“It’s quite mad, I know. And it’s only the most fitful consideration, along with more powerful self-chastising impulses for even thinking of Adam Serre with permanence. At base I’m furious with myself for falling in love with a flagrant libertine, and a married one at that.”
“His marriage surely is in name only,” Sarah reminded her.
“Nevertheless …” Flora sighed. “I have my romantic notions too, Auntie. When I think of how many marriage proposals I’ve turned down, it’s ironic. Every one of those men pledged their hearts and souls to me—like modern troubadours.”
“Apparently you weren’t in the market for a troubadour,” her aunt dryly remarked.
“Nor do I find a profligate rogue a sensible candidate for—what? I can’t even say ‘husband’; he’s already someone’s husband,” she fretfully noted.
“I’ve always rather thought the word ‘sensible’ out of place when it comes to love,” Sarah declared. “Ask your father, if you doubt it.”
“I know,” Flora quietly replied. “He told me about Mama insisting on marrying him, about how much they were in love. Papa sent me east because of his romantic notions.” She sighed again. “Unfortunately, Adam Serre doesn’t have a nodding acquaintance with romance.”
“Perhaps he can learn,” Sarah very softly said. She had an idea or two that might foster an appreciation of the finer points of romance in Adam Serre. And she intended to set her campaign in motion tonight. “Why don’t you take a short rest now, darling,” she suggested, “so you’ll be refreshed for the evening? We don’t want any dark circles under your eyes.”
“Please, Auntie, I’m not a prize heifer being readied for market,” Flora protested. “I don’t have to be toddled off for a rest so I’ll be in prime form for the buyers.”
“Forgive me, dear,” Sarah apologized with a cheerful smile. “Force of habit, after all these years. Both Bella and Becky were prone to show their fatigue under their eyes. You look magnificent. Perhaps you’d like to read instead until we have to dress for dinner. But if you’ll excuse me, I’ve some letters that need a reply.” She grimaced. “It’s an unending duty, but if I want to receive mail, I must answer mine,” she went on with a benign smile. “We’re promised to Charlotte’s for dinner at eight. A simple gown will do, for it’s essentially a family party.”
“I’m not sure I want to go,” Flora caviled. “The idea of being pleasant all evening seems a drudgery, and Adam probably won’t arrive until very late. He doesn’t even leave for the casinos until nine.”
“Humor me, darling,” her aunt cajoled. “You’re not planning on staying in Saratoga long, and I want to show you off to all your mama’s old friends. Your mama was the one, you know, who designed your strange education. The night she lay dying on that wretched ship in the Strait of Malacca she insisted I write down her wishes, and she wouldn’t shut her eyes until each item of study was documented. Your papa and I both signed the note; she wanted our word, you see, and then, when she was content we understood her proposals, she had you brought in. Reaching for your small hand, she whispered she loved you, and only then did she close her eyes. She fell into a coma within minutes—only sheer force of will had kept her conscious until then. But Susannah was the most determined woman I ever knew, and she’d be pleased you turned out so much like her.”
“I remember thinking she was only sleeping,” Flora softly said. “She looked so peaceful with her eyes shut and her hair brushed out on the pillow.”
“Your papa had just bathed her and washed her hair and put her locket with your and your papa’s picture around her neck. She wanted to look her best, she’d teased, even on her deathbed. Susannah was very beautiful—like you,” Sarah softly added. “It broke your papa’s heart to lose her. She would have followed him to the ends of the earth.”
“Papa didn’t tell me she was dead … for several days. I thought she was too sick to see me.”
“Your father couldn’t accept her death himself. She’d been such a vibrant woman. Even at the very last Susannah insisted on ordering the world to her wishes as if she could hold back the specter of death until her plans were complete.”
“She probably wouldn’t approve of my sighing regrets.”
“She always said she didn’t have time for regrets.”
“And I’m childishly feeling sorry for myself when I’m so fortunate in countless ways. Forgive me, Sarah, for my deplorable complaining. I shall be pleased to go to dinner at Charlotte’s. I’ll be ready at eight.”
