It Happened One Night

by Stephanie Laurens

  Wilhelmina found tales of Sam’s life at sea fascinating, and realized that having been impressed, which must have been frightening and frustrating, had ultimately been the making of him. “You speak with such pleasure about your days aboard ship,” she said as they meandered through the churchyard. “But it cannot have always been enjoyable. There must have been rough times as well, dangerous times.”

  “Yes, there were days when I’d have rather been almost anywhere else. During illness, which is never easy on ship, or when stores ran low and we dined on ship delicacies you’d rather not know about. Or during heavy storms when it seemed you’d be pitched clear off the deck, never to be seen again. Or during battle, when the shuddering report of guns made your ears ring for hours afterward, and the powder and smoke threatened to choke you. But for the most part, I felt at home on board ship. It was hard work and rough living, but I thrived on it.”

  “I suppose, then, that press gang was a blessing after all. It gave you a life you’d never have known otherwise.”

  “That’s true. Years later, I would thank them for taking me, though at the time, I could not have been more wretched. I thought I’d landed in a nightmare.”

  “Poor Sam.” She squeezed his arm, and he brought his hand to rest over hers. “But you managed to survive. You were stubborn enough in those days that I imagine you forced yourself to make the best of it.”

  He nodded. “In those early days, when the misery of the lower decks was something I could never have imagined, it was pure dogged determination that kept me going. There were more than a few villainous characters among the crew, each of them ready to make a new boy’s life a living horror. But I ignored them, and occasionally stood up to them, and they finally left me alone. Many boys younger than me, much younger, would shinny up masts with the ease of monkeys during the days and at night were slung shoulder to shoulder in narrow hammocks, like bats hanging from the rafters. None of them complained, and neither did I. It’s astonishing, really, how quickly one can adapt to conditions so alien. Within a month, I was perfectly at home on board. Soon enough, I found I actually liked it.”

  He stopped walking and turned to face her. “And while some other pressed men deserted at the first opportunity, I never once thought of bolting. As much as I missed you, I had my honor. I couldn’t abide the idea of presenting myself to you as a deserter.”

  “How disappointed you must have been to learn how easily I had discarded honor while you held on to yours so tightly.”

  “Willie. Stop berating yourself.”

  “But it is true, is it not? I will never forget the look on your face when I first saw you after thinking you dead. Shocked disappointment, and anger, was writ clear in your eyes.” And in his words.

  “It was not only that, Willie. I reacted in anger, to be sure, but inside my heart was breaking. I had been at sea many years by then and seen my share of…of women who sell themselves to men. I hated to think of you as one of them.”

  “I wasn’t, Sam.” No, she had never been a common whore. She’d been much more exclusive.

  “I know you weren’t. But at the time, it was an image I could not get out of my mind. Whenever we were in port, whores showed up in droves. The dock whores love a sailor on shore leave. They know as well as anyone that a sailor with a bit of prize money in his pocket will spend the lot of it on drink and women before the night is through. So whenever we dropped anchor in port, they massed on the docks, ready to take their share.”

  He frowned and looked over her shoulder into the distance as he spoke, as if he could still see those wretched women. “Sometimes they didn’t even wait on shore, but took boats out to the ships—large boats filled to bursting with a cargo of doxies. Mind you, some of the men had been at sea as long as eighteen months and seen almost no females. The sight of those boats caused a general furor as seamen scampered down the ropes and brought the women up to ply their wares on shipboard. It was never a pretty sight. Poor, ignorant, desperate women who’d long ago discarded shame or modesty.”

  He returned his gaze to her, those golden-brown eyes filled with sorrow. “When I heard you’d taken up the trade, all I could think of was those horrid, coarse, pathetic women who’d tup the oldest tar to the youngest third-class boy and everyone in between within the span of a few hours.”

  “It was never like that for me, Sam.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “I promise you, it was never like that.”

