Of course she understood. She always did. And if he paused the ceremony, urged her out of the room for a few moments, he rather suspected she’d lead the way.
Robert sighed happily, stroking her palm through the silk. Perhaps it was improper for a man to be visibly aroused at his own wedding, but then again, when had they ever been proper?
PART V
Epilogue
February 1809
Damn the snow, Jenny thought as she trudged across the inn yard toward the stables, trying to see through the flurry that clung damply to her cloak, her cheeks, her messily reconstituted knot of straw-blond hair. A round blob entered her field of view, bringing with it the sharp sensation of ice. Yes, there was even a snowflake on her nose.
If the storm would just let up, she could leave this godforsaken place where she’d been reduced to sleeping with the stable hands for pence. How far she’d lowered herself in seven months! She’d been at the pinnacle of life, given every lovely dress and bauble she could desire, and all she’d had to do was give it up to old Lord Humboldt. Make the poor man think she was quivering at his every touch and only had eyes for him.
It should have been easy.
But dammit, she’d never once come at the old man’s hands! Quite frankly, when the athletic and young Lord Sedgwick cornered her in the hallway at Miss Partridge’s masquerade and whispered all the naughty things they could do, his finger running up her thigh, she’d felt more pleasure than she had in all the time she’d been with Humboldt.
Only four weeks in, she’d let Sedgwick lift her skirts and fuck her behind the screen in the ladies’ retiring room. She should have been satisfied with that stolen moment, but no, once she’d had a taste of what she could get away with, she’d met Sedgwick again and again, until the night she’d followed him to Harridan House, in disguise of course, and participated in his spontaneous orgy.
And what an orgy! Her knees went weak and her cunt grew heavy and moist just thinking about the night.
Jenny’s progress across the yard was stopped by the arrival of a carriage. A stately, expensively rigged carriage at which even Jenny stopped to look, despite the weather. After all, with the two grooms coming out to meet the carriage, it wasn’t as if she’d have any work, for a few minutes yet, anyway.
A uniformed footman opened the door and out stepped a gentleman whose greatcoat billowed about him in such a way that she didn’t get much of an impression other than tall and blond.
The gentleman helped down a lady, and despite the woman’s own heavy cloak, Jenny couldn’t help but notice the auburn curls that peeked out beneath her bonnet.
When the wind swept the cape open just enough, Jenny sighed, admiring the woman’s fashionable clothing. She sighed again and turned her attention back to the man. His back was to her but she could tell that his boots were well made, hugging his shapely calves.
Then Jenny realized the woman was looking at her strangely, as if she knew her, but Jenny didn’t know any ladies. Her friends in the demimonde could hardly be termed ladies. Yet the woman did look slightly familiar. One would think Jenny would recognize a lady with hair that strikingly red.
Irritated, Jenny brushed at the skirt of her dress. Unless the woman and her husband were planning on a threesome this evening, she wished they would bugger off and leave her to earn a few bob so she could make her way back to London.
With all those soldiers back from the Peninsula, surely there’d be a few wounded gents in the city needing a bit of comfort.
The woman seemed to make a decision and let her husband lead her away. But then Jenny decided to have some fun. She sauntered up to the pair.
“Evening, sir,” she addressed the gentleman. He was handsome now that she looked at him, all that blond hair and those icy blue eyes. He looked like he’d be good in bed. His lady had that well-pleasured look about her. He did too, as a matter of fact.
The man seemed like he was about to wave her away, but his lady stopped him, murmuring something low that Jenny didn’t catch.
“M’lady.” Jenny finally bobbed a saucy curtsey toward the woman, throwing in one of her seductive looks, which had won her Humboldt.
The lady’s eyes widened and that was when Jenny knew that the woman was no stranger to having a fuck with another woman.
Maybe she would make a bit of money out of this.
“It’s an awfully cold night, perhaps you might be needing another body to help warm your bed?”
“Excuse me?” The gentleman gaped at her, but the lady laughed and slanted a teasing look up at her man. Then the gentleman’s tense stance eased.
Jenny smiled at them hopefully.
“Miss Smollett.”
Jenny jerked from her thoughts in surprise at hearing her name.
“How on earth did you come to this?”
“Do I know you, my lady?” Jenny asked, staring at the woman warily now.
“No, I suppose you don’t.” The lady seemed a bit bemused.
“Well then, how do you know me?” Jenny glanced at the man who was with her, but he merely shrugged.
“Weren’t you Lord Humboldt’s mistress?”
Suddenly Jenny saw her mistake. This lady, for all her finery, was this man’s mistress.
“What of it?” Jenny placed her hands on her hips. “Who the hell are you to ask?”
“The lady…” the man began, clearly angered and reaching for the woman’s arm. But his mistress shrugged him off.
“It’s just a surprise, really,” the woman interrupted. “I suppose he didn’t take the cuckolding too well?”
“As if that were news,” Jenny returned scornfully. Her stupidity was likely the new byword in the demimonde. After all, not every woman was naive enough to sign a contract she hadn’t read all the way through.
“And Sedgwick didn’t provide for you at all?”
“Who are you?”
“Come, Miss Smollett, why don’t you join us by the fire in the inn and we can discuss this further.
The gentleman seemed about to protest, but the lady turned to him, said something, and a moment later he sighed resignedly.
Jenny followed them inside, still somewhat hopeful to see a profit. After all, they were inviting her to join them.
An hour later, after the best meal Jenny had had in three weeks, she’d managed to reveal everything that had happened to her over the past seven months to Sir Jason and Lady Blount.
“We are going back to London,” Lady Blount remarked, glancing toward her husband. They shared one of those long looks that Jenny had begun to realize communicated much more than a look should. “It would be no trouble at all to take you up with us in our carriage.”
