by Eloisa James
She needn’t hoot with laughter like that. They could probably hear her in the next county.
“I have,” Esme said with dignity. “It’s a very worthy cause, Aunt Arabella. We sew sheets for the poor.”
“Far be it from me to get in your way! Just let me know when the ladies are descending on the house, and I’ll make myself scarce,” Arabella chortled. “I’ll have a word with Bea as well. I daresay she’ll flee into the village rather than be trapped with a bunch of seamstresses.”
Esme scowled at her. “There’s no need to mock me.”
“I’m not mocking you, love…well, not entirely. Would you prefer that I return to London and left you to the worthy matrons?”
“No!” And Esme found she really meant it. “Please don’t go, Aunt Arabella. It is truly wonderful having someone here, at the moment. Not that I wish Mama could, but—”
“There’s nothing wrong with wishing your mama wasn’t such a stiff-rumped old chicken,” Arabella put in. “My sister has always been a fool. Docile as a sheep. Let you be married off to Miles Rawlings without a by-your-leave, although anyone could tell that the two of you would never suit. Fanny never did learn to say no to your father, but what’s her excuse now? Your father went his way these two years, and has she come out from his shadow? No. Just as prissy as he was. The only thing that woman thinks about is her reputation.”
“That’s quite harsh,” Esme protested. “Mama has had a most difficult life. I know she has never recovered from the death of my little brother.”
“That was a grievous sorrow, to be sure. He was an enchanting lad.”
“Sometimes I’m terrified for my babe,” Esme confessed. “What if—what if—” But she couldn’t finish the sentence.
“That will not happen,” Arabella stated. “I won’t allow it. I do wish to point out, Esme, that while your mother has experienced tragedy, she needn’t have responded by becoming so highty-tighty.
“Just don’t turn into her, with all your plans for propriety. Promise me that. Poor Fanny hasn’t had a day in years in which she didn’t find some impropriety to turn her mouth sour. That’s the problem with caring overmuch about your reputation: it leads to caring overmuch about other people’s reputations as well.”
“I would never do that,” Esme said. “I merely promised Miles that I wouldn’t be a scandalous mother to our child.”
“Deathbed promise, eh? I’ve made a few of those myself.” Arabella was silent for a second.
“It wasn’t exactly a deathbed promise. We had discussed how we would raise our child a few days before he died.”
Arabella nodded. “It’s difficult to ignore the wishes of a dead man. I agree with you.” She seemed to shake off a melancholy thought. “Hey-ho for the Proper Life! Your mother will be pleased, I suppose. Actually, your ambitions are all the more reason to consider Fairfax-Lacy as a husband. He’s proper enough to suit your mama, and yet he’s not tiresome. Which reminds me. Such a hen party tonight. The only man in the lot will be Fairfax-Lacy, if he arrives, and even I can’t see the point of dressing for a man half my age.”
“He’s not half your age,” Esme pointed out. “He’s just slightly younger. You’re only fifty, and he must be in his forties.”
“Too young,” Arabella said firmly. “Do you know, I once took a lover who was ten years younger, and it was altogether an exhausting experience. I had to dismiss him after a few days. Too, too fatiguing. The truth is, darling, I’m getting old!”
Esme gathered her wandering thoughts just in time to answer properly. “No!”
“Surprising, but true.” Arabella looked at her reflection, but without a trace of melancholy. “I find that I don’t mind very much. In fact, I rather like it. But your mother complains endlessly about her aches and pains.” She turned around and fixed Esme with a fierce eye. “You are my favorite niece—”
“I’m your only niece,” Esme put in.
“Just so. And what I mean to say is, I want you to take life on the hilt, rather than sit back and complain about it. Not that I don’t love your mama, because I do. But you’ve more of my blood, and you always have done.”
She turned back to the mirror. “The only thing I regret about age are the wrinkles. But I have high hopes for this new almond cream! Do you know, that Italian apothecary promises the cream will make one’s skin as soft as a baby’s cheek? Once your child arrives, we’ll have a viable comparison. Not having seen a baby in years, how would I know what its skin looks like?”
