by Connie Lane
“Oh, I shouldn’t say never. Really, Somerton, you do not think highly enough of yourself.” Ravensfield rose to his feet. “I think that someday you will find a wife. But I do not think it will be soon, especially considering the current state of things here at Somerton House. Not that your staff does not hold a certain charm,” he added, almost as an aside. “But the ton can be quite damnably pretentious when it comes to such as poor Flossie and her friends.”
“And yet you yourself are not so narrow-minded.”
“Me?” Ravensfield poked one finger at the black satin waistcoat that showed when his greatcoat flapped open. “You know I don’t care a fig who serves in your home or what sort of services they provide. I have, however, had a chance to look over most of this year’s crop of marriage-minded girls. Not a toast among them, I’d venture to say, and not one who looks as if she would make you an appropriate parti. I know you well enough, you see. I know you would never spend the rest of your life with a woman who would bore you to death and be as cold as icicles in your bed—pardon my being so blunt, Miss Culpepper—just to make sure I lose a wager. So you see…” Ravensfield straightened his greatcoat, flapping it around him like bat wings.
“It is the ultimate challenge between the Blades and the Dashers. Marry and you save the family name and secure the family fortune at the cost of your happiness. Fail to marry, and you’ll make me a great deal of money. You’ll pardon my saying it…” He headed for the door. “But you are damned if you do, Somerton. And just as damned if you don’t. I’m wagering on the latter. Let’s face it, my friend, in spite of your title, you have little to recommend yourself. You have little redeeming social value.”
“That isn’t true and you know it!” The words were out of Willie’s mouth before she could stop them and when she came to her senses, she found she was already on her feet. “That is…” She swallowed down her mortification and reminded herself of what Somerton had reminded her of only a short while before. He was the master, and she, the servant. As such, she owed him her loyalty. Not her passion.
She dared a glance at Somerton and saw that though he was not at all surprised by her outburst, he did not feel he needed her support. Nor did he appreciate it.
“What I meant to say, of course…” Willie drew in a steadying breath and hoped that the heat she felt in her cheeks was not as noticeable as she feared. “Lord Somerton has many fine qualities. I do believe there are any number of young ladies who would be proud to know that he is taking them into consideration.”
“I truly hope not!” Ravensfield tipped his head in farewell. “You’ve got until the end of June, Somerton. This June. And either way you look at it, you lose and I…” He had removed his tall top hat when he walked into the house and now, he clapped it back on his head and set it at a rakish angle. “I win!”
For a few minutes after he was gone, Willie was too stunned by all that had happened to do anything but stare at the place where Ravensfield had stood. She was pulled from her thoughts by a curious sound behind her and she turned to find Somerton rubbing his hands together.
“We’ll get him this time!” He crossed the room to his desk and pulled open the top drawer. Whatever he was looking for, he didn’t find it, and he tried the next drawer and the next. Finally, he grumbled his displeasure. “Where the devil is it, Willie?” he asked.
“It?” His eyes were bright, his mood suddenly as animated as it had been despondent when she entered the room. Not certain what was happening or how she should respond, Willie approached him carefully. “You’re looking for—”
“The list, of course.” Somerton tapped a finger impatiently against the desktop. “The list you showed me the other day. The one that recorded each of the women you thought might be good matches.”
“It is right here.” Willie retrieved the list from her pocket. She had already crossed off Devonna Markham’s name.
“How many?” Somerton asked.
She glanced over the names. “Ten, m’lord. But I’m surprised—” She thought better and swallowed her words.
Somerton laughed. “Out with it, Willie. By all accounts, you’re bound to tell me sooner or later anyway. You’re surprised about what?”
“That you would care. You have been most reluctant.”
“Yes. Yes, I have been.” Somerton rounded the desk and, plucking the list from Willie’s hands, he headed out of the room, studying it. “But that was before I knew Ravensfield had his finger in the thing. You don’t think I’m going to let him win this wager, do you?”
