by Jane Feather
Petra waited for him to go on, to tell her who his friends were, but Guy said nothing more, and she didn’t feel comfortable asking further questions. For all the wonderful ease and intimacy, the sense that there were no boundaries between them when it came to shared passion, she knew if she was honest with herself that there were boundaries, hard lines that Guy drew between them. What he did when he was not with her, how close he was to the other people who inhabited his private world was a mystery, and one she was somehow wary of penetrating. It was in those moments that she was aware of the gulf of experience that lay between them.
He was in his shirtsleeves when he brought her a cup of tea. “What are your plans this evening?”
“Oh, I’m engaged to go with a party to the opera, but it’s Wagner’s Lohengrin. It’s supposed to be a romantic opera but it all ends in death and dismay. I’m probably a philistine but it depresses me.”
“I take your point.” He returned to his dressing room and said nothing more on the subject of plans for the coming evening.
Petra drank her tea, feeling suddenly deflated. After the glories of the afternoon the prospect of an evening without Guy seemed rather drab, even though she had known they both had separate plans. It didn’t help that he was humming to himself next door as he completed his dressing.
“If you can get dressed in ten minutes, I’ll walk you home on my way to Curzon Street,” he said, returning to the bedroom.
“Brook Street is in the opposite direction,” Petra pointed out. “Anyway, I don’t feel like hurrying. It’s broad daylight on a June early evening so you can’t have any objections to my walking two streets home.”
“No, I can’t,” he said easily. “If that’s what you want, I’ll leave you to take your time.” He shrugged into his jacket, brushing an invisible speck off the well-fitting shoulders.
“Why don’t you have a valet?” Petra was curious. In many ways Guy was a typical wealthy member of the landed gentry, an aristocratic gentleman about town, but in many other ways he scorned the conventional trappings of that privileged life.
He shrugged. “I learned to look after myself in my travels many years ago and I’ve never liked the idea of a manservant dedicated to my needs.”
“You never talk of those travels,” she said, her curiosity still rampant. It was rare the opportunity arose to dig a little into his past.
“Oh, I found myself caught up in a little squabble in Macedonia,” he said lightly. “Very important if you were living in Greece or Bulgaria a few years ago, but it didn’t resonate much outside that part of the world.”
“Oh.” Petra leaned forward. “Did you fight? Surely not.”
“Why surely not?” He raised a questioning eyebrow.
“I don’t really know, it just doesn’t seem to be the kind of thing you’d do. You don’t seem like a soldier, not like Rupert at least.”
“Lacey chose to fight the Boers,” Guy told her. “He chose the life of a career soldier. I certainly had no intention of living that life. However, I fell in with a group of Greek guerrilla fighters.” He shrugged. “It was for love of a woman, if you must know, my dear. I’ve always been hopelessly susceptible to the charms of the fair sex, as I imagine you realize by now.” He leaned over her and kissed her. “It was a long time ago.”
“What happened to her?”
“She fell in love with a fiercely bearded Greek and out of love with me,” he responded with a laugh. “And I left the mountains of Macedonia and came back to England to assume the life I was supposed to live.” He straightened. “I have to love you and leave you, sweet Petra.”
Petra blew him a kiss as he left the bedroom. That was an interesting nugget of information. She was not in the least troubled by the idea of his fighting in a foreign conflict for the sake of a woman. It struck her as rather romantic, and Guy was not in the general run of things particularly romantic. He was stimulating and amusing, a wonderful lover, courteous and generous, a little too fond of his own way but that was annoying her less now. She just wished he would tell her more about himself, what he was thinking, the experiences that had made him who he now was.
But at least he’d given her something from his past this afternoon, she reflected, getting out of bed, going into the adjoining bathroom. Maybe asking more about his Macedonian adventures would give her a greater sense of who he had been then. It was a start anyway. Lovemaking was wonderful but she knew it was no longer enough. Their liaison had arisen so naturally, after their strange pact of understanding that afternoon. She couldn’t remember either of them actually putting the desire into words, or making any particular arrangements, it had just happened, and it had seemed so right, inevitable, a growth from the early beginnings ten years earlier. But now she wanted more. She wanted to know more of the man than Guy Granville the lover. Much more.
