Rushed to the Altar

by Jane Feather

  “Lady Mondrain, I most particularly wanted to ask you to support the effort to save those poor carthorses. The brewers drive them into the ground, and then sell them to those dreadful knackers’ yards for pennies. It’s a disgrace. I am collecting funds to establish a nice pasture where they can end their days in peace.” She nodded her head with complacent satisfaction.

  Clarissa wondered how many chimney sweeps’ boys had been sent up her ladyship’s chimneys, fires lit behind them to keep them moving through the bewildering, soot-choked network of black passages barely wide enough for a starved child to negotiate. Presumably her ladyship thought her chimneys swept themselves. She sipped her champagne and wished Jasper would come and rescue her.

  He did come eventually. His gaze took in the scene, the look of barely suppressed boredom on his mistress’s countenance, a look that was matched almost exactly by her hostess. He controlled his laughter and bowed solemnly to Lady Morecombe and her daughters.

  “My lady . . . Lady Eleanor, Lady Emily . . . your servant.”

  “Blackwater, I need your support for my poor carthorses.” Her ladyship launched instantly into a repeat of her diatribe.

  Jasper listened in silence, and when she had fallen silent, said with a bow, “They have my sympathies, Lady Morecombe, but there are neglected children, wounded soldiers, and cast-off girls roaming the streets without a roof over their heads, a coat to their backs, or a crust for their bellies. I believe they deserve my sympathies more.” He extended a hand to Clarissa. “If you are ready to leave, Mistress Ordway, I have asked for my carriage and will escort you home.”

  She rose, astounded at his speech, but her radiant expression told him exactly how she felt. She made her farewells with a demure curtsy and, as soon as they were out in the hall, laid a hand on his arm. “Oh, bravo, Jasper. I didn’t think you’d even be aware of such dreadful misfortunes. That woman is odious. I hope I never find myself in the same room with her again.”

  “That, my dear girl, is a fond hope. The Morecombes are to be found everywhere.” He was as surprised at his own earlier speech as he was at the deep pleasure he felt at Clarissa’s approbation. He hadn’t spoken to please her, or he didn’t think he had. But then, perhaps he had. He handed her into the coach and followed her in.

  She turned instantly into his embrace, reaching up to stroke his face as he kissed her in the swaying gloom of the vehicle. “Do we have to go out again this evening?” she murmured against his mouth.

  “We are not going to leave the bedchamber before morning,” he declared, pulling her sideways onto his lap, sliding a hand beneath her cloak, slipping his fingers into her décolletage to caress her breasts. He loved how responsive they were to the slightest brush of a touch, the nipples rising hard against his fingers, the silken skin warming against his hand.

  “But we might be hungry,” she whispered, turning her body so that her hip pressed against his erection, pushing against his britches.

  “Fear not, sweetheart, we shall satisfy all our appetites.” He slid a hand up beneath her skirts, smoothing over her calves, her thighs, up into the deep cleft between them. She shuddered against him.

  “No . . . Jasper . . . not here . . . you know what happens when you do that.”

  It was a faint protest and he chuckled, continuing his knowing exploration, relishing how quickly he could bring her to ecstasy, topple her over into insensate joy whenever or wherever he wished. It gave him a sense of pure masculine power that he’d never before been interested in wielding. But perhaps it was because this woman was so different from others, so private, so composed, so full of her own secrets. By compelling her to an open, honest response with no defenses he felt less diminished by those secrets.

  She lay across his lap, trying to catch her breath, as the carriage drew up outside the house. Jasper withdrew his hand, adjusted her skirts, and helped her to sit up. He smiled at her disheveled hair, her pink cheeks, the dazed and slightly indignant glaze in her eyes. “I’ll give you your revenge later,” he promised, opening the door and stepping out.

  He held up a hand to her and she took it, conscious that it was the hand that had a few minutes earlier been working such illicit magic on her helpless body. She raised it to her cheek and inhaled her own scent. Her eyes met his.

  He swept her in front of him to the door and unlocked it with his own key. “That reminds me,” she said, remembering a grievance with a degree of relief. Anything to regain a sense of control. “I would like a key to the door.”

