Rake's Progress: A Novel of Regency England - Being the Fourth Volume of A House for the Season

by M. C. Beaton

  “No. Enough. I do not believe a word of it,” cried Esther, shocked because her treacherous body was reacting physically to his words as if he had caressed her. “Where are we going, my lord? We appear to be wandering aimlessly.”

  “I have not the faintest idea where we are,” he said easily.

  “Oh, I have been following you blindly. Poor Miss Fipps. She must be mad with worry.”

  “Not she. I came across her and your servants outside the theatre. I told her to be easy in her mind as I was sure I would find you. I told her to wait for half an hour and then return to Berkeley Square. She is not as strong as she appears.”

  “You do know her,” said Esther. “You have known her before. I see it all now. Deceitful Rainbird. And I so grateful to him for having provided me with a companion at such short notice. She is one of your poor relations!”

  “She is my cousin.”

  “And you foisted her on me!”

  “Come, my excellent and sensible Miss Jones. I would not have you companioned by any silly woman. I care for you.”

  “It also saved you from having a poor relation in your own household.”

  “True.”

  “Miss Fipps may leave tonight.”

  “Why? She seems to fill the post excellently. And would you deny that she has an affection for you?”

  “How can I tell?” said Esther wretchedly. “You have been plotting and scheming behind my back. I know what it is! You do not have any money.”

  “On the contrary, I am very rich.”

  “Why don’t you leave me alone?”

  “Alas, I cannot.”

  “You want me to stay alive, I presume. Then… GET ME HOME!”

  “You are shivering,” said Lord Guy. “It is quite amazing how a spleenish temper can reduce one’s temperature.”

  “I am not in a temper,” said Esther. “I want to get out of this fog.”

  “And so you shall. We shall repair to some tavern or coffee-house and find out where we are.”

  Esther tried to see his face, but the fog was so thick, she found it was like being blind.

  “Are you sure you do not know the way?” she asked.

  “On my honour. There are sounds coming from the left. Let us go that way.”

  A dim blur of light suddenly appeared a few inches before their eyes.

  “In here,” he said.

  Esther drew back. “I cannot go into a common tavern, my lord.”

  “Then let us hope it is an uncommon one, for I cannot walk around in this fog much longer.”

  Lord Guy ushered Esther into a dark, foggy taproom. There were two men sitting in a corner, half asleep, but apart from them, there were no other customers.

  They sat side by side on a settle in front of the fire. The landlord came bustling up. “Where are we?” asked Lord Guy.

  “You’re in George Yard, sir, off of Long Acre, sir.”

  “Oh, we have wandered. Fetch me the ingredients for a punch.”

  “I would prefer lemonade,” said Esther after a few moments’ silence.

  “Punch will warm you,” he said.

  “Punch might make me drunk.”

  “That I should like to see—the disintegration of the stony-faced Miss Jones.”

  “I am not stony-faced!”

  “Yes, you are. Quite like a statue, down to the smear of soot on your nose.”

  Esther gave an exclamation of distress. She pulled a steel mirror out of her reticule and dabbed at her nose with a handkerchief.

  “Here. Allow me,” he said softly. He took the handkerchief from her hand and put a finger under her chin and tilted her face up. He rubbed at the spot of soot, and smiled down into her wide eyes. Her lips, he noticed, were very soft and pink. He remembered how they had felt when he had kissed her in the Park. That memory gleamed in his eyes, and Esther jerked her head away as the landlord came up carrying a tray with two lemons, half a pint of rum, half a pint of brandy, a quarter of a pound of sugar, half a teaspoon of nutmeg, and a kettle of hot water and a large bowl.

  “Would you like me to prepare it?” he asked, but Lord Guy waved him away.