* * *
Guy strolled toward Piccadilly, relishing the sense of well-being, the overall feeling of pleasure he always had after spending time with Petra. Her challenging, sometimes combative nature met and matched his own, but there were so many other dimensions to Miss Rutherford, and he was enjoying discovering and exploring each and every one of them. He loved her openness, her lack of artifice, and the way it was tempered with a natural sophistication, a lack of guile that was tempered with a natural caution, an understated wisdom in her understanding of the world they shared. He loved the wonderful devil-may-care flamboyance that she showed in her dress and her lively wit. And he was beginning to recognize that the joy he took in her company was something quite different from the feelings he usually had for the women who shared his bed and his company for as long as it suited them both.
In fact when Guy started to think of a time when Petra’s close company would suit him no longer he found it hard to imagine. And that brought him to his present errand. It was not one he relished, but in honor it was one that had to be done.
His walk brought him to an elegant terraced house on Curzon Street. He glanced up at the drawing room windows on the first floor before stepping up to the door and lifting the heavy lion’s head brass knocker.
“Milord.” The butler bowed him in immediately. “Madame la Vicomtesse expects you. May I take your hat?”
“Merci, Giscard.” He handed his top hat and cane to the servant. “No need to announce me.” He crossed the square hall and mounted the stairs, entering the double doors to the drawing room with a light alerting knock.
“Ah, Guy, I have been waiting for you for days.” Clotilde Delmont glided across the blue Axminster carpet in an elegant rustle of blue and gold damask.
“Hardly days, my dear,” he protested, brushing a kiss on her powdered cheek. “I have it on the best authority that you only returned to London the day before yesterday.”
The lady made a flirtatious little moue as she flicked her fan open and closed. “There was a time when you would never have waited two days to visit me, mon cher.”
“True,” Guy conceded. “But time moves on, my dear, for both of us.”
Clothilde’s blue eyes snapped, the flirtatious glint vanished, a sharpness in its stead. “Whatever can you mean, Guy?”
He took her hand, holding it gently but firmly. “I think you know what I mean, Clothilde. You have acquired other . . . shall we say other interests, in the last year, as have I.”
She withdrew her hand from his, her lip curling. “We’ve known each other for many years, Guy. We’ve amused each other when the opportunity arose, and we’ve both indulged ourselves elsewhere on occasion. But we have never been bourgeois about it.” She shrugged and threw out a dismissive hand. “Such petty little concerns have never troubled you before. What has changed?”
He seemed to consider the question before saying, “I find I have acquired a new sensibility about matters like loyalty, honesty, perhaps even fidelity.” He smiled at her. “Come, Clothilde, let us accept the time has come for us both. We took much pleasure in each other, but I find that I want more from a relationsh
ip than a superficial, mutually beneficial intimacy. And I fear, my dear, that you could never supply that.”
“Is it that simpleton?” she demanded with a cold anger that couldn’t disguise the hint of bewilderment in her voice. “The Rutherford woman that everyone’s talking about? For God’s sake, Guy, she knows nothing of the world, she’s everything we despise about the naïve English debutante who sees only marriage and breeding in her future. She’ll be a good, obedient wife to whatever man is dull enough to want a wife like that. You’ve always expressed contempt for such ninnies.”
Guy’s bark of laughter was harsh. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Clothilde. And you certainly know nothing about Miss Rutherford. But if my past hasty generalizations have come back to bite me, then I accept the consequences. As I said, things change, people change.”
“Well, you may have changed into a sentimental fool, Guy, but I certainly have not. I enjoyed your company precisely because you were above petty concerns.” She turned away from him.
