*
She awoke in her own bed, fully dressed, her head aching, the bright light forcing her eyes shut against the glare of morning. For once she was thankful she didn’t have a maid who’d be popping a curious head in. How would she explain why she was in bed, still dressed, when she couldn’t explain it to herself? How would she explain she’d got foxed with the lord of the house and engaged in the most decadent of behaviours with him? Worse, how would she face said lord and pretend nothing untoward had happened? Surely that was the expected reaction.
He’d invited her for a drink. They’d commiserated over a difficult day. One thing had led to another, no doubt inspired by the brandy and loneliness and poor logic that looked far less reasonable by the light of day. Now it was morning and the world had righted to its proper place. Maura groaned in remembrance of those ridiculous arguments she’d mentally designed to justify what she’d impetuously wanted in the moment. Now, she’d have to live with those consequences.
Worry over those consequences kept her in her room longer than usual and all for naught. William and Cecilia dejectedly informed her upon her arrival in the nursery that Uncle Ree had left. An urgent summons had come early. He’d had to leave right away for the estate in Sussex where a worker had been seriously injured in a farming accident. He had promised to be back for the party.
‘And he promised to bring me a new dolly,’ Cecilia said, trying to be positive.
‘How many days is it until the party?’
Maura smiled. ‘We’ll make a mathematical problem out of it, shall we? This morning we can draw up a calendar that counts the days.’
It had been a most unlooked-for reprieve. Time would temper her foolishness.
There would be no morning-after awkwardness. It was quite possible they would be able to go on as if their midnight madness hadn’t happened. He would come home, have his party, marry an appropriate wife and they’d never have to mention their indiscretion.
Very convenient. Very depressing.
There’d be no painting, no more talk of Titian in the dark. Of course, the whole painting proposition had been nonsense to start with. The dangers of such a suggestion had only come to her much later in the bright light of dawn. She could not risk anyone seeing such a picture. It would lead her uncle straight to her, to say nothing of what it would do to her reputation.
She was the penniless niece of a knight, her reputation was all she had to recommend her, not that there’d be much reputation left if word of this escapade ever got out. Still, the virtuous teachings of childhood had a way of clinging. In reality, she’d had no reputation left the moment she’d set foot on the Exeter coach. Such was the price for escaping Acton, Baron Wildeham.
*
Two heads were better than one, Acton Humphries concluded, savouring an afternoon drink in the comfort of Grillon’s lobby. A week in London had proven it. Coming up to town had been an excellent decision. Even the talents of Paul Digby would have been overwhelmed by the enormity of the search they undertook. It had not helped matters that no one remembered her getting off the mail coach. Likely, she’d been smart and not gone inside or had waited to ask for directions of someone after leaving the inn yard.
The second obstacle was that there were only certain places Paul Digby could go. No one would mistake him for a gentleman and a gentleman was what might be required for the next stage of the search. After seven days of visiting dress shops and a few false hopes, Paul Digby had exhausted the scope of places he could search that might play host to a girl like Maura. Digby had been to the brothels, too, just in case. There was no sign of her.
It was time to move on to their next option: service. A bluff, brutish man of Digby’s sort could not believably make polite enquiries at referral services without raising suspicions or inadvertently sounding an alarm. Wildeham did not want Maura forewarned. If she’d run once, she would run twice, and he might not be so lucky this time.
What Digby could not do, Wildeham could. Not only could he make enquiries at referral agencies, he could talk with his fellow gentlemen at the clubs. He could also start accepting invitations to parties and chatting with hostesses, pretending to be in need of some help at his Devonshire estate. He could be downright charming when he chose. If Maura was sitting pretty in some nobleman’s house, he’d personally flush her out.
Wildeham folded his paper back to the society pages. If he was going to be out and about, he should keep up on all the latest news. The players had changed.
