Never Resist Temptation

by Miranda Neville

  Thornley. What the devil was his brother-in-law doing here? And not alone either. Walter Thornley was accompanied by a woman, whose elbow he held as he guided her through the crowd. A tall lady about the same age as Kitty, gowned in deep lavender velvet that suited her dark coloring. Her handsome face was graced with glowing gray eyes and a rosy, healthful complexion.

  Kitty, by contrast, was pale as death.

  “My dear!” boomed Thornley, unaware of his wife’s distress. “Look who I have with me. Marabel had to see her man of business so I decided to escort her to London. When they told us at Mount Street you were here, we changed into evening gear and came to surprise you.” He gave his wife a hearty buss on the cheek and beamed at her.

  “A surprise, indeed,” Kitty responded stiffly. “How lovely to see you, Marabel,” she added, and kissed the woman on both cheeks with all the enthusiasm she might greet a hedgehog.

  Wondering what was going on, Anthony shook hands with his brother-in-law and was presented to Lady Morrison, a country neighbor of the Thornleys. Thornley, oblivious of the fact that Kitty was less than thrilled to see them, chatted on about what they’d all do together in town. Lady Morrison seemed less confident and kept darting anxious glances at her reluctant hostess.

  “It’s lovely to see you both,” Kitty interrupted. “But we are, after all, at a ball. Anthony just asked me to dance with him, and that’s not an opportunity I’m likely to miss.” She grasped him by the arm and dragged him toward the dance floor.

  “Slow down, Kitty,” Anthony protested. “Suppose you tell me what’s got you up in the boughs.” So much for not involving himself in his sister’s affairs. He had a notion he was about to hear all about them.

  “How could he?” Kitty raged. “I’ve never been so humiliated in my life.”

  “Are you telling me that Walter is having a…liaison…with Lady Morrison? Walter?” he asked incredulously. Kitty’s husband, though not the most thrilling chap in the world, was thoroughly solid and had always appeared to adore his more dashing wife. “You’re cracked. He worships you.”

  To his alarm, Kitty was on the verge of tears. Appalled at the idea of coping with feminine hysterics in a public place, Anthony hauled her off into a corner and prayed no one could see them. “Now,” he said, throwing a brotherly arm around her shoulder, “what makes you think old Walter is playing you false?”

  “Oh Anthony!” Kitty wailed. “I’m so unhappy. Marabel used to be a good friend of mine, and her husband, Sir Francis, was Walter’s favorite hunting crony. But then Francis died and now Walter likes her better than he likes me.”

  “I’m quite sure that’s not true—“

  “It is!” Kitty interrupted. “Walter goes to their house nearly every day, helping her with the lawyers and the estate.”

  “I don’t see anything so bad in looking after a friend’s widow.”

  “I told myself that, but it’s been a year now, and surely she doesn’t still need him. And it’s not just that.” Kitty’s voice was fierce. “She likes all the things he does. Horses and riding and country things. She never wants to give parties or go to town or the other things I like and Walter hates. She never buys too many new gowns or refurbishes her drawing room. She and Walter are perfectly suited.”

  “If Walter objects to your level of expenditure,” Anthony said coldly, “he should remember that your marriage portion was generous enough to support it. Not to mention that his own fortune is more than adequate.” An idea struck him. “Walter hasn’t been losing money, has he? Taken up gambling, or playing the exchange?”

  “No, I’m sure he hasn’t. But he got so angry with me when I recovered all the drawing room chairs in tapestry. But I had to. The straw-colored satin was hideous.”

  Anthony was beginning to get the idea. “How old was the satin?”

  “Six months old. But truly, Anthony. It had to go. You’d have hated it.”

  He felt a twinge of sympathy for the man, having his drawing room turned upside down twice in a year. But it didn’t seem enough to drive him into the arms of another woman. He could think of something that might, but his mind absolutely cringed at the notion of interrogating his sister about the intimacies of her marriage.

  “I’ll tell you one thing, Kitty. Walter said he’d brought Lady Morrison to stay in your house. A gentleman would never bring his mistress under the same roof as his wife.”

