“I don’t want you thinking I do this regular like. It’s just that my usual beau is below hatches right now. I ain’t looking for a new protector, either, my lord. He’ll come about soon enough, I’m sure.”
The earl grinned wickedly. “Let us hope not too soon, eh, chérie? At least not till tomorrow morning.”
*
If oysters were the food of love, kindly Mrs. Tuthill was offering Lord Gardiner sustenance enough to pleasure a harem. Or she knew about his equipment failure. And Annie knew, who was bringing course after course to Lord Gardiner and his companion. Raw oysters, oyster bisque, smoked oysters, roast duck in oyster dressing. And Tuthill knew, having mentioned with a wink that he’d made a special trip to the fish market that morning. They all knew. Gard’s hand shook.
In addition to the oysters, very little wine was served, not enough to enfeeble a fly. Gard wondered if he should check for ground-up rhinoceros horn. Rob’s fellow feeling he could understand, but why did Annie Lee suddenly feel sorry for him, sorry enough to provide encouragement, when she was the one who deplored his wenching? Did she take pride in her household, like his valet refusing to send him out in anything less than prime twig, claiming it was a reflection on the man’s skills? Gads! It was bad enough the polite world discussed his performance; Annie Lee keeping score was enough to dull any man’s desire. He almost choked on his last forkful of prawns stuffed with oysters.
Gard couldn’t imagine what dessert might be. If there were oyster tarts, he’d dismiss them all. Still, his dinner partner seemed to be taking it all in good part, licking her lips, licking her fingers, licking his fingers. He might be mortified, but he was still interested, thank heavens.
“Do you wish dessert, Sophy, or shall we wait for later?”
Sophy? No, it couldn’t be, Annalise considered, a bubble of hysterical laughter welling up inside her. London was just too big a place for that. This girl looked younger than her own twenty-one years—though Annalise had never considered the proper age for a man’s mistress—and she was not the great beauty Annalise assumed Sophy would be. Still, her name was Sophy and she was a lightskirt.
So Annalise spilled some of the oyster sauce on Sophy’s sleeve. “Oh, I am so sorry, miss! The plate just seemed to slip. Please, if you’ll just come with me, I can sponge that off in a trice before it stains. Oh, do forgive me, miss. Right this way.” Then she added for Lord Gardiner’s sake, “Mrs. Tuthill is preparing a special dessert right now, one that won’t keep. She just needs ten minutes more. I’ll be sure to have Miss, ah, Sophy restored by then.”
They were gone before Gard could offer to see about Sophy’s dress himself, and to hell with dessert.
*
While she worked, Annalise was profuse in her apologies. “I could not be more sorry, ma’am. Such a lovely gown, too. I once saw one like it on a woman in Drury Lane and said to myself, what a handsome frock, especially with the lady’s brunette coloring. Why, now that I think of it, it could have been you. Did you ever wear this gown to the theater? Not that I mean to pry, mind.”
While Annalise worked, Sophy was surveying the amenities in the lady’s dressing room of the master suite. “Some women can afford a new gown each time they go out,” she answered with a hint of petulance, examining the silver comb-and-brush set laid out for visitors’ use. She was not immune to the housekeeper’s flattery, though. Poor old dear likely never got any thrills but for seeing her betters at the theater and such. “I may have worn it to the Opera House a time or two.”
“No, I never go there. Can’t understand the words they’re singing.”
“La, no one listens to the music. They just go to be seen.”
“For my money, I like to see a show and the nobs. Still, the lady I recall at the theater was with a right handsome gentleman. Of course, I was just in the pit and they were in the boxes, but he seemed fair-haired and solidly built. Lovely couple, I thought at the time. Wouldn’t that be a coincidence if it was you, and here I am wiping your sleeve.”
“Oh, that must have been me and the Barnacle. Barny Coombes, don’t you know. I call him that ’cause he’s a clinger. When he was flush, that was fine. We used to go to all the fanciest places.”
“And now?”
“Oh, now he’s badly dipped. Rusticating until he can find an heiress or something. Aren’t you done yet? I don’t want his lordship getting restless, not with him swimming in lard.”
