The Slightest Provocation

by Pam Rosenthal

  One’s thoughts did seem to go around in circles when the lady in question had a brain as well as a body to be reckoned with.

  When the lady… but he could remember further back, to an implacable young girl in pigtails and pinafore who’d caused a certain angry thirteen-year-old boy to boast and to puff himself up most absurdly.

  Much (to his shame) as he had when he’d shambled down the stairs to remind her that he had a letter of introduction from Wellington. To insist that she hear the part he’d memorized and most wanted to repeat, informing Lord Sidmouth that the Home Office could do a lot worse than to take on Major Lord Christopher Stansell.

  Any woman in Britain (except the one he was still married to and still wanted to do… well, all sorts of things to) might find it a bit of an honor.

  Forget her. Get past this muddle of past and present, aching memory and sharp-fanged desire. He had work to do. No, Mary, not ceremonial puffery, but real work in the service of the domestic order-if, in fact, the Home Office agreed to take him on.

  He should move his aching bones and get himself upstairs to sleep.

  He should… but he didn’t.

  He sank back into the vortex of memory. Voices, glances exchanged…

  Quite the dandy…

  The French… expect an English gentleman…

  And you, you kept your hair short…

  He’d cut it himself, the first time, with a pair of little silver scissors he’d found on her dressing table in Curzon Street. He could remember the coal fire popping in the grate, even while the slender bones and muscles had trembled beneath her skin.

  The scissors were shaped like a hummingbird, with fine steel blades for a beak. He’d barely breathed as he snipped and clipped, the blades so close to her bent nape, her spine like a string of pearls, his bare arms and torso held carefully away from her body. If he touched anything but her hair, he’d be certain to lose all control of himself.

  Her shift hiked up around her naked hips, she’d sat backward in a little gilt chair; the chestnut curls, falling to the parquet floor of her dressing room, piled up around her bare feet.

  Glancing at herself in the mirror, nodding with satisfaction. “There, you see, I’ll make a perfect boy.”

  He’d had to laugh.

  “No, really, Kit. In one of your coats and a cut-down pair of your breeches. And a neckcloth, a big bright one, like the ones those ridiculous coaching bucks wear.”

  Squinting at her, trying to imagine her in disguise.

  She’d responded by squaring her shoulders and twisting her facial expression into a sly simulacrum of his when freshly shaved and prepared to meet a new day.

  “I’ve been studying you,” she whispered.

  He’d had to work to keep his countenance. “I expect we could pull it off.” Shrugging in an offhand manner. “A beardless youth in ill-fitting, rumpled clothing-yes, it’s just possible. I’ll call you Ned, introduce you as a distant cousin just up from the country; all you’ll have to do is nod and gawp at the wonders of the metropolis. And Morrice can help us. If anyone tries to engage you in conversation, he’ll just barge right in with a stream of his endless claptrap.”

  Oh yes, Morrice had been a very big help indeed.

  “And so you’ll take me to a boxing exhibition? And a gaming hell too?”

  “The pugilists first: everybody’s attention will be fixed on what’s happening in the ring. Yes, all right. We’ll try it.”

  Surprisingly circumspect at routs and assemblies, she’d been brazen and curious about his gentlemen’s pursuits, demanding so strenuously to see for herself that he’d finally agreed to take her, show her everything he found thrilling and fascinating.

  Not only because she’d been so adorable behind her crimson neckcloth, but because it allowed him to see everything twice, first in his own way and then through her brave, clear eyes. Wonderful to have her beside him, out in the exciting world beyond Mayfair and St. James, Rowen and Beechwood Knolls-to show off for her, present the raffish companions he’d made during earlier forays.

  As though he’d known anything, really, about the world-except that he cherished a taste for risk and danger, for chance, change, and harsh, shocking contrast. And that (mostly thanks to Joshua Penley) he could afford to pursue his tastes in a leisured, gentlemanly fashion. No demands upon his time except pleasure… nor, for that matter, on her time either.

  In Calais, he might have asked her if she hadn’t sometimes found herself bored during that aimless first year of marriage. Impossible to confide such a thing back then-any admission of imperfection was as bad as a betrayal when you were young; better to go out and betray each other instead.

