An Encounter at the Museum

by Claudia Dain

  “Never,” he said, pressing her against him, his hands to her hips, her mouth under his, his tongue invading her. She welcomed him.

  “So fast,” she gasped out, shaking her head, a curl coming loose to fall down her back. “I did not think anything could come so fast. I can’t think. I can’t stop.”

  “Don’t think. Don’t stop.”

  “No,” she said, pulling back to look up into his eyes, her face soft and young, looking so very vulnerable. “I can’t make myself stop. I can’t.”

  Honor. The word was not strange to him. As a bastard he perhaps had more devotion to the concept than those who did not have to prove so much to the world. He was the child of his parents, his blood a gift from them. That they were not married damned him in the eyes of the world, but their blood did not damn him. Their blood elevated him. Or so he had always believed in a belief he clung to as fervently as any monk to his prayers.

  Honor. It was for honor’s sake, his own and hers, that he lifted his mouth from hers and held her hands captive in front of her. He was going to take everything from Elizabeth, her place in Society and the soft comforts of wealth, and in return he would give her the protection of his name and the safety of the marriage vow. It was a meager exchange at best. He would not rob her of her virtue when she was giving him the world.

  “I must get his approval,” he said, his mouth against her hair. “Your father. Will he give it?”

  She wrapped her arms around his waist, burying her face in his chest. He felt her in his heart, in his bones, in his very soul.

  “I can’t see how,” she said. “We could elope.”

  “Did you dream of an elopement when you dreamed of your wedding day?”

  “I didn’t,” she said, leaning back to look up at him, her blue eyes shimmering with tears. “But I didn’t dream of you, either. I wouldn’t have dared to dream so great a dream as you, Jamie.”

  He kissed her again, a hard, hot kiss that spoke of all the things he had no words for. She was his . . . everything. He had not dreamed of her, of this, either. He had not known there was such a woman to dream about.

  “I’ll not steal you from your family,” he said when he lifted his head, his arms wrapped tightly around her. “I won’t steal away. There will be no shame attached to this. To us.”

  “Oh, Jamie,” she breathed. “There is nothing shameful in you.”

  He had not meant to reveal so much. He did not enjoy being a bastard. Who would? He dealt with it, made the best of it, but he did not enjoy it. He would not pull anyone else into the dim alleys of societal censure, no, nor make any bastards of his own.

  “I can give you the name I have, which isn’t much, but I will give you that name, Elizabeth, and you can carry it proudly if you choose. All I can do is make certain that you have my name to carry, and our children as well,” he finished, his voice tight.

  “‘A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,’” she quoted, a single tear falling down her cheek like dawn dew on a flower petal.

  “I am no rose,” he said gruffly.

  “You are to me. My rose. My rose of Montague, of Montague Street, my Romeo of the Reading Room,” she said, smiling against his throat, kissing him above his cravat.

  He smiled. Against all common sense and knowledge of the world, he smiled. She made him smile. Was love as simple as that?

  Yes.

  “We may not have a good friar to help us,” he said.

  “He gave them poison. Look how that ended,” she interrupted.

  “But we have Sophia Dalby. She’s better than any friar, or indeed, any creation of Mr. Shakespeare’s,” he said, taking her hand in his and leading her toward the drawing room.

  “She won’t give us poison?” Elizabeth asked, straightening her gown as she hurried to keep up with him.

  “No. Not to us, anyway” he said, grinning.

  It should not be supposed that Sebastian Ardenzy, no, nor his sister, had failed to note the precise moment when the Duke of Aldreth’s bastard left the room with Elizabeth on his arm. No one else in the room missed it either.

  Ardenzy had moved in the direction of the door less than a minute later but was waylaid by the Earl of Quinton, a most taciturn and famously unsociable man by all reports. One did not simply brush off an earl. Certainly Ardenzy had no inclination to do so. When Quinton had quite run the gamut of subjects pleasing to him (horses, wars, the general topography and climate of the far northern portion of the North American continent), Ardenzy was able to make a courteous exit.

