Responding automatically now, his body doing what he’d trained it to for more years than he could count, his thoughts flitted back to dinner last night, to Elizabeth’s startling observation during the second course…
“So tell me, brother dear, what’s put that smile on your face?”
Wylde cleared his throat. “I’m wondering who put the gouges in his neck.”
Rather than sputter or blush prettily, as she would have in the past, his sister gave him a frank look, one of curious appraisal. “I believe Wylde has the right of it.” Though he still sensed a definite air of reserve about her, she left off frowning at his neck and glanced at her husband as though seeking his advice. All evening, Daniel had sensed a new awareness between them. “What think you? Could it be the same person who did both?”
Wylde grinned like a court jester. “Aye. Most definitely. Tremayne—care to enlighten us as to her identity?”
“I would not.” And though it galled him to be the source of amusement for anyone, he could withstand the discomfort given how his predicament seemed to bridge a bond—however tenuous—between Ellie and her husband.
“It matters not who she is,” Elizabeth said warmly. “If she makes you this content, I like her already.”
Content? Was that the strange emotion besieging him since yesterday? Contentment? Nay, for it didn’t come close to conveying the hunger he felt to be in Thea’s company again—and he’d just left her—“their”—mirrored bed an hour ago!
“Daniel,” Elizabeth’s enthusiasm arrested his attention, “shall I apply myself to conjuring you a happy ending with this mystery woman?”
Wylde gestured with his fork and his voice held a bit of a bite. “Before you go spreading herbs and blessings to all and sundry, best conjure up one for yourself, wouldn’t you think?”
“Wylde!” A sharp tide of crimson swept up Ellie’s neck.
He stared at them both. Wylde appeared indolent, relaxed yet alert, his concentration fixed solely on his wife. Elizabeth was ill at ease. Not mad exactly but definitely irritated about something.
Daniel unglued his back teeth. (Easier to snarl that way.) “What the d-d-deuce is”—going—“on?”
“What’s wrong with us?” Ellie interpreted incorrectly. But the gist was the same.
“Eh.” A single-syllable grunt that didn’t come close to expressing his worry and concern.
Ellie waved her napkin (probably hoping to cool her face off). “Nothing a little time won’t cure, dear brother.”
He didn’t believe that for a moment.
Wylde put in wryly, “Nothing a few good tuppings won’t fix.”
Now that, Daniel believed.
But the way Ellie was strangling on her last breath told Daniel he’d best lighten the mood. So he twisted his lips into a semblance of a smile. “Pr-pr-pr—” Deep breath, think it out. Quickly now. Problem? Nay, already tripped over that one. Trouble? Difficulty? Nay. Nay. Bad time? Nay times infinity! Shit.
So he barked, “Things not flowing ’tween the sheets, that it?”
“Daniel!” Elizabeth shot a panicked glance behind him.
He looked over his shoulder and saw the footman, eyes deliberately averted.
Damn. “My ap-p-ologies.”
As though it didn’t matter whether everyone was privy to the situation between him and his wife, Wylde lounged back in his chair. He took up his wineglass, letting it sway from a loose hold, giving the appearance of a man without a care in the world. “If you must know, old chap, the problem isn’t what happens between the sheets, it’s getting her there: between them.”
With a cry, Ellie jumped to her feet, outrage and embarrassment mingled in her expression before she fled, leaving Wylde to plead his passion for all things political, the servants to clear the table around them (neither gentleman being inclined to move, the wine within easy reach and relocating elsewhere an unnecessary effort).
Leaving Daniel to worry over the affairs of men and women—did the course ever run smooth? But mostly leaving him to nod and pretend to be listening to Wylde’s natterings while instead, he was thinking of Thea. Imagining the following day when they’d again carry on their budding flirtation, thanks to her bewitched quill and his bemused footman…
Boom! Ker-thump!
Pain exploded behind his cheekbone.
Everson put out a hand to steady him.
Daniel blinked. Damn. That’d been the hardest one yet—what he got for woolgathering.
“I’m think…ing,” Everson panted, “that’s…enough for…one day.”
