by Jane Feather
The clock on the mantel chimed four. The fire hissed and crackled. A gust of wind raided the windowpane. From behind the bed curtains came low murmurs of delight as they moved in the darkness, their bodies blending in a fusion so complete, it denied the possibility of any dissonance.
“Four o’clock and all’s well.” The watchman’s repetitive cry faded down the corner of King’s Street as Margaret Drayton emerged from Almack’s among the last of the evening’s revelers. She was slightly tipsy, leaning on the arm of a stalwart young gentleman whose glazed eyes and somewhat rigid features indicated his own lack of sobriety.
“Where’s my carriage, Lawton?” Margaret demanded, staring down the now rapidly emptying street. “I sent you to call for it.”
“Oh, but I did, ma’am. I assure you I did.” Her escort peered around intently, as if expecting the missing carriage to materialize from thin air.
“Then why is it not here?” her ladyship demanded peevishly, huddling into her cloak as the wind whistled around the alley leading to King’s Place.
“My carriage is at your service, Margaret.”
Margaret turned at the smoothly considerate tones of the Earl of Wyndham. “Oh, I thought you’d gone home hours ago, Philip.”
“I’ve been playing at Mount Edgecombe’s,” he said, taking snuff. “But the party broke up a trifle suddenly when one of her ladyship’s watchmen believed a troop of Runners was about to raid the house.” He laughed, the sound clear and hard in the frosty air. “A false alarm, of course, but it did rather dampen enthusiasm.”
“Yes, I can imagine. Lawton, you’ve proved yourself singularly inept. I suggest you take yourself home to bed.” Margaret dismissed the hapless young man tartly.
“I did call your carriage … I do assure you,” her erstwhile escort protested. “Can’t think where it could have disappeared to.”
“I daresay it turned into a pumpkin,” the earl said. “Ma’am, my carriage awaits your pleasure.” He offered his arm to Lady Drayton, and the two went off, leaving the Honorable Michael Lawton gazing disconsolately and in some bewilderment after them.
“You do know how to ensure a lady’s comfort, Wyndham,” Margaret observed appreciatively, as the footman spread a rug over her knees and adjusted the position of a hot brick beneath her feet. “In your company a woman would never find herself standing in the rain without an umbrella, or waiting for a chair in the wind, or finding herself seated at a bad table in the Piazza. Unlike that poor fool, Lawton.”
“Setting up another flirtation, are you, Margaret?” the earl inquired casually. “I can’t help feeling sorry for the infant. He clearly doesn’t know you could eat him for supper.”
Margaret laughed. “Oh, I was just amusing myself, Philip. There was a dearth of entertaining companions this evening … at least after the prince left. Indeed, I don’t know why I persist in going to these insipid affairs.” Delicately, she adjusted a beauty patch high on her cheekbone. “Of course, one must be seen.”
“Of course,” the earl agreed. “And were you amusing yourself similarly with Rupert Warwick?” The deceptively smooth, amused tone had vanished. He threw the question like a knife.
“La, Philip, what is it to you?” Margaret said with an artificial and uncertain laugh. “Warwick’s a most entertaining gentleman.”
“I like to know who else plays in the same garden,” the earl said coldly. “I’m a trifle fastidious, my dear, in some areas. But I daresay that’s quite a novel concept for you.”
Lady Drayton whitened with anger beneath the rouge, taking on a garish almost clownlike appearance. “I don’t believe I understand you, my lord.”
“Oh, come now, Margaret, you’re not such a fool,” the earl said, leaning forward, catching her chin on his forefinger. “I thought I’d made it plain that I wish for exclusive rights to your body. Apart from whatever demands your husband might make, of course,” he added with a careless gesture of his free hand. “I do accept that, as an obedient and loving wife, you must accommodate Drayton in whatever manner he wishes.”
He smiled, an angelic smile of benign understanding, but his fingers now grasped her chin painfully.