  He had only progressed a few feet when Lady Paignton, well, the word accosted seemed appropriate. He would never presume to use such a word with a lady of the realm, and a most radiantly beautiful dowager countess at that. She engaged him in conversation for a full ten minutes, her green eyes batting quite attractively, but upon the conclusion of their conversation he could not remember a single thing she said or what they discussed. It was most odd.

  He did cast a glance to his sister, the redoubtable Edwina, but she was in a most intense and nearly animated conversation with Viscount Redding. Clearly, he did not wish to intrude upon that. Redding must not be allowed to slip the net, as flimsy as the net was proving to be.

  He was only steps from the door, and he could hear his daughter’s voice just beyond it, when Lady Dalby laid a hand upon his arm. He had never before met Lady Dalby, how should he have?, but he would be a very dim light indeed not to have known of her and her remarkable reputation.

  He would not have thought it possible to have such a lurid reputation, one simply riddled with scandal, and to have been welcomed into any drawing room at all, let alone the top tier of Society. Yet she was.

  He could make no sense of it. He did not doubt it, to be sure, yet he could make no sense of it.

  Yet now, looking at her, at her dark sparkling eyes and her shining black hair, at the perfection of her features, the pearled ivory glow of her skin, the soft swell of her bosom . . . oh, dear. Where had his gaze gone?

  Softly clearing his throat, Sebastian Ardenzy looked Sophia straight in the eyes, commanding his eyes to stay where he put them, and said, “Lady Dalby, we have not been formally introduced. May I be so bold as to introduce myself?”

  “Mr. Ardenzy, please do. I do so enjoy meeting men of force and ability,” she said, moving her fan gently in the region of her bosom. He did not look. Or at least not overlong.

  “Lady Dalby,” he said, a curt bow accompanying his words.

  “Mr. Ardenzy,” she said, dipping her head, her eyes dropping, her lashes black against her white cheeks, her gaze lifted, teasing him with the glimmer in her bottomless eyes.

  He felt his throat tighten. The last time he had felt his throat tighten in just this way it had been on the occasion of first seeing his wife in a state of undress.

  “You honor me, Lady Dalby,” he said. It was a very polite thing to say, nearly a cliche. He was distressed to realize that he might actually mean the words.

  “Do I? I shall have to do more of that, then, shan’t I?” she said, tapping his arm with her fan. One tender tap. His throat closed a bit more. “What else should I do more of? I am open to suggestion.” She moved the fan to her throat, a swish of air teasing the dark tendrils that caressed her neck. “But, let me guess. You wish an introduction to the Duke of Aldreth, one of my oldest and warmest of acquaintances, so that you may firm up whatever connection darling Miss Ardenzy is making with Mr. Caversham. Tell me, did I guess correctly?”

  “Hardly that. No,” he said, taking a step away from Lady Dalby.

  Caversham? That bastard with his daughter? He had not spent a lifetime making a fortune and his daughters’ lifetimes in preparing them to make brilliant matches to throw Elizabeth away on a man with no name and no position. Besides, she was nearly engaged to Lord Redding. It was Lord Redding for Elizabeth and none other.

  “You must not be shy about asking, Mr. Ardenzy,” Sophia said. “You surprise me by your reluctance.” />
  “I beg your pardon?” he said, swallowing his outrage. “I have no interest in fostering any connection with Mr. Caversham. Hardly.”

  “No?” Sophia said. “How very odd.”

  She took him by the arm and led him around the room in a careful and graceful circuit. All parties stopped to listen as they passed. He found that most peculiar and then promptly ignored everyone else to attend to what Lady Dalby was saying, and doing. She was stroking his arm. It was nearly negligible, yet she did it. By God, was he being petted?

  “I did assume, perhaps incorrectly, that you were a very astute man of uncommon vigor and intelligence. A man to grab the moment, so to speak,” she said. It sounded entirely common and, as he was not of the peerage and was, indeed, a commoner, he reacted stiffly to the comment. “I find it an intensely admirable trait, one might even say irresistible,” she went on to say.

  His throat, against every jot of common sense, tightened and he struggled to swallow. They passed Lady Helston and her daughters on their circuit. They stared at him, at Sophia, at him again with barely concealed amusement. Intolerable. He might want his daughters to enter the peerage but he did not particularly enjoy the company of them himself. Still, he was determined.

