by Mary Balogh
“Merely talk?” Frederick had raised his eyebrows.
“Well, almost merely,” his friend had said, smiling engagingly. “You and Mrs. Sullivan make quite oppressive chaperons usually, my lad.”
“Well,” Frederick had said, “I will see what can be arranged, Archie. But I will not have the girl frightened or compromised.”
“You sound like a grandfather who has raised fifteen daughters and is now starting on his granddaughters, Freddie,” Lord Archibald had said. “It is most disconcerting.”
He hoped he had not agreed to something that would cause his wife’s companion any embarrassment or suffering. Damn Archie. Couldn’t he restrict his attentions to those women who were available, or at least to those who understood the game of dalliance? Miss Pope was a babe in the woods.
Clara gripped his hand with unconscious excitement when the play began and watched it with rapt wonder until the interval. If the theater had burned down around her, she would not have noticed, Frederick thought with a sort of tender amusement. He watched her more than he watched the play. He had never been much of a one for drama. He had always attended the theater in order to sit in the pit with the other unattached men and ogle the ladies. His wife was the only one he was ogling tonight, though he was not really doing that. He was merely watching her. A great deal of inner beauty came shining from her eyes, he thought.
Lord Archibald persuaded Harriet to step out into the corridor for some air and exercise during the interval, after having convinced her that it would be so crowded with people out there that they would scarcely be able to move. Frederick stayed to keep his wife company, still holding her hand and listening with a smile to her enthusiastic analysis of the play and the acting.
“Don’t you agree?” she asked, pausing at last.
“I agree, my l— I agree,” he said. “Everything you say is true and wise, Clara.”
She looked suspicious. “You are laughing at me,” she said. “I suppose it is not fashionable to show such enthusiasm for the theater, is it? I don’t care a fig for fashion.”
“And yet,” he said, “you chose a dress design that is the very height of fashion, Clara.”
“Merely because the modiste recommended it,” she said. “If it had been last decade’s design I would not have known the difference.”
He chuckled and turned his head to see who had opened the door and was coming into their box. Then he scrambled to his feet.
“Freddie,” his cousin, Camilla Wilkes, said, stretching out both hands to him and turning her cheek for his kiss. “One would think you were totally blind. We have been nodding and winking and doing everything to attract your attention but standing on our seats and waving our arms above our heads. All to no effect. Have we not, Malcolm?”
Malcolm Stacey, his sort-of cousin, Camilla’s betrothed, was standing behind her, tall and thin and blond, smiling. “Hello, Freddie,” he said, extending a hand. “We did not know you were in town. We arrived ourselves just last week.”
“We are marrying here just before Christmas,” Camilla said. “At St. George’s, of all places. Can you imagine, Freddie? Both Malcolm and I are quiet people and would have liked nothing better than a quiet country wedding. But families can become monsters. The least important people, it seems, when it comes to a wedding, are the bride and groom.”
Frederick felt acutely embarrassed. They had sought him out and they were being perfectly friendly, but they knew exactly what had happened at Primrose Park during the early summer. They and Dan and Jule and himself, of course. Just the five of them.
“Come and meet my wife,” he said. “Did you know I was married?”
Camilla flushed. “Yes, we had heard, Freddie,” she said, her voice subdued. It was perfectly obvious what family opinion about his marriage must be.
Clara smiled, quite at her ease while he made the introductions. “Forgive me for not rising,” she said. “I am unable to walk.”
It was unclear from their expressions if they had known that too. Camilla took Clara’s hand in hers and seated herself beside her. Malcolm stood looking gravely down at them, his hands clasped behind his back. Whatever they might think of him, Frederick thought in some relief, at least they were going to be civil to his wife.
“I know you,” Clara was saying, a slow smile of delight spreading across her face. “You are Freddie’s cousins who always spent the summers in Primrose Park with the rest of the family. He has told me about all the games you used to play and the mischief you always used to get into.”
“With himself as villain,” Camilla said with a laugh. “If ever there was a pirate or a bandit or a highwayman to be played, Freddie was always first to volunteer. The next family gathering will be for our wedding. You and Freddie will be there, of course, Clara. You will be able to meet the rest of us.”
Frederick’s discomfort grew. “I am going to go out in search of a drink for Clara,” he said, “if you will excuse me. I shall be only a few minutes.”
The devil, he thought when he was in the corridor and hurrying along in search of a drink. Of all the rotten luck. A family wedding—again—and in London, of all places. He and Clara would have to be gone. They would have to return to Ebury Court and make some excuse not to attend. Devil take it, Dan was Camilla’s brother. Jule was her sister-in-law.
He was walking too fast for the crowds. He collided with three separate people and had to stop each time to mutter apologies. The third time the words stuck in his throat. And the lady whose upper arms he had clasped appeared dumbfounded too.
“Jule,” he said at last, his voice sounding almost like a croak. Good Lord, of course, he might have expected that they would be at the theater with Camilla and Malcolm. But they would have rejected the pleasure of calling at his box.
“Hello, Freddie,” Julia Wilkes, Countess of Beaconswood, said. Her pretty, normally good-natured face did not smile.
