“Mr. Willoughby, sir,” the butler drawls. “Begging your pardon, but her ladyship is not receiving at such an early hour.”
On a different day, I might have laughed at his shameless hypocrisy, to stand there and deliver such words with a blank face. As though he had not admitted me to her presence at far less sociable hours. I do not laugh. Instead, I grind a warning through my teeth:
“Stand aside, Higgins,” I growl. “I will not be trifled with today. Where is she?”
Neither man answers, but Tom—younger and less versed in the base arts—flashes a glance towards the marble staircase. I neither request nor need further clarification and I push past the servants, disdaining to acknowledge the butler’s cries of protest as I take to the stairs at a run.
I know my way of course, and all too well at that. Her townhouse and country residence are as familiar to me as my own home. Or rather as the seat of my ancestors, for no one in their right mind would regard that sad and mouldering old pile, Coombe Magna, as a home.
It had been very far from welcoming, even when my mother was alive. My “saintly mother” as my sire would invariably refer to her, and with the same inflection, both before and after her passing. I never asked him why. Speaking to him was something I have always been as eager to avoid as spending too many nights under his roof. Just about anybody’s company was preferable. But this is neither here nor there. As a rule, I never ponder on Coombe Magna, my boyhood, my departed mother, or the late John Oglivie Willoughby. At this point in time, I could not give a damn for any and all, and likewise for philosophising. What I seek—nay, demand—is a direct answer to a simple question: Is it true, the report?
My opportunity to demand the answer comes sooner than expected. I imagined I would find her in the morning room or still at breakfast. Finding her reclining on a chaise longue, in her bedchamber, has me speechless. This vexes me quite as much as her languorous pose, doubtlessly assumed for the occasion, for she could not claim that my tempestuous entrance had surprised her from her rest; the din I caused to gain admittance could have roused the dead.
She rearranges the lace of her dressing gown with slow deliberation, which cannot fail to provoke me all the more, as does the casual greeting, delivered without looking up.
“John. This is a surprise.”
“Is it? Did you not imagine I would come as soon as Lady Susan told me of your engagement?”
“Ah,” she says. Just that and nothing more.
And then, she does raise her head and looks at me. I blink, staggered to discover my anger mellowing and melting. Struth! Is that all it takes? A mere glance to tame me? Love’s fool, Captain Tilney called me not long ago, and I grinned and shrugged, dismissing it as envy. Perhaps the man had the right of it after all. Love’s fool. Perhaps I am.
Still tongue-tied, I simply stand there, watching her, and she holds my gaze without blinking. And also without guile. There is none, and no shifty dissimulation either, in those hazel eyes. No change. No artifice. The report is false. It must be.
I find myself on one knee beside her. How did I get there? I could not care less. The question I stormed in here to demand an answer to comes out in a whisper:
“It is a falsehood, Isobel, is it not?”
She runs her fingers through my hair and smiles like a cat.
“Oh, John! My tempestuous, dear boy.”
The caress irritates me—I never was one for having my hair stroked—and the tone and appellation vexes me even more. Her dear boy! There was I thinking I was nobody’s “boy” but my own man, even before the late Willoughby’s passing. And she can drop the matronly act, too. She is not that much older. Six years, seven maybe. I never asked, of course. What gentleman would, and what did it matter?
What mattered now was her reply. I toss my head back, away from the caress, and press my point.
“Is it a falsehood?”
“Of course not. When has Lady Susan ever spoken an untruth?”
Her misplaced archness revives my forgotten fury. She jests. My world has just collapsed around me—and she jests!
I know not what I am about to say, too many words are fighting to come out at once, and before any of them do, she speaks, and her countenance sobers.
“Yes, John, I am to marry Camborne. He asked and I accepted.”
“Why?”
She shrugs.
“Why not? His title and estate have much to recommend him. He is worth well-nigh thirty a year, I am told.”
“He is a dithering, old fool in his late forties.”
She laughs again.
