Ravish Me with Rubies

by Jane Feather

  And that was a piece of idiotic arrogance, she thought. Guy wasn’t manageable. She’d assumed she’d be able to work around any truly impossible beliefs and behavior and that somehow love and lust together would lift them above any mundane differences of opinion and belief. But these issues were far from mundane, they were essential to what she believed and the only way she could honestly live her life.

  After five minutes her pace slowed and her anger died, but it was replaced by a fierce desire to convince Guy that he could not order her life as he pleased. An up and down fight wasn’t the answer, she wouldn’t win it. Neither would he, but the damage to their marriage could be irreparable. And it certainly couldn’t be allowed to fall apart because of a corset.

  Except of course that the whole corset business was merely a symptom of what was really the issue. Guy’s assumptions about a husband’s prerogatives. It was the first time she’d heard anything about those. She’d certainly never heard Diana or Fenella discuss them. And then she remembered what Elinor had told her. Presumably Guy’s father had had his own ideas on the subject and had imparted them to his son. Confrontation was definitely not the way to get her own views across.

  Somehow she had to diffuse the situation. What was needed was a subtle approach, a lighthearted way to make her point. She rang the bell for Dottie, turning over ideas in her mind.

  Dottie bustled in a few minutes later bearing a tea tray. “Oh, you’ve had your tea already,” she said when she saw the empty cup on the bedside table.

  “Lord Ashton gave me a cup before he left,” Petra said. “But I’d like another cup. How was your evening?”

  “Oh, very nice, Miss Petra, thank you,” Dottie replied, picking up the clothes on the ottoman and taking them to the laundry hamper in the dressing room. “I felt a bit uneasy like when Miss Pankhurst talked about marching into Westminster. I don’t know that I want to do that.”

  “No, and you shouldn’t do anything you don’t want to,” Petra said as the maid returned to the bedroom. “And, Dottie, I think it would be best if you didn’t talk about the meetings or anything to do with the Union in the servants’ hall. Not unless you’re talking to someone you know supports the cause.”

  Dottie looked a little alarmed. “If you say so, miss. Is there a problem?”

  “I understand that Mr. Babbit is not a supporter and he could make your life uncomfortable if he knew that you’re a member of the Union,” Petra explained awkwardly.

  “But you’re a member, miss, and I work for you,” Dottie said, frowning.

  “Yes, I know. And of course I won’t let anything unpleasant happen to you. It would just be better for the time being to be discreet.” Petra hated hearing herself counseling her maid to hide her political aff iliations but she also knew that she could protect Dottie only so far when it came to life in the servants’ hall, where Babbit ruled supreme. She could make sure the girl didn’t lose her job, she could make sure she had impeccable references, but she couldn’t protect her from her fellow servants or the butler’s tyranny when she wasn’t around.

  “I’ll be careful, Miss Petra. Will you be going out this morning?”

  “Yes, in an hour or so.” Petra wandered into the bathroom. An idea was formulating, an amusing way to get Guy to see things her way. She just had to manage to enlist the help of two particular women.

  * * *

  Just before noon, Dr. Louisa Garrett Anderson was contemplating leaving her surgery at the Royal Free Hospital in the Grays Inn Road for a lunch break when she was informed that a Lady Ashton wished to see her if she could spare her a minute.

  Surprised, Louisa went into the waiting room herself. “Petra, what brings you to this part of the city?”

  Petra jumped up from the hard wooden chair. “I need to ask a favor, Louisa. If you can’t give me that then I need some advice. I can wait for as long as you like if you have lots of patients.”

  “The surgery’s closed for an hour for lunch,” Louisa said. “I was about to get something to eat. D’you care to join me?”

  “Absolutely. Where do you go around here for lunch?” The Grays Inn Road was not a part of London with which she was familiar. Grays Inn was one of the four inns of court, exclusively inhabited by the legal profession and the hospital.

  Louisa laughed. “Certainly not the Savoy, or anywhere like it. But there’s a café on the corner, popular with junior law clerks. They do a good cheese and bacon sandwich, or steak pie. Cheap and cheerful for the impoverished young men slaving away for the barristers.”

