by Edith Layton
But then, he realized, such supposition was pointless, had she come from his world, she’d have accepted his offer when it was made. For, as he’d noted and the duchess herself had confirmed, the chit liked him very well. In any event, the only other gentleman she showed a care for, however she attempted to conceal it from him, was Deal, and the Viking, the earl thought on a grimace, showed no signs of needing either of the things she could offer him: a wife or a fortune.
But the earl badly needed the one benefit she held out, and though he’d lately had different dreams of his own, he was committed to realism now, and so was hourly growing more reconciled to the other aspect of her dower as well. He was determined to have her, in any event. Which was why he’d taken this bold step this evening. There was little time left to do else. This candid young woman would have to be shown the truth of the matter outright before there could ever be a union between them, and that union would have to be accomplished soon. His creditors were growing more vocal with each passing week, even as she spoke more frequently each day of returning to her home, and so of passing beyond his reach.
As yet, there was no need for anything so drastic as an abduction or a forced lesson in marital technique of a more physical sort. He was glad of this; he wasn’t the sort of gentleman who’d instantly enjoy employing such tactics, nor did he think there’d ever be a chance for any real pleasure between them if they began in such a manner, even though the duchess assured him that due to her upbringing the American girl both expected and would appreciate such a spirited courtship.
The duchess was a tough old bit of mutton, and as it became apparent that she disliked her American visitor prodigiously, the earl found himself beginning to doubt the lady when she told him the time of day. No, he wouldn’t employ such crass methods of bringing the young woman to heel. He was a thoughtful gentleman. But he’d never had a similar experience to guide him and could only deduce the extent of her, and perforce his, problem. For all his worldliness, desirable females had always fallen into only four categories: unwed and thus untouchable, married and either willing or unwilling, and professional. Of all of them, of course, he’d had the least to do with the first group.
Although he knew nothing about young unmarried chits, he believed all females must share a commonality and so he’d thought he’d hit upon the answer the night she’d fled his arms. The rightness of his supposition had been borne out when she’d readily admitted her sorrow at her lack of passionate response. It was clear to him that only Miss Hamilton’s shame for her secret desires could account for her fear of his, or any man’s, embraces.
This night, much in the fashion of an impatient gardener who brings winter-barren branches into a hothouse, he would attempt to force her to an earlier bloom than expected, in order to meet his own schedule. He would try to bring her to adulthood all in a night, and in so doing, inflame all the hidden sensuality he believed her capable of as well. If he could achieve these aims, indeed, if he could do no more than remove her fear of him, he’d remove her last objection from his path in far more civilized and equitable fashion than the duchess suggested.
But if it were not possible to arouse her, it would be an unfortunate, but not a devastating circumstance. Nature was kind in that respect, and wise as well. A female didn’t have to love the business of making love to produce an heir for her husband; if that were so then it would be, he thought on a chuckle, leaning back in the carriage, a lonely old world indeed. Tonight’s errand would be enough to remove her objections to the match, of this he was sure. For it would illustrate the foolishness of her trepidations to her by showing her that all the world, and the fashionable world as well, commonly partook of such pleasures. A child learned by observation, he rationalized, and so he would see to it then that she had a great deal to observe this night.
He told her none of this. She was, after all, very young, and as he was a great deal older in many ways, he decided he knew better than to engage in a debate with her. Moreover, he believed if she knew what she faced she’d find a way of defending herself from the truth of it, as all prejudiced people do when confronted with an anticipated argument against their cherished beliefs. Yet even if she were intractable and if she learned nothing from this evening’s efforts, the circumstances alone, apart from the duchess’s kind cooperation, would ensure her future acquiescence. He’d rather she welcomed the match, but it was being made even as they traveled onward, nonetheless. There was little for him to do now but wait upon events. Thus, they rode in complete silence until he recognized the street the coach entered. Then he reached into his pocket to withdraw a gift for her. But as he handed it across to where she sat huddled in the furthest corner of the carriage, she shrank back from him.
“Oh come, my dear Miss Hamilton,” he drawled, “look before you cower. It’s only a demi-mask. It’s got holes for the eyes, and no teeth at all. Put it on, my dear, and like the youth in the fairy tales with his cape of invisibility, you shall be able to see without being seen. And that’s rather important where we’re going tonight.”
Faith sat straight up at his words as though he were a strict governess threatening her with a backboard, rather than an abductor menacing her with the unimaginable.
“I am not cowering,” she said staunchly, though she felt like trying to creep beneath the floorboards as she spoke, and had been attempting to judge the speed of the coach for some time now, wondering when she might be able to leap from it without breaking her neck.
“And I don’t want to go with you anywhere,” she went on, trying very hard not to sound like the frightened child she felt, “and I’m appalled at your behavior, my lord. I am, I really am. What you’re doing is no more than kidnapping, pure and simple, and I’m not at all entertained by it, and I wish you’d forget whatever bad joke this is, and if you do, I promise I’ll forget all of this as well,” she said in a rush, as the coach slowed to a halt and she realized she didn’t want to get out any more than she wished to remain within it with this man who was suddenly a stranger to her.
