Then Thomas Edward Montmorency, the esteemed Duke of Dewbury, burped. A baritone sound rolled over the table. He laughed aloud and fixed his gaze on Aunt Tremble.
Aunt Tremble rose to the occasion. Her rouged old cheeks puffed in and out as she gulped air. Then, incredibly, utterly unbelievably, she emitted a sound that was unmistakably a tiny burp. She turned her gaze on Katherine, who blanched in horror, then Tremble turned aside with a shrug and arched an expectant gaze on Lord Batten. Katherine groaned and felt herself sliding beneath the table as her bones evaporated within her body.
Lord Batten stared about the company, then slapped his palm beside his plate. And burped.
Lord Whitesall—not to be excluded from the game—burped. Lady Batten burped and Lady Crume. Sir Elfin Martin and his lady burped. And Lady Walter. Everyone at the table burped then erupted into semihysterical laughter, except Katherine. Katherine sat like a stone, believing herself caught in the midst of a nightmare.
But even in nightmares, propriety must be observed. Smiling from a vast distance, she put aside her linen and rose with a dreamlike gesture to the ladies. “Shall we leave the gentlemen to their port and cigars?” Head erect, moving with a strange detached serenity, she floated toward the drawing room. At some point in her life she must have done something hideously evil to deserve this punishment. Her punishment was to endure an endless evening wherein disaster reigned, but strangely the company responded as if nothing were amiss. Only she was sane. Everyone else had been inflicted with autumn madness, blinding them to the unthinkable.
She could not believe the evidence of her own ears. The ladies accepted cups of coffee, then clustered about Blusette. Katherine overheard such comments as:
“How mischievous and daring of you. I never would have thought to...”
“I haven’t laughed so hard in...”
When the men returned, smelling of Caribbean smoke and Madeira, they, too, seemed to be enthralled by Blusette. They vied with one another to escort Miss Morgan on a stroll through the lighted gardens. Cecile arranged that Edward should win the honor. Katherine was too numb by far to feel astonishment that the company expressed disappointment when Blusette took her youth and vivacity out of the drawing room and into the garden. At this point she could no longer think. She simply devoted herself to enduring what hours remained. Later she would attempt to understand what had happened.
~ ~ ~
They chose the path that curved to the right, not speaking until they neared Lady Katherine’s folly, a latticed gazebo. Blu stopped while Thomas reached inside his waistcoat for a cigar, and she flung back her head to scowl at the faraway stars sparkling like distant diamonds in the chill night sky.
“Bloody, bloody hell! I knew I had erred not two minutes later! And after I promised Lady Katherine I would do nothing to wound her!” She heard Thomas’s chuckle in the darkness.
“In the end no harm was done.”
“Thanks to you and Cecile and Aunt Tremble.” She stepped nearer until she could see his face. “Thank you, Thomas.”
“Everyone has returned to town after a summer in the country and months of excruciating boredom. They’re eager for novelty and sensation. And you, my dear Blu, provided exactly that. I predict...”
But his voice trailed off, the words forgotten as he looked at her and felt her nearness, inhaled the intoxicating drift of her perfume and the fragrance of her hair.
“You are so lovely,” he murmured, staring down at her.
Although Blu was now accustomed to naked mouths, none seemed as naked as his. No voice as deep and resonant. As if in a trance, she fixed her gaze on his lips, swaying lightly on her feet, succumbing to a rush of memory. With a slight shiver, she remembered the thrill of his heat on the bed beneath her, remembered her hands moving over his body, down between his legs, remembered his hands on her.
A tiny gasp emerged from her throat and she lifted suddenly helpless eyes to his. As she met his dark gaze the night closed around her until the world consisted only of one small circle enclosing the two of them. All sound stilled but the rapid rise and fall of his breath and her own, and she no longer felt the evening chill. Time ceased to exist. There was no past, no future, only this one endless moment that bound them and drew them forward.
A rush of bittersweet longing overcame her. In a state of heightened nerves, her trembling fingers rose to her bodice and traced the line of pearls sculpting her breasts. His gaze dropped to the movement and a groan of desire lifted his chest. She felt his heat enclosing and drawing her. Then, as her knees were about to collapse, his arms were suddenly around her, his body tight and hard against her own.