  Esther watched him prepare the punch, first rubbing the sugar loaves over the rind of the lemons until they were yellow. He appeared completely absorbed in his task. She noticed again the mocking droop to his eyelids and the humorous twist to his mouth, the aristocratic nose, and the glint of his golden hair. Although he looked remarkably clean and fresh, as if he had come straight from the hands of his valet rather than out of a London fog, she persuaded herself he had a shop-soiled, used look. No one could live the life he had led without that life corrupting his very soul. Her lip curled in distaste, and then she found he was looking at her curiously.

  “You sit there, making me feel like a piece of rotting meat,” he said. “Have I such a bad smell?”

  “I was thinking of your immortal soul, my lord.”

  “To err is human, to forgive divine, Miss Jones, or had you forgotten?”

  She compressed her lips into a disapproving line and did not reply.

  He finished preparing the punch and handed her a glass. Esther sipped it cautiously, but it tasted sweet and tangy and remarkably innocuous.

  “Why do you persist in living in Town?” he asked.

  “I do not like the country.”

  “Why, pray?”

  “What a lot of questions you do ask,” sighed Esther as he refilled her glass. “I like the Town because it is ordered and tame. One can remain anonymous. In the country, everyone gossips and everyone knows one’s business.”

  “You will find, as you mean to join the ranks of society, that people here gossip much more. You see, they have nothing else to do. They watch each other the whole time, searching for scandal, searching for weak spots in the social armour. But I would have thought the children might have benefitted from country air. Have you never even taken them to Brighton?”

  “No, my lord.”

  “You cannot go on forever inflicting your fears on your little brother and sister. They should have the company of other children….”

  “Like those monsters at the children’s party?”

  “Those monsters were with their mamas. With their tutors and governesses, you will find them quite different. And Peter should have a tutor. Can he ride or fish or hunt?”

  “There is no need to do any of these things in London.”

  “I wish someone would tell that to the Berkeley Hunt.” Lord Guy laughed. “They hunt up to the very walls of Kensington Palace, crashing their way through gardens and cucumber frames after a bag fox.”

  “Peter is being taught to ride Snowball, that little mare I rescued in the Park while you, my lord, were in a trance. Do you really think I ought to drink any more of this stuff?”

  “Yes. I apologise for my fit in the Park. It seems I have only to hear or see anything which reminds me of battle and I find myself whirled back among the dead and dying.”

  “But surely you need not fear the sights and sounds of war anymore,” said Esther.

  He looked puzzled. “You mean I shall become hardened like a proper soldier?”

  “I mean you will not be returning to the wars….”

  “On the contrary, my love. I have every intention of going back to take up my command as soon as our honeymoon is over.”

  “Ah, so you are like all other men. You would marry for the sake of a nursery and then leave your wife while you lead an entirely separate life.”

  “I had hoped you would come with me. Wellington will not stay in Portugal forever. We will soon be in Spain.”

  Esther stared at him, round-eyed.

  “It is not unusual,” he said. “Many men have their wives with them.”

  “If you loved me, you would not expose me to danger.”

  “I would not expect you to join me in the front lines, my amazon.”

  “And what of Peter and Amy?”

  “Peter would go to school—which would deli
ght him. Amy would go to my father’s with Miss Fipps, where she would play all day long with all my little nieces and nephews.”

  “But we hardly know each other, and yet you have everything planned.”

  “Love activates the brain wonderfully.”

  “Do not talk fustian. What of my stocks and shares?”

  “You have enough money, my greedy darling. You will not need very much in the army. Say I am not successful in dragging you to the altar, what will your life be like?”

  “Much the same,” said Esther. “Ordered and comfortable and—”

  “Dull. Oh, so dull. You cannot keep turning to a strange butler for help.”

  “I intend to offer Rainbird a post in my household.”

  “But will he take it? He has responsibilities. I tell you, Miss Jones, that is not a staff of servants I have at Clarges Street. That is a tribe, and Rainbird is the headman. If you can imagine them all dressed in beads and feathers and carrying spears, you might be able to understand them better.”

  Esther did not know quite how it happened, but suddenly the idea of the servants dressed as primitive savages struck her as exquisitely funny. She threw back her head and laughed, her cloak sliding from her shoulders to show the magnificence of her gown and emerald necklace.

