Now tell me more about your mousing talents. On that, I am aghast with curiosity.
Early that afternoon, her written reply arrived. Only instead of regaling him with the most welcome and anticipated jovial rehash of her mouse-catching escapades, it contained one simple paragraph.
A simple paragraph with a relatively simple suggestion.
One that struck the fear of God into his heart.
Snoach! How could I have gotten on so admirably with such a lack in my vocabulary? You are quite right. Mr. Freshley was definitely a snoaching snivler! How could I not have seen that on my own? Perhaps, when next we meet, we should apply ourselves to joint compositionary efforts?
Pen some lyrical odes together?
What the devil?
Together?
His eyeballs burned as the syllables threatened to detonate in his brain, explode in his misbegotten mouth.
Oh Gad.
What was he doing? Thinking? Saying?
Idling his day away—flirting? And with words?
Now his new mistress wanted to write poetry—together? In person?
As though a serpent had just sunk fangs in his arse, Daniel bounded from the chair. The back smashed into the window behind him, shattering glass.
His canine’s howl of surprise couldn’t drown out the incriminating crash.
But the whining dog scampering toward the door and the singing shards decorating his floor were nothing compared to the black blanket of dread that swooped over him. Enshrouded him. Pressed him down, back into the righted chair, hands between his knees, head bowed.
Pray God, what have I done?
Forged a friendship on a lie? Wiled away hours, if not days pretending an interest in something that could never be. Damn him! Damn his mind for veering on to this blasted path. Damn his heart for jumping in head over heels. But most of all, damn his goddamn mouth!
Some two hours later, after the glass had been cleared and the vacant window area boarded over, Daniel realized he was still staring into space, conjuring visions of Thea occupying his ornate bed upstairs, her hair splayed over his pillow, her body sprawled over his. By damn, he wanted to howl like Cyclops.
He was not some naïve Othello to be led around by his nose. Or by his frigger, by God.
What was he thinking? Imagining her occupying the London home he inhabited, the bed that had just paraded through his brain box, sporting images both lurid and lusty? In the very chamber where his revered grandfather had once slept, in the home he’d inherited from the venerable old man he’d not only wished was his father but the man who had taught him more about being a man than any other. About goodness and kindness. Sacrifice, even.
Distracted, feeling guilty because he wasn’t feeling guilty at the idea of parading his paid paramour through these honored halls—and straight into that bedchamber—Daniel balled up the page that tormented him so and tossed it toward Cyclops, straight into the languorously extended paw that clamped over the missive.
“Woof!”
Instead of smiling at the dog’s tail-thumping antics over “catching” such a treat—and with so little effort expended—Daniel found himself hard-pressed not to race his carriage to Thea’s, toss her inside and return with her—upstairs. To his bed.
To make his vision a reality.
And that wouldn’t do.
Wouldn’t do at all.
No small amount of time later, a time during which he hadn’t moved, not physically from his position, nor mentally from his fanciful musings, there came a knock upon his study door. A knock significantly subdued to indicate it didn’t herald another letter from his mistress.
After rousing himself to retrieve the latest note—the one still languishing beneath Cy’s paw—Daniel bade his servant to enter and quickly resumed his seat, smoothing out the page bearing the delicate penmanship and equally destructive suggestion. Joint compositionary efforts? Bah. He’d rather be roasted alive.
“This was just delivered, milord.” Far different from when his brother bounded in bearing Thea’s banter, John sedately placed a wax-sealed note upon the corner of his desk. “Buttons was curious about a reply? He swung back around just to check. I told him I’d bring it when—”
Daniel shook his head.
“I’ll tell him nothin’ yet.” With an ill-disguised frown, the servant backed out.
Why did that look of disappointment make Daniel feel all manner of regret? What of it if his footman had lost the eager mien of a courting compatriot? Was disappointed his master was no longer flirting with a mistress?
“Goddamn waste of t-time,” Daniel muttered with conviction as he reached for the just-delivered note, determined to convince himself.
“Woof!”
“So you want me to open it? T-to see who—” Upon noticing the formal presentation, the fancy wax-seal on thicker paper than he and Thea had been using, something tugged at the back of his mind. He broke the seal and looked straight at the bottom, identifying the sender. Dread reached down from his throat to seize his innards in a clawed grip.
Lord Tremayne—I trust you are well and not under the weather after yesterday’s bout. I only write at the prompting of my son who insists something dreadful must have befallen you (ah, the anxieties of youth).
I myself claim the only thing that has befallen either of us is my memory. I must’ve mistook our appointment time. According to my wife, ’twould not be the first lapse.
Regardless, I remain at your convenience and heartily hope all is well.
Everson (& Thomas, who persists in looking over my shoulder)
Gads. How could he have forgotten? He never forgot appointments. Never. He didn’t make enough to clutter his schedule, ergo, the ones he committed to he cared about keeping.
