“No!”
“Si. Listen. I will ask what he intends to do about his contract with you.”
Violetta jerked back. “What contract?”
Donata stroked her daughter’s hair and pulled her close again. “Do not worry. There is none, but he must be made to understand that we are not merely for the asking. A man must work to gain our favour. Don’t make it easy for him, my love. If he loves you truly, he’ll come to you, and if he does not, better it ends now than later. Do as I say, and we shall see.”
Violetta looked up with a watery sniff, but her eyes were dry now. “You know more than I do about this. I will do it.”
Donata chuckled. “You will do it well.”
When Lord Blyth called on Violetta he found she was receiving no visitors. He left a note. When Violetta opened it she wept. “I am so sorry,” was all it said, and he’d signed it with a flourished “O”. No declaration of love could have moved her more.
When he called the second time he only saw her mother, and that for five minutes. He received just enough encouragement to call again. Orlando was not foolish. He knew he was being punished and maybe tested too, but he also knew he deserved it. His sister excoriated him.
“Orlando, how could you do such a thing?” she demanded, at his most vulnerable time. Breakfast. It quite put him off his kippers and eggs. He knew she was planning to speak to him when she dismissed the maid laying out the breakfast things.
“It seemed natural at the time.” He saw no reason to explain himself to his sister, but he knew if he didn’t listen to her she would never allow him any peace.
“You know Judith wants to attract your interest! Before she arrived in the house you were quite interested in her, and we thought it was positively a done thing. Now I understand, it’s obvious. Did she make a play for you from the first?”
Orlando gave up. He put down his fork. “No. I made a play for her.”
“Did you seduce her?”
“Really, Perdita! What would you know of such things?”
She frowned at him. “What do you think women gossip about? Really, my dear!”
He frowned back. “We had only just become lovers.” He tamped down the familiar warm feeling in the vicinity of his groin that he felt whenever he thought of Violetta. Now was definitely not the right time.
“Will you see her again?”
His look became frozen. “I fail to see what concern that is of yours.”
She became positively shrewish. “Before her lapse I was becoming quite fond of Miss Lambert. I am not such a fool as to suppose it was entirely her idea. In fact, dear brother, knowing men, I suspect much of it was your fault. You put me in an impossible position. I wanted to reward her for her help, but after that, how could I?”
He relaxed. He would gladly bear all the blame if he could restore her Miss Lambert to his sister’s good books. “It was my fault, I fear. I should have shown more restraint, I know. If it helps, I will give her a good character. After all, I employed her. I understand why you cannot, but she performed her duties well while she was here.”
Perdita seemed slightly more mollified. “Very well. But I wish to hear nothing of that. I cannot give her a character, you know that.”
Orlando got to his feet to help his sister sit. She nodded her thanks. “You are very reprehensible, Orlando, but that only seems to make you more admirable in the eyes of the world. The female world particularly. Word has it you’ve taken an expensive ladybird into keeping, one Perla Perfetta. Aren’t you satisfied with one?”
Orlando sat down again and regarded her with lazy insolence. “My dear, I hope you don’t converse like this with your friends. You are supposed to be an innocent virgin, after all.” He ignored his sister’s snort of derision. “That, if you must know, was in the nature of a wager. A man cannot step down once he has declared himself. Ladybirds, as you quaintly refer to them, are not my style in the general run of things. Until recently I couldn’t afford them, and now I can I find I’ve lost interest in that kind of—” he paused, dabbing his lips with a stiffly starched napkin, “—financial transaction.”
Perdita nodded, not as shocked as she should have been, Orlando reflected wryly. “I won’t ask anything else, except that you not ruin Miss Lambert. She deserves that, at least. I don’t like to think of her fallen from grace.”
Orlando kept his expression deliberately grave. Bowed under the weight of the guilt and misery, it wasn’t difficult. “I promise I won’t ruin Miss Lambert. I won’t tell if you don’t.”
The name “Charlotte Lambert” disappeared from the vocabulary of the house after that discussion. It was as though she had never existed. Orlando had no idea if Perdita told Lady Judith of the reason for her lack of success in fixing Orlando’s interest, but it was certain that Lady Judith’s visits did not abate, and her interest in Orlando, particularly in private, became more marked instead of less.
He responded politely, but was too sore, too worried to take much notice of her. All his thoughts were of Violetta. Had he lost her? If he couldn’t have the reality, she would be in his mind, in his dreams, taunting him, reminding him of what he could have had if it hadn’t been for that door opening. And his falling asleep, surrounded by the most profound sense of peace he had ever known.
He presented himself at the house, but despite abasing himself at the feet of La Perla, he wasn’t allowed to see La Perla Perfetta. It wasn’t her he wanted, the exquisite, accomplished courtesan. It was Violetta, the warm, loving woman with the perfect body, the quick wit and quietly intelligent mind. He was not to see her. He prepared himself for a siege. He would not give up. He could not give up.
He had promised to join his sister and Lady Judith at Lord Ripley’s house in the country. If he had not won Violetta by then he would take them and come back for her.
