‘What?’
Edie forced herself into an upright position and blinked at her lover.
‘An intimate dinner, my love: just you, me, Tom and Giles. The servants have their instructions – we are to be attended to by only you and footman Giles. Except you won’t be serving us. You will be our honoured guests. Do you see?’
‘I … don’t think I do. The servants …?’
‘They’ll be safely downstairs. Giles will bring all the dishes up.’
‘But if the servants are guests, who is going to be the …?’
‘Servants? Darling, Tom and I have fought in the trenches. We don’t need to be waited on hand and foot. We can fend for ourselves, you know.’
‘Won’t they think it odd?’
‘“They”?’
‘The servants.’
‘They aren’t paid to question what we do, Edie. They might gossip but they can’t take their gossip out of the Hall. And do you care about a bit of gossip, anyway? You are above that.’
‘I’m not,’ she said. ‘I’m one of them.’
‘No, you aren’t,’ he insisted. ‘You’re mine. That puts you in an entirely different position.’
‘I am not yours,’ she said hotly, but he put a finger to her lips and shook his head.
‘Don’t argue with me, Edie. Whether you know it yet or not, you are. Now come on downstairs and we’ll find you something suitable for cocktails.’
Chapter Nine
She almost ran back up the back stairs when he led her into Lady Deverell’s chambers.
‘I can’t,’ she whispered in a panic, but he pulled her onwards.
‘Yes, you can. You’re about her size and shape. Her gowns will fit you like gloves. Come into her dressing room and I’ll choose one for you.’
‘I can’t,’ she repeated, even more urgently, but they were in the sumptuously filled closet before she even finished speaking.
‘You can. I’ll be your maid. I’ll dress you. On the strict condition that I can undress you again later.’
‘Charles –’ She was flustered, but he was so resolute that she ceased trying to move him and stood like a mannequin in the centre of the room while he cast his eye over racks and racks of gorgeous evening gowns.
‘I don’t think black,’ he said, rejecting a jet-beaded number in midnight lace. ‘A fresh little rosebud like you doesn’t wear it well. And white isn’t appropriate any more, is it, my dear?’
He turned and gave her a wicked smile. Her cheeks flamed.
‘We can’t,’ she said, in a final attempt to steer his course away from her mother’s wardrobe. ‘What if I spoil the gown? What if we are found out?’
‘That day will come eventually,’ he said equably.
The words terrified her. This was all galloping away from her, much too fast.
‘Don’t,’ she muttered.
‘Don’t what? Prepare for the inevitable?’ He turned back to the rail, fingering exquisite gowns whose price tags would pay for a year of good dinners for her friends in Holborn. ‘Now this –’ he said, taking a dress of a peacock-blue silk with a chiffon train attached to the shoulders. At the embonpoint, sapphires and diamonds glittered in an eye-catching knot and the skirt was overlaid with glittering lace, tiny seed pearls sewn into the pattern.
‘It’s beautiful. I haven’t seen her wear it.’
‘It suits the shade of your hair.’ He held it up to her. ‘I’m sure it will fit you. Come on. Take off those drab parlourmaid’s-day-out things and let’s see you in your full glory. Not that you need any clothes for that.’
‘Stop it. Look, I’m really not sure about this …’
‘I am. Slice a bit off my certainty and use it for yourself, if you like. Chop chop, get those buttons undone now.’
Edie’s fingers fumbled but she undid the blouse and then the hobble skirt, relieved to be out of it, for its material was too thick for the summer heat and it had made a chafing band around her waist.
‘That dreary underwear can go too,’ said Charles lightly, already ransacking the drawers for corsets and silk stockings. ‘What are you waiting for?’
She knew he had seen it all before, but she still blushed to denude herself entirely before him. When he turned around, holding a pile of impossibly frilly wisps of material, he smiled like a thirsty man who has caught sight of an oasis.
Swallowing first, he said, ‘That’s the girl. Now, I’m going to put these on you.’
‘I can’t wear her underthings. Surely it’s not … quite … well, you know …’
‘They’ll be washed,’ he said offhandedly. ‘I’ll put them in the laundry hamper.’
‘Not today,’ exclaimed Edie. ‘The servants!’
He laughed wholeheartedly at that. ‘Oh, you sound like your dear mama sometimes, you know.’
‘You’re not to tease me about it,’ she said, sticking out a rebellious lower lip. ‘It isn’t fair.’
‘All right. I’m sorry. God, I could have you right here and now, you gorgeous little puzzle. But I’m going to make myself wait. Going to force myself. Dinner will be all the more piquant for it.’
