The Trouble With Virtue: A Comfortable WifeA Lady by Day

by Stephanie Laurens

  * * *

  NOAH STARTED TO turn, but there was something else he needed to tell her, and he couldn’t make himself go without saying it, so he stopped. “There’s something you should know.”

  She stood silently, waiting, so beautiful with the half-built ships in the distance behind her that he could almost imagine her aboard his ship. But that would never happen.

  “I believe you were once acquainted with an Alexandrian by the name of Ahmet,” he said.

  The smallest intake of breath, barely audible, confirmed it.

  “A sailor by trade,” Sir Noah clarified, just to be sure there was no mistake.

  “I do remember someone by that name,” she said evenly. “He was aboard the ship that brought my family from Gibraltar to London.”

  “He certainly remembered you.”

  Noah might have thought her completely unmoved if she hadn’t reached for the back of a nearby chair.

  “You knew him?” she asked.

  “He was my first mate for seven years, and a good friend.” No, she was not indifferent. He pressed on. “He was more than that to you.”

  She paled. “Is there a reason why you are dredging up past indiscretions?”

  “Is that what he was to you? An indiscretion?”

  She started toward the door. “I must go meet Mr. Lind.”

  “Josephine... Ahmet is dead.”

  She froze, and the callousness of his words condemned him. The emotion he’d been looking for was there in the stricken look she was valiantly fighting. “How?”

  “Fever.” And he was sorry, now, that he’d told her, because the fact that Ahmet was more than an indiscretion—much more—was written all over her face. “My ship’s surgeon did everything possible—” Noah swallowed past a lump in his throat. Damnation. “I did everything possible. Until there was nothing more to be done.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “That day at Mays Abbey, you asked me why I’m here. Do you remember?”

  “Yes.”

  “The shipyard in Turkey—it was a flight of fancy Ahmet and I conjured up one night while we—” He managed a laugh. “Were drinking ourselves into oblivion on a calm sea in summertime. Ahmet always spoke of the things he thought of doing, but he never did them. He spoke of his family, but never saw them. And now he’s gone, and there is nothing to keep him from being forgotten.” His throat was so tight he could barely speak. “And that, Lady Mareck, is why I am here.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  SIR NOAH WAS WRONG. She would never forget Ahmet. But even more than that, she would never forget Noah.

  “La, Josephine, you haven’t heard a word I’ve said,” Honoria complained as she peered through a glass case at a collection of tiny jeweled boxes. “Whatever is the matter? But never mind—I daresay I already know what’s the matter. Sir Noah is leaving.” Honoria looked up, took Josephine’s hands and lowered her voice. “I know I’ve done little else but joke you about him, but it’s only too plain that you have real feelings for him. Please, Josephine, don’t deny it. I can see in your eyes that you’re hurting. I don’t know when I’ve seen you so drawn.”

  Josephine felt drawn. Her chest ached with the feeling that her last chance at true happiness would disappear the day Sir Noah sailed out of the Thames.

  But that was ridiculous. It had to be.

  “Has Sir Noah not considered staying?” Honoria pressed on. “Has he given no hint that he might be interested in buying Mr. Woodbridge’s shipyard for himself?”

  “I adore London.” The words ripped from Josephine as if she’d been holding them on her tongue for ages.

  Honoria’s delicate dark brows dove quizzically. “That’s never been in doubt. Has it?”

  Oh, yes. Yes, it had—from the moment that ship had arrived from Gibraltar all those years ago. From the moment she’d been forced to marry Mareck and make her home with him, knowing that he was busying himself between the legs of any number of women about town.

  “It has.” Honoria realized this aloud, and moved Josephine away from the glass cases and the too-curious gaze of the shopkeeper. Now she gripped Josephine’s hands all the more firmly. “Listen to me, Josephine.If you love Sir Noah, you cannot allow him to simply sail away.”

  Josephine stared at her, and for a terrifying moment the truth sat on her tongue: I want to go with him. Abandon everything, turn her back on Lettie and Pauline, disregard the effect her actions would have on them and on Charlotte.