He arrived on a Wednesday and was granted an audience alone with La Perla. Aware of the nature of his visit, he arrived in full evening dress, elegant and neat in crimson, the full evening coat echoing his every movement with an expensive rustle. He bowed low to her, and stood. Lord Ripley stood by the chair on which La Perla sat, a consort to her majesty.
“You have seriously distressed my daughter. Your carelessness has cost her a great deal.” The statement was irrefutable, as, Orlando was sure, she had meant it to be.
“I apologize profusely for my deep error.” How was he to know his sister had the habit of entering her companion’s room by the private door? He hadn’t even known she could walk. The error was not all his. However, to win her back, he was prepared to grovel. “I only wish to see her in person, to apologize. How may I repair my error?”
Ripley stirred. “The error was in seducing her while she was under your roof.”
Orlando couldn’t deny that. The only reason, the true reason, was he couldn’t wait. It had been the action of a desperate man. “I asked her to come away with me for a time. I should have waited until then.”
“Indeed you should.” The faint Italian accent gave La Perla a touch of aristocracy. Her small chin was tilted haughtily up. Where had she learned that trick? “My child is distressed.”
Orlando bowed.
He heard a slight commotion outside the door to the salon where he had received his audience. The door was flung open, as though it had been forced. “Donata! What is this?”
The newcomer stopped dead, glaring at Orlando. His jaw dropped. “Mother?”
Chapter Sixteen
Lady Taversall glared at her son. “I might have guessed you’d be here!” Ignoring him for the time being she turned to La Perla. “Donata, what has my son done? I have to hear this from a good friend, and that so jumbled I wasn’t sure what I was hearing. What is going on?” She turned to Orlando. “What have you done to her?”
Orlando gaped. His air of suave elegance fell away from him, something that had not happened since he was a callow youth. The bottom fell out of his world. “What—?” he managed, before he lapsed into gormless si
lence.
His mother gave him an irritated frown. “I went to school with Donata,” she said, as though that explained everything. How much more did he not know about his mother? Orlando felt adrift, as though nothing was as he had previously supposed it to be.
“Your daughter discovered your son in bed with my daughter,” La Perla explained. The Italian accent was still there, but the haughtiness had evaporated. Orlando noted the absence of any honorific. Old friends indeed.
The two ladies stared at each other. Lord Ripley set a chair next to La Perla’s as though it was the most natural thing in the world for Lady Taversall to visit the queen of the demi-monde. As, perhaps, it was in this topsy-turvy world.
Orlando watched the two ladies touch cheeks affectionately with a kind of dumb horror. His mother and this lady. The world couldn’t stand against them. For them to join forces didn’t bear thinking about.
Lady Taversall took her time sitting down and settling her skirts. “Now I see why your man was so keen to keep me out of here. I thought I was going to see something reprehensible, which only made me more eager, but it’s not a Thursday. Then I find this.” She waved a vague hand in the direction of her son. “He has seduced Violetta, you say? The poor child!” She glared at Orlando. “How could you? I heard of the farce here the other week, thanks to Ripley, but I never dreamed you would act in such an indiscreet manner!”
Orlando gathered his wayward thoughts. “Who told you?”
“About the discovery? No one. I heard about the auction. How could you do such a thing to such a sweet child?”
Sweet child? His mother knew Violetta? Orlando’s head spun. “Has the world gone mad?”
“Not in the least.” His mother fixed him with a full blown basilisk stare. “I told you. Donata and I have been friends for years. What do you expect, I announce that to the world? However, a friend is a friend, and I could not abandon Donata just because she took a different course to me!” She flicked open her fan, and wafted it before shutting it with a decisive snap. “Donata was not born what she is now. When she came to London she needed my help and I gave it gladly. I do not abandon my friends, and Donata is one of my dearest friends. Do you think women are the defenceless creatures you imagine? Surely not, my son!”
It only deepened the mystery for Orlando. He gathered a few things from the information. La Perla’s real name was Donata. She had been born well, but for some reason turned to her current profession. He badly wanted to know more, but he knew better than to ask now. He would have been rebuffed with aplomb. His curiosity must wait. “It was a surprise, ma’am, I must admit this explains some of the mysteries. You are always so well informed. Now I know one of the reasons why.”
His mother examined him like some species of beetle under her foot. “You do indeed. If you have harmed one hair of that poor girl’s head I shall personally throttle you!” That was better. Once his mother threatened physical damage it was a sign she was beginning to calm down.
Orlando bowed. “I only ask for a private interview with Violetta, so I may apologize to her in person.”
“I will see if she will agree to it,” La Perla said. “Presently she is prostrate in her bed.”
Lady Taversall reached out and covered La Perla’s hand with her own in a gesture of sympathy. “I’ll see he makes amends,” she promised.
It was all Orlando was to receive that night. He left half an hour later, bemused and bewildered by the new turn of events.
He was allowed to see Violetta the following week, but only in company.
La Perla Perfetta appeared in all her pristine perfection at her mother’s salon. Her gown was dauntingly formal, a confection of gleaming white satin, held out by a huge hoop. Her mask was made of white peacock feathers, enhanced with a gleaming gloss of some description. Her face was powdered pale, her dark hair covered with a flurry of fine powder. Her full breasts quivered beneath a light veiling of fine Brussels lace. She was, as her name suggested, perfection.
