Scandalous Scions Two

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  Will was far stronger than her but let her move him about. He looked down at her with a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

  Bridget didn’t feel like smiling. Her heart was racing with her own daring as she fumbled with trembling hands at the buttons on Will’s trousers and pushed her hand inside. She found the opening of his drawers and beneath, his cock, which was beating and stiff just as she suspected it would be. She stroked it the way he liked, the way that left him groaning and breathless on the bed when she was done.

  Bridget looked into his eyes. The heat was there although his amusement had fled. “Someone will see,” he breathed, his voice strained.

  “Your back is to the hall. All they will see is your shoulder and that I am talking to you,” Bridget assured him.

  He swallowed, his eyes closing. “Bree…” He drew in a sharp breath, his chest hitching. “Stop. Stop it. Now.”

  She watched his face as she worked her hand along his length. She had watched his face while pleasuring him more than once and knew the signs. When he shifted against the pillar, his jaw clenched and the furrow appeared between his brows, she withdrew her hand.

  “Will, are you coming?” Aunt Elisa called.

  Bridget looked around the pillar while Will shuddered, his breath ragged. “We’ll be right there, Aunt Elisa.”

  Elisa smiled and went back to the dining room.

  Bridget fastened Will’s buttons. He didn’t move. The pulse in his neck jumped and throbbed.

  “We help each other, remember?” Bridget reminded him. She glided into the dining room, the small smile he had been wearing now turning up the corners of her own mouth.

  Chapter Seven

  A week later, Will took Bridget to Kirkaldy, along with a single trunk of her clothes. All her possessions would be transported to Scotland later, for once Will had confronted the family with the fact of their marriage, he was impatient to leave again. In the week that Vaughn insist they stay at Marblethorpe, Will seethed over the inactivity. He went shooting with friends, including the sharp-eyed Lord Bedford, who bowed over her hand with exaggerated courtesy.

  Will also spent evenings in Brighton. Bridget could only assume he was with the same friends. He would return late at night, sometimes after midnight, wreaking of cigars and spirits, to slide into their borrowed bed and press himself against her.

  The first night he did so, Bridget pretended to be asleep. His body and his hands and his mouth were persuasive and impossible to resist, though. She sighed, her excitement building as he stripped her of her nightgown. In the moonlight, he would spread her arms and legs and tease her until it was impossible to remain still. Then he would slide into her and thrust until they were both trembling and weak with the pleasure.

  Afterward, he slept. He did not draw her into his arms. He did not talk, not even the ribald conversation that had at first shocked her and reduced her to giggles. Bridget realized the brandy was responsible for his almost instant lapse into unmoving slumber. When they were at Kirkaldy and Will could resume the life he seethed to return to, then perhaps he would be as he was during the three days in London that she now realized had been her honeymoon.

  During the day, while Will walked the grounds or rode or went shooting with his friends, or any of a dozen other activities that were always out in the crisp, icy January weather, Bridget sought her mother and asked her to help Bridget acquire a new wardrobe.

  Brighton had fashionable stores although nothing in them satisfied Bridget. After three stops at the largest of the stores, Natasha closed the door of the carriage and settled her hands on her lap. “If you could tell me what it is you seek, Bridget, perhaps that would shorten the search. It seems you have a specific requirement that fashion is not meeting.”

  Bridget pressed her lips together. “I’m not entirely sure what I am searching for, but yes, there is something…” She hesitated. “Will said I hide beneath my dresses. I no longer want to hide, Mother. Can you help me? Do you know what he means?”

  Her mother’s smile was one Bridget had never seen before. For a moment it was as if Bridget was looking at a strange woman—a beautiful woman who understood men far more than Bridget did. Natasha sighed. “Ah, yes, I know what he means. We will not find what you want in any establishment but one.” She leaned to open the door and called up to the driver. “The Gable House on Grand Parade, please.”

  The Gable House was a private home, a large one, with a circular drive and a fountain in the middle of it. The white columns and high windows were elegant, the extensive gardens intriguing.

