Dukes of the Demi-Monde

by Felicia Greene

  And if they saw one another in private?

  Such a thing would never occur again. It hadn’t happened over the preceding six years. Catherine, with a reluctant twist of her mouth, decided that the chances of such a moment happening twice were near impossible.

  There. The matter had been neatly tidied away, like a blanket being folded into a chest. She need never think of it again, if she so chose.

  Never again. She closed her eyes, remembering James’ smile. The urgent, animal movement of his hips; the fire that had spread through her extremities, making her thirsty. Desperate. Never, ever again.

  As Catherine looked pensively out at the stars, James paced wearily through the study of his palatial townhouse. Johnson, a young valet with an old manner, looked at his master quizzically as James walked back and forth.

  ‘Your Grace.’ He could contain his curiosity no longer. ‘What on earth has happened to you?’

  ‘Oh, nothing.’ James looked out of the window at the full moon, sighing irritably. ‘I believe I have fallen in love.’

  ‘... Ah.’ Johnson’s face blanched. ‘I do not believe have ever heard such words pass your lips, Your Grace. Are you quite well?’

  ‘Lord knows.’ James closed his eyes, envisioning the woman’s face once more. He had seen her somewhere before; he knew it. A ball, a tea-garden, a play--where had it been? Not just her face, her voice; cool, articulate, faintly mocking…

  He knew her. Not well, but he knew her. They would have acquaintances in common, perhaps even friends--if he began tracing her in earnest, if he went back to the Club--

  ‘Shall I bring you some coffee, Your Grace? Some warm milk?’

  ‘Brandy. A very large, very expensive bottle.’ James stared at his valet, sighing. ‘I am going to wallow, tonight. I will need sufficient liquid to do so.’

  Hyde Park was predictably, sunnily beautiful. As couples walked demurely side by side, eagle-eyed chaperones watching each party for signs of unacceptable romanticism, Catherine ate daintily-cut sandwiches with Lydia Holt.

  Lydia was the best sort of friend to have for a lady in the midst of financial instability. Florid, rounded and expansive, fond of gay colours and wittily devastating the overtures of lesser men, Miss Holt was rich in both money and friends--and tolerance. She had offered money to Catherine as soon as she had learned of the Wentford difficulties, but had not persisted in the face of Catherine’s refusals--instead, she had simply paid of every one of their shared outings ever since the unfortunate speculation. Quite why she had taken such a liking to Catherine had always been something of a mystery--not least to Catherine herself. Perhaps Lydia believed she had hidden depths.

  She did have hidden depths. If she considered her evening at the Cappadene Club logically. Depths that even she herself had never expected. Such strong embarrassment, such shame, had turned to curiosity… curiosity that became pleasure, of a peculiarly intense and lasting kind.

  He hadn’t recognised her, at any rate. At that point, she had nothing left to lose.

  Depths indeed. Depths that she was trying, however obliquely, to communicate to Lydia as they sat eating cucumber sandwiches in the tea pavilion. Sandwiches that Lydia had always paid for, shooing away Catherine’s proffered purse with the practiced manner of a woman born to money.

  Why on earth had Lydia decided to wed? Catherine, haltingly reporting the barest particulars of the Cappadene Club, knew that if she had Lydia Holt’s circumstances she would consider marriage optional, rather than necessary. But Lydia, having placidly accepted the proposal of the Earl of Winchester--a man that Catherine privately considered mediocre in every respect apart from his fortune--had neatly avoided all questions about the marriage that Catherine had put forward.

  Some things were mysteries that even friendship couldn’t navigate. Catherine, reaching the point in the narrative where euphemism could no longer suffice, lowered her voice.

  ‘And then… well. I do not believe I can safely tell what happened next.’

  ‘Catherine.’ Lydia looked at her, eyes wide, a sandwich hanging limply from her fingers. ‘If you are about to relate something even more scandalous than what has already occurred during this conversation, I insist that you wait until I have something appropriate in my glass to toast such a momentous occasion.’

  Catherine rolled her eyes, secretly glad that her friend was being as predictably exaggerated as she had expected. Not that there was much need for exaggeration--her whispered account of what had taken place at the Cappadene Club, with only certain particulars excluded from the narrative, had almost made her friend scream aloud as a group of gossiping dowagers had passed.

