by Eloisa James
Lina had dropped her toast. “Helene, your wife?” she gasped.
Rees would have felt a pulse of guilt, but he saw a fugitive gleam of excitement in her eyes. If he had been tired of Lina, she seemed to be positively blue-deviled with boredom. She would likely adore the idea of returning to the opera house with a large settlement in hand. He was perfectly well aware that he had been just as disappointing from Lina’s point of view as he was from Helene’s.
“I’m not putting you out,” he said, taking another bite of eggs. When he was finished, he looked at Lina. “You won’t even have to move rooms. Helene will stay on the third floor, in the room next to the nursery.”
“I was planning to put Meggin in the nursery,” Tom said. He shook his head. “What am I saying? Helene will never agree to this absurd plan!”
The memory of his wife’s anguished face saying that she wanted a child—and a similar memory from over a year ago—flashed through Rees’s mind. “Yes, she will,” he stated.
“You’re dreaming.”
“I threw her out of the house. Now I’m taking her back.”
Lina started to laugh. “You want me to stay in your wife’s bedchamber? While she moves to the third floor? You don’t know much about women, do you?”
“No. But I do know Helene.”
“Why?” Tom demanded. “Why in God’s name would she humiliate herself in front of all London society in such a way? I doubt very much that she’s been pining for your presence.”
He didn’t say it with scorn, but Rees felt the pinprick all the same. “She wants a child,” he said shortly, forking the eggs in his mouth as quickly as he could. He wanted this conversation over. The sooner he could go to Helene’s house and take care of arrangements there, the sooner he could get back to work.
“I never heard of a woman wanting a child that much,” Lina said. She had put down her toast. “The scandal will be tremendous.”
“If Father was going to turn in his grave, this would do it,” Tom put in. “Do you suppose if I showed you disturbed earth, you would stop trying to wake him?”
Rees just looked at him. “I need Lina in the house.”
A flash of distaste crossed Tom’s face.
“To sing what I compose,” Rees finished calmly. He took the last bite of his eggs. “Where, might I ask, did Miss Meggin come from, Tom? And what are you planning to do with her?”
Meggin looked across the table at him. Now that he’d had a moment, he could see that she didn’t really resemble Tom. Her eyes were light blue and utterly bewildered. She didn’t seem to know what to do with her fork and kept putting it down and trying to eat eggs with her fingers.
“She sold me three apples,” Tom said. “I shall take her back to East Riding and find a family to care for her.”
Rees looked at the little girl. Her pinafore was stained and crumpled, and she didn’t look terribly clean. “Have we any maids at the moment, Leke?” he asked the butler.
Leke was obviously listening with all his attention. This must be the most exciting morning of his life. “My niece Rosy, my lord.”
“Of course, I’d forgotten Rosy. I hope she’s better with children than she is with an iron. You’d better ask her to help us out with Meggin until my brother decides to return to his parish, which I dearly hope will be very soon.” Rees shot Tom a look. “And Leke, send a message to Madame Rocque and ask her to send one of her assistants to measure the child.”
“Lovely!” Lina said, “I should like Madame Rocque’s current pattern book as well, Leke. Just think of the cosy times Lady Godwin and I shall have, pouring over La Belle Assemblée together.” She laughed. “You’re a fool, Rees.”
“We need sturdy, serviceable clothing, not the kind of thing that—” Tom’s eyes skittered over Lina’s elegant morning gown.
“I’m sure they can provide whatever Meggin needs,” Rees said with perfect indifference. He rose and bowed to the room at large. “I’m sure you’ll all excuse me. I have to collect Helene. You should expect your mistress in the house by supper time, Leke.”
But he was followed by a light swish of silk. “Surely you were wishing to speak to me, Rees?” The sarcasm in her voice pricked his shoulder blades.
Rees pushed open the door of the sitting room. “Right. We can speak, and then work on that aria.”
Lina strolled before him. “I think not.” She walked over to a couch graced by three towering stacks of paper and plumped herself on top of one of them.
