Lady Reluctant

by Maggie Osborne

  Blu regarded her with eyes as hard as granite. “You do have a choice. And you have taken it.” Lady Katherine was as cowardly as Blu had anticipated. But she had not anticipated the pain.

  “There is much work to be done before you can be presented at all. Your manners, your speech, your clothing...” Lady Katherine spread her hands.

  “Bugger yourself!”

  Shock widened Lady Katherine’s eyes, but Blu resisted any small impulse to apologize. In fact there was more, much more, she wished to say. But the hour was late and she observed that Lady Katherine was as overwrought as herself. An exchange of insults was foolhardy when she stood without a weapon and knew her wits to be scrambled with anger and hurt. For a brief moment her mouth worked, then she clamped it shut and reached for the latch. She looked back over her shoulder.

  “You gave yourself to my father. Did you love him?”

  “Love? Between an English lady and a common pirate?” For the first time amusement softened Lady Katherine’s expression. “No, Blusette. Such would be impossible. Unthinkable.” She studied Blu’s face, then turned her eyes toward her bed. “But I shall tell you this,” she added in a quiet voice. “The months I spent on Morgan’s Mound—with William—I shall never forget. Everything since has seemed pallid and lifeless.”

  The door behind her opened and closed and when Katherine turned, Blusette had gone. Noticing that her hands were shaking, Katherine moved about her chamber extinguishing the candles until only the branch on her vanity table continued to burn. Seating herself before her mirror, she examined herself in the glass.

  Yes, there were similarities. Slight, but they existed. Blusette had inherited her thin nose and high cheekbones. The oval face and widow’s peak. And perhaps her stubbornness, although William had not lacked for that trait.

  William. Dropping her head, she covered her eyes with her fingertips but this time she allowed the memories to return. William. All these years later she could still see him standing on the deck of the burning ship, his sword in his hand, blood streaming from a cut across his shoulder. His dark eyes had been more vividly alive than any she had seen before or since. And his joy. The youthful joy of triumph when triumph had not been expected. He had resembled a young God, chiseled from glorious flesh and bone, more handsome than any man she had ever seen, and breathtaking in his forbidden heat.

  God help her, she had gone to his bed willingly and without regret. In his arms she had discovered desire and rapture. Not for Beau Billy Morgan the pale caresses of a gentleman, the indifferent kisses of husbandly duty. He came to her with eagerness, with hot pulsing life, and awakened her slumbering body to quivering pleading arousal. In his bed she had discovered laughter and passion, tenderness and teasing. For one brief glorious era their desire had made them equals, now on her level, now on his. Because she had tasted life in all its raw color and intensity, nothing had ever again been painted so vibrantly. She had returned home to a pastel world.

  Blusette had asked if there were regrets and she had answered honestly. No, she had no regrets. She did not regret her sojourn on Morgan’s Mound, nor did she regret leaving the Mound and her infant daughter. It could not have been otherwise, and that she did regret. In a more perfect world, she could have chosen differently.

  Returning to the present, she slid open a drawer hidden beneath the skirt of the vanity table. From it she withdrew a small lock of baby-fine dark hair tied with a scrap of faded ribbon. For a long time she held the lock against her palm and looked at it. Then she sighed deeply and replaced the tiny curl in the hidden drawer.

  The daughter she and William had produced shocked her. But how could she have expected otherwise? Blusette was a product of her upbringing. What Katherine had seen as a brief, stunning exposure to freedom in its rawest form, Blusette would accept as normal. Whores, cutthroats, pirates, thieves. Men and women who lived selfishly and crudely, as if each hour might be their last. Indeed it often was.

  It did not surprise her that William wished better for their daughter. She resented that he had broken their agreement, and she resented the threatening document the ludicrous little Frenchman carried, but she understood. And she would do what she could to fashion a silk purse from the sow’s ear William had sent her. God alone knew how it would be accomplished, but she would try.

  Thank heaven her friends sojourned in the country for the summer. She had been granted a little time. Not much, but enough, please God, to rub off the worst of her daughter’s rough edges. She covered her face with her hands and shook her head.

