My Lady's Pleasure

by Julia Justiss

  She should be thrilled for him. Apparently Teagan had succeeded in obtaining a rapprochement with his family, although according to Lady Hardesty’s informant he had not given up gaming. His reputation must also be a fair way to being mended if he was being received not just by his own family, but by households with marriageable daughters.

  Were the young ladies tossing their caps at him?

  Was he in fact courting one in particular?

  The pain of that thought cut so deep Valeria’s knees were suddenly weak, and she had to sit down abruptly on the nearest garden bench. No, she could not believe the vows of constancy he’d uttered with such fervent conviction could have been forgotten so quickly and completely.

  Besides, Maria Edgeworth was the worst sort of gossip, whose tales could not be depended upon to contain more than a modicum of truth.

  But if he had reconciled with his family and nearly restored his good name, why had he not come back for her? Or at least written of his progress?

  Perhaps he was still arranging employment, though if she could believe the report of his being made the heir of his mother’s wealthy cousin, he’d have no need of it.

  Or perhaps Valeria was an even greater fool than the Cit’s daughter who thought to capture Teagan and the Darnell fortune. Perhaps she, too, was merely another woman he’d bewitched, pleasured well and left behind.

  Even as her heart cried out against that painful assessment, the sound of footsteps crunching on the gravel pathway caught her ear. She looked up to see Giddings approaching. “A letter for you, my lady,” he said.

  He had written, after all! Her bruised spirits rebounding with a joyous leap, Valeria thanked the butler and took the folded paper from his hand. Fingers trembling with eagerness, she unfolded the missive.

  And found at the bottom of the page of sloping masculine scrawl the signature “W. Parham.”

  Disappointment struck her like a blow to the chest. She shut her eyes against the tears that threatened, her rigidly clenched fingers crumpling the paper.

  She would not weep. She’d vowed over Hugh’s grave never to waste another tear on a man, and she had no intention now of breaking that vow.

  Some time later, when she felt she could open her eyes without the vista beyond them blurring, she smoothed the paper and read Sir William’s letter.

  My dear Lady Arnold, I hope this finds you recovering your spirits after the pain of your recent loss. I certainly wish it may, for London seems very dull without you, and I impatiently await your return to the city.

  The Season continues much the same, though you will probably be pleased to learn your friend Mr. Fitzwilliams has reconciled with his family and is presently residing with his mother’s cousin Lady Charlotte Darnell, a most influential Society hostess. He’s become quite the darling of the young ladies, as one might expect of a gentleman of his charm and address.

  Please know I stand ready to lend you whatever assistance it is within my power to afford. I should be honored to come to Winterpark and escort you back to London whenever you are feeling sufficiently recovered to undertake the journey. Your friendship has been my most particular joy, and it remains my fervent wish that it might continue to grow and deepen.

  In hopes of seeing you again soon, I remain…

  Senses dulled to a low throb of agony, Valeria refolded the letter and stared sightlessly at the garden.

  So most of what the Hardestys had reported was true. Teagan was restored to favor. She must be glad for that.

  But if he had not felt compelled to inform her of so important a development, he could not hold her in the same degree of regard and affection she did him. While she worried and wondered and pined away at Winterpark, he had been disporting himself with the eligible ladies of London. In all likelihood, he was never coming back.

  The conclusion cut like a sword slash to the bone. She had to breathe in and out slowly, cautiously, until the pain was bearable.

  If Teagan Fitzwilliams was not coming back, what was Valeria Arnold to do with her life?

  At least part of Lady Hardesty’s assertion was true. Including Winterpark, the London town house, Eastwoods, and several other minor properties she’d not even visited yet, her estates now required more work than she wished to take on alone. And having tasted the delights of passion, she did not wish to live the rest of her life celibate.

  After secretly hoarding for several weeks the suspicion that she might be with child, she now found the idea immensely appealing. She would, she concluded, very much like children of her own.

