The Passionate Prude

by Elizabeth Thornton

  Deirdre reached out to grasp the other girl’s hand in a comforting clasp. “You surely don’t repine for the acquaintance of such small-minded people.”

  “No more than you do. Still, it hurt at the time. But when my grandmother finally became reconciled to my marriage, she made the push to have her friends receive me again. There are some drawing rooms, however, where I am still persona non grata. Fond mamas with young daughters to fire off are wont to look askance at a lady who tied the knot over the anvil at Gretna Green.”

  “But you had little choice in the matter. If your grandmother hadn’t been about to announce your betrothal to that aging lecher who had nothing to recommend him except for his title, you would have married Reggie just as you ought.”

  “Nobody cares. It’s appearances that are important in our circles, not morals. Now you know why I wasn’t invited to Caro Cavanaugh’s party. The Dowager Countess of Rathbourne is quite the stickler, although at one time she and grandmama were bosom bows.”

  “I would have thought that the mother of a son like Rathbourne would have little to crow about.” After a considering moment, Deirdre went on, “Which reminds me, Serena. You knew when you wrote that letter that it was Rathbourne, didn’t you?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Serena evasively.

  “Just what you think I mean.”

  A smile tugged at the corners of Serena’s mouth. “Well of course I knew. But would you have come up to town if I had warned you in advance that the nobleman who was Armand’s rival was your old flirt?”

  “Why, Serena? Why go to the trouble?”

  “Because you two are made for each other. Because I knew you hadn’t put him out of mind in five years; because I was worried about Armand; and finally, because Rathbourne asked Reggie for your direction. Now dare slay me with that wicked tongue of yours, and I’ll give you back as good as I get.”

  “Still the unrepentant romantic?” Deirdre asked with acid in her tone.

  “Still the confirmed cynic?” Serena shot back with equal sarcasm.

  Deirdre gazed at the fire for a long moment, watching absently as flames licked round one lump of coal, burning it by slow degrees to a cinder. Finally, she said with quiet conviction, “It won’t work, you know.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Deirdre lifted her shoulders. “Many reasons. There is too much against us; Armand for one. And then, Rathbourne himself.”

  “But Rathbourne cares for you, I know it. He always did. You never gave him a chance.”

  “Forget it, Serena. That’s old history.”

  “How can I forget it when I see my best friend throwing her life away, turning into an old maid before my eyes? You should be breeding children, not horses. No, don’t eat me, Dee. You know I speak the truth. If you can look me in the eye and deny that you care for him, I’ll never mention his name to you again, I promise.”

  Deirdre lifted her eyes and looked steadily at her friend. She made as if to say something but, after a moment, gave an exasperated shake of her head. Her smile was faintly self-mocking.

  “You see?” asked Serena rhetorically.

  “Don’t refine too much upon it. It’s a flame I intend to smother by one means or another.”

  “But why?”

  “Don’t you see?” Deirdre’s tart tone gave evidence of her waning patience. “Not everything one desires is good for one. Didn’t you just warn me off scarlet satin? Rathbourne is like that. For me, such a man would be poison, however much I may lust after him in my heart. If you want to play matchmaker, find me a beau like Reggie.”

  “Reggie?”

  “A one-woman man.”

  “Ah, now I understand.” Serena began to gather her things. She slipped on her nankin half boots and fiddled with the lacings.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” asked Deirdre, laying aside her notebook and rising to her feet.

  “Just what you think it means,” retorted Serena, turning her friend’s words back upon her. She lifted her face to plant an affectionate kiss on Deirdre’s cheek. “I know too many of your dark secrets, my dear, not to understand what your antipathy is based on. Rathbourne is not your stepfather and you are not your mother. Remember that. But I won’t come to points with you on your misguided notions. I’ve delayed too long as it is. Dinner on Thursday? You won’t forget?”

  “I’m looking forward to it. Will I know anyone there?”

  “Yes, of course. But I daren’t invite Mrs. Dewinters, at least not to this sort of gathering. Perhaps at one of my musical evenings when there are crowds of people. We shall see.”