  “Where do the barristers eat then?” Petra inquired, following Louisa back into her office.

  “Oh, they have their own watering holes,” Louisa said dismissively, putting on a serviceable tweed coat. “They don’t welcome women, particularly women alone.” She crammed on a close-fitting wool hat. “If they don’t want me, I don’t want to be there.”

  “Quite,” Petra agreed. Louisa and her mother, Elizabeth, the first woman ever to qualify as a doctor in England, were active suffragists as well as medical professionals and Petra knew both through her work with the Union.

  The café was noisy, smoky and smelled of grease, none of which seemed to trouble Louisa, who seemed a well-known figure there, greeted by customers and waitress alike. Petra followed her friend’s lead and took a seat at a stained wooden table for two against a wall that seemed to drip condensation.

  “The food’s much better than you might imagine from the surroundings,” Louisa whispered, pushing across a dog-eared menu. “The day’s specials are on the chalkboard above the counter.”

  Petra looked over at the board. Split pea soup with ham, and spotted dick for pudding appeared to be on offer. “The soup looks good,” she said after a doubtful glance down at the menu, which featured sausage, egg and chips as well as the recommended ale pie and cheese and bacon sandwich.

  “Yes, I’ll have the same,” Louisa said briskly, unbuttoning her coat. She signaled to the lone waitress. “Two of the soup special, Maude, please, oh, and a half pint of cider.” She glanced at Petra. “What are you drinking? If you don’t feel like strong tea, cider or water’s your best bet.”

  “Just water, then,” Petra replied, settling back on her chair, thrusting her gloves into her coat pockets.

  “So what favor can I do you?” Louisa asked, eyes bright with curiosity. She listened as Petra explained, her eyes widening, laughter bubbling as Petra finished. “Oh, that’s an outrageous but wonderful idea, Petra,” she declared. “But how will your husband take such a lesson? Will it amuse him?”

  “I certainly hope so,” Petra said, dipping her spoon again into the surprisingly good soup. “But to be honest I’m taking a bit of a risk. I think, I hope, he’ll see the funny side. But I also want him to understand how important it is.”

  “Well, I certainly support that,” Louisa said. “When do you want to do this? I don’t have surgery on Friday afternoons.”

  “This Friday then? Unless Guy has something else he has to do.”

  “Let me know if he does. Otherwise, four o’clock?”

  “Perfect.”

  Petra left Louisa half an hour later, having spurned the spotted dick, and went to the lingerie department of Marshall & Snelgrove to recruit her last participant in her plan. Rachel Young, another fellow member of the Union, ran her department in the elegant store with a friendly efficiency that belied the passion with which she held her political beliefs. She was well aware that if her outside work activities became generally known she would be dismissed from her post without references, a bleak prospect for a woman of a certain age.

  “Lady Ashton, what can we do for you today?” She came across the floor as soon as she saw Petra step out of the elevator cage.

  “I’d like to consult you, Mrs. Young,” Petra said, glancing around. The floor was quiet, customers sparse. “Can we go into a fitting room? It’s rather private.”

  “Of course. This way.” The woman led the way to the back of th
e department and through a curtain. She unlocked the door to a cubicle and stood aside to let Petra precede her.

  When they emerged some twenty minutes later, Rachel went straight to a display of corsets, both long and short. “The S-curve is the one we want.” She selected a garment with a slight moue of distaste. “I do dislike selling these, but customers want them. I can hardly keep them in stock.” She held it up. “This should fit you. Do you want to try it now?”

  “No, I trust your eye, Rachel.”

  “Then I’ll bring it to Berkeley Square at half past three on Friday.”

  Satisfied with her afternoon’s work, Petra went directly home. Ordinarily she would have discussed her plotting with Diana and Fenella but she felt somehow that this was strictly between herself and Guy. A purely domestic matter. She didn’t want to expose him to her friends’ judgment, she realized. And they would judge him. It was one thing for a stranger to be critical, but quite another for friends.