“But I don’t want you to forget it,” he said pleasantly. “My whole aim is that you’ll remember every moment of it. Now, if I wished to use you for my foul purposes, I promise you I would have done so already and not wasted all this time traveling across town. I don’t know what you do in the Americas, but here, at least, a comfortable bed is not necessary for such sport, an uncomfortable carriage will do just as nicely for us,” he smiled, even as she wondered from the amiability of his words and the incongruity of his actions, which one of them had run mad.
“I want you to like me, Faith,” he said sincerely as she gazed down at the proffered bit of velvet and buckram he held out to her, “and so I don’t mean to hurt you, and here is my pledge that I’ll keep you from harm, but only if you stay by my side, and if you say not one word, whatever you see, and if you keep this over your face. Only your eyes will be open to insult, my dear, and at that, you may well discover as many another has, that it’s less of an offense than it is a rare treat. But don’t fret,” he said, laughing, “I’ll never ask you to admit as much to me.
“But I do insist that you put on that mask, and that you leave the carriage with me now,” he said in less conciliatory tones, sounding more like a harsh schoolmaster than the friend he claimed to be. “We’ll only pass a little time within this house, and then we’re off to another even more interesting one for a short while, and then, alas, our time is up and I’ll have to take you home again. By then, of course, you will understand why it would be in your better interest to claim we’d passed all the time at Vauxhall together tonight, attempting to locate the duchess and Lady Mary, and to never breathe a word of this excursion to anyone else.”
She managed to tie the mask on, if only to prevent him from coming close enough to do it himself as he began to indicate he meant to do, and as she fumbled with the strings, he added, “Because you understand, my dear, that with your reputation, no one, absolutely no one, will believe that you were
forced to it.”
The house was a stately white townhouse, with gilded railings and a burly footman on guard at the door. He was gotten up in the gorgeous fashion of another era, clad all in green silks with a powdered periwig. And so Faith thought that for some bizarre reason her companion was making a game of taking her to a masquerade. But the earl wore no mask of any sort; in fact, she noted, the footman seemed to recognize and acknowledge him as he bowed them into the house.
The huge main salon was overwarm, and overfurnished, and overly gilded, and too many candles, inadequately grouped, gave insufficient light to the scene. It was overcrowded as well within, and so it took several moments for Faith’s eyes to adjust to the areas of golden light contrasted with deep shadow, as well as to the sting of scent which lay heavy in the air, along with the almost visible aromas of tallow and snuff, and smoke from cheroots. All the while that she blinked and sniffed at the air, the earl propelled her further into the room.
A sweet-faced elderly woman swam into her circle of vision, and Faith was able to focus upon her as she came directly up to the earl. She found herself comforted merely at the sight of the dignified lady in her purple turban as she came forward to greet the earl, and began to at last take a lively interest in whatever odd jest the earl was playing on her with all his theatrics. But even as the lady said, with evident delight in her cultured tones, “Ah, my lord, how good to see you again. But I see you’ve brought your own entertainment tonight—no matter, we welcome you,” Faith began to take more careful note of her surroundings, and began to believe her senses entirely disordered.
There were groups of gentlemen everywhere within the room, chatting, laughing, drinking, and standing together. None of them wore masks, as none of the ladies present did. And in each group of gentlemen there were several ladies included. Although at first it had appeared that these ladies were as magnificently attired as the doorman had been, as Faith grew accustomed to the inconstant light, she saw what she could scarcely believe she saw, that these females wore less than all their costumes.
Some stood in what appeared to be their shifts, some wore even less, some had only the bottom portion of their persons draped with any fabric at all. Perhaps because such semi nudity was commonplace, everywhere, Faith now perceived, as her eyes accommodated themselves to their new surroundings enough to take note of detail, gentlemen openly fondled those portions of the females that were uncovered, some so casually and absently that it appeared as if they toyed with an adjacent breast or buttock as other men might finger a fob or a quizzing glass when they were speaking.
The earl had warned her not to speak, but at that moment Faith could not have uttered a word even if that word could have freed her from this nightmare world, as she inchoately wished someone could. For then the elderly lady smiled at them again and sailed across the room to greet another arrival, as the earl guided Faith to another, less frequented corner of the room.
“You are safe,” he whispered, lowering his cool lips to speak directly into her ear, “for you see,” he gestured, indicating another masked lady, who stood with a gentleman silently watching a couple entwined on the cushions on a settee, “real ladies,” he went on so softly that no one save Faith heard him, “generally only come here to watch the gentlemen and the hired help. Some, I’m told, find it inspiring. But the gentlemen! Ah my dear, that fellow so pleasantly engaged before us might be only an unknown young chap, but look about you. There are dukes as well as earls here, all sorts of peers of the realm. You might even discover someone you know. Shall we look for the Viking tonight?” he asked gaily. “It would not be something wonderful to find him here, you know. Some nights even royalty visits Mother Carey’s establishment to play with her chicks; it’s quite the established thing to do.”
But Faith stared with incredulity as the couple on the settee became more entangled and she at last remembered exactly what they were about to do with each other. Then she, forgetting all else, and trembling so that the earl looked at her sharply, gasped all at once, in a panic, “I must go, oh I must go, only let me go from here,” and she pulled desperately against his hold upon her arm.