“Oh, for the charm of youth that finds late forties old! What would you say if I told you the marquess is, in fact, nearing his sixtieth autumn?”
“Oh, plenty!” I snap back. “To begin with, I would ask you to cease speaking of my charming youth with the vexing condescension of a matron. And then I would ask if you had lost your mind. Sixty? Good Lord in Heaven! Did you not say that you loathed your first marriage of convenience? What madness would prompt you to enter into a second one?”
“I loathed Heston and my marriage to him because he was a miserly, little man, and I should have known better than to accept him simply to please my father. This time, I only seek to please myself. Frankly, I think I did rather well. Camborne is liberal, wealthy, and oh-so-easily guided. As for his age, if anything, I find it highly recommends him. The settlement is exceedingly handsome. Incomparably better than Heston’s pitiful provisions. The little that Heston left is nearly gone already. Camborne’s settlement is a wholly different matter. I think I shall enjoy being the dowager marchioness rather well…”
I stare aghast as she calmly speaks of a better-placed second widowhood before she has even wed her second husband. Who is this cold and calculated harpy? I knew she had resented her first husband and blamed her first marriage on her youthful inexperience and her parents’ persuasion. But to sell herself thus for the second time to a higher bidder—and what for?
Granted, one cannot live on air. I know that all too well. My late sire left behind a dark, old pile, staggering debts, and very little else. Yet, I would not contemplate selling my favours like a common trollop, or else I would have offered for the waspish and insipid Miss Grey a twelvemonth ago! The very thought that Isobel is more than contemplating it—that she has already consented to sell herself to Camborne after all we shared—sends my blood boiling.
“But what about the interim?” I ask with a cold sneer. “How will you enjoy taking him to your bed, until he obliges you by dying?”
To my utter shock her bare arms wind around my neck, and she kisses me. Not one kiss but a dozen, breathless and burning. She draws me to her, lies back on the chaise longue, and I follow. I ask no further questions—who the devil would feel inclined to talk just now? Of anything at all, much less Camborne?
I fumble with her lacy dressing gown and the rest of her flimsy attire, and she wraps herself around me with the ardour of old. I recognise it in a flash—and then there is no room for thought. Our joining, frenzied and quick, casts everything out of focus. The sense of triumph is exhilarating. So is the giddiness. Drunk with love? Drunk with power, more like. ’Tis mine, and mine alone, the power to make her quiver at a touch—writhe in the heat of passion—cry out my name—repeat it over and over in soft moans muffled by my kisses.
The clarity returns at an unhurried pace as we lay back on the ludicrously narrow sofa, limbs still entwined. She sighs in what I believe—however smugly—is at the very least contentment, and runs her fingers through my hair again. This time, I make no move of protest but chuckle lightly.
“I take it then that whatever sins you were punishing me for are now forgiven,” I drawl.
“Punishment, you call this?” she asks archly, pinching me for good measure. “If it was a punishment for you to exert yourself, you need not have taken the trouble.”
I laugh.
“Pax! No more disputes, I beg you; not even feigned ones.” I lean to
kiss the tip of her nose, then soberly resume: “You know full well I was not speaking of my exertions, as it pleases you to call it, but of that nonsense you were teasing me with when I arrived. You might wish to tell me, by and bye, how I displeased you quite so much as to deserve the taunt, and indeed how you cajoled Lady Susan to play her part so well, but that is neither here nor there—”
She interrupts me.
“What taunt are you speaking of?”
“Your alleged engagement to Camborne. I must say I am flattered you chose to play your little game despite the risks. Your ‘happy tidings’ could have easily been all over Town already. Lady Susan is hardly the soul of discretion and—”
She cuts me off again, a strange smile at the corner of her lips.
“The world begins and ends with you, John, does it not?”
“Your meaning?” I ask, propping myself up on one elbow to see her better.
“’Tis both provoking and endearing that you should think I would go to such lengths on your account. My upcoming marriage is all over Town already, John, and as settled as can be.”
