by Anne Gracie
Hope stormed on, “And if they have suffered from the evil in the world, they are victims, yes?”
“Y-yes,” Lady Elinore agreed.
“Then why do you treat them as if they are naturally wicked?”
“What do you mean? I don’t. They must be reformed, of course and their tendencies to immorality eradicated—”
“Reformed?” Hope exploded. “Tendencies to immorality? I have heard this kind of rubbish all my life from my grandfather—only he says all females are born sinful! Those girls are but children who had no choice in what they did! If you are robbed, do you need reforming?”
Lady Elinore looked confused.
Hope didn’t wait for a response. “No, of course not. And these children were robbed of their childhood and their innocence. They understand fear and hate and evil and hardship. What they need to learn about is love and hope and pride and how to be happy in life.” Her voice softened. “Their clothes don’t make them potential birds of paradise—they are just young girls feeling natural excitement over a few pretty things. Don’t you remember what it’s like to get a pretty new dress—” She broke off, looking at Lady Elinore’s gray, shapeless gown. “No, I suppose not.”
Lady Elinore’s mouth quivered.
Hope came forward and took her hand. Her voice softened. “Please don’t be upset. I know you mean well. But you are following your mother’s precepts so blindly. And they are so harsh and joyless.”
“My mother was a great woman.” Lady Elinore said shakily.
“But why would she wish females to take no joy in wearing pretty things? Why deny a lonely child the comfort of a doll?”
“A great many people admired my mother’s ideas.”
“Perhaps,” said Hope gently, “but she does not seem to have been very happy. And has her Rational approach brought you such happiness?”
Lady Elinore’s face quivered. “One’s duty is more important than one’s personal happiness.” It had all the ear-marks of a quote from her mother.
Hope squeezed her hands. “Perhaps, but if duty and joy can be combined, why deny personal happiness when it is possible?”
Lady Elinore’s brow furrowed. She made no response.
There was a long silence in the room. Finally, Lady Elinore said in a shaken voice, “I see. Thank you for explaining your point of view. I . . . I shall leave now.” She stood and looked around helplessly, a little blindly.
Sebastian and Giles were both standing.
“Bas?” Giles queried.
Sebastian didn’t move. He was staring fixedly at Hope, then as his friend jogged him with his elbow, he started and said in a vague manner, “Yes, yes, to be sure.”
Giles opened the door. “Lady Elinore.”
“Th-thank you, Mr. Bemerton.” Quietly, with great dignity, Lady Elinore took her leave. Sebastian and the others followed her into the hall in silence.
A footman was sent to summon a hackney cab, and the moment it arrived, Mr. Bemerton helped Lady Elinore into it. He glanced at Sebastian, who was lost in thought, his expression blank. Giles rolled his eyes, leaped nimbly into the hackney cab, and gave the order for the jarvey to get the cab moving.
As the carriage moved off, Giles said quietly, “Do you need a handkerchief, Elinore?”
But Lady Elinore didn’t respond. She was staring vacantly ahead, a deep pucker between her brows.
Chapter Fourteen
May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment or are the result of previous study?
JANE AUSTEN
“IF ONLY SHE WOULD REALIZE THERE IS SCIENTIFIC REASONING behind my mother’s theories of clothing!” Lady Elinore was rapidly recovering from her distress and had begun to work herself into a self-righteous temper. “Wearing such bright colors brings out the excessive passions in men. We have a duty to protect our girls from that!”
Giles stared at her. “You can’t possibly believe such nonsense!”
The cab drew up in front of Lady Elinore’s house. “It’s not nonsense! It’s quite true. My mother conducted investigations into the matter. Masculine passions are stimulated by colors.”
He stepped from the carriage and turned to help her down the steps. “And that is why you wear those dreadful gray rags?”
She gave him a haughty look but accepted his hand. “My clothes are not rags. They are made of the finest materials: silk, velvet, merino.”
“All of them gray and all cut to have about as much shape as a merino sheep.”
