by Hope Tarr
Squalling from the end of the table announced that, so far as the guest of honor was concerned, the evening was at an end. The company set their napkins aside and rose. Hattie collected the cake-encrusted infant and carried her off to bed. The doting parents followed her out, the sleepy-faced dog bringing up the rear, but not before Kate announced they would reconvene shortly for coffee and a very special surprise in the library.
Secretly delighted to be without a chaperone, Ralph offered Beatrice his arm. “Shall we?”
She nodded and laid her smooth hand and slender forearm atop his sleeve. The frisson of awareness that light touch set off was almost alarming.
“Tell me, do I seem dreadfully grown-up to you?” She looked up at him through her lashes, the old shyness spiced with a knowingness that was refreshingly, intriguingly new.
“Dreadfully.” He steered them toward the dining-room door.
Her heeled slippers put them on equal footing, reminding him of all the many advantages being of a like height might bring when seeking to have sex standing. Feeling as though his flesh was afire and his clothes too tight, he led them out into the corridor.
The library was on the same level. They had to cross the minstrel’s gallery to get there. Moving them along at a slow stroll, Ralph pointed out the various improvements made since her last visit, shamelessly angling for more time alone with her.
Halfway through, she stopped and turned to face him. “Ralph?” Her cornflower-blue eyes lifted to his.
His heart skidded to a stop along with his feet. Remembering how her breast had felt, he swallowed hard. “Y-yes?”
One word from her and he’d gladly forgo duty and decency and even his friendship with Rourke. One word was all that kept him from opening one of the doors adjoining the gallery and pulling her within.
“You have a spot of frosting on your cheek. May I?” She moved to the front of him.
Deflated, he nodded. “Yes, thank you.”
She slid the tip of her forefinger into her mouth, whetting the digit. She hesitated and then reached up, swiping at the spot. “Sorry, I don’t have a handkerchief at hand.”
“I don’t mind,” he said. Indeed, had he suspected such a happy outcome, he would have smeared himself with the stuff.
Her upturned face brought their mouths in proximity. Were this another place and time, were they two very different people, he might have happily seized hold of her buttocks, lifted her high against his hips and taken her against Kate’s prized leather wallpaper.
“There, I’ve got it.” She stepped back, licking frosting from her finger and like as not the salt from his skin, too. “Now you’re perfect,” she added, her grave gaze traveling over him and, he fancied, lingering on his lips.
“Thank you…milady.” Even with nine months’ of shored-up fantasies involving every exotic sexual position his mind could fathom, he didn’t forget the gulf in their stations.
She tilted her face to the side, pretending to study the gilt-framed landscape lying just beyond him. “So formal you are, Ralph,” she said, reaching around him and touching the edge of the frame, her loose three-quarter-length sleeve falling back to reveal the shapely arc of a slender, white elbow. “Shall I address you as Mr. Sylvester then?”
He remembered her asking him the same question nine months ago and smiled. “I’d rather you didn’t.” He took a step toward her, his pulse thrumming and his cock brick hard. “It’s one thing for a married matron such as your sister to call me by my surname, but a beautiful unattached young woman doing so would have me feeling old.”
Like a lamp being turned down, the teasing light in her eyes dimmed. She stepped back, spoiling the moment.
“Yes, well, I suppose we should be getting on. Surely Kate and Rourke will have finished tucking Lucy in. I recall Kate telling me earlier about installing a back staircase connecting the nursery directly to the library and Rourke’s study. How extraordinary.”
“We can sometimes hear Lucy’s wails while we’re working,” he admitted, reclaiming her arm.
She brightened marginally. “I think it’s wonderful that Rourke is such an involved father.”
“I suppose,” he said, still too drunk on her scent to give much thought to fatherhood or babies or indeed, anyone but her.
Her face fell. They walked the rest of the way in suddenly awkward silence, Ralph wondering what he might have wrongly said or done.
Reaching the library, he released her with reluctance and stepped back for her to precede him.
“There you are,” Rourke called from the rose marble mantel shelf upon which several silver-framed photographs of Kate and baby Lucy commanded pride of place. “Och, Sylvester, you must have taken the lass the roundabout way.”
