“Em, whatever is wrong, dear girl?” he asked, setting her to rights.
She was speechless, staring down into a pair of cold, black eyes. Her knees weakened, but she resolutely clung to her escort. Baxter, in London! She would not let her long-absent husband see how much the first sight of him in two years had affected her. But if she could have sunk into a hole that very second, she would gladly have done so.
Chapter Two
Delafont House, an elegant town house in Mayfair, presented a tidy, calmly decorous face to the square within which it was situated. A fenced park was across the cobbled street, a small green patch of peace and prosperity in which the neighborhood dogs were exercised and nannies took their tiny charges for daily airing.
The house itself was high and narrow, one of the middle in a block of four: one was vacant, one was dwelt in year-round by a rich, retired surgeon, and one was rented out to a bumptious country squire and his noisy brood of children. He had brought them and his tired wife to London to “fire off” his eldest daughter on the marriage mart.
The squire and his lady had called that morning in early March and sat in the parlor sipping tea with Emily. She listened patiently while the squire, Mr. Duff, expounded on how little he liked to take his attention away from his farms and crops, but his duty to his daughter was more important. She had a chance at a title, it was said, and he weren’t going to stand in his little girl’s way.
Emily appeared to listen and even responded on occasion, but she contemplated with most of her mind the previous evening’s sighting of her estranged husband. How handsome he looked, she thought sadly. And how supercilious his expression as he gazed up at her, clutching on to Fawley’s arm like a faint-hearted widgeon. Baxter had said nothing to her, but then, he didn’t need to. His look said everything.
She spread her hands out on her lap as she nodded politely to Squire Duff. She glanced down at her wedding ring, her only ornament. It was an oval-cut ruby of unusually deep color and impeccable cut. She was a girl of twenty-one when she had accepted it, a girl who looked forward to a life of bliss with the man she loved deeply and completely.
How time had changed all. Now she lived alone with a companion, like a dowager, though her husband was still vibrantly alive and handsomer than ever. Nonsense, she thought, bringing herself up sharply. Baxter was a cold, emotionally stunted villain, and the fact that he was still the handsomest man she had ever seen had nothing to do with anything. It was not his looks she had fallen in love with, it was who she had thought he was, a warm, giving, tender man.
She was wrong.
The last time she had seen him was two years ago when he called on her to suggest—nay, order—her retirement to the Yorkshire house, which he deeded to her clear and free. She was entitled to stay at the Sedgely seat, Brockwith Manor in Surrey, but the dowager lived there and she and Emily had never gotten along. So she had gone to Yorkshire, and had not been back to London since, feeling too humiliated by her banishment to hold her head up among the ton. It was with a broken spirit and wounded soul that she crawled away to the north country.
What had changed? Why had she, one cold, bleak January morning, awoken to the clear knowledge that she was missing life and must go to London? She had grown restless, she thought, since her Christmas visit to Cumbria, where she witnessed her niece, a governess to good friends of hers, fall in love and marry a young man of rakish leanings who had, surprisingly, fallen deeply in love with her.
But that could not be the only explanation. Perhaps it had just been the impetus that had led her to explore her life and find it sadly wanting. There were many changes in her, she thought. She had gained weight over the last couple of years, at least two or three stone, and knew she presented a sadly different appearance to friends with whom she had become reacquainted. She saw it in their eyes as they greeted her, heard it in their pause before they assured her she was looking marvelous. Baxter was as lean and handsome as ever and she was as round as a pudding. How apt were culinary metaphors, she thought wryly. Food was important in Yorkshire through the long dreary winter.
Rare roast beef with suet pudding, scones with fresh butter, cook’s famous Banbury cakes, all those homely delights helped while away dark winter evenings by the fire as she and Dodo played piquet. And all the while Baxter was traveling in sunny Italy and the Greek isles.