“What?”
“I think you heard me well enough the first time,” she nonchalantly answers, and that is when I wholly lose my temper.
“Isobel, you cannot! I will not allow it!”
“And how do you propose to prevent it, John? Thankfully, you are too level-headed for a crime of passion.”
I am not altogether certain as to that. There is nothing I want more right now than to wipe that taunting smirk off her lips, by any means possible. The first woman I have ever loved lies beside me, gloriously beautiful in her semi-nakedness—and rotten to the core. Why else would she drive such obvious pleasure from her cruelty? That she truly contemplates selling herself in marriage to a senile, old fool has suddenly become the lesser sin. She could have revealed it with a look of shame, love, or regret. Instead, she does it with a mocking sneer. I loved her—heaven help me, as I would dearly like to strangle her just now, perhaps I love her still—and yet, she never did. A toy to alleviate her boredom. Divertissement between the sheets—and indeed wherever else it had taken her fancy.
I close my mind to flashes from the past—they do not serve me well. Love’s fool, year after year. Worse still, her fool, while inwardly she must have been laughing all the while, as she does now.
“How could you? I thought—”
I stop short when I hear, to my horror, that my voice cracks and breaks.
“Thought what?”
Her calm collectedness is another slap in my face, so I do not finish my sentence. I thought you loved me. I thought you genuine and pure. I thought your past was your father’s fault and that there would be a future.
She reads my mind. She always was exceedingly good at that.
“You thought I would marry you and we would happily rusticate at Coombe together? Poor John. One should never marry one’s first love, you know. Too early an attachment gives one’s feelings that much longer to grow stale and bitter.”
“What makes you think you were my first love?” I bluster. “You flatter yourself.”
She laughs—a soft and musical laugh that nevertheless scratches my ears like a cackle. She has not been taken in by my bravado.
“If you say so,” she replies with a shrug, and with all the force of my will I wish I could appear as jaded as she, as calm and indifferent. But my hands are inordinately clumsy as I seek to redress my general appearance, tuck my shirt in, and button my breeches. Behind me, she sits up and perches herself on the edge of the seat.
“That is much better,” she observes. “The romantic part of the jilted lover is played to better effect when one’s shirt is not hanging out of one’s breeches. Let me arrange your neckcloth.”
Despite the last harrowing minutes, she still has the power to shock me speechless with the callousness of her remarks. I spring to my feet and cast her a withering stare. Or at least try to.
“I thank you, but I require no assistance,” I say, as coldly as I can.
There is a looking-glass hanging to my left and I seek to make use of it, but the neckcloth is a mess and I only make it worse. I curse it—liberally but inwardly—as I would much rather not give Lady Isobel the satisfaction of another display of temper. A glimpse in the glass reveals her reclining in her chaise longue again, watching me. I leave the neckcloth be and turn around.
So horribly deceptive, that look of sweetly dishevelled innocence, as if she has just risen from restful sleep, and not from her final tryst with the “jilted lover.” She must have read my thoughts again—I hate how she does that!—for what she said was:
“I trust this is not farewell.”
I do not disgrace myself by gaping, but I surmise my pose is nonetheless that of a startled fool. That is, until bitter laughter begins to bubble inside me, threatening to burst out into an unseemly snort or, worse still, into maniacal glee. So, this had been her plan all along? The best of both worlds—the services of the young buck and the old codger’s purse? Well, she would have to reconsider. This young buck would rather not share the trough with the old codger. Or anyone else, for that matter.
I tame the laughter—barring a chortle—and make no answer, but the attempt to cloak myself in cold mystery is a fruitless effort. The blasted woman can read me like a book.
“Resentment is a poor master, John. It teaches you to cut your nose to spite your face. If you believe your dignity was injured, then I apologise. Perhaps I ought not have made sport of you today. But you see, my dear, you do make for a perfect target. So self-assured, yet all you can boast of is your vigorous and rather charming youth. Do grow up, John, and learn the ways of the world. Learn your way around women, too. I imagine I was your first—”
“You flatter yourself,” I repeat woodenly, the earlier glee vanquished by her witching powers. They say love can turn to hatred in a flash. They are not wrong.