  The two men who had been sitting in the corner got to their feet and sidled out. Lord Guy watched them go.

  Then he turned his attention to Esther, who was still laughing.

  “You are foxed, my sweeting,” he said.

  Esther stopped laughing. “Is that what it is?” she asked.

  “Perhaps. Have some more.”

  “I would not take any,” said Esther, holding out her glass, “were I not persuaded you are mistaken. The warmth from the fire is having a beneficial effect on me.”

  “We cannot stay here much longer,” said Lord Guy. “Two rough-looking men left after they had seen your necklace. They may have gone to find accomplices.”

  “Fiddle!” laughed Esther, who was feeling wonderfully elated.

  “Mayhap they will become lost in the fog, although these rats are used to hunting by night. Darling Esther, I could sit with you here until the end of time, but I fear we might be in danger.”

  “You have no right to call me Esther,” said Esther owlishly. “Not even when we are married. I shall call you Carlton and you shall call me Lady Guy.”

  “I am glad you have decided to marry me,” he said. He took out a piece of paper and held it up. “See! Special license.”

  “No!” cried Esther. “I was funning. How could you get a special license?”

  “One of my second cousins is married to a bishop.”

  “Why such haste? Why? If and when I get married, the wedding will be set for a year after the engagement, as is proper.”

  “Dear Esther, under that gloriously prim exterior is a wild and dangerous woman who might marry anyone to spite me. I intend to have you all to myself, and as soon as possible.”

  “Well, you shan’t,” said Esther. “This may surprise you, my lord, but I am Untouched!”

  “Bravo,” he said, amused. “I would not have you any other way.”

  “Whereas you, my lord, have had many women.”

  “I have been at the wars a long time,” he said. “My … er … pleasures were few and far between.”

  “Nonetheless, the idea of any intimacy with such as you repels me.”

  He put his hands on either side of her face and looked searchingly into her eyes. “You may be right,” he said seriously. “I would not have an unwilling bride. Still, it is better to make sure.”

  He bent his head and kissed her. Esther sat unresponsive in his embrace. Her lips were cold and firm. When he raised his mouth, her eyes were hard.

  He looked at her in surprise and dismay.

  Then the door of the tap crashed open and four men shouldered their way inside. The landlord, who had been approaching to make up the fire, took one look at them and vaulted back over the counter and disappeared from sight.

  Lord Guy rose to his feet, holding his stick as they approached.

  It was a silly stick, he reflected vaguely, a small black ebony piece of nonsense with a silver knob and a silver tassel.

  Esther rose to her feet as well and stood behind him.

  The leader of the four men was squat and burly. “Hand over the gewgaws,” he said, “and you won’t be hurt.”

  Lord Guy stood very still, looking at the men. Then, “Stand back,” he said to Esther in a low voice.

  Esther moved away behind him to the side of the fire, desperately looking about her for a weapon.

  Lord Guy continued to stand facing the men. Why didn’t he do something? thought Esther.

  “ ’E’s struck dumb,” said one of the men with a coarse laugh. “Let’s get on wiff it, or we’ll be ’ere all night.”

  The leader advanced on Lord Guy.

  One minute Lord Guy was standing there, looking at them languidly, the next he moved like lightning. He swung his cane and brought the knob of it down on the leader’s head with a sickening crack, and then dodged and feinted as the others rushed in. He threw the next assailant across the tap, swung and kicked the third member of the gang in the teeth, whirled about and seized the punch-bowl and threw the contents in the last man’s face. Then he seized Esther by the hand and dragged her out of the tavern, hauling her along the street behind him, until he finally came to a stop.

  He pulled her into his arms and held her close while he listened for sounds of pursuit.

  All around them the streets hidden in their winding sheets of London fog lay empty and deserted.

  “Take me home,” whispered Esther, shivering. “I want to go home.”

  “Then kiss me.”

  “No.”

