by Edith Layton
“He took the wench to Darnley Hall to prevent her from running away and ruining his name and to protect her from those who might ruin her. From what I’ve seen, I think he knows she won’t leave him now. And from what I’ve heard from a source of mine at the hall, he no longer worries about threats to her either. There was a time when he thought you might cause a scandal—don’t scowl, you were obviously bent on mischief when you last saw him—but I think I can talk him around that now.
“And so what we need,” Wrede said, stopping and looking down at Charlotte, “is a flood of invitations. Many invitations to fascinating entertainments. Crispin has a lively mind; he says he loves the countryside, but it will bore him soon enough. I doubt he’ll accept any invitations from you, but if you cooperate with me, perhaps the deed can be done.”
“But even if he leaves Darnley Hall, won’t he take her with him?” she asked.
“It hardly matters. Once they are in our bailiwick, we can separate them easily enough, using a dozen ruses, reasons, and excuses—pleasant ones that won’t alarm either of them. And then? London’s filled with reasons why a man can’t see his wife for days—weeks—on end. There are homes so vast that a man can get lost in them, and where his mistress, his wife, and his mother-in-law will never meet in the halls. It doesn’t matter where we lure him, so long as we get him away from Darnley Hall and her private attentions. But we must hurry. She’s clever, and while he is alone with her in the countryside, he’ll be susceptible to her charms. We must move faster than nature.”
She frowned at him in puzzlement.
“Shall I discourse about the birds first, or the bees?” he asked.
She flushed and looked at Wrede from the corner of her eye. “What is she like?” she asked as casually as she could. Jealousy was new to her. She’d felt anger and even pity for the girl before jealousy crept in. She had never felt such an emotion before and didn’t know what to do with it—so she hid it.
But nothing remained hidden from Wrede for long.
He looked down at her. Gold and pink and white, she was a justly famous beauty. He admired her mind as well as her beauty, and wanted neither. She was too tart for his taste. He appreciated wit, which she had in plenty, but he liked more heart with it. He knew his own lack and sought it in others. It was why he valued Crispin, did not desire Charlotte, and found himself increasingly uneasy with the woman Charlotte was asking about.
“She’s very beautiful now that she’s dressed properly. No—rather say she’s lovely,” he said thoughtfully. “You are more beautiful, I think. Yes. But she has a certain charm, a grace that borders on elegance: a refreshing quality that is lacking, perhaps, in society’s jaded beauties. A coltish quality. A newness, a freshness, a certain gift of laughter. Most unexpected, very novel. That’s what I fear in her. Crispin may not have met her like before.”
“You certainly haven’t,” Charlotte snapped, and then grew quiet beneath his icy, quelling stare.
“All right,” she said, turning aside, “let me see.…there is the Coopers’ ball on Wednesday next.”
“Crispin never cared for the Coopers,” Wrede said, all business now. “Next?”
*
Dulcie was shy in the morning. And tired, because she’d kept waking up to reassure herself that he was really there. She’d look at him until her eyelids drooped, or until the force of her stare woke him. Then he would chuckle and murmur something sleepily and draw her back against his warm hard body and hold her close as he slipped back into sleep. She would feel the delicious warmth and nearness of him and revel in it, unable to sleep because of the wonder and joy of it.
He was so handsome, so gentle. And he was truly her husband now. She’d given him all: her heart, her hand, her body. She had nothing more to offer him. But he had given her love. Hadn’t he? She had to try to stay awake to believe it. So she was tired when she woke to find him gazing at her. And shy because she’d never woken with a man before. She couldn’t think of what to say.
She didn’t have to say a thing. His eyes held the answers to any questions she might have asked and then his lips told her the rest, although he didn’t say a word.
“I shouldn’t,” he finally muttered as he drew her down beside him again and buried his face in her neck.
She squirmed against him, free at last to run her hands up and down his hard frame. She’d longed to do that all night but had been afraid of waking him. She didn’t know whether he wanted her to be bold or shy, nor did she know if he would prefer to sleep or to kiss and cuddle, as she wanted to do. After all, he’d already done what men were supposed to be primarily interested in.