Because she could not have done otherwise, because she had dreamed of and longed for this moment, she lifted her mouth and gave him her lips. A shock of lightning jolted through her flesh as his mouth claimed hers. Fire erupted in the pit of her belly and flamed through her limbs, scorching flesh and bone and igniting her mind. She wanted him. His tongue penetrated her secrets and she wanted him as a starving man wants food and drink.
Her fingers tangled in his dark hair and her body strained to meld into his. His hands, rough on her waist, rose in tenderness to cup her breasts and his touch inflamed her to heights of urgency she had not suspected.
God help her, she wanted him with a need deeper than reason. It was as if his passionate kiss, his possessive mouth, had revealed an emptiness that must be filled and he alone could fill it. Panting against his lips, she dropped her hands to snatch at her skirts, wanting to remove the layer of material that kept them from one another. She wanted to pull him to the ground and offer her emptiness to be filled, now, now, now.
Cecile’s laughter drifted from the French doors at the head of the garden.
“Oh my God.” Months of unrelenting propriety penetrated her heated thoughts. She let her head fall against Thomas’s chest, listened to his labored breathing, the rush of his heartbeat. This was Cecile’s betrothed, Cecile’s beloved. She could never have this man. Not without causing devastating pain to someone she loved. He could only reject her again. And yet she craved him as she craved air in her lungs. He must never know. Never must he learn what these last rapturous moments had been to her. A sound like a sob tore from her throat and she gathered her will and made herself push away from him.
“Your Grace,” she said, struggling to control the husky tremor in her tone. She had to end this, had to reject him before he rejected her. “You disappoint me.”
The game had become too dangerous, too fraught with peril. She had to put quit to it before the flames consumed them both. And she knew only one way: by taking her revenge, that buffle idiocy which had begun this madness.
“I expected more,” she said, catching the fan that dangled from her wrist. Fanning her throat with what she prayed resembled an idle gesture, she struggled to calm her racing breath and to speak in a light tone. Surely he heard the artificiality that rang so plain in her own ears.
“What are you saying, Blu?” Hunger still shadowed his eyes, darkened them with desire.
She looked toward the head of the garden and made herself laugh to strangle the sob in her throat. “I’ve had better kisses from the public pump in the square, Your Grace. Can you do no better?” He stared at her, not speaking, and she drew a shaking breath. “How fortunate I was to be spared your caw-handed efforts on Morgan’s Mound.”
“Why are you doing this?” he asked quietly. In his eyes, his wonderful warm eyes, she saw that her barb had found its mark. “Did I wound you that deeply, Blu?”
“Not at all,” she answered lightly. Her stomach cramped and she felt ill. “My taste has simply improved.”
“Blu—”
“Considering your lack of expertise, fate has wisely paired you with a cripple.” Instantly she regretted the words. A tiny groan collapsed her breast, and her eyes flew toward the French doors and the lilt of Cecile’s voice. How could she have said such a cruel thing?
Before she could call ba
ck the error, Thomas stiffened and his voice lashed her. “You may dress like a lady, and perfume your hair and skin, but you are as much the savage as ever you were,” he said between his teeth. “Leave Cecile out of this. She doesn’t deserve your scorn. She loves you.”
“And she loves you!” Blu snapped, her cheeks flaming with guilt and regret. “But already you have betrayed her!”
Spinning on her heel, she ran up the path toward the French doors, pausing only to smooth her skirts and her disheveled hair before she entered the drawing room. The first person she saw was Cecile, who pushed her chair forward to take Blu’s glove.
“I heard you laughing, dearest Blu. I’m so glad. I hope this means you and Edward are becoming friends.”
She looked into Cecile’s open, loving face and her own features contracted in a spasm of guilt. Then she saw Thomas’s dark expression as he stepped through the doors.
“I... forgive me, Cecile, but I feel exhausted. I must... please excuse me.” Murmuring apologies, she made her way through the room, then dashed up the stairs to her chamber where she flung herself across her bed.