No trouble? Of course it would be trouble, but if these Blount folks were do-gooders, Jenny wouldn’t quarrel with them. Whatever got her back to London.
Or perhaps they merely wanted a bit of entertainment on the road. Jenny was rather skilled at maneuvering around a moving carriage.
“Please, Miss Smollett”—Sir Jason held up his hand as if he knew exactly what she had been about to say—“no show of gratitude is necessary.”
“As you wish.” Jenny shrugged. She bet if the lady were alone she might be more interested in the idea.
The storm passed. Much later that evening, as the well-sprung carriage rolled as evenly as it could on the rough London road and Jenny Smollett lay sleeping in the far corner from Diana, Jason caught Diana’s hand in his own, thoughtfully tracing his index finger over the seams of her glove.
From the moment he had heard Miss Smollett describe the infamous orgy that had cost her her position, the idea had been brewing in his head. The girl had unabashedly reveled in the decadence. She genuinely loved sex, was perfectly suited to the world of the demimonde, except that a man wanted fidelity in a mistress and fidelity clearly bored her.
He squeezed Diana’s hand. Very unlike Diana, though even now, four months after that day in Bath, three and a half months after their wedding, he s
till felt an instinctive twinge of jealousy. Roughly, he forced the thoughts away.
Back to Miss Smollett. She had clearly learned her lesson about impetuosity. If she could be believed, and he was inclined to believe her, her experiences since losing Humboldt, to being dropped so far from London with no way to get back, had hardened her, made her wiser and more worldly.
“I was thinking, love,” he said quietly. “As you were planning to sell the place anyway…?”
Diana looked at him sharply. “She might do very well for one of the nymphs or Grecian girls but…to run the place?”
“You said yourself if you didn’t want to, with your manager as conscientious as he is, you never really had to look at the books or handle any of the business.”
“But…” Diana looked away, biting her lip.
“You don’t really want to get rid of it, do you?”
She turned back quickly, wrapping her hand around his and drawing him closer.
“I do, truly I do, but it’s so hard, you must understand, to actually let go.” Her gaze locked with his as she pleaded with him to understand. “It was a part of me, defining me, for so long. My past, you know. But I don’t want it.”
He sighed. He did understand. Funny, he’d thought being married would mean the end of any heartache, minor or otherwise, but somehow there were always little things that made him need to be reassured.
Her gaze flittered away for a moment, to where Jenny was still sleeping. Then a small, mischievous smile crossed Diana’s face—a smile he recognized and his body recognized.
“Do I have to show you just how much I love you?” Diana whispered, letting go of his hand to caress his thigh, inching her way up.
He sighed, closing his eyes as her hand covered his cock, which was now hard and straining against his trousers.
“I’m not quite sure this is love,” he returned, unbuttoning his falls to allow her better access. He hardly cared if Miss Smollett did wake up and see them amorously engaged. He wasn’t the one who had invited her to ride with them, and anyway, if she was shocked by such a thing, it would be better to know now.
Diana brought her lips closer to his face and just before her mouth touched his, he heard her words, barely even a whisper: “But I do love you, Jason, more than anything in this world.”
Then she kissed him and showed him just how much.
When Jenny woke next, the brick beneath her feet had lost all its warmth and her neck ached from leaning against her own shoulder. It took a moment, with the rocking of the moving carriage and the haziness of her mind, to remember where she was: on her way to London courtesy of Sir Jason Blount and his wife. She opened her eyes gingerly. The carriage was still dark, the curtains drawn, but from the thin sliver of light that peeked across the seat, she knew it was day.
They slept still, curled up in each other’s arms in a way that made Jenny uneasy and vaguely nauseous. She wanted to open the curtains and see where they were, see if she could recognize the landscape, ask them how much longer, how much farther to London, but instead she shifted her weight, closed her eyes again and slept.
She woke up next to the bright glare of the midday sun and a hasty apology from Lady Blount.
“But we’re here, Miss Smollett, in London,” Lady Blount announced. The carriage was slowing down.
Jenny peered out at the street. It looked familiar, somewhat. Then she saw the building they were passing. Harridan House. She wondered if Sir Jason and Lady Blount even knew what that place was. Sir Jason perhaps, as most men seemed to know.
The carriage turned down the street and then into the mews. Jenny stared at Sir Jason in surprise.
“Again, I must apologize, Miss Smollett,” Lady Blount said with a throaty laugh that made Jenny distinctly nervous, “but as we didn’t know where to drop you off and I have a proposition for you…”
For one brief moment, Jenny was angry. Was this some sort of ridiculous joke, that they would bring her to the scene of her greatest folly, where she had thrown away her chance at a career as a mistress?
“Please, Miss Smollett, let me explain.” Lady Blount laughed again and then Jenny tilted her head in shock, staring at the woman in wonder.
Jenny heard the woman speak, but it was difficult to concentrate with this new revelation. They said Madame Rouge always wore a turban, but one imagined her hair to be red to suit the name and now with Lady Blount acting so strangely…
“Have you ever considered running an erotic club catering to the diverse sexual whims of the ton?”
Lady Blount pulled a wad of silk out of her reticule and then dangled the red mask in the air.
Jenny watched the silk wave hypnotically.
She? Madame Rouge?
About the Author
SABRINA DARBY started writing romance the day after her wedding when she woke up with an idea for a Regency; she’s been back in the early nineteenth century ever since. Sabrina graduated from MIT and received her MFA from USC. She currently resides in California with her husband and their Cavalier King Charles spaniel.
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Credits
Cover design by Feeza Mumtaz
Cover photograph by Debra McClinton
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ON THESE SILKEN SHEETS. Copyright © 2009 by Sabrina Darby. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Adobe Digital Edition July 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-193699-9
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