by Jane Feather
Judith sat down on a chair and burst into a peal of laughter. “Marcus said you were refreshing,” she gasped. “But I don’t believe he knows the half of it.”
“Marcus?” Chloe, who was on her knees in front of the console table, looked over her shoulder.
“My husband, Lord Carrington. I understand you met him the other day.”
“Oh, yes, he was kind enough to lend me his whip.” Chloe dropped forward onto her hands and knees, sticking her nose under the table. “Come on, you silly animal. I only want to dress that cut.”
It was at this moment that Hugo sauntered into his house through the still-open front door. Dante greeted him exuberantly, and he didn’t at first see their visitor on her chair by the wall. His attention was immediately caught by Chloe’s upturned rear as she peered under the table.
“What are you doing?” He swung his crop lightly at the inviting behind.
“Ouch!” Chloe backed out hastily. “I was hoping you wouldn’t come back until I’d captured Demosthenes. Dante jumped at him while I was stirring the poultice in the kitchen and all hell broke loose.”
“All what?”
“Oh, well you know what I mean. Oh, this is Lady Carrington. She came to call.” She gestured toward Judith.
“I seem to have picked a rather inconvenient moment,” Judith said, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. “Sir Hugo.”
“Lady Carrington.” He bowed formally over her hand but his eyes twinkled at the ready laughter in the golden-brown eyes of his guest. “Sometimes I wonder if there is ever a convenient moment in this circus. Allow me to give you a glass of sherry to restore your shattered nerves.” He gestured toward the library, saying over his shoulder, “Chloe, you will remove that wild animal forthwith, and if I ever catch him in the house again, it will be very much the worse for both of you.”
Chloe watched the two of them disappear into the library and muttered one of Falstaff’s more inventive phrases.
It was twenty minutes later before she was able to join her guardian and his guest in the library. Lady Carrington and Hugo were laughing as she entered and seemed to be getting on famously. For some reason, this made her feel put out. She examined the visitor with more attention and saw a vibrant, beautiful woman in her mid-twenties, radiating assurance and confidence, conversing with Hugo as if she’d known him all her life.
Hugo’s public rebuke still stung, and Chloe, feeling uncomfortably young and rather grubby, had the sense that she’d wandered uninvited into an adult’s domain.
“May I have a glass of sherry?”
“Of course, lass.” Hugo poured her a glass and refilled Lady Carrington’s. “Where’s the beast?”
“In the stables.” She took the glass and sipped. “I must apologize, Lady Carrington, for not welcoming you properly.”
“Oh, don’t apologize,” Judith said, chuckling. “An escaped bear is more than sufficient explanation.”
“Where’s your chaperone?” Hugo inquired of his ward, explaining to Judith, “My late mother’s cousin, Lady Smallwood, resides with us as Chloe’s duenna.”
“She’s lying upon her bed with her smelling salts,” Chloe said, her eyes suddenly sparkling with mischief. “I’m afraid Falstaff upset her again.”
Judith demanded to know the identity of this character and left soon after, still laughing. “I am having an evening party on Thursday,” she said. “You will come, both of you … and Lady Smallwood, of course.”
That evening, as Judith was dressing for dinner, she remarked to her husband, “You’re right about Harriet, Marcus. She won’t be able to make heads or tails of Chloe Gresham. But Sebastian will enjoy her enormously. Her beauty is astonishing, of course, but it’s that roguish personality that really appeals. She’s completely without artifice; I don’t even think she knows that she’s beautiful. I intend to make her the toast of the Season. What do you think?”
“I don’t see how you can fail, if you’ve a mind to.” Marcus took the emerald necklace from the maid, fastening it himself around the slender column of his wife’s throat. “With a fortune of eighty thousand pounds and a face and figure to rival Helen of Troy, all she needs is the right patronage.”
“Then she shall have it. She’ll need a voucher for Al-mack’s, so I’ll introduce her to Sally Jersey on Thursday. She’s so good-natured, she won’t disapprove of Chloe’s easy ways, where Princess Esterhazy might.”
