My Lady's Pleasure

by Julia Justiss

  “And how are you finding our fine metropolis? Rather tame, I suppose, after the wilds of India.”

  “Well, Society is a bit…constricting, but the city itself is splendid! At least, what little of it I’ve managed to visit. I purchased a guide, but some of the sights my brother recommended I’ve not been able to get to. A lady cannot go about on her own, I’ve been told, but my old nurse has a bad ankle, and the maid Grandmamma assigned me does not care for walking.” Lady Arnold sighed, a look of vexation crossing her face. “I’m afraid my chaperone considers nothing beyond the borders of Mayfair and the shops of Bond Street worth seeing.”

  “And what unfashionable locales do you wish to visit?”

  She gave him a probing glance, as if wary of mockery.

  Truly curious now, he prodded, “Come, you may confide in me. ’Tis the soul of discretion I am. Honestly.”

  To his delight, she smiled. “Very well, if we are being honest. But you must promise not to laugh.”

  “Cross my heart.”

  “I should like to see the West India docks and the Inns of Court. St. Paul’s, but not on Sunday, so I might explore the building, even if ’tis not in a fashionable neighborhood any longer. Oh, the Tower, and Astley’s, and old London Bridge.” She sent him a challenging look. “There, I’ve just proved how truly unfashionable I am.”

  “’Tis the real London you wish to see, then.”

  Her wariness dissolved in a smile. “You do understand!”

  “Sure, and I can—” he began. But they’d reached the end of their circuit, and before he could finish his sentence, Lady Arnold’s arm was seized by her distressed chaperone, who looked as if she might at any moment succumb to an attack of the vapors, while the disapproving Sir William stepped forward to block Teagan’s path, his tall form between Lady Arnold and Teagan’s tainting presence.

  A ridiculous sense of despair pierced him, as if light and hope were slipping through his fingers. Though he shrugged off the absurd notion, he could not prevent himself calling after her, despite knowing his invitation was certain to be spurned.

  “I’m well acquainted with all parts of the city, Lady Arnold.” Ignoring Sir William’s muttered objection, he continued doggedly. “I would be happy to escort you to any of the sights you mention—”

  “So kind of you, Mr. Fitzwilliams,” Lady Farrington interrupted, “but I’m afraid Lady Arnold—”

  “Is much too occupied,” Sir William finished. “Besides, I’m available to take her wherever she wishes.”

  “Providing I have the time, of course?” Lady Arnold interposed sweetly. “Sir William, have you an interest in viewing the West India docks?”

  “The docks?” he repeated with a grimace of distaste. “Certainly not! I cannot conceive what Mr. Fitzwilliams has been telling you about them, but I assure you the docks are no fit place for a gently bred lady.”

  “My brother Elliot disagreed, for he highly recommended them to me. And so,” she said, with a glance toward Sir William and Lady Farrington, as if daring them to dispute her, “I should be delighted to accept your escort, Mr. Fitzwilliams.”

  “Valeria!” Lady Farrington all but shrieked. Lowering her voice, she continued in an earnest undertone, “My dear, I really don’t believe that would be…prudent.”

  “Certainly not,” Sir William echoed.

  “Indeed?” The ice in her tone finally penetrated the abstraction of her two protectors, who fell silent. “Then would one of you please explain to me what possible impropriety there could be in my going out in broad daylight, my maid in attendance, with a gentleman who has just been presented to me by the son of my hostess?”

  The clever girl had just outflanked them, Teagan realized with dawning admiration. To justify a refusal, Lady Farrington would have to either malign Teagan’s character to his face—in itself a grievous breach of good ton—or even worse, assert that their hostess was not discriminating in her choice of guests.

  “Well, I…that is…” the lady faltered.

  “We shall speak of this later,” Sir William interposed, throwing Teagan a dagger glance.

  A mischievous look in her eye, Lady Arnold reached past Lady Farrington to offer him her hand. “Shall we say tomorrow morning, Mr. Fitzwilliams? I’m staying with Lady Winterdale, on Grosvenor Square. You know the house?”

  “Y-yes, my lady,” Teagan stuttered, hardly able to believe that Lady Arnold apparently intended to accept his rash offer.