  “I need to see to my daughter,” he said. “If you will excuse me, Lady Dalby.”

  “Oh, not yet,” she said. “People will think you find me dull. What would that do to my reputation?” She laughed lightly, turning her gaze full upon him. “Besides, is she not your daughter in every regard? She is managing things brilliantly, I am certain. Why, she has Mr. Caversham neatly caught. All that’s left is to work out the details, which is what parents are for, are they not?”

  He sputtered. He could hear himself doing it. He had never sputtered before in his life.

  “I do not know what you mean, Lady Dalby. My daughter, my Elizabeth, is nearly engaged to the Viscount Redding.”

  “Oh, nearly,” she said, making a dismissive motion with her hand. “Your darling girl is nearly many things. How does one count nearly? It is a wisp, a nothing. No, Mr. Ardenzy, one must count only what one holds in one’s hand. Surely you, a successful man of affairs, know that most intimately.”

  It sounded nearly obscene when she said it, and there was nothing obscene about it. He was nearly befuddled. Not completely, but nearly. It was with what was left of his composure that he said, “Mr. Caversham is no one I care to have my daughter, either of them, acquainted with, Lady Dalby. His reputation is known to me.”

  “His reputation? Do you mean as the Duke of Aldreth’s most beloved son?”

  “No, I did not mean that---”

  “And, of course, being a man with his fingers in so many pies,” she continued, nodding to Mr. Prestwick and Lord Josiah Blakesley as they passed them by, Mr. Prestwick grinning like a royal fool, “you have no doubt considered what a coup it would be to gain the ear of the Duke. He is a most, most particular man and is quite severe in his judgments. Of course, if your darling Elizabeth were married to his Jamie, do you think Society would not understand the import of that remarkable connection?”

  “A connection? With the Duke of Aldreth?” he managed to repeat. The concept was beyond his ken. Why should a duke care about a bastard son? He had an heir, a legitimate heir. What mattered this bastard of his?

  “But naturally. If you could manage to gain his regard, to have one of your lovely daughters snag the attention and the affection that leads inevitably and so charmingly into marriage, do you think the Duke would not honor you by the connection? You can’t imagine he would insult either his son or his son’s wife by spurning a cordial relationship with his son’s father by marriage. Mr. Ardenzy, just what insult do you mean to deal the Duke?” she said stiffly, removing her hand from his arm. “He is an old and cherished friend. I will not see him maligned without mounting a defense, sir.”

  “I . . . I have nothing but the highest regard for the Duke of Aldreth!” he said. “I have not yet met him, but I have heard nothing to suggest that he is not the most worthy of gentlemen.”

  Sophia looked at him searchingly, her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed, her fan tapping against her thigh. He wanted to look down at her fan and her thigh, to count the taps. He did not. He had not climbed to the top of his business by staring at fans.

  “You do reassure me, Mr. Ardenzy. I thought I had misread you entirely, and I do so hate being wrong about anything,” she said, giving him one last measuring look, from his well-shod feet to the top of his well-combed head. “How thankful you must be that no formal proposal has been made by Lord Redding. How awkward that would be now.”

  Now? What had happened now? Elizabeth was out of the room with the bast--, the natural son of the Duke of Aldreth. Nothing had happened. Dear God, let nothing have happened.

  In that instant, something happened.

  Mr. Caversham thrust open the door, Elizabeth on his arm looking windblown and flushed. There was no wind in the Countess of Helston’s home.

  “Darling, how refreshed you look,” Sophia said. Ardenzy had no idea who ‘darling’ was. He assumed it was not his daughter.

  “Mr. Ardenzy,” Caversham said, his cravat looking slightly disreputable. One would think that, as the Duke’s ‘beloved son’ he could supply the boy with an adequate valet. “Lady Dalby,” he said, with a long look at Sophia Dalby. Sophia smiled and nodded. “Mr. Ardenzy,” Caversham repeated, “I ask for your consent, for your permission, indeed, your blessing, to marry your daughter, Elizabeth.”

  His heart slammed against his ribs; a falling sensation thundered in his ears. Surprisingly, the Helston guests did not erupt in either joy or horror. No, they looked quite speculatively at him.

