Every breath Millie drew scalded her lungs, but Mrs. Englewood went on inexorably.
“All I want is to regain what I once lost, to live the life I was meant to live. It’s not too much to ask, is it?”
Millie forced out her answer. “No.”
“Fitz is a lovely man—and I’m not just talking about his looks. You know he is stalwart and honorable. You know he will sacrifice himself to the call of duty. And—” Mrs. Englewood’s voice faltered. “And you are now part of his duty.”
“What do you mean?”
“He cares deeply for your well-being. He views you as the blameless party and he does not want any action on his part to injure your future happiness.”
Millie began to understand. “You are worried that I won’t let him go—that I will resort to tears to keep him with me.”
“I am not saying you would,” said Mrs. Englewood. “But in your place I might have. It is so easy to fall in love with him and so difficult to let go.”
“It is a good thing for everyone, then, I am not bound up in him.”
Mrs. Englewood stared at Millie, her gaze as heavy as a boulder. “Do you not love him?”
No one had ever asked her a direct question on this matter—and therefore she’d been spared the lying.
“Lord Fitzhugh and I married because he needed my family’s fortune and my father wanted a titled son-in-law,” Millie said carefully. “That we get along as well as we do is odds defying enough. Love would have taken it into the realm of fiction.”
“You don’t find his person appealing?” Mrs. Englewood sounded incredulous.
“He is very agreeable.”
“I mean, do you not think he is extraordinarily handsome?”
“He is handsome. But so are a number of his classmates and his new brother-in-law, the Duke of Lexington. If I fell in love with every toothsome fellow I came across, I’d be frequently and needlessly in love.”
“But he is also kind. Considerate. Willing to shoulder all burdens. Being married to him all these years, you’ve never wished that he would have eyes only for you?”
Millie forced herself to hold Isabelle Englewood’s eyes. “Not everyone is meant to fall in love. Lord Fitzhugh and I are good friends and nothing more.”
“Then, you will let him go?”
“I have never restricted the freedom of his movement, not once in our married life.”
“Even though the two of you will have six months of intimacy? That changes things, you know.”
“If that alone were enough to make people fall in love, all the wives in this country would be in love with their husbands—and vice versa.”
Mrs. Englewood set down her teacup and rose. She walked to the open window and looked out to the street beyond. It was a quiet street, no hawkers, street musicians, or the constant hoof clacks of hansom cabs looking for custom. Fitz had clearly put a great deal of thought in the house he’d selected for her.
She turned around. “I am afraid, Lady Fitzhugh. I’ve been at the receiving end of life’s caprices and it’s not a kind place to be. But I have no choice, do I? I must trust that you are a woman of your word.”
Millie had not given her word to Mrs. Englewood. She had not yet conceded Fitz. Did a faithful wife of almost eight years not have some claims to her husband? She deserved a level playing field, at least.
“So he was there at my wedding…” whispered Mrs. Englewood, as if to herself. She blinked, her eyes brilliant with unshed tears. “I knew I sensed his presence.”
How foolish Millie was: There was no such thing as a level playing field. She would always be the usurper, the spoiler of dreams, the one who caused such grief on Mrs. Englewood’s part that to this day it was writ large in the very alignment of her features.
“You are the one he has loved all along,” she heard herself say. “There has never been anyone but you.”
H elena gazed at the adorable ducklings a minute longer—Miss Evangeline South was a talented artist—before rising from her seat, her notes in hand. She opened the door of her office and handed the notes to her secretary.
“I need these typed, Miss Boyle.”
“Yes, miss.”
Susie was in her spot—Helena could swear the woman never needed to use the water closet. She retreated back into her office and shut the door.
She didn’t know why it should be so, after a day and a half with the ducklings and turtles and fish of Miss South’s pond, but her hands reached on their own toward the drawer into which she’d stuffed Hastings’s manuscript.
And when she had the manuscript before her, she did not begin from where she’d stopped, but opened to a random page.
Her skin is dusky in the candlelight. I trace my fingers up the side of her ribcage, over her shoulder, then along the length of her arm to her wrist, fastened to a slat in the headboard with a silk scarf.
“Aren’t you weary of looking at me like this, tied up always?” she murmurs.
“No,” I answer. “Never.”
“Don’t you want to be touched?”
“I do. But I don’t want to be scratched.”
She licks her lips, her tongue pink, moist. “What is a good time in the marital bed without a few scratches on your back, darling?”
Helena’s pulse accelerated. She’d read some erotica here and there. Always the stories seemed to be aimed at titillating male readers, with the female characters completely interchangeable, mere objects to be spanked and poked.
But this was different. The nameless bride of Larkspear was a person in her own right, neither afraid nor given to senseless worship of a man’s cock.
“If only I could be sure that a few scratches will satisfy you.”
I bend my head and bite her lip. Her breaths caress my chin. Her gaze slides down my body. “Ready again, I see.”
“Ravenous.”
“Such interesting nights you give me, Larkspear.”
“Do you think of me during the day, Lady Larkspear?”
She smiles. “Never, my dear.”
“Liar.”
“Prove it.”