“I’m glad my condition will prove to be of use,” Esme said rather tartly.
2
A Hen Party…Plus One
Stephen Fairfax-Lacy straightened his cravat and wondered, for the hundredth time, what in the world he was doing attending a house party while Parliament was in session. It wasn’t just any house party either. No, in joining a flock of degenerates at Infamous Esme Rawlings’s house he was missing indubitably important speeches on the Corn Laws. Castlereagh was expecting him to keep an eye on things in Parliament while the foreign secretary was off in Vienna, carving up Europe like slices of woodcock pie. There were problems brewing between the Canadian frontier and those cursed American colonies—correction, former colonies—not to mention the ongoing irritation of possible riots due to the Corn Laws. He had a strong feeling there would be deadly riots soon, protesting the increase in food prices.
But he just couldn’t bring himself to care. He’d spent the last ten years fighting for the good of the common man. He had never used the honorary title he held as heir to his cousin Camden, the Duke of Girton. No, he’d been elected to the Commons on his own merits. Due to his own convictions.
And where were those convictions? Ten years of battling back and forth about Corn Laws and Enclosure Acts had drained the passion out of him. Years of trying to convince his own party to reconsider its position on Enclosures. Six years ago he’d put up fevered opposition to a proposed Enclosure Act. Now another such act was presented every week. He could barely bring himself to vote. No matter what he did, more and more families were being forcibly evicted from their farmland so that rich men could build fences and graze herds of sheep. He was a failure.
He threw away the cravat, which was hopelessly creased. Generally he could make a simple trone d’amour in under eight minutes, but this evening he had ruined two cloths already. “Sorry, Winchett,” he said, as his valet handed him yet another starched cloth.
He stared at his reflection for a moment as he deftly tied the neck cloth. Even if this go at the trone d’amour finally seemed to be going well, nothing else in his life was. He felt old, for one thing. Old at forty-three years old. And, damn it all—he felt lonely. He knew exactly why that was. It was the visit to Cam. His cousin and wife had just returned from a visit to Greece. The duchess was radiant, intelligent, and expecting a child. And Cam—Cam who had been forced into a marriage, and then spent ten years hiding in Greece rather than acknowledge it—Cam was bursting with pride.
It was Gina and Cam’s sense of companionship that underscored Stephen’s loneliness. He’d distinctly seen Gina, the Duchess of Girton, tell her husband to close his mouth, and without saying a word! And Cam had done it. Amazing. Cam was friends with his wife.
Stephen’s mouth took on a grim line as he folded the last piece of linen. There were no women like Gina wandering around London. Not as intelligent and yet untouched, with that bone-deep innocence. Naturally, one had to have that quality in a wife. But he was—just to repeat—all of forty-three. Too old for a debutante.
Finally Stephen shrugged on a coat and walked down the stairs. Perhaps he would plead work and return to London first thing in the morning. He might even attend a ball at Almack’s and acquire some fresh young thing who didn’t mind what an old man he was. After all, he was a good catch, to put it vulgarly. He had a resoundingly good estate.
Of course, he hardly remembered what the property looked like, given that his work in Parliament had taken virtually al
l his time in the past ten years. He had a wash of longing for the lazy days of his youth, sitting around with Cam, whittling boats and fishing for trout they rarely caught. These days he fished for votes.
What I need, he thought suddenly, is a mistress. It’s a lengthy business, fishing for a wife, and likely tedious as well. But a mistress would offer an immediate solution to his malaise. No doubt life had a plodding sensation because he hadn’t had a mistress in a donkey’s age.
He paused for a moment and thought. Could it really have been a year since he entered a woman’s bedchamber? How could that be? Too many smoky late nights, talking votes with whiskey-soaked men. Had it truly been a year since Maribell had kissed him good-bye and walked off with Lord Pinkerton? Over a year ago. Damn.
No wonder he was always in a foul mood. Still, Esme Rawlings’s house would be an excellent hunting ground for a mistress. He walked into the salon with a surge of enthusiasm and bowed over his hostess’s hand. “I must beg your forgiveness for my importunate arrival, my lady. Lady Withers assures me that she treats your house as her own. I trust she didn’t prevaricate?”