  At home she greeted Babbit as he opened the door for her. “Lord Ashton and I will be dining alone tonight,” she informed the butler. “I think it would be nice to have dinner served in the library in front of the fire. Could you ask Alphonse to come and see me in my sitting room.”

  Babbit bowed and Petra made her way to her own cozy parlor, not bothering to go up to her bedroom first to get rid of her outdoor clothes. The chef, like most of Guy’s staff, had been in service to the Granville family for many years. He was slightly suspicious of the new Lady Ashton and Petra had gone out of her way to ask his opinion and generally acquiesce to his menu suggestions, but she had a very specific request for this coming evening.

  “You sent for me, my lady?”

  “Yes, Alphonse. Thank you for coming.” She smiled and gestured to a chair. “Please, sit down. I’d like to discuss tonight’s menu.”

  Alphonse glanced pointedly at the clock on the mantelpiece as it struck four. “After the soup, I am preparing poached turbot with baby shrimp in brown butter, madam. It’s a favorite of his lordship’s. I am intending to follow that with roast pheasant in a game sauce, and to follow, a mushroom fricassee—”

  “That all sounds splendid, Alphonse.” Petra interrupted him. “But I think three courses will be plenty this evening, well, four if you count cheese. We will forgo the fricassee. For cheese I would like you to prepare Welsh rarebit. Lord Ashton is very partial to Welsh rarebit. And for dessert, marron glacé. I happen to know that that is one of his absolute favorites.”

  “If you say so, Lady Ashton.” Alphonse stood rigidly at attention, his expression impassive. “Will there be anything else?”

  Petra swallowed a sigh. It seemed she hadn’t yet been granted full acceptance as the mistress of the house. “We shall dine a deux in the library at half past eight. Will that suit you?”

  “Indeed, madam. If that will be all.” He bowed, turned on his heel and stalked from the room. How not to make friends and influence people, Petra thought. It wasn’t as if she’d really interfered with the man’s dinner. But he was a sensitive soul and a superb chef, whom Guy would be devastated to lose. She went in search of Babbit to discuss wines for the evening. At least the butler didn’t resent her suggestions. Not that she had many. The vast Granville cellars were still a mystery to her.

  Chapter Twenty

  Guy entered his house that evening a little warily. No one could say the morning’s parting with his wife had been amicable although somehow they had managed to keep from saying anything regrettable, but he’d be foolish to imagine the matter was over. He had no idea what to do about Petra’s involvement with the suffragists. He didn’t know how to outright forbid it. As a husband he had the right to prevent his wife from causing embarrassment to either of them. And it would certainly embarrass him to have his wife known for her suffragist activities. It was one thing for her to believe in the cause, she was entitled to believe what she chose, but it was quite another to act in a manner detrimental to either her or his own position in society. He thought for a bad moment of what his own father would say if he were alive at having a daughter-in-law marching the streets of London flourishing a political banner.

  “Is Lady Ashton at home, Babbit?” he asked, surrendering his coat, cane and hat to the butler.

  “Yes, m’lord. She’s in the library.”

  “Thank you.” Guy crossed the hall and opened the door to the library.

  Petra was as usual curled up in a corner of the sofa, a book in her lap. She was dressed in a loose silk robe, more suited to the boudoir than the library. “Ah, you’re back. I’m so glad.” She uncurled from the sofa and came over to him, putting her arms around him, lifting her face for his kiss. “I was hoping you wouldn’t be late. I’ve planned a quiet, intimate evening, just us. Dinner by the fire in here and afterward . . .” Her smile was languidly seductive. “Afterward . . . well, I’m sure we can think of something to amuse us.”

  He kissed her mouth, relishing as always the supple sensuousness of her lips, the soft fragrance of her skin and hair. “Did you just come out of the bath?” he asked, lifting his head, smiling down at her, his hands clasping her waist beneath the thin silk.

  “As it happens,” she said, leaning back in his hold. “I wanted to be ready for you.”