  “Why?” He sounded genuinely puzzled. “Sally will always be here to let you in.”

  She shook her head in frustration. “I need to feel that it’s my house . . . that I can come and go as I please. It doesn’t feel right to have to knock on the door. I have keys to my own house and have had since I was twelve years old.” She stopped, her eyes stricken. What had she just said? The urge to pour out the truth was almost irresistible; the words hovered on her lips. “You must think that’s rather strange,” she said with difficulty.

  “As you say.” His eyebrows flickered as he watched her countenance.

  “Perhaps . . . perhaps I should tell you that . . . well, that not everything I’ve told you about my past has been the whole truth.” She cleared her throat. “There are . . . there are some things it’s too difficult for me to talk about.” She tried a tentative smile, knowing how inadequate that nonexplanation was.

  “I see.” He looked at her steadily and in silence for a moment as he waited for more. When it didn’t come, he said, “Perhaps you’ll find it possible to talk about them at some other time.”

  “Perhaps,” she said, biting her lip.

  He nodded and turned aside to greet Sally, who had come into the hall at the sound of their arrival. Soon, he thought. Soon it would all come out. But he would not press her. She would tell him because she wanted to, not because he’d taken advantage of a slip of the tongue.

  “We’ll be supping in the bedchamber later, Sally. We’ll ring when we’re ready.” He turned back to Clarissa, who still stood like a statue in the hall. “If it’s that important to you, then I’ll have another key cut.” He gestured with an inviting arm to the stairs. “Shall we go up, madam?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Two days later, Clarissa was sipping her morning hot chocolate by her bedroom fire when she heard the sound of carriage wheels in the street below her window. The sound stopped at the front door and, curious, she took her cup to the window. A massive, old-fashioned carriage seemed to take up most of the width of the narrow street. The coat of arms on the panels was unfamiliar, and she watched with interest as the liveried footman jumped down from the box at the rear of the coach and came up to the front door.

  There was something faintly familiar about the livery—it was as old-fashioned as the carriage—and then it came to her. She’d last seen it on Viscount Bradley’s footman. Was that unpleasant old gentleman sitting in the carriage, waiting for something . . . someone? Perhaps he thought his nephew was here. But Jasper had not spent the previous night. He’d escorted her to the opera for another round of “see and be seen,” but on this occasion they had not left before the interval, and a procession of curious gentlemen had visited their box. One or two had escorted their lady companions, but for the most part their visitors were single gentlemen, openly fascinated to meet the earl’s new mistress.

  Clarissa had rather enjoyed the attention, fluttering her fan flirtatiously, offering provocative smiles and murmured comments, playing her part to the hilt. They had had a late supper in the Piazza with several other couples, and Jasper had sent her home in the carriage when he went off to continue the evening with his friends. She hadn’t enjoyed coming home alone, had missed him in the big bed as usual, but there was also relief for the brief respite from watching her words constantly, trying to maintain the lies.

  She turned as Sally came into the chamber. “There’s a message for you, ma’am. The footman’s waiting below.” She gave
Clarissa a folded, sealed paper.

  Clarissa looked at the seal. She remembered the heavy signet ring on the slender white finger, and for some reason it made her shudder. Her name was inscribed in elegant penmanship on the front of the sealed paper, so it had clearly been delivered to the right place. But why in the world was Viscount Bradley writing to her? There was one way to find out.

  She took the paper to the secretaire and slit the wafer with the paper knife, unfolding it carefully. The message was short and succinct.

  Viscount Bradley begs Mistress Ordway to do him the honor of visiting him this morning. His carriage awaits her convenience.

  Clarissa read it several times, but it was too clear a message for misinterpretation. Should she go? Should she ask Jasper first? Bradley was his uncle after all, and also the reason for this elaborate charade. What could he want of her? He knew what she was, or thought he did; he knew she’d come from Mother Griffiths’s nunnery. Did he want to torment her in some way? Insult her as he had done before?

