowing smile served to curl her toes inside her riding boots. He cupped his hand around the back of her neck and gently pulled her closer. “Oh, that decision was made long ago, on the road to Tanner’s Roost. By both of us. Bessie, do your worst….”
Morgan allowed her eyelids to flutter closed as she waited for the touch of Ethan’s mouth against hers. Not her first kiss, but she knew this one would be different. She didn’t know how it would be different…but she was eager to learn.
“Experiencing some difficulty in dismounting, Morgan? That isn’t like you.”
At the sound of Chance’s deadly calm voice, Morgan sat up straight on Berengaria once more, sparing a quick smile and shrug of her shoulders for Ethan before saying, “Peeking out from behind curtains now, Chance? That isn’t like you. Or is that, Lord forbid, what marriage does to people?”
“Hush, Morgan,” Ethan warned her quietly. “Your brother’s attempting to pretend he doesn’t have grounds to call me out. Be grateful, even if you can’t be gracious.”
“Call you out? Don’t be ridiculous. We Beckets aren’t that civilized. He’d just knock you down, right here in the street. Several times.”
“Don’t sound so delighted, imp,” Ethan said, then left her still atop Berengaria, and mounted the flagway, his right hand outstretched, the most recent shock in a day littered with them carefully hidden behind a genially smiling face.
How could he have known, even though Morgan had told him that her brother worked at the War Office? The War Office was immense. And yet, at this moment, the world seemed dangerously small.
Amazingly, either Chance Becket didn’t recognize him, or he was as accomplished at concealing his emotions as was Ethan himself.
“Mr. Becket, please allow an explanation if you will. Your sister and I came upon each other out on the road, and I offered my services in escorting her into London once I ascertained that she had planned to abandon her coach and insist upon riding into the city. Ah, and I am Ethan Tanner, Earl of Aylesford, and I extend my sympathies, sir, as your sister would appear to be a rare handful with a mind very much her own.”
Chance Becket accepted Ethan’s hand, squeezed his around it with more force than a gentleman would consider necessary, and held on, drew Ethan closer.
Ethan considered returning that pressure, but what point would it serve? He had been caught out, about to kiss the man’s sister. Besides, if either of them physically pressed the matter, the situation could vault above the uncomfortable and into recklessness that would serve neither.
“Aylesford, is it? Your reputation precedes you, my lord,” Chance said flatly, looking over at his sister. “I’m now attempting to understand what I’ve done to make God so anxious to punish me. It would please me if you were to tell me that you have now completed your gentlemanly duty and are eager to be shed of my troublesome sister, to whom you may not have taken an instant dislike, perhaps, but to whom I suggest you would be wise to feel a very definite indifference.”
Ethan kept his expression neutral as Chance Becket released his grip, although he inwardly damned the poor reputation he’d so carefully built these last years, if only because Chance Becket obviously was aware of it. Of that, and probably of much more. “You’re warning me away, Becket?”
“Let’s be polite, Aylesford, but not that polite. I’m ordering you away,” Chance countered. “I owe you my thanks and a drink, I believe, and then you will oblige me by forgetting you ever met my sister.”
He looked past Ethan again. “Morgan, get yourself down here, now. No one is present who doesn’t know you’re more than capable of dismounting on your own.”
Ethan watched as Morgan lifted her leg over the pommel and slid gracefully to the cobblestones. She brushed off her gown, stripped off her gloves and advanced on her brother with a bright smile on her incredibly gorgeous face.
“Don’t frown so, Chance. I come bearing gifts.” Reaching into the pocket of the riding habit, she then held out her hand to her brother. “Apple?”
The imp! Was she afraid of anything? Ethan stepped beside Chance, knowing when to take his opportunities. “My advice, friend? Don’t take it. That little Eve has already landed us both in enough trouble. Our only hope now is to join forces.”
Chance looked at Ethan, one eyebrow raised in question, before he sighed, nodded and gave in to the inevitable. “As long as you know…”
“Oh, I know. So does she. And now you do, as well. It’s going to be a very interesting Season with Miss Morgan Becket as one of its debutantes.”
