by Bryn Donovan
Will continued to consider that possibility after he took his wry leave and his carriage pulled away from her cottage. He simmered in a high state of agitation. Lust pumped like blood through his body, ignoring his stern attempts to quell it.
This was not what he bargained for. Not at all. He wanted a blind release from his frustrations, not a new frustration on top of them.
Yet he admitted that the experience, inconclusive at it turned out, wiped away the dullness and resentment into which he’d plunged for so long. It replaced that bitter mood with something different: almost unbearably maddening, but also fresh and exciting.
When he first imagined the sort of lessons a mistress like her might give, he imagined trying out myriad different positions: her straddling him on a chair, or her up against a wall, her legs wrapped around him...or her stretched over him, her pliant mouth surrounding his cock, while he tasted and teased her as well...
He desired to try everything with her.
And he wanted to hear her say the same endearments to him that she’d gotten him to say to her.
What? He frowned at this last thought. It didn’t matter what they said to each other.
He might, as she said, take a more conventional mistress. Surely he’d find an inventive one who could immediately gratify his desires. And Genevieve could take some other, more patient gentleman along her slower path to fulfillment.
Anger rose up in him at the idea of her with another man.
Ludicrous. She was a courtesan. She’d just serviced another man. Why should the thought of her with a new one cause him so much consternation?
But he couldn’t stand the idea of her entwined with some other lover, eventually exploring the very depths of the realm of sensual delights.
He didn’t even want her kissing someone else.
Damn. How had she managed, with that brief and paltry encounter, to cast such a snare on him?
She manipulated well.
Yet for all her rules and speeches, she didn’t give the impression of being cold or calculating. When his hand stroked her warm neck, he’d felt the wild flutter of her pulse. He remembered the quickness of her breath. Everything about her physical response suggested vulnerability.
Will let his head fall back against the carriage seat as they neared the shadowy outskirts of London.
Chapter Five
A few nights later, Will sat at the club waiting for Coventry to join him for dinner. Once the new cook arrived, he supposed he might dine at home. Then again, he might not. No club made a better dinner than Boodles; during the war, Will often thought longingly of their mutton chops, which he’d just ordered. Many young men dined at the place every night, including Coventry. Will spotted him now, coming in the door and handing his coat and hat to the servant there.
“Hullo, Will,” he said, pulling up a chair. “Sorry I’m late. This new girl from the workhouse spoiled three of my silk shirts.”
“Well, do not be too hard on her. She probably didn’t encounter many silk shirts in the workhouse.”
“No, I should think not.” Coventry adjusted his cuff-links. “Still, I hope you’re not planning to get us into a fight this evening. Denouncing the Queen and all that. I’d like to keep this shirt from getting ruined.”
“I will endeavor to restrain myself.” Will gestured to the waiter to bring another glass of wine for his friend.
“Are you giving up shaving?” Coventry asked. “Or did you just have a rough night?”
Will touched the few days’ growth on his chin. “I had a beard and moustache in Crimea. I missed it.” Will only shaved it off in the first place because of his meeting with Violet Tudbury. The fact that she preferred a clean-shaven look was no longer of interest to him.
“So, have you seen your family yet?”
“Yes. Father and Stuart are still in the country, but Mother and Katy are in Town.”
The waiter brought the second wine glass, and Coventry poured and took a sip. “I hope it was an amicable reunion.”
“Extremely, since it was just them. The only possible argument might be over how soon I can provide grandchildren.”
Coventry raised an eyebrow. “Is your mother in that much of a hurry to be a grandmother?”
“Good God, yes. She did not broach the subject yesterday, but she mentioned it in her letters often enough while I was away.”
“Indeed? Did she expect you to find a friendly peasant girl over there and set to work?”
“Ha. More along the lines of how she could not wait for me to get back home and start a family. I think she wants to make sure there will still be children around once Katy is grown.”
“Mmm. So are you looking for a bride?”
