by Jane Feather
“Are you certain the hot compresses will help?” she asked. “The poor baby cries so when we administer them. I’m sure they must burn her skin.”
“My dear Lady Wyndham, as I’ve explained, the child has a very severe case of the croup. It may well turn to a fever of the lungs.” The doctor was both pompous and impatient, overriding Lady Wyndham’s clear distress. “The compresses must be hot enough to raise a blister on her skin. If the fever reaches her lungs, then the matter will be very grave indeed. I cannot stress how grave it will be with such a small child.”
“What’s all this fuss?” Philip demanded of the doctor.
“Lady Susannah has a severe case of the croup, my lord.” The physician bowed until his nose almost touched his knees.
“Oh, my lord, she is in such distress,” Letitia said, her fingers knotting in her apron, tears springing to her eyes. “Nurse and I have been at our wits’ end all night to know how to give her relief.”
“Well, you have the doctor’s advice now,” her husband said dismissively. “Expensive advice, I’m sure,” he added with a sardonic curl to his Hp.
“Oh, but you wouldn’t begrudge …” Letitia’s voice faded. For one moment she’d lost her fear of her husband in her far greater fear for her daughter’s safety, but it flooded back in full measure when he turned his cold gray eyes upon her.
“I do beg your pardon,” she whispered. “If you will excuse me, I must go back to the nursery.”
She turned to go, but her husband called her back sharply. “Wait,” he commanded. “I have something to say to you.”
He waved a dismissive hand at the doctor. “I give you good day, sir.”
“My lord … my lady.” The physician bowed again and strutted to the door, already being opened by the butler.
“And if your services are required again,” the earl said indifferently, “you will find the servant’s entrance more suited to your position. Bennet will show you the way.”
The doctor blanched, and then crimson flooded his raddled cheeks. The butler stared impassively ahead as he held the door.
Letitia still stood on the stairs, her knuckles white as she gripped the bannister. Surely Philip wasn’t going to castigate her for summoning the physician?
Her husband bent his cold stare upon her. “I do not care for my house to be thrown into chaos with nursery disturbances,” he said in measured tones. “You will ensure that all matters to do with the child are confined to the nursery and the backstairs. As soon as she is well enough to travel, she’s to be sent to Wyndham Manor. I daresay the country air will benefit her, and her absence will assuredly benefit me.”
He bowed curtly and, without waiting for a response, turned and went into the library.
Letitia, after one startled moment, gasped and ran down the stairs, following him into the library. “You wish us to go to Wyndham Manor before the king’s birthday, my lord?”
“The child, yes,” he said. “I said nothing about you, madam.”
Letitia’s face was bloodless, her lips almost blue. “But … but she cannot go without me, my lord.”
“Of course she can. She has a competent nurse.” He picked up a periodical from a table and began to leaf through it.
“But, Philip …” Letitia began.
He looked up with an air of bored indifference. “Well?”
Letitia swallowed. She twisted her fingers together, cracking the knuckles. The sound seemed to echo in the ghastly silence.
“You cannot send her away without me,” she said. “She’s my child. I’m her mother.”
“Are you questioning my decision, ma’am?” His voice was the caress of a scorpion, and there was a flicker in his eyes that she recognized with terror. It was a flicker of anticipation that she was going to give him cause to punish her. Not that he needed cause, but it seemed to increase his savage satisfaction.
She stepped backward. “No, my lord.”
The flicker turned into a flame. He dropped the periodical onto the table. “Are you sure, my dear? It sounded remarkably like it to me.”
“No, my lord. No, indeed, I wasn’t,” she said desperately, taking another step backward toward the door.
“So you are of my mind that the child will do better in the country?” He tapped the back of one hand into the palm of his other. “Without her mother,” he added gently.
“Yes,” Letitia said, hating herself for her cowardice but knowing the hopelessness of making a stand. He would crush her like an ant beneath his heel. “If you will excuse me, sir, I must return to the nursery.” She turned and fled before he could detain her.