Daniel slung an arm around the other man’s solid shoulders. The gesture was one of friendship; in truth, he was still seeing stars and didn’t want to land on his face this close to exiting the ring.
The men made their way to a corner and toweled off. Still standing, Daniel addressed his companion, who’d sunk wearily onto a bench. “Everson?”
Everson looked up from where he unwound the wrapping on his left hand, fingers flexing with each freeing revolution. “Aye?”
Daniel opened his mouth to apologize. To confess how rudely he’d treated—
But no. Wasn’t that the coward’s way out?
It was the man’s son he owed an apology to. “Would like…to call. Is t-t—” He scrubbed the damp towel over his throbbing face to muffle the words. “’Omorrow a’reeable?”
“Call? At my home, my lord?” He’d obviously flustered Everson. They’d known each other for years and had never once socialized outside of Jackson’s or during a rare sit-down over brandy at their club.
Daniel quit hiding his mouth and tossed the towel to an empty spot on the bench. He nodded once. Tried not to look intimidating. Wasn’t sure whether either of them could accomplish that feat—they both sported the beginnings of bruises—and where Everson had landed that last hit, Daniel felt the skin below his right eye pulling tight as it swelled; the rest of him felt like he’d been dragged over rocks.
Despite his surprise, Everson grinned. “Certainly you can, Lord Tremayne. The household comes alive early, so anytime after nine?”
As always, Daniel felt the stiff formality that surrounded him. He wanted to ask the man to dispense with his title, to call him by his first name. Or skip the honorary and use “Tremayne”. But habit kept him silent. His name was the absolute worst. Couldn’t pronounce it once without mangling the bloody hell out of it. So he settled for, “Eleven?”
“Fine. Fine.” Everson shrugged into his shirt, only wincing once before emerging from the neckline. “You’re, ah, not planning on having another go at me for that last punisher?”
That brought a smile. “Hardly.”
Unwilling to linger now that he’d accomplished the first step of the objective that had been weighing on him, Daniel quickly drew on his street clothes and pulled on his boots. Before parting ways with Everson, he glanced across the bench. Waiting until the man glanced up, he said deliberately, “Have your…boy…Tom there.”
“Thomas?” Everson reared back as though struck, his eyebrows soaring. “I didn’t know you’d met my youngest…”
But by now, Everson was talking to air.
It was sheer luck that brought Thea into safety and the comfort of Sarah’s carriage. Well, luck and Thea’s lack of a cloak.
“I still cannot believe I saw you!” Sarah exclaimed, using her warming blanket to blot water from Thea’s head.
Moments earlier (as Sarah explained the second she hauled Thea inside), she’d spotted a woman who had taken refuge from the rain, hunched and shivering in the doorway of a closed haberdashery. Recognizing her friend, she’d screeched at her driver to halt and had the carriage door open before the wheels stopped turning. “For once you can thank that dress of yours. Even wet that atrocious color is unmistakable.”
“Unmistakably ugly?” The words came out near frozen, but inside, the chill of fear that had gripped Thea the last two hours was rapidly giving way to peace. It would be all right now. “Th-thank heav
ens for friends who love to shop!”
Sarah tried to frown but it came out upside down. “How you can jest when your hands feel like blocks of ice, I’ll never know.” Sarah transferred her attention to chafing Thea’s palms. “Gloves, child! How you could go off without those too is beyond me!”
She hadn’t. Thea had (stupidly, she realized after the fact) traded them to a street urchin who swore she knew the way to Hatchards, only to lead Thea a merry chase down several streets—ones without a bookstore in sight—before disappearing.
Thea opened her mouth to apologize, for she truly regretted the loss of the beautiful gloves her friend had given her, but snapped it shut when Sarah started up again.
“Why you won’t take the cloak and dresses I’ve offered…” Now that Thea’s fingers were flushed a nice tomato color—and stinging like the devil—Sarah took to bundling her in another blanket. “Offered time and again!”