He swallowed, released his hold of her arms, and looked over her shoulder. Of course. “Dan?” he said, inclining his head.
“Hello, Freddie,” the earl said. “Camilla and Malcolm called at your box? They have been trying to attract your attention all evening.”
“They are talking with my wife,” Frederick said. “You knew I was married?”
“Yes,” the earl said. His countess seemed to have become mute, a fact that was more than unusual with Jule.
“Well.” Frederick smiled and tried to look jovial. “I have not had a chance to congratulate the two of you, have I? I am sorry I was unable to attend your wedding. It was most annoying.”
The countess, he saw when he glanced at her, was gazing downward at the floor.
“We understood,” the earl said. He had one arm about Jule’s waist, Frederick noticed, as if he thought his cousin might be about to abduct her. A painful thought.
“May I present my wife to you?” he asked.
The earl hesitated. It was the countess who answered.
“Yes, please, Freddie,” she said, looking up to his neckcloth and taking her husband’s arm. “May we please, Daniel?”
And so he had landed himself with the painful task of escorting the two of them into his box and making the introductions. Dan made a formal bow to Clara, he noticed. Jule surprised him by taking one of Clara’s hands in both of hers and bending to kiss her cheek.
“Freddie has been telling Clara all about us,” Camilla said, laughing. “She knows all our sins in advance. Is not that a disconcerting thought?”
Clara laughed and looked up at the countess. “Did your husband tell you all about them too?” she asked. “They had a wonderfully wild childhood. I envy them more than I can say.”
“But I was one of them,” the countess said, chuckling. “And in many ways the worst of the lot. Ask Daniel. He spent his boyhood frowning at me and telling me that Grandpapa should have spanked me a few times when I was a child.”
“I am sorry.” Clara looked bewildered while Frederick wished he had some excuse fo
r slipping from the box. “I don’t think Freddie mentioned you. Julia? No, I do not remember that name. Were you always there?”
“Yes,” the countess said quietly. She was biting her lower lip, Frederick could see. “From the time I was five. I was not strictly speaking a member of the family. Only the stepdaughter of the former earl’s daughter. A rather obscure relationship.”
Clara smiled. “Are you enjoying the play?” she asked. “I think it is wonderful, though Freddie has been laughing at my enthusiasm. It is my first visit to a theater, you see, so I am easily pleased.”
Conversation moved into safe channels for a few minutes until it was time for their visitors to return to their box and Harriet and Lord Archibald returned to theirs. The play was about to resume.
Clara turned her head to smile at Frederick. “How delightful that some of your family are in town,” she said. “Now I can put a face to some of the cousins you have been telling me about.”
He smiled at her and took her hand again.
“Freddie,” she said, “did I make a dreadful blunder? Had I forgotten about Julia? I felt so foolish when she said that she had always been with the rest of you at Primrose Park. She had even lived there. But I have no memory of your ever mentioning her.”
“I never did, Clara,” he said quietly. He looked up from their hands to gaze into her eyes, which were wide with inquiry. He hesitated. “I was there—at Primrose Park—earlier this summer, before I went to Bath. I asked her to marry me, but she chose Dan instead.”
“Oh,” she said.
But the play was beginning again. There was no time to say more. He had certainly bungled that, he thought. What would she make of that explanation? But he could hardly tell her the whole story. He hated even to think of the whole story.
The rapt look had gone from his wife’s face, though she looked steadily at the stage for the rest of the performance. He wondered if she saw as little of the action as he did.
Chapter 12
When Lord Archibald Vinney rose immediately on the conclusion of the play and ushered Harriet from the box and down the stairs to the waiting carriage, she assumed that her employers were not far behind them. Yet they did not immediately follow into the carriage.
“I daresay Freddie saw the crush of bodies,” Lord Archibald said, closing the door, “and decided it would be wiser to wait with Mrs. Sullivan until the crowds thinned.”
“Perhaps I should go back upstairs,” Harriet said. “Perhaps Clara will need my assistance.”
But Lord Archibald set one long-fingered, well-manicured hand on her arm. “Swimming against the current can be an exhausting business,” he said. “They will be here in a few minutes, Miss Pope. I do not believe I have time to devour you between now and then. Though it must be confessed that you look quite delicious enough this evening.”
Harriet felt herself blush. She had never owned a dress as frivolous and magnificent as the one she now wore, the one Clara had paid for as a gift.
“You must be finding your duties as companion less arduous now that your employer is married,” he said.
“My duties never were arduous, my lord,” she said.
“Ah.” He smiled. “The voice of the truly dutiful and loyal employee. Pretty clothes become you. And being out in society animates you.”
Harriet said nothing. She was wondering if she should remove her arm, on which his hand still rested.
“Perhaps it is time you embraced such a life full time,” he said. “Instead of always being somewhat on the outside looking in and living for most of the time in extreme dullness.”
His silver eyes, Harriet saw when she darted a glance at him, were regarding her lazily. But keenly too. She felt a shiver of excitement despite her good sense and her ability always to keep her feet firmly on the ground. Was it possible? Did the Cinderella story sometimes become reality?