  Desire flickered in his eyes as his body responded to her words, to the feel of her in his hands. “Give me ten minutes, my sweet. I have no wish to sully this perfection with my day’s grime.” He gave her a gentle push back onto the sofa. “Don’t move.”

  Petra smiled to herself as he hurried from the room, little prickles of anticipation lifting her skin. As she had hoped, Guy readily responded to her invitation, putting aside all bones of contention, and that was how it was going to be this evening. Love and lust, the twin peaks of their marriage. No valleys, no crevasses.

  Guy came back within fifteen minutes, relaxed in a velvet smoking jacket with wide silk lapels. He carried a tray with an ice bucket and fluted glasses, which he set aside before bending to kiss her. His skin, freshly shaved, smelled of citrus cologne. “Champagne, my love?”

  “Please.” She watched as he deftly twisted the cork and filled the fluted goblets with the pale pink bubbles. Guy knew how much she enjoyed pink champagne.

  Guy sat beside her on the sofa, giving her one glass before taking a sip from his own. He lifted her chin with a forefinger and kissed her, the cool bubbles of wine sliding from his mouth into hers. It was the most delicious feeling and Petra almost laughed with delight as the effervescence slid over her tongue.

  “That’s a most novel way to drink wine,” she said. “Let me do it to you.” She took a sip from her own glass, then moved her mouth to his, her lips parting as she kissed him. Guy moved his free hand to cup the back of her head, holding her steady as his tongue moved inside her mouth, tasting the inside of her cheeks, running over her teeth, exploring the sweet wine-infused cavern. A knock at the door brought them both upright. Petra felt her cheeks warm and flushed. She lifted the book from her lap and buried her head in it. Guy laughed softly and bade the knocker enter.

  “May we set the table for dinner, my lady?” a parlor maid inquired, holding an armful of table linen.

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Petra managed from behind her book. She could feel Guy’s quiver of laughter as he sat so close to her and struggled to contain her own.

  Guy moved to the far side of the sofa and pointedly crossed his legs, taking a sip of champagne before reaching for a copy of the Gazette on the side table.

  The parlor maid spread the snowy cloth on a gate-legged table and folded the napkins while a footman came in with a tray of cutlery. They worked swiftly and silently, while Petra and Guy sat seemingly absorbed in their reading matter side by side on the sofa.

  “Are you ready for the soup, my lady?”

  “Yes, thank you.” Petra lifted her head from her book as the door closed behind the servants. “We’d better eat soon,” she said. “Otherwise . . .”

  “Otherwise, y
ou wicked woman, I shall have no choice but to ravish you right here and now and to hell with dinner,” Guy stated. “What do you do to me, Petra . . . you leave me with no willpower at all.”

  “Oh, I like the idea of being ravished,” Petra said with a grin. “Is that a promise for later?”

  Guy made a move to seize hold of her and she jumped up, dancing away from him, laughing. Guy was on his feet just as the door opened and a footman carrying a silver tureen came into the room. Muttering an oath Guy turned sharply aside toward a bookcase, pretending to be deeply engaged in the spines of the leather tomes on display.

  “Thank you, Neil. I’ll ring when we’re ready for the next course.” Petra tried to sound dignified, in her best lady of the house manner, but she could see the speculation in the footman’s eyes. He bowed and left the room.

  “Do come and sit down, Guy, and eat your soup.” Petra took her own seat at the table in front of the fire. “Alphonse will get so upset if we linger over the soup and his turbot gets cold.”

  Guy took his seat opposite her and dipped his spoon into his bowl of chicken consommé. He glanced across at his wife, who was demurely spooning her own soup. “To be continued,” he said.

  Her eyes danced. “Oh, I hope that’s a promise.”

  “It might even be a threat,” he responded, his dark gaze a swirl of liquid smoke.

  Petra pushed aside all doubts and misgivings and let the evening’s momentum carry her forward. It seemed that Guy too was prepared to set aside any bones of contention in the interests of a succulent evening where sensual promise simmered beneath everything they said to each other, the suspense and anticipation building with each mouthful of Alphonse’s dinner, each sip of rich dark wine.