“What are you doing?” Rees bellowed. “Get up at once! You’re sitting on Act One.”
“Mmm, what a pity,” Lina said sweetly. “Don’t worry, Rees. I shall restrain myself from the obvious joke about having had the trots.”
Once again, he had underestimated a female’s anger. Rees ground his teeth for a moment. He should just give Lina a payment and send her on her way. Boot out the mistress, get back into good odor with his saintly brother, bring his wife back into the house, spawn an heir…It felt as if the prison gates were closing about him.
“How much do you want?” he asked abruptly.
Her eyes narrowed but she said nothing.
“You know I’ll give you a large settlement when you leave,” he said impatiently. “But how much extra do you want to stay in the house for a few more weeks, at least until Tom goes home?”
She still said nothing.
He had the uneasy feeling he was missing something, but that was nothing new. He ran a hand through his hair. He didn’t know why other men seemed perfectly capable of understanding women. He found Helene and Lina equally incomprehensible.
“You’re tired of me,” he pointed out.
She nodded at that.
“So the problem is staying in the house with my wife, then?” He turned away and the score waiting on his piano caught his eye. It was hogwash, no question about it. The awful feeling of failure dragging at his ankles just made him feel more stubborn, and more obstinate. If he wasn’t writing comic opera, what was he? Nothing. Nothing more than every other self-satisfied pisser of an earl in this country. At least he made people laugh with his music. But the scores he’d written in the last year wouldn’t do more than send people to sleep.
“What do you want, Lina?”
“Nothing you can give me,” she said.
“I can—”
“This is not about money.”
Rees ran his hand through his hair again. He knew that Lina had left the opera house for love of him. But Christ, that was two, almost three years ago. Surely she had time to get over her infatuation? It only took Helene ten days. “I’m sorry,” he said, turning around and leaning against the piano.
To his relief, she didn’t look broken-hearted. “Why are you taking your wife back?”
“She wants a child. I need an heir.”
“You are thinking about heirs?” Lina hooted.
Rees scowled at her. “I’m not getting any younger,” he said coldly.
“Are you trying to tell me that you’re suffering an old man’s complaint, and that’s why you avoid my bed?”
“No! No,” he said more calmly. “We’re finished, Lina. You know that.”
She shrugged. “So why am I still here?” There was a faint bitterness in her voice that found its way straight to his conscience. “Why haven’t you already set me up with a little house of my own and a snug allowance, to assuage your conscience until I find another protector? Or am I incorrect about the fate of a high-flung courtesan?”
“You’re not a courtesan,” Rees said.
Her eyes blazed scorn. “Only courtesans can be paid to humiliate themselves. I truly am curious, Rees. Why do you want a courtesan in your wife’s bedroom, and a wife in the nursery?”
At the moment he wanted nothing more than for her to be gone. He shrugged. “An impulse. Obviously a stupid one.”
“Afraid of your wife?”
She knew him far too well. “Absolutely not!” he snapped.
“Afraid of
your brother, then.”
“Bored at the idea of domestic bliss,” he drawled. “After all, given the little scene you created at Madame Rocque’s, I can always count on you to enliven the atmosphere.”
“I won’t do it,” she said flatly. “You must be cracked to think I would. The woman will likely kill me, and she would have every reason to do so. I may have lost my virtue, Rees, but I haven’t lost every crumb of common decency. I’m not staying in your wife’s bedroom while she sleeps upstairs. I wouldn’t enter the door while she’s here.”
“Don’t make a Cheltenham tragedy about it,” he snarled. “Go if you want to go.”
But she just stayed there, her eyes glinting at him. “You told your brother that you wanted me in the house to sing your compositions. I think it would have been easier for both of us if you had clarified that particular aspect of our relationship some time ago.”
“I know. I’ve been a bastard.” He said it impatiently: he’d had this sort of conversation with women before and it didn’t interest him.
“Well, if I’m to be here to sing for my supper,” Lina persisted, “do tell me: just what do you have in mind for your wife?”