  She had, of course, neglected to mention a certain detail. A detail of such sordid, thrilling enormity that Catherine was sure, quite sure, of Lydia either exclaiming aloud or swooning onto the floor of the Marlborough tea gardens.

  ‘Well?’ Lydia paused theatrically as a group of laughing children ran by, one with a dog on a string. ‘Are you to tell me, or will I be forced to passionately implore you to reveal your secrets at the bowling green, or in the middle of the skittle grounds?’

  The gentleman…’ Catherine’s voice wavered, but she forced herself to continue. She could not bear the tremendous burden alone. ‘The gentleman in question has a name, and title. Both of which are somewhat--’

  ‘Scandalous?’ A soft, dreaming light had appeared in Lydia’s eyes. ‘Oh, Lord. You must allow me to guess.’

  ‘I fear I cannot prevent you.’

  ‘Your wisdom ensures the steady flourishing of our friendship.’ Lydia smiled. ‘Goodness. Westmorland?’

  ‘No.’ Catherine shuddered at the thought of the scowling earl. ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘Thank goodness. I was so terribly afraid of having to imagine him in some sort of compromising--’

  ‘Lydia! Someone will hear you!’

  ‘You are well-known to be in love with numbers, to the exclusion of all else, and I am to be married.’ A flicker of what looked to be sorrow rose, then died in Lydia’s eyes. ‘No-one will be listening to us. If not Westmorland, then… Barrow?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Haddonfield?’

  ‘No.’ Catherine leaned forward, lowering her voice a little. ‘Someone… someone infamous for not performing a certain act.’

  ‘And to think you were telling me to lower my voice!’

  ‘No. Not--not that.’ Catherine frowned, trying to be patient. ‘Think.’

  Lydia thought. Catherine waited, watching her friend closely, until she saw shocked understanding dawn on Lydia’s face.

  ‘You cannot mean--’

  ‘Yes. Him. Unmistakeably so.’ Catherine found herself trembling at the memory. ‘James Hildebrande.’

  ‘He who never dances? Who never looks at a woman in a ballroom! And he--he pressed his attentions upon you!’ Lydia threw her sandwich onto her plate, gripping Catherine by the shoulders with nary a thought for passing onlookers. ‘Oh, Catherine! A duke!’

  ‘A duke who believes me to be a--’

  ‘Well. Yes.’ Lydia paused. ‘But you disabused him of that notion, I imagine.’

  Catherine paused, wondering how on earth she could lie. Alas, her pause was too long for Lydia to be taken in by any words that followed.

  ‘Oh. I see.’

  ‘You do not see. You do not see at all.’ Catherine lowered her voice further, terrified that someone would overhear. ‘I was shocked, and frightened, and he seemed so terribly sure of himself, and so I--’

  ‘And so you simply never told him that you were there for your bookkeeping skills.’ Lydia’s mouth hung open; Catherine fought a strange, treacherous thrill of vanity at suddenly being so very important. ‘Which suggests, my dear, that other skills were more evident at that precise moment.’

  ‘You are making it out to be considerably more than it was.’ Catherine swallowed, not believing her own words. ‘Considerably more. He--he never touched me.’

  ‘Oh, my.’ Lydia
looked as if all her Christmases had come at once. ‘For some reason, that makes it all the more delightfully wicked.’

  ‘It is decidedly not delightful. Not in the slightest. It is--it is a problem. One that I cannot solve.’ Catherine took a deep breath, wishing not for the first time that life could be as elegantly clear as a simple mathematical formula. ‘He did not recognise me, Lydia, but he knew that he had seen me before. Seen me outside of that--that place.’ She paused, looking at her friend, hoping that Lydia would understand the grave import of what she was saying. ‘You know I must make a good marriage. You know that this--this terrible period of my life must end. And I will be cast away from every certainty, every hope of stability, if I am ever associated with such a place.’

  ‘My dear, for such a probing analytical mind, you fail to see the obvious solution to such a problem.’ Lydia smiled, her eyes bright. ‘It appears the perfect marriage opportunity has fallen into your lap!’

  ‘Only for those who thrive on scandal, such as yourself.’ Catherine tried to look disapproving, but failed in the face of Lydia’s good-humoured mischief. ‘Quite apart from the manner of our meeting, and the character of it… James Hildebrande is hardly a man of good character.’

