Virtue v-1

by Jane Feather

  It was six o'clock in the evening.

  Suddenly, from behind the little hill, the brigade of Foot Guards who had been sheltering from the cannonade rose seemingly out of the ground and fired round after round into the Imperial Guard. The effect was as if the fire itself was a battering ram, bodily forcing the front line of the French column backward. They began to fall like ninepins at a terrifying rate. The divisions at the rear began to fire over their comrades' head, the formation wavering as they milled in confusion. With an almost primeval scream that lifted the tiny hairs on her skin, the brigade of Foot Guards sprang forward, swords in hand. As Judith watched, the unthinkable happened. Napoleon's Imperial Guard, his last hope, his tool for certain victory, the veterans of ten years of war and innumerable triumphs, broke rank, turned, and ran, pursued by the bellowing brigade.

  Slowly Judith turned and went back down the hill, unable to believe what she'd seen. But it seemed it was over. Wellington and Bliicher had won the Battle of Waterloo. The atmosphere in the stableyard was one of exhausted jubilance as the sun set and the sound of firing became sporadic. The death toll was horrendous and the wounded were brought in in wagonloads; but Bonaparte had been defeated for the last time. The Prussians were pursuing the fleeing French army, leaving the depleted British to gather themselves together, recover their strength, and take stock of their losses.

  Marcus rode into the stableyard toward midnight. He'd accompanied Wellington to his post-victory meeting with Bliicher. The two men had kissed each other and Bliicher had summed up the day's events in his sparse French. "Quelle affaire!"

  Adequate words, it seemed to Marcus. Superlatives somehow wouldn't capture the sense of finality they all felt. The world as they knew it could now return to peace again.

  He looked for his wife in the torch-lit stableyard. Finally, he saw her bending over a stretcher in the corner of the yard. As if she were aware of his arrival, she straightened, pushing her hair out of her eyes, turning toward him. His heart leaped at the sight of her. The bitterness of their parting, the sourness of suspicion, faded, and he wanted only to hold her.

  "You're safe," she said, her voice shaky with relief as he dismounted beside her. There was a'shadow of sorrow in her eyes as she met his gaze, a questioning apprehension that harked back to the wretchedness of the morning.

  He was filled with an overpowering need to kiss the sadness from her eyes, the tremor from her soft mouth. Suddenly, nothing seemed to matter but that she was there for him. "Yes," he said, pulling her into his arms. He laid his lips against her eyelids, feeling their rapid flutter against his mouth. "Safe and sound, lynx."

  Her arms went around him, and she reached her body against his, her head resting on his chest, the steady beat of his heart thudding against her ear. Her eyes jsed and for this moment she lost herself in the security of his hold, the warmth of his presence, the promise of passion.

  9

  That new butler of yours seemed inclined to deny me." Bernard Melville, third Earl of Gracemere, entered Lady Barret's boudoir without ceremony. "I trust it doesn't mean the gouty Sir Thomas is turning suspicious."

  "No. He's at Brooks's, I believe. Snoring over his port, probably." Agnes stretched languidly on the striped chaise longue, where she had been taking a recuperative afternoon nap. "Hodgkins is overly scrupulous about his duties. He knew I was resting." She held out her hand. "I wasn't expecting you to return to town for another week."

  He took her hand, carrying it to his lips. "I couldn't endure another day's separation, my love."

  Agnes smiled. "Such pretty words, Bernard. And am I to believe them?"

  "Oh, yes," he said, bending over her, catching her wrists and holding them down on either side of her head. "Oh, yes, my adorable Agnes, you are to believe them." His hard eyes, so pale their blueness was almost translucent, held hers, and she shivered, waiting for him to bring his mouth to hers, to underwrite his statement with the fierce possession of his body.

  He laughed, reading her with the ease of long knowledge. "Oh, you are needy, aren't you, my love? It's amazing what an absence can do." Still he held himself above her, taunting her with promise.

  "And you are cruel, Bernard," she stated softly. "Why does it please you to taunt me with my love?"