  “What does it matter?” Kitty said despondently. “Even if she’s not his mistress, he wishes she was and that’s just as bad. He doesn’t love me anymore and it’s all my fault.”

  “Why don’t you talk to him about it? Ask him.”

  Kitty threw him a look of scorn that reassured him that at least her spirits weren’t totally depressed. “A lot of good that would do. Whatever his feelings for Marabel, he’d just tell me not to be silly and I’d be no farther forward.”

  Anthony couldn’t argue with that. It was exactly what he’d do under the circumstances. Without a clue how to help his sister he felt useless. “What would you like me to do?” he asked.

  “Why, nothing,” Kitty replied in surprise. “There’s nothing you can do. But thank you for listening to me. I feel a little better.”

  No question. Women were completely incomprehensible.

  “Now,” she said, straightening her back, “there’s someone I’d like to speak to here. Will you escort me, please?”

  The surprise of being accosted by Lady Kitty Thornley was nothing to the shock of seeing Storrington. Despite the crush, Jacobin couldn’t believe she hadn’t been aware of his presence. A glow of pleasure warmed her body at the realization that he could see her in the beautiful rose dress.

  The beautiful dress that had been made for his sister. Who was standing in front of her.

  “Miss Castle,” Lady Kitty said graciously. “When I saw you I had to come and congratulate you on the splendid dishes you made for last night’s dinner. The sugar basket of eggs was a sensation, and I’d like to get the recipe for your pastry tower for my own cook.”

  Jacobin acknowledged the compliment gracefully. Perhaps Lady Kitty hadn’t recognized the gown.

  “And may I say,” Lady Kitty continued, “that you look wonderful in that gown. I remember it well. I loved the color so much but my strict aunt wouldn’t let me wear it.”

  Jacobin could sense Storrington’s stir of interest at this exchange. Darting a sideways glance at him, she saw him examining the garment with intensity, or more specifically the area of her chest that was left exposed by it. Mon Dieu, she loved to look at him. And the expression on his perfect face made her feel hot down to the tips of her toes. She wished she owned a fan.

  “Would Your Ladyship like it back now?” Jacobin asked, wrenching her attention back to Lady Kitty. Lucy would be disappointed but she felt she had to offer.

  “Lord, no! I gave it to Lucy. Besides,” she added with an air of mischief. “I had a dozen such made up just as soon as I was married and away from my aunt.”

  “I’m very grateful, my lady,” said Jacobin, “to have the chance to wear such a beautiful garment.”

  “There is something you could do for me. A favor.”

  “Anything, my lady.” Jacobin wondered what on earth this elegant creature could want from her.

  “When you return to Storrington, would you go and visit Nurse Bell and take her a treat. She was always fond of sweets.”

  “Nurse Bell?”

  “Yes, our old nurse. She lives in a cottage on the estate.”

  “I’d be delighted. Is there some confection she particularly enjoys?”

  “Chocolate cake, perhaps. She was always fond of chocolate, wasn’t she, Anthony?” Lady Kitty turned to her brother, whose face had become an expressionless mask.

  “I don’t remember,” he said curtly. “If you say Nurse Bell enjoys chocolate you’re no doubt correct.”

  Really, Jacobin thought, what was there about chocolate cake to put the man in a taking? When it came
to pâtisserie there was no pleasing him.

  Chapter 14

  Anthony hoped Lord Hugo Hartley could provide the final piece in the puzzle. Considering he’d waited for months for an audience with the old gentleman, his mind should have been fully occupied with the coming interview. But all Anthony could think about was a certain pastry cook and how enticing she’d looked in that cast-off gown of Kitty’s. And how she’d look even better out of it. And how unfair it was that his sense of honor wouldn’t let him compete for her charms against that stunted stranger she’d met at the Argyll Rooms.

  Well! He’d queered his game, at least. Jane Castle was in his baggage coach on her way back to Storrington and unable to respond to the advances of any dubious suitors who might present themselves. And, since he wasn’t there to save her from the consequences of her own folly, hopefully unable to embark on any more harebrained adventures. He wasn’t certain whether, in the feudal past, earls had the right to lock up their servants, but it sounded like a practice worth reviving.