Cecile’s kindness stabbed her to the heart because she, too, had betrayed Cecile’s love. Revenge had not prompted her to step into Thomas’s arms and surrender to his kiss. At that timeless magical moment, she had not thought of revenge or of anything except the wonder of him and of the passion that consumed her.
Cradling her head in her arms, she pressed her face into her pillow and gave way to a storm of weeping. She heard her door open and close, then felt Mouton’s weight depress her mattress. His large hand patted her back in the darkness. After a time he departed as silently as he had come.
~ ~ ~
“Thomas, you sly dog, why did you tell no one about her?” Lord Wilson Whitesall eased back on the carriage seat facing his friend. “You were keeping her to yourself, weren’t you? It’s not enough that you’ve captured Lady Cecile, you must have two beauties for your pleasure.”
Thomas turned a frown to the carriage window. “Blusette Morgan is a savage. I’d advise you to stay well away from her.”
“Because she belched at table? Nonsense. She’s earthy and unique. Unafraid to challenge society’s pretenses. She must dance Lady Paget a lively tune, but she’s the freshest breath of air to sweep London in many a year. She’s ravishingly beautiful, spirited, charming...”
Thomas blotted Lord Whitesall’s superlatives from his ears and raised his thumbnail to his lips. Damn her to hell.
If revenge was her motive, she had succeeded beyond her hopes. He still shook with wanting her, still felt the sting of her rejection and her outrageous words.
Undoubtedly she was the best actress he had ever encountered. He had been so certain her passion was genuine, stunned to learn it was feigned. A confusion of emotion coalesced as anger.
Later, sitting in his club with Whitesall, joined by Battersea and others, he listened to Lord Whitesall recount the evening, whetting their appetite to meet Blu, and his thoughts turned to Cecile. Gentle, trusting Cecile. Whom he cared for and who cared for him in return. Bending his head, he scrubbed a hand over his face.
Why in the name of Christ could he not feel this unholy obsession for Cecile instead of for Blusette Morgan? And obsession it was, he recognized that now. He thought of her constantly, saved small things to tell her, wondered where she was and what she was doing, dreamed of her, invented excuses to call at Grosvenor Square...
“It’s love,” Sir Loren Battersea said near his ear.
“What? I beg your pardon?” Startled, he raised his head.
‘Love. Poor Whitesall is besotted, can’t you see?” Battersea grinned and rolled his eyes. “I must meet this enchanting Miss Morgan who has made an idiot of our Wilson. Is it true she is the most beautiful creature ever to draw mortal breath?”
“Yes,” he said harshly. Then he drained his whisky and strode from the club like a man with a devil nipping at his heels.
~ ~ ~
“I don’t care if she is sleeping,” Aunt Tremble insisted, rapping her cane on the floor of Katherine’s chamber. “Wake her and bring her here.” She flicked her fingertips at Cecile. “Go, go and get her. Katherine, send for Mr. Apple. I want champagne to celebrate!”
“You won’t sleep if you have champagne at this hour.”
“I don’t care a fig. The evening was a triumph, and we must celebrate. Cecile, why are you lingering about? Do fetch our masterpiece.”
Having donned their nightdresses and braided their hair, they gathered in Lady Katherine’s chamber to rehash the evening and celebrate a miraculous triumph.
When Blu appeared, still dressed in her emerald silk, they raised their champagne and drank her health.
Strangely subdued, Blu acknowledged the toast, then seated herself beside Lady Katherine’s bed and murmured an expressionless apology.
“I wasn’t thinking,” she admitted listlessly. “I was listening to the discourse and it just... the belch just came out.” She touched Aunt Tremble’s soft hand, looked quickly at Cecile, then away. “Thank you both for salvaging the situation. I nearly ruined everything.”
“But you didn’t, my dear,” Aunt Tremble assured her. Her faded eyes were bright in the candlelight. “I wish you could have heard all that was said about you. You delighted everyone. Your success is assured. I predict—and I am never wrong—you will be the toast of the season. Katherine, you are to be congratulated!”
