The Luckiest Lady in London

by Sherry Thomas

  “Most of his books have been lost. But Conics, which survived, is still considered one of the greatest scientific works of the ancient world and . . .”

  It had been weeks since she last saw his naked form, the moisture on his skin gleaming in firelight. She wanted to run her hands over him as he whispered the impassioned corollaries of non-Euclidean geometry. Perhaps he would push her onto his desk, sweeping aside all his notebooks as he did so. And she would plunge her hands into his hair—

  “Lady Wrenworth,” someone called her, seemingly from the bowels of the manor.

  She made no reply. The staff could get by on their own for another half hour.

  “Lady Wrenworth!” the voice snapped, along with an explosive noise that almost made her jump out of her chair.

  He had slammed a yardstick against the corner of her desk. Her heart thumped with the unexpected ferocity of it.

  “Yes?” she squeaked.

  He slid the yardstick across the palm of his left hand, a rather malevolent gesture.

  “My dear,” he said calmly, “I spend hours every day preparing for these lectures. I have a right to expect respectful attention.”

  She swallowed. “I apologize. It won’t happen again.”

  He was unappeased. “I doubt that. It isn’t the first time I’ve caught you at it. It isn’t even the first time today.”

  Her cheeks scalded. She hung her head.

  He sighed softly. “Perhaps I should dismiss class early today, since you cannot seem to concentrate.”

  Her gaze flew up. “No, no, please don’t.”

  “Then what should I do?”

  His voice was most reasonable, yet her knees quaked. Her heart quaked, too, violently. She was the one who had once boasted to him of her ability to endure the deprivation of what she truly wanted. If that were still the case, then she should be able to modulate her voice to something that mimicked his appropriateness, and tell him to continue with the lesson, from the point where the value of the eccentricity exceeded one.

  “You should punish me as you see fit, my lord,” she heard herself say, half in dismay, half in . . . anxiety, as if afraid he wouldn’t.

  He leaned against the edge of his desk and crossed his arms before his chest. “When I misbehaved as a child, my tutor would send me to that blackboard”—he indicated the bigger blackboard on the wall—“and make me stand facing it, while he read a magazine.”

  She pulled her lips and did as she was told. She supposed some part of her must have hoped that he would tell her to bend over his desk, as they’d laughingly discussed during a different age of the world altogether.

  The blackboard was full of ellipses, parabolas, and luscious hyperbolas. She felt as lonely as she ever did in this marriage, standing with her nose almost touching the chalk marks, while the clock on the mantel ticked second by second.

  Without being conscious of it, she counted the seconds—fifty-two, fifty-three, fifty-four, fifty-five—as if that would give structure and meaning to an otherwise blank, miserable stretch of time.

  “What was it that so diverted you, Lady Wrenworth? You were glassy-eyed, to say the least.” His cool voice came from behind her—directly behind her.

  Her misery evaporated all at once, replaced by that state of shattered nerves she’d come to know all too well around him. She picked up a piece of chalk and wrote her answer on the blackboard.

  You.

  His hand cupped her face. “That is not appropriate for the middle of a lesson.”

  She closed her eyes, leaned against him, and lifted her arm to wrap around his neck.

  The next second, her skirts were shoved up, her bustle knocked aside, her drawers pushed down not only without ceremony, but with hardly even any acknowledgment that they were ever there.

  And then he was inside her, hard and thick.

  It was the most incredible, most delicious sensation, like being pounded by a runaway train. The force of his thrusts flattened her. It nearly lifted her off the floor. With one hand on her abdomen, he pulled her toward him, so that he came in farther, deeper, harder.

  She cried aloud, her pent-up desires igniting into a fracturing climax, barely noticing that he was shuddering into her, caught in a climax of his own.

  Minutes passed before she realized that she was still crushed against the blackboard, and that she had smeared a large portion of his graphs with her torso and her face. But she didn’t care, because by that time he had started to move again inside her, slow, deliberate, gorgeous strokes that drove everything out of her mind except the pure, undiluted pleasure.

  • • •

  Afterward, he turned her around, kissed her, and wiped the chalk dust from her face. Then he kissed her again. “I would clear the chalk from your blouse, too, but that would require me to do unspeakable violence to your chest.”

  She looked down and slapped her hand a few times across her own sternum. A cloud of chalk dust rose between them, surely the most romantic sight in the world, far better than morning mist on the Seine.

  When he would have pulled her into his arms again, she walked away, retook her seat, and opened her notebook. He realized after a second that she expected him to pick up where they’d left off.

  After a couple of false starts, he did. The class concluded twenty-five minutes late. But other than that, everything proceeded normally: She had a few questions at the end of the class, and then she thanked him and quietly showed herself out.

  By the time dinner came around, it was as if nothing had happened. They spoke of the estate, her family, and the weather as it related to the hours of nighttime observation that could be reasonably expected.

  Later, however, as he stood in his room, trying to decide whether their lovemaking in the afternoon marked the end of his abstinence or whether it had been simply an aberration, the connecting door opened and she walked in.

  His pulse accelerated. “Evening, my dear.”