One could always tell when the social winds shifted by who wasn’t listed as much as by those who were. Two names were remarkable by their absence: Merrick St Magnus and Ashe Bedevere, two of London’s leading rakes over the past years.
They’d married, leaving the stage to Riordan Barrett, a man more than worthy of it. He didn’t know the man personally, being several years older. But he knew about Barrett. Everyone in London knew about Barrett. It couldn’t be helped. But even Barrett was feeling matrimonial pressure these days by the looks of it. ‘The Earl of C—, formerly Mr B—, is hosting a dinner party in hopes of starting his quest for a bride...’ Inheritance had its shackles and it appeared Riordan Barrett had been caught.
Too bad, Wildeham thought dispassionately. His own marriage would have shackles, too, though of a different, more titillating kind just as soon as he found Maura. Dinner party. Wildeham snorted. Poor fellow, he was being tamed already. Since when did rakes host dinner parties for decent folk?
Chapter Ten
Riordan flipped open his pocket watch. He was going to have to face her. He could put it off not a literal minute longer. He’d reached London shortly after one and promptly hid out at White’s, enjoying the comfort of their chairs rather than facing the chaos of the town house on party day. Who was he fooling? The chaos was just a convenient excuse he gave to those acquaintances that stopped by to chat. The real reason he was reluctant to go home was Maura.
It wasn’t for the usual reasons a man hesitated facing a woman. He didn’t regret what they’d done, but what he’d told her. He’d been vulnerable to the brandy, to her. She’d been so very encouraging, hanging on his every word, and he’d spun tale after tale for her. The early tales of his childhood were fine, designed for humour, but they’d become darker tales of his adolescence, pathetic tales. Not that they weren’t true, they were, but that didn’t make them less pathetic—the poor little rich boy who’d wanted to paint, who’d wanted to rival the great masters. What would Maura think of that man now? There’d been no time to explain.
It had been unfortunate Browning had summoned him so early in the morning, that the need to leave had been so very urgent. There’d been no time to wait or even to leave a note. Browning had been right to insist he make all haste. The poor man had not lasted an hour beyond his arrival and his dying words had given Riordan a key in unlocking the mystery of Elliott’s death.
Now he was home and there was Vale and the blasted dinner party to contend with. And there was Maura. He’d been gone longer than he’d hoped. What would she make of his absence? He’d had to stay on for the funeral and for making appointments to replace the fallen foreman. Would she understand that? Did she think he’d left as a coward’s way out? That he’d used her without a care? That she’d been a convenient companion in the dark? Had she thought of him at all during his absence? Of course she would have. He could rest easy on that account.
Maura would not take their encounter casually. But were those thoughts favourable? Or had she filled his absence with castigation for herself and for him?
As for himself, she intruded on every spare thought: Maura’s Titian hair vibrant in the lamplight, Maura’s green eyes alight with passion, Maura’s body alive beneath him. But it was more than her beauty, it was the sincerity she carried with her: her genuine concern for the children, the way she gave him all her attention when she listened. Such things had been alluring to him in this time of grief and loneliness and trial and uncertainty. His brother was gone
, the Vales threatened the children. He had never felt so alone in his life except for Maura.
It was unfair to use her goodness in such a way. He would not be alone much longer. Tonight he’d take the first step towards procuring a marriage, a life partner. But the prospect did not fill him with the anticipated satisfaction. He had no idea who that woman would be and it was hard to imagine comfort in the form of a stranger. Not physical comfort. He could imagine that quite well, had plenty of experience with it actually. But it was a comfort that paled by comparison to the comfort he associated with Maura.
A footman approached, asking him if he’d like anything more. Riordan shook his head. There was no time. If he didn’t leave now there’d hardly be a chance to change and see the children before guests arrived. He had Cecilia’s doll in his luggage and a small boat for William’s collection he’d hand whittled himself in the long days away. And Maura, his conscience whispered. Perhaps there would be time to see Maura, too.