  “I know. But it was the first thing that entered my foolish head, so you can imagine how upset I was, to imagine you in a similar situation. I hated to think that you had become that desperate.”

  “I never was.”

  “I know. Forgive me, my girl. It was a long time ago and I was a foolish, heartsick youth.” Sam looked down at her troubled face and wondered if she would ever tell him the truth of how she started her career as a demirep. It was none of his business, but he’d always wanted to know.

  He retook possession of her hand and tucked it back in the crook of his arm. “Come. There were a couple of old stone benches on the village green. Let’s go park ourselves on one and enjoy the rest of the day’s sunshine.”

  Walking together in companionable silence through the churchyard and down the high street toward the green brought back sharp memories of long-ago walks along the Porthruan shore and the cliffs above the cove, when a smile or the squeeze of a hand was all that was needed to feel utterly content. All at once a vision came to mind of him and Willie—not the sixteen-year-old girl, but this Willie, the mature, beautiful, sensual woman at his side—walking over the grounds of his estate in Sussex. The idea taunted him like the hint of a sail in the distance blinking in and out of the mist, beyond his reach, and with it came a pang of longing that he quickly checked. Even if there could be a future for them—as unlikely a notion as ever entered his head—Willie was a creature of Town, one who’d known dukes and princes and prime ministers. She would never be content in an isolated country house with a mere post captain. He must remember that and stop spinning fantasies.

  Besides, despite his wish for it to be otherwise, this Willie—Wilhelmina—was not someone he knew. Though there were still occasional haunting flashes of the young Willie, this woman was virtually a stranger—self-possessed, shrewd, knowing. And damned desirable.

  When they’d reached the green, Sam removed his greatcoat and spread it over a stone bench, still damp from the rain. After they were seated, Willie was the first to break their long silence. “I’m sorry, Sam,” she said, placing a hand over his, “but I still feel badly about that heartsick young man. I’m sorry I hurt you. I want you to know that.”

  He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. “I know, my girl. It was just that I’d thought of you as mine. I’d been very possessive of that memory of your father’s hayloft.”

  When he had sought her out at the theater that first time, back in ’94, that sense of possession had driven him to believe she could not be what the rumors claimed. But everything changed the instant he saw her surrounded by her court of admirers.

  He’d been surprised at her looks. She’d been only twenty-one, but looked older. Not in a haggard way. No, she had still been beautiful, take-your-breath-away beautiful. But all hint of graceless youth, of girlish roundness, was gone, replaced by a willowy slenderness that brought out the strength of her features: the high cheekbones, the straight nose, the elegant curve of jaw set upon the slim white column of her neck. And more than the physical change, the inevitable casting off of youth, was the expression in her face. Worldly. Sophisticated. Smart. It suited her, and certainly suited her chosen profession. The girl he’d left behind had become a woman. Almost too much of a woman. She was not his Willie anymore. She’d even somehow managed to lose every hint of Cornwall in her voice. She was a lady of London now. The notorious Wilhelmina. And no longer his.

  “I could see all those memories of Cornwall, and a hayloft, beneath the anger in your eyes,” she said. “The same memories f
looded through me at that moment, I assure you. But I sent you away with my show of disdain and hoped never to endure that pain of regret again, hoped that you would stay away.” She laughed softly. “And then five years later, you showed up on my doorstep. The proud lieutenant.”

  Sam joined her rueful laughter. It really was an embarrassing memory. He never quite knew why he’d gone to see her. “There I was, shoe buckles sparkling, Nile medal gleaming on my chest, dressed for a king’s levee and standing in line at your door with a dozen other hopeful chaps clamoring to be allowed in. Finally, when that damned fearsome beast of yours let me enter—”

  “Smeaton. He’s very protective. But when he said there was a Lieutenant Samuel Pellow who wished to see me—well, my heart leapt a little at the thought of seeing you again. I convinced Smeaton to let you in, though he would have preferred to toss you down the front steps, thinking a mere lieutenant beneath my notice. But I longed to see you, despite our less than friendly encounter years before, and asked to have you shown in to my private sitting room.”