  “Snob,” teased Deirdre.

  “Realist, more like,” Serena flung over her shoulder as she swept out of the room. At the top of the long staircase, she halted. “By the by, Dee, I’ve already invited Rathbourne and he has accepted.”

  “I thought you might,” responded Deirdre with a careless lift of her shoulders. “Don’t fret. I shall be as meek and mild as you could wish.”

  The two girls descended the staircase to the ground floor. At the bottom of the stairs, Serena laid a detaining hand on Deirdre’s arm. “I’ve also invited Henry Paget. You don’t mind, I trust?”

  “The Earl of Uxbridge?”

  “The same.”

  “I’m surprised. I thought he had put himself beyond the pale. Is he received in society then, a man, I forbear to use the word ‘gentleman,’ who deserted his wife and children to elope with another man’s wife? You can’t mean to have him under your own roof?”

  “How cruel and unfeeling you have become, Dee. It isn’t like you. That happened five years ago. After his wife divorced him, he married the lady he had eloped with.”

  “Yes, and what a shady business that was, having to run off to Scotland so that his wife could divorce him under Scots Law. It shouldn’t be allowed.”

  Serena turned a look of wounded outrage upon her friend. “Some of us have occasion to be grateful for the enlightenment of Scots Law. It allowed me to marry my Reggie, and it permitted the Pagets to go their separate ways. Why shouldn’t a wife be allowed to divorce a husband for adultery? It’s barbaric that in England only a husband has that privilege. Besides, there was talk of Caroline Paget and the Marquess of Lome. That Uxbridge allowed his wife to remain the innocent party in view of the gossip says something about the man’s character.”

  Deirdre’s cheeks were pink with embarrassment. “Serena, forgive me. I spoke without thinking. I meant no offense. You are innocent of what I impute to Uxbridge.”

  “And that is?”

  After a moment’s reflection, Deirdre said firmly, “Immorality.”

  “Have it your own way. I can’t uninvite him. Do you mean to call off then?”

  Deirdre hesitated. “No.” She gave a slight shake of her head. “Of course not. Just don’t expect miracles. I shall be civil to the man but I can never like men of that kidney.”

  “I’m not asking you to. Just try to keep an open mind. Till Thursday then.” And with a firm tread, Serena descended the steps to the front door to make a dignified exit.

  On the following Thursday evening, at Serena’s elegantly appointed table in her house in Burlington Gardens, it was with no little relief that Deirdre found herself seated between two unexceptionable gentlemen, the Viscount Wendon and Mr. Guy Landron. She flashed a quick look of gratitude at her hostess as that obliging lady indicated to the two notorious Earls, Rathbourne and Uxbridge, that she wished them to take their respective places of honor on her right and left hand. For some reason, however, Deirdre found that her attention wandered and was inexplicably drawn to the two men she was most determined to dislike. Furthermore, that her friend was looking ravishing in scarlet satin, she found vaguely irritating, and as dinner progressed, her mood became more aggravated as she covertly watched her hostess listen with rapt attention as Lords Rathbourne and Uxbridge argued the strategic intricacies of boring battles that had taken place centuries before.

  As Sere
na’s footman filled her glass with the obligatory champagne, Deirdre’s eyes narrowed on the Earl of Uxbridge. It was hard to believe that a man of his rank and background could have embroiled his family in a scandal that had rocked court circles, or that a gently bred girl like the Lady Charlotte Wellesley should have been so lost to all sense of decency that she had deserted her husband and children to elope with a married man. What did she see in him? Uxbridge looked to be in his mid-forties, and although handsome enough in a stylish sort of way, there was nothing about him as far as she could tell to warrant giving up everything for the dubious pleasure of sharing his bed.

  They had both paid dearly for their unhallowed passion. Neither the Earl nor his Countess were received in polite society, and Uxbridge’s preferment in his chosen profession had come to an abrupt standstill. What did he expect? He had run off with no less a lady than the wife of Wellington’s youngest brother, and his deserted wife of thirteen years was very highly connected. The former Caroline Villiers, the Earl of Jersey’s sister, and now married to Lorne, the Duke of Argyll, was not to be cast off without some sort of reckoning.

