“Thank you, Sir Charles. I recall the ceremony.” Elizabeth pressed forward before he could move on to the ‘wives, submit yourselves unto your husband’s part.’ “It wasn’t my wedding I was speaking about.”
If not wedding, what did the chit refer to? Not ‘procreation of children,’ egad?! How could Lady Ratchett have raised a daughter so lacking in proper feeling as to force a fellow to discuss that which he would rather not? At least Sir Charles was fairly certain that he would rather not. But needs must when the devil drove. “Do you mean to tell me that you are— That he, ah, has not—”
“Yes!” Elizabeth blushed almost as mightily as her step-papa. “I am, and he has not, and so therefore I am not legally wed.”
Definitely, Sir Charles disliked these father-daughter talks. He promised himself to never have one again. “And don’t tell me that I should be nice to him,” added Elizabeth. “Because I have been extremely amiable. Usually. Most of the time.”
Sir Charles didn’t care to inquire into the particulars. “Are you sure you didn’t do anything to give him a disgust of you, my girl? Because I don’t mind telling you I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
This wretched imbroglio was to be laid at her doorstep? Elizabeth’s temper flared. “I did nothing! Magda showed up on our wedding night.”
“Ah. In that case—” Sir Charles could see how it was that a gentleman might find it unnerving to engage in amorous congress with his bride while his first wife dozed beneath the same roof. But in that case, why didn’t he send the extra female on her way?
“He says that he cannot,” replied Elizabeth, to whom this question had been addressed. “Magda hasn’t a feather to fly with. She barely escaped from France. Moreover, St. Clair is convinced she’s involved in some mischief, and wants to know what that might be. I’m not sure that’s not just an excuse, because he wants her to stay.”
“France?” Sir Charles came abruptly to attention. “You didn’t say she was an émigré.”
Elizabeth was startled by this sudden interest. She had never seen Sir Charles so intent. “Magda is as English as we are, though she speaks French like a native, and knows a great many émigrés. Gus is determined to make her out a spy.” She went on to explain Lady Augusta’s presence beneath the ducal roof. “But we are getting off the subject. I fear St. Clair doesn’t like me much. The last time we, ah— That is, we didn’t— He threw me on the bed and said he couldn’t do it, and walked out of the room.”
Sir Charles had been on the verge of delivering a lecture on the subject of conjugal obligation and decorum. Now he snapped his mouth shut. The duke couldn’t? How the devil did the man expect to get himself some offspring if he wasn’t up to the task? Couldn’t bring himself to the sticking point? Was flogging a dead horse? And what the devil did he do with those fifty-six mistresses, in that case? “How extraordinary! Are you sure you didn’t bungle the business, miss?”
Elizabeth rose to remove Birdie from the piano leg, which the parrot appeared to be courting, and deposited her on the jasperware urn. “I haven’t had a chance to bungle anything. It was stupidly done of me to write that wretched letter, but I was shocked to discover St. Clair had a previous wife, which is not unremarkable in me, and if anyone had seen fit to warn me, I might have behaved differently. But as for bungling, I am hardly to blame for what Charnwood does, or doesn’t do, in my bedroom.”
Sir Charles flung up his hands. “Say no more, I beg you! There’s something smoky here. I must puzzle over it. Perhaps all Charnwood needs a gentle push.”
Elizabeth felt like pushing Charnwood, ungently, out a window. She doubted that was what Sir Charles meant. “What sort of push?”
Sir Charles recalled the various females whose acquaintance he had made in the byways of Covent Garden and Drury Lane, not to mention various houses of civil reception, any one of whom would be better equipped to have this conversation than he was. Thanks to the tender ministrations of those females, Sir Charles knew what he liked, intelligence of which would cause Lady Ratchett to have an apoplexy, but there was no guarantee that Charnwood liked the same. Upon further reflection, Sir Charles decided that Charnwood probably wouldn’t like the same, being as he was a duke and therefore probably accustomed to more exotic fare.
Sir Charles didn’t mean to have that conversation with his stepdaughter, either.
But he must tell her something. “Take off your clothes! Nature will do the rest.”
Elizabeth was not so naive as to think Sir Charles meant she should disrobe in public. “St. Clair didn’t like it when I showed my bosom. Are you sure?”