“Yes, we thought you two must have gotten lost,” Kate chimed in, sharp-eyed gaze darting between them.
Ralph did indeed feel lost, only not in the way Kate meant. For a handful of magical moments he’d lost himself in Beatrice Lindsey and the foolish fantasy they might somehow find a future together. But Beatrice’s stiffening beside him crushed that fantasy much as her niece had the cake.
“Lady Beatrice was catching me up on London gossip.”
He slanted his gaze to Beatrice, who’d slipped behind the camel-back sofa as though seeking to set some barrier between them.
Her hands plucking at the sofa’s curved back, she sent him a grateful smile. “Were it not for Ralph guiding me, I should have found myself quite lost,” she said brightly, a bit too brightly.
She left the furniture and floated about the room like a fairy, pausing from time to time to remark upon the handsomeness of the recently redone jade-colored walls decorated with white Chippendale scrollwork, the burled walnut Eastlake chimney piece and various other improving features. Nervous as a cat, Ralph thought, again wondering why. As much as he might want to believe he was the cause, he suspected it was another matter entirely.
Hattie entered, followed by a parlor maid in a neat lace-frilled cap, black dress and bibbed apron, the latter bearing a silver tray of champagne flutes. Ignoring the serving girl’s gimlet-eyed gaze—he’d turned her down for sex the other day—Ralph accepted his flute, wondering what more wanted for celebrating. The absentee birthday baby was tucked snugly into her crib, dreaming no doubt of the wondrous new discovery called “cake.” Rourke’s preferred libation was Scotch and no doubt in deference to her not so secret pregnancy, Kate had imbibed only lemon water all night.
Pushing away from the fireplace, Rourke raised his glass. “To our dear sister, Bea, who we are verra pleased to have with us on this happiest of occasions.” He turned to Bea who, along with Kate, had drawn up by his side. “And yet, it’s sad we are to welcome you back only to part with you so soon again.”
Part with you? Was Beatrice about to embark on some sort of journey? There was a great fashion these days for well-bred young women of means to go off on The Orient Express to Istanbul and back. He’d made a wager of sorts on that vogue sometime back, but like the majority of his wagers, it had never come through.
A broad grin split Rourke’s face. Addressing Bea, he said, “Katie only just told me your grand news.”
Foreboding hit Ralph like a fist. What grand news?
“If you and Mister…” Breaking off, Rourke turned to Kate.
“Mr. Billingsby,” she provided, setting her untouched champagne down upon the marble mantel.
“If you and Mr. Billingsby are half as happy as your sister and I, then it’s blissful you’ll be indeed.”
Ralph cinched his fingers about his flute and focused every fiber of his being on not snapping the fragile stemware in two. Around him glasses clinked, stopping in silence at his. Impervious to their stares, he knocked back his flute, emptying it in a single sparkling swallow, too bruised to care how coarse he must seem, too numb to taste the fine French bubbles as anything better than brine.
Saluting Beatrice with his empty glass, he asked, “When does the happy event take pla
ce, milady?”
She bit at her bottom lip but didn’t answer. No matter. She was as good as gone. For the second time in his life, a woman he loved was walking away from him. At least his mother had looked back. Since her announcement was made, Bea hadn’t bothered to lift her gaze from the floor.
Beaming, Kate answered for her. “In three weeks, our Bea-Bea will walk down the aisle as a bride!”
BACK IN BEA’S BEDCHAMBER later that night a hen party was underway, the festivities fueled by a fresh bottle of champagne of which only Bea and Hattie partook.
“Mr. Sylvester is looking well,” Bea ventured after what she hoped was a respectable interval from the chatter of weddings, honeymoons and babies. Seated on a tufted velvet stool at the mirrored dressing table and wearing a robe and night rail she would shortly shuck off, she stared at her reflection in the gilt-edged mirror, vaguely surprised she didn’t look as devious as she felt.
