by Regina Darcy
“We mustn’t let the grooms know,” Frederica said.
“Nothing easier. Sam’s on good terms with all of them, and he’s cousin to Silas, the head groom. No one will say a word.”
“You’re sure? I should dread having to tell my brother that I had taken a fancy to go for a midnight drive in London. He would certainly see both you and Sam sacked.”
“He’ll never know, ma’am.”
Frederica wondered briefly how it was that the servants knew of her brother’s intentions to be away for the night when he had not bothered to tell his sister, but there was no use delving into the matter when it served her purpose so well.
Sam, wearing his cousin’s uniform, drove them to the Gilberton house. Carla was to stay inside the carriage, waiting for her mistress to emerge.
With some trepidation, Frederica descended from the carriage. From the driver’s seat in the front, and from the seat inside, the servants watched her as she walked to the house, her face shielded by the hood of her cloak. No one was out, although it would not be long before the boisterous revellers would be making their own ways home after nights of celebrating. Carla hoped that Lady Frederica would be finished with her task and all of them home and safe in their beds before that hour, because someone might recognise the carriage, or catch a glimpse of Lady Frederica, and then there would be the devil to pay. She’d lose her place and Sam his as well, and there would be no obtaining a new position without the Marquess giving them a good character reference for a new employer.
But it was a horrible thing to think of Lady Frederica married to that lump of a man, Lord John Oakland, who had not a jot of charm and was so much older than her, and so dull. The Marquess likely had his reasons for wanting the match, but those reasons were not for Lady Frederica’s benefit, of that, Carla was dead certain.
Despite George’s careful preparation, it was not Hillard who answered the door, but Hawkins. The butler, however, displayed no surprise at seeing a visitor, her visage concealed by her hood, asking to speak to the Earl. Hawkins was quite aware that the Earl’s circle of acquaintances ran to the exotic and he ushered Frederica into the house, instructing her to wait while he fetched the Earl.
Although George was dressed for bed, he was not asleep. Instead, he was at his desk in his sitting room, devising a unique map upon which were placed the locations of the Marquess at various points in the day during the past several weeks. The map also recorded the places where Lord Dalton had been seen in the days leading to his demise. As George marked those points at which the schedules of the two men intersected, he tried to estimate whether Lord Dalton ever realised, before he was killed, that he was the prey and not the predator.
“Yes?” George responded to the single knock upon his door.
“There is a young lady to see you, my lord—”
George, his dressing gown drawn over his night attire, pulled the sash tight as he opened the door.
“Lady Beecham?”
“I did not inquire her name, My Lord.”
George grinned. “You fancied she would not give you her correct name,” he deduced.
“It is highly unusual for a young woman who looks to be of gentle birth to be out at such a time…and without a chaperone,” Hawkins replied.
“Bring her here, Hawkins. I would have her visit as shielded as possible. Her life could very well be in danger if it were known that she was here.”
When Lady Beecham was brought to him, George went to greet her at the door.
“Lady Beecham,” he said. “I am glad to see you. I realise that for a young woman of your standing to come to a bachelor’s abode is not something readily done.”
“I wish to know why you have made your accusations against my brother,” she responded. She had removed the hood of her cloak, revealing the rich dark tones of her hair. But she kept her cloak on, depriving George of the opportunity to admire her womanly form. It was just as well, he supposed; it would not do to be distracted at such a venture as this.
“I do not think, Lady Beecham. I know. Tell me, do you regard your brother as a man of honour, compassion, character, courage, integrity—”
“Why do you ask?” she demanded. “You tell me that my brother is engaged in an ignominious deed and then you ask me to attest to his character? It is you, sir, who must convince me of the merit of your charges.”
“Well argued,” he said admiringly. “One would almost say that you present your facts like a man.”
He watched as the fascinating eyes, which in the candlelight took on an azure shade, flashed briefly in what he assumed was irritation or perhaps even outrage.
“I suppose you think, as do so many of your sex, that a woman is incapable of presenting facts in an orderly fashion?”
“You suppose wrong. I have met many a female who is entirely capable of doing just what you have said. But that is not the accustomed pattern, I believe.”
“I wish to know by what means you come to this accusation against my brother. I wish to hear facts, my lord, and not speculative anecdotes. I do not know why you have made this accusation, or even why you have made it to me, his sister. Therefore, I insist that you deliver the truth without embellishment and I will decide for myself whether or not to credit your assertions.”
She was quite the unique creature, George thought, in a most charming manner. He knew many women, in various degrees of intimacy, but never had he encountered one who established her premise as if she were a barrister set to present the facts before a judge.
“Very well, then, here are the facts as you have requested them. The Marquess of Cumbershire, your brother, and I are of an age. For many periods in our lives, we were engaged in the same courses of education—we both went to Eton and then to Oxford, although at the latter, he was infinitely my superior in academic pursuits—and after that, we both found ourselves serving in His Majesty’s Navy. He was called back to England before he could achieve the same level of excellence in his naval career that he obtained in his academic years. Your brother, Lady Beecham, is fiercely competitive. You may not know this, as you and he would not be competing for the same trophies.”