  Which all suggested that, as Lady Hardesty would no doubt be delighted to point out, Valeria ought to seriously consider the idea of remarrying.

  Not Arthur Hardesty, of course. But Sir William Parham, who’d been her quiet support through the trial of Lady Winterdale’s funeral, who’d both generously alleged Teagan Fitzwilliams’s honesty and with self-deprecating modesty expressed his own wistful desire to win her affection, might be the very man.

  Quiet, dependable, well-respected. A skillful husband of her new estate and a kind husband to her person. A good provider who would be a fond father to her children. Perhaps even a man with whom she could share a mutually enjoyable passion, if not one as mindlessly intoxicating as that which she’d experienced…elsewhere.

  It suddenly occurred to her that in Sir William’s letter she had the answer to all her dilemmas.

  She would not have to outwit or displace the Hardestys. Nor did she need to remain passively waiting for a man who could not even be bothered to pen her a letter. She would simply announce to her erstwhile guests that she’d received an urgent summons to return to London immediately.

  Of course, she would assure them, they were welcome to rest at Winterpark until Lady Hardesty recovered fully from the rigors of their previous journey. Since circumstances compelled her to travel at a pace far too fatiguing for one of her ladyship’s delicate constitution, Valeria would have to deny herself the pleasure of their company on the road.

  Once there, she would see if, from the ashes of heartache and disappointment, she might be able to build a new relationship. One whose virtues of friendship, mutual respect and permanence compensated for its lacking heart-stopping extremes of ecstasy and despair.

  Teagan Fitzwilliams is in London, her heart whispered.

  London is a large metropolis, answered her head. And she had no desire whatsoever to see him.

  In the late morning ten days later, Teagan reclined in the leather armchair in his sitting room, trying to summon up some enthusiasm for the masquerade ball Aunt Charlotte wished him to escort her to this evening.

  The patina of social acceptance had quickly worn thin. ’Twas amusing, Teagan thought, that this former social pariah who’d been banned as a threat to virginal heiresses, was now, as heir to a sizable fortune, in danger from them.

  The Marriage Mart of London society must be negotiated by a single gentleman of means with the caution of a Castlereagh, he’d discovered. He must not pay undue attention to any one maiden lest he give rise to expectations he had no intentions of fulfilling. And he must be ever mindful of the circumstances and chaperones attending any maiden with whom he found himself, so as to avoid potentially compromising situations.

  Such as had been the case with the Amesbury chit. A moment of compassion had led him to ten days’ worth of intricate social ballet in order to extricate himself short of a declaration, but with honor intact.

  And though he pitied the poor girl, his sympathies ended well short of offering marriage. The contrast between her painfully young and diffident character—unfortunately all too typical of the tender maidens to whom he’d been introduced—and Valeria Arnold only made the intelligence, wit, independence and passion of that lady more striking.

  The lady to whom every night he made love in his dreams, every morning awoke disappointed not to find in his arms. With his social position firmly secured, he ached to return to her.

  If only he could banish th
e doubts that spawned nightmares that woke him, bathed in sweat, wracked by visions of a woman dying alone and abandoned, a woman with his mother’s body and Valeria’s face.

  He had betrayed a trust before, he thought, recalling with a wrench of pain his Oxford mentor’s sorrowful face. What made him so sure he would not do so again?

  His father’s son…cast in his father’s image. Flesh of flesh, blood of blood—and heart of deceitful heart?

  He slammed his fist down on the table in despair. Somehow he must decide soon…before he lost everything by making Valeria lose faith in his vows to return.

  “Teagan, may I come in?”

  He started at the sound of his aunt’s voice. “Of course, Aunt Charlotte.”

  She entered a moment later, a small wooden box in her hands. “While up in the attics searching for my costume, I found this. ’Tis something I’d always intended to give you someday, but had forgotten I still possessed.”

  She held it out. Curious, he took it.

