by Eloisa James
“Could we not continue living as we are?”
“Oh no,” Miles said, with a firmer tone than she’d ever heard from him. “I would have to live in the house and set a good example.” He hesitated. “We will both have to be a good bit more discreet. It wouldn’t be right for the child.”
Esme had never been one to overlook the absurd, and she could certainly see it in this conversation. “Perhaps if we maintain the lease in Porter Square, you could, ah, visit Lady Childe there. At the same time that you were setting a good example at home.”
“It would be a delicate situation. She’s a wonderful woman, Lady Childe. In truth, she’s changed my life. I’m never late—never late anywhere. Why, I actually gave a speech in Parliament last year! She wrote it, of course. So I’ll have to bring up the subject gently.” He unthinkingly clutched Gina’s hand so hard that it began to ache.
“I am certain that Lady Childe will be understanding,” she said. “She has children of her own, and she must know how important this is to you.”
“Even if she throws me over, it would be nothing compared to the happiness of starting a family,” Miles said.
“My goodness.” Esme looked more closely at her spouse. “I had no idea that you were so attached to the idea of reproducing yourself.”
“When we first married, I didn’t give a hang,” he admitted. “But I’m not getting any younger, my dear, and the idea has grown on me. There was nothing I could do about it.” He swooped and suddenly kissed her cheek. “This means the world to me.”
Smiling into his beaming eyes, Esme could see her future changing. No longer a scandalous married woman, she was about to become domesticated, even matronly. She would live with her husband and set a good example, whatever that entailed. Unfortunately, she was not greatly enamored of principled activities.
“Shall we say, in two days?” Miles was asking.
For a moment, Esme had no idea what he was talking about.
“That will give me ample time to discuss the situation with Lady Childe.”
She finally caught his meaning. Apparently domestic life would begin directly after Lady Childe had (presumably) given her approval.
“You’re a good person, Miles,” she said. “It is honorable of you to be so forthright with Lady Childe.”
Miles turned the ripe color of an embarrassed Englishman, and mumbled something. Esme let her eyes drift down the long table.
Sebastian was seated next to his betrothed, of course. Gina was laughing delightedly.
And Sebastian…just for a moment, she gave herself the luxury of looking at him. He was bending his head to listen to something Gina was saying. His hair gleamed in the light of the candelabra.
Her heart thumped unhappily.
She sighed and looked up to find Miles watching her with a look of distress.
“I’m very sorry, my dear,” he said quietly.
She hated it that Miles was not only extraordinarily nice but also perceptive. Far too perceptive for a man.
She managed a weak smile.
“You’re a good woman,” he said. “And don’t think I don’t know it.”
She chuckled at that. “I doubt anyone at this table would agree with you.”
“They would be wrong,” he said. He smiled once again, and turned to his neglected dinner companion to the right.
Esme turned to Bernie. But even Bernie’s shoulders held no appeal. Moreover, he was beginning to take on a beaten, petulant air that indicated that she would have to give him his walking papers.
“How was the hunting today?” she said, shaping her lips into a smile.
As she listened to the demise of three grouse, a game hen, and two rabbits, Esme tried to imagine herself in bed with Miles. Impossible. It was literally impossible to imagine. Even ten years ago, they had hardly slept together after the first few weeks of marriage. What had her impulsiveness led to?
But the truth was nestled in her heart. She wanted a baby more than she wished to continue being the scandalous Esme Rawlings. She wanted a baby to nuzzle and hold and cuddle and kiss. She was tired of muscular arms and seductive glances.
The truth was that she would exchange them all for a sweetly fuzzy head. Thinking about it, she smiled at Bernie in such a way that he forgot his newfound belief that Lady Rawlings was merely toying with him.
“I say!” he said, pressing her hand.
Esme winced. That hand had just been crushed by her husband.
“May I have the first dance this evening?”