Ballocks! His should be seized in a clawed grip and twisted.
But what to do about Thea?
“D-dammit.” One problem at a time.
All the self-castigation in the world couldn’t make his pen fly fast enough.
Everson—
My sincerest apologies. Something unexpected occupied my morning and put me off my plans for the day. I do apologize, to both you and to Tom, for my unpardonable rudeness.
If you’ll indulge me once more, I will be at your residence tomorrow morn at eleven. Nothing will keep me this time save your preference for another… You have only to specify.
Sincerely, Tremayne
Forty minutes later, still feeling like a horrid heel whose ballocks were in need of a good stomping, Daniel received Everson’s reply acknowledging their newly set appointment.
“There. ’Tis settled till the morrow. Now to you, my d-dear.”
So Thea wanted to compose poetry? Suitable punishment, that, after his deplorable disregard for his day’s schedule.
Lesson learned—Don’t forsake your commitments because you’re in rapture over your new mistress. In alt over pen-and-ink frivolity.
Blazes. He felt like a total clodpate.
Definitely time to tone down, institute some distance between him and his new inamorata. Why, with the last one, what’s-her-name, he routinely got by seeing her once a week, sometimes less. With Thea, the thought of skipping one day without her company spiked a shaft of angst straight through him.
And that wouldn’t do at all either.
So turning his nose up at their earlier literary whimsy and completely ignoring her suggestion—the absolute last thing he needed to do was whimwham with her over words—he wrote…
Thea—
I regret I cannot meet with you this eve; a prior commitment calls to me. However, I should like to make it up to you tomorrow afternoon or evening. Where may I escort you? Anywhere in London. Consider the city and its environs at your disposal. Where would you like to go? What would you like to do?
There. That should prove suitably penitent (for lying about having something else to do tonight) as he was, in essence, giving her free rein. Pray God, whatever she chose was not his undoing.
I hope you enjoy yourself this evening, that your commitment is a pleasant one.
Pertaining to the morrow, I thank you for the generous offer but I am quite content to entertain you here. Mrs. Samuels is a fabulous cook; would you care to join me for dinner? What time may I look for you?
When she’d no doubt want to “compose lines” together, whether he arrived before dinner or after. The woman already tied his brain in knots, no need to hand her his tongue on a platter.
Especially where there was nothing to distract them save each other. An outing would provide a buffer. When he brought her home and they were alone, that would be the time to rush his fences and rush her up to bed.
Pen in hand, doubts hovering, he wrote:
Nay. I insist. It’s beyond selfish of me to keep you stashed away.
Selfish, mayhap but smart.
Come now. Name your pleasure… A drive in Hyde Park? Perhaps a picnic?
Hell. With either, he’d be expected to chat. To converse. To reveal himself as a word-stumbling, bumbling idiot and that wouldn’t do. Not with her. Never with her.
Gripping the pen tighter, he attempted to recover.
A drive in Hyde Park? Perhaps a picnic? Strike that. I hear thunder rumbling near—
He didn’t.
so the ground will likely be too wet for an agreeable outing.
If it wasn’t, he’d spit from here to Sussex to ensure that it was.
Damn. Where could he take her? An outing where she’d have a chance to sparkle and shine and he could blend in and be unnoticeably mute? Where she could visit with someone other than his stammering self? Somewhere he could keep his bone box shut and just watch? Allow her presence to soothe his soul without vocalizing his inadequacies. Where he could simply sit and enjoy the enchanted bounty that was Thea?
Needing ideas better than his own, he rang for John and instructed him to bring up the latest round of invitations. Everyone knew the “reclusive and barbarian Lord Tremayne” wouldn’t attend, but his title ensured the blasted things kept pouring in.
When nothing remotely palatable presented itself—a ball was out of the question, even one where a man’s mistress might attend; he’d plant a facer on any bounder blighted enough to ask Thea to stand up with him—Daniel requested the morning papers he’d discarded earlier. There had to be something.
Ten minutes later, he’d settled on the theater.
A nice, relatively safe option. The performance would entertain so he didn’t have to. It’d be the carriage ride there and back and any intervals during. Did the theater even have rest intervals? He didn’t remember. Wasn’t sure he’d ever gone. But what did it matter?
Thea would love it and when they arrived back at her townhouse, he’d love her.
A bang-up solution all around. And if she started nattering about poetry in the carriage, he’d just kiss her quiet.
Daniel congratulated himself on his perfect plan.
He finished composing his missive and sent it off, feeling light in his chest. And heavy in his groin.
So it was with utter dismay that, shortly thereafter, he read her most unexpected response.
Nay. I do apologize for having to insist upon this, my lord, but I will not, I cannot attend the theater with you (no matter how much I might wish to).
Do you?
Do I what, my lord?
“Oh, for God’s sake.” This conducting a love affair through letters had blossomed from asinine into absurd.
