Lady Windermere's Lover

by Miranda Neville

  “Windermere and Denford haven’t spoken in years.”

  “Oh right. I remember now.” He frowned. “What was the row about?”

  “Caro said she could never get the truth out of Robert, and Julian shuts up like an oyster whenever I ask him. I’ve always guessed his attentions to me have been largely an effort to annoy my husband.”

  “I thought you liked Julian?”

  “Of course I do, but that doesn’t mean I entirely trust him.”

  “That’s very cynical, Cynthia. Not like you.”

  “Am I not cynical? Perhaps you are right. But neither am I naïve. I used to be, but not any longer. Why would a woman of my very modest attractions have inspired instant admiration in a man as worldly and jaded as Denford? Yet the very first time we met, he treated me as though I were a fascinating beauty.”

  She noticed with amusement that Oliver didn’t contradict her assessment of her charms. He’d long ago forgotten his brief infatuation. Instead he spared her a glance away from the alluring array of pastries. “You’re very pretty, Cynthia.”

  “Better than I was, now that I have acquired some town polish. When Julian first met me I was a provincial dowd. I knew he was using me and I used him back. He’s a very amusing escort and I was in need of company. Though I believe we have become genuinely fond of each other.”

  He had awoken desires that she had thought put to rest when Windermere disappointed her. But now she was almost certain that those dangerous urges had been aroused mainly by a wish to irritate—or attract—her neglectful husband. “As friends,” she added firmly.

  “I like Julian too,” Oliver said. “Even if he doesn’t understand painting.”

  “Indeed,” Cynthia said. “He has abysmal taste. The Holbein portrait he bought a couple of months ago is a horrid thing.”

  Oliver grinned sheepishly at her teasing. “I’ll admit he has an eye for the older painters, but he has no notion of where the future of the art lies.”

  Cynthia had listened to Oliver’s views of the noble future of painting—with specific reference to his own oeuvre—a dozen times and was disinclined to indulge his obsession now. “I am glad you will be here this evening because I don’t fancy sitting between those two at dinner without help.”

  “Do you think they will fight?”

  She laughed at Oliver’s expression of terror and fascination. “If it comes to that I shan’t expect you to intervene, or get in the way of any flying fists. We’ll leave them to it.”

  “What’s for dinner?”

  “My cook is planning something special for the return of the master of the house.”

  “Good! In that case I shall brave it”—as though there were any chance of Oliver missing a meal—“no matter the danger. And no matter what either of them does.”

  “I have a very good idea what Julian is up to, but I haven’t a clue what Windermere has in mind.”

  Sitting down to dinner between his wife and her lover was a situation awkward enough to daunt even an experienced diplomat. First thing that morning, Damian had summoned reinforcements in the form of his cousin and his cousin’s wife. It turned out Lady Windermere had done the same. As the party assembled he wondered how this mismatched group was going to converse. He couldn’t see George Lewis, the stolid Tory MP for Kendal, having much to say to Oliver Bream, who was some kind of artist, evidenced by a wild shock of hair and traces of paint on his hands. Denford would doubtless regard the ensuing debacle with sardonic enjoyment. How the hostess anticipated the disparate gathering he had no idea. He’d avoided Cynthia all day, alarmed by his desire on waking to remain under the covers and make love to her. Letting nature take its course when husband and wife found themselves in bed together was not currently an urge he could entertain.

  With all the leaves removed from the dining room table, the party of six was seated so that conversation could be heard by all. Damian was dutifully listening to Louisa Lewis’s account of her three sons, when Bream, seated on his other side, interrupted the devoted mother’s peaceful flow.

  “That is an exceptionally ugly picture,” he said loudly.

  The artist was staring at the space over the mantelpiece where, Damian noticed for the first time, a chinoiserie mirror had been replaced by a huge portrait of a lady in the fashion of King Charles II’s reign.