  Inside was another fountain, right in the middle of the stunning front hall. It tinkled and rushed, while a magnificent woman with silver hair and a young face came down the marble stairs to greet them.

  Bridget stared at her. She was dressed in the most fashionable of morning gowns with a high neck and long sleeves. Not a button was out of place and not an inch more bust or flesh showing than one ought to show at that time of day. The cloth and the colors were not lurid and her jewelry was decorous. No detail about the woman’s clothing could be called improper, yet the overall impression was of a woman who was far more alluring than any other Bridget had met.

  Bridget could easily see men tripping over themselves to kiss her hand and fight duels over her. The lady had the elegance and sophistication that some women seemed to be born with, that Bridget had failed to acquire despite her own mother’s famous beauty and grace. Bridget had decided long ago that she had too much of her father in her. Seth had not been known for his urbane charm or his good looks.

  “Madam Therion, I do apologize for calling unannounced,” Natasha said. “We have a problem that needs solving. This is my daughter, Lady Bridget.”

  “Lady Bridget, you are welcome in my house,” Madame Therion said with a mild French accent, her gaze flicking over Bridget from head to foot. “This is your problem, ‘tasha?” she added, glancing at Bridget’s mother.

  Bridget was startled. She had never heard anyone shorten her mother’s name in that way.

  Natasha did not seem offended by the shortening or by the fact that Madame Therion had called Bridget a problem. “Bridget wishes to display her full potential and is not sure how to do that.”

  “Ah…” Madame Therion nodded, as if she understood exactly what was in Bridget’s mind and heart. “That is a problem easily fixed with a few minor adjustments.” She walked right around Bridget, taking in every aspect, then lifted her chin to study her face. “The foundations are there, certainly.” She smiled at Bridget. “For so many women, it is like building a palace upon a bog. It is doomed to fail, no? While you are good earth. It will be done.” Madame Therion turned on her heel, her long back hem sweeping around in a sinuous curve. “Come along.”

  She led them up the stairs and into a magnificent drawing room that made Bridget gasp. There were too many details to absorb, from the gleaming windows and velvet drapes, to the striped salon chairs, the tall vases of roses and trailing ivy and the dazzling brightness of the room.

  Her gaze settled, instead, on a woman standing by the big windows with a tape measure about her neck, a pair of pince-nez on the end of her nose and a dozen pins pressed between her lips. She was draping a gown on the model in front of her. The gown was a stunning deep blue satin with silver and white trimming that caught Bridget’s breath with the simple beauty of it.

  This gown had the quality that Bridget had been searching for. She had no idea why this gown was any different from the others she had seen this morning, yet it was.

  “You like, no?” Madam Therion asked, moving over to the model and touched the slender shoulder of the gown.

  “I do,” Bridget admitted.

  “It is not for you, this gown,” Madam Therion told her. “It is completely the wrong color.” She pointed to Bridget’s brown hair. “Your Maman, she could wear this gown, especially now she is a woman d’un certain âge and has the mark of distinction.”

  Natasha self-conscious
ly touched her hair, where the white streak ran from her temple up into the coils on top of her head.

  “Ah…the repressed English woman,” Madame Therion added, with a soft laugh. She whirled away from the blue satin gown and moved over to a table that had three reading stands sitting on it. All three stands held massive books, laid open. “We must find your best color, Lady Bridget. Then, we will build upon that.”

  She beckoned. Bridget moved around the table and looked at the big tome Madame Therion was standing in front of. The book was filled with clippings of fabric, in a dizzying array of colors, arranged by the color spectrum.

  “What color do you like?” Madam Therion asked.

  “I like green,” Bridget said, pointing to the moss green swatch.

  “Ah, see, you have good instincts. That is an excellent color for you. So is this one.” Madame Therion unpinned a strip of satin from the page.

  “Pink?” Bridget said doubtfully, wrinkling her nose. Pink was for maidens and little girls. Will had been disdainful of her ‘maiden’ clothes.