She flounced up the steps to her house, opened the front door with a key, then turned and said indignantly, “My clothes are warm and effective, and they answer the Rational purpose for clothing.”
He followed her inside with a narrow, sleepy-lidded look. “Which is to disguise any female shape you have and avoid inflaming masculine passions.”
She sniffed, not liking to confirm such a bald statement, and tried to struggle out of her coat. He stepped forward and smoothly drew it from her shoulders. He held it up. “Where does it go?”
“Here. I’ll take it.” She opened a door and hung the coat on a hook. She stepped back out of the closet looking self-conscious. She smoothed down her gray dress.
Giles looked at the shapeless garment, the hair scraped back and hidden under an ugly gray cap, and then he looked at the woman beneath. “You have no idea, do you?”
She raised her brows and gave him a look of disdain. “About what?”
“About this.” He flung open the closet door, pushed her into it, and followed her in, closing the door behind him. Darkness wrapped around them.
She hit out at him with her fists. “How dare you!”
He caught her hands in his and held them. It was pitch black. “You’re not afraid of the dark, are you?”
“Of course not!”
His voice sounded deeper than usual as he said, “I’m not going to hurt you. You know that, Elinore.” He waited.
“I-I never gave you leave to use my first name!”
“You know I’m a rake, Elinore. Rakes don’t wait for leave. We take”—he stepped closer, until his body lightly touched hers—“liberties.”
She gave a little gasp and tried to step back, but the cupboard was small. She pressed back among the coats. “Wh-what do you think you are doing?”
Her hands were trembling in his. He soothed them with his thumb, stroking gently and rhythmically. She tried to pull her hands free, in vain.
“It is an experiment in color.”
“What?”
“I’m testing your mother’s theory. About color. Seeing if my unruly masculine passions can be quelled by a lack of color. Having been exposed to all those female bodies outside, clad in a positive riot of colors, I am in need of a calming experience. Which is why I sought you out.” His thumbs never ceased their caress of her soft skin.
She said not a word. After a moment he added, “It might take a few minutes to achieve the calm I need, but you shall not begrudge that, I know. In the name of . . . science.”
Silence. He could hear her breathing and the flutter of the pulse under his fingers quickened.
“So, what shall we talk about while the experiment runs its course? Oh, I know—you are aware, I suppose that my friend Sebastian Reyne is courting you?”
She hesitated. “Yes.”
“Are you aware that he doesn’t love you?”
There was an interminable wait before she said, “Yes. I don’t mind.”
His grip tightened. He wanted to shake her but forced himself to say mildly, “You should. Every woman deserves to be loved.” He waited a moment, but she didn’t respond, so he asked, “Do you love him?”
“No.” She added in a small, desperate voice, “Love is not Rational.”
“No, thank God, it isn’t!” He waited, but she said nothing. “So . . . you don’t mind that Sebastian’s only reasons for marrying you would be what he conceives of as his duty to his sisters?”
“Duty
is a solid foundation for most endeavors. I admire his devotion to duty. It is a Rational quality.”
“Is it now? And I bet you are just stuffed full of Rational qualities, aren’t you?”
“I try to be.”
“I bet you’ve never had an undutiful moment in your life, have you?”
“Not that I can remember. As I said, I admire an adherence to duty.” Her voice was cool, quite composed, but still, there was a faint tremble.
“Sebastian is another one who has sacrificed his entire life to duty.”
“Then we should suit, shouldn’t we?”
“I doubt it. Duty is a damned poor bedmate!”
She stiffened. “Must you be vulgar?”
“Yes, I’m a rake, remember? We’re vulgar fellows. And we believe duty is a poor substitute for love.”
“Duty endures. Love does not.”
“Maybe. I am not convinced of that. Rather unrakely of me, I know.” He shifted his grip on her hands, so that they were pressed against his chest. “And you have forgotten the glory of love. Ahh, the glory . . . Even if love does not endure, it is worth it, for just a few moments of glory,” he said softly.