  “We are married, Felix,” she answered. “You should call me Louisa.”

  His pulse accelerated further. “Is there a time and a place for it, specifically?”

  “Here. And now.” She came toward him and kissed him on his chin. “But it’s only so that I can concentrate in class. We wouldn’t wish to waste your time or disrespect all your wonderfully prepared lectures.”

  “No, we wouldn’t,” he answered, cupping her face and kissing her on the mouth.

  “So we will take care of all these distractions outside the schoolroom,” she said as he lifted her up to carry her to his bed.

  He laid her down and kissed her again. “And we will take care of them thoroughly and tirelessly.”

  After that, neither of them said anything for a very long time.

  • • •

  Have you forgiven me?” he asked, much later.

  “Yes.” Louisa combed her hand through his hair. “Or at least enough to once again use you for your young, firm body and your pretty, pretty face.”

  He smiled and rested his palm against her cheek. “I’d like you to be happy here. I want to see you discover new stars and whole new galaxies. And I’m still waiting for you to win unimaginable sums playing cards with my friends.”

  This last made her laugh a little. “What about you? Don’t you want anything for yourself?”

  “I’ve been satisfying my whims my entire adult life. It will not injure me to put aside my self-consideration for a while.”

  “I can’t imagine you saying anything like this six months, or even three months ago.”

  “I know,” he said simply. “Stay with me tonight.”

  “All right.” She’d always meant to, from before she’d opened the connecting door.

  “I love you,” he told her, just before he fell asleep.

  She remained awake for at least another hour, thinking of him, th
inking of their future.

  CHAPTER 20

  Louisa considered it a testament to their dedication that they succumbed to “distractions” during lecture only three more times in the four weeks since they were first overcome. She made speedy progress. At this rate, according to Felix, she’d be ready to tackle trigonometry by the beginning of April. And even with all the fuss of a London Season—their first together as a couple—that promised to be unusually busy, he was confident he could give her a taste of calculus by the end of the year.

  They also resumed working together in his study. The weather was becoming less wet and they were often up in the middle of the night to carry out observation. The household was accustomed to such shifts in the master’s schedule; breakfast was laid out at ten, instead of eight, and everything else carried on as before.

  On this particular morning, he arrived in the breakfast room looking gloriously hale, approached her chair, and whispered in her ear, “I always think I cannot love you more if I tried, but I always do.”

  Oddly enough, these late breakfasts became his preferred place for telling her that he loved her. It didn’t happen daily or semiweekly or on any other kind of regular basis, but only as the mood struck him. In this way, he was still unpredictable: Before this day, more than a week had passed since his last avowal of love.

  I feel exactly the same, she almost answered, but caught herself just in time.

  It was as if she were waiting for something, a sign from above, a final reassurance, before she was ready to admit the nature of her sentiments.

  Hundreds of snowdrops had sprung up, seemingly overnight, on the still-dormant lawn. They were admiring those messengers of spring when Sturgess came into the breakfast room and presented a silver salver to Felix.

  The latter glanced at the calling card. “I take it the gentleman is not anyone you recognize?”

  “No, sir,” said Sturgess.

  Felix broke the seal on the note and began reading. His expression changed almost instantly. Dropping the note, he picked up the card and gave it a hard perusal.

  “What is it?” she asked, alarmed by his unusual reaction.

  “A Mr. Aubrey Lucas, applying to visit the grave of the late marchioness,” he said flatly, handing her everything.

  The note was simple. Mr. Lucas identified himself as an old friend of the late Lady Wrenworth. He stated that he had been in the civil service in India for many years and had only now returned to England to retire. He would very much like to pay his last respects to the late marchioness in honor of their friendship. Would the present marquess be so generous as to give permission and have a manservant conduct him to the grave site, where he might lay a wreath?

  “Show Mr. Lucas to the green drawing room,” Felix instructed Sturgess. “Look after his comfort, and tell him that Lady Wrenworth and I will be glad to receive him and conduct him to the late marchioness’s final resting place.”

  Sturgess bowed and left. Louisa looked up from the note. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Probably. Certainly she didn’t form many friendships after her marriage, male or female. A life of vengeance doesn’t leave much room for finer things.”

  “What are you going to do?” She was both curious and worried.

  “Meet him, of course.” He took up the card again, and turned it over a few times in his fingers while he finished his coffee.

  When he looked up, he said, “I take it you are not hungry anymore, my love?”

  Indeed she wasn’t.

  • • •

  Louisa half expected a dashing young man of Felix’s age. Failing that, she thought she’d see a commanding figure, tall, handsome, and ramrod straight.

  Mr. Lucas was of medium height, round, and stooped. His hair might have been golden once, but was now an indistinct shade of grey, his eyes a faded blue. His clothes were a decade behind fashion. He moved somewhat jerkily and spoke a little too fast, giving the impression of someone always on the edge of nervousness.

  Traces of boyish good looks were still detectable when he occasionally broke into a self-conscious smile. But Louisa could not imagine that he was anywhere near as beautiful as the late Lady Wrenworth, even if one took away thirty years of aging in the harsh climate of the subcontinent.