He didn’t wait for her to answer and it was just as well. Watching him go, Willie whispered, “No, m’lord. I don’t think you will let Ravensfield win.”
And even though that would mean a successful match for Somerton and that a successful match for Somerton was what Willie had been urging all along, she wondered why the very thought of his sudden enthusiasm for finding a wife made her feel so hollow.
And why she cared so very much.
10
‘So,’e’s gone for the evenin’, is ’e?”
Willie had not heard anyone come up behind her and at the sound of Madame’s voice at her shoulder, she drew in a sharp breath of surprise and moved back from the library window.
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell Madame that she had no notion what she was talking about, that she was standing there simply to see if the window had been washed that afternoon as it was supposed to have been and not because she was watching Lord Somerton get into his carriage. One look in Madame’s eyes, and Willie decided against it. It was one thing lying to herself. It was another to try and pull the wool over eyes that had seen as much as Madame’s.
Willie moved away from the window and headed for the desk on the other side of the room. Somerton had been in the library earlier and the neat piles Willie had arranged that morning were now scattered. She looked through the papers one by one, sorting them again. If her thoughts would not cooperate, she told herself, at least her work could be organized.
“He’s headed for a ball at Almack’s,” Willie said, glancing toward the window and promising herself it would be the last time. “I hear he made good on a voucher of admission he was given earlier in the Season. Before—”
“Before we arrived. Yes.” Madame’s lips thinned. She turned from the window, too, but though it was obvious that neither of them was watching Lord Somerton any longer, it was just as obvious that Madame would not so easily let go of the subject. “’Im bein’ there ought to shake up a few of them toplofty Society types.”
“Indeed.” Because she knew it was true, Willie had to smile. Just as quickly, she put the thought from her mind. Better to concentrate on the task at hand than to let her imagination run riot. Especially when it ran in the very direction in which Somerton’s carriage was headed.
Her mind made up, she read over the newest of the invitations that had been arriving at the house in record numbers. The first requested Lord Somerton’s presence at a country house party in two weeks’ time and Willie made a note for herself to check and see which, if any, likely marriageable lady might be attending as well. She set the invitation on the proper pile and glanced up at Madame. “According to what Mr. Hexam told me when he visited His Lordship last Tuesday evening, the ton as a whole is thrilled to see Lord Somerton in circulation, so to speak. In spite of what happened at the dinner party—or perhaps because of it—his sudden participation in Society gatherings has added a certain spice to a decidedly bland Season.”
“And no wonder. Because for the first time, ’e’s seriously searchin’ for a wife.” Madame looked none too pleased at the prospect, which surprised Willie. After all, Madame understood just as surely as Willie did that finding a wife was a fit and proper task for someone of Somerton’s age, station and financial straits. “’E’s ’ad a change of ’eart and no mistake. Just think, when you first put forth your plan to find ’im a wife, ’e wanted no part of it. ’E was downright reluctant. That’s what ’e was.”<
br />
“That was before the Duke of Ravensfield entered the picture.”
Like it or not, it was the truth and as Willie had told herself time and again, it was time to face it. The transformation of Somerton was, after all, close to miraculous. She shook her head in wonder. “There is nothing like a wager to warm a man’s blood.”
It wasn’t meant as a jest. Which made Willie glance up in surprise when Madame laughed.
“Sorry, lamb.” Madame held one hand to her ample bosom as if that might help keep her laughter in check. It didn’t, and it wasn’t until the laughter had settled into a throaty chuckle and she had wiped a hand across her eyes that she tried to speak again. “Wagers are one thing, certainly. But I’m thinkin’ there are other things that can ’eat a man’s blood even more. If only a woman knows ’ow to go about usin’ them.”
It was so close to what Willie had been thinking about since the night of the dinner party and her encounter with Somerton on the stairway that she had no choice but to protest. “Madame, you can’t possibly think—”
“Don’t ’ave to think a thing, as it ’appens. I ’ave eyes to see and ears to ’ear and even if I did not, I ’ave a ’eart and oftentimes, the ’eart does more seein’ and ’earin’ than it does anythin’ else.”