  “I will provide for her. I will love her. I do love her,” Caversham said, his face hard with purpose, his pale eyes narrowed and piercing Ardenzy like icy spears. Strangely, he could well believe that this man was a duke’s son. “I will love her,” Caversham repeated softly.

  For all that Sebastian Ardenzy was a hardened and practical man of business, he had married his wife for love and for life. He would have broken himself into bits to make her safe and see her fed. Any man who labored for love was predisposed to accomplish much. He saw the same determination in Caversham. He could ask for nothing more.

  Though a title would have been quite nice.

  Ardenzy sighed and said, “Elizabeth?”

  For answer, Elizabeth grinned and clasped Caversham by the hand.

  “It seems a marriage has been made,” Ardenzy said. Edwina mumbled something behind him. It seemed to him that Elena laughed. “I do apologize, Lady Helston. We Ardenzys seem to have taken over your dinner.”

  “No apology necessary, Mr. Ardenzy,” Lady Helston said. “We have come to expect such things when Lady Dalby is in Town.”

  “What a lovely compliment, Lady Helston. Thank you,” Sophia said. “Now, darling Jamie, you must bring the Ardenzy’s round to meet your father at the earliest opportunity. I do think he shall be available tomorrow, don’t you agree?”

  To no surprise to anyone, the Duke of Aldreth was available. Elizabeth and her father, Aunt Edwina claimed a headache, appeared at Aldreth House on Berkley Square at one o’clock. Aldreth House was massive, colossal, and impressive. It was designed to intimidate lesser mortals, and it did it very well.

  Elizabeth had worn her best day dress and her second best ear bobs and her new shoes. Despite all that, she felt shopworn and ill-bred as she and her father followed the Aldreth House butler up the winding staircase to the first floor . . . a door opened and it seemed to be a ballroom. With a full complement of furniture.

  Jamie was standing by the fireplace, pacing by the fireplace it seemed, and he turned as the door opened and rushed across the room to her. As the room was nearly as large as Green Park, it took him some time to reach her.

  Falling in love with a man in the Reading Room was one thing. Having his father be a duke was quite another. She had thought, fleetingly, her
face buried under the thick woolen blanket on her bed last night, that since Jamie was a bastard son, that his father would be somewhat (if not completely) ancillary to his life. Was that not the way of things? The Duke of Aldreth and his mistress had never married. There was a certain scandal to that, wasn’t there? Aunt Edwina certainly thought so. Aunt Edwina had always insisted so.

  Bastards were never treated so well in Shakespeare, neither the comedies nor the tragedies, and never the histories.

  “Elizabeth,” Jamie said, taking her arm. “Mr. Ardenzy, allow me to present you to the Duke. Mr. and Miss Ardenzy, my father, the Duke of Aldreth.”

  Aldreth stood slowly, casting a lazy and superior eye over them. Aldreth bore an astounding resemblance to Jamie. They shared the same height, the same general look, and the same sharply pale blue eyes that had a tendency to pierce one through as unerringly as a knife. His hair was still thick upon his head, salted liberally with gray. He might have tried to deny that Jamie was his son at some earlier point, but if he had, no one would have believed him.

  “Mr. Ardenzy. Miss Ardenzy,” the Duke said, dipping his chin. His gaze raked them. Elizabeth pressed against Jamie, clinging to his arm. She had thought, woolen blanket thoughts, that it was only her father who must be won to their cause. She was the heiress, the legitimate child, the woman of impeccable reputation. The Duke of Aldreth, by his look, did not see her in quite the same light.

  It was chilling. Were she and her father to be judged and found wanting?

  It seemed entirely possible.

  “Your Grace,” she and her father said, making their bows and curtseys.

  “I have been told that a marriage has been proposed,” Aldreth said. He made it sound a criminal offense.

  “Yes, your Grace,” her father said. He might have said more but the Duke’s look did not invite further comment.

  “I have been told that your daughter, Elizabeth, is it?, was nearly engaged to some other fellow just yesterday,” Aldreth said, looking at Elizabeth as if she were a very badly trained dog. “It does bespeak some intemperance on her part, wouldn’t you agree?”