  “My fellow supplicants at the front door were green with envy when that hatchet-faced butler led me inside. And I followed him past rooms filled with well-dressed gents who I knew in my gut, though I did not know any of them by sight, were some of the highest men in the realm. Beautiful girls in dresses that left little to the imagination sat with them in animated conversation, or more. When I happened to see Admiral Blackwood with a plump little blonde on his lap, I almost turned and bolted. I didn’t like to think of you in such surroundings, but it was in fact what I’d come to see. To reassure myself that you had turned out badly and I was better off with my Sarah.

  “But then there you were, ensconced on a chaise like an odalisque, looking beautiful and sophisticated and far above my touch. Your Smeaton was right about that. I had come to gloat, and yet words dried up in my throat and I did not know what to say.”

  “Your first blurted words, as I recall, were: ‘I am married and have a son.’”

  Sam groaned. “I can’t imagine what you must have thought of me, the perfect idiot. I was no longer a callow youth, and ought to have had more finesse. Better yet, I ought to have stayed away. But I had come to gloat, after all, so I just launched into my speech without preamble.”

  “And I accused you of coming there to be unfaithful to that wife I’d just learned about. I can’t imagine what you must have thought of me, saying such a hateful thing as that.”

  “We both drew our lines in the sand that day,” Sam said, “establishing clearly who we were and the very different lives we led. You knew exactly what you were doing, Willie, establishing boundaries between us. I figured that out much later, and realized that you were a wiser person than I’d ever be. And despite pretending to despise your life, I found I admired you.” And even still loved her a little.

  “Did you, Sam? Oh, I am so glad you told me. It means a lot to know you haven’t been hating me all these years.”

  No, he hadn’t hated her. Never that. Sam had seen Wilhelmina casually a few more times after that meeting at her salon in ’99. Whenever he came up to London to visit the Admiralty or take care of other business, he always heard of her and sometimes ran into her at a social function. Once, after he’d exchanged a few polite words with her at a rout party, several of his fellow officers teased him, wondering why he never mentioned that he knew the infamous Wilhelmina Grant and wanting to know all about her. He skirted their questions and said little. He kept to himself the fact that he’d never known the great courtesan, but had once loved the blacksmith’s daughter.

  “I could never hate you, my girl.” He kissed her hand again, and she gave him a smile that shot right through to his vitals. It emboldened him and, without thinking or giving himself time to change his mind, he bent his head and kissed her on the mouth. It was a simple kiss, nothing elaborate, but the sensation of his lips on hers, on the lips of the girl he’d loved, finally, after all these years, was filled with a sweet poignancy that made him feel young again.

  He put his arms around her and deepened the kiss. Her lips parted beneath his, and he savored the strangely familiar warmth of her mouth. When he lifted his head, she looked at him with eyes wide with wonder. Had she, too, been momentarily transported back more than twenty years?

  He trailed a knuckle along her jaw. “Never think that I have hated you, Willie. You will always be special to me. My first love.”

  “You have surprised me, Sam.”

  “By kissing you?” He smiled. “Let’s just say it was for old times’ sake.”

  “For old times.” She moved out of his arms. “Thank you, Sam. You have relieved my mind. I did think you had hated me. I never thought you would be able to get beyond the life I led, to forget who I’d become.”

  “Oh, I never forgot,” he said, shooting her a grin. “How could I when your every move was reported? I heard rumors…”

  She sighed and scooted farther away on the bench. “I have no doubt of it.”

  “It was said that even the Prince of Wales—”

  She rolled her eyes. “I have been the object of rumor and gossip since I was sixteen. I long ago stopped listening. Or commenting. I am quite certain that many of the rumors you heard are true. Or based on truth. But I am equally certain that just as many of them are pure invention. People love to spread tales of women like me, whether they are true or not. You may choose to believe what you want, Sam. I will not go down a list with you and say yes to this one and no to that one.”