  A butler admitted him to the narrow-fronted brick house in Bruton Street and showed him upstairs to a beautifully furnished sitting room. Though he was anxious to greet his host, it was a pleasure to wait in surroundings appointed by a man famous for taste and acuity in the acquisition of objects of art. Lord Hugo came in as Anthony admired an exquisite side table inlaid with several different woods.

  He didn’t know Lord Hugo well, but had easily recognized him in a Gainsborough portrait hanging over the fireplace. The tall, slender figure was unchanged, though now clad in the austere fashion of the day rather than the flamboyant pink satin of the portrait. Instead of powdered hair worn long and held back in a queue, the old man sported a fashionable crop, still thick and now naturally white. Dark eyes had lost their youthful brilliance but the aquiline nose was unmistakable. He walked carefully into the room, posture erect but maintained with the help of an ebony cane chased with silver. A manservant hovered at his elbow, but let his master make his own way to a wing chair, only offering an arm as the frail old man lowered himself into the seat. An attempt to place a rug over ancient knees was waved aside with the graceful sweep of a hand as pale and crumpled as old parchment.

  “May I offer you something to drink, Lord Storrington? A glass of Burgundy, perhaps. Or tea.” His light baritone voice was steady and imbued with a timbre of aristocratic courtesy that spoke of centuries of civility. Anthony had the feeling that he was in the presence of the epitome of noblesse oblige. He refused refreshment, and the servant withdrew.

  “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting so long for this call,” Lord Hugo said. “As one nears one’s eightieth birthday one tends to suffer from troublesome ailments.” He placed one long-fingered hand over the other on his knees and examined his visitor’s face with a still-keen gaze. “I’m sure I’m not the first to have remarked on your extraordinary resemblance to your mother.”

  Anthony bowed his assent from his seat a few feet away. There was something about Lord Hugo that made him instinctively mimic the older man’s courtly gravity. “Not the first, Lord Hugo. Did you know her well? As you know, I wish to ask you about my parents.”

  “I was well acquainted with her,” Lord Hugo replied thoughtfully, “for a number of years. But she was not, I believe, a lady anyone knew well. Despite her famous charm and vivacity there was always a reserve in her bearing that precluded intimate friendship. And something beneath her gaiety, an undercurrent of darkness.” Anthony was fascinated. Not one of his mother’s contemporaries had described her manners as anything but open and confiding. Before her withdrawal from society. Before Paris.

  “When Catherine made her appearance she dazzled everyone,” Lord Hugo continued. “She could have married anyone. There were at least two dukes at her feet, but she settled on your father. A sensible choice, I think. Your father was a solid man, reliable and kind. One wouldn’t have expected a young girl to have shown such good judgment.”

  Lord Hugo would have been in a position to assess his mother’s suitors. A boyhood friend of the king, whose exact contemporary he was, he had been a fixture in London society since the beginning of George III’s reign.

  “Do you think she loved him?” Anthony asked. He was hesitant to speak of such intimate matters, but something about Lord Hugo’s air of kindly understanding invited frankness. He suspected the old gentleman had been the recipient of many confidences over the years. Who knew what secrets lay sheltered behind those perceptive eyes?

  “It was my observation that there was great affection between the two of them,” Hartley replied, “but I would also have to say that Storrington’s sentiments exceeded hers. There were hidden depths there, but any profound ardor—and I’m by no means certain it existed—was not directed toward her husband.”

  Poor Papa, Anthony thought. It was just as he’d always thought. But one thing he was certain of was that his mother had loved him, and without reserve, until she changed. After Paris.

  Taking a deep breath, he broached the reason for his visit. “I want to ask you about Paris in 1786. My father took my mother there for a holiday, to celebrate my sister’s birth. He spoke to me of it on his deathbed, and I’ve been attempting to find out what I can about their time there.”

  “Ah, Paris! I spent the spring there that year, the last time I was there. Such wonderful times. We were quite oblivious of the tragedy to come. I suppose a less shallow man than I would have been aware of the troubles in France, but I only saw the beauty, the gaiety, the elegance of the French court.” Lord Hugo’s eyes regained some of their youthful glint. “To us stuffy English, Paris was an enchanted island of wit and liberality.”