“Capital, my dear,” her aunt said, gratified her plans were entrain. “Everyone will be pleased to visit with you. Now I’m off to my miserable letter writing.”
“You’ll appreciate this, Susannah,” Sarah Gibbon murmured, smiling heavenward as she sat at her desk a short time later, penning Charlotte Brewster a note. “Didn’t you always say faint hearts never win anything? Help me with the wording, now,” she said half-aloud, prone to ask her sister for advice in times of need.
She mentioned first in her hasty missive to her friend Charlotte that Adam Serre would be joining the party at her invitation, sometime during the evening. She wasn’t sure he’d come for dinner. Then she proceeded to request a certain seating arrangement at the dinner table, specifically for her niece and young Lord Randall, who was at Saratoga visiting his aunt Charlotte. The consensus was that he was vastly handsome, charming as his rakehell father had been in his youth, and in the market for a rich wife. Seeing Flora at the dinner table with Charlotte’s handsome nephew should force Adam Serre’s hand, at least marginally, she smugly thought, sealing her missive with a dab of wax.
Minutes later one of her footmen was speeding toward Charlotte’s house, a short block away. And now, Sarah reflected, what gown would be suitable for her niece tonight? She wanted to present a certain image, and Flora had explained to her last night on the way home that a dressmaker wouldn’t be required since she’d decided against her plan of seduction and would be returning to Montana in a few days. Yes, she was very sure, Flora had declared when her aunt had mildly questioned her motives.
How sweetly naive, Sarah had thought at the time: to give up one’s love for principle.
Since Adam Serre probably wasn’t so high-minded, she reflected with the cynicism of experience, she wished to add a certain fillip to Flora’s allure tonight. A simple purity would be effective, lending an unapproachable quality to her beauty. Perhaps a gown of white linen or a summer gown of pale muslin. No diamonds. She wanted to avoid any appearance of sophistication. Pearls would be perfect, especially in this heat. With some pastel ribbons in Flora’s hair. Sarah smiled as she sat at her boudoir window overlooking the elm-lined street. She hadn’t had so much fun since she’d married off her two daughters to the most eligible bachelors on the East Coast.
If she went to help Flora dress at six-thirty, she mused, that should be time enough to implement the perfect image. Now, if the darling girl would only cooperate. She had her mother’s strong will, but she also had her flirtatious bent. The question was, How much of the truth would bear revelation?
As it turned out, Flora was receptive to a simple gown with no more explanation required other than the stifling heat. “Of course, Auntie,” she agreed. “White linen would be perfect. And only one petticoat, if you don’t think me too daring. I refuse to sweat beneath an armor of irrelevant froth. It’s much too hot to be concerned with useless propriety.”
“What a sensible girl,” her aunt exclaimed, signaling the maid to take away the white linen for a final pressing. “And just small pearl earrings, don’t you think?”
“Or no earrings. I’d like to dispense with silk stockings too in this heat, but I suppose it would be considered too shocking,” Flora lamented.
“No earrings. How clever. You’ll look ever so much cooler,” Sarah appreciatively noted. “And I’d like to say yes to bare legs too, dear, but it would be altogether too risqué. How silly all the rules of etiquette when the temperature is nin
ety, but unfortunately there are minimum standards.” She had other reasons beyond those of etiquette, however, that discouraged the notion of stockingless legs. Her plan was to tantalize Adam until he clearly understood the extent of his affection for Flora. A temptation, as it were—just out of reach.
But she rather thought Flora’s nude legs might be too much of a temptation. Lust had a tendency to overrun an analytical approach to desire. And she definitely wanted Adam only to think about his need for Flora the next few days.
Chapter Seventeen
That evening at Morrissey’s Adam seemed distracted, enough so that two of his companions at the card table asked him if he was sober.
“Unfortunately, yes,” he said, his tone so clipped no one mentioned his inattention again.
But when he glanced at his watch shortly after ten, tossed his hand onto the table, and said, “I’m out,” in the middle of a heavy round of betting that he’d initiated, everyone registered their surprise in vocal accents of astonishment.
