Tempted By Fire
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"And that is the point," Lady Waynflete interrupted, forcing herself into the conversation. "You must — no, I must—yes, I find I must leave sooner than I expected, Nicholas, and of course Jainee will come with me. That is what I wished to tell you. And that I hope you will call within a day or two."
"If you wish," Nicholas said indifferently.
"Well . . ." she didn't know quite how to take that impassive tone of voice, "then we'll bid you goodnight. Jainee?"
"My lord?"
"Miss Bowman."
He turned away almost instantly, and Jainee clenched her fists as she allowed Lady Waynflete to guide her away.
"And what was that all about?" Annesley asked insinuatingly, as he appreciatively followed the course of Jainee's figure as it receded into the crowd.
Nicholas shrugged. "I have no idea. The strumpet thinks she has some kind of claim on me, I suppose. But then, so do others," and he turned to Charlotte Emerlin, "when I have explicitly made clear that they don't."
Charlotte smiled nastily. "I won't allow you to say hurtful things, Nicholas. Nor will I go back to the past. I have told you I made a mistake, nothing more, nothing less." She paused, considering how much or little to say next.
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Her mother had pounded her skin to the thickness of an elephant's with all her strictures and derision; Nicholas could hardly wound her worse. At best, he might be made to see the error of his ways. He only had to wed her, after all, and join together two great country fortunes. Surely that could not be distasteful to him.
Every man wanted money and more money, and now she had the countenance and polish in her manner to stand up to him. More than that, she was determined to have him, no matter what she had to do: she was prepared to make every sacrifice, even the most sacred one. The thought of it sent shivers down her spine, especially when she remembered just how Nicholas had scared her into breaking off the engagement.
But she had been a mouse to his lion then. He had pounced on her, nibbled away at her resistance all the while detailing every conquest he had made from London right down to Brighton and back, and threatening simultaneously to take her and discard her at his will, and without the wedding to sanctify the deed.
No wonder she had run from him screaming; the shock of it had torn her nerves to shreds, and sent her mother to bed for months at the sheer horror of her allowing Nicholas to terrorize her out of marrying him.
The moment her mother recovered, she had bent every effort to educating Charlotte on how to become a temptress so that she could play on equal ground with Nicholas when next they met.
She had even imported a juicy stableboy or two to round out Charlotte's instruction on the more worldly aspects of men, at a cost that she did not consider dear, even when she knew Charlotte was romping in the hay with both of them. Charlotte was learning to take the measure of a man—and it would be a far different Charlotte who would go to London in the succeeding season, one who would not scare easily, and perhaps would reach out her hand and boldly take what she wanted, and what her mother wanted for her.
All these things careened through Charlotte's mind as she assessed what to say and how to say it.
"Your mistake has already been rectified," Nicholas said
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coldly, deliberately misreading her statement. "You rightly terminated our connection. There is no more to be said."
She recognized the tone of voice, but it did not cow her now. How stupid she had been. "As you say, Nicholas. One can only go forward."
"I wish you luck," he said baldly.
"And I you," she returned lightly, fuming at how easily still he could dismiss her. He left no room for maneuvering whatsoever; he had no compunction about any kindness at all.
There was nothing else she could do but leave him then. But she felt the encounter had not been a total disaster. Annesley, that old maid of a gossip, was regarding her with a renewed interest that was most gratifying.
Annesley would spread the word that she had changed, that she had spoken with Nicholas and not come away the worse for wear. It really was an excellent first salvo. The gossips would take it and run with it.
Maybe it would even outdo the latest fashionable flirt, the mysterious one they were calling Lady Desire . . .
Chapter Twelve
"You wicked girl — I think the only proper thing you did tonight was pay your respects to Arabella Ottershaw. I do not know how I am going to explain this to her, nor why I left early, which will be considered a great affront by my dearest friend. And over and above all of this, I do not know whether Dunstan was even there, and I had so looked forward to seeing him."
Jainee, huddled in a corner of the carriage and bundled into her fur-lined cape, listened to this diatribe with mixed emotions which, as always, settled on her practical dismissal of the nature of continually preserving appearances.
It was evident to her that it was solely the duty of women to box things in by the proper appearance, and she herself was getting rather weary of this reasoning.
She obviously was not proper, nor did she give a fig for how things looked. On the other hand, that vacuous Charlotte Emerlin seemed to be distinctly proper in spite of her overt possessiveness toward Southam, and that enraged her most of all.
A milksop woman, she characterized her angrily, and what had she to do with Southam and his self-righteous bargains; what if he were tumbling the milksop as well? She couldn't bear to think of it—that that whey-faced example of propriety and rectitude could even compete with her.
She barely heard Lady Waynflete's next words; they came at her from afar, the tail-end of some comment she had made which Jainee did not hear. Her ears pricked up at Charlotte Emerlin's name.