“Hardly. I’m taking a leaf out of Jack’s book, and taking a mistress.”
Since their first meeting, Will considered perhaps a dozen times to cut things off with Miss Bell. He wanted one thing, and he was not getting it.
But his thoughts always came back to the inevitable conclusion that he wanted to see her again. For so long, his life seemed as colorless, cold and gray as the gruel he’d been served aboard the transport ship. Every time he thought of his upcoming meeting with Genevieve, it seemed that his world had color and flavor again.
He must see her again.
Besides, he’d never been one to back down from a challenge.
“Well well,” Coventry said. “Who might this woman be?”
“You pointed her out the other night. She’d been with that artist fellow, until lately.”
“Micajah Visser’s redheaded friend? What, did they have a falling-out?”
“They did indeed. It was most convenient.”
Coventry inclined his head in a gesture of admiration. “You waste no time, my friend. What part of Town does she live in?”
“Just outside of it. She has a cottage in the country.”
“Charming! And she lives all by herself?”
“Yes, just her and one maid.”
“I always thought of you as more the marrying kind,” Coventry said. “But why not? As long as you’re careful.”
“Of course.”
The day after Genevieve had agreed to a liaison, Will purchased a tin of preventative sheaths, or “French safes” as they were labeled. They were the newer variety, made of Goodyear rubber. Several of his fellow soldiers in Crimea had contracted diseases from the prostitutes there, and the memory of that made Will all the more cautious.
He was not only cautious about disease. To father a child out of wedlock would have been shameful, and he couldn’t imagine how miserable such a situation might be for Miss Bell. He’d heard that women like her had their own ways of preventing pregnancies, but in such a serious matter, Will preferred to be certain.
Of course, given the frustrating nature of their first encounter, he hadn’t needed to concern himself with such things.
He hoped she wouldn’t string things out too long. Didn’t she understand that he hadn’t been with a woman for more than two years?
“Well, here is to new adventures.” Coventry raised the glass toward Will before drinking again. “And doubtless she will be an adventure. Some of the stories I’ve heard about that Pre-Raphaelite set...”
“What kind of stories?”
His friend raised a suggestive eyebrow. “Oh, well, who knows if they’re true. But in any case, I imagine she’ll be quite the original thinker.”
She certainly was original, though not in the way Coventry intended. “From our first conversation, I would say she is definitely that.”
Soon the mutton chops and all their accoutrements arrived, and Coventry filled Will in on the news of the people they knew. The friends were finishing their meal when a stout older man came to their table.
“It’s young Mr. Creighton, is it not?” he said, peering down and adjusting his spectacles on his nose. Will looked up to see Mr. Tudbury, Violet’s father.
Damn it! What if Violet chose to confide in him about the rid
iculous secret engagement? Will disliked to discuss that in front of Coventry. Or discuss it at all, for that matter.
Mr. Tudbury was the last man he wanted to see.
Will stood up and shook the man’s hand. “I am delighted to see you, sir.” Coventry, who knew Mr. Tudbury as a fellow Club member, got to his feet and said good evening as well.
It would have been customary for the older man to say a few words and then go away. But he said nothing, and he did not go away. All Will thought of to say under the circumstances, much as he hated to say it, was, “Won’t you sit down and join us?”
“Thank you, I shall.” The gentleman lowered himself stiffly into the chair, making a harsh sound in the back of his throat as he settled. He fumbled in the pockets of his coat and produced a cigar. “Can I interest either of you fellows in a smoke?”
They declined. “I think I will order us some port, though,” Coventry added politely. “You will want some, won’t you, Mr. Tudbury?”
“Yes, excellent.” The older man lit the cigar, but before he took a puff, he succumbed to a violent bout of coughing and hacking. Will knew he was prone to this.
“Are you all right, sir?” Coventry asked, his expression concerned.
“Yes, yes,” Mr. Tudbury, now red-faced, managed to say. He cleared his throat again and swallowed in a gulp. Then he sucked on the cigar.