  It did not sit well with Deirdre that Serena should encourage the pretensions of such a degenerate, even supposing that Uxbridge was her next-door neighbor. She supposed that Reggie’s work at the War Office obliged him to have some contact with the man who was popularly believed to be the finest commander of cavalry in England. But she deplored her friend’s unquestioning admiration for the man at her side. Lady Uxbridge, she understood, had become something of a recluse, hiding herself for the most part at Beaudesert, Uxbridge’s estate in Staffordshire. Deirdre could not find it in her heart to be the least bit sorry for a jade who had brought such a fate upon herself.

  Deirdre picked up her dessert spoon and began to toy daintily at the froth of pink syllabub in her porcelain dish, her eyes sweeping surreptitiously over the score of guests at Serena’s board. It was very evident that Lord Uxbridge’s credit with the company, especially the gentlemen, all of them cavalry types with the exception of her host, had lost nothing by the scandal in his private life. Rathbourne looked to be on the friendliest terms with the older man. But then, his private life didn’t, bear close scrutiny either. Neither Rathbourne’s mother nor sister was present, but whether their absence was occasioned by the former misconduct of Uxbridge or Serena, Deirdre had no way of knowing.

  Her eyes were caught by an eloquent look from her aunt, who sat next to Rathbourne at the far end of the table, and she hastily marshaled her wandering thoughts and gave her attention to the Viscount on her right, who had made some innocuous compliment about the repast they had just consumed. Deirdre hastened to answer and searched around in her head for some comment to further the conversation, as etiquette prescribed.

  “I have the feeling that we have met recently, and yet you say you’ve been with Wellington for the last five years?”

  “Yes, with Rathbourne and Landron here, and formerly with Uxbridge, of course. But you are correct in your thinking. I was with Rathbourne at the White Swan the day that you walked in.” His look was faintly curious, and Deirdre gave her full attention to her dessert.

  “Indeed,” she intoned discouragingly.

  “Quite a coincidence, really. Rathbourne had just asked me if I knew anything about an Armand St. Jean when you entered the dining room. I had no idea, then, that you were St. Jean’s sister.”

  “Rathbourne was interested in my brother? For what purpose?”

  “Can’t say as I remember,” Wendon returned easily as he leaned back in his chair, his hooded eyes lazily observing as the lovely at his side touched her tongue to her lips to remove the sticky traces of the sweet dessert.

  “Are you a particular friend of the Earl?” she asked more for something to say than any real interest.

  “You might say so. We went to the same school and university.” He sipped his champagne and studied Deirdre with veiled pleasure. Perhaps it was her glorious blondness which attracted him, so alluringly different from the dark-skinned Spanish women he had enjoyed briefly during his soldiering on the continent.

  “And you? Do you know the Earl well?”

  Deirdre’s smile was a trifle strained. “I scarce know him. He is a friend of my aunt.” It was close enough to the truth to suppress any twinge of conscience she might feel.

  Her answer, unaccountably, seemed to please the Viscount. “Good,” he said with evident satisfaction.

  Deirdre looked at him questioningly, but he only smiled and shook his head. What was it Serena had said about the Viscount’s being on the lookout for a wife? She toyed with the idea as she absently stirred her spoon in her dish. She would keep an open mind on the subject. He seemed pleasant enough, and she certainly did not feel threatened by him. She tried to analyze why this should be so and came to the conclusion that it was not only because his manners were so refined and respectful, but because she wasn’t intimidated by his physical presence. He was a fine enough figure of a man, but with nothing of Rathbourne’s towering height or massive shoulders. Nor did she think the Viscount’s temper would be as unpredictable as the Earl’s. Her gaze shifted to Rathbourne and she caught his look of amused tolerance, as if he had read the direction of her thought. Her chin lifted a fraction, and when she heard the remark of the gentleman on her left, she turned her luminous green eyes upon him and gave him her sweetest smile.