“I’ll be back later,” he simply said, pushing his chair back and rising.
“When later?” Caldwell drawled in his normal tone, which was just below a bellow. “Should we save your chair?”
Adam hesitated minutely. “No, I’ll find a spot when I come back.” And on that nonexplanation he strode from the private room on the second floor of Morrissey’s club.
“It’s that redhead from Montana,” Caldwell grunted, turning over Adam’s cards and spreading them out so the straight flush was revealed in undisguised splendor. “She must be damned hot, to walk away from this hand.”
“She’s from London,” someone said.
“Yorkshire,” another man corrected, “via several jaunts around the world. Her father is that earl who dug up a collection of ancient bronzes during one of those uprisings in China. It made the London Times’s front page. Donated the passel to the British Museum.”
“She there too?” Caldwell asked with some curiosity.
“That’s what the paper said. Shot a couple of the bandits herself.”
“Damn! I hope she don’t blow a hole in Adam’s head. He didn’t seem in a mood tonight to take no for an answer,” Caldwell said in so quiet a voice, heads swiveled to observe the phenomenon of Caldwell King muted.
His card-playing compatriots would have been even more surprised had they viewed Adam in the environment of a family party for a very young lady he didn’t in the least know. Dinner was almost over when he arrived, but he was seated for dessert, where he proceeded to ignore the lady on his right, to whom etiquette required he speak. Except for making the most bland replies to her conversational forays, he focused his heated attention instead on Flora Bonham and her dinner companion, Lord Robert Randall.
The Comte de Chastellux was noticeably restless when the covers were removed, the ladies left, and the port began its passage around the table. He conversed pleasantly enough with the men, taking compliments on his horses and their winning style, but he drank considerably more than his share, a fact noted by his host, who had orders from his wife to see that the men appeared in the drawing room in no more than an hour—specifically the Comte de Chastellux, and still walking under his own power, Mr. Brewster understood. He didn’t know Charlotte’s plans or care to know them. She’d simply made it clear he must not dally over the port and cigars if he wished his household to be run with his comfort in mind.
Such stern warning kept Ezekiel Brewster’s eye sharply on the clock and on the count’s liquor consumption, for he’d suffered his wife’s wrath only once before and learned from the experience.
At ten minutes short of the hour, the men returned to the drawing room.
“How opportune,” Charlotte exclaimed with a beaming smile as the men entered the beautiful Adams drawing room that had survived unscathed the ruinous redecorating blighting so many Federal homes. “You’re just in time for charades.”
Adam inwardly groaned. This evening was going to test the limits of his good manners. It wasn’t even possible to get near Flora, for she was hemmed in by females—one on either side of her on the sofa, others in nearby chairs.
He took a seat near the door and endured a round of inept pantomime along with a cup of very weak tea. After the second charade had stumblingly continued through numerous clues for almost twenty minutes, he brusquely said, “Hold, or cut bow strings, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, act one,” simply to end his misery.
His tone of voice must have signaled his hostess, for Charlotte suggested a change of pace—a short recital of her granddaughter’s piano repertoire. As the guests moved to the embrasure holding the piano, Adam maneuvered through the throng, forcibly took Flora by the arm, and propelled her to a distant corner of the drawing room, where he said a shade bluntly, “Please sit.”
Dropping down beside her on the settee, he murmured, “This is torture.”
“Too much excitement?” Flora sweetly queried.
He grimaced. “I have future recitals to look forward to, no doubt, once Lucie becomes more proficient on the piano.”
“Perhaps you could help select the music. And Lucie’s performance will be more animated than Charlotte’s granddaughter, I suspect. Isn’t the young girl bland?”
“Which one is she?”
“The one at the piano, darling. Pay attention.”
“I’m still numb from forty minutes of appalling charades. And,” he added with a grin, “I prefer watching you. You look very cool tonight—without your petticoats.”
“Leave it to you to notice.”