“Indeed.” As an attempt to be arctic, it failed miserably. She sounded uncertain, almost wistful. She rallied, “Something so ephemeral would make a poor foundation for a lifetime endeavor.”
“You’ve never been in love, have you, Elinore?”
“Certainly not!”
He smiled at her tone. “No, love is not at all rational, and you only do Rational things, don’t you?”
“Of course!”
“For that matter, it is not particularly Rational for you to be in this cozy dark cupboard with me, is it?”
There was a small pause, then her voice quavered out of the darkness. “I believe you were wishing to test my mother’s theory about colors.”
“Do you?”
The silence thickened. Giles bent his head lower and murmured against her ear, “You know, of course, that I’ve never done a dutiful thing in my life.”
“You ought to be ashamed to admit such a thing.”
“And we’ve established that I have a . . . shall we say, a devilish reputation with the ladies.”
“Shall we say plain wicked and be done with it?” she said tartly.
He laughed softly. “Very well, wicked, though not, I hope, plain . . . So here we have an interesting combination; a lady who has never done a wicked thing in her life, and a gentlem—well, all right, a rake who has never done a dutiful thing in his.”
“You could still redeem yourself.”
“I could, couldn’t I? Redemption and duty are such interesting concepts. Their definition depends entirely on where one stands to begin with.” She moved restlessly, brushing her body inadvertently against his. She froze.
He said softly into the darkness, “So, Elinore, you think I ought to be more dutiful?”
“Y-yes, I do.”
“Then I think that it is my duty, as a friend, to prevent my good friend Sebastian Reyne from making a disastrous mistake.”
She said in a thready voice, “And that mistake would be?”
“Marrying you.”
She began in a stiff, hurt little voice, “I know I am not the usual sort of woman men want to marry, but—”
“There is no usual sort. I also think it’s my duty to teach you that there is more to life than being Rational.” He slid his hands down her arms and wrapped one arm around her waist. With the other he wrapped his hand around the nape of her neck and drew her against him.
She started struggling. “I’ve had enough of this! Let me out immediately! The experiment is over!”
“Oh, but my uncontrollable masculine passions have been aroused now,” he said. “See?” He drew her hand down to the front of his body. He felt her jump and freeze.
“Wh-what is that?”
“Hard evidence of uncontrollable masculine passion.” He let his words sink in and wondered whether she’d realized she hadn’t moved her hand away. It was pressed, ever so lightly, against his erection. Her fingers tentatively moved in exploration. Giles closed his eyes and tried not to groan, feeling the whisper-soft flutter of curious feminine fingers through the fabric of his trousers.
“Oh, it’s y—!” She bit off the word with a gasp.
He managed to say with a semblance of control, “Yes, it’s what you think it is. So what are you going to do about that, Elinore?”
Her hand flew up and came to hover back near his chest. “N-nothing! D-don’t you dare,” she quavered. “I warn you, I-I am armed!” He could feel her breath as she spoke.
“Yes, and dangerous. So use your hatpin,” said Giles. He waited a long moment, but no hatpin was forthcoming. Lady Elinore waited, breathless, vibrating with tension and expectation, like a small harp in the darkness. He lowered his mouth to hers.
“Love?” Sebastian halted his pacing at the question. “I don’t know if I love Miss Merridew or not.” He tossed the idea around in his mind a moment. “I’m not sure I have it in me to love anyone.”
“You think not?” Giles raised a skeptical brow. “You love your sisters.”
Sebastian stopped, thought for a moment, and then waved the suggestion aside. “That’s different. Family is different. They are children, and I owe them my protection and my care.”
“So why not pay someone to protect and care for them?” Giles shrugged. “It would solve all your problems.”
“It would not!” Sebastian snapped. “Besides, I need to see to their care and safety myself. They need to grow up knowing that someone cares for them—not because they are paid to, not because they are forced to, but because they want to, because they are family. They need to know how much they and their happiness matters.”
“And that you would die for them if necessary?” Giles asked softly.