Sir Charles wasn’t sure that the duke’s brains weren’t in his ballocks. However, though his stepdaughter wasn’t chicken-breasted, she appeared abominably missish in her simple white gown. She was missish, therein lay the problem. “You showed your bosom? I’ll tell you what, Elizabeth, I don’t think I should hear this stuff!”
Elizabeth flushed. “It wasn’t like that! I showed it to everyone. At the Assembly Rooms.” Sir Charles looked horrified, and she began to laugh. “Not like that! I wore a very low-cut dress. Maman wouldn’t have approved.”
Sir Charles was a great deal more interested in Lord Charnwood’s likes and dislikes than in Lady Ratchett’s, with which he had become all too well acquainted during the long years of their married life. The duke hadn’t cared to observe his wife’s bosom? That was more than passing strange. Elizabeth could hardly be blamed for being in a taking. Sir Charles wondered what Lady Ratchett had—or hadn’t—told her daughter about matters marital.
As he was pondering how to delicately phrase this question, voices sounded in the hallway. Said one, “Voyons! I am hungry. It is almost time for dinner, n’est-ce pas?” Replied another, “How can you be hungry? You ate an entire plate of apple tarts!”
Sir Charles turned toward the door, as did Elizabeth, and the parrot perched atop the urn. “Try harder, there’s the ticket!” Sir Charles hastily advised his startled stepdaughter. “I’ve told Charnwood that if this business between you isn’t soon resolved I will take you home with me, and so I shall. I don’t like to see you made unhappy by your mama’s ambitions, Elizabeth.” The duchess stared at him, startled. The parrot fluttered its wings.
Magda entered the room, saw the visitor, and dimpled. Gus followed, and frowned. Elizabeth performed introductions. “May I present my stepfather, Sir Charles Ratchett? Lady Augusta Shadwell is St. Clair’s cousin. Madame de Chavannes is his previous wife.”
“Ma foi, I was an aberration. This time Saint has got it right.” Magda curtsied. “Enchanté, Sir Charles.”
De Chavannes, was it? Damned if he’d ever seen a dress cut that low. At least not on a lady. If she was a lady. Sir Charles’s instinct for mischief went on the alert.
“Is something wrong, Sir Charles? You are twitching,” Elizabeth asked.
“Maybe he is allergic to the parrot,” suggested Magda. “Or your kitten. Where is Minou, ma petite?”
That was an excellent question. In the shock of her stepfather’s arrival, Elizabeth had forgotten all about the cat. “I don’t know. St. Clair took him away.”
“Mayhap he drowned it,” remarked Augusta. “Whatever were you thinking, to bring home a kitten? St. Clair does not like cats.”
“A bon chat, bon rat,” said Magda. “Mayhap he will drown you next.”
Birdie fluttered her wings for attention and whistled a lively tune. “Jack’s Maggot,” I believe,” said Elizabeth, and picked up the bird.
A footman appeared in the doorway. “Dinner is served, Your Grace.”
Parrot perched on her shoulder, the duchess led the way into the dining room. Lady Augusta hovered at her elbow, attempting to avoid the bird’s beak. “You will be pleased to know the invitations for our dinner party have been sent out.”
Elizabeth, thought Sir Charles, appeared less pleased than resigned. “Parrots at the dinner table?” he queried. “Lady Ratchett would not like that.”
&nb
sp; “We are informal here.” With an enchanting, twinkling smile, Magda took his arm. “You have recently come from London, monsieur?”
Sir Charles admired the lady’s décolletage, and the cameo that hung between her breasts. She twinkled at him. “You have noticed my Eros. “It is an invitation to l’amour.”
L’amour, by Jove. Sir Charles patted his companion’s hand, and embarked upon an animated discussion of Frigates and Fencibles, Raftweather and the Semaphore.
Chapter 19
“A woman’s honor lies in public recognition of her virtue, a man’s in the reliability of his word.”
—Lady Ratchett
While Sir Charles and the ladies lingered over a repast as notable for the presence of a parrot as for the excellence of the fare, His Grace the Duke of Charnwood was being ushered into the drawing room of Mr. Slyte’s house in Queen’s Square. Nigel and his aunt were seated at a Chippendale card table, intent on a game of piquet. Lady Ysabella wore a dress fashioned from an India shawl, its wide border forming the hemline. Perched atop her golden curls was a frivolous lace cap, and on her nose a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles. Her nephew resembled a rumpled owl; the cards not falling in his favor, he had been running his hands through his hair. Both were drinking port, which was hardly a beverage for a lady, but Ysabella was a lady only when she wished.