A fleeting image shot through her head of the last time she and Miles had danced together. He had floundered about the dance floor like a dying fish. She turned her mind away from the obvious parallel.
“I would be pleased to dance with you. The second dance as well, if you wish.”
Bernie glowed. He’d had the idea lately that Lady Rawlings was too much of a high-stepper for him. Obviously he had been wrong.
22
Lady Helene, Countess Godwin, Escapes an Unpleasant Experience in the City
Carola Perwinkle was beside herself with a combination of nervousness and joy. “I think the plan is working. I believe—he kissed me.” She stopped for a moment. “Isn’t that wonderful, Esme? Isn’t that simply wonderful?”
Esme pretended that she was too busy adjusting a pincurl to turn around. They had retreated to the ladies’ dressing room. She had her hair up à la grecque again, and her toque had a lamentable way of lurching to the side. “It is, darling,” she said, injecting warmth into her voice. “I’m so happy that Tuppy is seeing the light.”
“Perhaps he’ll kiss me again during the evening.” Carola smoothed the front of her straw-colored crepe ball gown. “I wasn’t going to wear this because it’s so low around the bosom, but then I remembered—” She was interrupted by the door opening.
Esme turned around and a genuine smile broke out on her face. “Helene, love, what a pleasure to see you! I had no idea that you were planning on making us a visit.”
The Countess Godwin had sleek blond hair caught up in a complicated arrangement on her head. She was tall and slender, with cheekbones so prominent that she gave the impression of being too thin for perfect health. “Good evening, Esme. And what a pleasure to see you, Carola!”
Carola rushed over like a kitten, words tumbling over each other.
Helene relaxed into a chair, laughing at Carola’s exuberance. “Let me get this straight,” she said. “You have decided that you want your husband back, for goodness knows what reason, and our own Esme has given you such excellent advice that the poor man is beside himself with lust after one fishing excursion. I hope that rain is not forecast for tomorrow. It would put such a damper on this budding affection.”
“Rain calls fish to the surface,” Carola said, grinning. “I’m quite the expert.”
“What a lovely image,” Helene replied. “You and Tuppy shivering on the riverbank while you exchange heated glances in the rain. Even the thought makes me glad not to be a fisherman.”
Carola broke into a peal of laughter. “Oh, Helene, one cannot imagine you on a riverbank at all. You are far too elegant!”
“Thank goodness,” she replied, turning to Esme. “Well, how is our local heartbreaker? Is Dudley as luscious as you said in your letter?”
“Not Dudley, Bernie. And yes, he is luscious. But as a matter of fact, to use a piscine reference, I am about to throw him back into the sea.”
Carola had bent over the dressing table to tuck in an errant curl, but she turned around at that. “You are? But I thought”—she smiled mischievously—“that you hadn’t quite reeled him in yet.”
Esme wrinkled her nose. “Enough, pipsqueak.” She shrugged. “I’m borrowing a leaf from your book, Carola. I’m taking my husband back.”
Carola gasped. “Miles! You’re taking back Miles!”
“He’s my only husband to date.”
Helene didn’t say anything, but her eyes narrowed.
�
��I want a child. And Miles is the obvious man to fulfill that desire.” There was no point in dressing up the truth, at least not in front of her friends.
Carola sank into a chair, dismay written on her face.
Esme almost laughed. “You both look as if I had announced a funeral.”
“Won’t you miss Bernie?” Carola asked.
Esme shook her head. “Absolutely not.”
“That is quite a sacrifice,” Helene said, watching her.
“I want a baby rather terribly,” Esme replied. “It’s grown so that I don’t care very much about Bernie, or his muscles, or indeed any man’s muscles. I just want a baby.”
Helene nodded. “I know what you mean.”
“I don’t!” Carola said. “I don’t think that Esme should reconcile with Miles—I mean, Miles! He’s run to fat. And he’s slaveringly attached to Lady Childe.”
“Not anymore,” Esme said, with a gleam of amusement in her eyes.