  ~ ~ ~

  By long-established habit, Cecile and Aunt Tremble came to Katherine’s chamber for their morning chocolate. They gossiped and planned the day’s activity as Katherine dressed and performed her toilette.

  This morning when Tremble pushed Cecile through the door, Katherine leaned back against her pillows and studied them with lifted brows. Both were dressed for company. Cecile had crimped her pale hair in ringlets and her blue eyes sparkled with excitement. A becoming pink bloomed in her cheeks.

  Aunt Tremble wore an old-fashioned coating of white lead and egg white that somewhat concealed her wrinkles, accompanied by liberal circles of French rouge and her best mouseskin eyebrows. Plumpers fleshed out her cheeks, and false curls dropped in front of her ears.

  “Bless me, but I never had such a fright as when I opened the door,” Tremble chirped, once the chocolate had been served and Mary had withdrawn. “That strange little man with the horrible wig and the cracked goggles, and the whore.” The white paint hid her blush, but it was in her voice. “She had a... had a...” She made a fluttering gesture before her flat chest, then lifted a handkerchief doused with smelling salts to her nose lest she faint at the memory. Aunt Tremble was wont to faint at the slightest provocation. “Then Miss Morgan.” A delicate shudder rustled her silks. “And then... the savage!” Her lower face disappeared into the handkerchief.

  “Mouton is not a savage, Aunt,” Cecile corrected gently. “I had opportunity to converse with him when he carried you upstairs. Oh, he doesn’t speak,” she agreed, when Katherine and Tremble stared at her. “But he makes himself understood. I think... yes, I think he is actually a gentle man.”

  “Cecile, make no mistake.” Katherine suppressed a sigh. Cecile insisted on finding sunshine in the darkest laystall. “Mouton is kind, that I can allow. But he is not gentle. I have seen him bash heads with my own eyes.”

  “You have?” Cecile’s eyes brightened and widened. “Do tell us, Mother. But first, don’t you agree Blusette is astonishingly beautiful?”

  “The girl has possibilities,” Katherine responded irritably. From the moment Cecile first learned about Blusette, she had been fascinated. First to discover she had a sister, then to learn her sister had grown up in a pirate’s camp. Cecile’s willingness to adore her unknown sister worried Katherine. Cecile was much too swift to trust; she was much too gentle and accepting.

  “Come,” Katherine called, responding to a rap at the door while she considered Cecile.

  Mr. Apple stepped inside and cleared his throat with a choking sound. Instead of looking at his mistress, he stood stiff as a hitching pole and addressed himself to the bedpost. “Your Ladyship.” Beneath his powdered wig, his face was as flushed as a plum.

  “Yes, Mr. Apple. What is it?”

  “Ah—your guests, Lady Paget.” The plum color deepened in his cheeks.

  “Yes?” She spread her hands in annoyance. “What of them, Mr. Apple?”

  “It seems...” He rocked back on his heels and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling then down to the floor.

  “For heaven’s sake, speak!”

  “Ah—it seems your guests are pissing in the garden, Your Ladyship.”

  “What?”

  Throwing back the counterpane, Katherine swung out of bed and thrust her cup and saucer in Cecile’s lap, then she ran to the window and jerked back the draperies.

  “Oh, my God!”

  Mouton stood with
his back to the house, inches from the silver oak. There could be no doubt what he was doing. Blusette and Isabelle were squatting between her prize roses. She could hear the murmur of their voices as they chatted back and forth, for all the world oblivious of any misdeed. Katherine covered her eyes with a shaking hand. The task ahead was daunting. “Send Monsieur to me at once,” she instructed Mr. Apple.

  Cecile and Tremble appeared beside her at the window. Aunt Tremble gasped and swayed on her feet. She would have fainted had Katherine not taken the smelling salts from Tremble’s hand and clapped them to her nose.

  Cecile gave a great shout of laughter so unlike her that Katherine turned to stare. Cecile clapped her hands. “Oh Mother! They’re wonderful, aren’t they?”

  “Wonderful?”

  “Like a breath of mountain air. Nothing this interesting or exciting has happened in so long. It’s been so dull since the accident.” Leaning forward, she smiled over the windowsill. “So that is how a man pisses. I always wondered.”