But she had found a measure of serenity in the last two years, too, as some of the splintered pieces of her heart fused. It might not be whole again, but it beat stronger and steadier for two years of contemplation. She had felt ready to take on society once more, daunting as it could sometimes be to someone who preferred the country. And though that new serenity had been shaken by the sight of her husband and the knowledge that he, too, was in London, it would not send her scurrying back to the safety of Yorkshire.
Emily was awoken from her daydreams by the stir of her guests. The tired-looking wife of the loquacious squire was looking at her kindly and saying, “I’m sure you must have been wishing for us to go this age, my lady, and so we will take our leave. If we might beg your indulgence, could we bring our daughter, Eudora, to meet you sometime?”
Emily, afraid she had been intolerably rude while lost in thought, found herself agreeing with more enthusiasm than she would have thought possible. “Oh, please do, for it is such a treat to have visitors!”
When they were gone, she rang for more tea and was joined by Dodo. The older woman gazed at her over her spectacles, shrewdly assessing her hagridden face and tired eyes. “My dear, why do you not go back to bed? I am sure you must not have slept a wink all night.”
“As bad as that?” Emily laughed, putting her hands to her cheeks. “I cannot imagine how I would look if we had gone to the Groveson ball last night after all. I must increase my stamina to enjoy all the delights of the season.”
“My poor child, do not try to fool me. I was an aging spinster before you were born. That encounter with Baxter was a shock to you, yes?”
Ruefully realizing that she could not evade this particular inquisition, she nodded. “I do not know why, Dodo dear, unless it was just so unexpected. Baxter is nothing to me, nor I to him! But to see him so suddenly . . . it just startled me.”
Dodo compressed her thin lips until they were a straight line. She shook her head and sighed. “Two foolish children,” she murmured.
Emily bristled. “I am not the foolish one. I never asked for this separation, and Baxter could very well—”
Trumble, the butler, swept the door open at that moment and announced, “Her ladyship, the Dowager Marchioness of Sedgely.”
Emily gasped and flushed, standing hurriedly as her mother-in-law swept into the room in a swirl of ermine and velvet, swathed to the chin despite the moderating temperatures outside. Dodo rolled her eyes but approached her sister-in-law and dutifully kissed the faintly lined and powdered cheek.
“Don’t stand there gawping, girl,” the dowager said to Emily. “Pour me some tea. It is perishing cold outside, as my driver would say.” Lady Marie shrugged out of her fur-trimmed pelisse, rightly judging that a footman would be there to catch it before ever it fell to the floor.
“Cold it is not, Marie,” Dodo pronounced, giving Emily time to come to her senses. “After you have experienced a few winters in Yorkshire, nothing will ever feel cold to you again. It is positively warm out there.”
Emily hurriedly poured a steaming cup of tea from the tray that had just been delivered by swift, efficient hands, and gave it to her now-seated mother-in-law.
“What . . . what a pleasant surprise to see you, Mother,” Emily said.
“Nonsense. You’re not pleased at all. In fact, you are horrified,” Lady Sedgely announced, with some satisfaction. “I am a little horrified, myself, to be here, if you must know. I was pried from my comfortable Bath existence by a very disturbing letter I had from a dear friend, Lady Shelburne.”
Emily and Dodo exchanged looks. Bath? So after prying Emily out of Brockw
ith Manor, Marie had not even stayed there but had retreated to her home in Bath. Emily had suspected from the beginning that her mother-in-law only stayed at Brockwith out of some perverse desire to annoy her son’s wife.
“By the way, Emily,” the dowager said, glaring at her. “You are much changed. Whatever do you mean by getting so fat? How can you win back my son when you look like a pudding bag with eyes?”
Dodo’s mouth took on that grim, compressed look again, and she said, “Now, look here, Marie, I know you was wont to badger the poor child in past days, but—”
“Dodo, it is not necessary to engage in my fight.” Emily smiled at her companion, then turned to her mother-in-law. She took a deep breath and stiffened her spine. “I have no desire to ‘win back’ your wretched son, my lady. It was not I who created the rift, and so it is not up to me to heal it. Not that it ever could be healed. He said the most unspeakable things to me when last we spoke—at your behest, I might add—and I have no desire to ever see him again.”