“He threw her over for you?” Carola exclaimed.
“There’s no need to sound so surprised,” Helene said with a gurgle of laughter. “Miles would be lucky to come within ten feet of his wife, and I’m certain he knows it.”
“Miles is a nice man,” Esme said. “A very kind man. He genuinely loves Lady Childe. But he wants an heir.”
“Well, it’s true that I’ve never known you not to win any man you desired, Esme,” Carola said. “It’s just such a shock to think of you with Miles. Goodness’ sakes! He doesn’t compare to Bernie, does he?”
Esme picked up her fan from the dressing table and waved it before her face. “I haven’t the faintest idea what can be found in Bernie’s head: whatever it is, there aren’t many brains to challenge it.”
“Still, what a change this will be. Here I am, reconciling with Tuppy—or I hope to, at least. And Gina is about to marry her marquess—”
“Perhaps,” Esme interjected.
Helene raised an eyebrow, but Carola kept going. “And you are going to have a child with Miles. Are you planning to live with him?”
“Yes. He thinks it would be best for the child. And I believe I agree with him,” Esme said with an air of surprise.
“How odd,” Carola exclaimed. “There will be three of us actually living with our husbands. No longer the most scandalous set in the ton, by any means.”
“I shall have to hold up the torch for the rest of you,” Helene put in.
Carola grinned. “Oh, Helene! You are the antithesis of scandalous.”
“I am not,” she said with faint indignation. “After all, I don’t live with my husband, and since I couldn’t contemplate lying next to him unless we were both in a tomb, I won’t be joining the three of you on your merry, married adventures.”
Esme gave a wry smile. “You think I’m making a devil’s bargain, do you?”
“No, I don’t,” Helene said. “I would love to have a child. And if my husband were even half as respectable and kindly as yours, I would break down his door demanding my marital rights. But as it is—”
“Why did you join us here?” Esme asked, carefully not looking at her friend, but instead watching the lazy sway of her fan. “I thought you were determined to stay in London for the month.”
There was a moment’s pause.
“He attended the opera last night,” Helene said. “With his young woman in tow.”
Carola gave a squeak of disapproval. “That dissipated, degenerate—”
“—debaucher,” Esme chimed in.
“I was going to say bounder,” Carola said with dignity.
“You could say dog,” Esme added.
“Or dastard,” Helene put in.
“Lord Godwin is a pig! I can’t believe he brought that trollop to the opera. Don’t tell me they entered the box!” Carola’s eyes grew round at the thought.
Helene sat with her back perfectly straight, a posture normal to her. But her chin rose just a fraction of an inch in the air. “They did.”
“Oh my goodness!” Carola cried.
Esme snapped her fan shut. “Dastard is too good for him.”
“I was seated with Major Kersting,” Helene said. “It was a difficult moment.”
“It must have been horrible,” Carola said. She pressed Helene’s hand.
“I wouldn’t describe it as horrible. But it was difficult.”
Esme grimaced at her. “Cut rope, Helene! Difficult? It sounds hellish to me!”
A smile curled the edge of Helene’s lips. “Major Kersting was a support to me.”
Esme snorted. “About all he could be, the old stick. I can’t understand why you like going about with him.”
“He knows his music,” she replied. “And he has no interest in making advances.”
“I should say not!” Esme says. “Why everyone knows that—” She broke off.
“Knows what?” Carola asked. “I never heard it rumored that Major Kersting was enamored of any particular woman.”
“He isn’t,” Esme replied. “That’s the point, Carola. He prefers male companionship.”
“Oh!” When Carola was shocked, her eyes grew as round as a baby’s, and she looked even more cherubic than ever.
“He’s a dear man,” Helene said, with a hint of sharpness in her tone.
“I didn’t mean to disparage one of your entourage,” Esme remarked. “I like Kersting, for all his primness.”
“At any rate,” Helene continued, “Major Kersting was very helpful. He talked…talked to her until the theater was darkened, and then we left, of course.”