  Guy Landron had not missed the byplay between his dinner companions. He had no personal interest in the woman who had captured his friend’s heart, but when he caught the smile on her lips as she turned to him, he was willing to acknowledge that Rathbourne might be excused for his hot pursuit of the cold-hearted vixen. Her smile was positively bewitching, an odd combination of innocence and coquetry, promising more than she could possibly realize. It was just as well that she rarely smiled. The men would be on her tail like a pack of rutting wolves. He wouldn’t like to be in the Viscount’s shoes if he set himself up as Rathbourne’s rival.

  “You farm near Henley?” he repeated as he appraised her over the rim of his glass.

  “Yes, but only on a small scale, enough to make us self-sufficient. For the most part, I breed horses.”

  Landron looked interested. “How did you get started on that?”

  “By accident, more or less. It began when my neighbors purchased horses I had bred for my own use. I seemed to have the knack for it. When I couldn’t keep up with the demand, I increased my stock, by degrees, you understand. Then I spent some time on a horse farm in Jamaica and I decided I could make more money from my few acres at home by turning my hobby into a business. This is a new venture for me.”

  “Who is your stud groom?”

  “You wouldn’t know him. He’s Irish, but I found him in Jamaica. I more-or-less bribed him to join me with the promise of exorbitant profits that have yet to materialize.”

  Landron suffered a momentary pang. As a female with heart, Deirdre Fenton he judged to be wanting, but as a survivor in a man’s world, she was without par. He had made a thorough investigation, and believed he knew as much about her background as anyone in present company, more perhaps than she knew about herself. This was a rotten game they played. He could almost feel sorry for what he had to do next.

  Good God, she was about to become a countess and have more worldly wealth than she ever dreamed possible. In the end, everything would work to her advantage. Still, he had learned something about her pride, and he felt vaguely dissatisfied at the route Rathbourne had chosen.

  “Why didn’t the profits materialize?”

  “Lack of capital,” she stated unequivocally.

  “I find that hard to believe. I number among my clients many gentlemen who would be interested in investing their money in such a venture.”

  “I’m sure you do. But not, generally, where the promoter of the enterprise is a female.”

  “Not generally, no. But there are always the exceptions.” His hand went to his vest pocket and he extrac
ted a card.

  “Here is my card. If you are interested in discussing this further, I should be happy to call on you. I’m well known in the city, and Lords Rathbourne and Uxbridge can provide references should you require them.”

  He let the matter drop, knowing that to appear eager would defeat the purpose. Let her make inquiries. She would find his credentials unimpeachable. His connection with Rathbourne, he had already hinted at. He would be caught out in no lie. The first rule of intelligence work was that one should never tell a lie if it could be avoided. He made some observation to the lady on his left and let Deirdre reflect on his offer.

  When the gentlemen joined the ladies after dinner, Rathbourne somehow managed to deflect Wendon from his purpose, and he slipped smoothly into the empty place on the sofa beside Deirdre. Wendon, after a moment’s hesitation, went to sit beside his hostess on the striped satin sofa close to the piano.

  Deirdre felt the heightened color across her cheekbones and did her best to ignore it. She unfurled her fan and proceeded to ply it as if she found the room a trifle warm for comfort. She tried to put out of mind the last time she had been in Rathbourne’s presence, but one quick look at his laconic expression and she knew that he did not mean her to forget. Her brows knit together in a frown.

  “Deirdre, be kind to me,” he murmured in her ear under the pretense of removing a cushion from his back. “Won’t you favor me with one of your smiles? You weren’t so niggardly with Landron. What does he have that I haven’t got?”

  “Manners,” said Deirdre shortly, and bared her teeth at him.

  “That was a grimace. You can do better.”

  The laughter in his eyes nettled her, but she was determined that he should never know it. She batted her eyelashes and flashed him a smile of pure bovine vacuity.

  “Now that is more like it. Where did you learn that trick?”

  “From Bessie, my prize cow. It’s the look she reserves for Squire Townsend’s rampaging bull when we lead her home from pasture of an evening.” She flicked him a derisory grin. “He’s tethered, you see, and I swear Bessie knows it.” Her eyes wandered the room as if she had lost interest in their conversation.