Frederica’s expression remained impassive, but she was listening closely. Was Rowland so irked by her unmarried status because he felt that it reflected badly on him to have a sister who had failed, in his eyes, to win a husband after four seasons? It was her own choice and not a lack of prospects that had kept her from choosing a bridegroom during those four seasons, but how did Rowland regard the matter? An unmarried woman was a failure in society. Perhaps in every stratus of English life, she reasoned. A woman who did not marry could not produce children and that, females were told, was the purpose of a woman’s existence.
Of course, if she did have a child and was not married, she had not exactly held up her end of the arrangement, Frederica thought in amusement. Women, it was obvious, were not put on God’s earth to please themselves. No, they existed for the pleasure of others. Or rather, the men in their lives. The men who controlled them, that was to say.
Rowland was certainly a brother who held tightly to his control over her. Although she had been provided for in her father’s will, she had never been given access to the funds. She supposed that they would go to Lord Oakland as her dowry and she would never have any say in the spending of the money. But Rowland was not the only man to be heavy-handed in his guardianship; she knew of friends who had the same complaint of their male relatives and husbands.
“You have told me nothing of significance, my lord,” she told the Earl. “If you and my brother were rivals in the past, how does that render him so malevolent in the present that he would seek to accuse you of some crime you say you are innocent?”
“The crime is murder, Lady Beecham, and if I cannot prove my innocence, I will hang for it.”
“I am very sorry to hear that, my lord,” she replied equably. “But you have not made your case as coherently as I would have expected a man to do.”
&nbs
p; Despite the gravity of the moment, the Earl’s mouth produced a slow smile which Frederica could only regard as roguishly enchanting, diminishing the alarming indication of the scar that marred his cheek.
“Touché, Lady Beecham,” he said, recognising her riposte to his earlier comment on the concise nature of her speech. “I shall then, I see, have to disclose certain details which are customarily kept in confidence. I trust that I may rely upon your discretion?”
“You have told me nothing, sir, which indicates that discretion will be in order. However, I assure you that I am not in the habit of divulging details which have been entrusted to my confidence.”
The Earl, who had been standing during his remarks, sat down in the chair opposite her.
“From time to time,” he began, choosing his words with deliberation, “I have been called upon to serve the Prince Regent in matters which require the utmost discretion.”
“If you mean, sir, that you have been of assistance to him when he is in need of a scandal to be hushed so that he can procure funds from Parliament, that is no confidence. Everyone knows that Prince George is as extravagant as King George is thrifty and as profligate as the King is moderate.”
“Yes, but the King is mad and Prince George is not, and therefore we find ourselves at the mercy of his sanity,” George said with asperity.
“Go on, sir,” she said, not disputing his comment. It was the truth. Were the king not suffering from his unfortunate insanity, Prince George would never have been named Regent.
George inclined his head in acknowledgment of her authority. “Well put, Lady Beecham,” he said. “You deliver your words with the dexterity of a swordsman. I trust that you are not one?”
“I am a woman, sir, as you know. The hour is late and I am here at some risk, given that you and I are meeting without a chaperone. Will you do me the courtesy of expanding upon your accusation? I’m sure it is to your credit to be of service to the Prince Regent, but I fail to see how that fact makes my brother an accomplice to your fate.”
“Your brother would also like to serve in the capacity of agent to the Crown. He was nearly chosen for the role recently in a matter of urgency which, had it been allowed to flourish into public knowledge, would perhaps have brought down the government. Ultimately, the Prince Regent chose me to resolve the dilemma. Your brother was most displeased.”
“Why should it matter? If you perform private deeds for the Prince Regent, there is no adulation coming your way, I should think,” Lady Beecham frowned. “You are an Earl; do you seek a higher title? Recognition? Riches? Or do you perform these tasks for the pleasure of serving what I am told is a most volatile and shallow prince who fails to reward his most faithful servants?”
She knew more of the Prince Regent’s temperament than he would have expected.
“I do it,” he said, “because I am, perhaps, a fool who does not wish England to suffer because we are ruled by an improvident Prince who uses his father’s madness as a tool for his own indiscretions. Your brother, were he to serve in the capacity in which I serve, would use the opportunity for the power it would bring him. To know the secrets of a Prince, Lady Beecham, is to know the secret to controlling the government.”
As the Earl spoke, Frederica forced herself to attend to his words, to notch the spoken words to the unspoken meaning behind them. The intellectual satisfaction of the exercise was, however, impeded by the very unintellectual awareness that the Earl had a voice which sounded the way her bed felt, deep and firm as to the mattress, smooth and comfortable as to the bedlinens. It was disconcerting to find herself under the spell of inflexion and tone. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
“Do you not believe me?” he asked when he had finished but her silence continued. “Lady Beecham,” he said. “I can only enlist your assistance if I convince you that I speak the truth. Is your brother so unlike the man I have described? Or has he so branded himself upon you that you dare not speak?”