  “Fair enough. It is none of my business, in any case.”

  “Because of what we once meant to each other, I will tell you about two of the men in my life. The two men who changed my life.”

  “Really, my girl, you need not tell me anything.”

  She dismissed his concern with a wave of her hand. “No, I want to. But I will only tell you of two men and no more. The first was James Benedict, who was touring the West Country coast when he found his way to Porthruan in ’89, shortly after you went missing. He was a member of the Royal Academy and had come to paint the sea and the cliffs and the Cornish sunlight. He always said we had our own special kind of light in Cornwall.”

  “Pixie light.”

  “That’s what I told him. He always painted outside, even when he painted people. Whether portraits or allegorical paintings, he most liked to paint faces, and he took a liking to mine.”

  “How could he not?”

  Willie smiled at his flattery, then continued. “He paid me to pose for him, and he did a series of classical allegories where I was depicted as each of the nine Muses as well as various goddesses. It was easy work and I liked having my own money, which I tucked away without telling Mama. But most of all, James was kind to me at the lowest point of my young life. I was heartbroken and adrift, having lost all purpose when I lost you.”

  She paused and took a slow, deep breath before she went on. A frown puckered her brow. “Mama found out about the posing, of course, and raised the roof. She railed and railed against my sinful ways. Papa seemed more sympathetic at first, but he was never a match for Mama’s temper, or her Methodist morality, so he did not fight her when she cast me out.”

  “She really threw you out of the house?”

  “Yes. A girl who posed for pictures, even with all her clothes on, had no place in the pious Jepp household. I went crying to James, and he said he’d take care of me. I was to return to London with him where he would make a proper artist’s model of me. I jumped at the chance to escape Porthruan Cove, which had too many memories of you. So I went to London, and my life changed forever. Even my name changed. I became Wilhelmina Grant. James’s paintings of me drew a lot of praise for his talent, as well as a great deal of attention to me. Suddenly I was an object of interest for many gentlemen, several of them members of the nobility.”

  Sam knew those paintings well. One in particular, he knew very well indeed. “I saw some of Benedict’s paintings when I first came to London to fin
d you, back in ’94. They were beautiful. You were as luminous as moonlight on a dark sea.”

  Willie nodded. “They brought him a great deal of notice. After the allegories of the Muses were exhibited, commissions began to pour in. And I drew more interest as the model, and not just from other artists. I did not enjoy all that attention, I assure you. I thought it would anger James, and I was fiercely loyal to him. But one day he came to me and said that a certain gentleman was prepared to become my protector, that he would set me up in style, that I would have everything I ever wanted. When I demurred, he said I had to go, that he could no longer keep me. I soon discovered that James had passed me on to this new gentleman in order to secure several very important commissions. It was only then that I realized I had never meant anything to James, except as a face he liked to paint. It was my first lesson in the life of the demimonde. I left James without a backward glance, and began my notorious career.”

  At last he knew how it had begun. It was sad, but not sordid. “I’m sorry, Willie.”

  “Don’t be. I may not have led what most people would call a respectable life, but I prided myself on being selective. And expensive. I became rich, and was courted by some of the highest gentlemen in the land. I established a salon where I entertained artists and poets and politicians, and invitations were prized. It was an exciting life. I have no regrets.”

  “And who was the second man who changed your life?”

  “Hertford, of course. He pursued me for quite a long time before I gave in to him. He wanted exclusivity, and I was not willing to grant it at first. But he was so ardent, and so charming, that I soon capitulated. We spent a few happy years together, during which I was publicly acknowledged as his mistress. He loved me, the duke did. He truly loved me.” She spoke as though she still could not believe it, as though she was not worthy of a good man’s love. “But when his wife died and he asked me to marry him, I thought he’d gone mad. But he was quite serious. He was determined to legitimize our love affair. How could I refuse such a magnanimous, extraordinary offer? So I bid farewell to the demimonde and became a duchess.”