by Jane Feather
He wondered what the next steps in this dance would be, as he turned back to the bedroom, to what could so easily become a cozy little love nest, to respond to Marcel's inquiry about his dress for the evening.
“I've had an idea,” Constance said, swinging her croquet mallet as she watched the play on the green. It was early evening and the sinking sun slanted through the summer dry leaves of the copper beech tree that shaded the croquet lawn. Max was in the process of knocking Lord Duncan's ball out of play.
“You're full of them,” Prudence said. “Oh, well played.” She applauded as Max's ball cracked neatly against his opponent's, sending it shooting to the far side of the lawn. “That's going to give Father a challenge.”
“He'll enjoy it,” Constance said. “Anyway, I think we have to find David Lucan a wife.”
“That won't be easy. He only wants Chas,” Prudence pointed out.
“Well, he can't have me,” Chastity stated. “And I have to admit, I'm beginning to get just a little fed up with the doe eyes that follow me everywhere. I might even have to be rude.”
“All the more reason for us to find him another goddess.” Constance shielded her eyes against the sun and looked across to where Lord Lucan stood with a group of nonplayers holding cocktail glasses as they watched the game.
“But what about Mama-darling?” Prudence asked. “I don't think she wants him to be independent.”
“True enough. We have to find a wife for him who will be the perfectly submissive daughter-in-law so that she can bully both of them in her benevolent fashion and cluck over their children and tell them exactly how to bring them up. And,” Constance added on a note of triumph, “I have just the lady in mind.”
“Sounds like a pretty grim fate,” Prudence pointed out. “Are you sure you want to condemn some poor innocent maiden to such a life?”
“It won't be so bad if the poor innocent maiden is unenlightened,” Constance said. “We can't expect to liberate the entire female sex from ordinary domestic oppression in one fell swoop. We have to recognize that there are some who genuinely don't want freedom. Even Mother said that.”
“So which innocent maiden did you have in mind?” Chastity inquired, leaning her mallet against a wrought-iron bench.
“Hester Winthrop.”
“Hester?” Both sisters stared at her, then looked across the croquet lawn to the very young lady, dressed in a modestly styled evening dress of a pastel pink and standing demurely beside her mother.
“She's very pretty. She's very docile. She comes from an excellent family and there's no shortage of money there. How could the dowager Lady Lucan object to such a match?”
“But she's so shy. She'd never put herself forward to attract his attention,” Prudence objected.
“Isn't that a task for the Go-Between?”
“Girls . . . girls . . . surely you should be mingling with our guests.”
The sisters sighed in unison and turned with almost identical polite smiles to greet their aunt, Lord Duncan's sister, who assumed the role of official hostess at her brother's social events since it was considered an unsuitable function for a young unmarried daughter. And the Duncan sisters had not yet reached the age where the sobriquet of spinster would be automatically attached to them. The boring organizational details of social events their aunt cheerfully ceded to her nieces, but the social obligations she performed with the utmost aplomb.
“I didn't know you'd arrived, Aunt Edith.” Constance bent to kiss her. “We were just waiting our turn.”
“Well, mingle with the guests.” Edith shooed at them even as she accepted dutiful kisses from Prudence and Chastity. “What will people think to see you standing like wallflowers talking among yourselves?”
“We are playing croquet, Aunt,” Constance pointed out. “We're just waiting our turn.”
“Go and talk to that nice Lord Lucan, Chastity. And Prudence, Lady Anne needs someone to talk to.”
Rescue came as Lord Duncan, finally in possession of the ball, missed his next shot and it was Constance's turn to play for the Duncans against the so far invincible team headed by Max Ensor.
“You'll have to excuse us, Aunt,” she said with a smile. “It's time for us to play. Chas, I'm going to take your ball right the way round.” She pointed to the hoops. “You'll come in for the final shot against the marker.”
“You think you can?”
“What do you think?”
“Go to it.” Chastity waved her on. She was a fairly weak player and Constance was as competitive a player as her father, and now had the edge that age had taken from him.
Lord Duncan came forward as his oldest daughter stepped onto the immaculate lawn. “Now, Constance, you have to get my ball back in play.”
“Yes, Father,” she said. “But I have something else to do first.” She gave Max a sweet smile as he stood to one side with his mallet resting lightly on the grass. “A little revenge.”
“Don't waste your shots,” Lord Duncan boomed irritably. “Just keep your ball in play and get mine close to the sixth hoop.”
“Good advice,” Max said as she took up her position, legs apart, mallet held with both hands between her feet, ready for her swing. “Why go after me? I'm not presenting any threat to you lying over there.”
“Oh, yes, you are,” she said, clipping her bottom lip between her teeth. “Believe it or not, Mr. Ensor, I can play this game rather well. And I have my own strategy.”
“I'm certain you do,” he murmured. “I've noticed how skillfully you play your games, Miss Duncan.”
She paused, her mallet halfway in position for the swing. It was pure gamesmanship, of course, but it seemed a trifle underhanded to confuse croquet with the other game they were playing. But then, in croquet all was fair. It was a no-holds-barred competition and she was as cunning and ruthless as anyone when it came to trickery. She swung the mallet back between her feet and tapped the ball through the first hoop.
