A Lady Compromised (The Ladies)

by Pennington, Ava

  “This may well be very dangerous for all parties,” began the Marquess, “And not merely if the superficial smuggling was to be discovered. It is a risk also to the estate. My grand-mama would never forgive me for using her chateau to pass messages during this ghastly war with the French if she knew it would bring harm to me. And, of course, if any of those damning communications from the War Department were to surface in the wrong hands… I thought hiding them in barrels of brandy was the best option we had. But it is not without risks and Liverpool was insistent. We were in an excellent position, and it seemed dashed right unpatriotic not to help.”

  “So it would appear, Durham. Though it is clearly inconvenient on occasion, one does what one must. Let us not panic but gather our facts and proceeded when we know more,” his friend replied, while absently sipping the tea Weebold had brought in addition to the brandy. The Earl of Blackwell lifted the cut crystal decanter of amber liquid. “I must say, this brandy is excellent stock, Durham. I would pay a fortune for it, even if I didn’t know what we had to go through to smuggle it from France. I wonder if whomever is trying to imitate our ships knows how dratted difficult smuggling is these days.”

  “Even should they conclude the risk is worth the reward, whomever he is cannot possibly be aware of the added difficulty of arranging for secret communications to be hidden inside the things to be smuggled. Very likely, a foolish and desperate captain guessed grandmama’s estate to be a convenient place for smuggling and meant to join in. Which, unfortunately, we simply cannot allow.”

  Before the Blackwell could answer, into the room tumbled a round young woman, with mounds of raven black curls, unruly and bouncing in shiny twists over her round shoulders.

  “Mason!” she cried, stumbling over an exquisite leather hassock on her way to the Marquess.

  “Harriet! We have a visitor. Do try to behave like a proper young lady?” But the Marquess’ fierce hug and smile belied his remonstrations. “Harriet, you know my good friend, Lord Blackwell. Do offer him your hand.” Harriet smiled at him and stuck out her small white hand self-consciously.

  “How do you do?” she whispered, blushing fiercely.

  “My lady,” Lord Blackwell bowed to her and smiled, revealing a mouth full of straight white teeth and a rakish dimple in his cheek. Lady Harriet’s eyes widened and she blushed even more deeply as she tripped backward a step.

  “I…I had better get back upstairs. Agnes said I could only come down for a minute to say hello. Then I must return to the schoolroom. But I did not wish to wait until supper, my dear brother! I wanted to see you myself and welcome you home!”

  “What a very devoted sisterly affection you have! Or is it that your pin money had run out?” the Marquess chided.

  “Mason!” Lady Harriet replied, “How shocking and rude! I merely wished to see my brother, in the flesh, and welcome him home.”

  “And for that, I am exceedingly grateful.”

  “My dear Lady Harriet, will we have the honor of seeing you at dinner?” asked the Earl of Blackwell, looking intently at her upturned face.

  “I, I will be there, my lord,” Lady Harriet squeaked. She was terribly intimidated by the handsome Earl and blushed beetroot red at his address. “Until then!” Lady Harriet’s last words were spoken as she fled the room.

  “You cad,” the Marquess teased, as he frowned and shook his head at his friend in mock disapproval. “You dare to try to charm my own sister in front of me? She is only a child!” Blackwell slapped his friend on the back lightly, pretending to look lecherous.

  “Well, she is about marriageable age…”

  “She is sixteen,” The Marquess responded with exasperation. “You are not even supposed to know that she exists.” The two gentlemen returned to their seats after the lady departed. “She’s at that impressionable age when she thinks all that matters in a gentlemen is his exquisite appearance. No doubt even she would not be fooled into believing you posses any wit.”

  “You’re quite a savage to say those things about me.”

  “Nay, I am honest,” the Marquess said with a grin. He then frowned as the thought of Lady Delia crept into his head. She had seemed as innocent and sweet as his young sister when he had first met her. He resolved that he would not allow Harriet to fall prey to the advances of a licentious footman, regardless of how he might flatter her. Not that she seemed to be in particularly grave danger. The girl was still childishly plump and constantly tripped over furniture. But that, the Marquess thought darkly, could not last forever. The day would come, he knew, when Harriet would be a beautiful and elegant young woman…and then his worries would begin in earnest.

