by Thea Devine
Have you seen her? they asked. There has never been a more desirable woman in the whole of London for years. Her body . . . her mouth . . . those clothes . . . her past. . . Someone saw her at Brighton, with Sedgewick, they say. No, she was at the Alices and as fair and square as they come. It was just that all the men got so distracted by those eyes and that body, they practically begged her to take their money. . .
Is she a lady? Oh, we don't know, but God, she is desirable. . .
She would be a legend by morning, his goddess, his Circe; he did not need to lift a finger to help her now. He should have wagered on his prediction: he would have lost his inheritance.
It had taken but one day of her exposure to the right people. No—the right men.
"Well, they say you know her, Nick. They say you're muddled up with some kind of trust fund from her father . . . you found her dealing Faro at the Alices?"
"Is she the most beautiful thing you ever laid eyes on?"
"The most desirable?"
They came at him from all sides. Everyone knew, in that infinitely mysterious way that such gossip travelled, that he had been in Brighton, been at the Tallingers, spoken five words to her—they all wanted to know about the color of her eyes, the timbre of her voice, was it true she was an heiress.
He found himself inventing details out of whole cloth, cursing the fact that Lucretia and Jane Griswold had done their job too well.
There wasn't a woman at Lady Badlington's who could compare with her.
"Those dresses —they are talking about the cut of her dresses . . . just a little too fast?"
"Oh, but consisder—she's not just out of the schoolroom; she's been in Brighton, a world of experience for a woman. I like to see a woman who can behave like a woman . . ."
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"Stuff it, Farthingale; you like mewling misses who come to you on hands and knees, or courtesans like Edythe Winslowe who will step all over you. What do you suppose Lady Desire would see in you?"
The arguments raged all around him until he was sick of hearing the litany of her virtues.
"Eh, Nick? Ain't she just the thing?"
"She is now," he muttered, pushing a coin onto a number to play.
The wheel whirled and damn if it didn't come up his number. He pulled his winnings to one side angrily: he wanted to lose tonight, and lose high.
Damn the goddess, damn Annesley and his fertile imagination.
He pulled in another number's winnings and removed himself from the table and from earshot of the ongoing discussion about the goddess.
There wasn't much amusement to be had at the Badlington's. What was she but a more furbished and elegant version of Lady Truscott. She was smoother, younger perhaps, and had a finer sense of the niceties. Her clientele was always select as far as the gentlemen, and permissive with regard to the ladies.
The more notorious society beldames spent the money they did not have at Lady Badlington's tables and she gleefully extended credit and squashed them under her thumbs. The younger women were always beautiful and fast, ripe and relentless, and inevitably walked just outside the society's strictures.
Such a one was Edythe Winslowe, who was very much in evidence tonight, and obviously looking, but in a haughty and disdainful way. As ever, she was surrounded by so many men that no one could perceive the lay of her interest — which was just as she meant it to be. She was very clever, the Winslowe, and the only thing that Nicholas did not like about the group en scene was that Arabella Ottershaw's husband was among the admirers.
But that was not his business, and the rigid code of honor
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among the men and the patrons of the house would be strictly enforced: no one would know of Ottershaw's inclinations beyond Lady Badlington's doors.
He pushed his way out of the lower rooms and upstairs into a fast paced game of vingt-et-un, where he began, after fifteen minutes, to lose steadily and heavily to a sweet young hostess who did not have a tenth of the skill and grace of the Lady Desire.
Who might be laying in her bed even now, awaiting his nocturnal visit, her breasts heaving with yearning. What would his cadre of questioners think if they knew, if they even sensed that someone had been able to bargain her into his bed?
They would descend like vultures: she would be tantalized into the life of an Edythe Winslowe, forever at the center of a coterie of fawning admirers, forever collecting kisses and kindnesses in exchange for more physical offerings until the day her body betrayed her and her gallants were as old as she and could not tell the difference.
Goddamn the bitch: her eyes would tell secrets and her hands would flash out here and there, enticing this one and that one, secretly wooing him into submission, so that he could refuse her nothing.
Lady Desire, the next goddess with whom every man wanted to be seen. Damn, damn, damn —
"Lord Southam?" The voice was sweet, firm, but not commanding.
He looked up. "I stay."
"Very good, my lord."
And he lost, which was as it should be. He pushed himself away from the table, disgusted that his thoughts were dominated by the one woman in the whole of London who would fight him to her bed.
And he wanted to be there, right that moment, to exercise his right of place and his mastery over the only woman who had ever flaunted his authority and gotten away with it.
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* * *
She waited. She was sure that he would come; it was the perfect night, the night of her triumph walking among his blue-blooded equals, the night of his unsettling declaration about her father—surely he would want to claim some right of assertion tonight.
But perhaps not. Perhaps the mysterious woman of her fantasies had been given entree to the exclusive gaming hell that he frequented.
Perhaps, just perhaps, she was more accessible, more willing.
And perhaps, just perhaps, she was one of his inamoratas, one of many, by chance, to whom he had given a robe exactly like the one that was hanging defiantly in her wardrobe.