“What shouldn’t you do?” she whispered.
“Make love to you again,” he said, tasting the skin stretched tight across her collarbone.
“Oh. Yes, oh, please,” she said. “It’s what I wanted last night. But I was afraid to wake you.”
“Afraid?” he asked, stopping to lean on his elbows and look down at her. His hair fell free, and as he held himself above her, it fell like a blunt curtain over their faces.
“Well, you’d already done what you wanted. I didn’t know if you wanted me to bother you anymore,” she said, glad of the shadowy drape of his hair, hoping it would cover her blushes.
“Dulcie,” he said fervently, “you may bother me that way any time you wish. Any time, you hear? It’s just that I don’t think we ought to make love again so soon. And I don’t think I’ll be able to stop myself from doing it if I touch you. I’ve always had such control,” he said with wonder, his lips against her cheek, “but not with you, sorceress.”
“Why don’t you want to?” she asked in a fearful voice, wondering if the light of a new day had made him see his mistake in taking her as his wife.
“Because you must be sore.” He smiled, kissing the tip of her nose.
“Oh,” she said, taking inventory of her sensations. She felt only a little ache, but that was drowned in the surge of need she felt for him. “Well, yes, a little,” she reported, “but I don’t mind.”
“I do,” he said ruefully, moving away from her. “You didn’t feel what I wanted you to because it was your first time, and I was overeager. I want it to be perfect the next time.”
“I don’t mind, truly,” she said, putting her arms around his neck to draw him back.
And she really didn’t mind. She needed his hands on her, she needed his approval, she required his absolute attention now. The intimacy of the act was more important to her than any pleasure she might feel. She hadn’t felt the ecstasy he was talking about, but that didn’t matter. She had almost died of the sheer happiness of having him so close, having him need her so much, provide him so much pleasure.
“Oh, Dulcie,” he sighed, moving in her arms again, “I want more than that for you.”
“I have more than I could ever want,” she whispered, “much, much more.” She could never tell him how much, though, for he had only said that he needed her and wanted to bring her to joy. She wanted so much more from him, but how could she ever tell him?
His touch set off sensations that alarmed her and thrilled her at the same time. It was a long time before he came to her, and he made her ache with desire for the ecstasy he had promised. This time Crispin went slowly, and she delighted in his strong, caressing touch. He devoted his strong, hard body to her, and she rejoiced in his sweet deliverance, taking his final groan as a tribute to her.
He lay propped up on one elbow beside her, stroking the damp body that had given him such pleasure. His face was grave and rueful when he kissed her lips again.
“I’m a greedy man, and you’re too sweet, too good to resist. But you shall know what I want for you, I promise you that, Dulcie. I know you don’t understand,” he said, before she could protest. “Be patient with me, I’ve never been with an inexperienced woman before. Damnation!” he groaned, and rolled over on his back, away from her.
She sat up, wide-eyed and still, the bedcovers clutched to he
r breast in tight fists. Seeing her distress, he rose with swift grace, took one of her hands, uncurled it, and pressed a kiss to it.
“I’m sorry. That was insensitive of me,” he said. “Forgive me, please.”
“For what?” she asked, puzzled. “Those other women were all in the past.”
“Dulcie, Dulcie,” he said, his expression tender, as it had been when they’d made love. He gazed at her where she sat in a pool of morning light, pink and white and tousled, her mouth stung to ruddiness from his kisses, her breasts half exposed. He swiftly rose and clambered down from the bed while he still could.
“A bath. Then breakfast. I’m ravenous,” he muttered.
“Oh, good, so am I,” she said. She wrapped herself in the sheet for modesty and climbed down from the high bed. But she winced as she did so, for her inner thighs suddenly ached with each step she took.
“Still so forgiving?” he asked wryly, watching her.
She came to him and leaned against him, her head on his chest. “Not forgiving,” she said fervently. “Grateful. Now we are truly wed.”
“So we are,” he said quietly, looking over the top of her head to the window and the new day that stretched before them. “So we are.”
*
“I haven’t done much but plant here,” Crispin explained as they strolled over the grounds.