Philip laughed derisively and picked up the periodical again. Letitia was hardly worth the trouble, really. As gutless as a worm. Unlike Octavia Warwick.
He allowed his mind to dwell on the smooth, pale oval of Lady Warwick’s face, the tawny gold eyes so full of fire and light, the luxuriant cinnamon hair. She had such a surprisingly deep and rich voice, so suggestive and so amused.
And she had behaved with such impeccable discretion over that debacle with the climbing boy. Not once had she mentioned it. Instead, she continued to treat him with flattering attention, offered him soft words and clandestine, brushing caresses as she passed him, her smile both mischievous and inviting.
His loins ached whenever he thought of her body as it had been the moment before the soot came down. He had been so close to baring her secrets, to possessing those secrets.
It was time to suggest another assignation.
He flung down the periodical and strode from the room. “Have my horse brought around immediately,” he commanded as he took the stairs two at a time. It was the fashionable hour for riding or driving in Hyde Park, and on such a beautiful morning he would almost certainly come across Lady Warwick.
Half an hour later he descended the stairs in riding dress. There was a satisfactory hush to his house, he noted. No further intrusions from the nursery. He went out again into the bright morning, his step spritely, and mounted his elegant black gelding.
The town had come to life now, and the streets were busy as he turned to ride through Green Park. It was a bucolic scene, with milk maids tending their cows, ready to sell a cup of new-drawn milk to a thirsty passerby.
“Good day, Wyndham.” A pleasant voice spoke from behind him. A pleasant voice but one that set his hackles on end.
He turned to see Rupert Warwick approaching on his distinctive silver mount. Lord Rupert smiled and doffed his hat, bowing courteously.
Philip returned the salute stiffly. “Warwick.”
“Beautiful morning,” Lord Rupert observed. “I’m almost tempted to take a cup of milk from one of those rosy-cheeked peasants. Such a pretty, rustic sight they make.”
His companion made no response but continued on his way as if he had not been so irritatingly joined by a man he instinctively detested.
He glanced sideways after a minute and covertly examined Lord Rupert’s calm profile. What was it about the man that disturbed him so? There was an air of menace about him, and yet it would be impossible to pinpoint its source. Philip had the sense in Lord Rupert’s company that the man knew something he didn’t … that he held a secret that amused him in some way. But it was not a pleasant amusement. It was as if he were anticipating some disagreeable surprise.
Philip shook his head with a muttered oath. He was indulging in foolish whimsy. The only man in for an unpleasant surprise was Rupert Warwick, who was about to be invested with a pair of horns. With a vicious kick he set his horse to the gallop, leaving his unwelcome companion behind him on the path without so much as a word of farewell.
Rupert smiled. His twin was beginning to sense something awry. Let him enjoy the sensation. He leaned down to pat Lucifer’s neck. On Wednesday he’d leave the distinctive silver horse in the stable. He’d conduct his business on Putney Heath mounted on Peter. No point laying his cards upon the table prematurely.
Philip espied Octavia walking beside the t
an in the company of three of the Prince of Wales’s most obsequious acolytes. A footman trod discreetly in her wake, carrying a parasol and several books from the circulating library.
“Good morning, Lord Wyndham.” Octavia greeted him with a radiant smile. “Isn’t it a beautiful morning?”
“Beside your beauty, Lady Warwick, the morning pales,” one of her escorts declared sententiously, doffing his plumed hat in an elaborate flourish.
“La, Mr. Cartwright, how you do flatter one,” Octavia responded with a faint smile. “Will you dismount and walk with us, Lord Wyndham?”
“I fear if compliments are the payment for your company, madam, I have a meager purse,” the earl said, swinging down to the path.
His voice was disdainful but his smile was complicit, imparting his knowledge that he alone knew how Lady Warwick despised empty flattery.
“Lud, sir, I have no need of compliments from you,” she said, taking his proffered arm. “I have more than enough from elsewhere.”