“She’ll help with—” he stopped. Too late, he saw the trap.
“Help with the opera?” Lina inquired in a particularly sweet voice. “Ah, yes, we all know that the Countess Godwin is a brilliant musician, do we not? I thought there was something fishy about your sudden wish to beget an heir. But if we take your recent musical compositions into account…well, now I understand. So the countess will write the score, and I will sing the score, and you merely do your bedtime duty, is that it?” She laughed. “Your wife must be desperate indeed.”
Rees was at her side with a snarl of rage that startled them both. “Don’t you dare speak of Helene in that tone!”
She shook his hand from her arm. “I’ll pack my bags.”
Rees gritted his teeth. “If you stay and sing when I ask you to, I’ll make Shuffle give you the part of the Quaker girl.”
She paused, hand on the door.
“You are no courtesan, Lina. We both know it. What are you going to do with the rest of your life? There’ll be no second protector for you.”
Lina laughed briefly. “Not after what I’ve learned of men from you.”
“You’ll go back to the opera house, won’t you? So how would it feel to go back with a lead part under your arm, and the part already learned? Six weeks at most,” he said. “You can learn the Quaker’s part by then. Hell, I’ll even toss in a little of that coloratura that you do so well. And I’ll clear it with Shuffle and the rest of the management.”
There was a moment of silence.
“I’d rather have the role of Princess Mathilde,” she said. “Not the Quaker girl. I’m no Quaker.”
“You’d make an excellent Quaker. For all your beauty, there’s a deep down Puritan side to you.”
She pulled open the door. “Must be pretty far down. I haven’t seen a twitch of it in years. I want the Princess.”
He touched her arm. “It wasn’t that bad, was it, Lina?”
She looked up at him, remembering how deeply she fell in love with the big, shaggy earl, his dimples and his abruptness, his burly body and his secret kindness. He was the one with a secret Puritan soul, if anyone. She shook her head. “It’s been lovely,” she said flippantly. “Nothing more than constant gaiety.”
Rees had to let her go. What more could he say? What could either of them say?
Fourteen
An Outrageous Proposal
Helene had a shrewd feeling that she would be besieged with morning callers. No staid matron could chop off all her hair, put on a flagrantly outrageous gown, and disappear from a ballroom with the Earl of Mayne, without every single female acquaintance she had in the world—and several whom she did not—developing a burning ambition to partake of tea at her house.
So she instructed Mrs. Crewe to prepare for callers and then put on a recklessly daring morning gown sent by Madame Rocque, so that she could entertain all those who might have missed her appearance the previous night. The morning gown was of a style with the gown she had worn to the ball: the cut of the bodice was almost prudish, but the fabric was so fine that it floated around her body, allowing every curve to speak for itself.
But she felt no pleasure in shocking her visitors. In the morning she had discovered that she had her monthly, and only the fact that she had already darkened her lashes prevented her from bursting into tears. It wasn’t until she read the very first card brought in by her mother’s butler that Helene shed her listlessness like a snake sheds its skin.
Her heart started beating quickly and her cheeks suddenly turned a pink that had nothing to do with cosmetics. “How could you?” she cried, the moment the door opened. She had been thinking about blistering Esme’s ears ever since waking up.
Except Esme was followed by William, a plump, cheerful one-year-old. William didn’t see the point of solitary walking; he trusted his nursemaid, Ivy, to keep him upright while he tugged on her finger and pointed. And now he wanted to go to Helene, so Ivy walked him across the room. William had his father’s golden hair and blue eyes, but that mischievous twinkle in his eyes was all Esme’s.
“Hello, sweet William!” Helene said, holding out her arms. He let go of his nurse’s hand and walked one step alone, toppling toward her like a falling star. She scooped him up and tickled him for a moment, and then kissed him all over his curly little head. He smelled wonderful, like bread-and-milk pudding and baby.
“This was very clever of you,” Helene observed, giving William’s mother a narrow-eyed glance.