He was taking Dulcie on a long walking tour of his land. It was a very warm day, but after a week of rain—a week passed in delicious intimacy—they both relished the chance to walk. All of the flowering trees and shrubs were blooming, and the heavy air was filled with sweet aromas. Dulcie felt as though she was walking in a scent bottle.
“Only plant? But you’ve put in such beautiful trees and shrubbery. Why should you sound apologetic?” Dulcie asked. “What else would you do here?”
“Gentlemen of property are erecting things these days,” he said, and grinned like a boy as he added, “aside from what I’ve been treating you to.” She ducked her head, and he was half sorry that he’d teased her. He continued, “Gentlemen of fashion are erecting follies and ruins and such,” he explained. “It’s the latest craze.
“Horrie Walpole started it with his house, Strawberry Hill,” Crispin went on, stripping the bark from a willow twig between his long fingers as they strolled. “It’s a marvel of gloom and dark corners for evil deeds to be done in. Everyone went to see it. Envy started a trend, and now they all want a medieval romantic legend of their own. It’s not enough to have temples to Pan, Chinese gardens, or mazes on one’s grounds anymore. ‘Happy is the man who has a decaying abbey or a ruined castle on his land,’ as Wrede says. Those who don’t already have them are building them. Yes, really. They’re actually building things that are half destroyed, that look better in moonlight than in sunlight: wrecked towers and crumbling walls that look haunted or eerie or melancholy. We’ve nothing like that here at Darnley Hall. My ancestors didn’t know it would become fashionable to be too poverty-stricken to rebuild. Too bad. It would have saved my poor father a lot of worry.
“It’s damp at the bottom of this hillside, and there are marshy places. See all the marsh orchids in the hollow? Those are the purple flowers—and there—the flags, the yellow ones. They thrive on damp land. That’s how you can tell. Maybe I’ll put in a grotto here and get a hermit to live in it. Truth,” he said, laughing at her expression. “Some gentlemen hire old men to live in their grottoes, to give visitors a thrill. I imagine it’s a soft enough life, aside from having to wear a thin brown robe and sandals during the cold English spring. That, and the danger of ague and rheumatism. What say you, Willie? Want a job lurking in a grotto instead of a hedgerow?”
Willie stepped out from behind a towering old willow, looking grieved. “Damned if I know how you knew this time,” he said sulkily.
“‘Dratted,’ if you please; there’s a lady present,” Crispin corrected him immediately, “and it’s simple, little clodpole —shadows. I doubt there’s room for them on the streets in London, but here they don’t appear for no reason.”
“Shadows,” Willie grumbled in disgust, kicking a stone, “leaves and pebbles and wet grass. No wonder there’s no crime here—there’s no way to get away if you do pull off a good dip. Though what you’d find in a cow’s pocket beats me.”
“Want to go back to London?” Crispin asked.
“In a minute!” Willie said, but then his face fell. “But you’re staying on here, ain’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Crispin said, though he felt Dulcie’s hand suddenly tense on his arm. “We’ve been invited everywhere. More invitations arrive each day. What do you think, my lady? It seems the social world wants a better look at you. I don’t know that they deserve one, but maybe you would enjoy yourself.”
She remembered that terrible night when he’d dragged her through the crowd of guests at his ball, declaring that she was his wife. “Perhaps,” she said gravely. “I would like them to think you have a better bride than the one you showed hem that night.”
He put his hand on hers and held it tight. “I’m sorry I did hat, Dulcie. I’ve apologized and I meant it. Gossip doesn’t bother me. I didn’t want to remind you of that night either. But why should there be any gossip at all? Hiding here will serve no further purpose. Harry doesn’t care about us anymore and I begin to think you care enough about me not to flee.”
She smiled, and he pressed her hand and said, “Yes, I begin to think it would be better for you in the future if we let people see you. They’ll have to meet you sooner or later. Why not now? It’s time. Once they see us together, all rumors will end. A look at you would show them that what they saw was a lovers’ quarrel, no more. We routed Jerome Snode by acting, but we don’t even have to pretend now.