She glanced up as Justin walked into the room. “I am one hundred twenty to his ninety-nine. Nigel has spent too much time with Augusta, Saint.”
Nigel threw down his cards. “Aunt Syb’s taken my last farthing. Next I’ll have to wager the gold buttons off my coat.”
“You shouldn’t play if you’re not prepared to come down with the darbies.” Lady Ysabella rose from the card table and arranged herself in an invalidish manner upon a chaise longue. “Must I remind you that you’re the one who asked to play for stakes? Saint, you look like a gentleman bent on carnage. No, you may not fling that chair across the room.”
It was a temptation. Justin leaned on the chair-back instead. “You may not be surprised to learn that I have yet another houseguest.”
Distracted from consideration of the ready rhino, or his lack thereof, Nigel picked up the bottle by his elbow, and poured his friend a glass of port. “Did I not predict it? Sometimes I astonish even myself. You can move in here with us, we have ample room. We may not have a cook much longer, does Aunt Syb not cease haranguing the poor woman.”
“That ‘poor woman’ deserves haranguing. Imagine, boiled neck of mutton.” Lady Ysabella shuddered. “I should have brought along my own chef.”
“No, you shouldn’t!” countered Nigel. “Because Cook would quit for certain, and I like boiled mutton well enough. I’ll stake a button it’s Lady Ratchett who’s caused Saint’s long face. Will you call my wager, Aunt Syb?”
Justin strode toward the table and snatched up the port glass. “Not Lady Ratchett has come to Bath, but Sir Charles. Elizabeth wrote a letter. She says she didn’t put it out to be franked.”
“There lies exactly the peril of a household too well run.” Nigel leaned back in his chair. “Note it well, Aunt Syb. If ever a letter was writ in this household, there’s no chance it would go accidentally into the post.”
“Before a letter might be written in this household, one would first have to give up his humbuggery long enough to apply himself to the task!” retorted Lady Ysabella. “Elizabeth wrote to her stepfather? That surprises me. I didn’t know that they were close.”
“I don’t have the impression that they are.” In unwitting imitation of his bride’s step-papa, Justin took a turn around the room. “Sir Charles opened Lady Ratchett’s letter. I am mildly curious as to why. Instead of passing it along to her, he came here himself.”
“Took French leave, did he?” Lady Syb took off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I can’t say I blame him. Geraldine was ever guilty of too much high-mindedness. It makes her monstrous dull, and no little bit a shrew. I’m surprised her daughter turned out as good-natured as she has.”
Justin hadn’t observed that his wife was especially good-natured. “Magda is leading Elizabeth into bad habits, I fear.”
“What manner of bad habits?” Lady Ysabella peered at him. “Gaming? Consorting with low people? Frolicking in the flesh pots?”
Justin dropped into a chair. “Today they went to a fair.”
“It is you who are guilty of high-mindedness if you find fault in a simple fair,” Lady Syb said sternly. “An awareness of your superior standing is one thing; but you must not allow yourself to become pompous, Saint.”
“It’s not the fair with which I find fault,” retorted Justin, “though I don’t enjoy such things myself. Melchers was there.”
“You astonish me.” Lady Syb replaced her spectacles on her nose. “Conor at a country fair! Still, what is there in that to make you so cross? Magda and Melchers have a long history. Where you find one you find the other, eventually. No one should know that better than you.”
“Magda may have Melchers with my blessing! It’s Elizabeth I’m concerned about.” Two pairs of bright blue eyes fixed expectantly on him. Nigel’s eyes dropped to Justin’s hands. He raised a brow.
Justin also regarded his hands, which were festooned with kitten marks. “Elizabeth brought home a cat.”
Nigel’s other eyebrow arched to meet the first. “As I recall, you don’t like cats.”
Justin got up from his chair and took another turn around the drawing room. “She named it Minou.”
Lady Ysabella watched him pace. “You haven’t stewed that wretched parrot, have you? And no, I don’t want it back.”