And what if this luscious willing woman were available tonight and made her wishes known to him, what then? And then what if she whispered soft coercive arousing words in his ear, and promised him everything he had ever wanted —what then?
She pushed herself upright in a frenzy of dismay. The dream once again had seemed real—too real. Why should she care what Southam was doing with whom at Lady Something's gaming house?
He could do whatever he wanted, as long as she was still able to entice him to her bed.
No—as long as she could do what she wanted too.
She wanted to have the entree to Lady Badlington's house with the same approbation as a man.
She wanted to stop thinking this way altogether. Southam had upset her badly, and she did not like the thought of being at his mercy because of it. She had struck her course: she could not let a sudden departure throw her.
There was a knock at her door. Marie!
"Did mademoiselle sleep?"
"Perhaps a little. Perhaps I had a bad dream."
"It is so; you were tossing and turning. But now you are awake I have come to show you, mademoiselle, to see if I have
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followed your instructions exactly as you wished," She held up a length of satin that she had folded and stitched up the raw side and on the edges. "Stand beside me, mademoiselle. Let us see if this is the length you require."
Jainee wriggled out of bed and reached over to touch the satin strip.
It was blue, soft, soft blue, and it felt as thick as cream under her stroking fingers, Marie unrolled the rest of it and held it up next to Jainee's body. It came six inches above her head; it was perfect.
"This is exactly what I wanted," she breathed, winding one end of the satin strip around her wrist: around and around until she made a thick sheeny binding on her arm, and she held it away and looked at it with the skeptical eyes of his suspicious, mistrustful lord of the libertines.
She
nodded her head. "This is perfect. You will do the three other strips, Marie, and together we will tie up monsieur in so many knots he will fall on his face before he can work himself free."
Chapter Eleven
"I have strict instructions from Nicholas this morning," Lady Waynflete announced at breakfast, eyeing with approval Jainee's very proper blue morning dress of merino cloth with its constricting waistcoat bodice that completely flattened the lush curve of her breasts.
"He says everyone is talking about you because of the dinner at the Tallingers and he would like to whet their curiosity even more so that your notoriety will gloss you through the doors of the highest of the high sticklers."
"His lordship's concern is most gratifying," Jainee murmured into her cup of chocolate. If he had been there, she thought malignantly, she would have tossed it right into his face again. Her notoriety indeed!
"Which," Lady Waynflete continued, "putting it simply, means he wishes us to travel out and about a little more during the day; normally I would do that anyway, but he suggests that I include you in my common rounds, a suggestion which I do not embrace with open arms." She looked up at Jainee. "However, if you can keep your comments gracious and your bosom inside your dress, I think I can contrive to tolerate your company."
"My lady's condescension is most flattering," Jainee said mockingly. "I can vouch for my bosom, if not my mouth."
"That will have to do," Lady Waynflete said grudgingly. "Here is the program for this morning — "
Jainee half-listened, her mind on the devious cleverness of his tricky lordship of underhandedness. She was just aching to get her hands on him: she would tie him head to foot with her se-
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ductive satin strips so that he could never make a move against her ever again.
As if she couldn't infer from all the convolutions of his note exactly what he was up to!
What he wanted was not for everyone to see her: he wanted her to see everyone.
"I beg your pardon, Lady Waynflete?" she said politely, as she became aware that Lady Waynflete was asking her something. "Oh yes, I am quite ready to proceed." She set aside her napkin, having no idea what Lady Waynflete had proposed for the morning's activity.
She supposed it didn't matter. She had no reason to demur, and in fact, was in crying need of some activity to while away the hours.
"Now, here is the time where a cape is perfectly suitable," Lady Waynflete said, as one servant and then another helped her and Jainee with their outer garments.
"I will not argue the case with you again; it goes against the grain to present one appearance when gentlemen are present, and then quite another when we are but two women together. No, please; you cannot explain the sense of it, my lady, and I wish you wouldn't try."
"Stubborn baggage," Lady Waynflete muttered, as she climbed in the carriage.
From there, it was a peripatetic excursion around and about the usual places which society frequented: the shopping bazaar, the milliner's, several baskets of this and that in stores from Fortnum and Mason, a half hour at the bookshop (". . . but never to Mitchell's, even with your maid," Lady Waynflete cautioned. "The most lascivious young men frequent there . . .) browsing through novels she would never ever read, and then on to Madame Signy, whose business had improved appreciably since their last visit —they were forced to wait with the press of fittings for the Ottershaw party.
After that, a drive around the park, it being almost noon by then and most of the bucks were out, raising up an appetite for dining out and about. Here and there, a carriage passed with
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some sweet young lady newly come to town, bolstered on either side by a doting mother and a chaperone and many nods and waves to the gentlemen in the passing parade.
It was a show, Jainee decided; it was a circus, all flamboyant presentation done as sedately as possible with the pretense of good manners and some civility. And she could play it as well as any of those blushing demoiselles.
Except she didn't think she had ever blushed.
