By a Lady
Page 18
“No . . . I meant . . .” ’Twere well it were done quickly, C.J. thought to herself. “Your lordship, if this afternoon is a time for us to be honest with one another, then it is only proper that—”
Lord Darlington took C.J.’s hand and regarded her imploringly. “I beg of you not to distress yourself. I know what you are about to say, Miss Welles.”
How could he? C.J. wondered. It was impossible. And before she could utter a word, the earl returned to the subject of his stunning admission. “Miss Welles, I have yet another confession to make.” His cadences accelerated as though he feared she might interrupt at any moment. “Miss Welles, while it is true that we never met before your aunt introduced us at tea the other day, I admit to having seen you before then. On one prior occasion.”
C.J.’s heart sank into the earth beneath her feet. She had expected the worst, even believed she was prepared for its eventual announcement, but never had she felt so entirely bereft. Of words. Of explanations. Of hope.
“Lady Cassandra, I first became fascinated by your remarkable gifts when I glimpsed you before the bar at the assizes. The country proceedings keep me in touch with the concerns of the lower classes.” He noticed C.J.’s face, now streaked with tears, and touched a finger to her chin to tip her gaze to his. “You were in such an unfortunate state, accused without benefit of a serjeant-at-law to plead for you. Your transgression was so entirely understandable to any sensible soul.” Darlington removed his glove and gently wiped away C.J.’s tears with his fingers. “You may be assured, Miss Welles, that once I discovered your true identity, I endeavored to purchase, and then destroy, as many copies of the transcript of your trial as I could locate; and I offered Mr. Cruttwell a handsome sum to discontinue any further publication. I wished to ensure that no additional damage would be done to your character. The public adores no greater scandal than when a mishap befalls a member of the aristocracy.”
C.J. began to cry even harder, partly out of gratitude for the earl’s uncommon act of chivalry; partly from amazement that he still believed she was Lady Dalrymple’s niece, despite the circumstances under which he had first laid eyes on her; partly from the revelation of how narrowly she had escaped notoriety; and partly from relief that his lordship never came close to suspecting the reality of her state of affairs.
She thought about the fact that there existed published transcripts of her trial. Pausing for a moment’s reflection, she recalled learning at some point that scandal sheets containing all the particulars of celebrated trials were published and sold for a few shillings. Miss Austen’s own aunt had fallen victim to the procedure only a year earlier, accused of stealing a length of lace by a pair of greedy shopkeepers enamored of the Leigh-Perrot wealth.
Darlington studied C.J.’s face, his own registering a degree of confusion. “Miss Welles, I thought this news would cheer you. Now you need not fear any censure owing to the unfortunate experiences that attended your arrival in Bath.”
“I am . . . immensely grateful to your lordship once again,” C.J. said, attempting to recover her equanimity. She clasped Darlington’s hands. “I wish I could repay you somehow for your kindness . . . and yet, to be entirely forthright, I feel there is so much more I must share with you—”
They were nearly blinded by an enormous flash of white light as a crackle of lightning sizzled through the heavens, slicing through the afternoon sky and scarring the earth just a few feet from where they stood. The couple felt the shock of the electricity snaking up through the dry ground into their bodies. They fell into each other’s arms, trembling with relief that, standing so close to the point of impact, they had been mercifully spared.
Above them another clap of thunder boomed with enough force and resonance to be heard from Bath to Brighton. With no immediate thought to propriety, the earl grabbed C.J.’s hand. “Come with me!” he shouted. C.J. struggled to keep up with him as he tore across the open field, hoping to avoid their becoming scorched by the lightning that continued to streak across the sky. Darlington’s only concern was for Cassandra’s safety, and he refused to relinquish his grasp of her hand.