Morgan pushed the apple, hard, into her brother’s stomach. “Soon you’ll be hugging, and drooling all over each other’s shoe tops. Enough of the both of you. I’m going to see Julia and Alice.”
Both men watched her go before Ethan said, “Now, having been duly warned and threatened, how about we all step inside in case there are other curtain-twitchers about, and discuss how I am going to procure your sister’s voucher to Almacks, hmm? Because, no matter what you do or say, even a brother can’t be so blind about that magnificent creature. Steel yourself, Becket. I am not going away.”
CHAPTER SIX
AFTER RATHER HASTY introductions, Morgan was whisked off upstairs by her sister-in-law, Julia—a polite, minor beauty who nonetheless looked more than prepared to drag Morgan out of the room by her ear if she didn’t have the good sense to go willingly.
Leaving Ethan alone with Chance Becket in the tastefully appointed drawing room. “Julia’s taking her up to the nursery, to see our daughter, Alice. And probably to ask a dozen questions about you. I don’t think you have to worry about me, Aylesford, half as much as you have to worry about my very astute wife. If she decides you’re a rotter, you won’t get within fifty yards of Morgan again.”
“Thank you for the warning.”
Ethan had been given only a few moments to visually inspect the man he’d judged to be two or three years his junior, and had come up with no familial resemblance between Chance and Morgan Becket. Absolutely none.
Chance was blond, like his wife, like Ethan himself. Tanned, but obviously fair-skinned, a well set up gentleman who seemed more than capable of knocking Ethan down. At least once.
Both Chance and Morgan were tall. Other than that, they appeared to be as “related” to each other as chalk was to cheese.
But Ethan did recognize the man, remember him. Just as Chance had recognized and obviously remembered him. Now to discover if this would make things easier for Ethan, or even more complicated. He’d much rather have Chance Becket as an ally, although if the man knew precisely what Ethan planned for his sister, Ethan felt certain he would already be a dead man, and Becket wouldn’t bother about the consequences.
Strong-willed people, these Beckets of Romney Marsh. Perhaps it was something in the air there, at the back of beyond.
“Thank you,” Ethan said, accepting the wineglass Chance offered. “I’ll speak honestly here, Becket.”
“Is that so, Aylesford? You know how to do that?”
Ethan answered without rancor and, in fact, with some humor. “I’m making an exception here, Becket, and being quite unusually jovial and forthcoming. But don’t push, and neither will I. I failed to make any connection between you and your sister, as we’ve never been formally introduced. My mistake entirely. Not that you and your father can be held blameless as, while Saul and his Bessie are both quite formidable, the young man she calls Jacob is so thoroughly enamored of, and cowed by, your sister that he’s of no worth at all.”
Chance gave up his slightly threatening stance, since it didn’t seem to have any affect on the earl in any case. “I’ve been worried about that from the moment I received my father’s latest letter informing me that Jacob would be accompanying her. Jacob’s a good enough lad, but that’s rather like putting the pigeon in charge of the fox.”
“You do seem to know your sister very well. I’d like to add that, had I realized your relationship to her, I would have made other arrangements to get her back into her coach and safely to Upper Brook Street, and gone on my way. Looking back, I would say those ‘arrangements’ would have been to bind and gag her before tying the coach doors closed.”
Ethan took a sip from his glass. “I repeat, I would like to say that. But that last little bit would be a lie, and we both know it. Your sister is the most extraordinary woman I’ve ever met. And she seems to see straight through me, which is as unique as it is unfortunate. I’ll need to keep her close these next weeks.”
“Or I need to truss her up as you suggested, and send her back to Becket Hall,” Chance said, sitting down in the facing chair, resting his elbows on his knees. “But she’d only run away, find her way back here, as Morgan always most wants to be where she shouldn’t be, so I might as well not dream of such an easy solution. But what do you mean, she sees straight through you? I don’t know what’s going on. She can’t possibly know what’s going on.”