  Cousin Louisa looked startled and peered nervously over her shoulder. “She is quite plump,” she said, “and her eyes stick out, but her blue velvet gown is handsome.”

  Bream waved aside the observation. “My point is that it is very badly painted. Where did you find such a beastly thing, Cynthia?” He addressed his hostess across a horrified George Lewis, who wasn’t used to such loose manners.

  Damian looked down the table at his wife and raised his brows. He’d like to know the answer himself.

  She seemed to be avoiding his eye. “I bought this one because the gown matches the curtains in here. Sir Peter Lely painted it, did he not, Denford?”

  “Lely, or one of his assistants. An inferior work by an inferior artist. Mrs. Lewis is quite correct about the eyes. All Lely’s subjects look like pugs.”

  Poor Cousin Louisa, who’d spent the whole of dinner stealing appalled glances at Denford, appeared about to faint at being addressed directly by the disreputable duke. Unwillingly, Damian felt the urge to laugh. George’s wife was a good woman but very dull. They were a well-suited pair.

  “Matching a picture to the drapery is an unusual notion,” she murmured. “Very soothing to the digestion.”

  Oliver Bream bristled with indignation. “Art is supposed to elevate the mind, not calm the stomach.”

  Since the topic of art was very much on Damian’s agenda for the evening, he asked Bream about his own work and the table talk became general. He described what he’d seen in Tehran, and spoke of the antique paintings of Persia. He could almost imagine himself back at Oxford, or in Paris, having the same kind of heated discussions he’d once enjoyed with Julian, Robert, and Marcus.

  Except that everything had changed. George and Louisa Lewis he could ignore; his wife’s presence, while not intrusive, could not be forgotten. He was aware of every move and gesture, whether directing the servants or deftly seeing to the comfort of her guests. His ears strained to hear her every word.

  “I had no idea you knew so much about art, my lord,” she said at one point. Of course she didn’t. When he had known her he’d been too bilious with rage and disappointment to reveal anything of himself, or afford her more than the most basic courtesy. In the year since, he’d admitted to himself that he’d treated her unfairly.

  “If you are interested, I’ll take you to the Royal Academy,” he said on impulse. “But perhaps you have already been.”

  “As it happens I have not. I would enjoy that.”

  “I hope you enjoy yourself,” Denford said. “But I doubt it. You know I despise modern painting.” He turned to Damian. “I haven’t changed.”

  “Are you still of the same mind about ancient sculpture too?” he asked.

  “The Italian and Dutch are the only true masters, and a few of the French. I never could keep your taste from erring.”

  “You were too narrow in your view,” he retorted.

  “I broadened your horizons.”

  For a moment he felt happy, then came down to earth with a thud when he remembered that he was no longer the wide-eyed Viscount Kendal sharing a youthful enthusiasm for paintings with the equally ardent Mr. Fortescue. Julian was his enemy, and the avid interest of the lovely woman opposite him was likely inspired by her lover, not her husband. Silence fell over the company with his sudden shift in mood.

  “An angel must have passed over us,” his wife said, before the moment became awkward. She smiled through the flickering candles at him, her skin glowing in the soft light. Then she turned to Denford, seated to her right. “You never told me how you met Windermere,” she said. “Only that you were at Oxford.”

  “I found him i
n a dark cellar at the Bodleian Library, peering at Greek statues.”

  “I was studying the classics, and the university collection was not in a cellar, though I grant that the visibility was less than ideal.”

  “I brought him into the light and introduced him to the glories of Raphael, Michelangelo, and Van Dyck.”

  “He took me upstairs to show me Oxford’s gallery of Old Masters,” Damian said. “My father was not an admirer of the arts and I was grateful for the revelation.” A yearning for the innocent mischief of those days seized him. Why must everything have gone so wrong?

  “I would like to see them too,” his wife said. “There is nothing so fine on display in London.”

  Julian shook his head in disgust. “It is a disgrace that a capital as great as London does not possess a first-rate public art gallery. The king is a man of taste and I am surprised he has not seen to the matter.”

