by Suzi Love
She reached out a hand to each of the girls and patted their hands.
“And, my dears, your own parent’s marriage was a disastrous example for impressionable young people. Your father continually disappears, leaving his women behind to fend for themselves. Not that you haven’t all coped admirably, but some, if not all, of that duty generally falls to the eldest male of the household.”
Laura rolled her eyes at Lottie and shuffled up the bed to rest her back against the bedhead next to her sister. They settled in for a lengthy discourse, knowing from experience that rushing their aunt’s rambling stories usually led to even more convoluted explanations, and even more time spent awaiting the conclusion. For, inevitably, their aunt’s summations of a situation held wise counsel. The time it took to be given this counsel drove even a saint, and their local clergymen, to impatience.
“Therefore, I do understand why you show such extreme caution when choosing a gentleman with whom you may be spending the better of part of your life, and I do comprehend how testing a man’s prowess in the sensual areas, before being tied to that one person, appeals to you.”
She drew in an enormous breath and continued, “However, in this instance, I feel it is past time that you took matters into your own capable hands, and arranged a date and a place to compromise Winchester and settle the matter once and for all, instead of all this pretense of seeking out other men and testing their aromas also.”
Disregarding the open-mouthed expressions of shock on her nieces’ faces, Aunt Aggie charged on like a runaway horse. “Everyone accepts that the two of you are soul mates–”
“But we argue constantly.”
“Adds to the spice of marriage. Plus, everyone understands you’ll marry one day–”
“But neither of us wants to marry.”
“Everyone also knows, deep down, you’re both far too conventional to disregard society’s rules completely.”
“But he wants to marry someone who is the complete opposite from me. Someone sweet, docile, dim-witted and–”
“Everyone knows men make those absurd statements because intelligent ladies scare them witless. Yet, if they trip up and marry a clueless chit, they’re bored to tears within weeks.” She pushed herself to her feet. “I’m away to break my fast, while you discuss details of how, and when, and where, we shall surprise Winchester.” She rubbed her chubby hands together with glee. “Oh, such delightful fun. So reminds me of when I set out to compromise my own darling husband. Force him into marrying me. He proclaimed it the cleverest thing I ever achieved.”
After their aunt left, the girls sat in silence for several minutes.
“Did our chaperone truly give me permission to pursue whatever I want? And to use whatever means to secure it?”
“Well, no one has ever called our chaperone conventional,” Lottie remarked dryly.
The girls talked, throwing out one idea after another, until the maid came to helped them dress their hair.
When she walked into the breakfast room later, Laura was no closer to a solution. She and Lottie had run through a list of several different ways, and venues, for a seduction. She’d discarded them all. Not being completely shed of all propriety just yet, she didn’t want her reputation to be tarnished permanently. Whatever she decided, she must handle it in as discreet a manner as possible.
Her stomach fluttered, and she placed a hand over the butterflies dancing there. Perhaps she could have what she had, deep down, always wanted, yet denied: a chance to sample the seductive powers of one of London’s most renowned lovers. She knew his reputation. Had read every tit-bit the gossip papers reported in the last few years. Secretly followed his life since he’d grown into adulthood, moved away and not visited so regularly.
Despite the danger involved, Richard drew her as obsessively as a dull moth drawn against its will to a bright flame. So much so, he’d become the ideal candidate on whom to test her latest theory about an ideal man, or hopefully, husband. Neither of them was rushing into a permanent association, no matter the dreams and aspirations her auntie had voiced.
Laura’s scientific studies had long convinced her that smelling a man’s pheromones, testing his aroma, and comparing it to hers or other females, could assist in her search for an ideal mate. A husband who wouldn’t cause problems like the spouses of other women she’d spoken with at the shelter.
Becca’s old suitor had revealed his true colors by joining forces with the Syndicate, and then attempting to force the Jamisons to cooperate. Using coercion, or any other means. She sighed. So many men became tyrants when handed even a small amount of control, women were always placed in a precarious situation in a marriage.
However, by conducting an initial test on her chosen partner’s sweat, she’d be able to estimate beforehand how likely he was to violent tendencies. Added to her tests, she’d ask Lottie to use her skills as a phrenologist to run her hands over the bumps and lumps in a man’s head. Lottie could predict very accurately which way a man leaned. Towards a quiet sensitive nature, or anger and violence. Between them, she hoped to determine how far a man could be pushed before his temper rose, before he resorted to verbals or physical abuse. If he was likely to press his advantage if he could push a woman into a compromising situation.
And, with the Jamisons’ newfound wealth after Becca’s magical touch with the share market, it was vital to discover how long a man would retain his honorable qualities if he was squeezed into a financial corner; was within a hand’s breadth of gaining something he wanted.
Now her palms sweated. She played a dangerous game. Torn between the logic of waiting longer for the correct-smelling man or grabbing, with both hands what her body urged her to take now. Him. Richard. He was the only one to have ever had butterflies do flips in her stomach, or made her palms go clammy at the thought of him. Her previous hints, subtle as they were, that they could become lovers—only as a test—had horrified him.