Orlando had dressed to please her in full formal rig, heavy blue coat and delicately embroidered white waistcoat, linen and lace immaculate. He knew everyone present would be watching. Would he claim her? Would she accept him or reject him publicly?
Orlando was at his coolest, his most insouciant. He didn’t try to approach her immediately, but paid his respects with a deep bow to the mother, and another for the daughter. Then he turned to speak to an acquaintance. He’d let it be known he would be there tonight, knowing he needed to end this or continue it, one way or the other. He had to leave London soon, to escort his sister to Ripley Court. He needed it settled by then, or it might well kill him.
He thought of drifting across the room to gradually end up by her side, but then thought again. No, he would not make it easy for her. She seemed like a creature from another world, ethereal, as though she could disappear into thin air. Well, as far as he was concerned, she could do just that after tonight. If she said no. If she rebuffed him here, now, he would leave and not look back. Whatever it cost him.
He strode across the room to her. Eyes glittered behind the feathered mask. “Good evening, ma’am.”
She inclined her head, unsmiling. “Good evening, my lord.”
Back to “my lord” he thought. Not a good sign. “Will you do me the honour of walking with me?”
She laid her hand on his arm in a light, elegant gesture. “Very well.”
When she turned her head briefly he saw the ravages the her recent experiences had added to her. A hard line between nose and mouth. The drooping line of her lips. He couldn’t see her eyes under the mask, but he would have bet a lot of money that they were shadowed and hollow. She had suffered, then. As he had.
It was as though the whole crowd let out an indrawn breath. An exhalation of tension, released all at once. Murmured conversations returned. “You’ve not been well,” he said, so quietly only she could hear.
“Is it so obvious?”
“Not to anyone else. Only to a fellow sufferer.”
She bowed her head, then lifted it with a flurry of feathers. Feathers extended far beyond the edge of her face, brushing other people when they passed. Her chin tilted up. “I am recovering. I’m sure I’ll be perfectly well in time.”
“I’m not.” She shot a startled glance at his face, but continued the stately promenade around the room. That way no one would interrupt them. It was probably best this particular conversation was taking place in public. It was safer. “I’ll never get over you, ma’am. I’m not sure I want to.”
“It is why I was put on this earth, it seems. To make men happy.”
“Then don’t defy your fate.” They walked for a few steps in taut silence. “All I ask is for a few days. Come away with me, and let us talk this over.”
“Just talk?”
He gave her a wry smile. “I can’t promise that.”
She breathed deeply, her breasts swelling over the tight lacing of the low-cut gown. “I don’t know. What makes you think I would ever consent to see you privately again?”
“Only one reason. Everything I said to you I meant. We have unfinished business, my love.”
She gasped. “Blandishments.”
“Find out. At worst you have a lucrative contract. At best—well, who knows?”
She turned to him, the flash of anger unmistakable under the mask. Her powdered face seemed to grow paler. “Don’t taunt me! I know what I am!”
“So do I.” He let his words turn into a caress.
She stared at him for a few minutes in silence. He watched the glitter of the diamonds at her throat, and waited for her. “I have to escort my sister to Ripley Court in two weeks. I must know by then.”
“For convenience? You like your life set out in neat little pockets, don’t you?”
He accepted this. “I used to. No, it’s simpler than that. I can’t wait any longer. I simply cannot.”
“What will you do if I make you wait?”
He kept his face sti
ll, so still he feared it might crack. “I will die. Oh, not physically, nothing so dramatic. Only that part of me, the part I’ve shown only to you will die. I will probably pay court, as the world expects, to Lady Judith and marry her before the summer is out. Then I will no longer allow any softer feeling to enter my life. I have done my duty. I’ll continue to do it.”
She studied him closely. The little hand on his arm trembled. It was the only sign of the emotion he knew roiled within her. “I can’t allow that.” They stared at each other in their own island of silence in the middle of a chattering, laughing throng. “I’ll come with you.”
“Thank you.” The words were soft, but charged with meaning. “I will call on you next Wednesday with the carriage. Earlier if I can, but I have an errand to run first.” He glanced at her and paused before he continued. “Miranda and Daniel are staying in the country—in Leicestershire, and I need to pay them a visit.”
She understood the pause but Rosington’s marriage was no longer under threat because of her. “I understand the needs of family.”
He stepped back and bowed to her, extremely formally, hand on heart. It was a bow low enough for a princess, and he meant it. He stopped only to thank his hostess for her indulgence at receiving him, then he turned and left. He didn’t look back.
Violetta stepped out of the carriage with Orlando’s help. He had been formally attentive during the short journey, nothing more. Conversation had been general. She wondered if that meant he was as nervous as she was, or if this was normal for him. She wanted to ask him if this was the house he usually brought his mistresses to, but she didn’t dare. She didn’t really want to know, afraid of what she might hear.
The house was lovely. Built of a soft cream-coloured stone, it was a single fronted house of three bays. A manor house, door in the middle and large windows on both sides. An intimate house. She turned to him. “This is lovely. I wonder you want to live anywhere else.”
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