  "Is it love? I don't think that's the right word," he murmured, bringing his face closer to hers but still not touching her. "Obsession, need, but not love. That's too tame an emotion for such a woman as you."

  "And for you," she whispered.

  "Obsession, need," he responded with a smile that did nothing to soften the cruel mouth. "We feed on each other."

  "Kiss me," she begged, twitching her imprisoned hands in her need to touch him.

  He let his weight fall onto her hands so that her wrists ached and very slowly brought his mouth to hers. She bit his lip, drawing blood, and he pulled back with a violent jerk of his head. "Bitch!"

  "It's what you like," she said, with perfect truth.

  He slapped her face lightly with his open palm and she gave an exultant crow of laughter, bringing her freed hand to his face, wiping the bead of blood from his lips with her fingertip and carrying it to her own mouth. Her tongue darted, licking the red smear, and her tawny eyes glittered. "Shall I come to you tonight, my lord?"

  He caught her chin with hard fingers and kissed her, bruising her lips against her teeth in answer. A knock at the door brought him upright. He swung away from her, picking up a periodical from a drum table, idly flicking through the pages as a footman silently mended the fire.

  "What's this I hear about Carrington taking a wife in Brussels?" Gracemere asked casually. "It's the talk of the town. Some nobody, I gather."

  "Yes, I haven't met her yet. We came up to town ourselves only yesterday," Agnes said in the same tone. "Letitia Moreton says she's stunning and seems very much up to snuff. She's charmed the Society matrons at all events. Sally Jersey raves about her."

  "Not another Martha, then?" He tossed the periodical onto the table again as the footman left, and he sat down, carefully smoothing out a crease in his buff pantaloons.

  "Hardly," Agnes said. "No little brown mouse this, as I understand it. But no one knows anything about them… there's a brother too. Equally charming, according to Letitia."

  "Plump in the pocket?" There was an arrested look in the pale eyes, a sudden predatory hunger.

  Agnes shook her head. "That I don't know. But if he's Carrington's brother-in-law… why?"

  Gracemere's manicured fingernails drummed on the carved arm of his chair. "I'm looking for another pigeon to pluck. Newcomers to town tend to provide the easiest pickings. I wonder if he plays."

  "Who doesn't?" Agnes said. "I'll see what I can find out this evening at Cavendish House. But I have another idea for improving your financial situation, my love." She sat up, her tone suddenly brisk.

  "Oh?" Gracemere raised his eyebrows. "I'm all ears, my dear."

  "Letitia Moreton's daughter, Harriet," Agnes announced, and lay back again on the piled cushions with a complacent smile. "She has a fortune of thirty-thousand pounds. It should last you quite a while, I would have thought."

  Gracemere frowned. "She must be barely out of the schoolroom."

  "All the better," Agnes said. "She'll fall easily for the flattering attentions of a charming older man. You'll be able to sweep her off her feet before she has the chance to lay eyes on anyone else."

  The earl tapped his teeth with a fingernail, considering. "What about Letitia and the girl's father? They'll be unlikely to look kindly on rhe suit of a fortune hunter."

  "They don't know you're a fortune hunter," Agnes pointed out. "And you have the earldom. Letitia will jump at an earl for her daughter so long as you behave with circumspection. I've already become fast friends with the lady." She laughed unkindly. "Such a nincompoop she is, with die-away airs. She professes to be an invalid and can't chaperone her daughter as much as she should. So who do you think has offered to take her place?" Her eyebrows
rose delicately, and Gracemere laughed.

  "What a consummate plotter you are, my dear. So I can expect to meet the sweet child in your company."

  "Frequently," Agnes agreed with another complacent smile.

  "In the meantime, bring me your impressions of Carrington's brother-in-law. I might as well pluck a pigeon while I'm waiting for the heiress to ripen and fall," he said, rising. "I'm not invited to Cavendish House, since I'm still supposed to be in the country, so I'll rely on your acute senses, my love." He bent over her again, laying one hand on her breast, feeling the nipple rise in immediate response. "Adieu, until later."