  ‘He is a man of many pleasures, none of them sanctioned by the ton.’ Lydia shrugged. ‘Hardly the greatest sin.’

  ‘But hardly ideal. Certainly not preferable.’ Catherine sighed. ‘I know barely anything about His Grace.’

  ‘That is not true either. You know a great deal about the man. Much more than the vast majority of maids know about their husbands-to-be.’ Lydia nodded sagely. ‘For one, you know his worst qualities.’

  ‘Knowledge of one another’s worst qualities is not a good basis for a marriage.’

  ‘I believe you would be surprised.’ Lydia paused. ‘You know more than you think. Given your fondness for him--’

  ‘I never said I was fond of him.’

  ‘Catherine. If any other gentleman had found you in a pleasure-house, you would have done anything short of murder to extricate yourself from the situation. There is no need to conceal your fondness.’ Lydia smiled. ‘And you did always look so terribly disappointed when he did not ask you to dance at the Valentine’s Ball.’

  ‘He never dances with anyone at the Valentine’s Ball.’

  ‘Yes. And you have always been angrier about that fact than I have.’ Lydia chuckled; Catherine found herself smiling despite her sadness. ‘His lack of dancing aside, his pleasures are well-known. The ton is always speaking of the new coffee-house he patronises, or the milliner he favours. His every political opinion is written in every newspaper as soon as it falls from his lips.’

  ‘He was most eloquent when it came to the problem of the machine-breakers.’ Catherine spoke pensively, remembering the many scandal-sheet articles she had read alone, poring over any paragraphs that mentioned the Duke of Staunton. ‘And he wrote a most moving letter to The Sentinel when stray dogs had begun to terrorise the Covent Garden poor.’

  Lydia’s smile bordered on smug. ‘I see you have researched His Grace extensively.’

  ‘And so? Even if I am aware of his politics, his concerns, his habits, his preferences, he knows nothing of mine.’

  ‘He is aware of your preference for him, I imagine.’

  ‘I sincerely hope not.’ Catherine’s cheeks reddened as she looked down. ‘I sincerely hope that I never see him again.’

  ‘You are an honest woman, Catherine, but I doubt your honesty in this. I believe you are frightened of seeing him again, which is different from simply choosing not to see him.’ Lydia gently released her hand, picking up her sandwich and taking a dainty bite. ‘But I see we shall reach no great discoveries today. This will take time.’

  ‘Not if I simply never see him again.’

  ‘You are not a scullery maid. You are, as far as the ton is concerned, still a gently-bred woman who does not engage in any sort of trade.’ Lydia put the words so delicately that Catherine barely felt a sting of shame. ‘I highly doubt that you will be able to avoid sharing the same parts of London for very long.’

  ‘I shall do my best.’ Catherine stared primly at her uneaten sandwich. ‘You may rely upon it.’

  ‘Well… if you are so very determined to forget such an astonishing encounter, my dearest Catherine, I can do nothing but aid you in your quest.’ Lydia adjusted her bonnet, arranging a yellow ribbon so that it was a little more visible. ‘We shall go to Vauxhall Gardens this evening--there are sure to be fireworks. I have even heard rumours of an elephant. You will be most delightfully diverted--and given the Henleys are holding their usual affair this evening, we are unlikely to be distracted by mischievous dukes.’

  ‘Lydia.’ Catherine looked down, colouring a little. ‘I cannot permit you to fund me in this particular venture.’

  ‘I am not funding you, dear. I am funding a little forgetting--for you, and for myself.’ Lydia smiled, but Catherine saw a hint of sadness in her friend’s eyes. ‘Any coin spent in the service of forgetting is entirely well-spent.’

  ‘Lydia.’ Catherine took her friend’s hand, squeezing it. ‘What have you to forget?’

  ‘Oh, nothing.’ Lydia’s smile hardened a little, as if it were armour. ‘Impending marriage. Impending domestic dullness.’

  ‘You speak of it as if it is inevitable.’ Catherine paused, trying to find appropriately delicate words. ‘Does it have to be?’