  “The footman said he’d wait until you was ready, ma’am,” Sally said somewhat hesitantly, seeing Clarissa’s frown. “Should I lay out a driving dress for you?”

  “I’m not sure . . .” Then she made up her mind. “Yes, but first tell the man I’ll be ready in an hour—oh, and please bring me up some breakfast, Sally.” She was not going to hurry to obey this summons, and it was a summons, however courteously phrased. This time she was not going to allow Viscount Bradley to disconcert her. And if he was rude, she would leave immediately.

  She had another thought as Sally ran down to give the man the message. When she returned with a breakfast tray Clarissa said, “I would like you to accompany me, Sally. It is customary for a lady to be accompanied by her maid.” She would present an utterly respectable appearance on this occasion, and she would have Sally’s unimpeachable escort if she was obliged to walk home.

  Sally nodded cheerfully, setting the tray on a table. “Oh, yes, ma’am. I was used to accompany my previous mistress when she went visiting. There’s coddled eggs, and bread and butter.” She went to the armoire. “Will you wear the gray velvet driving dress? The one with the black ribbon trim.” She drew it forth and laid it on the bed, smoothing the folds, before stepping back admiringly. “It’s very fetching. And with the sable pelisse . . .” She gave a firm nod.

  Clarissa, dipping bread into her egg in a most unladylike fashion, agreed with a vague smile. She reached for the coffeepot. “The half boots of gray kid, I think, Sally.”

  It was quite amusing, this dressing-up business, she thought as she finished her breakfast and contemplated the outfit laid out for her. She would miss it when it was all over and she was once more ensconced in her country-mouse existence.

  But it didn’t have to be over. Jasper had said so. If they didn’t want it to be over, it didn’t have to be. Sometimes she allowed herself to imagine that perhaps that could be true, but she knew it to be a fond hope. When he knew the truth—and she would tell him the truth once the danger for Francis was past—he would want nothing to do with her. He would believe he would never be able to trust her. And she wouldn’t know how to convince him otherwise.

  She had no choice but to continue the lie. And she would stand by that lie in the face of anything that nasty, evil-talking old man threw at her. Resolutely, she pushed away her breakfast tray. “I’ll dress now, Sally.”

  Half an hour later she was ready. A careful examination of her appearance in the mirror showed her an elegant young woman, her hair coiled in a neat braid around her head, the severity softened by clustered ringlets framing her face. The driving dress presumably bore all the hallmarks of a Hortense creation, as Lady Mondrain would no doubt point out. If the viscount happened to recognize it as such, then so much the better.

  “Are you ready, Sally?”

  Sally, in cloak and bonnet, nodded. “Quite ready. Young Frank wanted to come with us, said he could be your page.” She laughed. “Quite the imp he is.”

  Clarissa wondered if she needed to impress anew upon her little brother the absolute imperative that he remain within doors. It was hard for him, she knew. He was too young and energetic to accept this confinement easily. She’d talk to him when they got back, and maybe she could take him to Green Park, where he could run around, play with a ball, or bowl a hoop.

  The liveried footman was standing to attention in the hall, and she had the impression he’d been standing like that for the entire hour she’d kept him waiting. She had a moment’s guilt but dismissed it as he handed her into the carriage. It was his own master who was responsible. Sally climbed in after her, and the cumbersome vehicle started off.

  “That’ll be all, Father.” Viscount Bradley waved an irritable hand at his father confessor. “You look as miserable as a nun in need of swiving.”

  The priest winced. “I must protest, my lord. Such language. You talk of the church, of our sisters, in such disrespectful terms . . . I don’t know how much longer I can continue to serve you as your priest and confessor.”

  “Don’t be absurd, man. I’m giving you the opportunity to reform the blackest heart in the most recalcitrant sinner it’ll ever be your Christian misfortune to meet. Do your duty, Father. God will show his gratitude, I’m sure.” The old man’s laugh became a wheeze, and Father Cosgrove held a cup of water to his lips. “Not that, you crow!” The viscount dashed his hand away. “You’ll kill me with that filthy stuff. Bring me a glass of cognac.”