“I still wish I knew why Hugo Lattimer has her in charge and not Jasper Gresham.” Marcus shrugged. “Did you notice anything about them?”
“Only that she can clearly twist him around her little finger,” Judith said. “For all that he plays the exasperated guardian on occasion.”
“Intriguing.”
“Very. There’s a Lady Smallwood in residence as chaperone. His late mother’s cousin.”
Marcus nodded. “Lattimer’s mother’s family were Beauchamps. Impeccable background. Lady Smallwood will have the right cachet … although I understand she’s not entirely sensible.”
“Since when has that mattered to Society?” Judith asked tartly.
Her husband laughed. “Never. And perhaps the less sensible she is, the more it suits Hugo and his unconventional ward.”
“He certainly runs an unconventional household.”
“Intriguing,” Marcus said again.
“Very,” Judith agreed.
Chapter 18
THE GIRL’S EYES were fixed on the shadowy vaulted ceiling. Vaguely she was aware of the warmth of candle flame on her bare breast as she lay on a bier in the center of the crypt, her body lit by altar candles ranged along the table.
A masked face hung over her, and she turned her head in weak protest as a goblet was presented to her lips.
“Don’t be foolish,” the man said harshly. He lifted her head with one hand and pressed the goblet against her mouth.
The girl opened her mouth and the aromatic contents were tipped down her throat. She fell back on the white pillow. The muzziness filled her head, and a great warm lethargy spread through her limbs. She had no idea how long she’d been lying naked in this shadowy cavern. She couldn’t remember how many times the goblet had been pressed upon her. She had only vague memories of the pouch of gold that had changed hands in her uncle’s cottage some time … a long long time … ago. Her uncle had pocketed the gold and the strange man with the black mask had taken her away.
She felt hands on her body, stroking, smoothing—pleasurable little touches that made her stir and moan. Far away in some recess of her brain she connected the drink with these strange feelings of excitement. When her thighs were drawn apart, she offered no resistance, floating now in a dream world of shadowy figures and shadowy sensations. The sharp pain that accompanied the penetration of her body was a dream, and the swift rhythmic pounding deep within her seemed to have nothing to do with her and yet paradoxically to be intrinsic to her flesh.
Crispin closed his eyes on a surge of pleasure as he possessed the pale body, lying so still beneath him. The eyes of the others were on him, watching him in this rite of initiation under the flickering candles in the cold vault. Behind his closed eyes he saw Chloe lying beneath him, submitting, bound to his pleasure, her arrogant insolence forever subdued as he used her in front of the eager lusting eyes of the Congregation. Jasper had promised it would happen. And Jasper always kept his promises as he always made good his threats.
Jasper leaned back against a pillar, his arms folded, his eyes behind the loo mask skidding over the tableau vivant on the bier. Like his stepson, he was mentally substituting another body for the peasant girls. Hugo Lattimer had deprived the Congregation of Elizabeth Gresham, but her daughter would make up the deficit. And there would be no interference this time. He would avenge every insult Lattimer had thrown at him by taking the girl and her fortune. Not only would Lattimer suffer the humiliation of failing to fulfill the dying wishes of the woman he had loved with such a besotted, infantile, sentimentalized love, b
ut he would watch while the daughter took the place intended for her mother fourteen years before. And when it was over, Hugo Lattimer’s blood would water the granite tombstone slabs of the crypt as Jasper avenged his father’s death.
Stephen Gresham had known of Hugo’s passion for his wife. He had been intending to give Elizabeth to Hugo in the crypt—a vicious gift, one that he would have found deeply satisfying. Hugo was bound by the oaths of the Congregation to absolute obedience to its leader. He would have been forced to violate the object of his mawkish compassion and idealistic fantasies and thus would have relearned the most important lesson of the crypt: Nothing is sacred.
Instead, Hugo had broken his oath and killed the leader to whom he was bound in obedience. And the leader’s son had devised the perfect punishment.