Guy saw the tiny quiver of her hands as she flicked open the silver cigarette box on a side table. He moved swiftly to pick up the engraved lighter, flicking it open. She bent her head to the light, inhaled deeply and walked away from him to the window.
“Goodbye, Guy.”
“Goodbye, Clothilde.” He bowed to her back and left. He hadn’t expected it to be a pleasant conversation but now he realized that he had hoped for an amicable agreement to bring their liaison to a cordial close. But maybe he should have been more realistic. Clothilde was never an easy woman and her bitterness, while regrettable, was probably only to be expected. However, he couldn’t deny the lightness, the sense of relief, as he walked back toward Piccadilly. He could now with a clear conscience devote his attentions to getting to know Miss Rutherford in all her manifestations.
Something Clothilde had said troubled him though. Why hadn’t he realized that Petra’s name was being bandied about in the clubs and drawing rooms of Mayfair? He should have realized the danger of his attentions to her reputation, but all his liaisons hitherto had been with women who could not be touched by gossip, and who certainly wouldn’t be concerned by it. The irony of his insisting she not walk home alone at night, while he recklessly played fast and loose with her reputation, was not lost on him.
Chapter Eleven
“Must we really go back inside for the second act?” Petra asked in the crowded foyer of the Covent Garden opera house. “We all know Elsa falls down dead at the end.”
“At the end of the third act,” Diana pointed out.
“Oh, yes. I managed to forget there are three acts,” Petra said with a mock groan.
“I think you’re feeling faint, Petra.” Fenella took a sip of champagne. “I think we should take her home, Diana, don’t you?”
Diana grinned. “Definitely. You’re looking really sickly, dearest.”
“Oh, am I? I do feel a little unwell.” Petra drooped into a convenient armless chair, her hand pressed to her forehead. “One of my headaches is coming on.”
“I’ll make our excuses to Bella Carrington,” Fenella said.
Her friends watched her thread her way through the chattering throng to where their hostess stood with some of their fellow guests in the Carringtons’ party. Petra sighed and wilted convincingly as Lady Carrington looked toward her with concern. They couldn’t hear the conversation between the lady and Fenella but it looked as if Fenella was more than convincing in her tale.
“She is an actress after all,” Diana said with a stifled laugh as Bella patted their friend’s arm and looked again toward Petra, saying something urgently to Fenella.
“Oh, I do hope she’s not coming over here to see for herself,” Petra whispered. “I’m not an actress.”
“No, it’s all right. Fenella seems to have put her off. Look, she’s coming back alone.”
“And now I feel horribly guilty,” Petra said.
“All done and dusted,” Fenella said brightly as she rejoined them. “Bella at first wanted us to take her carriage, but I managed to persuade her that we would manage with a hackney. Come, lean on my arm, Petra. Diana, take her other arm.”
Thus supported, Petra managed to stumble from the foyer and out into the warm night. “Where shall we go now?”
“I’m a little peckish,” Fenella said. “Dinner seems like a long time ago.”
“Opera will do that,” Petra told her. “Let’s go to Gunter’s. I need an ice for my head.”
Diana hailed a passing cab and the women climbed up, squeezing onto the single bench. “Gunter’s in Berkeley Square,” Diana instructed the cabbie on the box in front.
“Berkeley Square,” Diana mused. “Maybe we’ll run into Guy Granville.”
“I doubt it,” Petra replied. “He’s engaged with friends in Curzon Street.”
“Curzon Street. Isn’t that where the vi—” Fenella broke off as Diana pinched her leg.
“Where who?” Petra asked. “What’s the matter?” she demanded, seeing her friends’ discomfiture. “Where who?” she asked again.
“Clothilde Delmont has a house on Curzon Street,” Diana told her.
“So what if she does?” Petra looked directly at Diana. “It’s nothing to me where she lives.”