In his mind, he imagined a quiet homecoming where the children hugged him.
Cecilia would settle on his lap and cradle the doll gently in her arms. William would play at his feet with the boat, pretending the carpet was an ocean. Maura would smile benevolently at them for avoiding their lessons and then she would quietly scold him for spoiling them. But in the end, she would sit in the chair across from him because he’d ask her to and he would tell her of his trip and what he had learned and what it meant.
Very familial. Very domestic. A very far cry from anything he’d ever wished for in his life. He didn’t question the vision. It was enough to get him out of White’s, into the carriage and setting off for home.
*
It wasn’t enough to sustain him once he set foot in the front door. The vision of a quiet family homecoming died a most precipitous death in one fell swoop of reality.
Maids and footmen were everywhere, scurrying with vases of flowers, arranging chairs, carrying trays of silver. Above them all on the staircase, William and Cecilia spied him, letting out a series of ‘whoops’ and launching themselves down the well-polished banister into the mêlée of footmen and crystal vases.
‘No! Cecilia, watch out!’ Maura sprinted out of nowhere in time to prevent a collision. Maura looked harried, her hair dishevelled, a curl here and there escaping the net snood she wore at her nape. Harried, but beautiful, Riordan thought.
Disaster avoided, the children continued their run to him and he knelt to envelop them in a hug, a more boisterous homecoming than the one in his vision but no less warming. He’d missed them. Over their heads, he met Maura’s eyes.
Her hands were on her hips. All the things he might have said to her fled his mind and he opted simply for, ‘I’m home.’
‘Just in time, too,’ Maura said with businesslike efficiency. ‘Now would be a good time to take them to the park.’
Riordan chuckled. She was flustered. He couldn’t resist. He smiled. ‘Are you sure? It is an unscheduled outing, after all.’
A small smile twitched at her lips, some of her tension ebbing. ‘I’m quite sure.’
Definitely not the homecoming he’d anticipated, Riordan thought as he took the children by the hand and walked across the street to the key-garden. But a good one none the less. It had been rushed and hectic, disaster just a step away, but it had also felt familiar.
He remembered party days when his mother had been desperate to have him and Elliott out from under foot while caterers and florists thronged the house.
Maura’s tight tone had borne certain similarities, her phrasing not all that different from his mother’s when she’d say in final exasperation, ‘Someone, take the boys outdoors where they can’t get into trouble.’
The only thing he regretted was that there wouldn’t be time to talk to Maura.
*
Riordan was home and she’d survived their first encounter, brief as it was, which didn’t mean she’d emerged untouched by it. The moment his eyes had held hers over the children’s heads, her stomach had flipped and her mind had started conjuring up warm images of family, of the four of them together. Then reality had taken firm hold. There was no place for such fancifulness. In three hours, young women would be arriving to vie for the right to share that reality with him while she was tucked up safely away in the nursery, out of his sight, out of his mind. This was how it should be, how it had to be.
Maura gave the flowers on the long dining-room table one last small adjustment and stepped back with satisfaction. The dining room looked utterly transformed from the chaos of the day. She had begun having doubts about everything being ready.
Riordan had arrived home just in time. It had been beyond difficult to arrange the party and look after the children. Just this morning, she’d found William and Cecilia building a fort under the dining-room table while maids and footmen had hurried about with china and crystal.
To be sure, Maura looked under the table one last time to make sure Dolly Polly had gone upstairs with Cecilia. It wouldn’t do for a guest to accidently step on Cecilia’s treasure. This was not the kind of party where such an oversight would be tolerated. Everything had to be perfect. Her work was nearly done. All that remained was a final check with the cook and the butler before she could vanish upstairs to the nursery.
She’d not been exaggerating when she’d told Riordan two weeks were barely enough. She’d recognised from the beginning this was no mere country dinner.
This was a dinner thrown by an earl in town, and a bachelor earl to boot. The message his party was sending was unmistakable even to the most socially obtuse.