L-l-l-love? Love affair?
Forget his tongue, his head tripped over the thought.
Choosing to shoo away the unpalatable concept by stuffing it deep, deep into a dark corner of his soul where time would surely snuff it out so it never warranted further contemplation, Daniel gripped the pen hard enough to strangle. He had to, in order to still the sudden trembling in his fingers.
Printed so heavily the nib poked through the page in two places, he wrote:
Do you wish to attend the theater with me tomorrow night?
If “Aye”, then why will you not agree? If “Nay”—
“If ‘Nay’, then I’ve half a mind to lock you into your b-bedchamber—and lock myself in there with you. Pun-punish us both.”
If “Nay”, then, for the love of God Almighty, woman, what would you like? What can I do for you?
And if, upon ordering John to deliver yet another missive, as daylight eased into dusk and limped straight into dark, Daniel salvaged his conscience by pressing an extra coin or two into his footman’s palm, well then, he could be forgiven.
John or Swift John? Hell, he’d seen them both so many times today, he was no longer certain who stayed at his residence and who resided at Thea’s.
“Owe you new shoes,” he muttered as the man grabbed the folded letter with a grin so wide, Daniel exerted real effort to avoid wiping it clear off his servant’s face—with his fist.
At least one of them was finding his new situation amusing.
Thea’s reply, when it came later that night, staggered him.
What can you do for me, you ask, astonishing me to the point my eyebrows ascend to my hairline?
Lest you forget, you spectacular man, you have already given me the world: A safe home, one that I’m not constantly defending against mice nor men. Plentiful food and wondrous hands to prepare it, so that my empty stomach no longer wakes me during the night.
You have given me so very much that I hesitate to trouble you for anything further.
Yet, you have requested so little from me in return. So now that you have posed the question, I feel compelled to answer from the heart, with the same earnestness with which it was asked.
I would like to spend more time with you. For our time together to flow as my magic pen does across the pages you’ve seen fit to so generously provide.
I would like for the hesitance that often characterizes our in-person interactions to ease and the inviting, invigorating tone of our written correspondence to take its place. You make me laugh so easily, in person and on the page, yet I find, reluctantly I admit, that I do not know you at all.
How do you spend your days (other than getting beamed on the nose and clobbered on the ribs, if you will forgive my impertinence)?
What matters concern you? Matters of state, matters of your own holdings and responsibilities? Matters of family? I would listen to it all, if you would but share.
What things do you like? Rainy days by the fireside or walking in the sunshine? After-dinner port or evening brandy? Strolling in the countryside or shopping in the busy streets? Arm-scratching, nose-dribbling cats or rescuing playful, barking dogs?
Have you any personal interests? Any favorite pastimes or nonsensical enjoyments?
What do you dream of? (Whether you wish your nosy mistress would squelch her inquisitive nature and leave off pelting you or your life dreams…I wish to know them all.)
I wish to know whether you’re married, possibly have children
That last, she’d crossed through so much that he had a devil of a time making it out.
In all honesty, I wish to know so many things about you, but I quite wonder whether you’ve continued to read this far.
Aye, I would very much treasure attending the theater with you (most anyplace, in fact).
But I simply cannot, my lord.
And please do not laugh at my reasoning. I don’t claim to know how things are conducted in the upper reaches of society, but I assure you, I exaggerate not my situation. The bald truth is…
The reason why I cannot accompany you is…frankly…
Well, to be perfectly blunt, I haven’t a thing to wear.
5
Squinting Quint’s Quality Quizzing Glass
Squinting Quint’s quality quizzing glass is queerish fine;
before he got it on Quarter Day,
the quaint, quaking man had been in quite a quandary
when queried to dance the quadrille!
Thomas Edward Everson, Lyri
cal Lines for Education, Elocution and Entertainment, circa 1820s
The next morning, Thea nimbly ran her fingers over the keys of the pianoforte they’d found stashed away, along with a host of older, unused furnishings, in another bedroom upstairs. Mr. Samuels and Buttons had liberated the shrouded piece and shuffled things around so Thea and Mrs. Samuels could give the old instrument a thorough cleaning.
Those efforts had defined Thea’s day after she’d sent off the final, unanswered note to Lord Tremayne. Now, though, even the reality of the pianoforte failed to make her smile.
The sounds it made when she picked up speed weren’t quite enough to make her cringe—but they were close.
The sun sliced in through the open window, promising a warmer—and drier—day than the preceding few. It was still early enough she wasn’t yet worrying over what Lord Tremayne’s response might be to her last missive, nor was she agonizing over why she hadn’t she heard from him yet (not overly much, anyway). But it was late enough she was definitely wishing she’d added one more request to her brazen list of what all she wanted.
Lusty Letters: A Fun and Steamy Historical Regency (Mistress in the Making Book 2) Page 10