  “It contains your mama’s letters. The clergyman who found you discovered these at the rooming house in which you’d been living when Gwyneth died. Uncle Montford was going to burn them, but Gwen’s old governess, knowing how close we had been, spirited them away and sent them to me. I kept them, thinking one day you might like to have them.”

  “Have you read them?”

  “No. Most of them were written by your father to Gwen, and I felt they were too private for my eyes. But I hoped perhaps they might help you better understand the man your mother loved so much.”

  Teagan was not so sure he wished to read them, either. “Thank you, Aunt Charlotte. That was very kind.”

  She smiled. “I must help Charity finish my costume, so I’ll leave you to them.” Dropping a quick kiss on his forehead, she slipped back out.

  Teagan put the box on the table and stared at it.

  Why should he wish to read the letters of a man who had so bewitched his mother that she’d followed him to her death, in heartbreak and penury?

  His grandfather was right; they ought to be burned. He carried the box to the hearth.

  But as he removed the first letter, the faded, spidery script of the missives written nearly thirty years ago by the man whose blood coursed through his veins, but about whom he knew so little, cast an irresistible spell.

  Teagan walked back to his armchair, set the box on the table beside it and began to read.

  The notes were arranged in roughly chronological order. Apparently once Lady Gwyneth’s parents became aware of her attraction to a totally ineligible Irish groom, the young lady was packed off to her cousin’s and the groom banished to the stud farm at Langdon—the same one Teagan had later managed, he realized. The two had then established a clandestine correspondence.

  The bulk of the letters expressed their love and longing, their search to find some way to bridge the social chasm that separated them. And when the lady’s parents threatened to put an end to her infatuation by marrying her off to a more acceptable suitor, Teagan found a note planning an elopement.

  Despite his initial disdain, he was caught up in the drama of his parents’ love and separation, which paralleled in some ways his own with Valeria.

  But it was the final two letters that riveted his attention. The first, written by his father from the port of Galway, sent love and encouragement to his wife and young son in Dublin, and adjured them to stay at the boardinghouse where he’d left money for them during his journey to the Americas. Once he’d settled and bought property, he would send for them to begin a new life in a land where no one would think twice about an earl’s daughter marrying an Irish groom. A land where a man’s character and achievements, not his pedigree, determined his worth.

  The last letter, from a shipping company in Galway, dated just a few days before his mama’s death, regretted to inform Mrs. Fitzwilliams of the demise of her husband aboard the brigantine the Merry Alice, lost with all hands in a violent storm off the Irish coast.

  Teagan sat motionless, the letter clutched in his fingers, as the full implications of his father’s correspondence gradually filled his mind.

  Michael Fitzwilliams had loved his wife and son until the day he died. He’d left them to travel to the Americas where he, a man possessed of sufficient funds to buy both overseas passage and property upon arrival, intended to build a new life for them.

  Not a wastrel. Not irresponsible. Not a careless bastard who’d abandoned his own son and the woman who’d loved him to die in penury.

  Carefully Teagan refolded the letters and tucked them back in the wooden box. His one legacy from the father who’d loved him.

  Then an even more arresting conclusion captured him.

  If his father had honored his love and trust until death, then Teagan need no longer fear to go to Valeria.

  The box forgotten, he ran to find his aunt.

  He tracked her down in the sewing room and begged for a private moment. Obligingly, she dismissed her maid and beckoned him to a chair.

  “What is it that has put that starry light in your eyes, my dear?”

  “I shall tell you all about it later. But for now I need to inform you I cannot escort you tonight. I must leave London as soon as I can pack a bag.”

  “In such a rush? May I ask your destination?”

  “Winterpark, a country estate that is now home to Lady Arnold, the late Dowager Countess of Winterdale’s granddaughter.”

  His aunt’s delighted smile faded. “Lady Arnold?” she repeated, distress in her eyes. “Are you telling me Valeria Arnold is the lady for whom you’ve been pining?”