  “I shall keep you here until morning. Kiss me.”

  “It is not ladylike,” said Esther in a choked voice. “Oh, very well.”

  She could not see his face and her kiss landed on his cheek. He held her tightly and his searching mouth found her own. He buried his lips in hers, ignoring her lack of response, moving his mouth gently on her own, and then more fiercely, until he felt her begin to respond. Esther at first thought she must be drunk. Her legs felt shaky and her arms felt weak. She could not hold out against him. All the punch she had drunk and the fright she had received, combined with the strangeness of the night, took away the last of her defences. If his hands had wandered, if he had tried for further intimacies, she would have taken fright and pushed him away. But for that moment in time, Lord Guy felt that just kissing her was enough. Once he became sure of her response, he settled down to the simple hedonistic delight of kissing someone he loved, adding tenderness to experience, feeling her body come alive, and the heavy weight of her hair beneath his hands as he held the back of her neck.

  He did not say anything, fearing that to say words of love, or to demand them, would break the spell. If Miss Esther Jones was content with silent and sometimes savage kissing in the middle of a foggy anonymous London street, then Lord Guy Carlton was happy to give her what she wanted.

  The hoarse cry of the watch sounding from far away brought them back to reality.

  “I would never be sure,” said Esther in a low, shaky voice, “that you were faithful to me.”

  “Every man does silly things at some time in his life,” he said. “If only you had done something silly, Esther, then you would be glad of the shelter of my unrespectable arms. Take a risk. Marry me. Surely even the respectable Miss Jones knows she cannot kiss a man in a London street and not marry him. I could gossip, you know, and damn you as a wanton.”

  “But you will not.”

  “Ah, if I am such a paragon, then I am respectable enough for you. By all that’s holy, I hear a carriage.”

  The sound of horses’ hooves plodding along came to their ears.

  “Hey!” called Lord Guy. “I say, driver!”

  The bulk of a carriage loomed up, a blacker blackn
ess in the fog.

  “I’m lost,” came a plaintive voice from the box. “Strothers is the name. You sound like a gentleman.”

  “George Strothers!” cried Lord Guy. “It is I, Carlton.”

  Lord Guy turned to Esther. “One of my drinking companions,” he said. He turned back to the carriage. “Strothers, take us up and get us somewhere civilised.”

  “Can’t,” said Mr. Strothers. “Try your hand with the ribbons if you like, Carlton, but I’ve been driving my poor beasts around and around for hours trying to find the way home.”

  Mr. Strothers slid along to the passenger seat, and Lord Guy helped Esther up onto the box. Lord Guy took the reins, and, with Esther between them, they set out through the fog.

  By dint of stopping when they saw a linkboy’s torch and by diligently asking every shape they could see in the fog, Lord Guy and Esther managed to pilot the carriage up into Broad Street, along Broad Street to High Street and then into Oxford Street, down Bond Street, round into Hay Hill and so into Berkeley Square. Esther and Lord Guy thanked Mr. Strothers and sent him on his way to his house in Hill Street off Berkeley Square. Esther thought it odd that she did not even know what Mr. Strothers looked like.

  To her distress, Lord Guy followed her into her home. She was overset with the events of the evening, the effects of the punch were melting away, and she was becoming horrified at her own behaviour. Miss Fipps appeared in her undress, wearing quite the largest nightcap Lord Guy could ever remember seeing. She cooed with distress over Esther’s adventures, her faded eyes wide with distress, and Esther, who had planned to dismiss Miss Fipps, found herself glad of her companion’s motherly concern.

  But no sooner had Miss Fipps seen the couple furnished with the tea-tray and warmed by a roaring fire than she smiled gently on both of them and drifted out of the room, leaving them alone together.

  “A fine chaperone I have chosen,” said Esther bitterly.

  “As far as my cousin is concerned,” said Lord Guy, “we are engaged and want to be together. Come! Drink your tea and go to bed. I have no intention of laying a finger on you. This repellent room is enough to put anyone off.”