  “Perhaps His Majesty’s poor health stands in his way,” she said. She pursed her lips with a sympathy that appeared unfeigned and he noticed that her mouth was small and pink and shaped for kissing.

  “In that case his ministers should see to it, but they are a crowd of uncivilized louts.”

  He had to stop thinking about Cynthia and pay attention. Denford had said something interesting. Was he hoping to sell the Falleron collection to King George? If so, he’d catch cold at that plan. Grenville would stop any public funds being released for the purpose, as long as the Alt-Brandenburg question persisted.

  While Denford performed a witty—and not wholly undeserved—dissection of the members of the Tory government, Damian leaned back, sipped his wine, and observed the interaction between his wife and her lover. They seemed to know each other well. Almost too well, like an old married couple rather than a pair engaged in an adulterous affair. It must have been going on some time for them to be so comfortable together. He wondered if the liaison was well known in London. Lady Belinda knew, he realized. She had laughed slyly at his failure to recognize his own wife.

  Yet how could he have known her? Close up, the features were the same, but in every other way she had changed. She might have appalling taste in art and furniture, but she had made the best of her own appearance. Gone were the stiff curls and overfussy gowns, to be replaced by a coiffure and wardrobe that wouldn’t disgrace the beauties of any court in Europe. The careless cluster of curls suited her heart-shaped face, and she had learned to clothe her short, curvaceous figure in a way that made any man worth his salt wish to take her to bed. The fact that another man had done so became a matter for regret as well as anger.

  He wanted her. Much more than the superficial attraction he’d felt for Lady Belinda that night at the theater, which had been based purely on the strain of celibacy. He wanted his wife. He wanted to rumple the golden locks, explore the texture of her skin, and taste those perfect lips. He wanted to take her upstairs and discover if she looked even better unclothed.

  The impulse needed to be controlled. There were too many reasons it could not happen.

  At the other end of the table, Denford murmured a private aside to her and she responded with a coquettish nod, a suggestive pout of her kissable red mouth, to the former’s amusement.

  He also needed to control his temper. A new irritation had entered the ocean of bad blood that lay between himself and Denford: jealousy.

  Now Denford was telling a story, gossip about people he didn’t know, making him feel an outsider in his own house. She threw back her head and laughed at the denouement, displaying a throat whose purity and elegance twisted Damian’s heart.

  He summoned the serene surface he’d developed during years of public service and smiled.

  Cynthia was enjoying herself. She wasn’t accustomed to entertaining much, except in the most casual way. This odd little gathering was the closest she’d come to a formal dinner party. Having a husband to act as host and assist in managing awkward moments was a comfort to her. She wondered if he approved of her own contributions. In the old days at Beaulieu he made no secret of his doubts that she was capable of presiding over his household as a worthy hostess. But tonight she thought she was doing quite well. He hadn’t gone so far as to smile at her, but he had offered to take her to the Royal Academy. When, as happened quite often, she sensed his steady gaze on her, she felt tight in her own skin, an alarming but not disagreeable sensation. She also worried that she had something caught in her teeth.

  Julian was going on about something, probably being his usual witty self, but she scarcely listened. Through the forest of candles glowing over the linen, silver, and crystal of her carefully chosen table setting, her attention was drawn to Windermere. Damian. How absurd that Julian called him by his Christian name and she did not. She remembered the first time she saw him and how handsome he had seemed. If anything, he was more beautiful now. His Persian tan made his gray eyes bluer. She imagined tracing the straight, firm eyebrows that added character to his face, and exploring the dimple in his chin.

  With her tongue.

  Good God, where had that come from?

  Then he smiled at something Julian said, and she realized for the first time that he also had dimples in his cheeks, barely perceptible, when he was amused.

  She’d like to amuse him, she realized. She’d like to say or do something that would reveal those delicious indentations of flesh, which she’d then taste . . .

