Jane Feather

by Engagement at Beaufort Hall

  Well, that was honest enough, Imogen thought. He had really laid it down, the as-it-was and as-it-will-be. But could she agree to do that? Simply rely on the power of love to carry her over the times she would want to stick a knife in his heart and leave?

  “I don’t think I can promise not to fight with you,” she said.

  At that he laughed, a great peal that filled the room. He crossed to her in two strides and swung her through the air. “Oh, my darling spitfire, if you promised never to fight with me again, I’d know we could never ever survive married life. I love to fight with you . . . as long as we are always honest about why we’re fighting.”

  He held her up against him and she put her hands on his shoulders, her own laughing eyes looking into his. “A pact, then,” she said. “We will always be honest. Even when I hate you and want to throw a coal scuttle at you, I will be honest.”

  “And whenever I want to wring your neck and throw your body off Tower Bridge, I will be honest with you,” he returned. He let her slide down his body until her feet touched the carpet; then he cupped her face between his hands and kissed her. Her mouth opened for him and their tongues danced as each tasted the other’s sweetness. His hands gripped her bottom and pressed her to his loins. She felt his erection, hard against her lower belly, and her own instant arousal, the sudden jolt in her belly, the moistness of her sex, the swiftness of her breath.

  He took a step towards the sofa, lifting her slightly so her feet were off the ground, and when the seat caught her behind her knees, she fell back and he fell with her. A hand beneath her knees lifted her legs adroitly onto the sofa and he moved to kneel astride her. He glanced once towards the door and Imogen murmured, “Don’t worry. No one would venture in here unless one of us screams.”

  “Then try not to be your usual noisy self,” he said with a soft chuckle, bending to kiss the hollow of her shoulder. He moved back a little, closer to her ankles, and slowly began to slide her skirt up her silk-stockinged legs. “We need these off,” he said practically, undoing the waist buttons of her lace drawers. “Lift up.”

  Obligingly, Imogen lifted her hips a little and he slipped the garment down her legs to tangle at her ankles. Her stockings were fastened to her chemise with suspenders, and for a moment he looked down at her body, so enticingly revealed, and so enticingly covered. “No need to go any further,” he observed, bending to kiss the tops of her thighs in turn. One hand pressed against the mound at the cleft of her body, fingers twisting in the soft tangle of dark curls, tugging gently until a soft moan escaped her. Smiling, he bent and stopped her mouth with his own, fumbling with the buttons of his trousers. She arched up, her thighs parting to receive him as he pressed within her, and she sighed a little sigh of satisfaction, a desire held too long in abeyance, as he filled her in the remembered way, and began to move as only he knew how, bringing her ever closer to the edge.

  Imogen bit down hard on her lower lip to control the little cries that ordinarily she did not have to suppress as her pleasure grew. He knelt over her, watching her, his glowing eyes narrowed with his own pleasure as he increased his speed. The old leather sofa creaked in protest as her body lifted to meet his rhythm and they moved in synchrony, just the sounds of flesh meeting flesh and little gasps and swift breathing, and then Charles put his hands beneath her and held her tight against him as he pushed deep into her and the pleasure exploded around them. He pressed his mouth to hers, forcing her silence, and the waves of delight came over and over, the culmination of so many weeks of deprivation, of frustration, of longing, and of fury.

  And when it was over, he let her drop to the sofa and fell heavily on top of her, his legs tangled with hers, their half-discarded garments twisted hopelessly around them. After a while, their breathing slowed, and Charles pushed himself up on his elbows and looked down at her as she lay, dazed still, awash still in the afterglow of passion.

  He struggled off the sofa and adjusted his clothing before turning his attention to Imogen. He pulled up her drawers and she lifted her hips again, still with a slightly dazed smile, so that he could button them at her waist. He made a halfhearted attempt to pull down her skirt and then shook his head. “You’ll have to stand up, sweet.”