The rain slashed their faces as they sought sanctuary from the violence of the storm. C.J.’s flimsy slippers were soaking up water like sponges. The ground squished and sloshed under her feet, nearly causing her to lose her balance on a slick patch of grass, but Darlington’s strong grasp prevented her from falling. He pulled her, panting, into the shelter of a pavilion, one of the many to be found in the landscaped areas of Sydney Gardens. The little structure was roofed with thatch but otherwise resembled a marble neoclassical temple, encircled with Ionic columns. For a few moments, they struggled to catch their breath as they watched the torrential downpour continue around them.
The earl’s hair was plastered to his head in Titus-style ringlets. He removed his deep blue coat and wrung out a heavy silk-lined cuff, then looked at C.J. apologetically, as though he felt personally responsible for the rainstorm.
C.J. regarded the disheveled appearance of the man who always appeared so fastidiously and unaffectedly dignified and could not contain her laughter. “When you get as wet as this, it no longer signifies as a great disaster,” she said between silvery peals of amusement. “I am quite sure I look like a drowned rat, and my dress is past salvation, but after the first few drops, I had already resolved to accept its ruination.” She looked down at the diaphanous muslin, which clung to her skin in sodden folds, and realized that the effect of the soaking rendered the garment absolutely transparent, her thin stockinette stays utterly useless. Immediately self-conscious, she blushed and folded her arms across her chest.
The unceasing waterfall surrounding them, running in a shhhhhhh off the thatch onto the thirsty ground, created a wash of white sound. It was as though the rush of rain was purifying the air, leaving a sweet, clean fragrance in its wake. In fact, the damp straw gave off the odor of something earthy, freshly transmuted.
In an instant, blushes gave way to desire. C.J.’s arms encircled the earl’s neck, and she pressed her body so insistently against his that they melded together as one. She ran her warm hands through his damp locks, massaging his temples, as her mouth met his in a questing kiss. Guided by sheer want, C.J. took the lead, probing the depths of his mouth with her tongue, sucking and nibbling, then running it gently along his teeth and lips.
“Cassandra,” Darlington uttered hoarsely, as her hand aggressively slipped between his thighs, touching him through the straining fabric. He slipped her wet gown off her shoulders, lowering the bandeau to bare her breasts as he bestowed hot kisses from the length of her graceful neck across her pale throat and down toward her chest, forcing her to arch her back against the support of his strong hands. He hungrily tasted each of her nipples, gently biting the roseate buds to hardness, exploring the perfectly formed globes of her breasts with his practiced hands. She looked into his deep blue eyes, her expression one of glazed insatiability.
“Good Lord!” C.J. exclaimed when their bodies parted for a moment. “I think my frock has shrunk!” Indeed there did not seem to be quite so much fabric as there had been before the drubbing from the thunderstorm.
Darlington drew her close. “Cassandra Jane Welles, what the devil am I to make of you?”
Her eyes sparkled with mischief, commingled with lust. He felt her breath warm against his lips. “Take me home,” she murmured huskily. “Yours.”
Chapter Fifteen
Wherein our heroine experiences the pleasures of the Tantra.
THE RAIN HAD DIMINISHED from its almost biblical proportions to a fine drizzle, and the earl thought it best that C.J. should wear his coat until they were safely removed from all possibility of public scrutiny. It was serious business enough that Miss Welles was not properly chaperoned. In his clinging shirt and soggy, wrinkled cravat, the earl’s lack of presentability did not signify when compared to Miss Welles’s resemblance to the nearly nude Aphrodite at her toilette.
The slick streets wer
e quiet, owing to everyone’s exodus indoors to escape the sudden storm, so Darlington and C.J. were fortunate to be able to make the journey from Sydney Gardens to his town house in the Circus without eliciting censorious comment.
“Wood considered the Circus his finest architectural achievement. It was modeled after both the Colosseum in Rome and Stonehenge in Wiltshire, if you can imagine such a combination, Lady Cassandra,” the earl remarked to C.J. in a very public voice, meanwhile entirely sensible of the energy crackling between them.