  She should not be sitting at her dinner table thinking such things. It wasn’t decent. And even if it was, he didn’t deserve such attentions. Nothing had changed, even though she wished it had.

  Perhaps it would. Perhaps she could forgive the past and forge a new relationship with Damian that would involve dimples. They were married, after all, and there wasn’t anything either could do about it.

  A gasp of horror interrupted her thoughts. It came from her left, from George Lewis. No doubt Julian had said something outrageous and shocked her husband’s cousin. What had they been talking about? Oh yes, the iniquities of Mr. Pitt’s ministry. Not that Julian cared a bit. It amused him to pick an argument, and poor Mr. Lewis was a Tory member of Parliament.

  “Don’t take any notice of Denford, cousin,” she said. “He likes to shock.”

  Cousin George recovered his poise and his natural pomposity. “I confess, Your Grace, to some surprise that you continue in your trade of buying and selling pictures since you inherited high rank. Like my revered cousin the late earl, I see a nobleman’s interest in art as suitably restricted to the glorification of his house and family.”

  “What would you expect me to do?” Julian replied. “What would you do if you suddenly became Earl of Windermere?”

  “I certainly don’t expect it. I have no doubt my new cousin will soon present her lord with a pledge of her affection. I have never thought to inherit Cousin Damian’s estate.”

  “But if you did. If Windermere fell under a hackney carriage tomorrow, what would you do?”

  “I would continue to do my duty to my family and the nation in the House of Lords instead of the Commons.”

  “And I continue to do what I have always done, which is to buy and sell pictures.”

  “Will you not take your seat in the Lords?”

  “I don’t think you would like what I would get up to there,” Julian said with a bark of a laugh.

  “Tell me what you hope to accomplish next year, cousin,” Cynthia said hastily.

  “I wouldn’t wish to bore you, my lady, with the details, but one of the first bills likely to come up is a renewal of the Spitalfields Act.”

  “What is that?”

  “It sets the wages of silk weavers in Spitalfields, east of London.”

  “I know where Spitalfields is,” Cynthia replied. Only too well.

  “The factory owners oppose it. It lays them open to competition from mills in other parts of the country that are able to pay lower wages.”

  “And you, Mr. Lewis? How do you intend to vote?”

  “There a
re arguments on both sides.” He looked over at Windermere. “Do you have an opinion, cousin? I must be guided by the head of the family, in whose gift my parliamentary seat lies.”

  “I promised your uncle I would use my influence against the renewal of the act.” Damian nodded to her, as though she would be pleased. “He sees the law as likely to raise the price of silk. Now that we are at war with France, the competition from imported materials is unimportant. We need to strengthen the industry in London.”

  George nodded approvingly. “Very wise, Windermere. Do you know that certain factions of the Whigs are trying to get the wage protections extended to women workers? Can you imagine anything so absurd?”

  “Why absurd?” Cynthia asked.

  “Surely it is obvious? Women do not have to support wives and families. They don’t need to make as much money. Not, of course, that the law would set the wages for women weavers as high as that of the men. No one is suggesting it should go that far.”

  “Women sometimes have to look after their families too.”

  “If so they are no better than they should be. A decent woman has a husband.”

  Although Cynthia could have named half a dozen women whose circumstances contradicted George’s claim, she didn’t like to argue with a guest—or her husband—at the dinner table. “If this law is not a good thing, how did it come to be passed?” she asked instead.

  “Fear, Lady Windermere. Fear and intimidation. The various Spitalfields Acts were passed under threat of riots, and the silk weavers were rewarded for disorderly conduct.”

  Cynthia thought of the squalid streets around her uncle’s factory; the dirty, crowded houses; the poverty and desperation of the people. The need for work in which even a small improvement in wages made the difference between starvation and a life that anyone at this table—or any servant in her house—would find insupportably mean. “I cannot find it in my heart to blame men or women for trying to better themselves.”