  “Then I shall see you tomorrow.”

  Teagan recovered his poise. “I shall be counting the moments.”

  That earned him a lift of her eyebrows and the hint of a skeptical grin. “Shall you, now?” she drawled in a teasing echo of his own lilting speech. And with a nod, she at last allowed her two watchdogs to bear her away.

  “I shall indeed,” he murmured to her receding back, only half surprised to discover he really meant it.

  Oblivious to the whispers buzzing around him, Teagan remained motionless, watching her slender figure disappear amid the crowd of guests. Did she truly understand what she had done? To contradict her guardian for interfering in the conversation of a grown woman was one thing—but to actually accept his escort?

  Still marveling, he went in search of Insley. After locating his friend and paying his compliments to Lady Insley, who looked vastly relieved to have Teagan depart before spawning some social disaster beneath her roof, Teagan escaped into the cool night. He parted at the street corner from Insley, after turning aside the young man’s offer to share a hackney with a promise to meet him later at the gambling club and walked off into the darkness.

  He wanted time, before he resumed his gamester role at the club tonight, to recall and savor the short exchange with Lady Arnold. To muse over the strength of the attraction that drew her to him, this slight, slender woman a disinterested ton observer would account much less memorable than most of the sophisticated, stylish beauties in the ballroom he had just left.

  The potent physical connection between them he readily understood, but he wanted to pinpoint just what it was about Lady Arnold’s character that so captivated him. Her independence, certainly—her insistence on choosing her own way. That honest, questing intelligence. Like the classical literature that had been his joy before the disastrous end of his Oxford career, she seemed both unusual and yet hauntingly familiar; set apart from her place and time; seemingly indifferent to the dictates of fashion. Timeless.

  Then he threw back his head and laughed at his own whimsy. To be sure, he’d met Lady Arnold under extraordinary circumstances, magnified to even more epic proportions by his bemused remembrances and the depression engendered by his current run of ill-luck. Should he come to know her better, doubtless he would find she was little different than most well-born ladies—or gentlemen—he’d known: self-absorbed, rather shallow, interested in Teagan only so long as he could divert, amuse or distract her.

  Something in his gut protested that cynical assessment, but he pushed it away. He’d fallen once, with his whole heart, for a woman who’d seemed to value his talents and opinions—and look where that had gotten him!

  No, he would indulge this fancy only to the point of pursuing Lady Arnold until he’d plumbed to its source whatever intangible it was that attracted him. Which meant cutting short his gaming tonight so he might rise in time to present himself at Lady Winterdale’s town house at the proper hour tomorrow.

  A rueful grin creased his face as he changed direction and headed to the club. If Lady Winterdale’s reputation as a stiff-necked, tyrannical stickler were accurate, the woman would have apoplexy at the very notion of her widowed granddaughter-in-law traipsing about London in the company of one of the ton’s most notorious rakes.

  Still, boldness had carried him this far, and should Lady Winterdale’s butler shut the door in his face, he’d weathered snubs before. He would call on Lady Arnold tomorrow, as promised.

  Even though by morning, either the lady herself or her relation
would probably have talked her out of the folly of pursuing a closer acquaintance with the totally ineligible Teagan Fitzwilliams.

  Chapter Seven

  O ver the sound of Lady Farrington’s sobs, Valeria heard the countess’s tart voice emanating from the darkened hallway outside the sitting room. “How can a body be expected to sleep in the midst of this caterwauling?”

  Already almost at the point of wishing to shake her prostrate chaperone, Valeria tried to keep the exasperation from her voice. “Cousin Alicia, you must calm yourself! You’ve awakened Grandmamma!”

  That produced a momentary respite from the sobbing. “It’s all the fault of that Awful Man!” Lady Farrington said tremulously. “My poor nerves cannot support any more. You must prevent Aunt Winterdale from—oh!”

  Occupied in chafing Lady Farrington’s chilled fingers, Valeria looked up to see the countess glaring at them, then back to discover that her chaperone had fainted dead away.

  “What’s happened now to put that silly fool into such a taking?” the dowager demanded as she entered the room.