He was announcing his desire to marry, to look over the eligible candidates and to settle on one. Guests would have expectations.
Riordan might not understand the importance of each little nuance tonight, but she certainly did. There would be no mere slapping of the food on the table.
There were rules that must be followed and the calibre of guests attending tonight would know them.
Maura mentally ran through the list of details. The dining room was ready, the carpet had been cleaned, the fire was laid, the fire screen in place so that those sitting nearest the heat wouldn’t roast. Large pieces of the family silver gleamed their impressive message from the carved sideboard. That had been Aunt Sophie’s contribution. She’d been a firm believer in showing off the Chatham estate’s wealth. ‘Fathers will want to see what their daughters are marrying into,’ she’d said.
Maura had bowed to her wish in exchange for doing away with the silver epergne on the main table. She’d been all too happy to see it take up residence on the sideboard with its other large silver relatives. It was somewhat unorthodox to remove the standard centrepiece, but Maura insisted conversation would flow better if everyone at the table could actually see everyone else.
To draw the eye, Maura opted to fill the epergne with blue forget-me-nots and bright-yellow daffodils with a few strategically placed deep-pink tulips so that it spilled with colour, matching the smaller arrangements set periodically down the length of the table. As a result, the once heavy and squat epergne enlivened the silver display and filled one side of the room with a splash of spring colour. There wasn’t a single item left to fuss over. The room was ready. Now, for the kitchens.
The kitchens were much as Maura expected—the chaos behind the scenes.
With fourteen people for dinner and eight courses, it was bound to be busy. But Cook had been a blessing. The former earl had entertained often and Cook knew exactly what to do, too much in some cases.
Cook had initially pulled out one of the former earl’s favourite menus, but Maura had scotched that immediately. Lord Chatham wouldn’t want reminders of his brother lingering so blatantly tonight. She’d insisted on a fresh menu: a lobster turbot with Dutch sauces to start, fresh oysters, and the meat course served à la jardinière to take advantage of the fresh produce in the markets. There would be ices and ice creams brought in for dessert.
The food, she’d to
ld Cook, must send a message. There was a new Earl of Chatham now and he was making his own way, without breaking too far from tradition. These were by no means exotic dishes. If Lord Chatham’s reputation was as scandalous as he intimated, the food served tonight would be a good reminder he’d not forgotten what it meant to be an upstanding gentleman. He understood society’s rules.
Which was why her last call was Fielding. Maura found him in the silver pantry, going over a last check of the dinnerware. She didn’t envy the man his duties this evening. Like Cook, he knew his job. He’d entertained for Elliott and for Elliott’s father for more than two decades. But tonight was different, it was Riordan’s first night as host and there was only a nominal hostess to make it all run smoothly.
As predicted, Aunt Sophie had proven to have limited use beyond planning the guest list and invitations. Maura doubted the silly woman would know what to do if one of Society’s ‘crises’ arose. Of course, if something did go wrong, there was little a hostess could do to address it. Maura knew very well a hostess did not get up from the table to readjust the staff or correct a serving procedure during the meal. The success of the meal lay squarely on the butler’s shoulders.
‘Are you ready, Fielding?’ Maura enquired. ‘Is there any last thing I can do for you?’
‘Everything is prepared, Miss Caulfield.’ Fielding was unfailingly proper at all times. If he felt any distress over the impending evening, he offered no signs of it.
‘The footmen? Are they clear on the procedure of serving the meal à la Russe?’
À la Russe meant the footman served a guest privately from a serving plate. ‘If we need more, perhaps we can borrow a groom or the gardener.’ In the country, she and her aunt had often been hard pressed to find enough men to pull it off.
They’d used the occasional groom to fill out the numbers to accommodate their guests. It was always a near-run thing then, hoping the groom would remember what to do.
How to Sin Successfully (Rakes Beyond Redemption) Page 10