  She reached out her hands and he pulled her to her feet, her skirt falling into place as she did so. She smoothed it down and went to the mirror over the mantel. Her hair was escaping from its pins, her cheeks were flushed, her lips slightly swollen, her eyelids heavy. She glanced at Charles. He looked almost as disheveled as she did. “We can’t show ourselves in public looking like this, darling.”

  “No,” he agreed. “Well, you can’t. Slip upstairs and I’ll tidy myself quickly and then make a discreet departure. With luck I won’t meet any of your guests.” He drew her against him and kissed her lightly on the corner of her mouth. “We are agreed, then. We start from the beginning?”

  “I think maybe we just jumped the gun,” Imogen said with a grin. “Quite a few steps from the beginning, that.”

  “True enough.” He returned the grin. “Hurry up now, before they send out a search party.”

  She nodded, blew him a kiss, and hurried from the room, running across the hall and up the stairs. She could hear the men’s voices in the billiard room, but the hall was deserted. Esther was presumably in her own room now. Probably waiting for her sister’s report. But Imogen decided she was not yet ready to talk to anyone, not even Esther. She was still suffused in the afterglow of lovemaking, and she still had a great deal to think about before she could marshal her thoughts accurately enough to share them with her sister.

  Chapter 13

  “Sharpton, Mrs. Windsor and Mrs. Dalton have just left for the nine o’clock train,” Esther said as she entered Imogen’s bedroom on a chilly morning seven days later. “They’ll have the house ready for us when we get to Stanhope Terrace this evening.” She glanced at the bed, where Daisy was folding blouses and packing them in tissue paper before layering them in the open trunk. “Are you taking your whole wardrobe with you?” She bent to stroke Zoe, who had rushed from her basket by the fire to greet her. “Yes . . . yes, I’m pleased to see you too.”

  “No, just things I’m likely to need,” Imogen said vaguely. “One needs to change one’s clothes so many times a day in town, and I don’t want to find I don’t have a favorite skirt or something. . . . Oh, which reminds me . . . Daisy, don’t forget the daffodil chiffon scarf, it goes particularly well with the dark green suit.” She turned back to her sister. “Are you and Martha packed already?”

  “Martha doesn’t need any help from me,” Esther said, “any more than Daisy does from you. Come downstairs and have some coffee.”

  “Oh, very well. Are you sure you can manage, Daisy?”

  “Oh, yes, Miss Imogen. Perfectly, thank you.” There was a note of relief in the maid’s voice that told Imogen she was probably in the way. “Young Alfie will have the trunks to the station in plenty of time for the train. And Jake will be ready to take us in the brougham at three.”

  “Good. Let’s hope the train’s on time.” Imogen went to the door in her sister’s wake, Zoe prancing at her heels.

  They went into the morning room, one of the few rooms with a decent fire in the grate. Already the house had a feeling of desertion about it. Only small fires had been lit in the more formal rooms to keep the damp winter chill at bay, and the skeleton staff, mostly local village folk, were already looking forward to an easy few months until the family returned from town for the summer. A tray of coffee sat on a low table by the fire. Esther poured and Imogen gave Zoe a biscuit. “Yes,” she said to the salivating spaniel, “I know you’re excited to become a town dog, but since you’re hopeless at earning your keep in the country, you’ll just have to become pampered and fat and lazy in London.”

  Esther laughed. “She’s got far too much energy to grow fat and lazy. Pampered, maybe. But I doubt Charles will indulge her too much.”

  “It’s not really his business,�
�� Imogen returned. “Besides, Zoe adores him and knows perfectly well that he’s a soft touch.”

  “Mmm.” Esther didn’t sound completely convinced. “Did he say why he rushed back to London in such a hurry?” She tried to hide her curiosity, but Imogen had given her no details about the confrontation in the library, and Charles had not been seen at Beaufort Hall afterward, only sending a note to Imogen saying he’d been called back to town unexpectedly.