  Caught between dismay at the lady collapsed on the couch, concern for Hugh’s grandmother and irritation at the farce the evening had turned into, Valeria said, “Grandmamma! It’s much too late for you to—”

  “Stuff and nonsense,” the old lady interrupted. “I sleep away half the day, anyway. Call Alicia’s maid to deal with her and tell me what’s going on.”

  Valeria paused, reluctant to abandon her unconscious chaperone. “Should I not look for her vinaigrette?”

  Lady Winterdale made a contemptuous noise as she jerked on the bell pull. “Let her be. Alicia swoons over something twice a month. Darcy will see to her.”

  Valeria bit her lip. Not only had Lady Farrington inflamed an episode that the ton might have otherwise considered only mildly gossip-worthy, she had roused the countess, who despite her feisty words had suffered such a spell of weakness two days ago that her doctors had confined her to bed for a week. “Please, ma’am, return to your chamber, and I will come report to you as soon as we get Cousin Alicia settled into bed.”

  “Where, you’re about to tell me, I belong also?” the countess retorted. “Very well, I shall retire. But only if you promise to bring some sherry when you come in.”

  The old woman’s face assumed a mulish expression that Valeria knew, from a month’s experience, might very well result in her refusing to budge if Valeria did not submit. “As you wish, Grandmamma,” she replied with some asperity, “but only because I’m being blackmailed.”

  Leaning heavily on her cane, the dowager moved toward the door. Valeria knew better than to offer her assistance. “Least I can still do that,” Lady Winterdale muttered.

  And so, after helping Lady Farrington’s dresser to revive her mistress and assist her to her own chamber, Valeria snatched the sherry decanter from the sideboard and headed for the dowager’s room, two glasses in hand. After the events of this evening, Valeria felt the need for fortification as well.

  She found Lady Winterdale settled on her favorite sofa by the fire. At her entrance, the lady pointed an imperious finger at the wing chair beside it. “Sit now, and pour me a glass. Then explain what’s going on.”

  Valeria took the chair indicated and tarried as long as she could in pouring the smallest amount of sherry she dared into each glass, pondering what to reply.

  ’Twas probably best to relate the whole. For one, given Lady Winterdale’s extensive contacts among the ton, she would most certainly receive a full account from her cronies tomorrow. And as Valeria had confessed to Teagan, she wasn’t very good at evasion.

  She handed Lady Winterdale her sherry. “At the ball tonight, I made what Lady Farrington believes to be a very unfortunate connection.”

  “‘Unfortunate’ enough to have Alicia enacting Cheltingham tragedies in my upstairs parlor, obviously! Don’t speak in riddles, child. What ‘connection’?”

  “I was introduced to Mr. Teagan Fitzwilliams, a gentleman who is not, as Cousin Alicia expounded to me at length on the way home, a fit person for me to know.”

  “The Fascinating Fitz?” The countess gave a bark of laughter. “I should think not! What maggot did Lady Insley take into her head, inviting him to her ball?”

  “As to that, ma’am, I cannot say. However, Mr. Fitzwilliams was presented to me by Lady Insley’s son, and seemed to be perfectly charming.”

  The countess snorted. “Of course he’s charming. How else could he coax women who should know better out of their skirts? He’s a rogue of the first order, missy! Which, of course, is why he ain’t received. Lord, that I’d been there to witness what a dust-up he must have caused.” For a moment the countess seemed to contemplate the vision with amusement, before fixing her gaze back on Valeria. “Did that widget Alicia swoon right there at the ball?”

  “No, ma’am, fortunately not. However—” Valeria could not prevent the aggravation that entered her tone “—afterward, she was so overcome with…emotion that she nearly collapsed in the refreshment room. Sir William and I had to practically carry her to a chair, which I fear attracted no small amount of attention. I suggested she retire to the lady’s withdrawing room to compose herself, but she insisted we leave the ball at once. If Mr. Fitzwilliams does have a scandalous reputation—”

  “And he does.”

  “Then I fear that by making such a to-do over the matter, Cousin Alicia drew more notice to my meeting him than would ever have occurred had we simply remained.”