  “I shall pine no longer,” he said, excitement bringing a smile to his lips. “In fact, if I am very lucky, I shall bring her back to introduce to you—as my affianced wife. Give me a kiss, and I’ll be off.”

  He bent down, lips pursed. She ducked her head to avoid his salute. “Lady Arnold is not at Winterpark.”

  Teagan paused. “You must be mistaken. I know she retired there after Lady Winterdale’s death.”

  “Yes, but she returned to London about a week ago.”

  Valeria here? Then why had she not contacted him?

  “Are you sure?” he demanded.

  “Absolutely. She paid me a call yesterday. Oh, Teagan, there were a number of ladies present, and I’m afraid they were gossiping—about you.”

  Teagan grew very still. “And what were they saying?”

  “Lady Jersey and Mrs. Drummond-Burrell and Princess Esterhazy were here, and the princess commended you for your recent exemplary behavior. Then Sally asserted that there is nothing so engaging as an almost-reformed rake. When I protested that assessment of you, she pointed out as proof all the young ladies whose mamas have been pressing invitations on you, and the Amesbury chit everyone says you’ve been courting. Then…then Lady Arnold asked me if it were true that you were courting her, and I said I wasn’t sure, but that you had called there quite often and were not the sort of man to trifle with a girl’s affections.”

  Teagan groaned and closed his eyes.

  “Oh, Teagan, I’m so sorry! I had no idea—”

  “No, how could you? But I must seek her out at once, before my case is irretrievably lost.”

  “Does she have any idea of your true feelings?”

  “An idea, but I never confessed my love openly.”

  Lady Charlotte gave him a push. “Then you’ve not a moment to spare. Sally Jersey told me after Lady Arnold left that Sir William Parham had confided to her he meant to propose this very afternoon!”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  V aleria sat by the window in a pool of early afternoon sunshine, waiting for Sir William to arrive. He’d begged leave to call upon her at one. She was reasonably sure he meant to make her a proposal of marriage.

  She was not at all sure what she would reply.

  Deny it as she may, she’d been secretly hoping ever since her arrival a week ago that, some morning or afternoon, Molly would run in to
announce that Teagan Fitzwilliams had called. She’d held her breath at each of the evening entertainments she’d attended, usually on Sir William’s arm, half hoping, half dreading to meet Teagan.

  He hadn’t called. She hadn’t met him.

  Ever since arriving, she’d also debated the wisdom of writing to inform him of her return. But what would she say? “Dear sir, I have come back to London to see if the passionate love you made to me at Winterpark was indicative of a lasting affection, and to discover if you truly meant your vow to return.”

  She’d concluded ’twas impossible. Surely he would soon discover that she had returned. If he wished to make good his vow, he would seek her out.

  But when days passed with no word of him, in desperation she’d actually called at his aunt’s house, almost expiring with fear that he might be in the parlor with his aunt when she arrived. Mercifully, he hadn’t been, but what she’d learned there had been almost as heartbreaking as being treated by him with casual courtesy as an acquaintance with whom he’d once explored the city.

  According to the ladies present, including his aunt, Teagan was in fact courting the Amesbury girl. Even more damning, Lady Charlotte had answered all her questions with a cordial openness that made painfully clear she had no notion that Teagan was even acquainted with Valeria.

  If he had not so much as mentioned her to the lady who had opened her home to him and made him her heir, Valeria could not fool herself any longer that he’d ever harbored toward her any truly serious intentions.

  He’d only promised to come back. She did not doubt the intensity of the passion they’d shared, and was certain if she offered herself, Teagan might oblige her by continuing their affair. But he’d never spoken of love, never offered marriage. Only her imagination had filled in those gaps.

  Whereas Sir William was about to pledge her both. Was she ready to abandon her consuming, painful, hopeless infatuation with Teagan Fitzwilliams in exchange for the solid reality of Sir William’s care and comfort?