“I know of someone,” he said, “who could offer you a life of greater comfort and ease and greater wealth. You would have a home of your own and your own carriage and servants. You could go about as you pleased and be to all intents and purposes your own mistress.”
Harriet’s heart was beating right up into her throat. “There could not be any such employment,” she said. But in truth it was not employment she was thinking of. She looked up into his eyes again. “Who would offer me such an easy life, my lord?”
“Me, of course,” he said, taking her hand in his and raising it to his lips. “You could have all these things and more, Harriet. Clothes, jewels, outings. You have enslaved me, you see.” His eyes were smiling lazily at her.
“Oh,” she said. Her heart was fit to thump right out of her chest. She wanted to shout and jump for joy, but she held onto her dignity.
He leaned forward suddenly and kissed her on the mouth, a light kiss but with parted lips. Harriet had never been kissed before. After the first shock of contact, she jerked back her head. Spirals of excitement had whirled downward to her very toes.
“You may have whatever your heart desires while we are together,” he said. “And I will make a settlement on you and any children of our liaison before we begin it, so that you will know yourself secure for life. Now kiss me, my little blushing charmer, before we are interrupted. We will talk again tomorrow.”
Harriet’s feet had never been more firmly planted on the ground. Her heart was there too—beneath her feet. “No,” she said. “I mean no to everything, my lord. I have employment that I find pleasant and secure, I thank you.”
“Ah.” His silver eyes laughed at her. “A prim little charmer too. You will enjoy it, Harriet, I promise. I am reputed to have some little skill with women, I believe. You were made for a life of greater ease and more diverse pleasures than you can achieve as a lady’s companion.”
“I would rather be a lady’s companion than a gentleman’s, thank you, my lord,” she said. She had thought herself immune to foolishness. Well, she had fallen into it once now—painfully—but she would learn from the experience. One learned more in life from pain than from pleasure, her father had always said. She had thought she was listening to a marriage proposal. It was pathetically laughable. Perhaps tomorrow she would be able to laugh at her naivete.
He regarded her quietly for a few moments. “Think about it,” he said. “Perhaps the prospect of being my mistress will not seem so horrifying when you have done so. You would be able to live like a duchess, Harriet, both while we are together and afterward.”
She leaned away from the backs of two of his fingers, which were trying to caress her cheek, and drew breath to speak. But the carriage door opened from the outside and she closed her mouth again.
Clara began talking with great enthusiasm about the play even before she was set down on the seat opposite Harriet. She continued to do so most of the way home. Though to Harriet, who knew her, her voice sounded falsely bright and her remarks lacked the depth of intelligence that was more usual with her. And it was unlike Clara to prattle.
And yet, Harriet thought, none of the rest of them seemed eager for her to stop talking. No one else seemed wishful of making conversation. She wondered what had happened between Clara and Mr. Sullivan. She focused her mind on the question, trying to ignore the silent man at her side, trying not to think about the particular proposal he had just made to her, trying not to admit that she was tempted. Horrifyingly, sinfully tempted.
He was heavy on her and deep in her, moving with the slow rhythm that her body recognized and responded to. She had her arms wrapped about his waist, her head turned against his shoulder, and tried to concentrate on the pleasure he was undoubtedly arousing in her body, as he always did. She tried to anticipate the growing pleasure to come over the next several minutes, the near-frenzy that would seem more like pain than pleasure until it burst into glory. It never failed. Freddie was always good to her in bed.
He had come into her without kisses and caresses tonight, and was working longer at the slow part of the rhythm. It felt good. It undoub
tedly felt good. Sometimes she wished that this part could last on and on and on, that the greater pleasure—and also the end—could be held back and savored in anticipation. Sometimes she thought that being close to him, being joined with him, was more pleasurable than sexual release. No, not more so, perhaps. But equally pleasurable in a totally different way.
But tonight her brain could not be stilled as it normally was so that her body was free to enjoy. Tonight she could not stop thinking. She closed her eyes tightly and concentrated on the hard thrust of his body.
She was pretty. Slender and lithe and very, very pretty. And in love with Freddie. It had been clear from the way she had not looked at him, from the almost tangible tension that had hung in the air between them. Clara did not know why she had married the Earl of Beaconswood. Perhaps just because he was an earl and could offer her status and wealth and security. She must know Freddie well, after all. She would have been well aware of the fact earlier in the summer that he was deeply in debt. She would have known that he was a habitual gamer and womanizer. And so she had done what was sensible.
But she loved Freddie. And he loved her. That fact had almost shouted itself aloud in the box at the theater. I asked her to marry me, but she chose Dan instead. Clara turned her head sharply inward and clipped off the sound of what might have been a moan or a sob.
Frederick lifted his head and looked down at her with dreamy, heavy-lidded eyes. “Am I hurting you?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“I am too heavy?”
She shook her head again.
He kissed her open-mouthed. Lingeringly. “Does it feel good, my love?” he whispered into her mouth.
“Yes.” Oh, God, he was calling her that again. She wondered if he was trying as hard as she to put the evening’s events from his mind. She wondered if he was pretending that he was making love to Julia.