“Just finished.” Annalise held up the gown for inspection. “As good as new.”
“Nothing is as good as new, ducks. I’ll tell you what, if his lordship keeps me around a bit, I mean to get a whole new wardrobe. You can have this rag, since you seem to like it so much.”
Annalise could hardly bear to touch it, but she helped Barny’s mistress into the gold sarcenet. So Lord Gardiner could help her out of it. Miss Avery seethed behind her dark glasses. “Too generous, ma’am,” she murmured.
* * *
Sophy clapped her hands and cooed when the housekeeper carried in the dessert, a peach flambé, blue flames licking at the edges. Lord Gardiner had the idea of feeding Sophy himself, sharing his dish, his spoon, and bitefuls of the brandy-soaked fruit, then sharing her tasty kisses. A dessert leading into the real dessert, as it were.
Annie had other ideas, quickly shoveling two servings into dishes and slamming them down at their places at opposite sides of the table.
A manservant would have known better, Lord Gardiner thought. Tarnation, a woman with any blood in her veins would have known better. She stood now at the sideboard with arms folded across her non-chest, waiting to see if they needed anything else. Like a carrion crow at the banquet, Lord Gardiner reflected sourly. “That will be all, Annie,” he told her.
“Poor thing,” Sophy said, wiping a gob of cream off her chin as Annie curtsied and backed out of the room.
Poor thing? What about him, who had to put up with the Friday-faced, cross-grained creature? Ross did not want to think about her tonight. Especially not tonight. “Can I offer you more of the sweet, my sweet?”
Sophy did not need his fingers drumming impatiently on the tabletop to hurry her along. Evidently his lordship’s hunger had not been satisfied by the meal. “No, thank you, my lord, I’ve had enough. My compliments to your chef. Shall I, ah, leave you to your port?”
“Not on your life,” he growled.
“Then perhaps you’d be kind enough to give me a tour of the house,” she said with a wink. “I just love seeing how various rooms and things are decorated.”
The drawing room got decorated with his neckcloth and her shoes. The smaller parlor was soon strung with silk stockings, and the hall stairs received a hail of hairpins along its length. The guest bedrooms each received a cursory visit, and a bit of muslin here, a waistcoat there. By the time Gard and Sophy reached the large bedroom, there was very little sight-seeing left to be done.
Sophy’s body was as luscious as his mind had imagined, and his own—well, his mind and his body were both ready, willing, and able, thank whatever saint watched over weak-kneed womanizers. Thank the oysters. And thank Sophy for molding her contours so exquisitely to his.
Intending to show Sophy just how grateful he was, Gard stepped out of her embrace to fix the bed. She swayed against him, though. “A moment, my pet, let me turn down the bedclothes.”
She stared at his naked body, and her eyes snapped shut.
He kissed her and she groaned.
He touched her breast. She clutched her stomach. He turned to extinguish another candle. She turned green.
“My lord, I…I think I’m going to be…”
She was. On the bed, on the floor, on the fastidious Lord Gardiner.
“Annie!”
*
The earl tried to help at first. But the smells, the sounds…
Annie took one look at him and raised an eyebrow in scorn. “I know, you have a sensitive stomach, too.”
Gard shrugged his shoulders helplessly. “I’m
a regular Trojan when it comes to blood and broken bones. But this—my stomach gets tied in knots. I’m a fine sailor, until everyone else starts hanging over the side.”
Sophy started making gagging sounds again. Gard fled downstairs before he looked worse in Annie’s eyes, although he didn’t know why he should care what his housekeeper thought. He found that he just did, especially when he saw how hard she worked all night, making frequent trips up and down the stairs with slop jars and buckets and mops and fresh linens. All he could do was wait and see if a physician was needed. Tuthill could have ridden for the doctor, of course, but the earl had too fine a sense of responsibility for that, even if he was useless in the sickroom.
Annie tried to tell him to leave, saying she did not even need Mrs. Tuthill’s assistance, for the stairs would be too much for her aunt. Besides, according to Annie on one of her trips from the kitchen, the older woman was devastated to think that her cooking may have been responsible.