  With a grimace of distaste, Lady Winterdale nodded. “Blast Alicia! She was ever a nodcock.”

  The old woman settled back to sip her sherry. Just as Valeria was hoping she’d satisfied Hugh’s grandmother with that brief summation, the countess spoke up again.

  “What happened after you were introduced? Surely the rogue hadn’t the effrontery to ask you to dance!”

  “N-no, we took a turn about the room. His conversation was quite unexceptional. Having learned it was my first visit, he merely inquired how I liked London.”

  “‘A turn about the room.’ And did he take a turn with any other of the ladies present?”

  Valeria took a small sip from her glass. “I cannot say. Immediately after we bid him goodbye, Cousin Alicia had her…episode and I was preoccupied.”

  “So one of London’s handsomest rogues insinuates his way into a ball, finagles an introduction and strolls about—only with you?”

  “As I said, Grandmamma, I do not know. He may have talked and danced with a number of ladies.”

  “Not if I know Lady Insley. No matter that that pup of hers was escorting him about, she’d have managed to show Teagan Fitzwilliams the door as quickly as possible, or risk outraging every marriage-minded mama present with an innocent daughter’s good name to protect.”

  The countess fell silent and fixed a considering look on Valeria, who willed her face not to flush.

  “No, gel, something ain’t right here,” Lady Winterdale said after a moment. “Teagan Fitzwilliams is known for squiring only the flashiest of Diamonds. Not that you’re an antidote, but I can’t see him being so struck by your looks that he’d use the few moments’ entrée Insley provided to beg an introduction to you, not when I know for a fact there were half a dozen Incomparables present. Unless he was renewing an acquaintance. Do you know him, child?”

  Valeria felt a sinking in the pit of her stomach. Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself angrily. She was a woman grown, after all, and accountable to no one.

  Then she recalled Teagan’s words, and snatched at them. “We were not precisely acquainted, ma’am. He attended a house party in the neighborhood of Eastwinds earlier this year, and I saw him while out riding. But we were never formally introduced.”

  The countess studied Valeria’s face, no doubt observing the heat she felt creeping into her cheeks. “Well, you’re a widow, and what you’ve done is your own affair. No, I don’t wish to know! But foolishness that may pass unnoticed in the cou
ntry won’t do in London, where everyone knows everyone else’s business. Acquainted or not, if he has the audacity to show his face here, you must refuse to receive him.”

  Valeria felt her cheeks warm in earnest now. “I’m afraid I cannot do that, Grandmamma.”

  “And why not?”

  “After I’d told Mr. Fitzwilliams that there was much of London I’d not yet been able to see, he kindly offered to escort me about the city, and I accepted his offer. He is calling for me tomorrow morning.”

  A long, ominous silence followed, during which Valeria prepared herself for an outburst once the countess absorbed the full meaning of her words.

  “Are you daft, child? Do you wish to ruin your reputation practically before you’ve established it?”

  “Really, Grandmamma! As you’ve noted, I’m a widow, not some innocent virgin. Mr. Fitzwilliams could have embarrassed me tonight by revealing a prior acquaintance. Instead, he very properly sought an introduction. And if he were the villain everyone seems to delight in painting him, when I previously encountered him, riding alone and unprotected, he might easily have taken advantage of me. Instead, he acted the perfect gentleman.”

  “I can imagine,” the countess said dryly. “Come now, puss, I’m not so old that I can’t remember the sort of…fascination a man like Teagan Fitzwilliams can exert over a woman. But there’s more at stake here than the excitement of a few afternoons spent with a dashing rakehell. You must consider your future. How can you hope to fix the interest of a man like Sir William if you’re wasting your time trifling with a gazetted ne’er-do-well?”

  With difficulty, Valeria held on to her temper. “First, though I readily admit Sir William is a superior gentleman, I am by no means assured that he wishes to fix his interest on me, nor am I sure I would encourage him if he were. I’ve heard nothing that persuades me I should cut the acquaintance of a man who was introduced to me in perfectly acceptable circumstances, who has always conducted himself in my presence with utmost courtesy, and about whom the only ill that has ever been voiced is a vague innuendo based on no evidence whatsoever.”