Jasper’s eyes roamed around the faces surrounding the bier as they awaited their turn with the ravished virgin. His gaze lingered on the young, fresh face of Denis DeLacy. The youth’s eyes were unfocused, his lips parted with eager lust. He was ready to do anything to earn his spurs in the Congregation and he had all the right qualifications for the task: youth, good looks, an accepted place in the Fashionable World, and a respectable fortune.
Jasper pushed himself away from the pillar and walked over to the young man. He tapped him on the shoulder. Denis turned immediately. His face fell as he understood that he was to be deprived of his turn on the bier. But he followed Jasper with the alacrity of an acolyte into one of the smaller chambers in the crypt.
“I was the most amazing success tonight, Samuel.” Chloe pranced into the hall as Samuel opened the door. “Lady Jersey has promised to send me a voucher for Almack’s, and I didn’t have to sit one dance out, and I had so many partners no one could dance more than once with me.” She twirled, setting her cream silk skirts swirling.
“And it’s a swelled ’ead ye’ll be gettin’ if you goes on in that fashion,” Samuel remarked, closing the door.
“It is most unbecoming, dear,” a very fat lady said, shivering in her cashmere shawl. “It’s lovely that you should have had so many partners, but you’ll lose them all quickly if you don’t behave with due modesty.”
“Oh, pah,” muttered Chloe.
“I’m most dreadfully fatigued,” her chaperone said with a wheezing sigh. “Not that it wasn’t a most elegant affair … most elegant, wasn’t it, Hugo? Lady Carrington certainly keeps a good table … such lobster patties, such scalloped oysters …” She passed a hand over her rotund stomach in an unconscious gesture of corporeal recollection. “Oh, and the trifles—did I mention the trifles—I had two dishes … or was it three?” She frowned with the utmost seriousness.
“Six,” said Chloe, sotto voce.
“I beg your pardon, Chloe dear?”
“I said they were delicious,” Chloe said with a sweet smile. “And the syllabubs also. You seemed to enjoy those equally, my dear ma’am.”
“Oh, yes, indeed. I was forgetting the syllabubs.” Lady Smallwood sighed with pleasure. “How could I have forgotten the syllabubs.”
“Very easily, with everything else one was obliged to sample,” Chloe said, still smiling sweetly.
“Oh, yes, there was so much to choose from. Some people consider such varied choice to be a little vulgar, but I’m not one of them.”
“No,” Chloe agreed.
“I do believe it shows respect for one’s guests to set a good table for them.”
“Yes, I’m sure you’re right, Dolly.” Hugo spoke up before Chloe could continue with her wicked asides. “I’m glad you were tolerably amused.”
“Well, as you know, I’m not a great one for socializing … not since my dear Smallwood passed on,” Lady Smallwood said with a sigh. “But I said I’d do my best for the child, and I will. You won’t find me shirking my duties.” She waddled toward the stairs. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll retire. Come along, Chloe. You don’t want to be fagged tomorrow. You’ll lose your looks if you’re peaky … and that would never do.”
“But I’m not in the least fatigued, ma’am.”
“Lady Smallwood knows best, lass,” Hugo said earnestly. “Think how humiliating it would be to see your success slip away from you before you’ve had a chance to savor it.”
Chloe put her tongue out at him but followed her chaperone’s mountainous figure up the stairs.
Hugo grinned and shook his head. “What an evening! I foresee we’re going to be inundated with bewitched young men in the next weeks, Samuel. You couldn’t get near the lass from the minute she walked into the room.”
“It’s to be ’oped that duenna of ’er’s doesn’t cotton to the fun she makes of ’er,” Samuel said. “I’m ’ard pressed to keep a straight face most o’ the time. Right wicked, she is.”
“I know, but it is irresistible.” Hugo followed Samuel through the swinging door to the kitchen. “I’ll put a curb on her if she gets too outrageous.” He sat down beside the fire and stretched out his legs, examining his satin knee britches with a frown. “Lord, Samuel, I never expected to be dressing like this again, dancing attendance on vapid ladies at insipid gatherings.”
“That Lady Carrington seems a fine woman,” Samuel observed, setting a mug of tea beside Hugo.
“Oh, she is,” Hugo agreed. “Actually, it wasn’t that bad. It’s just that I thought I was done with all that nonsense. Instead …” He sighed.