  “Cecile!” Katherine drew a long shuddering breath. “If you will excuse me,” she said stiffly. “I prefer to discuss the use of chamber pots in privacy.”

  After they had gone and while she waited for Monsieur’s arrival, Katherine reflected upon Cecile’s marks. As Cecile never complained, and as Cecile was not adventurous in any case, Katherine had not thought to wonder if life had become dull and tedious since the accident. It occurred to her they had enjoyed little society during the past year. She had thought to spare Cecile reminders of the pleasures lost to her. Perhaps she had erred.

  ~ ~ ~

  “In this?” Blu repeated. She, Isabelle, and Mouton stared at Monsieur in astonishment. She peered down at the lovely painted bowl she held between her palms.

  “I offer my profuse apologies,” Monsieur said, wringing his hands. “I completely overlooked explaining chamber pots. I just assumed...”

  “Her Ladyship wants us to piss in a pot?” Isabelle burst into laughter. “What you think Black Bottom would say to this?” Her enormous breasts bounced and jiggled. “Hey, Black Bottom, give us one of your cook pots to piss in.” She doubled over in gales of laughter.

  Blu’s brows tightened in a questioning look. “This cannot be proper. Are you certain?” There was no pot on Morgan’s Mound as fine as the one she held in her hands. And they were being instructed to use it as a shrub.

  Monsieur assured her it was so. “Only peasants piss in the streets. Or in a garden.” He frowned at Mouton. “Or in the fireplace.”

  “If you are certain,” Blu conceded reluctantly. “And if Her Ladyship insists.” She turned the chamber pot in her hands. “Does it strike you as caw-handed and buffle to make such a pretty pot and paint it sweet for such a purpose?”

  The customs in England were stranger and more simkin than she could possibly have imagined. No wonder Beau Billy Morgan had bid England adieu with never a backward glance. Blu heartily wished she could do the same.

  “Her Ladyship also requested that you be informed Madame Truffoux arrives today to measure you.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “For new clothing.” The mention of fashion always raised a measure of pleasure and excitement to Monsieur’s thin features. “Lady Katherine requests you dress your hair and wear no rouge until Lady Cecile instructs you further in the use of cosmetics.” Monsieur looked relieved to be absolved of further duty in this arena.

  So, it began.

  They meant to lose no time in making her over. A stubborn thrust lifted Blu’s chin and her eyes narrowed.

  “I will piss in a pot,” she said finally. “I will eat with a bloody fork. They can hang a skirt on my bones and paint my bloody face and dress my bloody hair. And I won’t scratch my privates. But by God, they cannot have me bloody soul! Ye can tell Her Ladyship so! Because you know and I know she’ll be wanting that next!”

  “Now, now,” Monsieur murmured, unperturbed. “‘Tis all for your good.”

  “God’s balls!”

  “And you must not swear, my dear.”

  She stomped to the window and stood there brooding until she and Isabelle were summoned to Lady Katherine’s closet to be measured.

  Madame Truffoux took one look at them and shrieked. She fanned herself rapidly and her mouth tightened. Then she grimly set to work.

  9

  The first week at Grosvenor Square upset nearly everyone. Blu could do nothing to please Lady Katherine, which did not surprise her as she exerted little effort to please. Moreover, Blu took grim pleasure in witnessing Lady Katherine’s annoyance even though she didn’t always grasp the nature of her offense. This circumstance proved temporary as Lady Katherine was quick to point out her error, and did so at length and in excruciating detail.

  It did disturb her, though she would have submitted to torture before admitting it, that she and Lady Katherine did not appear destined to become close. Even secret, scarcely recognized dreams died hard. Throughout the first week, Blu found herself watching Lady Katherine for signals, however subtle, that Blu was wanted and welcome. At night she lay in her too-soft bed waiting for a knock at her door that did not come. In her half-formed dream, Lady Katherine entered her chamber to beg forgiveness and to announce they would dispense with the niece subterfuge. In the dream Lady Katherine proudly announced Blu as her prized daughter. A tearful but joyful reunion ensued.

  It was bloody damned well not going to happen.