  “I don’t love him,” she said, pulling away.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Honoria whispered fiercely. “One has only to look at you to see the truth.”

  “A fanciful infatuation. Nothing more.”

  “And he shares your feelings. It is only too obvious.”

  “I have no idea. That is to say, I have no feelings to be shared.”

  “La, Josephine, you are the worst liar in London. You must find out.”

  For a wild, reckless moment the entire story filled her mouth, demanding to be told. Her girlhood love for Ahmet. Her secret yearning for Gibraltar. The feelings for Sir Noah that had grown to eclipse both of those, and her fierce desire to sail away with him. To watch the sun set over the Mediterranean. To make a place for herself in his villa.

  “Only imagine what everyone would say if they thought I was having an affair with Sir Noah.” The words were barely audible. Over by the glass cases, a man and two ladies occupied the shopkeeper’s attention.

  “Are you having an affair with him?”

  “Certainly not.” One encounter—one mistake—did not add up to an affair.

  “I daresay they would have a great deal to say about it, as they do about everything. But you can’t conduct yourself according to that, for heaven’s sake.”

  “Can’t I?”

  “Josephine! Is that all that’s keeping you from him? The raised brows of the ton? You?”

  “Wisdom is what’s keeping me from him.”

  “La! Wisdom!”

  “A virtue, or so I’ve always understood.”

  “And therein lies the trouble with virtue,” Honoria said firmly. “It does not account for happiness.”

  “I am happy.”

  “Are you? I’ve only just begun to wonder.”

  Josephine tensed. “Honestly, Honoria, it won’t do to imagine things.”

  “Only look at you—always a pillar of perfection, never a flaw to be seen. Always just the right words on your lips. Flawless entertainments. A perfect hostess. Always kindness toward others, even when they aren’t there to hear what you say. Even after Mareck’s accident, you were the picture of poise. No one in the world could find fault with you.”

  “I’m not perfect,” Josephine whispered suddenly. Harshly.

  “No?”

  The truth came pouring out. There was no holding it back. “If I could, I would leave London tomorrow. I would sail to Gibraltar. I would buy myself a small cottage on a hill, surrounded by olive trees and lemon trees and flowering vines, overlooking the sea, where I could watch the ships come and go.” Honoria would know everything now—almost everything—and there would be no taking it back. “I would take a lover—someone exotic and exciting who would worship me like a goddess. I would spend my afternoons wearing flowing gowns from the Orient and sipping mint tea and gazing out at the turquoise blueness of the sea.”

  Honoria’s green eyes glistened with tears. “Oh, Josephine.”

  Disappointment, naturally. It was all she could expect now. But it hurt—oh, how it hurt, even though she’d always known what would happen if any of her friends knew the truth. “You needn’t stay,” she said. “But if you would keep my confidence, I would be forever grateful.”

  Honoria moved in next to her. “How can
you have held this in? It’s the most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “Not so heartbreaking as what would happen to Lettie and Pauline if my errant desires were made known.”

  “Nonsense!”

  “I won’t have their reputations tainted, not in any way.”

  “Tainted? Because their widowed aunt has decided to travel?”

  But what Josephine longed for was more than mere travel. “As soon as Sir Noah is gone, it will be as if he was never here. I’m sure I shall hardly think of him at all.”

  * * *

  EXCEPT THAT THE thought of Sir Noah leaving occupied her thoughts incessantly.

  The reality of it throbbed with a small headache in Josephine’s temple during the evening’s entertainment at the theater, at which Captain Ryson and Mr. Crumley joined them in their box—and at which Sir Noah was nowhere to be seen.

  It clutched at her heart later that night, when Josephine summoned Pauline to her dressing room to tell her the news.

  “I thought you would want to know that Sir Noah will be leaving England within the week,” Josephine told her, reaching for Pauline’s hand as they sat on the settee in their nightgowns. Bentley jumped up with them and curled up in Pauline’s lap. “He and Mr. Woodbridge have come to an understanding about Sir Noah’s shipyard in Turkey, and Sir Noah will be returning home to see the project under way.”