He thought to prod her into uncontrolled confession with his words, but she did not speak right away. Then,
“My brother is not a kind man,” she said, choosing her words as deftly as he had done earlier. “He is demanding that I marry Lord Oakland, despite my unwillingness to do so. I believe he wishes to punish me for declining to choose a husband when I made my debut, and then for three seasons after that.”
“You are a beautiful woman and a clever one as well. I assume that you could have had your pick of the bachelors. That you did not choose any tells me that you encountered no one who met your own requirements. Lord Oakland is a sad substitute for a husband who could satisfy you—” his embracing gaze swiftly met her eyes in a look which left no doubt as to the intimacy of his meaning before he looked away. “Satisfy you in every way, both intellectually and physically.”
It was a bold and improper remark for an unmarried man to express to an unmarried woman. But his boldness in saying what he thought matched Frederica’s own independence. Flustered she lowered her eyelashes and let the silence stretch before she replied.
“Unmarried women are not permitted to have requirements,” she answered. “But I refused the gentlemen who offered for me and my brother was not pleased. I am to marry Lord Oakland or he will force me into a convent. He does not like to be thwarted. It does not matter to him that marriage to Lord Oakland would be unutterably dull and meaningless. Lord Oakland wants a nursemaid to ease his big toe when he is afflicted with gout. He wants a wife who will support every wrong and vacuous opinion which he voices. He would be most unhappy to be saddled with a wife who knew her own mind and did not hesitate to utter her own thoughts without seeking either his approval or his guidance. In short, he will not find me a satisfactory wife, but that is not of interest to my brother. I must marry and I will marry the man he has chosen for me, or else I will be removed from society and sent to a nunnery. What say you to that?”
He did not flinch from her direct query. “I say that a man who cannot meet a woman on equal ground is a coward,” he answered. “If he suffers from gout or other maladies, then hire a nursemaid. But do not marry one.” A slow, indolent smile spread across his lips. “I myself enjoy excellent health and would not be seeking a wife to share any infirmity.” The smile widened to summons her into the bawdy suggestiveness of his invitation. “I should rather seek a wife who would not shrink from matching me in passion and intellect, mind and body.”
If he doubted that Frederica Beecham aspired to an independent frame of mind which set her apart from her own sex, her next remark confirmed it.
“Are you saying that you, as a husband, would be capable of such a duality of focus?”
George laughed. What a refreshing change she was from the coyness of those debutantes who sought husbands through artifice and guile.
“That, and much more, Lady Beecham,” he replied, taking her hand and placing his atop it, then outlining each finger with his own. “Much more.”
Despite being the one doing the seducing, George found himself completely entranced by his visitor. From the delicate, pulse that beat at the neck of her throat to the heat that was sending delicious tendrils of pleasure everywhere they touched, Lady Frederica Beecham had him almost undone. Somehow, he did not mind.
FIVE
If she were a proper young woman, Frederica knew that she would pull her hand away from the Earl’s, slap him across the face, then exit the room in a state of outrage. But as she had voluntarily gone to the home of an unmarried man at an hour more commonly used for assignations than for consultations, she did not see how she could possibly behave as if she had been insulted. In any case, the touch of his hand upon hers was exciting and tantalizing, and far more welcome than any of Lord Oakland’s physical gestures of affection. Not that Lord Oakland had kissed her, oh, no, he had not. But he had never managed this artful feat of making the touch of his hand a prelude to seduction. She had never, not at any time since Lord Oakland had begun his tiresome courtship, found his touch to be
a primer on the feelings experienced by her own body.
She was therefore completely unprepared for the assault on her sense. As the Earl’s fingers dallied over her hand, and tendrils of pleasure skated up her arm, she suddenly became very conscious of his attire.
He was dressed for bed, with a gold and brown silk robe covering his garments. He was entirely covered from the neck to his toes. And yet, as she sat there, falling under the spell of his fingers, she found herself wondering what it would be like to touch the chest beneath his nightshirt, to have his arms embrace her and to run her fingers—
“Lady Beecham?” he inquired with a smile, as if he were reading her mind and found it very much to his liking. “What do you say to my proposal?”
Frederica blushed from head to toe. Never had she experience such improper thoughts as those flitting about in her head in her entire life.
But she was neither a flirt, a hussy or flighty. She would not let the enchantment he was weaving around her cloud her thinking.
“I do not doubt that there is some reason that you have found to distrust my brother’s intentions,” she said, easing her hand away from his.
“Will you help me?”
“Even if I did believe you. How can I possibly help you? My brother tells me nothing of his affairs or his dealings. I can be of no use to you.”
“You underestimate your abilities. You live in the same house. You can find where he hides his private records. You can ascertain which of his visitors is inimical to my cause. You, better than anyone else, can pull away the veil that conceals his crimes from view.”
“I would not have the least idea of where to look.”
“Does he not have a private room where, perhaps, no one else goes?”