  “A brief, apparently,” her sister replied, sipping her coffee. “I daresay a very lucrative brief, but he didn’t give much in the way of detail.” She had been rather put out by the speed of Charles’s departure after that evening. They had reached some kind of an understanding, but it had been a fragile understanding, still, and the last thing she had expected was his sudden disappearance, with only a curt note of explanation. But, as she reminded herself, she had promised to try to see things from his point of view, particularly when it came to his work. And it wasn’t as if she didn’t know how important Charles Riverdale’s work was to him.

  Esther merely nodded. She knew when not to prod. “So how are we going to go about things when we get to town? Since you and Charles are no longer betrothed, we are back to being the plain Misses Carstairs of Stanhope Terrace.”

  “Well, first of all, we need to see Kate and find out what’s been happening in the committee, particularly about Emily’s situation. Kate’s last letter said that Emily is still frightened of fighting for a divorce. We have to persuade her somehow that it’s her only option.” Imogen was a different person when she started on her passion, Esther thought. Not for the first time, she wondered what kind of a wife such a woman would make for a barrister of Charles Riverdale’s standing. But that was not her business . . . and anyway, marriage was not exactly on the immediate horizon.

  “You can do that, and I’ll send out At Home cards to all and sundry,” she said. “Wednesday afternoon as usual, don’t you think?”

  “No reason why not,” Imogen agreed. “And then we had better start leaving our cards around town.”

  “I suggest, after we talk to Kate, we start tomorrow with tea at Fortnum and Mason,” Esther said. “Everyone’s always there at some point, and word will get around once we’re seen.” She paused for a moment before saying, “If you and Charles are intending to be seen around town together, it’ll start everything up again.”

  Imogen nodded, nibbling a biscuit. “I suppose the old cats will still try to needle me, but I can handle them.”

  “So you do intend to be seeing Charles then?” Esther probed.

  Imogen shook her head and said somewhat acidly, “He seems to be so busy, I imagine it’ll depend on whether he can find any time for me.”

  Esther regarded her sister through narrowed eyes. “I’ll take that as a yes, then, shall I?”

  “We talked about it,” Imogen confessed. “And we’re just going to see what happens, but I intend to be fully occupied myself, so I’m not going to be sitting around waiting for him to make the first move. I’m itching to get back into the fray, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t have quite your burning passion,” her sister said with a slight laugh. “One firebrand in the family is enough for the moment. I’m more of a foot soldier in the battle than a company commander, unlike you and Kate. But that doesn’t mean I don’t support the union in every way, and the situation with this poor woman, Emily, makes me froth at the mouth.”

  “Have you thought about what kind of marriage you’ll want, Essie?” Imogen asked curiously. “You will get married, you know. You’re far too good a catch to escape matrimony’s claws for long.”

  “I’m not in any kind of a hurry,” Esther said. “I haven’t met anyone yet I could imagine being married to. But if it ever does happen, I have no intention of handing over the management of my inheritance to this putative husband, and no intention at all of promising abject obedience. In fact,” she added with a sly grin, “if matters proceed as they once were supposed to, I daresay I would allow my brother-in-law to handle the marriage contracts. He should, by then, be well versed in what today’s woman expects of the institution.”

  “Your confidence overwhelms me,” Imogen said drily. “Maybe we’ll both take the veil and become brides of Christ.”

  “Well, you can say goodbye to women’s suffrage and everything else, in that case,” Esther retorted. “No, I don’t think a nunnery will suit either of us. But seriously, I can quite happily contemplate a life of independent spinsterhood, Gen. I have enough money to live quite comfortably, and I don’t really see too much point in husbands. They just seem to make trouble.”

  Imogen chuckled. “You may well be right,” she said. “But there’s a lot of point to men, believe me, Essie.”

  Esther laughed. “Well, if I meet one who’s able to show me the point, then I’ll revise my opinion, but until then . . .”