". . . nerve of that Emerlin, taking hold of Nicholas like that,
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and in front of dozens of people. No shame, that girl, none at all, and after what happened last winter. I would think her mother would have the sense to keep her away from Nicholas. He went haywire after that, he was never the same. And now he has you to contend with, for what purpose I cannot begin to conjecture. Oh! I feel a headache coming on. Thank God we are home."
Home. This was not home; this was becoming a prison with Lady Waynflete as the arbiter of appearances, and the cost of compliance was escalating by the minute.
She did not need to be sent to her room, and she supposed she might have exploded altogether had Lady Waynflete even tried to banish her. She shook with rage as she mounted the steps; she turned once to find Lady Waynflete staring up at her, an odd expression on her face.
For all she knew, she thought as she allowed Marie to unhook the dress and remove the beautiful netted overdress, Lady Waynflete was on her way back to the party so as not to offend her dearest friend. Perhaps it was well.
She would be alone in the house and she could sit before a warm fire, drink some chocolate, which sounded deliciously comforting, and sort out her thoughts. She had to calm down. Her very first inclination was to take out the robe with which Southam had gifted her and slash it to pieces with a knife. All she could think about was whether or not the Emerlin had a similar item, and whether or not she too wore it for Southam's pleasure.
She would never wear it again. Oh no, not for anything would she yield to Southam's pleasure. Rather, he would submit to hers. And she would make him pay and pay and pay . . .
Marie brought the fragrant pot of chocolate on a silver tray, along with the delicate cup and saucer and a plate of biscuits which Jainee devoured hungrily even before she poured the chocolate.
"Can you believe it? There was nothing in the way Of food. There was nothing except people and more people, obnoxious, patronizing people . . ."
"And no one familiar?" Marie asked gently.
"No one," Jainee said, the heat in her deflating like a punctured balloon. "No one . . ." She wrapped herself in herchintz robe, settled herself in the chair by the fire, and allowed Marie to tuck a
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Marie withdrew, and Jainee poured a cup of chocolate and contemplated the fire. If she could just set aside the force of her feelings . . . there had been so many people. She hadn't thought she was scrutinizing the crowd at all; there had not been time to even think about that as she was confronted by male face after male face delighting to ask for an introduction.
And yet, as Marie questioned it, she knew that somehow, unconsciously, she had been searching the assemblage for one face, that one face, the one that had haunted her dreams since she was a child.
Southam would want to know if she had seen that face tonight.
And perhaps, more than that, he would not let her challenge pass him by, whatever he had intended with the milk wench.
So much the better; she would fight him to the end, now that she had a grim suspicion how it would all come out.
The man who was her father did not inhabit the world of the haute monde; her mother had been mistaken.
And all her schemes had been for naught.
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Later, Marie came and lay four long strips of satin across the foot of the bed.
"It is both good and bad that you cannot find the man," she murmured. "You must occupy Monsieur so that he will not press you so hard."
Jainee sipped her chocolate and forebore to comment that Monsieur had many ways of pressing her hard, and she meant to use the only one to hand that would give her the advantage, just as Marie was suggesting.
She did not need to map things out for Marie. Marie's understanding was perfect; she could have been kin to Jainee herself— they shared a like mind, and still Marie had never overstepped her place. It was well. She knew exactly what Jainee wanted and ex-
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actly what to say in all situations. Marie was clever—she had been trained in the court of Murat and that spoke volumes for the precise way in which she attended Jainee.
Jainee licked the chocolate from her lips as Marie doused several candles and refreshed the fire.
"Monsieur may not choose to come tonight," she said reflectively.
"Monsieur will come," Marie said, pulling down the covers on the bed.
Yes, Jainee thought, Monsieur would; it didn't matter when. But if he were servicing that curdle-faced milksop tonight. . . how could she hold him for more than ten minutes?
And what right had he to turn murderous if other men wished to beg for her favors?
What if the whole adventure blew up in her face and Southam threw her in the streets? Would not one of those dear solicitous men grovel for the chance to become her protector?
She would be lost to all propriety then; appearances would not matter, only her will to survive. The boy would be gone forever and history would not record the passing of one base-born emperor's son, nor the rash and impulsive demise of his heedless mother and thoughtless half-sister who debased herself to pursue her mother's dream.
There were nights like this when she was sure Therese had manufactured a lie and that she had risked everything, lost her virtue and all honor on the bed of a promise and a fairy tale.
Some nights like this, for all the weeks she had been in London on the whim of a lord who suddenly turned out to have some obscure ulterior motive for having sponsored her, which had nothing to do with his obsession with her body, some nights like this, she felt frightened and alone.
How did one fight against that, and play him for all the time she could get? And when in the end it turned out that Charles Dalton was a fiction of her mother in heaven, what then? What then?