A few months into their friendship, Sarah had positively insisted Thea take a couple of her dresses once she’d realized how sparse Thea’s wardrobe. Thea promptly insisted Sarah take them back. When one eked out an existence in the dingy slums of London, one did not arrive home wearing fine quality silk and fur. Not and live to wear the wares.
“’Tis of no matter. Truly, I’m fine. Thanks to your timely rescue,” she said and her teeth hardly clattered at all. “Just so relieved to see you.”
“You can thank a carriage mishap two streets over. I was heading home but we had to detour through here—what ever are you doing?”
Thea had emerged from the blanket and pushed open a window to view the soggy sight of decent homes rolling by. Shielding the stray but determined raindrops with one arm, she kept her gaze on the houses while explaining, “Looking for my home. Have you any notion where I live—the townhouse I mean? The one Lord Tremayne secured?”
When no answer was forthcoming, she glanced back at Sarah.
For a moment, her friend gaped like a caught carp. “You mean you don’t?”
Wet hair streamed in front of her left eye. Thea blinked and hooked the soggy strands behind her ear. “Not the address, precisely. I’ve been there since the night of your party. I just left today for the first time but failed to note the street and number. Reckless of me, I know…”
Laughter at her own folly, and because she couldn’t help but smile as she recounted the last two days, Thea shared much about her time since leaving with Lord Tremayne (but certainly not everything; some intimate memories—and mirrored reflections—were best kept to oneself).
She also shared the last few bites of George and Charlotte’s cheese.
“I cannot believe you meant to waste this quality Stilton on two rodents,” Sarah said, a true grin on her features. “Especially after how hard you worked to rid yourself of them.”
“Not them, specifically, just their offspring and aunts and uncles—”
“Enough!” Sarah held out a hand, choking a bit as the last laugh—and piece of cheese—went down the wrong pipe. “Shall I be practical? It seems as though one of us must and due to your mouse mania, the task turns to me. I could bring you home with me, see you dry and warm in a trice, but based on how you’ve practically fallen through the window twice—”
“I have not!”
“Searching for a landmark, I think I’d serve you best by helping you find your street. Come, tell me what you remember. When you left the party, which way did you travel?”
And so, after ferreting out a few facts and knowing Lord Tremayne wasn’t one to scrimp, Sarah proclaimed, “If I’m not mistaken, that townhouse with the overdone Grecian garden you described belongs to Dunlavy’s mistress. It was in Belgrave Square. I’ll have Peter drive around that way and you can tell me if anything strikes a chord.”
The clouds had parted, letting in a few, nearly horizontal weak shafts of sunlight and Thea eagerly agreed.
“But I warn you,” Sarah cautioned, “it’ll be full dark in less than an hour.”
Ever pragmatic, she acknowledged the time. “I know full well the futility of keeping you and your coachman out much longer. If we have to, you could write to Lord Penry and he could fetch Lord Tremayne—”
Sarah was laughing again. “Penry fetch Tremayne? Which means you have not his address either?”
“Guilty.” A flood of heat washed over Thea. “There’s more to this mistress business than I bargained for, I admit. I—”
“Tell me of that,” Sarah interrupted with an air of urgency. “You spoke of Buttons and the Samuels and delicious meals, but what of Tremayne? Was he gentle with you? Patient?”
“More than necessary, in truth. Why?” Every moisture-laden particle of air settled heavily on her lungs. At once, the confines of the carriage combined with the sudden suspicion and her soggy self had Thea suffocating under her uncomfortable garments. “Did you have anything to do with that?”
“Me? Perish the thought. Now tell me how he’s been treating you. Are the two of you getting on?”
Just like that, as though her fairy godmother had waved a wand, the air shimmered and sparkled with all the excitement Thea couldn’t contain. “Positively lovely! Oh, Sarah, he’s everything I could have hoped for. Considerate and kind—and how he makes me laugh. He possesses a wicked sense of humor.”
“Tremayne?” Sarah sounded intrigued. “I know he can bite off a pithy remark on occasion, but I’ve never thought of him as a mirthful man.”