  The priest did so. If it killed the old man quicker, he wouldn’t be sorry. For a few minutes he didn’t regret the ill thought, then resigned himself to doing penance for it later.

  “Where is the girl?” Bradley said fretfully. “How long’s it been since I sent for her?”

  “Over an hour, my lord.”

  “So where is she?”

  “Maybe she wasn’t home, sir.”

  “Nonsense . . . where else would she be at ten in the morning? Whores don’t leave their beds till noon.”

  Father Cosgrove closed his lips firmly. After a minute the viscount muttered, “Of course, she’s m’nephew’s mistress now, so maybe her habits have changed.”

  “No doubt, sir.”

  “Look out of the window. Is there any sign of the carriage?”

  The priest went to the window, peering out into the street. “I see it, sir. Just drawing up.”

  “Good.” Bradley settled back into his chair with his cognac. “When she comes in, you may leave. I’ll spare you a whore’s company. We don’t want to endanger your immortal soul, now, do we?”

  Father Cosgrove said nothing, but as soon as the footman announced Mistress Ordway, he slipped from the room as she stepped into it and curtsied to her host.

  The viscount put up his glass and examined his visitor. “Hmm. My congratulations, Mistress Ordway.”

  “On what, sir?”

  “On a remarkable transformation. Last time you were here, you looked the perfect whore . . . an unmistakable denizen of a nunnery. Whereas now, you have the appearance of . . .” He waved a hand.

  “A mistress?” she inquired, her eyebrows lifting. She came up to the fire.

  He gave a crack of laughter. “Precisely, my dear. My nephew’s mistress. Has he talked to you of marriage?”

  Clarissa looked astounded. “Of marriage, sir? Men do not marry their mistresses.”

  “Oh, it has been done, believe me.” He waved a hand again, this time to a low, armless chair on the other side of the fire. “Pray take a seat.”

  Clarissa did so, drawing off her gloves and folding her hands in her lap, regarding the viscount with an air of calm inquiry. “What was so urgent that you needed to see me, sir?”

  “Who said it was urgent?”

  “Forgive me, but it was certainly the impression I received.”

  “I wanted to see you, take another look at you.”

  “And now you have done so, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be on my way.” She made to rise, but he wa
ved her down.

  “Sit . . . sit, girl. I haven’t finished yet.” He frowned at her, bushy white eyebrows forming a crooked line across the bridge of his nose. “How long have you been whoring?”

  Clarissa plaited her fingers in her lap as she considered her answer. “It was forced upon me, my lord, a year or so ago.”

  “Oh, how so?” He leaned forward to pick up his glass again.

  Well, Clarissa reflected, the story that had done for the nephew would do just as well for the uncle. She told her tale, watching his reaction. At its end he only grunted, which left her wondering whether it had had any impact on him. At least he had no reason to disbelieve it. It was a common enough story.

  “Bring me those papers.” He gestured to the pile of closely written pages on the secretaire by the window.

  Puzzled, Clarissa obeyed, handing him the sheaf before returning to her seat.

  He riffled through them, a smile on his face now that she found chilling. Not only was it humorless, it radiated malice. “Ah, here it is.” He leaned forward, holding out a few pages to her. “Read that, my dear. One of my fondest memories. I wonder if you’ve participated in such an amusing game yourself. Go on . . . read it. Read it aloud.”

  Clarissa, instantly on her guard, dropped her eyes to the first page. Slowly she realized what the old man was up to. She held a thoroughly obscene account of a sexual encounter he’d had with three women and a young boy, no details spared, and he was watching closely to see how she reacted. She read it to the end, allowing a small smile to touch her lips even as they formed some of the most vile words to describe the perversity of these sex acts. Then she looked up and laughed.

  “You appear to have had a most amusing evening, my lord.”

  He looked at her through narrowed eyes. For a moment he appeared disconcerted and she felt a savage satisfaction. “It was, indeed. Those houris know exactly what pleases a man. Nothing is forbidden. They train them from children, you know. The boy there was only in his second year of training, but he was an adept student.”