  However, despite his pleasure at seeing his sister, the Marquess was profoundly uneasy with the possibility that someone had discovered the secret code he used to permit his smuggling ships to anchor off the coast of his late grandmother’s French estate. The heavily guarded chateau was on an island off the coast, thankfully far from the action in Paris, and strategically unimportant, so had passed mostly unmolested during the years of war with England. He knew that the sensitive information traveling back and forth aboard those ships, in addition to smuggled brandy, would spell disaster for the War Department if it fell into the wrong hands. The communications sent via Durham’s ships were among the few the Crown could guarantee remained uncompromised. Was the attempt to anchor on the French coast a hint that someone knew he was secretly involved in the War Effort? Or was it simply that a greedy person was merely trying to make a profit doing precisely what he was? If the motive was simple greed, that man had made a remarkably unlucky choice of a target, as the Marquess’ interests in that smuggling route were connected to the very highest levels of the British Government.

  Chapter 10

  Lady Delia sat in the small, neat drawing room of her hired London house, immeasurably relieved that things had progressed as smoothly with procuring a new residence as she ever could have hoped. The house was in an unfashionable and comparatively inexpensive quarter of town, yet still safe. It was occupied primarily by persons similarly situated to her: temporarily impoverished aristocrats and gentry. Her heart had been racing when she and Amelia had gone to inquire about the house. She had secretly feared that somehow the agent for the landlord would know that she was not in fact, a respectable young widow, but rather the unmarried nineteen-year-old runaway daughter of the late Earl of Ellsworth.

  Fortunately, no such contingency had occurred; the house was safely hers until the end of the Season. Lady Delia gratefully admitted that the mourning clothing she had packed for their midnight flight from Washburn Court had served her well in convincing the agent of her widowhood. Her eyes still had the sad light of tragedy in them and she had played this up, batting damp lashes before the agent and he had been rather taken in at her plight.

  Amelia had also displayed a resourcefulness and bravado that Lady Delia would not have previously suspected; that young woman had contacted some rather distant relations in the city. She had, with their advice as to particulars, supervised the hiring of a cook and housekeeper, in addition to gaining all sorts of information about where in the unfamiliarity of their neighborhood to go for daily essentials. Lady Delia, for all her trips to town prior to her father’s death, had never even imagined the need for finding a reputable agency from which to engage household staff. She reminded herself, for what seemed like the twelfth time that day, that when she was financially in control of her fortune she would set up Amelia to do whatever she wished if she no longer wanted to continue as a maid.

  Altogether, Lady Delia thought, her situation could hardly have resolved itself more neatly. With a roof over their heads, she was now free to ensure that they had food on the table, which she seemed to be accomplishing admirably. Since the publisher had accepted the first several chapters of her novel, her motivation to finish had been significant. Romantic novels full of fainting and duels were amusing to write and provided something for her to do during the day, aside from take w
alks, given that Delia had no callers. She rested her chin on her hands and tried to imagine the perfect way for her hero and heroine to acknowledge their love for each other. The heroine, a silly chit named Annabelle, had already fainted into her would-be lover’s arms twice. Delia had decided that she needed a different ploy.

  Sitting in her drawing room, Delia kept remembering Durham, unbidden, when she wrote love scenes. How his arms had felt around her as he kissed her…how his large body had prevented hers from moving and how his hands had… She blushed, despite herself. She was still furious with him for his abominable treatment but it had at least been her very first experience of a passionate lover’s kiss, even if that lover had turned out to be a cad and insulted her. She reflected back on her behavior, wishing she could have made her motives known and rescued her reputation with him. It hurt her to think that the Marquess thought her a lightskirt, but she could not think of an excuse for being in his room that she could have given. At least she had been able to experience the heated passionate embraces that her heroine would undoubtedly have when they were finally united with her hero. Without the Marquess’ kisses, she may have had a difficult time conveying quite the level of delight experienced by the flighty young lady at the heart of her romance. Though, that young lady would hardly be subject to the shocking mauling that she herself had experienced.