Time to bring forth her Jamison side and conquer. She scowled at her rapidly cooling eggs. If the conniving Countess managed to attract Richard to her bed, several times if rumor had it correctly, surely she could easily manage to lure him there once? Unfortunately, getting there didn’t present the problem. Keeping him there was. An image of him tied to the posts of her bed while she ravaged his body filled her mind.
She sighed. Small problem: she had no idea what ravaging entailed.
“I think I shall pay a visit to Madame Faberge’s establishment this morning,” she announced to her sister and aunt. “Before her house becomes…uh…too busy later in the day.”
“I thought Michael had forbidden you girls from visiting that woman’s premises ever again, after Becca rescued Cayle from that dreadful fire,” Aunt Aggie said, her ferocious frown for once resembling a forbidding duenna’s. “My dear girl could have been burned alive.”
“Michael forbade Becca from returning there, Aunt, not me.”
“I fear your brother will consider little difference in that argument. He will be angry at any of his sisters visiting Madame openly.”
“Madame has pressing accounting issues that I am obliged to attend to in Becca’s stead.”
“Fustian, Laura. Everyone knows how much you detest accounting issues.”
Lottie grinned. “I think Laura’s meaning is that the visit is to assist her plans to bring Winchester to an accounting.”
Aunt Aggie beamed. “Ah, well that is a different matter entirely. You wish Madame’s advice on how to persuade a reluctant suitor. I understand why you would wish to do this, because it would be shameful to allow that hussy, the Countess, to best a Jamison. But do go quickly. Go early before there are many people on the streets. And have the coachman wait around the corner from Madame’s establishment. And take our special footman as protection. And wear a veil. It would not do for anyone to see you visiting a notorious brothel. And if your father ever hears of this adventure and asks for details, do please tell him that I knew nothing of any plans to corrupt an
y gentleman. For some ridiculous reason, he thinks me an unsuitable guide for you girls.”
Laura bade them goodbye with a smile upon her face. Today promised to be a day of new adventures.
She only hoped Richard thought so too.
Chapter Fourteen
Richard departed his house early, intending to begin his full day by scrutinizing the latest Stock Market reports at Threadneedle Street. Abnormally for him, neither the battle of wits needed for negotiations at the Exchange, nor the fiery discussion at the nearby coffee houses roused his enthusiasm. Heavy thoughts weighed on his mind, so much so that when he rendezvoused with his cousins, Brain and Tony, they regarded him with strange looks.
“Is something bothering you, Winchester?”
He scowled at Tony. “Nothing. Shall we box?”
For the next hour, he worked off some of his frustration with round after round in the ring at Gentleman Jackson’s Boxing Salon, even sparring with his cousins in a more aggressive manner than normal. Time after time, he challenged them alternately.
Finally, when the three of them dripped sweat and could barely stay upright, Brian held up a hand to him. “Winchester, we surrender. Whatever worm is eating at your brain today, we can only hope half beating us to a pulp has helped ease some of those demons.”
They walked to the benches at the wall and collapsed in a row, panting for air.
“However,” his brother said, wiping his brow on a length of linen and hauling in several deep breaths, “we’d at least like to know why we are being used as punching bags.”
He shook his head, his own chest heaving from the intensive bouts of exercise. More than his usual definitely. More than necessary. “I apologize. No need to drag you into my gloom.”
“We volunteered to become your means of escape from whatever bothered you when you arrived. The ferocious look on your face warned us our session would be hard. We accepted that. Now explain why.”
He raised his hands in a gesture of confusion, of indecision, of vulnerability. “A decision I’ve made is proving harder to follow that I imagined it would be. Difficult to keep telling myself my reasons are sound when–” Breaking off, he dropped his head to his hands and rested his elbows on his knees.
“Would this decision concern a woman?” Tony, always the most intuitive, could be depended upon to jump straight to the heart of the problem. “Or rather, a lady?”
He twisted his head towards Tony who sat on one side of him, peering down at his face. “You know?”
“Not hard to guess. All the signs have been there for several weeks.”
“What signs? What lady? Are we discussing the Countess?”
Brian, though a likeable man and a good friend, lacked his brother’s insight. It remained a family joke that Brian needed all aspects of relationships, and the nuances and emotions associated with them, pointed out to him in a direct manner. He continually failed to notice by himself.
Richard turned his head towards Brian. “This has nothing to do with the Countess. Our affair finished long ago and I have no intention of reigniting it.”
“The countess seems to hold a differing view on that,” Brian remarked dryly. “Unfortunately, she’s regaled her bosom friends—the closest hundred that she’s reconnoitered with accidentally, yet on purpose—with her view that it is only a matter of time until you come to your senses. No one refuses her, you see, so she assumes you shall be begging her to resume your relationship.”
“Damn all greedy, grasping women to hell.”
“Moreover…” Brian continued, giving him a wary eye.
He clenched his fists clenched, gritted his teeth, hoped the heat rising in face remained unnoticeable.