  Home. To that beautiful villa on the Turkish seaside with its fountain and its orange trees and its private, sunny courtyards.

  “I see,” Pauline said, and sighed a little. “I hope he will be very successful.”

  “I have no doubt that he will.”

  Pauline smiled a little and stroked Bentley’s wavy, silver fur. “Only imagine how triumphant he will feel to see his first ship set sail on the Mediterranean.”

  It was too easy to imagine the satisfaction that would settle into his blue eyes. The way he would shout with triumph and raise his fist into the air at the sight. The flash of his teeth as he grinned, victorious.

  “Only imagine the sails, clean and white and new against the blue sky and sea,” Pauline said, pulling her hand from Josephine’s, resting her elbow on her knee and her chin in her palm. “Think of the waves splashing the hull for the first time. The spotless cannons at the ready.”

  Josephine tucked a wisp of hair behind Pauline’s ear. “Why do I suspect it was Sir Noah’s ships, and not his qualities, that caught your interest?”

  Pauline leaned back and sighed. “It won’t matter now, because I shan’t have either.” She toyed a little with Bentley’s ears. “Mr. Crumley wishes to ask Papa for my hand. And I already know Papa will approve.”

  Josephine tried to be happy at the news. “Mr. Crumley is...very amiable.”

  “Very amiable.”

  “He will make an excellent husband.”

  “Yes.” Pauline was very quiet. And then, “I know it isn’t right for a girl to think of ships and faraway lands.”

  Josephine opened her mouth to say very firmly that there wasn’t anything wrong with it at all, except the effect of that could be disastrous, and Charlotte would never forgive her. “You’re hardly the only one who thinks so, or there wouldn’t be so many sensational tales of pirates.”

  “Mother says you had the same flights of fancy when you were my age, and that it has caused you a great many regrets. Please forgive me if I’ve distressed you with my behavior.”

  “You haven’t distressed me, Pauline.” Regrets? It wasn’t difficult to imagine what Charlotte had been telling them. “And you don’t have to marry Mr. Crumley just because he’s showed an interest. There will be others. There is still time.”

  “Mother won’t be happy if she learns I turned down Mr. Crumley.”

  No, Charlotte would not be happy. “We wouldn’t have to tell her.”

  Pauline smiled up at her, but sadly. “Thank you, Auntie Josephine. That means a great deal to me, really it does, but we can’t be sure there would be anyone else, or that if there was, that he wouldn’t be dreadful. I can’t imagine anyone less objectionable than Mr. Crumley. But I’ve told him he must speak to you before he makes any declarations to me.”

  “Pauline, are you certain?”

  “Yes, Auntie Josephine. Although I am sorry that Sir Noah is leaving. For your sake.”

  “Dearest, there’s no reason to be sorry.” There wasn’t. Because Pauline was courageous enough to do the right thing.

  Recklessly following one’s heart regardless of the consequences—that hardly required any courage at all.

  * * *

  JOSEPHINE ENTERED ELIAS’S dressing room to find him seated by the window with a book.

  “What are you reading?”

  He grunted. “Nothing of importance.” He fumbled the book closed and set it aside. “Impossible to find a skilled periwig-maker these days. Berwick! Bring my powdering gown.”

  Josephine helped him out of his chair, glanced at the book’s spine. A History of Turkey and the Ottomans.

  Guilt tore through her. “I have news,” she said brightly. “I’ve hired Mr. Lind. He started this afternoon at the shipyard.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Elias grumbled, searching the pockets of his dressing gown and finally coming up with a handkerchief.

  “He had excellent references.”

  “I don’t doubt it.” Elias dabbed his nose, tucked the handkerchief away and pushed himself out of his chair when Berwick arrived with the gown and powder. “By the way, I’ve offered Sir Noah any assistance he requires with his new shipyard. I believe he’ll set sail in a matter of days.” He sat in his favorite powdering chair while Berwick settled a new wig on Elias’s head. Soon a cloud of powder filled the air around him.