Lady Rawlings chuckled, that deep, rich laugh that had entranced half the men in London. Of course, she was great with child and had presumably curtailed her seductive activities. Beautiful woman, though. She was even more lush than he remembered, with breasts that gave a man an instant ache in the groin. In fact…Stephen caught himself sharply before he formed the image. I must be getting desperate, he thought, kissing her hand.
There was something about the way Lady Rawlings’s eyes met his that made him think she could read his thoughts, so he turned quickly to the lady next to her. It was shameful to be entertaining such thoughts about a woman on the verge of giving birth.
“This is Lady Beatrix Lennox,” Lady Rawlings said. There was an odd tone in her voice, as if he were expected to recognize the girl. “Lady Beatrix, Stephen Fairfax-Lacy, the Earl of Spade.”
“I do not use the title,” he said, bowing. Lady Beatrix was clearly unmarried but equally clearly not eligible to be his wife. A wife had to have an angelic air, a sense of fragility and purity, whereas Lady Beatrix looked like a high-flying courtesan. Her lips were like a pouting rosebud, and that rosebud never grew in nature. Given that her skin was as pale as cream and red curls tumbled down her back, those velvety black eyelashes were obviously false too.
A beauty, a seductively false beauty. He almost laughed. Wasn’t she exactly what he hoped for? A woman the precise opposite of his future bride. A woman who would likely be unrecognizable in the morning, were he ever foolish enough to spend a night in her bed. Too bad she was both well-bred and unmarried, and thus ineligible for an affair.
“Mr. Fairfax-Lacy,” she said, and her voice had the practiced, husky promise of a coquette. “What a pleasure to meet you.”
He brushed a kiss on the back of her hand. Sure enough, she wore French perfume, the sort that a certain kind of woman considers akin to a night rail.
“The pleasure is all mine,” he said. She had high, delicate eyebrows, and the fact that she’d colored them black somehow suited her face.
Lady Arabella appeared at his side. “Ah, I see you’ve met my dame de compagnie,” she said. “Bea, Mr. Fairfax-Lacy is quite a paragon of good works. Just imagine—he’s a Member of Parliament! Commons, you know.”
“At the moment,” Stephen heard himself say and then wondered what on earth had led him to say such a thing.
Lady Beatrix looked bored by this revelation, so he bowed again and left. He’d just caught sight of Countess Godwin on the other side of the room. Now she was a distinct possibility, given that she hadn’t lived with her husband for years. Moreover, she was beautiful, in a pale, well-bred way. He liked the way she wore her hair in a nest of braids. It showed a flagrant disregard for the current fashion of dangling frizzled curls around the ears.
Unfortunately, Lady Godwin’s reputation was damn near irreproachable. She would be a challenge. But wasn’t that what he needed? A challenge? He strode across the room toward her.
In the kind of serendipity that happens only too infrequently betwixt the sexes, his companion was thinking along precisely the same lines.
Helene, Countess Godwin, had watched Stephen enter the room and had been instantly struck by how remarkably good-looking Mr. Fairfax-Lacy was. He had the long, narrow face and high cheekbones of an English aristocrat. Moreover, he was immaculately dressed, a quality she considered to be of the highest importance, since her point of reference was her husband. He was bowing over Esme’s hand and smiling at her. He couldn’t be interested in a flirtation with Esme, could he? Under the circumstances? Men were always flirting with Esme, Helene thought with a dispirited pang. But the next moment he walked across the room directly toward her.
Helene felt a blush rising in her neck. Of course she shouldn’t have been caught staring at the man, for all the world like a debutante. But it would be a pleasure to make his further acquaintance, if only because he was such a conscientious member of Parliament. Her own father said he was the best man in London on grain. More to the point, he was remarkably good-looking. His hair just brushed his neck, whereas her husband let his hair wave around his shoulders like some sort of wild animal. Oh, if only she’d married someone like Mr. Fairfax-Lacy instead of Rees, all those years ago!
But of course Stephen Fairfax-Lacy would never in a million years have eloped with someone as young and foolish as she had been. In fact, it seemed unlikely he’d ever marry. The man must be in his forties.