“That may be so…” Willie reached for the pile of papers in front of her and tapped them against the desk top, wishing at the same time that she could so easily order her emotions and the thoughts that had been speeding through her brain since that fateful night. Not to mention the sensations that coursed through her body every time she so much as thought of the way Somerton had looked at her.
“Certainly, you are being much too imaginative,” she told Madame, her voice nearly choking over the words. “You cannot possibly think—”
“That you are dreamin’ about the man? And wonderin’ what it might feel like to be with ’im as a man and a woman are when they are lookin’ to pleasure each other?” Madame’s gaze was far too perceptive, her words too close to the ones that had plagued Willie for far too long.
“Am I that transparent?” Willie dropped into the seat behind the desk. “I wouldn’t for the world have him—”
“Oh, ’e ’asn’t any idea!” Madame shook her head, though the fact that Somerton did not know what a gooseberry Willie was seemed more a thing to rejoice about than one to be sorry over. “Like most men, ’Is Lordship does not know ’ow many blue beans make five. ’E pays too much mind to the things that ’ardly matter and doesn’t notice the things that do. Like the way you watch ’im when ’e ’appens into a room. Or the fact that more nights than not, you wait for ’im to return from wherever ’e’s gone. ’E ’asn’t paid none of it no mind but you can be certain sure it ’asn’t escaped my notice. I’ve seen the way when you speak to ’im, you won’t meet ’is eyes. I’ve noticed that when you are obliged to talk to the man about some ’ousehold matter or another, you try to be as quick about it as ’ell would scorch a feather. Little things, surely, but you would think a man would be aware. At least any man with ’alf a brain.”
“Then we must be thankful that His Lordship does not have ’alf a brain.” Because she dared not think about it or how foolish she’d been to allow her emotions to be so visible, Willie rose to her feet, determined to put both the conversation and the thoughts it sent jangling through her aside. Horrified by all that had been said and all that it meant, she looked to Madame for assurance. “You haven’t told a soul, have you?”
Madame grinned. “On my honor,” she said. “’Aven’t. Wouldn’t. Wouldn’t ’urt you for the world, lamb. Only I’m afeared you will take care of that yourself. If you do nothing and let your feelings go unspoken.”
It was Willie’s turn to laugh. She wasn’t sure why. There was certainly nothing at all amusing in the things Madame suggested. “You cannot be serious.” Because she feared Madame was, Willie refused to even consider the notion. “Nothing is exactly what needs to be said. And these feelings…” She hauled in a breath and let it out again slowly. “These feelings are misplaced. And misbegotten. They must certainly go unspoken.”
“And yet a woman can say a great deal without ever speakin’ a word.” Madame raised her neatly arched eyebrows. “If you catch my meanin’.”
“I do not,” Willie said, because of course, she did. “You cannot think that I would ever—”
The very thought set Willie’s heart hammering inside her ribs and her blood buzzing in her veins. “I wouldn’t know how,” she said, as surprised as Madame obviously was that she had dared to speak the words.
Madame waved away her worries with one hand. “The ’ow of it is easy enough! And a thing any woman knows. Any woman who wasn’t raised as you was, with a madman for a father and no mother to ’elp you along when it comes to such.”
“But, Madame, I couldn’t—”
“Of course you can!” Madame smiled and waved Willie closer. “Come on, now. Come over ’ere, and tell me what is it Somerton’s done.”
“Done? He hasn’t done anything. You don’t think—”
The horrified expression on Willie’s face was apparently all the reassurance Madame needed. “Oh, I know right enough that ’e hasn’t taken any liberties. Somerton may be a rakehell but he is not lackin’ honor. But there must be somethin’ that makes you think so of him. Somethin’ besides those eyes like sapphires and those shoulders that are as wide as the main door of St. Paul’s. And that smile…” A tremor skittered over Madame’s own shoulders. “Don’t tell me you ’aven’t noticed all that. So tell me, what was it? A glance? A word? Or just lookin’ at that angel’s face and knowin’ what a wanton devil’s ’eart ’e ’as?”