  Readying for another debauch at the Dewy Petal, or perhaps he’d tired of that one by now.

  She thought of Sir Noah’s villa, of the obvious regard Sir Noah had for Elias, of the warm, dry Mediterranean climate.

  “Yes, he told me,” she said. “I saw him at the shipyard.”

  Elias wanted to go with Sir Noah. As if that book wasn’t evidence enough, she’d seen it in the animated way he spoke when Sir Noah visited. The questions he’d asked, the interest he’d showed in Sir Noah’s shipyard plans. These days, even food barely interested him.

  Berwick finished, and the air around Elias began to clear. “Rather ride a horse backward to Bath than sail from here to Turkey,” he grumbled.

  It was a lie. She should tell him she knew it, and she should tell him he was free to do as he pleased.

  But if she did, Elias would go with Sir Noah to the Mediterranean and she would stay behind, because she was too afraid to go herself. And she would be completely, entirely alone because he was the only person in the world who truly knew her.

  Berwick removed the powdering gown, and Elias stood. “Perhaps I ought to send you along to make sure he doesn’t mistreat my men.”

  “Uncle—”

  “A joke, Josephine. Merely a joke. Stop looking so terrified.”

  “I’m not terrified.” She stood abruptly.

  “You don’t fool me, Josephine.” Elias reached out and touched her cheek, and she stood perfectly still while her heart swelled into her throat and made each breath a struggle. “I’m not going to leave you,” he said. “If you won’t go, then neither will I. We’re family, Josephine.”

  “You and Noah are family, too.”

  “Yes. But Noah knows his way around the world. He’ll do fine.”

  She wanted to say that she would do fine, too, if Elias went with Sir Noah. That she knew her way. That she loved Elias too much to keep him in London when he was so clearly intrigued by other possibilities— possibilities that put a fresh spark in his eyes when for so long that spark had been gone.

 
But old fears bubbled up like hot tar, smothering and suffocating her and sucking her under. She imagined a shipwreck, a heart attack, an accident. The horror of receiving a letter from Sir Noah bearing the dreadful news.

  “Yes,” she said, and kissed Elias’s cheek. Her stomach tightened, and she felt a bit ill. “I daresay Sir Noah will do fine.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  JOSEPHINE LAY IN bed that night, trying not to think of Noah leaving, wanting him so desperately the very sheets were a torment against her skin. Was it only days ago she’d nearly let him carry her here and make love to her?

  She rolled to her side, plumped the pillow beneath her head. Her breasts grazed the inside of her nightgown, sending white heat searing to a dozen intimate places.

  After tomorrow, the possibility of ever making love with Noah would be gone.

  She reached out and caressed the pillow next to her, as though she caressed him. Firelight flickered over her skin, and she imagined the way it might flicker over his if he were here. What he would look like lying next to her. Moving over her.

  Inside her.

  God in heaven. The flesh between her legs pulsed hard, as though he were already there. She shifted, and her thighs brushed together.

  You could go to him.

  It would be a mistake. Oh, it would. To open herself to him that way... To watch his face as he moved inside her body and feel him there, deep inside her... She would be lost.

  But she wanted him there more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life. Needed him there, as if there was a place deep inside that would never be fulfilled unless he touched it.

  She shifted restlessly beneath the linens, wanting. Needing. She turned onto her stomach and felt it even more keenly with her breasts pressed into the mattress beneath her. She parted her legs slightly and remembered something Mareck had used to want, something she hadn’t cared for. But perhaps...

  The idea burst to life and now she imagined Sir Noah behind her, moving powerfully between her thighs, urging her up—

  God in heaven, yes. Yes.

  It would be perfect. There would be no looking at his face, no gazing into his eyes when he filled her. There would only be Noah, inside her, giving her the one part of him she might dare to take.