  Which was exactly what he and his wife had done.

  So young, so stupid. At twenty-one and -two it had felt a queer thing even to have a wife. He’d repeat the word to himself, whisper it silently: wife, or (even more strangely) my wife. Waking up at night, he’d wrap his lips about the reedy little syllable and shake his head in private astonishment-that his wife was sleeping beside him, close by and yet secreted away, tiny movements so familiar and dreams so unknowable, her body curled as in a nest of voluptuous murmurings and smells.

  If he wanted, he’d think, he could simply wake, touch, enter her. But no matter if he did or didn’t, she’d still be there in the morning.

  At which point in his meditations he usually would wake her, to lose his confused self within her.

  It hadn’t been true, of course, that she’d always be there. He and she-and both their families’ solicitors-had found a way around that.

  It was years since he’d let himself feel these things. Well, you couldn’t when you were responsible for people besides yourself. Anger-like anarchy-needed to be kept in check.

  Yes, right. A word or two from her, and the angry boy he’d been had emerged from hiding like a fox poking his head out of a hole after the hunters had gone by.

  Even as he’d wanted to show her the new, responsible Kit, who’d won his men’s respect, who wanted a real career, and who’d even rather enjoyed exchanging letters with his dullish brother-the old Kit had stomped out the door of her bedchamber, given it a thumping loud slam behind him, and to hell with any lodger who’d still be trying for a little sleep. To summon the little serving girl Mary had glared at in the dining room-Good, he’d thought, give her something to glare about.

  One woman as good as another for certain things-or so he’d been instructed, long ago, by a group of gentlemen at White’s. The French girl would have been perfectly good at what the Old Kit had wanted. Except for one problem. The New Kit hadn’t wanted her. Hadn’t wanted anyone (Lord, how his London cronies would have hooted at him) except the woman who no longer wanted to be his wife.

  At this moment, however, in the library at Park Lane, both Kits had had enough of painful reminiscence-as well as of wondering where one Kit left off and the other began. Pull yourself together, man. Summoning his valet, he got himself neatly and cozily put to bed.

  A book he liked lay on the nightstand. Good for times like this. But tonight he didn’t require anything but a few easily summoned images. A curve of her lips, the slope of her nape, even (or perhaps especially) the angry flash of her eyes above that absurdly wonderful threadbare shift.

  Reminding him, quite suddenly, of a night when Cousin Ned had rather misbehaved. A ragged shirt, perhaps, unbefitting even a country cousin.

  “You’ve been a bad boy, Ned.”

  “Have I, sir?”

  Her eyes very round, dimple flickering into sight, even as her hands crept toward the buttons of her breeches.

  “You need a bit of a punishment, my boy. Come here; it’ll be the making of you. A touch of… discipline. Yes, bend over…”

  A challenging week lay ahead of him. Meet with Sidmouth, finally find out what the letter of introduction was worth. Apply himself and his abilities, one way or another, in the service of the public order. Duty, discipline…

  Surely tonight he
could allow himself a few small private pleasures.

  “That’s right, Ned. You can rest your head on the desk.”

  Breeches around her ankles. Her legs parted, toes barely touching the floor. He’d raised the ragged shirt, pulled down the boy’s drawers she wore beneath the breeches.

  Indecent.

  Hands on himself now, the tightening now, the pulling, the… ah, the release. From desire (at least for the moment), from responsibility, from duty and from his own ambitions as well.

  And from the pull of memories so carefully suppressed for so long, and now, it seemed, so constantly, confusingly, and overwhelmingly present.

  Chapter Eight

  The coaching inn yard was noisy, crowded, and quite fun this morning, Peggy Weightman thought. Say what you would (and Peggy felt herself eminently qualified to comment, what with all the places she and Lady Christopher had been), London was still the center of the civilized world: so many people to watch, all their clattering comings and goings. For herself, Peggy didn’t mind in the slightest about the delay with the post chaise. In her line of work, there was always something that wanted fixing or mending.