The gentleman on the settee did not look up from his endeavors at this, for he had gone too far to hear her, but his partner, who was, after all, only paid to participate, glanced up from her charade of ecstasy at the words. The masked lady and her escort were diverted enough to stare at Faith curiously as well. At that, the earl gripped her arm hard and dragged her away from their notice.
“Are you mad?” he demanded.
She made no answer, but did not cease trembling, and he saw even in that strange gilded light that her eyes were wide and frantic and that what he could see of her face was as white as death. He murmured something angrily beneath his breath and, still holding Faith by the arm, quickly made his way to the door again.
It was his sudden stab of terrible self-doubt, as strong as it was rare, that made him relax his hold on her as the footman opened the door for their exit. It was the concern at what had chased him from her premises so soon after he’d arrived that caused the proprietress of the establishment to rush after him. It was the fact that she was no match for his long legs that caused her to signal for her doorman to intercept him on the outer stairs just as he motioned for his carriage once again. And it was his attempt to assure them both that nothing was amiss, so that they would not study his companion too closely, that made him loose his hold on Faith completely so that he could push her toward the open door of his coach.
So it was when he had done with reassuring the pair as to their establishment’s excellence and his own health’s untimely failure, and had turned back to join Faith in the carriage, that as he bent double to step inside he was arrested in mid-motion when he saw that she was not there. And then he stepped out again and spun around to stare about wildly and discover that she was entirely gone from his sight.
The only sound within the room was the deep steady pulse of the clock on the mantel. It was too warm an evening to lay a fire and so there was no glow and sputter and crackle of flame to enliven the atmosphere either. The only motion in the room was that of the thin brown liquid swirled about as the gentleman turned his wrist and contemplated the depths of the goblet he held. Other than that, even he, clad in a dressing gown and sunk in the depths of a club chair, stayed as still and silent as any picture on the wall in the dimly lit room. And the only diversion the gentleman had was the thought that he’d never need hire a rat-catcher to inspect his townhouse. For if he’d had so much as mouse in the place, he thought, its steps would have rung out like hoofbeats had it ventured one paw’s worth across the floor.
He didn’t know, he sighed, why he expected more. It was late, his house guest was already abed, filled with so much of the liquid his host was now inspecting in his glass to ensure his rest that it was doubtful he could have opened one eye if a horse had indeed galloped across his bedchamber. The servants had retired for the evening, and it being a bachelor establishment there were few female servitors, and those few all nearly as old as the male retainers, so there wasn’t even a hint of a giggle, scurry, or tip-toe issuing from their quarters either. No, Barnabas Stratton thought, staring dully at his glass, the only one awake in the entire establishment was the gent who owned the place, and he, poor wretch, sat up watching over it as sleepless as a night watchman with a bad tooth.
“But when he got there, the cupboard was bare, and so the poor lord had none,” the lone gentleman whispered to himself on a scowl, and drained off the rest of the liquid in his glass rapidly in a morose toast, deciding belatedly that he really didn’t care for the stuff at all.
But none of it was his fault, he argued with himself. He’d started the night with high hopes. He and Will Rossiter had gone to the Cumberland Gardens and strolled about for a fruitless hour netting just what they might on any night there, which was only greetings from several acquaintances and invitations from several strange young females who wished to make their mo
re intimate acquaintances. They’d gone at last to make inquiries in the coach line, and discovered that the duchess’s carriage was not in wait there, nor was there any hired hack engaged by the earl. It was only as they rode toward Vauxhall Gardens, thinking their informant might have gotten the letter of their destination wrong but the spirit of it right, that they saw the duchess’s carriage in a line in front of the Swansons’ townhouse. And while the duchess might have at the eleventh hour opted to go to one of the Swansons’ musical evenings, Barnabas had told his young guest firmly he did not think he’d led a wicked enough life as yet to deserve having to attend another one this side of Judgment Day.
They’d dined alone, and Will had been so despondent, and had done such an excellent imitation of a sponge, both conversationally and literally, that after Barnabas congratulated him on the imposture, he’d also promised him that they’d call on Lady Mary and her guest the very next morning. But now, Will was likely deep in woozy but happy dreams of that forthcoming meeting, and his host was wide awake to the problems the poor lad faced all unknowing, as well as to the problem he himself faced, that he had only begun to know.
It was a lonely night that capped an empty week, and the gentleman arose to refill his cup at least, when he at last heard a small noise that nevertheless intruded and pierced the bland silence. He froze at once. His senses suddenly changed from mossy introspection to preparation for combat. He waited for the next telling sound to identify the source, and had a moment to regret he was not a more conventional fellow as he pictured a chase that might erupt from this room to spill out into the street, as it once had done when he’d discovered a cracksman entering his library through a window. He was not best thrilled with the fact that as usual, he wore nothing beneath his dressing gown, wincing as he pictured what a glorious sight he’d make running the miscreant down St. James Street. He sighed; it was only another reason he’d have to hope there was only one intruder and that that one could be rendered unconscious with only a few blows.