  Madame Therion laughed. “You do not understand the subtleties of color, little one. Let me demonstrate.” She turned and opened the doors of what Bridget had assumed were library shelves, only when the doors opened, she saw that the shelves were stacked with bolts of cloth. There were wools and tweeds, cashmere and satin, brushed cotton and twills, gaberdines and velvets.

  The colors were riotous. There were shades Bridget had never seen before and didn’t know existed.

  Not a single bolt of black showed, anywhere on the shelves.

  Madam Therion reached for a bolt and slid it out from between the others. It was also satin, a deep cerise color that bore little relationship to pretty, innocent pink. She put the bolt on the table, then plucked another bolt, this one a deep blue brushed cotton that was similar to the dress the seamstresses was working upon by the window.

  Madam Therion shook out a handful of yardage of the blue bolt. “Turn and look in the mirror, Lady Bridget.” She pointed to a large, gilded mirror on a stand, also located to take advantage of the light pouring through the big windows.

  Bridget moved over to the mirror and Madame Therion draped the blue fabric over her shoulder, covering up her dress and bodice. The fabric framed her face.

  “Look at yourself,” Madam Therion encouraged her. “It is the face you see every morning in the mirror, yes?”

  “Well…yes.” Bridget bit her lip.

  “Do not bite your mouth in that way,” Madam Therion added. “It makes a man think you doubt yourself and your power over him.”

  Bridget shifted her gaze to Madam Therion’s reflection, startled. Behind them, Natasha glided up to peer at the reflection, too.

  Madam Therion nodded, her pale blue eyes bright with mischief. “You do know what I mean, then. Good. Now…” She whipped the blue fabric away and hurried back to the shelves, rolling it as she walked. She took several more bolts down and fussed with them by the table. “Turn to face the mirror once more,” she instructed.

  Bridget turned.

  “Consider your face for a moment,” Madam Therion said. She hung a fold of dusky green tweed over Bridget’s shoulders. “Now, see?”

  Bridget frowned. There was a difference in the mirror. She couldn’t say what the difference was, exactly. “It is as if I can see myself better. Clearer.”

  Madam Therion nodded as she worked on yardage behind Bridget. “Good, yes, you see it. Now…watch.” She lifted the tweed just a little and slid beneath it the cerise satin, folding it so it laid like a border along the folded edge of the tweed.

  “Oh!” Bridget breathed, looking in the mirror. The pink and the green together were an odd combination, one she had seen no other woman use, yet on her, it was…

  “Your face glows,” Natasha said softly. “It is remarkable, isn’t it?”

  “Yes…” Bridget nodded. “Only, I cannot wear pink satin every day of my life.”

  “Oh, there are other colors that will work just as well,” Madame Therion assured her. “We must find them for you. Come along.” She moved back to the big table.

  “Is that all there is to it?” Bridget asked, trailing behind her. “It is simply a matter of choosing the right colors?”

  “Oh my goodness no!” Madam Therion said, with a laugh that was not a polite chuckle, but a real laugh, that lit up her face and showed all her teeth. The laugh spoke, telling Bridget that Madame Therion knew much more than she was saying and was amused by it. The amusement danced in her eyes.

  Men would be intrigued by that, Bridget told herself, studying Madame Therion carefully. Will had been intrigued by what had been hidden beneath her dress, not what was on display… Bridget ran her gaze down Madame Therion’s elegant and perfectly modest dress, noticing for the first time that the French woman had a small bust. It did not seem to make a difference to the overall ensemble. Her waist was shockingly small. the dress seemed to emphasize that, by curving out over her hips. Even the rucking over her hips exaggerated them, Bridget realized. The extra drapes of fabric gave Madame Therion the elegant hourglass shape that men so greatly admired…

  Understanding stirred in Bridget. “Show me,” she urged Madame Therion.