“Every man here tonight noticed, bia.” He slipped into a more comfortable sprawl and crossed his legs at the ankle. “Particularly when you left the dining room. Your new beau, Lord Randall, couldn’t take his eyes from you.” Adam was relaxed and smiling again now that he had Flora to himself. “Will I have to call him out?”
“And disgrace me?” she replied, flirtatious, smiling. “You’re a married man.”
“I’m also a jealous man.” His glance strayed to the lord in question and narrowed slightly. “He needs to be warned off,” he grumbled.
“I hope you’re not serious, but if you are, Adam, no. I’ll be leaving in a few days, anyway,” she added.
“Rumor has it he’s looking for a rich wife since his father gambled away the family resources.”
“Now, if only I was in the market for a simple nobleman with nothing to recommend him but his looks and smile,” Flora sardonically replied. “I’m afraid I’d grow bored in short order, though. He spoke of himself almost exclusively. I know his tailor and his clubs, his prowess at the hunt and at cricket, and had I not stopped him, I would have had a recital of the aristocratic ladies he’s bedded.”
Adam grinned. “You’re not enamored, then, with his golden good looks. I’m relieved.”
“I find myself enamored instead with a half-blood married to another woman,” she quietly said.
His smile disappeared, and she thought for a moment she’d lost him with her candor.
He glanced around the room as if finding himself in an alien sphere and then, turning back to her, murmured, “I find myself wondering how much you mean to me that I’m at a stranger’s house in hopes only of speaking with you.” His eyes were grave, his voice low, constrained. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Nor I,” Flora whispered.
“I can’t even ask you to leave here without scandal.”
“Nor could I if you did. These are my mother and aunt’s friends.”
He smiled faintly, as if he found some humor in his suffering. “I’ve had tea twice in two days. A record in my reprobate life. Is this love?”
“It is for me.”
His eyes seemed suddenly to impale her with their sharp gaze. “When did you know?” His voice was hushed.
“Yesterday, today … I’m not sure, Adam … maybe only this instant. I don’t want this any more than you do,” she fervently murmured. “I’m trying to deny it. Really I am.”
“Why?” The softest of sounds.
“Why? Good God, Adam,” she whispered. “For all the obvious reasons. Because you’re married already. Because I’m selfish. Because I won’t share you. Because you don’t know what love is,” she finished almost in a fury.
The other guests were beginning to cast surreptitious glances their way, the intensity of Flora’s vehement response vibrating across the room—in resonance if not clarity.
Adam outstared the curious gazes until each flustered guest succumbed to his icy regard and reluctantly returned their attention to the pianist.
“Maybe I do know what love is,” he quietly said, turning back to her, his eyes restive and moody. “Maybe it’s sacrificing a straight flush to arrive here before dinner’s over,” he slowly said. “Maybe it’s thinking you look like an angel tonight in that plain gown with ribbons in your hair,” he added, sudden tenderness in his voice. “Or maybe it’s telling myself I can’t touch you when that’s all I want to do every minute of the day,” he tensely added. “Maybe it’s an unwelcome celibacy and cold baths that don’t do a damned bit of good. Maybe it’s not fucking you,” he heatedly finished.
Tears came to her eyes for his struggles and his indomitable strength, for his ardent desire and terse resentment. For his appearance here tonight.
“Lord, Flora, don’t cry,” he pleaded, sitting up, instantly contrite. He quickly searched for some means of escape for them, but the only exit was past the entire roomful of guests. “Tell me what you want me to do,” he murmured, taking her hands in his, “and I’ll do it.”
“I don’t know,” she whispered, happy, sad, skittish with indecision.
“I’ll come to see you in the morning,” he abruptly declared. “We’ll go somewhere and talk. There are too many people here, the music is incredibly bad, and I’m ready to put my fist through the wall.”
Her smile reassured him. He was uncomfortable with tears. “And you have to spend your winnings at Tiffany’s,” he added, comfortable, at least, with pleasing women. “I’ll feed you breakfast at Crum’s first. He’ll open early for me. His trout and fried potatoes are the best in the world.”
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