The duke refrained from kicking a side table. “Elizabeth is fond of Birdie,” he explained.
“Sleeps with it, does she?” asked Nigel. “I should probably tell you that Aunt Syb knows you haven’t— Ah. Unless matters have moved forward?” Expectantly, he paused. “I deduce from your ferocious expression that they have not. Don’t eat me, Saint! Aunt Syb knows about these things.”
Justin leaned against the mantelpiece. Nigel’s aunt knew about a great many things. He wished the non-consummation of his marriage wasn’t among them.
Lady Ysabella cast a shrewd glance in his direction. “Save your breath to cool your porridge, Nigel. This is beyond anything, Saint.”
Why should Justin be made to feel guilty when it was his bride who was at fault? At least he thought she was. For the most part. Admittedly, he might bear a degree of responsibility for this pickle. “Elizabeth married me under duress. I have a strong impression that it was Lady Ratchett’s habit to lock her in her room.”
“Poor Duchess!” remarked Nigel. “Seems to me someone should lock up Lady Ratchett. We might arrange a nice chamber in the Tower. Have you the proper connections, Aunt Syb?”
“Pish!” said Lady Ysabella. “Elizabeth is hardly the first young woman to choose a companion for life under parental compulsion. I myself did so. The first time, at any rate. It is the way of the world.”
It was also the way of the world for a gentleman to enjoy a wedding night. Justin caught Nigel’s knowing smile, and sighed. “I don’t think she likes me much.”
Lady Ysabella snorted. “It’s not necessary that the chit like you, Saint.”
“Am I to hold Elizabeth down and forcibly divest her of her maidenhead?” Justin abandoned the mantelpiece to sprawl in a chair. “Since we are being frank! Thank you, but I would prefer she didn’t detest me for the rest of our lives.”
“You must feel something for her,” observed Lady Ysabella. “How unfashionable of you. And how curious, that you feel you would have to hold her down. I don’t recommend doing so, since you want her to like you. Not during the initial encounter, at any rate.”
Fireplace pokers and pistols, rouged nipples and plump bosoms. There were limits to what Justin was willing to confide. “She asked why I had married her. She also asked if I had a mistress. She said that Conor Melchers was the one person who wasn’t telling
her how she should go on.”
Nigel snorted. “Rather, he’s giving the rest of you something more to badger her about. Draw in your horns! I didn’t say you was badgering her, Saint. Though if you was, it might be a good idea if you stopped.”
“Lollpoop!” interrupted Lady Ysabella, albeit fondly. “Give us no more of your jaw. Impudence here does have a point, Saint. It may be disobliging of your wife to enjoy Conor’s company, but it is understandable all the same. Even the meekest of fillies will kick over the traces if she feels the sting of the whip too many times.”
Were Elizabeth a horse and he the coachman— Sternly, Justin banished that provocative image from his mind. Was Lady Syb accusing him of mistreatment? He opened his mouth.
Lady Syb forestalled his protest. “If you want someone to like you, you must be likeable. To refrain from censuring Elizabeth’s conduct might make an excellent good start. The chit will have had enough of that already from her mama.”
Justin disliked sharing a paintbrush with Lady Charnwood. “It is a wife’s duty to do as her husband asks,” he stiffly replied.
“Certainly, if those requests are reasonable.” Lady Syb retorted. “As it is his to comply with hers.”
St. Clair stared at Lady Ysabella as if she had suddenly grown a second head. She regarded him like a cat about to pounce on a plump mouse. Nigel looked from one to the other, and cleared his throat. “Cards, anyone? I have several buttons left.”
* * * *
Several hours had passed, along with countless hands of loo, and no small amount of liquid refreshment had been imbibed, before the duke returned to his home in the Royal Crescent. Since the majority of those hands had been won by Lady Ysabella, who along with crowing about her winnings had been prone to philosophize upon a husband’s duty toward his wife, the duke was out of patience with all of female-kind. Were it not for his newly discovered dislike of enforced abstinence, he might have joined a monkish brotherhood. Nor was he of a mind to retire to his accursed dressing room, where Thornaby would be waiting to flutter over him. He retired to the library in search of something with which to divert himself. Justin was greatly in need of diversion. Maybe he would immerse himself in Plutarch’s Lives.
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