I thrust deep inside her. Her lips part. Her eyes close briefly, but the next moment they are wide open again. She likes to look at me in my animal rut, to witness my weakness for her and taunt me with the unattainability of her heart.
Helena turned the manuscript facedown. It made her uncomfortable, as if he’d pulled a fantasy out of the deepest recesses of her mind, a fantasy she never knew about until he’d set it down in writing. A fantasy about power, her power, and a man who pushed back without being fearful of it.
A knock came at her door. She hastily locked the manuscript away. “Come in.”
Susie poked in her head. “Miss, the ball is tonight. Lady Fitzhugh asked me to remind you to leave earlier than usual.”
Of course, the ball in honor of Venetia and the duke—with Hastings certain to be there.
“Yes, I will leave earlier,” she said. “Or Lady Fitzhugh will fret.”
T he train bellowed. The platform fogged with steam from the engines. A fading swirl of it passed between Fitz and Isabelle.
Her children were already aboard with their governess. Through the windows they waved at him, excited at the prospect of visiting their cousins. He waved back.
“They like you,” she said.
“I like them. They are good children.” He changed his walking stick—the one with the blue porcelain handle—from one hand to the other. She’d admired it earlier; he did not tell her it had been a present from Millie. “You should probably board. Your train will leave any minute now.”
“I’m loath to leave you,” she said. “I wish I hadn’t agreed to this visit.”
“You will enjoy it—you haven’t seen your sister in years. Besides, you’ll only be gone a week.”
“A week is a long time. Everything can change.”
Any other day he’d have scoffed at her fear. But tonight something would change.
&nbs
p; On the face of it, a roll in the hay ought not to matter. He’d sauntered through quite a few beds in his time. Sometimes he grew more fond of a woman, sometimes less. But the change was predicated upon their personal qualities, not because he slept with them.
He already respected and admired Millie. He’d like her even more tomorrow morning, but the fundamental nature of their firmly established friendship should remain the same.
More or less.
“A week is only seven days,” he said.
He noticed he did not reassure Isabelle that nothing would change. Her lips tightened: She’d noticed, too.
The steam whistle blew, a sharp-pitched warning, followed by a deep rumble that rattled the tracks.
“Hurry,” he said, leaning forward to kiss her on her cheek. “Or your children will be in Aberdeen without you.”
She gripped his hand. “Think of me.”
“I will.”
She turned toward the train, then turned back again. “You once told me that no matter what happened, you’d always, always love me. Is that still the case?”
“Of course,” he said, perhaps a little too fast.
“I’ll hold on to that, then.”
“I’ll be here waiting, when you come back.”
She threw her arms about him. “I love you. I will love you till my last breath.”
CHAPTER 11
The Bench
1890
M illie knocked on the door of her husband’s study and pushed it open. “You wish to see me, sir?”
“Yes. Come in, please.”
She took her usual chair across the table from his, but he was not in his chair. Instead, he was before the mantel, a poker in hand, prodding at the coals in the grate. Something in the set of his jaw alarmed her.
“What’s the matter?”
He shrugged.
“Tell me.”
He dropped the poker into its holder. “I opened a letter from Gerry Pelham just now. He informs me he has become the proud uncle of a baby niece.”
Gerry Pelham, Isabelle Pelham’s brother. It had been little more than a year since Miss Pelham became Mrs. Englewood—and now she had a child. A familiar pain gnawed at Millie’s chest—Fitz had been once again reminded of what he’d lost.
He sat down in his chair. “I’m sorry. I was surprised by the news, that’s all.”
Ambushed by the news, more like it. “Would you prefer that I came another time?”
“No, I’m glad you are here. Help me take my mind off it.”
He used to want to be away from her when he had such news from his beloved. The pain in Millie’s heart was now mixed with a slow, bittersweet pleasure. “Anything,” she said.
He opened a dossier on the desk. “Your father advertised very little. He believed that the quality of Cresswell & Graves products spoke for themselves. When we first began to expand into bottled beverages, my instinct was to advertise, but Mr. Hawkes felt otherwise. He was more concerned with wooing the retailers to stock these new products. Once the products were in view, he believed they’d fly off the shelves.
“I gave him one quarter to prove himself right. When he did not, and our new beverages collected dust in shops, I commissioned an advertising campaign. Since women are responsible for the majority of the household expenditures on food and drink, I thought I’d ask your opinion on these placards.”
She was immensely flattered—and almost as nervous. “I’d be honored to help, if I can.”
He passed the drawings to her. She spread them before her. The designs were black and white. “Are these the finished designs?”
“Yes.”
She hesitated. “You know I have no particular artistic eye.”
He smiled slightly. “In other words, you don’t find them appealing?”
“Not particularly,” she said slowly. She’d hoped to tell him otherwise.
“Don’t look so apologetic. If I thought you’d say yes to everything I wouldn’t ask your opinion. Now tell me why you don’t find them appealing.”
Encouraged, she said, “Well, raspberry soda water, orange soda water, and strawberry lemonade are pretty and vibrant in person. A black-and-white placard does not convey their attractiveness. And the image of a bottle surrounded by words extolling its virtues is too matter-of-fact, almost as if we are selling a tonic when we are doing nothing of the sort.”