“She checked the oysters ever so carefully, my lord. But you never can tell with them.”
“Nonsense, I feel fine—except when Sophy makes those noises. And oysters are chancy. Everyone knows that.”
Close to morning Annie reported that he should take Sophy home now. She might be more comfortable in her own bed.
Annie looked so exhausted, it appeared to Lord Gardiner that even the hump on her raised shoulder was drooping. She had every cause to be tired, he thought thankfully, for he couldn’t have done half what she had this night. He tried to express his appreciation.
“I’m dreadfully sorry you had to go through this, Annie. I don’t know what I’d have done without you, and that’s a fact. I won’t be bringing company tomorrow, so you can rest, and I’ll leave something extra for you to buy yourself a gift.”
Annalise smiled at him, more in charity with the rakeshame earl than ever before. He didn’t have to stay, she knew. Most other men would not have made themselves uncomfortable for a straw damsel they hardly knew, not when they had paid servants to do their dirty work. That’s what servants were for, she’d heard Barny say time after time. She repeated it now, “That’s what servants are for, my lord. I was just doing my job,” so he wouldn’t feel the least guilty. After all, what had he to feel ashamed over? He wasn’t the one who’d given poor Sophy a dose big enough to purge a pony. She smiled at Lord Gardiner again.
So astounding was the occasion—a smile from Annie Lee—and so sweet was the smile that Gard took special notice. Her lips were not quite as thin and parched, and her cheekbones no longer stood out like a skeleton’s. He couldn’t see her eyes, of course, and there was still that three-hair mole on her cheek and the dreadful mobcap, but Annie was definitely looking better.
Hell and damnation, he swore to himself later. He’d been without a woman so long, even the hag of a housekeeper was beginning to look good to him!
Chapter Sixteen
He sent Sophy home in the closed carriage with Tuthill driving after all. She sat huddled miserably in the corner of the carriage, wrapped in blankets and one of Annie’s black gowns. She wouldn’t look at him, not even when he tucked a roll of bills into the blankets.
Gard went home, bathed, shaved, put on his buckskins and boots, and rode to the park through a thin mist. She never came, the woman he was sworn to protect, but he gave himself and his stallion a good workout, searching. No woman who would jump a carriage from a near standstill could be hen-hearted, he convinced himself. She’d be there tomorrow. The drizzle must be keeping her away.
The weather did not discourage that dirty dish Repton and his cronies from gathering near the park gate, making assignations with the pretty exercise girls parading their horses and their wares.
“What happened, Gardiner, your little bird flown so soon?” Repton called over.
Gard turned his back on Repton’s taunting grin.
“Maybe she didn’t take him up on his noble offer,” Repton gibed to his passenger, another loose-screw lordling, but in a rasping voice loud enough for Gard to hear. “I wouldn’t be surprised. I understand our eager earl is losing his touch.”
Lord Gardiner went home and went to bed. Alone. Again.
*
His mystery lady was sleeping the sleep of the just. Well, if not the just, at least the satisfied. Lord Gardiner’s nefarious designs were foiled for another night—two if he was staying away this evening also—and Sophy was well paid for her avarice. And for one night’s agony, according to Rob, who carried in the roll of soft for the bedraggled baggage. Sophy was already recovered, but Lord Gardiner could never be interested in her again, not after seeing his would-be paramour looking like something even the cat wouldn’t drag in. Vengeance was sweet.
And a whole day and night without worrying about the devilish lord! Annalise was too tired for her ride, but if she slept the day away, then maybe she’d get to Drury Lane or the Opera House after all. She’d be dressed like a scarecrow and seated in the pit, but it was time Miss Avery got to enjoy something of London.
*
The Earl of Gardiner was in his box at the theater. He was definitely not enjoying himself. Where the ton was used to seeing the most stunning of dashers at his side, dressed in jewels to rival the crystal chandeliers, they now saw a tongue-tied young chit in pastel-pink muslin with a white net overskirt that was covered with bows. She wore a lace fichu lest anyone’s blood be roused to lust by the sight of her insignificant attractions, and a single strand of pearls around her short neck. She may as well have virgin written on her forehead.