She smiled at her courtiers. “Gentlemen, I have something most particular to say to Lord Wyndham, so I must beg you to excuse us.”
“Oh, cruel damsel. I swear I am cut to the quick,” exclaimed an effete, willowy gentlemen in a gold-striped waistcoat and hedgehog wig. “To be dismissed so harshly.”
Octavia smiled and waggled her fingers at him in playful farewell. “I’ll dance the quadrille with you at the next subscription ball by way of compensation, Lord Percival.”
“And what of the rest of us?” demanded the remaining pair. “Are we to have no compensation?”
“Why, certainly,” Octavia said sweetly. “I shall stand between you at the faro tables tonight and bring you luck.”
With much protestation and lavish compliments, her escort dropped back, leaving her with Philip.
“Let us take a side path,” she suggested. “Otherwise we shall be constantly having to acknowledge people. Basset, you may wait here and hold Lord Wyndham’s horse. I shall return in ten minutes.”
“Yes, my lady.” The footman shifted his parcels into one hand and took the reins somewhat gingerly.
“You’re not afraid people might whisper if you walk unchaperoned?” the earl inquired.
“La, Lord Wyndham, they cannot whisper more than they do already,” she said, turning aside down a narrow path bordered by thick laurel hedges. “I was thinking it might be time to give them something to whisper about.”
She said it so casually that for a moment he didn’t react. Then he smiled. “We think alike, my dear.”
He glanced up and down the narrow pathway. It was deserted. With a swift movement he pulled her into his arms.
Octavia endured the kiss as she always did. She was an automaton, responding by rote. Making the appropriate little noises of satisfaction as her lips parted beneath his mouth, moving her hands with appropriate eagerness, reaching against him with appropriate enthusiasm. It was easier now … now that she knew she would have to give him no more than this superficial submission. As always, though, her hands slipped inside his coat, fluttered over his waistcoat. And as always, they located the small hard circle against his heart.
Philip drew back, grasping her face between his hands, gazing down at her with a savage hunger in his eyes. “You will come to my house.”
“No,” she said quickly, shaking her head. “No, my dear. I believe it would be better to have our own place for this. Somewhere where we can be ourselves … enjoy ourselves …” Her tongue flickered over her lips. “Enjoy ourselves without fear of interruption.”
His face darkened at this oblique reference to the mortification of the previous occasion, but she was continuing before he had a chance to articulate his annoyance.
“There is a place I know. The house of my old nurse. We will be quite private there. She will leave everything ready for us and then make herself scarce before we arrive.”
She reached up to grasp his wrist as he continued to hold her face. “Will you permit me to arrange this? It will give me such pleasure.”
“You have arranged such things before?” he asked with a touch of sullenness.
Octavia shook her head. “No, my lord. But I believe I know how to arrange this for both our pleasures.”
She smiled and stroked his wrist with a fingertip. “When one desires something so powerfully, one derives much excitement from planning for the satisfaction of that desire.”
She watched the vain complacence fill his eyes, his mouth curve in a self-satisfied smile, and her stomach turned over with repulsion and rage. How dare he imagine she could for one moment want him … imagine that he could begin to pleasure her? A woman accustomed to the delicate, skillful lovemaking of Rupert Warwick. A woman accustomed to the joyous laughter and the all-consuming ecstasy of Rupert Warwick’s bed.
Rage swirled behind her eyes, but the smile remained on her mouth, and Philip Wyndham read only what he wanted and expected to read.
“Very well,” he said, and his fingers tightened on her chin.
“Wednesday,” Octavia said with another surreptitious flicker of her tongue, her finger again caressing the pulse at his wrist. “Will Wednesday afternoon suit you, my lord?”
“Perfectly.”
“Then I shall come for you in a closed carriage. At two o’clock.”
“At two o’clock.”
Philip escorted her back to the waiting footman, who with clear relief relinquished his charge.