The door to the elegant town house was opened by an aging majordomo, tall and rail thin, with a shock of white hair that looked like a comb had never been able to produce much good effect. He seemed unperturbed by the sight of the master of the house—very much looking as though he had been swimming in the Avon—accompanying a scantily clad young lady whose dignity was preserved only by the master’s sapphire-colored superfine coat.
“Good afternoon, Davis,” an equally unruffled Darlington said to the majordomo. “I am going to show Miss Welles the salon. Please ask Cooper to have some hot tea brought up for us.” The earl’s unflappability impressed his female companion to no end. It was all so Masterpiece Theatre. C.J. tried to behave with similar aplomb despite her bedraggled appearance.
“Very good, your lordship,” the ancient replied, and shuffled off toward the bellpull.
C.J. thought she had detected the slight arch of a bushy eyebrow. “I suppose he is bred—I mean trained—to ignore the eccentricities of the aristocracy, his betters,” she snorted. “Goodness, what a world!” The prospect of so elderly a man still having to work for a living appalled her. Davis should be retired in comfort somewhere with a decanter of good port and a sizable pension.
“Davis was majordomo when Aunt Augusta celebrated her first season in Bath,” the earl explained. “A spaniel could not be more faithful to a family.”
“We are not discussing a dog, Percy!”
“The English class system has been ingrained for centuries, Miss Welles, and everyone knows and accepts his place with alacrity. That is the way of the world.”
“Your world,” C.J. corrected. “Accepting that I am superior to another human being simply because of an accident of birth does not rest easy in my conscience.”
“This sceptered isle is far more advanced than other nations, Lady Cassandra,” Darlington replied, using what he believed to be her proper aristocratic title. “The heathen Americans practice slavery! There’s your barbarism right there! Here in England, those of the servant classes receive a wage for their labor. They are not the property of another human being.”
C.J. recalled vividly her experiences at Laura Place and what Mary had warned her was the fate of recalcitrant servants or runaways.
Before she could reconsider censoring the words that tumbled from her mouth, she had practically mounted a soapbox. “It is regretful that the freedom of some—namely white male landowners—was wrested from King George at great expense to others. I believe slavery should be abolished entirely, but the very principles upon which America was founded are based on the premise that ‘all men are created equal,’ one that is deliberately antithetical to the structure of English society. Your—our—servants are supposed to be free men and women in the sense that they are not enslaved; but many are indentured, which has ever been the case in England. Should a servant misbehave in the eyes of his or her employer, to quote Shakespeare, ‘who shall ’scape whipping?’ How dare the English consider themselves a civilized nation when the little Mary Sykeses are beaten and battered and bruised by the Eloisa Wickhams for the crime of spilling a cup of tea? You may find the class system not only necessary, but the natural order of things. I find it intolerable.”
The force of her argument nearly reduced C.J. to tears. But she was fired up about the injustices she had witnessed in this era and by the hypocrisy, or the blindness, of many of the upper crust to the plight of the working classes. Certainly the experience of being arrested, then possibly deported to a penal colony for fourteen years for stealing an apple, did much to form her opinions on the subject.
Darlington studied her for a few moments. Such an uncommon woman, however difficult she could be on occasion. All the fibers of her being trembled and glowed with her every passion. “Boadicea on the warpath,” he said, not unadmiringly. “But you quoted Shakespeare quite out of context, Miss Welles, unless of course you intended to imply that the whipped servants in question were always receiving an undue punishment, rather than their ‘just desserts.’ ” The corners of his mouth curled upward into a warm smile. “Is there such a chasm between us, Cassandra?” he asked softly, slipping his arm about her slender waist.
She looked up into his eyes. “I own that it would be a grave error for either one of us to pretend that we believe the same things in this regard.”
“I believe that a man owes a duty to honor his word, to protect his family, and to treat other men with the same respect and deference he would wish for himself.”
C.J. smiled. “And women? But you are changing the subject, your lordship.”
He seemed momentarily puzzled. “Women? More so,” he replied, as he gazed into her dark eyes. The earl decided it would be the better part of diplomacy to discuss something else. “Shall I show you how I spent my childhood, Miss Welles?”