Margaret gasped and tried to pull back. The carriage jolted in a pothole, and she was thrown forward against the earl’s knees. He caught her wrist with his free hand and held her in that position even as the carriage moved smoothly again. “I’m perfectly content to end our little arrangement, if you so wish. We understand each other, I’m sure.” He released her abruptly and gave her a push that sent her back onto her seat. “I don’t use whores.”
Margaret stared in shock at the pale glimmer of his face. His possessive streak had become more pronounced of late, but she hadn’t taken it very seriously. Her fawning courtiers were always too eager for her attentions to risk annoying her. She knew that Philip Wyndham was different, it was part of his attraction—that and his generosity. But she had always believed she could control him as she controlled the others. This was something new and frightening. She’d been frightened by men in her time in the King’s Place nunnery, but there had always been a bell to ring and a muscular footman on call. Here, in this warm, swaying darkness, in Wyndham’s carriage, driven by Wyndham’s servants, there was no protection.
“Rupert Warwick means nothing to me,” she whispered, her eyes darting to the window, looking for some familiar landmark in the darkness. The distance from Almack’s to her house on Mount Street should have been accomplished in no more than fifteen minutes at this time of the morning, with no traffic. And yet they seemed to have been journeying for hours.
Her companion made no response to this assertion. He leaned back against the velvet squabs and regarded her, his eyes vacant, expressionless, like gray holes in the serene planes of his face.
Margaret began to shiver. It was as if she were in the presence of the devil. “Why are we not at Mount Street yet?” she managed to ask, shrinking into the corner.
“Oh, are you in a hurry to be home, my dear? I beg your pardon, I thought you might enjoy a little tête-â-tête.” He smiled.
A suspicion popped into her head, became certainty. “What happened to my carriage?”
His smile broadened. “As I said, I thought you might enjoy a little tête-à-tête.”
“You sent it away?” She felt like crying in bewilderment.
“An accurate deduction,” the earl said dryly. “I’m surprised it took you so long to come to it.” He reached up and knocked on the roof of the carriage. The coachman responded to the knock by swinging the vehicle to the right.
Margaret clutched the strap above the window. “Take me home.”
“But of course,” he said, raising an eyebrow as if surprised. “Where do you think I’m taking you? You should be at your door in about two minutes. By my estimation we should now be turning onto Audley Street.”
Margaret huddled in her corner, nibbling a gloved fingertip. She was too frightened to speak, and when the carriage came to a halt and she recognized her own front door under the oil lamp, she flung open the door and tumbled to the street without waiting for the footman to lower the step.
The earl leaned out of the open door. “Forgive me if I don’t walk you to your door, my dear.”
“I don’t ever wish to speak to you again,” Margaret declared, her voice trembling but her courage returning with the safety of her own front door a mere three steps away.
The earl inclined his head in courteous acknowledgment. “You desolate me, ma’am.” Then he withdrew into the carriage, pulling the door closed.
Margaret ran up the steps to her own front door and hammered on the knocker until the night porter sleepily stumbled to open it.
Philip smiled to himself as the coach took him home to St. James’s Square. He’d been tiring of Margaret, although he hadn’t realized it until he’d seen her flirting with Rupert Warwick. It was time for a new adventure. And who better to have it with than the young, fresh, and very spirited wife of a man he i
nstinctively detested?
He jumped from the coach with a surge of energy more appropriate for the middle of the morning than the cold, dark hour before dawn. The front door opened before he could knock. The night porter in the Earl of Wyndham’s house knew better than to sleep on duty and had been holding himself in readiness for the sound of the carriage throughout the night. He didn’t lock the door behind the earl, however, since for the household the day’s work had already begun.
A boot boy, fresh from his own night’s rest on the chilly stone floor of the scullery, slunk into the hall from the kitchen regions, rubbing sleep from his eyes. The second footman, his immediate superior, resplendent in livery and powdered wig, strode behind the lad, a bundle of keys in his hand, preparing to open up the doors to the main salons for the maidservants to begin the day’s cleaning.