“…The entire London upper ten thousand now believes our infamous bachelor, the Earl of Winchester, angles after her favors, perhaps even the hand in marriage of the Countess. They assume that, as a renowned enticer of women, you’d be loath to acknowledge that you’d lowered yourself to crawling after any woman. Your lofty status, as one of the few eligible men in the City with the audacity and nerve to bed any woman he desires, would crumble in a week.”
“Not every woman I desire,” he muttered darkly, hiding his mounting wrath by fixedly staring at his feet.
“As we have departed the ring, I beg you to not start swinging punches again,” Tony said, “for obligation forces me to divulge this. Your devious past paramour set it about that your current distraction with another lady, a young chit, will prove to be a passing fancy. Your more experienced mistress–”
After a growled exclamation of annoyance, Richard emphasized, “Past mistress.”
“She declares the lady’s naïve attempts to hold your interest past the time of your temporary guardianship will never bear fruit. You’ll be sniffing around her more experienced skirts within days. No innocent can match her own skilled charms. In bed or out of it.”
When Richard glared and uttered another low growling noise, Tony held up his palm. “Or so your past lover has the City believing.”
“May the bragging bitch be struck down by lightning for spreading such lies amongst the ton’s gossips? How dare she smear any young lady’s name, or character, for no good reason and without a shred of proof?”
“Indeed. These fabrications—if they’re lies about you resuming your liaison--”
Richard made his opinion of the stories clear, by a series of low angry noises and a fast nod of his head.
“These untruths, these rumors,” Tony said with a sigh, “may devastate the standing of the poor young woman involved.”
Brian scowled at one, then the other. “For goodness sake, tell me which lady.”
Richard and Tony ignored his question.
Tony asked another of his own. “So, dear cousin, why are you so afraid to commit yourself to a woman you so obviously care about? I can guess at what stops you, but still, if you wish to unburden yourself, we are your friends, Richard.”
“And your family,” Brian added, still looking confused by the conversation.
“Families. Ha! Therein lies the crux of my problem.”
He looked between his cousins. “You two know more than anyone how families can set a terrible example for anyone considering marrying. For years I’ve avoided marriage, as I saw my own father—your uncle—impregnate my mother on such a regular basis that she died from the number of miscarriages she suffered. One too many pregnancies. Why she never refused him her bed, I’ll never understand.”
Tony gave one of his philosophical shrugs. “Love conquers all.”
Of all the cousins, Tony thought and dwelled the most deeply over matters such as interactions between the families and the support each member should show for the others. Recently, Richard’s appreciation of this cousinly support and counsel had increased enormously.
With Sherwyn away, Brian and Tony took on the role of his close confidants. Perhaps unburdening himself to them would clarify his own mind, untangle his feelings, as their insights into marriages came from similar situations to his own. Peerage couples and their related families tended to carry on unusual relationships.
Most contracted initially for the sake of blending titles and wealth, some became cold, some distant, some degenerating into complete family feuds. Unions based on love appeared rarely and even when that happenstance occurred in the beginning, the false and formal lifestyle the genders were forced into often drove a wedge between couples.
“Surely my mother could not have wanted to risk pregnancy over and over in order to please my father.”
Brian leaned across to lay a consoling hand on his back. “I’m afraid, Richard, as we were all too young when your mother passed to understand the circumstances, we may never know the answers to those questions.” Brian’s thick brown brows arrowed together and his forehead gathered deep creases as he frowned, his habitual expression when concentrating hard. “Though, 'pon my word, I never heard a cross word between your pater and mater when we played together as children. As far
as I recall, your parents acted as though they were besotted with each other all the time.”
“The majority of couples in our extended family’s history,” Tony said, “tended to love each other so much, and wished for such a large tribe of children, it endangered the women’s lives.”
“By the stories, the pairs that loathed each other were the minority,” Brian said, “Pairs such as our father and our now banished step-mother. I still shudder thinking about how much harm Julia tried to cause our brother, and all the Jamisons. Incredible that she teamed up with Lord Hetherington. We’ll never live down that embarrassment to our dying days.”
His brother nodded agreement. “Yes. Thank goodness society forgave us, the St. Martin men, for her misdemeanors. By trapping Lord Hetherington, we prevented hundreds of minor investors from losing their savings to that unscrupulous and manipulative consortium.”
“Trouble is,” Richard told them, “we’re now tackling the same problem all over again with Lord Hetherington’s insane wife. Until we can apprehend her, for the second time, and ensure she is institutionalized permanently, none of us is safe. She could have us all in her sights as targets to be killed. Murder didn’t disturb her before. I doubt that disposing of a few members of our family, or the Jamison family, would do much more than give her a few moments’ pleasure.”
“If we redouble our efforts, we may still have this mystery solved before our brother and his bride return. Sherwyn’s dealt with enough. Time we settled this once and for all.”
The three of them discussed the latest information they’d uncovered, shared snippets of gossip that might prove relevant, and agreed on their next plan of attack over the upcoming week. Brian, by recruiting more friends to the cause, could cover more ground around the lower class districts, the brothels and the gaming halls. Lady Hetherington’s money source was too full, too frequent, for it not to be supplemented primarily from one of the City’s vice areas.