  “Do you think my mother found it so?”

  “I don’t recall her behaving with any less than her usual animation. The queen took a fancy to her, I remember. Dear Marie Antoinette. Such a charming, vivacious woman. And unlike so many, she appreciated the same qualities in others of her own sex. She invited your parents to the Petit Trianon—a great honor.”

  “My mother spoke of that visit. It was important to her.”

  “I was there too. It was a magical day. We toured the queen’s little hamlet. An absurd conceit but a delightful place. The farm animals were kept at sufficient distance to remain picturesque.” Lord Hugo wrinkled his nose in a gesture of distaste, and Anthony recalled that he was relentlessly urban in his habits. Rumor had it that he hadn’t stepped out of the bounds of Mayfair and St. James in twenty years.

  Enjoyably evocative as these recollections were, Anthony steered the subject back to his own investigation. “Were there many other English in Paris that year?”

  “There were always English in Paris.”

  “Do you remember who was there at the same time as my parents?” Anthony waited on tenterhooks for details that would confirm or deny Candover’s guilt.

  Lord Hugo sighed happily and settled into reminiscence. “The Duke of Dorset was ambassador then. Let me try and recall the parties at the embassy. There were always a few sprigs of nobility stopping by during their grand tours.” He rattled off a few names.

  “What about Chauncey Bellamy?” Anthony asked, on the chance that Lord Hugo might have some knowledge that would help Jane Castle. He wasn’t the only one with something to investigate.

  “Bellamy?” For a moment a slightly wary look crossed Hartley’s features but then they relaxed into benign indifference. “I’m not sure if I recall him there. He must have been very young.”

  “He was,” Anthony pursued, “and making the tour. He dined with me recently and told me he’d been in Paris briefly.”

  “Then no doubt he was,” the other said. “I may even have met him there but I don’t recall.”

  Anthony had the impression his host wasn’t being frank with him about Bellamy. And the most obvious reason for such discretion seemed incredible.

  For Lord Hugo, despite his impregnable position in society by reason of his birth and personal charm, was widely suspected of
a preference for his own sex. Not that anyone ever mentioned the fact. To accuse someone out loud of a capital offense would be insufferably gauche. Yet somehow Anthony had always known that Hartley preferred the company of other men. He supposed at some time in the past someone had referred to the matter obliquely and it had settled into his consciousness. Lord Hugo had never been the subject of a tittle of scandal. His tastes were just a fact that everyone knew and nobody spoke of. Everyone except King George III, he amended mentally. The family-minded king was ardently opposed to toleration of any kind of sexual irregularity.

  The notion that the preposterously dull and respectable Chauncey Bellamy might share Lord Hugo’s tendencies was an idea he set aside for later consideration. Now he had an important question to pose.

  “What about Candover?” he asked, not letting his tone reveal how deep was his interest in the answer. “Did you know him in Paris?”

  “Candover.” Lord Hugo’s voice expressed mild distaste. “Yes, he was there.”

  “What was he like then?”

  “Quite an attractive man, not that you’d know it to see him now. He’s let his looks go completely in the last twenty years.” The disapproval in his voice was now undisguised. “He had charm enough, I suppose. But he was always a tiresome character with a habit of poking his nose where it was none of his business to be.”

  “Why was he in Paris?” Anthony asked casually. “Was his visit purely for enjoyment?”

  “He was trying to marry off his sister. Succeeded too, though he had to sweeten the pot to get de Chastelux to accept her. Rather a poor creature Felicity Candover, but once she set eyes on Auguste de Chastelux she had to have him, and she managed it too, with her brother’s help. Now there was a beautiful man.”

  Anthony wasn’t much interested in Candover’s brother-in-law, but he courteously allowed the old gentleman to continue.

  “Auguste was of excellent family but without a sou to his name. He had to marry money. The French always do, of course, but for Auguste it was essential. I don’t think I’ve ever met a man whose wit and intelligence matched his looks to such an extraordinary degree. Marie Antoinette adored him, despite his revolutionary sympathies. He was there, with the Candovers, that day at the Trianon. They must have been invited for his sake.”