  ‘Oh, Catherine. You have not spoken with my father.’ Lydia looked away; Catherine felt her friend’s hand tremble in hers. ‘It is more inevitable than death.’

  The conversation had taken a disquieting turn. Catherine, knowing that she had wounded her friend without meaning to, plucked a question out of the air.

  ‘Is there really going to be an elephant? Where on earth would they have managed to procure an elephant?’

  ‘I have no idea.’ Lydia squeezed Catherine’s hand in return; Catherine felt her gratitude, even if it was unspoken. ‘We shall have to find out.’

  ‘Staunton. I know we are not of long acquaintance.’ Marcus Bennington spoke carefully, watching the crowd of happy revellers with some suspicion as the evening darkened into night. ‘But allow me this indulgence. Would you be able to tell me--’

  ‘Why on earth we are in Vauxhall Gardens?’ James looked at his friend with a heartfelt sigh of melancholic confusion. ‘I have absolutely no idea.’

  It was the truth, even if the motives for his confusion were driven by passions he was inclined to keep hidden. The Henley Ball had been easy to beg off; it would have been far too dull. He hadn’t been to bed with any of the dowagers invited, and had no desire to cause any more amorous scandals.

  Not until he found the false discipline mistress from the Cappadene Club, outside the bounds of her apparent employment, and worked out just who the bloody hell she was.

  ‘We are normally in a gaming hell. Or a rookery. Or a--a brothel.’ Marcus coloured a little; James looked askance at him, wondering how he had managed to find an baronet so completely untouched by sin. It was practically a miracle. ‘This seems like a misstep in my debauched education.’

  ‘A true rake can make debauchery wherever he happens to find himself.’ James sighed. ‘Do you not remember the swathe I managed to cut through the Spanish convent?’

  ‘I doubt anyone who has heard the story will ever manage to forget it.’ Marcus spoke primly. ‘Nevertheless, Staunton--I can see children playing with a small dog. Debauchery seems very far away.’

  ‘Go and find beer. Drink an awful lot of it, find the nearest group of maids on their half-day off, and be as charming as you can. You were certainly popular in the pleasure-house.’ James knew he was being dismissive, but didn’t have it in him to play the carefree rake with his mind so completely occupied. ‘I know you have it in you.’

  With a wry look that James hadn’t expected from a man so habitually timid, Marcus walked into the happy crowd. James, unaccountably awkward despite the ele
gance of his clothes, kept to the periphery of the entertainment.

  He had dressed, prepared himself, taken a carriage to Vauxhall, paid entrance, drank a warm glass of beer that he hadn’t particularly enjoyed… and for what?

  Why exactly was he here, when he could be at the Cappadene Club, trying to trace the whereabouts of the mysterious woman?

  It was highly unlikely that the upper management of the Cappadene Club would ever admit to such an enormous mistake. It was also highly unlikely that the woman herself, clearly there under surreptitious circumstances, would wish to make herself known to him…

  … But oh, she had enjoyed it. She had told him as much. She had urged him to continue. James, watching the distant figure of Marcus Bennington, wondered if he could steal away to the pleasure-house and attempt to speak to the man in charge.

  There didn’t seem to be a man in charge, strictly speaking. He had spoken to a man named Arthur Weeks, but the man clearly wasn’t a gentleman--he lacked the refinement necessary to create an establishment of that kind. James shrugging quietly to himself, wondered if something had happened to the structure of power.

  Well. It wasn’t his business, at any rate. But then, neither was the name of the woman who had brought him to such a deeply pleasurable peak--and James was determined to find it. Even if it meant going to the nearest fortune-teller, throwing down an impossible sum, and demanding they scry the heavens for helpful information.

  When was the last time he had felt so determinedly downcast? He was good for nothing in this state; people expected him to be the smiling, scandalous duke who provided material for newspapers. Brooding, worrying, thinking--all of these were decidedly not his remit.

  He caught sight of the close-walks; the dark, twisting maze of hedges where people could walk alone, or together, without being observed. With a hearty sigh, idly wondering if melancholic gentlemen were required to grow moustaches and wear black, James headed for the comforting tangle of topiary.

  With a coin for the elderly man guarding the entrance, he was soon happily lost. Walking slowly, taking a turn to the left or right whenever he heard whispers, James soon found himself completely concealed from the crowd.