Esme opened her fan again. “I don’t see why your husband takes such great delight in tormenting you. Isn’t it enough that he moved the woman into your house?”
“I expect he didn’t consider whether I would be there. He simply wanted to introduce the girl to Cosi Fan Tutte. He says she has a voice.”
“Oh, I’m sure!” Esme said in a tone of pure disgust. “A voice that she—”
“I have come to the conclusion that she is not to blame for her situation. I had the sense that she was only fourteen or fifteen. She spoke in an extremely youthful fashion.”
“Fourteen! Your husband is disgusting!” Carola squealed.
Esme threw her a quelling look. “That has been an accepted fact since Godwin invited his youthful trollop into the house. There’s no need to reiterate it.”
“I would antedate general acceptance to the point when he invited three female members of a Russian singing group to live with him,” Helene said thoughtfully. “It was a low moment for the ancestral mansion, or so the servants said. They left in droves and informed most of London of their reasons. That was before you debuted, Carola.”
Esme nodded. “I remember. The girls were dancing naked on the dining room table when the butler walked in. It was just after you left the house, wasn’t it?”
“Oh yes. Perhaps he was lonely,” she said with a touch of irony.
“Not for long!” Esme pointed out.
“I can’t believe you two are funning over this!” Carola said. “Helene’s husband is a disgusting, degenerate—”
“You’re repeating yourself,” Esme put in.
“It’s not a laughing matter! Here’s poor Helene, living in her mother’s house while her husband turns her own house into a bordello.”
“You also live in your mother’s house,” Helene pointed out. “And, happily enough, I like my mother.”
“But Tuppy isn’t running a bordello out of my former bedchamber.”
“Tell me more about Tuppy,” Helene remarked. “I am agog to hear when you decided that you wished to take him back.”
Carola erupted into a tangled speech about dancing and fish, with a few references to brown curls thrown in.
“Perhaps we should repair to the ballroom,” Helene suggested, smiling. “It sounds as if your Tuppy might be pining in your absence.”
Esme fixed Carola with an admonishing look. “You must not make your feelings obvious. It’s a
ll right to crow over it among us, but you must not—must not!—by any gesture or even a blink of the eye, let Tuppy know that you prefer him over Neville.”
“Well,” Carola said, “surely I could just—”
“No,” Esme said. “You may not. Let me put it this way: you must make certain the fish is well up on the bank before you remove the hook.”
“I know,” Carola said, sighing.
23
A Brazen Challenge and an Injured Jawbone
The ballroom was sparsely populated, since only the house party was in attendance. A small orchestra played a waltz at one end. Neville and Carola were soon circling the room, Neville swinging her in great arching circles with his usual flair.
“Lud!” Esme said, looking around. “There are no men tonight. Not that it signifies, given my new marital status.”
Helene was not a demonstrative person, but she gave her friend a fleeting kiss on the cheek. “I would give anything to trade places with you.”
“You would? I never knew you wanted a child!”
“There was no point in airing the subject. My husband and I will never reconcile.”
“And you are not the type of woman to have an illegitimate child.”
“I have considered it.”
“Helene!” This was truly a night for surprises.
“But quickly rejected the idea,” she continued with a fleeting smile. “For one thing, I have no interest in muscled bodies like that of your Bernie. So who would play the role of father?”
“Why don’t you ask Rees for a divorce? The two of you have so much wealth that surely it would be possible.”
“I have thought of that as well,” Helene replied. “But who would I marry? I am not like you, Esme, with hundreds of beaux wilting at your feet. I am a dull person, who only likes music. No man has made me an indecent proposition for years, let alone suggest that I divorce my husband and marry him.”
“Nonsense! You are a beautiful woman, and when you find the right person, he will fall at your feet. You would never wish to marry one of the fools I play with.”
“I wouldn’t mind marrying your Miles,” Helene admitted.