  * * * * *

  Bridget commissioned seven dresses, including a ball gown for a ball to which she had yet to be invited. However, balls were an inevitable part of the season and the gown would not be wasted.

  It would take several weeks for the dresses to be ready, although Madam Therion assured Bridget, as she took hundreds of measurements, that the first dress would be rushed.

  Madame Therion also suggested new corsetry and linens, to suit the dresses. “A smaller corset is a must. This thing is much too large. Were you never fitted for a corset, my dear?” Madam Therion asked. “I refuse to believe your Maman did not ensure you were.”

  “I did,” Natasha said from the striped sofa where she sat watching. “Bridget preferred comfort.”

  Bridget bit her lip. She made herself stop by pressing her lips together. “I did,” she admitted. “I didn’t understand at all.”

  Madam Therion nodded. “You will find, my dear, that a properly fitting corset is far more comfortable than an oversized one.”

  Bridget wasn’t certain about that at all. She was willing to trust Madam Therion for now. The woman had been correct about color, after all.

  It was an exhausting day of decisions, all of them fraught with new ideas and understanding. Madame Therion invited them to stay for lunch, while the discussion about elegance and womanly charms continued.

  Almost everything the Frenchwoman said startled Bridget and opened new avenues of consideration. The art of charm and its lesser cousin, flirting. The power of a fan to intrigue. Mystery and seduction, also cousins. The female figure and its differences to the manly physique.

  “It is the differences that entice a man,” Madame Therion explained. “A woman’s waist is far smaller, her hips far larger and rounder. A man must be strong through the chest and shoulders, while a woman is the complete opposite.” Her hands moved through the air beneath her décolletage, in a graceful curve. “So, we emphasize those differences.”

  Bridget nodded. Now that Madame Therion had explained it, it seemed rather obvious.

  It helped that she now understood the benefits of enticing a man. All these years, she had thought a man was drawn to a pretty face and a clear complexion, for that was what the ladies’ books always insisted. While a pretty face would not discourage a man, it was far more than just a pretty face that drew men into a woman’s snare.

  Bridget studied Madame Therion’s face as she sipped her soup. Bridget had thought her a beautiful woman when she had first come down the marble stairs. Now she realized that Madame Therion was in fact quite plain and her figure was not the buxom one she had first thought…although that did not make a bit of difference. Even an ugly woman could entwine a man with her charms if they were properly presented.

  One
more visit to Madame Therion’s house was required, the day before Will and Bridget left for Kirkaldy, for last minute measurements and the rough fitting of the first dress.

  Then, they left for Scotland.

  Vaughn was pleased with the idea that they use Kirkaldy as their residence. “I would be happier knowing the house is being used and cared for,” he said, his hand on Will’s shoulder. “Plus, visiting you will give me an excuse to see the place and smell the highland air.”

  They arrived at Kirkaldy in mid-January, with a trunk apiece. Brooks carried Bridget’s jewelry case, her eyes huge as she took in the cold, snow-covered Scottish landscape and the big, old manor nestled up against the base of the crag that gave the house its name.

  Bridget had always liked the rambling old house. She looked at it now with new eyes. This was to be her home. Hope soared in her heart.

  “Two feet of snow,” Will grumbled, looking about. “That will bring an early end to the pheasant season.” He shrugged. “Ah, well…” He tramped toward the house.

  * * * * *

  Bridget had thought that married life, especially married to Will, would continue much as they had started. Will had said as much on their wedding night.

  After three weeks in the big house, Bridget realized that wouldn’t be the case.

  Will left the house every morning, wrapped in a thick coat, gloves, scarf and a woolen hat, muffled to the nose against the cold, so that only his brilliant blue eyes showed. He carried a shotgun under his arm and two dogs trailed him. He told her he was walking the boundaries and she had no reason to challenge him on that.

  He rarely arrived home in time for lunch. He would call for a sandwich when he stomped into the house in the late afternoon. He ate in his office.

  A week after they arrived, a small man with round spectacles and a thin mustache arrived carrying a heavy briefcase.