“Oh Blusette,” Cecile said in her soft voice. Her face glowed with pride. “You were wonderful. And I do believe Lord Whitesall is captivated. Lord Batten certainly is,” she said, laughing. “All he could talk about while you were in the garden is how he wants his wife’s nephew to meet you.”
“I don’t understand it,” Katherine murmured, staring at Blusette in wonder. “I’m pleased of course—happier than I’ve been in months—but I don’t claim to understand it.”
“Nonsense, Katherine. You must remember how dull it is in the country. They’ve returned desperate for novelty. Lady Walter told me she has already met two of the season’s debutantes and they are as bland as egg pudding. Dull goods. Our Blusette is not dull, nor is she bland. Mark me, they’ll take to her like sheep to spring grass. By this time tomorrow, everyone will know. Dearest Blusette, you are well and truly launched.”
Katherine studied her face. “You don’t seem pleased.”
“I am, Madame.” Blu smiled, clearly an effort. “As Aunt Tremble said: you are to be congratulated.”
Katherine sat up straight. This was not like Blusette Morgan. Her brows came together in a frown. “I admit I was horrified by you at the table,” she said slowly, watching Blusette. “But the situation was salvaged and, astonishingly”—she still could scarce believe it—“the incident launched you.” Still Blusette said nothing. She sat like a stone, her eyes dulled. Katherine drew a long breath. “I have forgiven you.” Even then there was no response. “You enjoyed a triumph tonight.”
“Yes,” Blu said. She drained her champagne, then stood and said good night. “It’s been a difficult evening.”
Openmouthed, they watched her go.
16
Lady Batten opened the London season by officially launching Blu as her guest of honor at the season’s first grand ball. With Lady Paget and Lady Batten sponsoring her, not even an occasional “Bloody hell!” could dim Blu’s success. The English aristocracy, jaded and bored and seeking fresh sensation, eagerly clasped Blu to their collective bosom and proclaimed themselves enchanted by her freshness. The Prince of Wales bowed over her fingertips; the Duchess of Marlborough claimed her as a kindred spirit; a dozen young blades professed themselves in love with her. Everyone assumed her colorful expressions and outrageous opinions were calculated; no one thought them genuine, and everyone acclaimed her cleverness at setting herself apart.
As the season progressed, young ladies of the smart set styled their hair à la Blusette, and occasionally inserted a daring remark into th
eir discourse in an effort to emulate the toast of the season. Blusette stories made the rounds of fashionable drawing rooms and everyone vied to outdo each other by relating what Blusette had said or what Blusette had done and how marvelously original she was.
Discovering herself a success eased Blu’s life considerably. Her days were full and frantically busy; the number of invitations she received rivaled those received by Lady Katherine. It was quickly perceived that the popular Miss Morgan accepted only those invitations which included Lady Cecile, and Lady Cecile accepted only those invitations which included Lady Katherine and Aunt Tremble. Hostesses adjusted accordingly, and the ladies of Grosvenor Square found themselves enjoying a heady popularity during one of London’s gayest seasons in recent memory.
The hectic pace was welcome since Blu had recently discovered she disliked solitude. Solitude invited thoughts of Thomas. When she thought of Thomas, an agony of longing tore at her heart. It was impossible to avoid him, as hostesses paired the dashing Duke of Dewbury and Lady Cecile, and Blu accepted no invitation which did not include Cecile.
But when Thomas called at Grosvenor Square, she escaped encountering him by dragging Monsieur into service and abruptly fleeing the house for some suddenly remembered urgent shopping.
Today Blu located Monsieur in the library, where he was busily occupied transcribing Lady Katherine’s household accounts.
“I cannot spare him,” Lady Katherine insisted, peering over Monsieur’s shoulder and wringing her hands. “Who would imagine we could spend so much on ash removal? Or lye?” Shaking her golden head, she glanced up at Blusette. “Take Mouton instead.”
“Mouton is occupied tending Cecile.”
“His Grace will see to Cecile.”
“Yes,” she replied in an expressionless voice.
The trick was to leave the house without having to see Thomas. Since that night in the garden, she had encountered him many, many times, of course. But never alone. By mutual consent, they maintained a wary distance and exchanged polite, meaningless chat. They contrived never to be alone together.
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