Head covered in curling papers, Hattie popped up from her perch at the foot of Bea’s bed and reached for the champagne bottle. Plucking it from its bucket of shaved ice, she topped off both their glasses. “Sinful handsome, you mean, and the pity is he knows it.”
Kate, likewise dressed for bed, picked up the chased silver brush and moved to stand behind Bea. Leaning back into the brushstrokes, Bea willed herself to relax. “Do you find him conceited, then?” she asked, heartily hoping their answer would be no.
Barring the few words they’d exchanged at supper and on their way to the library, she hadn’t spoken to Ralph Sylvester in nine months. Still, that he might be lording his looks over Hattie and the other female householders would disappoint her sorely. Nine months ago, he’d been the sole person in whom she’d felt she could confide her troubles.
She consoled herself that she’d done a great deal of growing up this past year. Casting aside her girlish, romantic-novel-inspired fantasies and accepting stolid Mr. Billingsby’s suit seemed proof she must be finding her adult footing at last. She’d circulated in society sufficiently to know that a gentleman’s swagger and dash often masked a host of sins. She didn’t want to end up as her mother had, leg-shackled for life to a drunkard and a gamester and a womanizer, no matter how fair his face. In the several years over which she’d had copious occasions to observe him, she’d never once seen her fiancé drink to excess or wager beyond what was fashionable. Her intended didn’t possess so much as a single cruel or rakish bone in the whole of his pallid, spongy body. That she would never be the Guinevere to his Lancelot, the Juliet to his Romeo, or the Elizabeth Bennett to his Mr. Darcy did indeed produce the occasional pang but alas, such was the price of security. Mr. Billingsby might stand out as the very antithesis of a romantic hero, but he was also a solid, buffering bulwark to which she might moor herself against the turbulent winds of time.
Still, must the sex be so bloody bad!
It wasn’t lust but pure practicality that had driven her to test the conjugal waters with her intended. Despite what ladies like her were brought up to believe, from dressing room gossip and her own exploratory readings, she’d become convinced that sex was the glue that held most marriages together. And so a fortnight before, she’d cajoled Mr. Billingsby into veering his brougham off the main road where he’d brought it to a jolting halt behind the hedgerows. Carefully choreographing had her guiding his fumbling fingers to loosen her bodice and then to press her back against the carriage seats. Chilled and chafing, her “sexual awakening” at his hands—his trembling, fumbling, sweaty-palmed hands—stood out as one of the most dispiriting moments of her life.
It likely hadn’t helped matters that she’d thought of Ralph Sylvester the entire time.
The mental picture of how he’d looked that night strolling into dinner, dapper in a black coat, black waistcoat, and starched white necktie secured with a gold fox-head pin, still had her fighting for breath. Her nine-month-old memory had not done proper justice to the chiseled perfection of his unfashionably clean-shaven features, the gleam in his hazel eyes, or the glint of his sandy-colored hair, which he wore longish and without whiskers.
To her secret shame, she’d spent many a night lying abed on her back, thighs splayed and hips lifting, sifting her fingers through those wavy locks in her mind. Even more lascivious imaginings had followed—Ralph’s slender but broad-backed body pressing hers into the mattress in the most delicious of ways, his lips lingering on hers, on the hollow of her throat, and then lower, the bliss of having her damp, straining flesh explored by his elegant hands, hands that would feel neither fishy nor fumbling, but stalwart and knowing and sensitive to her every secret desire and forbidden want.
Unlike Mr. Billingsby, Ralph would not fumble. He would not sweat. He would not climax with one great porcine grunt and then collapse into a boneless heap atop her. Unschooled though she was, she was sure of those things and more. Like the romantic heroes of the “penny dreadfuls” she’d been devouring for a decade, Ralph would be a magnificent lover, an expert tutor in the loving arts.
And a tutor was precisely what Bea needed!
The wretched episode with Mr. Billingsby had made it plain that one of them had best know what he—or rather, she—was about. The blind could not very well be expected to lead the blind. As badly as Mr. Billingsby had bungled the business of bedding, in fairness Bea hadn’t the foggiest notion of how to set any subsequent encounter right.