  “You can’t stay a virgin forever,” Imogen declared, rising to her feet. “I’m going to take Zoe for a walk. She’ll need some exercise before we take the train.” She got to the door, the spaniel at her heels, and then looked over her shoulder. “I suppose you are still a virgin?”

  Esther gave her a wry smile. “Why should you suppose that?”

  Imogen came back into the room, a puzzled Zoe gazing up at her. “No reason, of course. Was it that charming Frenchman, Guy . . . Guy de Rochelle?”

  Her sister inclined her head. “As it happens. He was very charming.”

  “Oh, yes, undeniably.” Imogen sat down again. “But you never told me things had gone that far between you.”

  “It didn’t last very long,” Esther said. “It was just very intense. He was . . . I suppose still is . . . a very intense man.”

  “Did you love him? You never implied that you did.” Imogen was both curious and a little hurt that her sister hadn’t confided in her.

  “Only a fool would fall in love with Guy,” Esther said a little tartly. “He had women in every capital in Europe. But he was fun to dally with,” she added with a reminiscent smile. “And for a first lover, he was perfect . . . very insistent on giving as much pleasure as he took. He enjoyed initiating women in ze paths of passion.” She said the last in an exaggerated French accent that made them both laugh.

  “Well, you are a dark horse,” Imogen stated. “I suppose I was too wrapped up with Charles to notice my little sister venturing down those passionate paths.”

  Esther shrugged. “I was quite grateful, actually, to be able to conduct my little dalliance away from family scrutiny. You and Charles did me a great favor by diverting the attention.”

  “Well, I’m glad of that,” Imogen said with another wry smile. “If you really don’t mean I was too wrapped up in my own affairs to notice the earthmoving events in your life.”

  “No, I really don’t mean that. I thought you were taking Zoe for a walk.”

  “Yes, so I am.” Imogen stood up and went to the door, the puppy prancing ahead of her. Esther had always kept her own counsel, she reflected as she went into the hall. She was not so much secretive as private . . . very self-contained, unlike her mercurial sister. She wasn’t timid in the least—in fact, she was one of the strongest women Imogen knew, and if she had wanted to confide her intense love affair with the charming Frenchman to her sister, she would have done so, whatever else had been going on in Imogen’s life.

  The train steamed into Waterloo Station at six o’clock that evening. A porter came down the corridor opening the doors to the first-class carriages. “Waterloo, ladies.” He hoisted their personal belongings off the overhead rack and flung open the door to the platform. Martha and Daisy were already on the platform below, having hurried from their third-class carriage to assist their mistresses to alight.

  “A porter’s seein’ to the trunks, ma’am, and Alfie’s gone to get a hansom cab for us,” Daisy said, picking up Imogen’s small valise. Alfie had traveled with the trunks in the luggage compartment.

  The station was busy, p
eople rushing hither and thither, steam whistles blasting, porters yelling in raucous voices above the hubbub. Zoe cowered against Imogen’s skirts. It was her first exposure to life outside the peace and quiet of Hampshire, and the noise and rushing feet intimidated her. Imogen tried to calm her with a hand on her head. A somewhat ineffectual gesture, but Imogen had no intention of picking the puppy up as if she were a lapdog. Gun-shy she might be, but the spaniel was still bred from hunting stock.

  A porter came running up, pushing a cart laden with their trunks. “This way, ladies.” He thrust his way expertly through the milling throng, and the four women followed the path he created until they reached the relative sanity beyond the platform barrier, where Alfie came running up to them.

  “’Ere we are, then, Miss Imogen . . . Miss Esther . . . cab’s waitin’ just outside. I got two, one for the trunks and Daisy and Martha, and one for you. . . . This way, porter.” He gestured loftily to the porter, who muttered something about young whippersnappers and spat onto the cobbles at his feet.

  Imogen and Esther climbed into the cab with sighs of relief. Train travel was a modern miracle, but it was dirty and noisy and left one feeling covered with a layer of grime and usually with a splitting headache. “A quiet evening tonight,” Esther stated. “I’m exhausted.”