  Agnes shifted on the couch, one leg dropping to the floor. The earl moved his hand down, pressing the thin silk of her negligee against the opened deft of her body, feeling her heat. "Until later," he repeated, and then left her.

  Marcus tossed the reins to his tiger and alighted from his curricle in Berkeley Square.

  "Take a good look at the leader's left hock when you get them to the mews, Henry. I sensed a slight imbalance as we took that last corner."

  "Right you are, governor." The lad tugged a yellow forelock before going to the horses' heads.

  Marcus strolled up the steps of the handsome double-fronted mansion. The front door opened just as he reached the head.

  "Good afternoon, my lord. And it's a beautiful one, if I might be so bold." The butler's bow was as ponderous as his words.

  "Afternoon, Gregson. Yes, you may be so bold." Marcus handed him his driving whip and curly-brimmed beaver hat. "Bring a bottle of the seventy-nine claret to my book room, will you?" He crossed the gleaming marble-tiled expanse of hallway and went down a narrow passage behind the staircase to a small, square room at the back of the house, where a young man was arranging papers on the massive cherrywood table that served as desk.

  "Good afternoon, my lord." He greeted his employer's entrance with a bow.

  "Afternoon, John. What are you going to entertain me with now?"

  "Accounts, my lord," his secretary said. "And Lady Carrington's quarterly bills. You did say you wished to settle them yourself." His tone conveyed a degree of puzzlement, since in general he was responsible for settling on the marquis's account all the bills that came into the house.

  "Yes, I did," Marcus said absently, picking up a neat pile of bills. "Are these they?"

  "Yes, my lord. And there are some invitations you might want to look at."

  "I can't think of anything I'd like to do less," Marcus said, leafing through the bills in his hand. "Give them to Lady Carrington."

  "I did, my lord. But she said she didn't feel able to make up your mind for you." John blushed and he pulled awkwardly on his right ear, wishing he hadn't been put in the position of conveying Lady Carrington's forthright opinion to her husband. But his lordship merely shrugged.

  "Very well, I'll discuss them with her." He dropped the bills to the table and picked up the pile of embossed cards, wrinkling his nose in distaste. The number of irksome invitations that came into the house of a married man far exceeded those he'd received as a bachelor. Everyone knew he didn't care for social events, and he couldn't understand why all these overzealous Society matrons now soliciting his company imagined that marriage would change the habits and interests of a lifetime.

  "If that'll be all, my lord, I'll go and work on your speech to the House of Lords on the Corn Laws."

  Marcus grimaced. "Can't you find something more interesting for me to talk on than the Corn Laws, John?"

  His secretary looked startled. "But there is nothing more important at the moment, my lord."

  "Nothing to do with the army or the navy… further reforms in the Admiralty, how about that?"

  "I'll do some research, my lord." With a hurt look, John left the book room.

  Marcus smiled. John's political interests were unfortunately not his employer's. He turned back to the papers on the desk, picking up the pile of bills again.

  Gregson came in with the claret. "Is her ladyship in, Gregson?"

  "Yes, my lord. I believe she's in the yellow drawing room." The butler drew the cork, examined it carefully, poured a small quantity of claret into a shallow taster, and sniffed and sipped with a critical frown.

  "All right?"

  'Tes, my lord. Very fine." He filled a crystal goblet and presented it to his employer. "Will that be all, sir?"

  "For the moment. Thank you, Gregson."

  Marcus took the scent of his wine before sipping appreciatively. He wandered over to the long narrow windows overlooking a small, walled garden. The leaves of a chestnut tree drifted thickly to the grass under the brisk autumnal wind. A gardener was gathering the richly burnished mass into a bonfire. Marcus was abruptly reminded of Judith's hair, glowing in the candlelight, spread over the white pillows… the silky matching triangle at die apex of those long, creamy thighs…

  Abruptly he turned back to the desk and picked up the pile of bills again, tapping them against his palm. Judith certainly didn't count the cost when it came to her personal expenditures. She was beautiful and passionate in bed and he paid her well for it.