“No, of course it’s not.” Diana was rarely flustered but her usual composure deserted her. “I’m sorry, Petra. I don’t know why I’m making such a mess of this. It’s just that . . . that we—”
“That we’re very curious to know how things stand between you and Guy,” Fenella broke in. “You never talk about it, or at least not beyond the merest commonplace. And, well, it’s only natural that in the absence of fact we’re going to speculate.”
“Oh, is that all?” Petra said with a laugh. “If I’d known you were so curious I’d have answered all your questions. But you haven’t asked any.”
“No,” Diana agreed. “We were rather waiting for you to volunteer the details.”
“When we get to Gunter’s,” Petra promised. “How are the arrangements going for Ascot next week?”
Diana accepted the changed subject. “Very well. Rupert and I are still arguing about whether to have poached salmon or roast partridge for lunch. What’s your opinion?”
“Have both,” Petra replied. “That way you’ll please everyone.”
“I’d rather come to that conclusion myself,” Diana said.
“Russian salad and caviar,” Fenella put in. “Perfect for a summer lunch.”
“Strawberry shortcake and sherry trifle,” Petra added. “Oh, this is making me hungry. I need something more substantial than just an ice. We can get a light supper at Gunter’s.”
The carriage drew up outside Gunter’s on the far side of the square from Granville House. Diana paid the driver and the three of them went into the tea shop. It was busy, a warm evening brought out people strolling the square garden and the quiet residential streets. One of the round iron tables on the pavement outside the tea shop was free and they took it, ordering a few light dishes from the white-aproned waiter.
“Oh, and a bottle of Moët,” Petra called after him. “We might as well make the most of our freedom from Wagner. I shall have to write a groveling apology to Bella Carrington in the morning. I’ll apologize for spoiling your evenings too.” She bestowed a benign smile on her companions.
“Forget that,” Diana said. “Tell us what’s going on with Granville.”
“Have you already made love?” Fenella asked, cutting to the chase. “I don’t believe in beating about the bush.”
“No, you don’t.” Petra fell silent as the waiter opened the champagne, filling their glasses. When he’d departed she said, “To be equally blunt, yes, we have. And lovemaking is wondrous. But you both know that.”
“Indeed,” Diana agreed.
“You’re not taking any risks?” Fenella asked hesitantly.
Petra gave a half laugh. “You really don’t believe in discretion, Fenella. No, no ris
ks. Guy uses those rubber sheaths, even though he doesn’t like them. I’d be quite happy if he didn’t use them.”
“Not until you have a ring on your finger,” Fenella said sharply.
“Oh, you’re such a mother hen, dearest.” Petra laughed. “Of course I’m not going to take any risks. Even if I was willing, Guy wouldn’t be. He’s oddly strict about some things, sometimes annoyingly conventional and rule abiding.”
Diana and Fenella exchanged glances of relief and Petra went into a peal of laughter. “Oh, dear, why does everyone feel the need to watch over me, to guide my hesitant footsteps? I’m perfectly able to look after myself.”
“Yes, of course you are, darling.” Diana shook her head ruefully. “We have no right to think you need tutoring in this game of life we’re all playing.”
“How do you feel about Guy?” Fenella asked, leaning across the table. “Do you just really like him, or do you think you might love him?”
“To the point as always, Fenella,” Diana observed.
Petra took a leisurely sip of champagne before responding. “It’s a fair question. The answer is that I’m not really sure. All I know at the moment is that I’m loving every minute of the whole adventure and I’m hungry for whatever new experiences I can have with Guy. The future is the last thing on my mind.” She selected a crab tart and ate it with reflective pleasure.
“I hate to say this, but, a word to the wise, Petra. Rupert says they’re taking odds in the clubs about your relationship with Guy, how far it’s gone,” she added delicately. “But also about whether he’ll declare himself. It’s never good to be the subject of gossip.”
Petra’s high spirits wavered for a moment. So far she had managed to ignore that most inconvenient and unfair fact of life. An unmarried woman’s reputation was like gold dust. Ephemeral, blown away on a slight breeze. A man’s reputation, of course, was immune from anything short of murder.