“And she doesn’t. But while the rest of London believes me to be fairly worthless and more than a little base, your sister’s reaction to my well-rehearsed patter was to grin and call me a liar. She then added that like recognizes like, or some such thing. That shocked me. Is there something else I should know, other than the fact that your sister would make a far better ally than an enemy?”
“You mean, other than that I’d hang parts of you from every lamppost in London if I thought you’d touched her, and damn the minister if he thinks you’re indispensable. Or so he said when he warned me to silence about your presence in the War Office that night.”
Ethan smiled. “He called me indispensable? Well, now I am flattered.”
“Don’t be. The last man the minister termed indispensable was sent off on a sure suicide mission three months ago. He came back to us last week, packed in pickle juice. I may not have to worry overlong about you and my sister.”
“Really. I can see you and I are going to have an interesting relationship these next weeks. And we won’t mention the minister again after this conversation, will we?”
Chance sighed, pushed his fingers through his long hair, which was tied at his nape. “Then this conversation is over. I can’t say what I don’t know. It was late, supposedly everyone was gone, and you were stepping out of his office as I was stepping in. We weren’t introduced, but still I was told—in no uncertain terms—to forget I’d seen you. That’s all I know on that subject.”
“And it’s more than enough, I think we’ll agree,” Ethan said, lifting his wineglass in a small salute. “Suffice it to say the gentleman and myself are involved in a small…project.”
“Yes, I’d worked that out for myself, thank you. And now that I’ve got the name to go with the face, and know the reputation that is common knowledge throughout Mayfair, I can keep myself up nights, wondering what the devil the gentleman is up to this time, or I can pace the floors worrying about what you think you might be up to with my sister. Either way, I see little sleep in my future.”
Ethan smiled, liking this honest, forthright man very much. And it was time to leave the subject of the minister, and Ethan’s connection to him. “You and Morgan had different mothers? I don’t mean to be overly curious, but she has a rather exotic look about her that, frankly, you lack. Spanish, I’d say.”
Chance gazed at Ethan for long moments, during which neither one blinked.
“She could be. Our father adopted most of us. All of us, actually, save our sister Cassandra, who is the daughter of Ainsley Becket and his deceased wife. We can trace our lineage to our own parents, some of us, but that’s as far as any of us can go. You’re the twelfth earl, aren’t you? Steeped in family and tradition?”
One corner of Ethan’s mouth twitched in amusement. “Obviously your knowledge of me, although most probably damning, is also limited, Becket. When it comes to matters of bloodlines, the only ones that interest me are those of my horseflesh. So I was right? Spanish?”
“Does it matter?
Ethan shook his head. “No. Not at all. What matters is that Morgan seems to believe she won’t be welcomed too deeply into society. She could be right, you know, which begs the question as to why she’s here. She told me it’s to marry her off, turn her into someone else’s problem.”
Chance sat back in his chair, blinked. “She said that?” He began rubbing the back of his neck. “She couldn’t mean it. Morgan knows we would never…And she wanted to come. I think she wanted to come. Seasons are for women. Gowns, balls, all of it. I really wasn’t paying attention. Damn. Maybe I should at least offer to send her back to Becket Hall.”
It suited Ethan to keep Becket talking. “You’re merely thinking out loud, I’m sure, and aren’t seriously considering chasing the girl home to the wilds of wherever it is you all live, to marry some stammering country lad she’d be forced to murder in a week, if only to break the boredom. And where is Becket Hall, again? Romney Marsh, I believe she told me?”
“The far end of the earth. Another few hundred feet, and we’d be floating in the Channel,” Chance said, still with his mind on other things. “No, she has to stay here. There’s no future for her at Becket Hall, no future there for any of the girls. We all agreed.”
“You all agreed? This is so utterly fascinating,” Ethan said, and meant it. “Tell me, just how large is a clutch of Beckets?”
“Hmm? Oh, I’m sorry. Woolgathering. How many of us are there? Eight, actually, and our father, Ainsley. Four girls—Eleanor, Morgan, Fanny and Cassandra. Four boys—Courtland, Rian, Spencer and myself.”
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