“I know,” said Esme happily. “I expect you’ve consigned me to the dungeon, darling, and Lord knows I deserve to be.” She turned to Ivy. “I think William will be just fine with us for a short while, Ivy, if you’d like to greet Mrs. Crewe.”
William’s nursemaid curtsied and took herself out of the sitting room with dispatch. “Ivy is in love with one of my grooms,” Esme said. “Now she’ll peek out the door and drive the poor lad to distraction.”
“How could you do such a thing?” Helene scolded, although it was difficult to sound severe when William’s giggles filled the air. “How dare you tell Rees that I was intending to get myself with child?”
“It was the most practical solution,” Esme said, looking not at all repentant. “I gave a lot of thought to illegitimate children two years ago. Miles and I hadn’t lived together for ten years, and there he was in love with Lady Childe. But I decided finally that it made far more sense to approach my own husband than to bear an illegitimate child, and the same is true for you.”
“You should have simply told me,” Helene scolded. “As it was, I was positively mortified. You should have seen Mayne’s face when—”
“No, wait!” Esme cried. “You mustn’t describe what happened last night until Gina arrives. She said she’d be here early, and she threatened me with murder if I allowed you to begin the tale without her. We are both quite moribund with curiosity. And Helene, we must instruct your butler that you’re not receiving for at least an hour. You do realize that all of London will be here this morning, don’t you?”
“Of course I do,” Helene said irritably. “Why would I be wearing this drafty garment if I didn’t know that? Every scandal-mongering matron from here to York will be on my doorstep.”
“Matrons!” Esme cried. “Who cares for such trifles? All the men in London will be here, which is why it matters that you look exquisite. Do you know, I think that lip color is more suited to you than anyone I have ever known? It makes your mouth look as ripe as a berry.”
“You sound like the worst kind of flatterer. The foolish things were said to me last night! I danced with Gerard Bunge and he kept sighing, and saying that I looked like a tree-nymph in springtime.”
“What a coincidence,” Esme said acidly. “So did he.”
At that moment, Harries announced the Duche
ss of Girton, Esme announced she was positively starved, and William fell over and bumped his head against a table, so the conversation proper didn’t start again until Ivy had borne William downstairs for a consolatory pudding, and Harries had been instructed to bring sustenance, and deny entrance to anyone for one hour.
“Now tell me all!” Gina said gaily. The Duchess of Girton had beautiful green eyes and pale red hair. She could turn in a heartbeat from being the most composed, regal woman in London, to being doubled over with fits of wicked laughter. “Helene, darling, you look so elegant! I sent a message to Madame Rocque this morning for an appointment. After hearing about your gown from at least four different women last night, I want precisely the same. Although I promise to order it in a different color,” she added.
Helene couldn’t help smiling. “How is Max?”
Gina wrinkled her nose. “A despot. I do believe he’s the only child in all England who doesn’t sleep at night. Now he’s teething, and he must have his mama at night or he screams so loudly that even the staff can’t sleep. Cam says I must just leave him, and then he’ll get used to Nurse, but I can’t bear his cries.”
“William howls his head off during the night sometimes,” Esme said cheerfully. “I must be a very unnatural mother, because I leave him to Ivy.”
“I wish I could do that,” Gina said.
“Much more important,” Esme told Gina, “is the fact that just before you arrived last night, Mayne swept Helene into the music room, and Rees came pounding after her, and the next thing I heard, Mayne had come out with a brow like thunder, as they say.”
They both turned and looked expectantly at Helene.
“I got my monthly this morning,” she blurted out.
“Oh, what a shame,” Esme said softly, winding an arm around her shoulder.
“I’m a little worried that I may be barren,” she said, and her voice shook.
“You are not barren,” Gina said. “I was married for several months before I found myself in a delicate condition and”—she colored—“there was no lack of the necessary activity.”
“The idea is absurd!” Esme said. “But I would suggest that you choose a more private setting for your next encounter with Rees.”