“Your second, then. Third at the utmost,” she resumes blithely, and it makes me as mad as snakes that she had so easily garnered my inexperience. “Tying yourself to the apron strings of the first woman who takes you to her bed—or let us say the second or third woman, if it pleases you—may be endearing to some but not very manly. It would be my pleasure to turn you into a man in every sense of the word. Much as you clearly resent this shift in our liaison, as well as my stark honesty, pray tell me hand on heart, do you not find it refreshing after two years of coy games?”
“Three,” I say without thinking.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I have been the recipient of your favours for nigh-on three years,” I drawl with feigned unconcern, presumably fooling no one.
“Indeed! Very well. You may be the recipient of my continued interest and advice for a fair while longer, as well as Camborne’s goodwill,” she replies matter-of-factly, and this time I raise a brow at the astounding confidence with which she vouches for the cuckolded Cambourne’s goodwill. The staggering arrogance of her! Or perhaps not. Perhaps it is a mere statement of truth, and she has every confidence that she can make any man dance to her tune, if she wishes.
Not me. Not any more!
“Are you quite certain?” she asks, and that is when I realise I spoke my thoughts aloud.
I force my stubborn back into a bow.
“I thank you,” I say as crisply as I can, “but I would rather not avail myself of your offer. I fear it would savour of payment for services rendered,” I add resentfully, only to feel rather ashamed of my coarseness. But not for long.
She tosses back her mane of copper-red hair and scoffs:
“How convenient, a recently-developed set of morals! A conscience too, perchance? Too tedious for words. A pity. I was holding hopes of a better understanding. By all means, curl up with your newfound morality, dear boy. Just do not imagine the offer will still be there for the taking when you change your stance and return to my door.”
Never! I would rather die before I beg or cower before her o
r anybody else. I am my own master, and ’tis high time I showed it. I rake my mind for something to say, a fitting Parthian shot, pithy, cold, and hurtful, but nothing comes to me, and the silence has lasted long enough. The dreary platitude of “farewell” is my sole recourse. I deliver it with a rigid bow and leave Lady Isobel’s bedchamber without another word. I do not glance back either.
* * *
To the end of my days I will not know what I did with myself over the following couple of hours. I know I rode heedlessly away, cursing myself for blindness and folly, and her, for her deceitful ways.
I was not half-done when two pint-sized creatures spring into my path with shrieks and giggles, unsettling my horse. I very nearly lose my seat in my distraction. That would be a fine to-do, to take a tumble in— Where the devil am I? Hyde Park, it seems. I had wandered off from the Rotten Row without notice and almost literally stumbled over someone’s offspring. The pair of them, girl and boy, are now watching me, hands behind their backs, the picture of childish innocence, as though they had not been careering through the trees like savage, little things.
Too sensitive by far, my horse snorts and bridles, still unnerved.
“Settle down, you rotter,” I mutter, tightening the reins.
“Begging your pardon for frightening him, sir,” the girl pipes up. “Would he like an apple?”
I am in no humour to converse with children. Nevertheless, I dismount, not averse to stretching my legs. I pat the horse’s neck and answer the girl’s question.
“He might, if you have one to offer.”
She quickly produces an apple from the pocket of her pinafore and boldly steps closer.
“What is his name?”
“Peg.”
“If you do not mind my saying, sir, that is a very silly name for a horse.”
I do not trouble myself to tell her ’tis short for Pegasus—as pompous and pretentious as all the names my sire had chosen for his horses. I do believe that, of the whole estate, the only part that had ever held his interest were his stables and his thoroughbreds. And the races he had bred them for. They lost badly and often. But that had never stopped him from betting heavily on them. I choose my bets more sensibly; at least on the racecourse and at the gaming tables.
Dangerous to Know Page 2