She walked to her ball, took up her position, and once again tapped it with just sufficient force to touch Chastity's ball, which lay in a direct line with the second hoop. She lined them up and this time hit hers smartly so that it pushed Chastity's ball through the hoop and rolled merrily after it.
Max leaned against the beech tree and watched with both amusement and admiration as Constance took her own and her sister's ball through every hoop, tapped the finish post with her own ball, and handed the mallet to her sister so she could perform the final service with her own ball.
“Oh, well played, Chastity. Well played.” David Lucan applauded loudly.
“David, I didn't do anything, except for the last shot,” Chastity protested, setting aside her mallet. “Constance played my ball as well as her own. Didn't you see?”
The young man looked discomfited, and Chastity immediately smiled and went over to him. “Doesn't she play well?”
“Oh, yes,” he said, “but not as well as you.”
Chastity decided that it was time Hester Winthrop entered the scene.
“Now, do you have the seating plan, Prudence?” Edith asked, fussing with her fan. “Where have you put Mr. Ensor? He should be at your father's end of the table, I believe. He and Lord Barclay. They can talk politics.”
“It's possible they don't want to, Aunt,” Prudence said. “They have enough of politics in London. We put him between Constance and Lady Winthrop.” She understood now why Constance had put Hester and Lord Lucan together, as far from Lady Winthrop as it was possible to get.
“Oh, well, if you think that will please everyone, dear, I'll leave it to you.” Edith smiled vaguely and went off to chat with her own cronies.
Prudence, waiting for her turn, thought about Hester Winthrop and David Lucan. It was an inspired match. But how on earth were they to levy some kind of fee when they set up the happy couple if the happy couple didn't know they'd been set up? It was all very well Constance having these inspired matchmaking ideas, but how were they to make any money out
of them?
She picked up her mallet and went onto the lawn as her father knocked the finish post with his ball.
“Such delightful young women . . . such a pity they can't find husbands,” Lady Winthrop confided to her bridge table after dinner. “I wonder why Chastity doesn't take Lucan?” She raised her pince-nez and looked across the drawing room to where the subject in question was talking with Hester. David Lucan stood behind the sofa gazing at Chastity like an anxious puppy.
“He would be a good catch . . . four spades,” her partner said. “But Emily brought them up with some strange ideas . . . most unsuitable. Of course, poor dear Constance would have been married years ago if—” She placed a finger over her lips as Edith Duncan approached the table.
On the other side of the room Chastity smiled over her shoulder at David Lucan and said, “Do sit here and keep Hester company, David. I have to make sure everyone has what they need.”
She patted the sofa invitingly as she rose to her feet. “Don't look alarmed, Hester. David doesn't bite. Besides, you two have something in common. You both love dogs.”
Of course, Hester loved King Charles spaniels, and David bred Staffordshire bull terriers, but that was a mere detail, she thought as she went off, leaving them sitting awkwardly beside each other on the sofa. A few moments later she was gratified to see that they were at least talking.
“See,” she said to Prudence. “I think Con has the right idea. We go out and find our clients.”
“Yes, and just how do we tell them that although they didn't know it, an organization called the Go-Between set them up together and now it wants to charge them a fee?” Prudence demanded.
“Awkward,” agreed Chastity. “But we can't talk about it now. Aunt Edith is convinced we're not doing our hostly duty. Every time she sees us talking together she does that wave of hers.”
“We'll discuss it tonight. But what do you think's going on with Con?” She looked across the drawing room to where her elder sister was playing at a second bridge table, partnered by Max Ensor.
Chastity followed her gaze. “I don't know, but something. Whatever it is between them you can almost feel it from here. They're radiating some kind of electricity.”
Prudence nodded. “I've never seen Con lose her detachment with a man before . . . at least not since Douglas died. I just wonder if she knows she has.”
“Perhaps she hasn't,” Chastity said. “She's always the one in charge, and we know she's playing her own game with Max.”
“Somehow I don't think she's playing anything but bridge right now,” Prudence said.
“No,” Chastity agreed thoughtfully. “Do you think she's forgotten how much he annoyed her at the beginning? Surely he hasn't changed over night. A person doesn't just lose those opinions at will.”
“Maybe he hasn't lost them,” her sister said. “Maybe he's just playing them down because he knows they annoy her, and he doesn't want her annoyed . . . at least not until he's had his wicked way with her,” she added with a grin.
She expected her sister to laugh but Chastity's expression remained solemn. “If he has an ulterior motive in pursuing Con, I hope it's not one that's going to hurt her.”
“Oh, Lord!” Prudence sighed. “What should we do?”
“I don't think we can do anything. You know how Con is. Once she's decided upon something, nothing will distract her.”
“What do you think of Max Ensor? Do you like him?”
Chastity shrugged. “I don't know. Sometimes I do, and sometimes I have a feeling that he's a bit too glib for comfort. He's ambitious, that's for sure.”
“Mmm,” murmured Prudence, reflecting that in her own way so was Constance.