  Why in God's name did he resent it? He was a generous man and always had been. Money had never concerned him-his fortune was too large for it ever to be an issue. And yet, as he looked through his wife's bills, saw what she'd spent on her wardrobe, he could think only of how different it must be for her now, after all those years of living from hand to mouth, of making over her gowns and wearing paste jewelry, of living in cheap lodgings… of pretending publicly that she had access to all the things she now had at her fingertips.

  A house in Berkeley Square, a country estate in Berkshire, an unassailable social position… She must congratulate herself every moment of every day on how well her strategem had succeeded.

  Marcus drained the claret in his glass and refilled it. Since Waterloo, they'd skimmed the surface of their relationship. There had been no further mention of the encounter in the taproom. And no reference in their lovemaking to his continued precautions against conception. Socially, they obeyed convention and went their separate ways. Except during the quiet, private hours of the night. Then the needs of their bodies transcended the bleak recognition of the true nature of their partnership, so that he would wake in the morning, filled with a warmth and contentment, only to have it destroyed immediately with the full return of memory.

  She never talked of her past and he never asked. In all essentials they remained strangers, except in passion. Was that enough? Could it ever be enough? But it was all he was going to have, so he'd better learn to be satisfied.

  He put his glass down and left the book room, still holding the sheaf of bills. The yellow drawing room was a small salon upstairs, at the back of the house. Judith had laid claim to it immediately, eschewing the heavy formality of the public rooms: the library, main drawing room, and dining room. He opened the door, to be greeted by a light trill of feminine laughter; it was abruptly cut off as the three women in the room saw who had entered, and for an instant he felt like an intruder in his own house.

  "Why, Carrington, have you come to take a glass of ratafia with us?" Judith said, quirking her eyebrows with her habitual challenge.

  "The day I find you drinking ratafia, ma'am, is the day I'll know I'm on my way to Bedlam," he observed, bowing. "I give you good afternoon, ladies. I don't wish to intrude, Judith, but I'd like to see you in my book room when you're at liberty."

  Judith bristled visibly. She hadn't yet succeeded in moderating her husband's autocratic manner. "I have an appointment later this afternoon," she fibbed. "Maybe we could discuss whatever it is at some other time."

  "Unfortunately not," he replied. "It's a matter of some urgency. I'll expect you in-" He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. "-within the hour, shall we say?"

  Without waiting for her response, he bowed again to his wife's guests and left, closing the door gently behind him.

  Judith seemed to have a natural talent for making frie
nds, he reflected, and the door knocker was constantly banging, female trills and whispers filling the corners and crevices of his previously masculine-oriented house. Not only women either. There were men aplenty, anxious to play cicisbeo to the Marchioness of Carrington. Not that Judith had so far stepped out of line with her courtiers. Her flirtations were conducted, as far as he could see, with the light hand of an expert. But then that's only what he would expect from an expert.

  As he reached the hallway, the door knocker sounded. He paused, waiting as the butler greeted the new arrival. "Good afternoon, Lady Devlin."

  "Good afternoon, Gregson. Is her ladyship at home?" The visitor nervously adjusted the ostrich feather in her hat.

  "In the yellow drawing room, my lady."

  "Then I'll go straight up. There's no need to announce me… Oh, Marcus… you startled me."

  Marcus regarded his sister-in-law in some puzzlement. Sally's complexion was changing rapidly from pink to deathly white and back again. He knew she tended to be uncomfortable in his company, but this degree of discomposure was out of the ordinary.

  "I beg your pardon, Sally." He bowed and stood aside to let her pass him on the stairs. "I trust all's well in Grosvenor Square." He waited with bored resignation te be told that one of his nephews had the toothache or come down with a chill.

  To his surprise, Sally looked startled and, instead of launching into cne of her minute descriptions of childish ailments, said, "Yes… yes, thank you, Marcus. So good of you to be concerned." Her gloved hand ran back and forth over the banister, for all the world as if she were polishing it. "I was hoping to see Judith."