  It did give her some inkling of how her lovely Annabelle must have felt when…she thought about what should happen next…oh yes! Annabelle should fall into the arms of the man she thought was her lover, only to find that his perfidious rival had fooled her at a masked ball. How perfect, she thought, as she took up the pen and paper. Then, she thought, this perfidious rival could actually be her brother in law…and Annabelle could be running from this reprobate brother-in-law, while he pursued her throughout the family town house, and straight into the bedchamber of her lover, who was conveniently visiting!

  Delia scribbled furiously on the page, congratulating herself on the resolution of her heroine’s problems. Her own situation had provided a convenient conclusion to the lurid romance, with an adequate mix of plausibility as well as excitement. It would be both truth and fiction, she thought with delight as she wrote. Her hero, of course, would not suspect the beautiful woman in his bed of being a woman of questionable virtue! But rather a lovely and innocent maid, fleeing the onslaught of the evil brother-in-law, and who needed rescuing… Delia grew slightly pink with anger as she wrote, her fury at the Marquess renewed for his shocking treatment of her, now committed to paper. She wrote faster and found her hand was gripping the pen with unnecessary fierceness. Delia forced herself to take three deep breaths before she continued writing.

  Chapter 11

  Durham regarded the nude, sleeping body of his new mistress, as she lay sprawled in her enormous bed, some hours after he had first arrived. He had just spent some very pleasurable time in her company, but he caught himself thinking of how perfectly timed her cries and moans had been: never too loud, never too soft, never too often, nor to seldom; he marveled at how good she was at what she did. Always perfectly rehearsed, like a mistress should be. It was in stark contrast to the annoying vision he could not seem to shake of Lady Delia’s naked honesty when he had caressed her in his bed at Washburn Court; how her eyes had gone black, how her entire body had both tightened with tension and melted at his touch. Her gasps and soft moans had escaped uncontrolled and her kisses had changed once her mouth had eased and accepted him.

  “You are so good to me,” Gigi whispered, jerking him back to reality. He turned to look at her, pausing in the midst of tying his cravat. She curved her body to look as desirable as possible, her generous breasts beckoned as she lowered her eyes. Gigi was French, and her dark hair spilled dramatically in a mass of tangled curls against the pale of her sheets. Thick lashes and delicately arched brows framed her dark eyes and her perfect olive skin was a delightful contrast to so many English maids. She was, Mason decided, the perfect antidote to any English miss, even one with violet eyes who claimed to be a maid but who was nothing of the sort. He steeled himself to stop thinking about Lady Delia.

  “You make me want you, Gigi, and when I want a woman, I please her,” Durham replied, palming the plump breast, then running his hand down her body, the remains of a negligee tangled in the sheets as he exposed her creamy skin. Gigi opened her mouth to kiss him again and Mason tasted the sweet mouth, groaning into it. Smiling to herself, Gigi rose slightly to her knees and straddled him. She leaned forward, pressing her hips down on his and her mouth to his neck. He leaned forward and lifted her hips and she instantly began to unfasten his breeches.

  “So soon my lover?” Gigi gasped as she pulled at his clothing.

  “This is your fault—I don’t do this to myself,” growled Mason, as he lifted her hips to meet his, knowing full well that it was not her fault at all; he was thinking of Delia again.

  Durham smiled as he stepped in front of the mirror at his London residence.

  “You’ve done very well tonight, Melville,” he said to his valet. “My cravat is quite remarkable. I have no idea how you manage it but given the time it takes, the results had best be spectacular to behold. Once a month, perhaps, I will venture into public with my neck decorated so elaborately. No more, I think.”

  “You lie to yourself most convincingly, my lord,” Melville replied, knowing that his master would surreptitiously request The Mathematical in, at most, a week. That design was extremely popular but few valets had mastered its intricacies.