It was late afternoon before they returned to the house in Mayfair, and the carriage was quite full of boxes and baskets and sundry goods that Lady Waynflete could just not live without.
She ordered tea and a light luncheon in the dining room and left Blexter and her servants to unload the carriage.
Jainee followed her meekly into the house.
"I want to see the dress you propose to wear to the Ottershaws'," Lady Waynflete said abruptly, even before she had divested herself of her wrap.
Jainee flushed. The color that washed her face was a reaction of pure resentful anger, and she couldn't hide it.
"My lady, I would never embarrass you."
"No, you have not embarrassed me. You have only created an air of flashiness around yourself. Well, I will not have it this time. Arabella Ottershaw is my dearest friend, and all shall be exactly as she would want it," Lady Waynflete said stiffly, holding back her anger at Jainee's impertinence.
And Jainee sensed that there was a moment not to push too far too fast. "I would be pleased to show you my dress, Lady Waynflete. Perhaps I might put it on for you later this afternoon so that you may see that it does not exceed the bounds of good taste."
"I think that would be quite proper," Lady Waynflete agreed. "Now let us have luncheon."
From that stony silent half hour, Jainee went to her room for a half hour's rest and to pull out the dress for the Ottershaw party to examine its fitness more closely.
This dress was unexceptional except for the glitter of its overdress of silver netting which gave it a little dash. This dress,
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Jainee remembered, was one of the few on which she had agreed to Lady Waynflete's strictures: it was less revealing, more modest, it bore a train, a particular of more formal dresses that she did not like, and all in all, it was a costume with which Lady Waynflete would not find anything to dislike.
What was it about this gown, she wondered when she had been laced and hooked into it, that she had liked so much that she had gone so far as to allow Lady Waynflete to dictate the purchase of it?
She turned this way and that way in the mirror, liking the puffed sleeve of the overdress, and the matching silver net ruffle that edged the bodice. The sleeveless underdress of heavy blue crepe draped sensuously against her body, and she began to see, as she walked backward and forward, that there was something very subtle about this dress: that the fiery glow of the candles glanced off of the silver and enveloped her in a halo of light, and that her body moved beneath that aura in a way that seemed totally independent of the radiance surrounding her.
She looked both ethereal and earthly . . . like a goddess, she thought, lifting her head regally.
She was sure Lady Waynflete would not see that aspect of her dress. She pulled on a pair of blue silk elbow-length gloves, took up the matching silver net fan, and proceeded to join Lady Waynflete in the parlor.
The light in that room was very different from her bedroom. Sunlight poured in through the front windows, while the rear of the room was lit by one branch of candles.
Her dress looked perfectly proper in the hallway mirror, and she entered the parlor like a queen before her court.
Lady Waynflete, as always, was seated by the fire, but on seeing Jainee, she rose up and came to meet her, and then circled around her like a cat, sniffing and sniffing, her fur raised, her claws drawn and ready to spring.
"You'll do," she said finally and a little reluctantly. "All that silver is a little much for me, but you can carry it. Just don't damp down that underdress."
"The material is far too heavy," Jainee said, lifting the silvery
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net and inviting Lady Waynflete to touch it.
"Hmph," Lady Waynflete said, marching back to her seat and sitting back down again heavily. She wasn't sure it was that heavy at all. It clung to Jainee's curves as if it had been sculpted there. But no one would notice unless he were stand
ing very close, and parties like this one they were to attend were always such a crush, one barely noticed what anyone was wearing.
"You'll do," she said again. "Do change now, and come back to me. We will discuss the plans for this evening and for the party this weekend."
The weekend was but two days away, and Jainee simmered with resentment that Southam had not put in an appearance to ascertain whether she and Lady Waynflete were making their rounds or even whether Jainee had anything to disclose to him.
The arrogance! she thought. He assumed his word would be obeyed, no questions asked, and when he deigned to find out, they would tumble head over heels with tales of how they had tried to please him.
And no, she had not seen anyone like her father.
It was a very loose and lax society, she thought, as she and Lady Waynflete kept to Southam's schedule those two ensuing days. Town was crowding up now all with the hibernating gentlemen of society who did nothing all day long except go to their clubs or sporting events, or ride in the park, or lounge at the booksellers or anywhere along Bond Street where they could be seen; in turn, the gentlewomen spent their days at the shopping stalls, at the lending libraries, riding through the park, or paying morning visits and afternoon visits, and then hoping to secure an invitation to a select dinner or party until the bulk of the season's events began in May.
And over and above that, they all flirted — overtly, covertly, instantly, constantly, coyly, haughtily, naughtily—and they all liked a good game of cards.
And if they were bored with all that, they went on forays to improve their minds: museums, art collections, antiquities, plays, the Tower of London and all its historicity ... to be seen in all the right places was as good as an invitation Somewhere.
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Lady Waynflete made sure she was seen in all the right places.
Which meant places where she might see her father.
Improving her mind was only a secondary consideration.
She understood Southam's concerns only too well, and she could not cry off these excursions without seeming churlish.