The dowager marchioness’s pale blue eyes narrowed. She gazed steadily at her daughter-in-law, looking her up and down with a fishy stare. “Ain’t increasing with some other man’s brat, are you?”
Emily gasped and in quivering outrage stood, sweeping back the skirt of her dress and holding her head high. “I think you have said everything you possibly can to insult and defame me, ma’am. I suggest you leave.”
The woman took a sip of tea. “Do not fly up into the boughs, Emily. I was merely asking. You are become notorious now that the Regent has written a poem calling you his . . . what was it, his ‘darling dumpling’?”
Emily flushed in anger and plunked down on the sofa, unaware that she had caused Dodo to spill tea over the rug. “I cannot believe that rubbish made it all the way to Bath! Of course, with gabble-mongers like Lady Shelburne around, it is no wonder. His Highness has been very kind to me on the two or three occasions when we have met, and simply because some odious verse merchant put the Prince’s name to a scurrilous piece of nonsense . . .”
“You mean the Prince did not write it?” The dowager’s gaze was direct and challenging.
“Of course not! Do you think the Prince’s superb artistic sense would produce such execrable drivel, not to mention the fact that his Highness’s honor would never compromise a lady in such a way. And how did that miserable publisher get a copy of a piece produced by our Regent?”
“If what you say is true, my dear, we must set about immediately to refute it.”
Emily sighed impatiently. “Surely, my lady, you know that to even acknowledge the existence of such rubbish and deny it is to give it credibility? And there is no way to deny it without impugning the honor of his Highness. It is a pickle, but there is no way out.”
“Nonsense,” the woman said briskly. “There is always a way. Then we can set about making you presentable again and get you back with my son so you can produce an heir before you are too old, if you haven’t dried up already.”
Emily felt like shrieking with frustration, but held back, only pointing a cold stare at her mother-in-law as she stood to face her. “My lady,” she said, her voice dripping ice. “Nothing on this earth, and only God Himself in heaven, could send me back to that coldhearted beast. We are through forever and for all time. My dislike for him is only exceeded by his distaste for me. And I do not care to lose weight!”
On that note Emily turned and with graceful dignity left the room, spoiling the exit utterly by tripping on the carpet.
Chapter Three
Belle squealed in pleasure and whirled around her dressing room—little more than a closet she shared with three other girls—in a youthful display of high spirits.
Baxter covered his ears and groaned. “Please, Belle! With that caterwauling I can’t tell if my little trinket pleased you or not!”
The girl, slim and supple as a willow sapling, whirled again past her casually abandoned dresses and shifts discarded over a nearby chair, landing inelegantly in the marquess’s lap. He expelled a lungful of air in a whoof.
“I love it, Baxter! You know I do!” Lolling on his lap, clad only in her shift and stockings, she held the diamond and sapphire collar up to the candlelight. She threw her arms around his neck and squeezed. “You are too good to me, luvey!”
Sedgely grimly reflected that if she wanted to return the favor she would get off his trick knee, which was aching abominably. He couldn’t resist the girl’s joy, though. He remembered her as he had first found her with a barbaric Cockney accent, tawdry finery and an ugly bruiser of an employer/protector. She had been traveling the Continent with the lowest type of acting troupe, which performed bawdy and salacious skits for any and all who would pay tuppence.
Baxter was traveling as a way to escape the tedium of home. As a diversion, he and a couple of friends had attended the tent show when they stopped temporarily near Milan to rest their horses. The show had been almost obscene and Baxter had been on the point of leaving. In fact, he had already left the tent when he heard a commotion near a cart that served as the show’s headquarters.
Belle, or Annabelle Gudge, as she had been christened, was being abused by her foul employer. The man was battering her around the head while she screeched out vituperation at him, kicking and scratching like a tiny tiger. At first he had not been sure if the slender figure was a child or an adult, but in either case he was bound by his own code to intervene on behalf of a party so much the weaker. He waded into the fray, got a bloody nose but thankfully nothing worse, and pulled Belle away from the man, a huge behemoth with fists like hams.