“What would you do, then?”
“We want young people to take these bottled drinks on picnics and to the seaside on holidays, don’t we?” she said tentatively. “Then, why not let us suggest that in the advertising itself? Young ladies sitting under the shade of a tree, a nice spread of a picnic, raising our bottles in toast. Or young ladies at the beach, blue sky, blue sea, everyone in white dresses, holding our bottles.”
He jotted down a several lines of notes. “All right. I’ll recommission the artworks.”
“On my words alone?”
He looked up. “Of everyone involved with Cresswell & Graves, you are the one I trust the most. And if I’ve learned anything since we married, it’s that you have good instincts. So yes, Lady Fitzhugh, on your words alone.”
She scarcely knew what to do. It was difficult to remain seated, yet a lady simply couldn’t leap wildly about the room, even if her husband had just told her that yes, indeed, she was his closest advisor.
She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Thank you. Do you need me to look at anything else?”
H er ideas were exactly right. Introduced the next spring, the advertising placards, with their lush, striking contrasts of colors and idyllic images, were so wildly popular that they were stolen wherever they were put up. Fitz, encouraged, sent shopkeepers posters to display inside their stores and ordered tens of thousands of handbills to be passed out by sandwich-board men. The bottled beverages sold and sold.
Fitz, not one to let such excellence go unremarked, bought a set of jeweled hairpins for his wife. He’d taken both of his sisters with him to the jeweler’s, but he’d known, the moment he’d seen the amethyst-and-diamond pins, that they were what he wanted. They reminded him of the lavender at Henley Park, an apt symbol for his wife—handsome, adaptable, and endlessly beneficial.
The first time he saw his gift on Lady Fitzhugh was on the occasional of Lady Knightbridge’s ball.
He attended very few balls. For one thing, his presence was beside the point. The function of a ball was to put into proximity young men and women who might someday forge matrimonial alliances. He, a married man, would waste the young ladies’ time. Also, a man at a ball was expected to dance, as there were always ladies in want of a partner. And he didn’t exactly fancy dancing as the night was long.
But he was at Lady Knightbridge’s ball for a purpose. Venetia, now in a platonic marriage with Mr. Easterbrook, an old family friend, and very much back in Society, wished to present Helena to the elusive Duke of Lexington, whispered to be expected. Fitz, who’d played cricket against Lexington when he was at Eton and Lexington at Harrow, was to make the introductions, as he was the only one in their party already acquainted with their quarry.
Venetia was disappointed: The duke did not attend after all. But the ball did have the piquancy of having in attendance Fitz’s current mistress.
Mrs. Dorchester wanted to dance; Fitz obliged with a schottische. Mrs. Dorchester would have preferred a waltz, but Fitz felt strongly that for a man and a woman already conducting an affair, there was no need to further broadcast the relationship by engaging in any activity that would have them pressed together in public.
The dance done, he walked Mrs. Dorchester back to her friends, and returned to his wife and sisters. Not five minutes later, Mrs. Dorchester sauntered past their group, smiled at him, then shot an utterly superior look at Lady Fitzhugh.
Fitz turned toward his wife. “Did she do what I think she did? On the occasion of your return to Society no less.”
Her year of mourning for her father had excluded her from all the goings
-on of the previous Season. It was the first time in nearly two years that she’d attended a London festivity.
“Anne Dorchester knows she has something I don’t. And she has always enjoyed lording over the less blessed of us.”
“I did not know that about her.”
“Some women are very nice to men but not so much to other women.”
“Well, she picked the wrong woman to not be nice to. No one is allowed to disrespect my wife, least of all some woman with whom I am temporarily keeping company.”
His wife shrugged. “What are you going to do? Make her come here and apologize to me for looking at me the wrong way?”
“I will no longer keep company with her.”
She angled an eyebrow. “You cannot do that. It would be kinder to take her out back and shoot her.”
He laughed. She had the driest sense of humor. “Moreover, I am going to dance with you.”
“You can’t dance with your own wife at a ball.”
“Let them arrest me for it, then. Come, the next dance is starting—and Mrs. Dorchester is watching.”
She studied him. Her eyes were a light brown, the color of the hazelnuts beloved by his Alice. And then she smiled—she had a nice smile. “They will call me bourgeois for it, but I have always been proudly bourgeois.”
He led her onto the floor. She promptly stepped on his toe on the first turn. “Sorry!”
He laughed. “Don’t worry. I just might return the favor—I’m completely out of practice. And I can’t remember any of the fancier steps.”
“Better not. Or I might find myself facedown on the floor.”
Beyond this initial mishap, however, they danced quite well together. His more cautious quarter turns and half turns gave away to ebullient full revolutions. They spun around the ballroom, everything at the edge of his vision streaks of color and light.
“Wait. Dance slower,” she suddenly said.
“Are you dizzy?”
“Not in the least. I just realized you are right: Mrs. Dorchester is watching. I want to enjoy the sight of her fuming.”
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