  By the end of the week it was clear Blu’s relationship with her lady mother would remain adverse. Cecile was the genteel daughter of Lady Katherine’s heart. Not Blu, a wild un-cultured creature fresh from a pirate’s camp. Blu had only to look into Lady Katherine’s cool, unwavering stare to understand she was not wanted at Grosvenor Square.

  Lady Katherine plainly believed Beau Billy had betrayed her trust by sending Blu to London, and she resented and feared the threat of Monsieur’s forged document. Like Blu, she functioned under the dictates of conflicting desires.

  Lady Katherine would have preferred to send Blu and her party packing. When influenced strongly by this urge, she retired to her chamber with a sick headache. Opposing this view was an urge, compelled by Monsieur’s document, to make something presentable out of this raw unschooled daughter imposed on her against her will. When in this mood, Lady Katherine hovered above Blu like a predator waiting to strike at the slightest error.

  Blu responded with a duality of her own. Some days she desired to learn all Lady Katherine had to teach because Beau Billy desired it and because the Duke had disbelieved she could become a lady. At such moments, she startled Lady Katherine with her acuity and quickness to imitate. At other times she displayed the malleability of a stone because she rejected the mother who had rejected her, because she didn’t want to resemble Lady Katherine, didn’t want to be whatever Lady Katherine desired to make of her, and because she clung to being herself.

  Which was her truer aim, Blu did not know. It was true she yearned to prove the scurvy Duke wrong and it was true she wanted to please Beau Billy and make him proud. But it was also true that she resented and thoroughly disliked Lady Katherine and did not want to be a lady if being a lady meant resembling Lady Katherine Paget.

  “I have never been so confused in my bloody simkin life,” she groused to Isabelle, rubbing her temples. “One minute I want to be a lady just to prove to her high-and-mighty that I can be; the next minute I reject everything she is. Cold, selfish, aloof...”

  Isabelle shouldered past Blu to the vanity mirror and adjusted her bodice and pinched her cheeks. To her happiness, Isabelle had discovered a lucrative trade among the house servants. “I probably sleep in the mews tonight. The groom, he is very handsome and very rich.” Pulling back her lips, she inspected her teeth in the mirror.

  “I wish I was not a virgin,” Blu stated glumly. “I wish I had at least that much. I would throw the news in her face.”

  “Come with me to the mews. You get cracked this fast.” Isabelle snapped her fing
ers, then hung heavy silver earrings in front of the false curls one of the housemaids had given her in exchange for advice.

  Blu thought of the Duke and shook her head. No groom could hope to match the standards established by the Duke. Arrogant bilge rat that he was, the Duke remained the pinnacle of male desirability in Blu’s thoughts and she had set her mind not to be cracked until she met the Duke’s equal.

  “I wish he’d had the wind to sail the craft,” she lamented with a sigh. “It would have been bloody damned good to show Her Ladyship how much a decent person cares for name and reputation. About this much.” She licked her thumb and spat on the floor. “And it would have been good to see him naked,” she added wistfully. “Do you think I can truly become a lady, Iso?”

  “Si,” Isabelle answered promptly. But now that she had actually observed a genuine lady, a pint of doubt drowned her assurance.

  At the stair landing, they parted ways. Isabelle to sup with the servants below stairs, Blu to sup with Lady Katherine, Aunt Tremble, and Cecile in the dining room. If Monsieur was not present, she had set her mind to do an about-face and demand that viands and cooking utensils be sent to her room. Squaring her shoulders, she marched into the dining room and planted her hands on her hips, tilted her head and closed one eye as she inspected the number of table settings.

  “Where is Monsieur?” she demanded.

  Lady Katherine raised a thin eyebrow. “We have discussed this previously. Monsieur dines below stairs with the other servants. Please be seated.”

  “Monsieur is not a servant. He is a valuable and trusted friend. He should sup with us!”

  Mouton and Isabelle—she could understand that Lady Katherine might not wish them at table. Aunt Tremble dropped in a faint whenever she glimpsed Mouton; until the new clothing arrived, Isabelle was unable to keep her breast in her bodice. To one unaccustomed to them, Mouton and Isabelle could be disconcerting. Additionally, neither wished to dine at the mansion’s table. But Monsieur was different. Monsieur had impeccable manners. Monsieur had glimpsed a king. Such a one should not be banished below stairs.