Sebastian shrugged, uncomfortable with such statements. “Whatever is necessary for their safety and happiness.” And yes, even unto death.
“That, my dear fellow, is love.”
“That’s not what I feel for Miss Merridew then.” Although that wasn’t quite true. He did feel a powerful urge to protect her and care for her and make her happy. And he would die to protect her, too.
He also felt an equally powerful urge to take her to bed and make love to her until neither of them could move. Just the thought of it made him begin to harden with desire. “Oh, damn it all! I don’t know what to do, Giles. I’ve never felt this way before.”
Giles chuckled softly. “Welcome to the human race, my friend.”
Sebastian groaned. “It’s what she said the other day. ‘If duty and joy can be combined, why deny personal happiness when it is possible?’ I can’t get it out of my head. Because there’s no denying, she would be good for the girls.”
Giles waited, but he said nothing more, so Giles said it for him. “And she’d be good for you, Bas.”
He groaned and put his head in his hands. “I know. I’ve never wanted anyone more in my life. But I’m as good as bound to Lady Elinore.”
Giles shrugged. He poured brandy into two glasses and said in a thoughtful voice, “You haven’t actually made Lady Elinore an offer, have you?”
Sebastian flung himself into a chair. “No, but having courted her so obviously, I’m honor bound to do so.” He groaned and ran his hands through his hair. “You begged me to display a little finesse, some subtlety, to go more slowly! Why the hell didn’t you clout me over the head with a brick, knock some sense into me?”
His friend looked pained. “A brick, my dear Bas? I would never use anything so crude!”
Sebastian took no notice. “A woman like that—you said yourself she was at her last prayers. And now I’ve raised her hopes. Made a spectacle of her.”
Giles raised a brow. “In what way a spectacle?”
“I’m aware of the tales. Pushy cit of murky background pursuing aristocratic older lady heiress. But to give her her due, she never onc
e looked down on me or treated me as her social inferior. I can’t in all conscience abandon her now to pursue an acknowledged society beauty like Miss Merridew. Lady Elinore would become the laughingstock of the ton.”
“That’s possible.” Giles passed him the glass of brandy.
“I wouldn’t wish that on any woman.” Sebastian took the glass mechanically. “Besides, I like Lady Elinore. She might be dull and bookish and drab, but her heart is in the right place. She really does care about those destitute girls.”
“She does indeed,” Giles agreed. “Bored me for hours about it the other evening.”
“What did happen after you escorted her home?” Sebastian asked curiously. “Thank you for that, by the way. My mind was elsewhere.” Ringing with Miss Merridew’s words and the possibilities they’d opened up.
“Hmm? Oh we discussed Rationality and her mother’s scientific theories.” He grinned. “A fascinating discussion it was, too.”
“The mother was a crank, if you ask me,”Sebastian said. “The daughter isn’t as bad, but—”
“She’s nothing like her mother!” Giles objected. “Lady Elinore has had much to bear and deserves a great deal more respect than most people accord her.”
Sebastian regarded him gloomily. “You’re right. I suppose my duty is clear.” He drained the glass in one fiery gulp. “I’ve never shirked a duty in my life.”
“No. Very uncomfortable I’ve found it, too.” Giles leaned over and refilled Sebastian’s glass. “Remind me, which duty are we talking about?”
“To marry her, of course!”
“Lady Elinore? You just said yourself you don’t love her. Is that fair to her? To either of you?”
“I told you, I know nothing of love. But if I married her, I swear I would be a good husband. I would treat her well and be faithful, at least, which is more than can be said of many men of the ton.”
“You didn’t love Thea, either,” Giles reasoned. “And though you were a good husband by your lights, and faithful, I had the strong impression that neither of you were happy.”
Sebastian shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “That was different. I was young and foolish then, and I didn’t understand. I thought Thea wanted me, but . . .’Twas her father proposed the match, after all. It was about the future of the mill.” He shrugged. “Thea wanted more than I could give.”