“With me he is. I believe I make him laugh as well; we’re well matched in that regard.” She thought of their ribald Shakespearian exchange the day before and didn’t attempt to subdue her own smile. “And the home he procured for me? It’s the grandest place I’ve ever lived. All gold brocade and crimson velvet and giant—”
Mirrors. Which Thea swallowed at the last second. “To be sure, I find Lord Tremayne thoughtful and generous and his inexpressibles you mentioned—” She heard herself prattling on but couldn’t seem to stop, not even when venturing toward such an inappropriate subject. “Well, I needn’t expound upon how happy he makes me in that regard.”
Granted, she’d yet to actually experience the full measure of his “inexpressible”, but she had no doubt when the time came (which she assumed would be soon—tonight?) that the particular encounter and resulting sensations would rival what he blessed her with the night before.
Instead of being delighted at Thea’s good fortune, Sarah only eyed her critically. A look of censure—or was it resignation?—found its way to her friend’s expression. “It’s only been, what? Two nights? And you’re waxing on as if you’ve fallen— Nay. I won’t tread that path. But, Dorothea, mind, don’t lose your heart to him.”
She waved the concern away. “Of course not! We’ve only just met.”
But was he married? She opened her mouth to ask but Sarah cut her off. “Heed me well, dear. Take joy in your new circumstance and pleasure in his company, but don’t mistake your interactions for anything more than what they are: he’s paying for your services. It’s naught but a business transaction, though I admit, a singularly intimate one.” Avoiding Thea’s gaze, Sarah spread out one gloved hand and began straightening the soft leather where it stretched over every fingertip. “We can delude ourselves and paint it up pretty as a tulip but it doesn’t change the facts—women who are paid for sex are, at heart, nothing more than whor—”
“Don’t say it! Really, Sarah,” Thea remonstrated, more than a little astonished at hearing her friend speak thusly. “At heart, I was a woman in need and his money has provided for those needs. ’Tis all.”
“Well, make sure you don’t lose yours.”
“Of course not,” she said again, turning once more to gaze out the window. “I know better.”
Oh, but hearts to Hertfordshire, she was playing herself for a fool if she truly believed that.
Yet again Lord Tremayne came to her rescue. For not five minutes, and at least fifty unspoken self-recriminations later, she spotted not her new townhouse
exactly, but the man who’d leased it for her.
“There he is!” she said urgently, so relieved every concern about her heart took wing. “Walking up to the porch— Lord Tremayne!”
While Thea gestured wildly as though she could halt the horses herself, Sarah knocked on the roof, alerting her driver, and leaned forward so she could see. “’Tis him all right. His silhouette is rather splendid.”
They neared and Thea’s shouts captured his attention. Though the evening light was hazy, and his face shadowed by his tall-crowned hat, when he swung round, she could easily make out the grimace distorting his features. “Oh, dear.”
“What is it?”
“He looks angry.”
“I’m sure that’s simply worry over where you got off to,” Sarah consoled, already relaxed back into her seat. “Oh, I’ve been meaning to tell you, I’m journeying to Bucklesham to visit my sister. She just sent word her baby came early and—”
As they rolled closer, Thea saw that worry was the least of it. “Egad! It looks like someone took a mallet to his face!”
“What?!” Sarah flew forward and jerked the curtain aside. “Dammit, Penry!” she swore, startling Thea’s head back around. “He promised he’d exercise restraint.”
“Did Lord Penry do this?” Thea was aghast. She’d never before heard her friend curse and couldn’t fathom Sarah knowing about— Actually condoning…
But what did it mean? “What reason would Lord Penry have to attack his friend? To hurt him so?”
Explanations could wait for later! The second the carriage rolled to a stop, Thea was fighting to get the door open. “Lord Tremayne!”
3
Ode To Machines
Happy the Man, who in his Pocket keeps,
Whether with green or scarlet Ribband bound,
A well made Cundum.
Generally attributed to John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester; from A Panegyric Upon Cundum, circa 1720s, a pamphlet extolling the virtues of condoms.
Lusty Letters: A Fun and Steamy Historical Regency (Mistress in the Making Book 2) Page 5