  It was hard to believe the Marquess’ valet could create anything remotely close to the miracle he had achieved with Durham’s cravat upon inspection of Melville’s own person. His brown hair was disheveled and too long; his shirt tails crookedly tucked, exposing his undergarments and threatening to become entirely un-tucked as the valet’s plump frame threatened to burst free of all its clothing, all of which was somehow constantly cut just a trifle too small.

  “You could hardly appear at Lady Tahlman’s ball looking anything less than every inch the English gentlemen, my lord,” Melville said with a knowing nod.

  “I know you do not approve of Lady Tahlman, Melville, but some ladies cannot arrest the inevitable progression of years.” Durham smiled as he observed Melville’s delicate shudder. Melville had once had the misfortune of seeing rather too much of Lady Tahlman’s aging bosom in an extremely low cut gown when he had hosted a ball at his townhouse several seasons prior. Though he would never dream of discussing a lady with his master, Durham had witnessed the pain and shock on Melville’s face during the encounter and had known from his valet’s chilly voice whenever the lady’s name was mentioned that Melville hadn’t forgotten either.

  “I am sure I do not know, my lord,” he said obsequiously.

  “Would you be so good as to have my carriage brought round?” Durham asked as he headed down the stairs for his gloves.

  “Yes, my lord. May I enquire, will we be returning home this evening or shall I set out our night things?” Melville’s eyes looked mischievous.

  “Go to bed early tonight, Melville. You know very well I haven’t worn a nightshirt since I was twelve. Mind your own bloody business.”

  “Very well, my lord.” Melville returned a dignified look.

  Durham tried to look harassed at his valet’s impudence and disapproving upturned nose, but he knew perfectly well that Melville was just being his usual, profoundly nosy self. He collected a pair of flawlessly white kidskin gloves and slipped out of the front door. Tonight was precisely what he needed, he thought to himself. A ball, with hundreds of beautiful debutantes to remind him that London was full of ladies no different from Lady Delia Ellsworth, with the possible exception of their being virtuous maids, ought to help. Hundreds of deadly dull young ladies would remind him of how deadly dull young ladies actually were and how little he wanted to do with them. He was wise and lucky to have secured Gigi so quickly. After an evening at Lady Tahlman’s tiresome ball, a night wi
th his exquisite and talented new mistress would serve to reinforce this pointlessness of continuing to permit his mind to stray to Lady Delia’s charms.

  Durham alighted from his carriage at the Tahlman townhouse, only to be greeted immediately by the ladies Smythe-Dunston. He groaned inwardly at his wretched luck, and then forced a smile.

  “Mrs. Smythe-Dunston, Miss Smythe-Dunston. How pleasant to see you again so soon.” He took Daphne’s arm and led her into the ball, as her mother recounted the terrors of their trip back to London from Washburn Court. As he had correctly suspected, Sir Roderick and Lady Heppens had not, in fact, been up for entertaining.

  “It was most dreadful, my lord,” she was saying, “as you were no longer accompanying us as our protector. Why, the insolence we were subjected to!”

  Mrs. Smythe-Dunston was working her way into a fury to which Durham sought desperately to escape. “My dear lady,” he began, an idea striking him, “may I beg your permission to dance with Miss Smythe-Dunston? I fear we have not had the chance to speak at all since I was called away so suddenly to Evercrest.” Mrs. Smythe-Dunston quickly forgot her lengthy anecdote of woe and readily assented, immediately taking herself off to crow at the triumph of Daphne’s claiming the Marquess of Durham for her first dance.

  Durham smiled down at Daphne as she gossiped on about this and that during their turn around the dance floor. He much preferred her constant chatter to her mother’s conversation because Daphne required no response from him, whereas her mother demanded rather frequent affirmation in the form of words and nodding, which forced him to pay attention to what she was saying. He had scarcely uttered two words to the young lady by the time the dance was over and he left her, surrounded by admirers, to escape to the card room.