The second footman saw the earl the instant before the earl saw him. He grabbed the collar of the boot boy’s jacket and jerked him into the shadows of the staircase until the master was safely out of sight on the stairs. The Earl of Wyndham’s gaze must not be offended by the sight of a seven-year-old boy with matted hair and filthy hands, his scrawny body enveloped in a grimy apron, roaming the public areas of the house—even at five o’clock in the morning.
Philip strode into his own apartments, where his valet stood waiting for him, an air of alert solicitude on his face despite his sleepless night.
“You passed a pleasant evening, my lord?”
“Yes, thank you.” The earl flung himself into a chair and extended his feet. The valet bent and removed his lordship’s shoes, then tenderly helped him out of his coat.
One glance at his employer’s expression told the experienced valet that conversation would not be welcome, so he went about his duties silently and, once his lordship was arrayed in his velvet dressing gown, drew back the bed-curtains and turned down the coverlet. He stood expectantly beside the bed, while the earl, frowning, took a turn about the room.
“Oh, that’ll be all, Fredericks.” The earl waved him away. “I can put myself to bed.”
“Very good, my lord.” The valet bowed himself from the room and once outside straightened with a grimace. The earl was an erratic sleeper, and one could never be certain whether he’d sleep for two hours or six. He’d seemed restless this early morning, which probably meant he’d be ringing his bell again in a couple of hours, and Fredericks would be expected to attend him as fresh and alert as if he’d slept the night away. In the circumstances he daren’t risk taking more than a catnap on his pallet in the attic before readying himself for his employer’s next summons.
Philip paced his bedchamber for a minute. The encounter with Lady Warwick followed by his confrontation with Margaret had excited him, and his loins were heavy, his blood hot with a sexual appetite that needed gratification. He allowed his mind to dwell on the lissome figure of Rupert Warwick’s wife, on the mischievous sparkle in her eyes that seemed to suggest collusion, on the curve of her mouth, the discreetly veiled swell of her breasts. There was a freshness about her that excited him most powerfully. And she’d seemed inclined to play a part other than that of the straitlaced ingenue bride.
How would Rupert Warwick take to wearing horns? The question amused Philip. His gaze flickered to the door connecting his apartments with his wife’s. It was not a question he would ever have to ask of himself.
His blood grew hotter, so that a mist of perspiration coated his skin. His flesh rose beneath his gown, pulsating with the urgency of his need.
He had a wife. An unsatisfactory wife in all respects, but her body was there, available to assuage this need. He strode to the door, flung it open, and entered the dark chamber.
The curtains were drawn around the bed, and he threw them back.
Letitia had awakened as the door had banged on its hinges, and now she lay shivering under the covers. She knew what he’d come for and closed her eyes tightly as the bed curtains were opened and she felt his presence beside the bed. He always took her in this way, ever since she’d conceived Susannah. Always suddenly in the night, always waking her from sleep, so that many nights she lay awake until dawn in dread apprehension, straining her ears in the dark, waiting for the visitation.
He never spoke to her, except sometimes when he used coarse, vile language as he pushed hurtfully against the limits of her body, and the language seemed to excite him to greater fervency. There was never any pretense that she herself was important. He had a need, and it was her duty to supply that need.
The bed shivered as he dropped heavily onto the mattress. He raised her shift, then seized her hands, holding them over her head. He pushed into her, and tears squeezed behind her eyelids at the tight, unyielding pain.
When it was over, he left her—without a word, without even drawing the bed curtains again—so that now she could see the first pink streaks of dawn through the window, an offering of a new and bright day.
Letitia’s tears flowed hot and strong as she lay in wide-eyed misery. This was her life, and there was nothing she could do about it. No one she could turn to. Her father would never listen to a complaint against her husband. Her husband was her lord and master in the eyes of the Church and the law, and how he chose to treat her was a matter for his own conscience. The Duke of Gosford would have nothing to say. The world would have nothing to say.