“Ah, if it isn’t the fair Octavia!” The booming greeting heralded the Prince of Wales, buffeting down the tan toward them on a showy chestnut that looked barely up to his weight.
“Dear lady, you are balm for sore eyes.” He reined in sharply, causing his mount to rear and wheel on the path in a flamboyant display of very poor horsemanship.
“I give you good day, Wyndham, and bid you take your leave,” he declared with a loud laugh. “You’ve monopolized the lady long enough.”
“As you command, sir.” Philip bowed to his prince with ill-concealed mockery before raising Octavia’s hand to his lips. “Farewell, ma’am. Until the next time.”
“The next time,” she agreed softly before making her curtsy to the prince as he dismounted heavily and with much puffing to the path.
Lord Wyndham took his leave without further ado, and Octavia resigned herself to a barrage of fulsome compliments and tasteless jests from her royal escort and his accompanying courtiers.
She returned to Dover Street at noon, her mouth aching with the artificial smile she’d had to maintain throughout the interminable promenade with the prince.
“Is Mr. Morgan in, Griffin?”
“I believe so, my lady.”
The butler had the air of one struggling to restrain himself. Octavia drew off her gloves and invited with a sigh, “And Frank?”
Griffin exhaled, his chest almost visibly deflating as he unburdened himself. “I couldn’t rightly say, madam. He failed to join Mr. Morgan for his lessons after breakfast. I caught him with his hands in the silver, my lady. But before I could remonstrate with him, he ran off. I haven’t seen him since.”
“He was stealing the silver?” Octavia looked incredulous and then immediately wondered why she should be surprised.
“He was putting two teaspoons in his pockets, my lady. I caught him redhanded. And things have been missing from the servants’ quarters ever since he arrived.”
“Oh, dear.” Octavia frowned in dismay. “I’ll discuss it with Lord Warwick, Griffin. If Frank returns, bring him to me.”
She went upstairs to her father’s apartments, still frowning. It was really inevitable that Frank would steal. He was an uncivilized little animal who knew only the imperatives of survival. The only difference in essence between Frank and herself and Rupert was that Frank had been born to a life of crime, whereas she and Rupert had chosen it as the most expeditious, and it was to be hoped temporary, means of survival.
“Good morning, Papa. Frank didn’t come for his lessons toda
y, Griffin tells me.”
“No. He’s not overly fond of the discipline of learning,” Oliver remarked placidly, kissing his daughter as she bent over him. “He’s too concerned about where the next meal is coming from to concentrate on sitting still and listening.”
“But he knows he gets fed here.” Octavia sat on a low stool beside her father’s chair.
“Knowing and trusting are two very different things,” Oliver said. “I doubt very much you’ll make a model citizen of the lad.”
“You sound like Griffin.”
Her father merely smiled and stroked her head in a fleeting gesture. “Where’s your husband these days? I find myself missing his company.”
“Oh, he has business in the City,” she said vaguely. “I haven’t seen much of him myself.”
Oliver nodded and cheerfully changed the subject. But when Octavia left him twenty minutes later, his liveliness vanished, and he slumped in his chair with a brooding expression on his patrician countenance. Something was amiss between Octavia and Rupert Warwick. Neither of them said anything, or even so much as hinted at difficulties, but they couldn’t disguise the coldness and distance between them. Oliver could feel his daughter’s unhappiness, but the urge to ask her what was troubling her was as always superseded by his innate reluctance to hear something he didn’t want to hear. It would go away, if left alone. Once things were spoken aloud, they took on a shape and substance that became impossible to dissolve.
Restlessly, he rose from his chair and went to the window. Rupert was approaching the house from the mews, his caped riding cloak flowing from his shoulders, his riding whip tapping against his boots. Oliver couldn’t discern his expression from two floors above, but there was a tension in the broad frame that shouted up from the street. Oliver watched as he mounted the steps to the front door and disappeared from view as he was let into the house.