Samuel laced his own tea with rum and sat down opposite. “Get her married and off yer ’ands an’ we can get back to Denholm.”
“That’s the object of this exercise,” Hugo said dryly, sipping his tea. A kitten jumped onto his lap, knocking his hand. Tea slurped over his white waistcoat.
“Damnation!” He glared at the kitten, who merely settled purring into his lap. “Which one is this?”
Samuel shrugged. “No idea. Couldn’t pronounce it if’n I did know.”
Hugo laughed reluctantly. “I suspect it’s Ariadne, but I wouldn’t swear to it.” He leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes.
Samuel smiled to himself and sipped his tea. It was a nightly ritual, the time they had together in the kitchen, no longer the domain of the churlish Alphonse, whose running battles with Chloe over the animals’ nutritional needs caused daily upheavals.
Samuel subjected his friend to a close covert scrutiny. Hugo, for all his vociferous dislike of Society’s round, looked younger and fitter than at any time since he came ashore at the end of the war.
But Samuel suspected that trouble lurked around the next corner. Hugo was happy. Whatever feelings he held for his youthful ward, they gave him deep pleasure. But beneath it lay the knowledge, the certainty, that it could only be temporary. Once Chloe had gone from his life, would he go back to the wasteland?
Samuel knew that Hugo’s strength grew with each successive day that he triumphed over his addiction. Sometimes the old sailor prayed that the relationship would continue for as long as possible, and then he thought that the sooner the end came, the better. The longer it lasted, the harder it would be to break the chains that bound him to the girl.
Hugo put down his cup and yawned. “I’m for bed.” He picked up the kitten, holding it aloft in one hand. “No,” he said, squinting, “definitely not Ariadne. You must be Aeneas.” He set the creature on the floor. “Go back to mama.” The kitten merely set to grooming itself with leisurely grace.
Hugo laughed and stood up. “Good night, Samuel.”
“ ’Night, Sir ’Ugo.”
Half an hour later, Hugo was in bed, when his door opened stealthily and a bright head popped itself around the corner, a pair of cornflower-blue eyes twinkling mischievously. “Oh, good, you’re not asleep.”
Hugo put down his book. “No, having become accustomed to your habits, I was waiting for you. Are you going to bring the rest of you in here?”
Chloe slid into the room, closing the door behind her with exaggerated care, one finger to her lips. “Mustn’t wake Milady Smallwood from her dreams of syllabub
.”
“You are a disrespectful wretch! Have you no respect for your elders and betters?”
“I do if they are my betters,” she responded. “But I fail to see why simple age should qualify for uncritical submission.”
She pulled her nightgown over her head, tossing it over a footstool, then walked over to the cheval glass and stood in front of it, examining her image with a tiny frown.
She was completely without inhibition, Hugo thought, not for the first time, as he enjoyed vicariously her own examination of her body. She lifted her breasts, touched her nipples, turned sideways, running a hand over her flat stomach, scrutinized her back view over her shoulder.
“What are you looking at, lass? Or is it for?” he asked, a quiver of desirous amusement in his voice.
“Well, I’ve never looked at myself before,” she said seriously. “I think I have quite an elegant figure, don’t you?”
“You’ll pass.”
“Is that all?” She extended one leg, flexing her ankle. “All those men tonight seemed to think it was more than that.”
“Samuel’s right—you are going to get a swollen head.”
Chloe ignored this. “And they only saw my face,” she mused, peering closely at her features in the mirror.
“Only half the story,” Hugo agreed, wondering where this was leading. “But in my character as strict guardian, I have to tell you, lass, that it’s most improper to speculate on the effect your naked body might have on prospective suitors.”
Chloe ignored this too. She turned back to him. “Do you find me attractive?”
“I’d have thought I’d made that clear by now.”
“Yes, but I was the only woman around,” she pointed out. “You didn’t have anyone to compare me with in Lancashire.”
“What the hell are you getting at, Chloe?” It occurred to him that amusement was not going to be the appropriate response to whatever this was.