In case someone in the audience this evening missed the significance of seeing the earl with a demure young miss, her parents sat behind them, beaming. The Duke and Duchess of Afton were having a delightful time of it, waving to their friends, planning the nuptials of their Araminta to this nabob of a nobleman. Gard’s mother was also in alt, sitting on his other side, pinching his arm in its blue superfine whenever his attention wandered, which was often. Unlike his usual demireps with their scintillating flirtations, this chit had no conversation at all. She was so overawed by his presence, she answered all of his polite efforts at setting her at ease with monosyllables, except when she said, “Whatever you think, my lord.”
He thought he’d rather be at Laurel Street, eating tainted oysters. Maybe he was losing his touch after all.
Lady Araminta did provide a moment’s divertissement halfway through the farce. She fainted when a little chorus girl blew Lord Gardiner a kiss as she made her exit. Countess Stephania nearly wrenched her son’s arm off in her outrage when he suggested perhaps the wench may have intended her gesture of affection for His Grace, Lord Afton. That’s when Her Grace, Lady Afton, fainted, too.
After Their Graces’ departure, Gard just smiled angelically, nodding to acknowledge the crowd’s delight in this tempting morsel for tomorrow’s scandalbroth.
The next interval brought him an invitation to the Green Room which he would have ignored, except for the desire to escape his mother’s continuing diatribe on his wastrel life. On his way out of the box, Ross managed not to trip on the cane she extended in his path.
The brazen chit wasn’t waiting for him in the Green Room as he expected; the theater manager was, with an offer offensive even by Lord Gardiner’s standards.
“I’m giving you first choice,” the man, Bottwick, oozed. “’Cause the gel seems taken with you.”
“With my money, you mean.” Gard did not like dealing with procurers. Women earning their way giving pleasure was one thing; men living off their labor was another. He knew this man took an interest in more than his actresses’ welfare, and was repulsed.
“I prefer to make my own arrangements, thank you.” He was polite, but he was not interested.
“But this one’s different. She don’t know how to make those kinds of arrangements, so she asked me to help. Her first time, don’t you know,” he added slyly.
Gard was even more disgusted. The price would be skyrocketed for the dubious pleasure
of deflowering a virgin. He thought of Lady Araminta. “Sorry, innocents don’t appeal to me. I don’t believe in ruining maidens, not even opera dancers.”
“Everybody’s got to have a first time.” Bottwick rubbed his stubbled chin reflectively. “And Mimi can’t make her rent on what I can afford to pay her. She’s just a chorus girl, after all. Some talent, but needs training. Lessons cost money, too.” He shook his head regretfully. “It’ll have to be some swell or other, sooner or later. May as well be one as has the blunt to pay for the privilege. Too bad it can’t be a real gentleman like your lordship. Guess I’ll have to take Lord Repton up on his offer, then.”
Repton? With that saucy bit of fluff? Gard hadn’t studied Mimi until she blew him that kiss, but he remembered a taking little thing with flowing blond curls, big eyes, and shapely ankles as she pirouetted off the stage. Mimi in Repton’s arms was a sacrilege.
“Very well, and I’ll meet your price, but never again. I never want to hear about your sordid little transactions or your supposedly chaste young ingenues. Do you understand?”
Bottwick bowed. “’Twas Mimi’s choice, not mine.”
“Very well. Tomorrow. I’ll have a carriage meet her after the performance.” He turned away, then gave the man another dark scowl. “And don’t think to sell her to Repton tonight, or I’ll have your hide. Her maidenhead won’t have time to grow back by tomorrow, so I’ll know.”
*
Annalise loved the theater, except for Lord Gardiner’s making a buffoon of himself during the farce. The notion that she disliked his looking foolish in front of others did not bear close examination, especially since she seemed to devote her own energies to that very end. That was different, she told herself.
The fact that the man was a prize fool besides being a prime profligate didn’t keep Annalise from her ride the next morning. Both she and Seraphina needed the fresh air and exercise, and she did not have to talk to the nodcock anyway.
Lady in Green Page 11