When the fellow saw the way things were, and perhaps the quality of Baxter’s jacket, he retreated. Belle was expelled from the show immediately, and Baxter was saddled with a pathetically grateful but very common little wench. She couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen at the time, though it was hard to tell, she was so skinny and dirty.
She absolutely refused to leave his side. He had offered her money, thinking at least to keep her from her present life for a while, but she looked at him with a wounded expression that surprised him. She might not know much, she said, in a barely understandable street accent, but she knew enough to know that she owed him, not the other way around, and she was going to find some way to repay him for rescuing her. Giving in to the inevitable, he hired a tutor to restrain the worst of her accent, and she surprised everyone by blossoming quickly into a very comely, enthusiastic young woman. It was touching how grateful she was.
Convinced it was the only way she could repay him, she boldly propositioned him. He had said no. She was decidedly not his type, sexually. She cried and stormed and wheedled, and finally got him drunk and seduced him. That was no excuse. He hadn’t wanted her so much as he was lonely and had not been with a woman for too long. And she seemed to want him so very badly.
Perhaps that had been the charm. He had never needed a boost to his opinion of himself, but Emily’s rejection of him had left him shaken. He would never forget the last time he had bedded his previously passionate wife. Things had been deteriorating between them for a year or more, but at least they always had their passion for each other. But that last time she had lain in his arms like a fence post, neither giving nor apparently receiving any pleasure from the act.
So Belle’s obvious desire for him was a powerful aphrodisiac. Maybe he had used his intoxication to rationalize the deed, but the end result was that he bedded her, and after that there was no retreating; she would not allow it.
She was no ingenuous virgin. Though she didn’t speak of it much, he gathered that she had been sleeping with men for years, for the first time when she was perhaps as young as ten. It was a miracle she didn’t have syphilis or a couple of bastards following her about. He suspected from hints she had dropped that she had miscarried a couple of times, though it was something of which she had never spoken.
Her life had been unbelievably brutal, and he felt sorry for her. She expressed an interest in being
an actress. After a time together traveling Europe, he sent her ahead to London with a letter of introduction to Sylvester Lessington, one of London’s premier theater owners and an old and valued friend, and she had started her illustrious career as Belle Gallant, Opera Dancer Extraordinaire.
By the time he got back to London her career was in full swing. He assumed that their brief affair was over, but no, she was still grateful and still determined to be his mistress, she had told him the night before. It was not as if she didn’t have other offers. There were several young bucks desperate to take her under their protection. She treated them all with an airy disdain, according to Less, that drove them all mad with frustration.
She was no longer the ragtag little waif he had first taken under his wing, but had blossomed into a lithe, pretty butterfly. Her golden hair was soft and glinted in the stage lights and her skin had the dewy perfection of youth, a very fetching bundle indeed, and a very loyal one.
This night was his second back in town, the night after seeing his wife and having the dubious satisfaction of seeing her quail under his gaze. His first order of business had been buying the trinket for Belle, but now he had real business to attend to. Gently he disengaged her arms from around his neck and pushed her off his lap.
He stood, wincing at the pain in his knee, which creaked as he moved, and said, “I must be going, my dear. There is a man awaiting me.”
“Wouldn’t you rather I come back to your town house with you,” she purred, rubbing her sinuous body against his in a display of erotic abandon he had at first found enchantingly provocative.
Unfortunately Belle was a one-note symphony where lovemaking was concerned, all youthful eagerness and demanding energy. Baxter suspected that she would cheerfully do it anywhere, even on the floor in her dressing room. His tastes were more sophisticated, and he longed for the more drawn-out eroticism of an older woman, one more willing to put off immediate gratification for the gradual banking of the fires of passion, leading to a taste of heaven at the end of hours of love play.
Married to a Rogue Page 2