Chapter 11
“No dinner engagement this evening, Octavia?”
“No, I thought I’d pamper myself with a little peace and quiet for once.” Octavia turned her head against the rim of the bathtub, smiling through the fragrant steam at Rupert in the doorway. “Are you coming in, because there’s a howling gale coming from behind you.”
Rupert stepped into the room, closing the door at his back. “Nell, your mistress will ring when she needs you again.”
Nell, who was smoothing the folds of a gown of dark-green silk, showed no surprise at this statement. One glance at Lord Rupert’s coolly appraising gaze resting on the naked Lady Warwick in her bath had told her that her presence was about to be superfluous. She adjusted the gown on its hanger, curtsied, and slipped discreetly from the room.
Rupert hitched his foot behind the leg of a padded stool before the dresser and dragged it across to the tub, next to the fire. He’d become accustomed to Octavia’s predilection for baths, although that was as unusual as her refusal to wear paint and powder.
“If you’re intending to play, you’re going to spoil your coat,” Octavia observed with a severe air. “Water and velvet are bad combinations, my lord.”
“A problem easily resolved,” he said, removing his coat of glossy black velvet and the black silk waistcoat beneath. He placed both carefully on the bed, then unfastened the tiny buttons hidden in the deep lace ruffles of his sleeves and twitched the fine lawn up to his elbows.
“But you might splash your britches,” Octavia said in the same tone, idly flicking her fingertips across the surface of the water.
“I’ll take the risk. What have you done with the soap?”
“Oh, I’ve already soaped myself,” she said languidly.
“Then you’ll have to be soaped twice,” he declared, sitting on the stool beside the tub, bending to pick up the lavender-scented cake from the dish on the floor. “Now, where shall I start …”
Octavia chuckled and surrendered, her body malleable and obedient to instruction. Rupert always took the greatest delight in playing with her, and yielding herself in this way set her mind adrift from her body, bringing her a rich and pure sensual pleasure.
She knew that Rupert intended that this game would stay with her throughout the evening, her body, aroused and sensitive, waiting with eager impatience for the moment when the promise of these playful caresses would be fulfilled. She knew that throughout the evening Rupert would glance at her occasionally, brush against her, murmur something in her ear, and her body, already on the brink of passion, would be jolted by a current of hungry lust. Rupert would smile and move away,
knowing exactly what he’d done, knowing that when they were at last alone, the mere brush of his fingers would send her plunging into the chasm.
“Where are you dining this evening?” Attempting to carry on an ordinary conversation was part of the game.
“Viscount Lawton has a small gathering,” he replied in the same casual tone, his hands following their own busy path. “He’s promised a degree of light entertainment.”
“Women, in other words.”
“Possibly,” he agreed. “A party of Posture Molls, I believe. The Prince of Wales has made it clear that he relishes such spectator sports, and Malcolm assures me that the three ladies he’s hired for the evening will provide a spectacle to satisfy the most prurient imagination.”
He withdrew his hand from beneath the water and ran a fingertip over her lips. “One of them, I believe, specializes in flagellation, one of His Highness’s most particular pleasures.”
Octavia chuckled, licking the tip of his finger. “Does he prefer to administer or receive?”
“Oh, either or both, according to mood,” Rupert said airily. “Unfortunately, he expects his companions to participate with the same enthusiasm, so I think I shall excuse myself before the entertainment really gets going.” He reached for a large towel, draping it over his knee as he sat on the low stool. “Come.”
“You’ll be back here later for the gaming?” Octavia rose in a shower of drops, stepped delicately out of the tub, and deposited herself on Rupert’s knee.
“Of course.” He wrapped the towel around her and began to blot the water from her skin. “And followed by most of Lawton’s guests, I trust. Once they tire of watching the sexual antics of a trio of whores.”
“I thought Posture Molls considered themselves to be above whores.” Octavia leaned forward obligingly so he could dry her back. “They don’t actually sell their bodies, do they?”