She sank into a curtsy before him. “I am delighted to meet you again, Mr. Fairfax-Lacy. What are you doing in the country? I thought Parliament was in session. And you, sir, are known to be the House’s most determined whipper-in!” She allowed him to place her on a settee and sit beside her.
He smiled at her, but the smile fell short of his eyes. “They can spare me for a week or so,” he said lightly.
“It must be rather difficult to keep up with all those issues,” Helene said. He truly had lovely blue eyes. They were so respectable and clear, as opposed to her husband’s muddy, scowling look.
“I don’t find it difficult to follow the issues. But I’m finding it difficult to care about them as much as I used to.” Stephen was feeling more cheerful by the moment. What he needed was a woman to purge this sense that the world was gray and fruitless. Lady Godwin’s bashful charm was a perfect antidote.
“Oh dear,” Helene said, touching his fingers with her gloved hand. “I am sorry to hear that. I sometimes think that you are a remarkable voice of clarity in the midst of the Tories. I, sir, seem naturally inclined to Whiggery.”
“I find that alarming. What is it that draws you to the enemy side?”
His eyes crinkled in the corners when he smiled at her. Helene almost lost track of their conversation. He had very long, lean fingers. Didn’t that…hadn’t Esme told her something about a man’s hands? She snatched her mind away from that vastly improper subject. “I have not found the past years of Tory government satisfactory,” she said hastily.
“Oh?”
His eyes actually looked interested in what she was saying. Helene made a conscious effort to sound intelligent. “To tell the truth,” she said, “I believe the government is making a huge mistake by ignoring the numbers of unemployed men in the country. The homeless, jobless soldiers wandering the roads are a reproach to all of us.”
Stephen nodded and made a conscious effort to sound like a scrupulous and sympathetic politician. “I know. I wish I were convinced that a change of government would shift people’s perception of the discharged soldiers.” She was so slender that one really had to wonder whether she bothered to wear a corset. He’d never liked those garments, although women seemed to find them obligatory.
“I should not berate you of all men,” Helene said. “Didn’t I just read a speech of yours on the subject, transcribed in the Times? And you were quite eloquent on the state of the hungry laborers.”
It was appalling, how tired he was of thinking of the plight of the poor. “Thank you,” Stephen said, “but I am afraid my speeches are like water on stone; they seem to have little effect.”
She leaned forward. “Never say that! If good men such as yourself did not stand up for the poor and downhearted, well then, what should become of them?”
“I’ve told myself the same, time out of mind, but I must admit, Lady Godwin, that I find the counsel far more engaging when spoken by such an intelligent woman.” She was wearing a corset. He could tell by the way she moved toward him rather stiffly, like a marionette. It wasn’t as if she had extra flesh to confine, so why on earth was she wearing that garment?
Helene pinked and realized that in her excitement she had picked up Mr. Fairfax-Lacy’s hand. Blinking, she made to draw hers away, but he held it for a moment.
“It is a great pleasure to meet a woman interested in the political life of the nation.”
He had a lovely voice, she thought. No wonder his speeches were so closely attended! Luckily (because she really had no idea what to say), Slope brought them both a sherry, which broke the oddly intimate feeling of the moment.
But they sat together for a moment in silence, and any reasonable observer could have noticed that Lady Godwin was slightly pink in the cheeks. The same observer might have glimpsed Mr. Fairfax-Lacy stealing a look at Lady Godwin’s face, while she examined her sherry with rapt attention.
An acute observer—the kind who can see into human hearts—could have perceived speculation. Rampant speculation that led to a few conclusions.
Countess Godwin decided that Mr. Fairfax-Lacy had beautiful lean cheeks. She rather liked his thighs too, although she would never have formulated that thought into words. She was also still trying rather desperately to remember what it was that Esme had told her about men with long fingers.
As it happened, Mr. Fairfax-Lacy’s attention was also caught by the question of fingers. Countess Godwin’s fingers were slender, pink tipped and strikingly feminine. Being male, that formulation turned directly to self-interest. He liked the little flush the countess got every time she looked him in the eyes. And those fingers…