“It’s just an affliction I inherited from my father, the coughing that is,” he explained after he exhaled a cloud of pungent smoke. “Smoking’s the only thing that helps it, you know.” He turned to Will and clapped him on the shoulder. “So, how does it feel to be back?”
“Excellent, sir.”
“You seem so much older than I remember! But then, it has been a long time since you were in knee-breeches.” He gave an amused wheeze. “I recall when you were climbing my trees, and you got in trouble for throwing cherries at my Violet. Do you remember that, Willy?”
“Vividly,” Will said. His father had taken him home and horsewhipped him.
“I understand you paid my daughter and her new husband a visit the other day. That was very kind of you.”
Will hesitated. Then he noticed that Coventry watched him as if he sensed Will was reluctant to discuss it.
“Yes,” he said to the lady’s father. “My congratulations on your daughter’s marriage. I’m sure she’ll be very happy.”
“I suppose she might,” Mr. Tudbury muttered. He took off his spectacles and cleaned them with one of the cloth napkins. Will saw for the first time that his eyes were red—either from too much drink or too little sleep, or possibly both.
Coventry smiled wryly. “You sound unconvinced, sir.”
“What’s that?” Mr. Tudbury put his spectacles on again. “Oh, well, he’s not all bad.”
Will wasn’t sorry to hear this less-than-ringing endorsement of Violet’s husband. Still, he wondered why Mr. Tudbury discussed it with him.
“I should not be saying this, maybe, Will, but my wife and I always hoped—” He shook his head and took a swig of port. “Ah, never mind, it’s foolish.”
“No, what is it?” Coventry encouraged him.
“Well, I think we always hoped that Will might marry Violet, to be honest. He’s just the kind of young man I would like to have for a son-in-law, and I don’t mind saying it. Intelligent, strong, sensible...and now a war hero, as well! Fine moral character...would you not say so, Mr. Moore?”
“Oh, yes,” Coventry said, as if he’d not just heard all about Will’s wanton new mistress. “But not so moral as to be dull, mind you.”
“Yes, that’s exactly it! ‘Not so moral as to be dull...’ that’s very well put, Mr. Moore. That is exactly what I mean.”
Now it was clear to Will that Mr. Tudbury was drunk. In a lifetime of knowing his father’s friend, he’d never seen the man have more than a glass or two.
“Yes, Will was always a fine young man...once he outgrew throwing cherries, that is.” The man chuckled and coughed. “I do have my regrets, regarding this fellow with Vy. I know I should not say it, but you gentlemen can keep a confidence, can’t you?”
“Of course,” Coventry said. “We are all friends here.”
“Well, her new husband is not the brightest gas lamp on the square, if you take my meaning. But he is rich, so that’s some consolation. He’s rich beyond belief, to tell the truth.”
“That is certainly a virtue in his favor,” Coventry commented.
“In my daughters’ favor, more like...both of my daughters, I mean. We scarcely settled anything on Violet. Didn’t need to, this fellow didn’t care. So now Daisy will have forty thousand a year, when she marries.”
Good God. Will’s mind went back to his idle thoughts, a few days earlier, of marrying Daisy or some proper girl just like her. Coventry looked surprised, probably both at the sum Mr. Tudbury named, and also at the fact that he’d named it.
“Isn’t she coming out this Season?” Will asked her father. “The poor girl will be hounded to death.”
“Indeed. She already has a couple of enterprising admirers, to tell the truth.”
Will imagined young men paying visits, ostensibly to Mr. and Mrs. Tudbury, in hopes of getting a word or two with the daughter.
“But enough of that,” Mr. Tudbury said. “I did not come over to discuss the likes of them.” He smashed out the last of his cigar. “Willy, Edith and I are wondering when you might like to come to dinner. This Saturday, perhaps? Very informal, don’t you know. Violet and her husband will be entertaining on their own, in Belgrave Square, but Daisy will be there.”