Chapter 9
Constance would not have been surprised at her sisters' observations. They knew her almost as well as she knew herself. As the evening had progressed she had had to force herself to concentrate on her cards. Once or twice she had been in danger of unforgivably trumping her partner's ace when she lost track of trumps. Her gaze kept drifting disconcertingly to her partner's hands, which were constantly in play as he shuffled cards, riffled through his hand, made his discard. While she'd admired them before, she hadn't noticed how strong and flexible his fingers seemed to be . . . and in the next moment she caught herself thinking of those hands on her body, the fingers playing upon her skin.
This was not going according to plan. Goose bumps prickled on her bare arms and her stomach kept doing a nosedive. One minute she was cold, drawing her richly hued shawl of Indian silk up over her shoulders, and the next plying her fan vigorously. She could only hope that her distraction was not obvious to her fellow players, though Max Ensor seemed aware of it. Although he played with steady concentration, once or twice he raised his eyes from the cards and glanced at her across the table. It was a glance that contained the speculative hunger she had noticed on the train and that had emboldened her to play her little game at the stile.
They were fighting some battle here, fighting for control of whatever was to happen next. Lascivious anticipation flooded her, ran swift and hot in her veins. She wanted his body, wanted to touch every inch of him, bury her mouth and nose in his skin, taste him from the pulse in his throat to his big toes. She wanted to look at his sex, hold it, stroke it, lick it. She wondered if he had hair on his back and if it ran down his spine to his backside. Were his thighs hairy? His toes even? And what of his chest? Were his nipples small and almost invisible, or would they be prominent and dark, and harden quickly beneath the flick of her tongue?
Dear God, she thought in sudden desperation, aware of the moistening in her loins, the sudden pulsing of her sex. She had never been able to do that to herself just by thinking. Her only hope lay in the possibility that Max was suffering the same agonies of frustrated lust. But when she looked at him she saw nothing but the calm, neutral expression of a skillful bridge player.
“Constance, it's your bid.” Her father's impatient voice crashed into her lubricious reverie with the icy force of an avalanche.
“Oh, yes, I'm sorry. What's the bidding? I didn't hear.”
“I bid one heart, your father bid two spades, and Lord Barclay passed.” Max regarded her with a curious little smile and she had the uncomfortable impression that he'd been listening in on her thoughts. Which of course was absurd, when she couldn't read his at all.
“We need forty points for the rubber,” Max reminded her.
Constance couldn't imagine how they'd found themselves in a winning position with the way she'd been playing. Max was obviously skilled enough to compensate for her own absentmindedness.
She looked again at her cards. “Three no trumps.”
“What?” Max stared at her in disbelief. For forty points that was sheer overkill and Constance would have to play it. He didn't have much faith in her play this evening.
Constance shrugged her shoulders but said nothing. She had a three no trump hand and if Max had enough points to bid a heart, so long as she kept her wits about her and counted carefully, they would make it. It went against the grain to play for less than they could get. Adrenaline surged through her as her competitive spirit finally vanquished all distraction. She no longer needed to force herself to concentrate, and steadily gathered tricks with her high cards. At the end, she looked up triumphantly. “There,” she said, laying down her last card. “We made it.”
“So I should hope,” her father said. “With a hand like that, how could you lose?”
“I have a feeling Max thought I could lose very easily,” she said, looking at him across the table.
He raised his hands palms up in disclaimer. “Not at all. I had every faith.”
“Oh, yes?” She gathered up the cards. “I think that's as much as I can play tonight. Shall I find someone to make a fourth?”
“No, I too have played enough,” Max said, rising from the table. “Gentlemen, I thank you.” He smiled amiably at their opponents.
Lord Duncan set two guineas on th
e table and the earl of Barclay did the same. The baron pushed them across the table. “Your winnings, Ensor. I'll leave it to you to divvy it up with my daughter.” He got to his feet. “Let's find that single malt I've been keeping, Barclay. You care to join us, Ensor?”
Max shook his head. “No, thank you, sir. I'd like to take a stroll in the garden with my partner, if you would permit it?”
Lord Duncan gave a low rumble of laughter. “You jest, sir. My daughters have all been beyond my control since they gained their majority . . . and probably before it,” he added. “Come, Barclay.” He flung an arm around his crony's shoulders and ushered him off.
“Does the lady permit it?” Max inquired, handing Constance her share of the night's winnings. Her green eyes had an unusual glitter in them as she took the money.
She tucked the winnings into her evening bag. “I think there must be a full moon. Perhaps that explains why I was so absentminded during the rubber.”
“You gained it back for the last hand,” he observed.
“Perhaps the clouds obscured the moon.”
“Perhaps.” He gave her his arm and she laid her hand on the silky black sleeve. A little current ran through her hand and up her arm. She tried to ignore it.
They walked out onto the terrace and Constance was relieved to find that they were not alone. It was a warm night and indeed a full moon and most of the house party had come outside. She couldn't see her sisters anywhere, but she did spy David Lucan and Hester Winthrop standing in awkward silence against the parapet. Maybe easing that match along a little would help her to ignore these ridiculous twitches.
“I just want to talk to Lord Lucan,” she said. “He looks as if he needs a helping hand with Hester.”