  But Lady Christopher was impatient to be gone, so Mr. Morrice had got her a seat in the stagecoach, with a place for Peggy on top. It would be a pretty day, dozing in the sunlight on the way to familiar places; they’d be reaching home late tonight. Peggy sipped the beer the waiter had brought her. Considerate of Lady Christopher to send him from the bar; she would have become quite parched out here, keeping an eye on their mountain of luggage.

  Perhaps it was the beer that was making her sleepy-not forgetting that she hadn’t had a good night’s rest her entire last week in France.

  Ah, well. There were better things than a good night’s rest.

  Too soon to worry about what else the sleepiness might betoken. Nor fret about whether Tom would mind if such a thing did come to pass. Her smile grew warmer, Tom being such a cozy name for such a big man. They’d been kissing in the pantry of Lady Rowen’s apartments in Paris when she’d first called him it. He’d laughed, but she’d seen well enough that he liked it. And he would be coming down to the country soon enough, for the marchioness was already wanting to get back to Rowen. Peggy trusted him. Well, she had to, didn’t she?

  She wouldn’t worry about anything, except to wish now that she hadn’t bought all those pretty trifles in France; better to give her people at home the coins directly. Still, it would be fun to tell about her travels. Her cousins (not including Cathy, the schoolmistress) would admire how well she looked in the dresses Lady Christopher had passed down to her, and all the girls would want to hear about…

  Everybody else called him Thomas. It suited how grave he looked; Lady Christopher had raised her eyebrows when Peggy slipped into using the little private name for him. Surprising the lady would have noticed, her clearly having troubles with her gentleman, medicine bottle still uncorked on the table, room reeking of brandy. It had been all anybody could do to scrub the smell off her and get her dressed.

  But that was how she was. Surprising, inconsistent-one minute distracted or buried in her books, and the next quite sharp and noticing more than you wanted her to.

  And when Peggy had her own little moment of sadness (waving from the deck while the packet boat pulled away and Tom’s head and shoulders faded from view), Lady Christopher had turned and given Peggy her own handkerchief. Silent-like. Tactful, you might say.

  Peggy found it interesting to be in service-even if Tom would protest that a footman weren’t more than a large monkey, tricked out in velvet and trained to fetch and carry. And heaven only knew how Lady Christopher would manage without Peggy keeping her neat and pinned together.

  The Penleys had been known as fair employers, and so were their daughters: Lady Christopher, Mrs. Grandin, and Mrs. MacNeill in Glasgow. A pity, people’d said last year, how that steward was cheating Mrs. Grandin, and so obvious about it too. And you could still hear the old story, repeated round a cottage hearth, of how Mr. Penley had saved a poacher’s life.

  Must have been a shock to him, his youngest daughter running off with one of the Stansell boys. People’d thought Lord Kit had got her in trouble, but that part wasn’t true (proving that it didn’t always have to be, if a person was lucky). Peggy had been quite young at the time, but even a little girl could find it exciting, a bit mysterious, all the talk about whether he really were the marquess’s son-and if not, who was his dad anyway?

  The more serious workingmen at Grefford, who read the pamphlets and argued over the newspapers and went to the night meetings, would quell such gossip-and so would Peggy’s cousin Cathy.

  “Don’t you have better things to chatter about,” Cathy’d say, “than the gentry and what they do in their beds? Aren’t life’s real problems enough for you?”

  But real-life problems were dull and intractable, especially these hard days. Peggy didn’t see why you shouldn’t get a little amusement from people whose lives remained cozy and comfortable no matter how bad the harvest, who wore fine clothes and rode in carriages even after a marriage’s scandalous separation or a night spent throwing things at each other.

  Why not get some entertainment from the gentry and especially the aristocrats, she’d asked Cathy; don’t they owe us that much anyway? And Cathy, she could see, didn’t have a good answer, except to sniff that she was sure she’d done right getting Peggy a job as a rich lady’s maid. Which she hadn’t meant as a compliment, even if it were Mrs. Penley who’d paid to educate her as a schoolmistress.