Who better to step into the role of her tutor than Ralph? With Ralph she wouldn’t have to feign attraction. She was attracted, abundantly so. In keeping her secret about Haversham, he had proven himself to be both discreet and her friend. As Kate had pointed out nine months before, he was not the marrying sort, which made him perfect for her plan. All she need do was persuade him to agree.
“Bea-Bea, are you quite all right?” Kate’s voice broke in on her musings. “You look flushed.” Reaching around, Kate laid the back of her hand upon Bea’s brow as she’d used to do when Bea was little.
“Almost feverish,” Hattie agreed. The pair exchanged looks of concern.
Exasperated, Bea broke in. “Will you two please stop fussing? I’m not feverish and I’m not a child.”
“’Tis a bride’s natural nerves.” Hattie eyed Bea’s half-empty glass. “More champers, ducks?”
“No, thank you.” Bea pushed her flute out of reach, fearful of imbibing too much for all that she was on her third glass and still sober as a judge.
Her nervousness more befitted a bride on her wedding night than a fallen woman about to fall even further. Still, it wouldn’t do for her to arrive at Ralph’s rooms drunk or to otherwise act the slattern. The success of her plan hinged on holding his interest, if not for the whole night, then certainly for several successive hours, long enough to learn what lessons he had to teach.
Hattie shrugged and sloshed more champagne into her own glass. “What were we talking of?”
“Ralph,” Bea put in, hoping she didn’t seem over-eager.
“Oh, right,” Hattie said, slurping more of the champagne. “Half the housemaids fancy themselves in love with him. Just last month he had me move him to the west tower’s turret chamber. Said he fancied his privacy and left it at that, but for sure ’twas so the housemaids would cease bothering him nights.” A hiccup echoed the pronouncement.
The west tower! The turret room! This was success beyond Bea’s wildest hopes and yet she couldn’t help feeling a bit sick inside.
“Are you saying women present themselves at his bedchamber door?” she asked, fighting her admittedly irrational jealousy.
Alas, so much for her knight in shining armor. But then, the Ralph she’d once fancied herself to be in love with wasn’t real, was he?
Hattie shrugged. “A few swigs of gin will send a randy girl tripping down a hallway but a trek to the west wing and then a climb up a creaky flight of stairs is best left to the bold. Wherever he takes his pleasure, he doesn’t take it here. Were he diddling one of the housemaids, mark me, I would know it.”
; Relief washed over Bea. Ralph might not be a knight or prince precisely, but at least he didn’t go about “diddling” housemaids or tossing up the skirts of any Jane or Jenny who popped into his path.
Her respect for him renewed, she thought back to how quiet he’d seemed at supper, not at all the jovial Ralph of her memory. “It must be hard sometimes.”
“What must be, dear?” Kate asked.
The question took Bea aback, for she hadn’t meant to say her musing aloud. Even so, she was moved to make an honest answer. “Not knowing one’s place in life.” Despite the difference in their stations, she fancied she understood at least a little of how Ralph must feel.
Hattie snorted. “I’d say he has a rather cushy life all in all. A roof over his head, three meals a day and a salary that’s generous by anyone’s standards aren’t trifles to be sneezed at. Really, what more is there to want?”
Love, Bea thought, suppressing a sigh. Big, gorgeous, over-the-moon love.
“For all we know, he has a secret sweetheart to whom he’s remaining true,” she added, falling back into her fantasies yet again.
Nine months ago, Kate had warned her that Ralph ate “little girls” like her for breakfast. She hadn’t believed her sister at the time, but nine months’ wiser, she did now. Ralph was a lone wolf, an alpha male. Men such as he made for glorious lovers and inglorious husbands. Giving Ralph her body for the purpose of gaining the sexual knowledge to make a success of her marriage was one thing, but she must take the greatest care to hold back from also giving him her heart. Yes, her heart was the one part of her he absolutely could not touch.
Kate’s pointed gaze found hers in the mirror. “Bea-Bea, what a child you yet are,” her sister said. “It’s endearing, this naiveté of yours and yet it has me fearing for your future. Marriage, even a love match, is best entered into with eyes wide-open.”