The memory of everything that had happened at the top of the stairway coursed through Willie like warm honey. She caught herself just as she was about to sigh and decided it was foolish to deny what was apparently so evident. “He spoke,” she said and when she looked at Madame and realized she was waiting for more, she tried again to make sense of what she had not been able to explain even to herself. “He spoke foolishly. I admit that much. We were practicing, you see. Rehearsing what he might say to Miss Markham and—”
“And he told you what pretty eyes you have and how your smile lights a room. Yes.” As if she’d heard the same sort of thing a hundred times over from a hundred different men, Madame nodded knowingly. “And that’s what’s got you all a twitter about the man?”
Willie cringed. Listening to Madame speak the words put them into perspective and standing back to look, she realized how much of a ninnyhammer she sounded. “I told you it was foolish,” she said, her shoulders slumping beneath the realization. “He hadn’t a thought for what he was saying and I…” She leaned back against the desk. “I am afraid I have taken it all quite to heart.”
“And who can blame you? There’s more than one woman in town who considers ’erself quite sophisticated and still cannot resist Somerton’s charms.”
It was another thing Willie did not wish to think about. If Somerton’s appeal was potent enough to captivate even the most sophisticated of women, what chance did she stand?
“Those charms are far beyond my reach,” she admitted. “As is even thinking of such things. I simply must put the whole thing out of my head.” Her mind made up—even though the sting in her heart proved she was not totally convinced—she stood straight and tall. “I will simply do what I have done all my life. I will mind my own business. I will complete my work and deal with Lord Somerton as I might with any employer. Efficiently. Professionally.”
“You might try a smile now and again.”
Madame’s suggestion hung in the air, simple yet provocative.
Too provocative to even consider.
“I smile,” Willie insisted. “Often. I smile at Jem and at Mr. Finch when I am instructing him about how to—and how not to—behave with guests. I smile at the girls, surely, for they respond far better to encouragement than they do to scolding. I smile at—”
<
br /> “At Somerton?”
The very thought made Willie feel light-headed and the starch in her shoulders dissolved, much as did her resolve. “If I am to smile, that means I must look him in the eyes. And if I look him in the eyes, surely he’ll know what I’m feeling.”
“What you’re feelin’ doesn’t matter. Not to any man. Not nearly as much as what ’e’s feeling. And ’e can’t be feelin’ a thing. Not if you never give ’im any encouragement.”
The very thought terrified Willie. “I do not wish to encourage him,” she insisted. “Encouragement leads to—”
“Exactly!” Madame beamed her a smile. “Oh, come now, lamb,” she cooed when it looked as if Willie might lose heart. “You know as well as I do what you’re dealin’ with. The man is lookin’ for a wealthy wife. And ’e will find one soon enough. Even if ’e did not ’ave a title to dangle in front of ’im like a carrot ahead of an ’orse, ’e’s got that face and that smile and that voice that sends shivers up a woman’s spine when it’s spoken low and shivers in other places as well when the words are right and the lights are down. You’ll lose ’im.”
“I never had him to lose.”
“Well then, you’ll lose the chance to ever know what it might be like to be with a man such as that. Once there’s a woman in the ’ouse, she’ll watch ’im like a hawk. And knowin’ Somerton…” She shook her head at the wonder of it all. “’E’ll not be like so many of the others. He will honor ’is vows and no doubt. Even if ’e does find ’is bride’s purse more appealing than ’er person. Sad to say but if you do nothing now, you’ll miss your opportunity.”
“Opportunity?” The word scraped from Willie’s suddenly dry mouth. “Opportunity to—”
Madame’s squeal of laughter was the only confirmation Willie needed that Madame was referring to exactly what Willie thought she was referring to. And what she was referring to was not anything Willie wanted to refer to. Much less to think about.