“We’ll have to go to London, I think. We can’t invite people to come here without having to put them up to eat and sleep and bore us out of our minds for weeks. Travel is difficult, summer approaches, they’d have a right to expect that. I hate the thought of giving a house party for weeks…especially these days—and nights.”
When he smiled at her like that, as if remembering exactly what they’d done last night and again at dawn, she could forgive him anything and face anything with him—even her fear of entering his world.
“But if we do go to London,” he mused, “we will have to leave soon, before summer sets in. I don’t care what you think, Willie; London’s no place to be in the summertime.”
“Aye, well, that’s so,” Willie said grudgingly. “The water gets very nasty in the summertime. Dogs go mad, and so do lots of people. And folks die of flux almost as often as they do from the cold in the winter. Dropped like flies last summer, leastways.”
“It’s somewhat cleaner where I live in London,” Crispin commented, but his smile faded as he added, “but the air can’t be scrubbed. The miasmas of summer infect everyone in London, which is why those who can, leave—in less final ways than Willie’s neighbors. So, Dulcie, shall we go to town? We can leave tomorrow.”
She nodded, but she was afraid—and not of unhealthy miasmas.
“I’ll send word ahead to have the house prepared. We’ll take the journey in easy stages; there’s no need for hours of steady riding. Oh, and yes,” he said, patting his coat pocket and pulling a letter from it, “we’ll stop off in High Wycombe on our way. I was trying to decide if, and how, I could get there. Now it’s simple. It’s on our way to London, or only a little off it. There’s a friend of Wrede’s there who says he has an offer for me—how did he put it? Oh, yes, an offer that is”—he scanned the letter—“much to my advantage, but not one he can commit to paper. But knowing my ways and means, he writes that he thinks I’ll want to join him in ‘a delicious venture’ of his devising that is sure to give me the satisfaction I seek. He urges that I come to his `humble home’ to see for myself.”
He folded the letter. “Flowery, but that’s Wrede’s friends for you. The man’s a literary type. He founded one of Wrede’s favorite
clubs, the Dilettanti. Very high-minded, though Walpole says their erudite opinions come from too much wine. Still, notable men from town and court are members. The duke of Dorset and the earl of Sandwich belong, along with many others of rank and fortune. I don’t think I can afford to pass up an offer so intriguing.
“Oh, don’t worry. I’ve plenty of money now,” he assured Dulcie, “but I’ve learned the hard way that more is better. I’m always on the lookout for new investments. Good ones, sure ones, even if they are slow ones. I won’t leap into anything anymore. Everyone knows that. Wrede must have told his friend about me—he sounds like a man with a good financial prospect on his mind.”
“I wasn’t worried about money,” she said. “I may have married you for money, but I remind you that it wasn’t your money I married you for. It was only your name, ‘Mr. Black.’”
“I know, I know. If your nose goes up any higher you’ll hurt your neck.” He laughed. “Don’t get angry, I know it wasn’t the money.”
His answer seemed to please her.
“So we’re going?” Willie yelped in delight.
“So we are,” Crispin said.
CHAPTER 15
She stopped laughing abruptly when he asked her. When she spoke again, her voice quavered. Although he couldn’t see her face distinctly in the growing twilight, he heard her fear clearly enough.
“No,” Dulcie said, “I can’t. I’d be too ashamed. I know you think I’d enjoy it, if I just tried it once, but I know I wouldn’t. It’s too soon, we’ve only been married a little while, really. Don’t be angry with me for it, please. Ask it of me some other night and I’ll try, but not tonight, Crispin. I can’t do it. I can’t even try.”
“Dulcie,” he said patiently, watching her in the fading light that managed to sift in through the dusty coach windows, “you’re ready, whether you know it or not. You were born ready for it. You’re a born lady. All a lady needs do when she meets a gentleman is to blush at his praise, which he will give her if she’s rich and highly placed, no matter what she looks like—never mind being such a beauty as you. All she has to do after that is look interested in what he’s saying to her—but not too interested,” he cautioned, “because she has a jealous husband, remember. She can talk if she wants to. If not, all she has to do is continue to look interested, or at least not look as though she’s ready to fall asleep. You can do that, can’t you?”