She had nothing with which to parry; no resources but a small cache of silver and the temptation of her body — fleeting things at best, but surely useful in negotiating another situation . . . somewhere, with someone else?
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But not yet. Not until he was finished with her, or she was finally caught in the lie; she was certain of one thing—she would never get away until he let her go.
Any other way would precipitate a surer scandal than anything else she had done thus far.
She poured another cup of chocolate and set aside the cover on her lap. The only thing she could do was keep Southam so entangled in her web of pleasure and gratification that he would not demand results sooner than she could possibly produce them.
She touched the satin strips on the bed and sipped lightly of the now cooling chocolate. It tasted thick and clotted on her tongue. It tasted of kisses and impropriety.
She turned and set the cup aside and then picked up one of the long satin strips and held it against her body. The light played off of its texture, infusing it with a slithery iridescence.
She held out her wrist and wound a length of it around her hand and halfway up her forearm.
Her skin was like ivory against the lustrous thong of satin binding her wrist and arm. It made her look helpless and strong both, fragile and powerful, an image of endurance and exquisite delicacy.
She unwound the strip and laid it out on the bed next to the others.
. . . his hands had shaken as he untied the ribbon laces of her slippers . . . and felt for the edge of her stocking . . .
She remembered, all of it, from that moment when she had devised the strips right straight through to his ultimate shattering possession of her.
The deed was done now; in that respect there was no turning back. She lifted the hem of her chintz robe and looked critically at the silky blue stockings that matched her gown.
Southam was unpredictable: he might choose to shun her tonight for some other more enticing entertainment. Or he might choose to appear in her room, mysterious as always, seeking to test her obedience to their bargain.
She felt a shiver of anticipation at the thought of flaunting his express dictates; she would never lay down and allow him to walk all over her. She would trip him up every which way she could con-
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ceive before she would surrender any power to him.
It was as simple as that: he might come, he could command, but she would do as she wished within the limits of his demands.
She shucked the chintz robe and began removing the thin shift that she had worn beneath the crepe underdress. In a moment, she stood naked before the fire, except for the thin blue stockings that encased her legs, and the knitted silver embroidered garters that held them up.
Her body felt hot and erect at the thought of what she meant to do. She reached over to the bed and took two of the long satin strips, and then she sat down by the fire, and slowly and luxuriously began winding them around her naked body.
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Lady Waynflete chose to return to the Ottershaw party. She could not see any way around it. To have departed so precipitously would wound Arabella's sensibilities needlessly. And to have missed seeing her dear friend Dunstan yet another time before the onset of the seasonal whirl would have been foolish beyond permission.
Besides, Blexter had strict instructions that Miss Bowman was to be kept within the confines of the house, and no one had leave to transport her anywhere but back to her room.
She was well-satisfied, in any event, that her dressing down had deeply affected Miss Bowman, but to what extent she could not tell: it would either chasten her or arouse still further brazen behavior. If she had to bet on it, she would have wagered on her protegee's outspoken flaunting of the rules, and because of that, she set her sights on finding Nicholas first and making it plain to him that Miss Bowman was not welcome in her home any longer than it took for Nicholas to find her a new situation.
How he would do that, she did not know or care to find out. Jeremy had warned her, after all, and then washed his hands of the whole matter, saying this was one Nick trick that was going to discharge a scandal that would resona
te into their lives forever.
Jeremy was a gloom and doomster, Lady Waynflete had decided long ago, and almost fanatically cautious. He was a perfect foil for Nick, and he had kept Nick hewed as close to the straight and nar-
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row as anyone could. But he had also developed a taste for the cards himself, and for the odd incomprehensible, astronomical wager that had to do with being a man among compatriots.
He would not forsake Nick so readily; he was, if anything, piqued at Nick's preoccupation with the Bowman, and cautiously searching for the underlying reasons. What he could not understand, he set aside until it made sense to him. Nick was not making sense at all, even less so than when he was at his worst in the gaming houses, and so he relinquished all responsibility until the time Nick would confide in him.
Lady Waynflete could do no such thing. She was stuck with the chit and her out and out assaults on Lady Waynflete's good nature. She would most certainly haul Nick over the coals for this; but in the end, she would do for him no less than his sainted adoptive mother would have done. But even her patience would have worn thin after several weeks of the girl's plainspokenness.
She greeted friends she had not seen the first around as she reentered the Ottershaw townhouse, and she immediately sought out Arabella Ottershaw, as she must, in good conscience, do.
"My dear," she exclaimed, grasping Lady Ottershaw's hands, "my guest has unfortunately had to return home. The headache— too much unaccustomed noise and company, I am afraid. I send her regrets and her gratitude for your including her among the guests."
"Yes, of course," Lady Ottershaw said distractedly, patting her friend's hand. "I am so sorry, but then — all for the best. Very gracious of her ... I do appreciate . . ."