She nodded, and he led her through a set of heavy wooden doors into a long, rectangular salon lined on three sides with shelves of books spanning the height of the room. The fourth wall was decorated with a fresco depicting young women disrobing at the edge of what appeared to be a Roman-style bath. C.J. approached it to gain a better inspection.
“Rather appropriate, I suppose,” she noted, coloring slightly at the notion that the earl should spend so much time in this room, presided over by these naked, nubile graces. “The mural would be out of place in the modern world anywhere but in Bath.”
“Actually, it is not a Roman bath that is illustrated here,” Darlington explained. “The fresco is Greek, depicting a Dionysian mystery cult. It is believed to have been painted around the year 50 B.C. My parents had it installed during one of their infrequent return visits to England.”
“What does Lady Oliver think of such things?”
“To my mind, it is none of her concern, and her opinion, good or bad, does not signify. Suffice it to say that although it was my father, and not I, who was the amateur archaeologist, after a certain unfortunate event in my mother’s young adult life, nothing she ever did would have shocked Aunt Augusta. Now, look up and make a wish.”
The ceiling was painted a deep teal color and upon the resplendent blue-green ground the entire heavens, with the constellations fashioned in fine gold leaf, were laid out. C.J. found no words to express her wonderment at the sight. A deeply appreciative sigh was the most she could muster.
A more careful inspection of the room—with its heavy, patterned Persian rugs in shades of ultramarine, claret, cerise, and cream, and its richly striped silken draperies, which also ran the height of the library—revealed a highly unusual display of antique artifacts.
“And what is that, may I ask?” inquired C.J. of an odd-looking contraption—a studded leather cube on a wooden frame.
“My ‘liver shaker,’ you mean?” Darlington stepped up onto the box and sat atop the cube. “It has springs inside,” he said, grasping the handles and commencing to bounce, the action mimicking a monstrously rough ride on horseback. “It’s a gentleman’s exercise machine. The perfect solution for a rainy day.”
“Is there room for two?” C.J. quipped suggestively. Were his lordship able to read her mind, he might be shocked. An activity for a rainy day, indeed!
Darlington descended from the exerciser and gestured toward a foot-high, rather primitive-looking statue of a male figure with an erect phallus practically as long as the sculpture was tall. “My father unearthed him at Pompeii,” the earl remarked of the curio.
“It’s so . . . erotic,” she whispered.
C.J. cleared her throat. “Would it be untoward for a proper young lady to suggest a glass of sherry to help her ward off the ill effects of the dampness?”
Darlington rang the embroidered bellpull. “Done,” he smiled. C.J. was sure she could get lost in the crinkles around his eyes. “I was debating whether or not I would violate your delicate sensibilities by suggesting an alcoholic fortifier.”
“Since my own behavior thus far has not been a very good credit to my character, were I you, I shouldn’t worry.”
“Lady Cassandra, I believe it was you who reminded me that there is no shame in the free expression of one’s desires.”
“Touché, your lordship.”
Darlington returned his coat to C.J. just as Cooper, the butler, entered the room with a pot of steaming hot tea and proceeded to set up a small table for the earl and his fair companion. He was followed into the room by a footman bearing a tray with a cut-crystal decanter of amber liquid and two delicately etched glasses, which he set upon the tea table. With another nod from their employer, the servants lit the beeswax tapers in the numerous ornate candelabras.
After his staff departed, Darlington poured their sherry. He swirled the spirits in his glass as he offered its twin to C.J. “May I show you my most prized possession?” he inquired. She nodded wordlessly. “Have you ever seen a first folio, Miss Welles?”
She gasped when the earl lifted a protective glass pane and removed from one of his bookcases an enormous leather-bound copy of the complete works of William Shakespeare. “I used to read from this to Marguerite,” he said softly. C.J. allowed her fingers to trace the length of the volume’s spine. For her, the touching of such an icon would remain a highlight of her life, no matter what might follow.