  But Cathy hadn’t seen Paris or Constantinople or the Alps or antiquities like Peggy had. Travel made you wise, and that was a fact.

  I’ve seen the world, Peggy repeated to herself. I have a fine, tall man who loves me and is surely coming back for me.

  It was a pretty day, and she was wearing a neat drab poplin that Lady Christopher had grown tired of. Smiling up at the waiter who’d come for her glass, she could feel how well the skirt hung since she’d taken a needle to it. She could even feel a bit sorry for her employer, who appeared in rather a state of disconsolation, like there were someone in the crowd she’d hoped to see.

  And if men want to flirt with me, Peggy thought (for she’d caught a glimpse of a brown coat with bright buttons moving in her direction), I’m sure it isn’t my fault.

  A decent-looking man, though she herself didn’t care for whiskers. Nearly as tall as Tom, if a bit on the corpulent side. Just off the night mail from Derby, ruddy-faced, like he’d gotten a good sleep on the journey. He had a bold expression on him, the sort of man you’d say could sell coals to Newcastle.

  Wouldn’t hurt just to talk. If he wanted more than talk, he could just take himself off to Soho for it.

  Though at the end of ten or so minutes, when his friends came for him, he left in a great hubbub of self-importance, which she didn’t like, nor that he hadn’t presented her to them, even after he’d seemed so interested in what she’d had to say about her travels and the people back home at Grefford.

  The stagecoach was boarding. She turned to make sure that their bags and trunks and boxes weren’t tossed about too roughly. And here was Lady Christopher looking about her one last time before Mr. Morrice handed her into the coach, where it would be stuffier, more crowded, and a lot less fun, Peggy thought, than on top, even if the top of a stagecoach wasn’t no place for a lady.

  Mary supposed that it could have been worse. A relief, in any case, finally to be under way. She squeezed herself into her backward-facing seat, tried not to sneeze at the dust rising from the worn cushions, nodded to her fellow voyagers, and held herself steady as they clattered off.

  At least she was sitting by a window, the better to watch London slip away. Its farthest suburbs gone, she dozed, woke to finish the novel she had with her, dozed again, woke for a bad luncheon, dozed some more, and by late afternoon had drifted into a haze of reminiscence of a much earlier ride along this same route, on just such a bright day an
d also in the backward-facing seat-though of a far more comfortable vehicle.

  She’d been ten, a spoiled, demanding, too energetic and impatient ten, alternately indulged and savaged by her older sisters, who always got to sit facing forward in the Penleys’ second carriage. Typically, neither Jessica nor Julia had as much as peeked out the windows; they’d ignored the landscape as completely as they’d ignored Mary, their thoughts and conversation quite entirely occupied by the young gentlemen they were engaged to marry.

  Mary could smile affectionately now at how different each of the two courtships had been, and how characteristic of each sister. Jessie’s love story unfolding in a leisurely and classically correct sequence: Arthur Grandin had asked for two dances on the night of her come-out, paid a charming and attentive call the day after, sent a large bouquet and then a series of witty little gifts, and in due time made a proper offer of his blond, smiling, baronet’s-younger-son of a self.

  While Julia’s amours had been conducted more briskly. More economically too, if you didn’t count the price of postage. An introduction to Mr. Jeremy MacNeill during a family trip to Glasgow, a daily exchange of letters after their return home, and a visit a month later from young Mr. MacNeill himself, proposing within the week and saving the Penleys the expense of a second come-out.

  Still (and unlike another pairing Mary could think of), it had been an entirely suitable match. Jeremy’s father did business with Papa; the MacNeills were clever, industrious, rich, and growing richer, while-as Julia still took pains to point out-figuring prominently among Glasgow’s patrons of the arts and learned societies.

  Both her sisters’ marriages had worked out as splendidly as anyone would have predicted, and until Arthur’s death two years ago, as happily as everyone had wished. Well, everyone except a certain badly behaved ten-year-old.

  Ninnies, she’d thought. Idiots, with their sighs and giggles. Id-jits, she repeated silently to herself (much preferring the way the servants pronounced the word). But at least her sisters would be obliged to pay her a little attention when they discovered that…