Will remembered again that he might have inadvertently hurt the younger Miss Tudbury’s feelings, the day he called. If he came to dinner, he could make it clear to the girl that he hadn’t meant any offense. Even accepting the invitation would make that plain.
“I should be delighted.”
“Excellent,” Mr. Tudbury rasped, and then succumbed to another convulsion of coughing.
“So shall you be taking up residence in Somerset, after the Season is over?”
“Yes. I may return to London in the autumn, however. To King’s College.”
“Whatever for? You went to Oxford. Surely that is enough learning for any man.”
Will cleared his throat. “I am considering studying to be a physician.”
Mr. Tudbury snorted. “A physician? Why should you want to do such a thing?”
“In the army, I learned they can be very useful.”
Coventry cast a quick glance at Will’s hand.
Mr. Tudbury frowned. “Yes, I suppose I can understand that. And no doubt you shall succeed at whatever you choose to do.”
“Thank you.”
Tudbury rose and took his leave.
“I was afraid he was going to cough up a bit of lung,” Coventry murmured as he watched Mr. Tudbury retreat. He turned back to Will. “A doctor? What does your family say?”
“We will see,” Will said. “They may not like the thought of a Creighton lowering himself to such an occupation.”
Coventry chuckled. “It didn’t scare away Mr. Tudbury.”
“What do you mean?”
“Come now. The way he was courting you, I half expected him to present you with a bouquet of roses.” Coventry leaned back in his chair. “What do you think of the daughter? I have met the older one, of course, but I don’t know that I’ve seen the younger.”
“I don’t know her very well.” Will shrugged. “She must be more than ten years younger than me.” He didn’t suppose she could be older than eighteen. “But she is pretty enough. And she always seemed sweet.”
“And wealthy as the Queen of Sheba. You could do worse, old boy, if you did have a mind to marry.”
Will knew he could hardly do better. And if it happened that he married Daisy, her older sister Violet would feel awkward, dozens of gentlemen would feel jealous, and Will’s mother would feel ecstatic.
But he suspected he would feel nothing.
> “Of course I shall marry, sooner or later,” was all he said.
“If you want to marry that one, it may have to be sooner. Unless she wants to, she won’t stay on the market for long.”
Will was sure he was right. But he didn’t like the idea of cutting short his liaison with Genevieve. He looked forward to enjoying her bed...or wherever she preferred to carry out her mistressly duties.
And he looked forward to talking to her again.
“As I say, Miss Tudbury and I scarcely know each other.” Will finished the last of his port and pushed the glass away. “I’m not even sure what we’ll discuss at this dinner.”
“Well, I should avoid discussing this new mistress of yours,” Coventry advised drolly. “Other than that, I’m sure any topic will do.”
****
Throughout the next few days, Genevieve remained amazed at how things had gone with Will Creighton.
When he strode into her parlor that evening, impeccably dressed, imposing, her nerve almost failed her. This man was no one’s fool, to fall for a ruse or for rules.
But she’d found the courage to carry out the charade, and he agreed to her strictures about taking things slowly. He’d been willing to follow her lead.
The most absurd thing about it, of course, was that Will Creighton seemed the last man on earth who needed instruction. Even his first kiss overwhelmed her senses. His heated caresses, his passionate assault, made her tremble with an eagerness that shocked her.
She of all people should know better than to be taken in by such things. Had she learned nothing from her disastrous interlude with Adam?
But had that been the same thing? Even as an eighteen-year-old, besotted with her first painting teacher, she’d not felt anything quite so...visceral.
Genevieve came to Adam’s class believing fiercely in her own natural talents, feeling as though all kinds of rich possibilities lay ahead.
Adam was the image of what she herself wanted to be. He’d already achieved some success as a painter, and sounded so authoritative when he talked about Art. She was thrilled when he took a particular interest in her progress. Even more impressively, he’d introduced her to a few of the most notable painters in England, men whose work she idolized. Genevieve felt certain that as long as she was with Adam, she’d learn how to be a real artist.