  Could he really be the one for whose loss two generations of Wrenworth men had paid so dearly?

  She glanced at her husband. He was being the perfect host.

  “When did you leave for India, sir?” he asked amiably.

  “Oh, must have been December of fifty-nine.”

  Six months before Felix was born. Six months after Mary Hamilton married Gilbert Rivendale.

  “Was it a difficult decision to leave?” She took it upon herself to ask that potentially significant question. It wouldn’t do for it to look as if Felix were grilling him.

  “I was the fourth son of a baronet, Lady Wrenworth. It was largely a foregone conclusion that I’d have to venture abroad to seek my fortune.” He smiled ruefully. “I’d have gone sooner, but I was a young man madly in love and couldn’t bear to tear myself away.”

  Louisa stirred her tea. “And Mrs. Lucas, did she not accompany you today?”

  “There is no Mrs. Lucas—I never married.” Mr. Lucas raised his teacup to his lips and gazed wistfully at Felix. “Forgive me, sir, but you are the very image of your late mother. How beautiful she was, how devastatingly lovely.”

  “Did you know her well, by any chance?” Felix’s voice was slick as marble, but behind his urbane smile, Louisa detected ripples of tension.

  “I hardly know how to answer that question, sir.” Mr. Lucas shook his head. “We exchanged correspondence—I still keep every one of her letters—but we rarely had the opportunity of speaking to each other. She was well guarded and I didn’t see her as much as I would have liked to.”

  “I see,” Felix murmured.

  “That does not mean that I didn’t gain any insight into her character,” Mr. Lucas said staunchly. “As I’m certain you can attest, sir, she was the sweetest, kindest angel God ever put on earth.”

  For an instant Felix froze. That moment passed, however, before it even registered on Mr. Lucas. “Yes, indeed. Now, sir, if you are finished with your tea, I would be happy to show you the way.”

  • • •

  Louisa, for all that she was the mistress of Huntington, had never been to the private cemetery. It was small and without ostentation, the marble grave markers laid out in neat, well-tended rows.

  From a package he carried, Mr. Lucas carefully extracted a dried and faded wreath and placed it on Mary Hamilton Rivendale’s tombstone.

  “Amaranth. Her favorite flower,” Felix said in a low voice.

  Mr. Lucas looked up, his eyes misty. “Yes. I had the wreath made shortly after she passed away—and I always hoped that one day it would find its way to her even if I couldn’t.”

  A silence fell. Mr. Lucas’s gaze returned to the tombstone, as if he could penetrate the layers of marble and earth to the bones below of the woman he loved. Felix watched him. Louisa watched her husband.

  A few moments later, he asked, “Would you like to see some of her favorite places around Huntington, sir?”

  Louisa tried to conceal her astonishment.

  Mr. Lucas’s face lit. “Would it not be too much trouble?” He almost squeaked in his excitement.

  Felix was solemn. “No. Not at all.”

  They went on a grand tour. There was the small stone bridge that spanned Huntington’s trout stream, where the late Lady Wrenworth had set up her watercolor easel on many a sunny spring day. There was the pier at the far end of the lake, where she liked to read on summer afternoons under a large canopy. There was the cloistered ornamental garden she had designed herself, and greenhouses filled to the brim with exotic flowers of all descriptions, her true legacy to
Huntington.

  What stunned Louisa was not so much the tour in itself, but how her husband conducted it. He spoke at length of his mother, fluently, easily, as if that woman had never caused him a shred of pain in his entire life. He described her daily habits, her improvements to Huntington, and her many charitable works. He painted a picture of a grand lady who lived a life above any mortal reproach.

  Mr. Lucas listened with the rapture of an aspiring young soldier before a celebrated war hero, holding fast to Lord Wrenworth’s words as if they were so many gleaming pearls. He devoured the locales they visited, looking about them as if he could transport himself back in time, to the side of his beloved, if only he stared fiercely enough.

  They ended the tour back in the house, the formal, majestic portion of it, where Mr. Lucas was shown an elegant parlor where every stitch of needlework had been done by the late marchioness’s own hand. Gingerly, he touched his fingers to the meticulous embroidery, to the fastidiously and beautifully rendered irises, roses, and tulips.

  The very last place he was taken to was the gallery, so he could see the three large portraits of her on the wall and the dozen or so photographs in a glass-topped display case.

  Once again, they watched in silence as Mr. Lucas stood lost before the images.

  “She never changed,” he said at last. “Still as beautiful as the day I first saw her.”

  For Louisa, however, the hardening of the late marchioness’s eyes was plainly visible as the years went on. A grim, humorless countenance stared back at them from the last photographs taken of her, in her midthirties.

  “Was . . . was her passing difficult?” Mr. Lucas asked diffidently.

  “No. She caught a chill and developed acute pneumonia. It was swift.”

  “She must be lovingly remembered,” Mr. Lucas said softly, his eyes never leaving the portraits.

  “The entire county turned out for her funeral,” said her son.

  Unlike Louisa, Mr. Lucas did not notice the deft sidestepping. He took out a large handkerchief and dabbed surreptitiously at the corners of his eyes.