Edie, tired of being naked, urged him to make a start.
‘Can I at least put some drawers on?’
‘I suppose so,’ he said dolefully, handing over a frothy, frilly pair in black lace. Edie had never worn such an article and she felt peculiarly exotic as the lace tickled at her skin and quivered over her bottom.
Charles seemed fascinated by it too, laying his palm over her cheeks and cupping them, then stroking the flounce-covered curves. He moved his hand lower until his skin connected with the backs of her thighs, then his fingers massaged the soft, vulnerable skin at the very top, right by the elasticated border of the drawers.
Edie could feel the blood rushing around her body and a resulting sultry heaviness between her legs. He could let his fingers creep under the elastic, he could let them push between her lips …
But he did not.
Instead he helped her on with her silk stockings, nominally black but so sheer they were the faintest dark sheen on her pale legs.
Next came the corset, and he laced her in tightly, almost too tightly. She held on to the clothes rail for support, gasping and coughing.
‘I’m not as slender as all that,’ she protested. ‘You’ll cut me in half.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, loosening them a little. ‘It does make your behind swell so deliciously. I got a little carried away. But look at yourself in the mirror. You’re a perfect hourglass.’
She was, and she stared, unused to seeing herself on such voluptuous display. She never wore corsets ordinarily, believing, along with her father’s women friends, that they were constricting to the health and happiness of females. But they certainly made one look astonishing.
The garment was made of sleek satin, and was black with red velvet swirls and red ribbons. It was cut necessarily low and did not cover the bust, so as not to show over the neckline of the gown. Edie’s breasts were bared, their nipples swollen and red with excitement, while beneath them her waist was perfectly nipped in, giving her a wickedly wanton appearance.
‘Gosh, I look like something from a brothel,’ she said.
‘Hmm,’ said Charles approvingly. He stood at her shoulder and put his hands over her breasts, watching the pair of them in the mirror as he kissed her neck.
‘Even more so now,’ she breathed, lost in sensation, despairing of ever being fully dressed, but finding the despair not at all unpleasant.
‘I want to keep you chained to the wall,’ he said, kissing her ear. ‘Dressed like this. My own little private slave girl, to have whenever and however I like. What would you think of that?’
‘Oh, no,’ she gasped, feeling she really ought to object to the notion, but it was so appealing at that moment that she hadn’t the heart. ‘I couldn’t … do that …’
‘You’d have no choice. I’m going to do it later. I’m going to tie you to the b
ed. I promise you.’
‘Charles.’ But her legs couldn’t support her and she had collapsed backwards into his chest, swimming in sensual rapture. The feel of his thumbs on her nipples undid her every resolve, as did his lips and teeth on her delicate skin. He could make her his whore. He could do it.
‘Can’t we stay here?’ she whispered. ‘I’ve no idea what I’ll say to your brother. I can’t face it, Charles.’
‘Nonsense. He’ll adore you. Come on.’
He gave her one last kiss, brisk and businesslike, then returned her to her feet, hands firmly on her shoulders.
‘The gown,’ he said, picking it up from the footstool over which it lay draped like a cold, blue waterfall. ‘I’m putting it on you while I still have the will.’
She stepped into it, shivering at its delicious coolness as Charles guided it up her legs and over her hips. It was constructed so as to require no buttons or other fastenings and it clung snugly, holding her breasts in place better than any foundation garment could.
‘Oh, I thought it might not fit but …’
She could say no more, but gaped at her reflection. She looked so elegant, another woman in another world. This was not Edie the bluestocking with the bitten-down nails. This was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the daughter of Ruby Redford.
‘Bloody hell,’ murmured Charles, his palms on her chiffon-covered upper arms. ‘This is what she must have looked like twenty years ago.’
‘Oh, take it off,’ she cried impulsively. ‘Your brother will guess my secret.’
‘Well, I was rather thinking along the lines of telling him, actually.’
‘What?’
‘Why not?’
‘Charles, no! Until I am able to tell her myself, it’s terribly unfair to have a house full of people who know something she doesn’t. Something with the power to ruin her.’
‘As you wish,’ he said, shrugging. ‘But he’ll notice the resemblance, I can promise you that.’
‘So perhaps let me take it off? Wear something plainer, less … her.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘That dress was made for you.’
‘But it wasn’t.’
‘But it should have been. Come into the bedroom. I know just the necklace to wear with it.’
‘I feel like a thief,’ she said shakily, glorying, despite her reservations, in the way the skirt whispered around her as she walked. She also felt like a goddess. A thief-goddess – was there one?
‘You don’t look like one,’ remarked Charles, glancing up from Lady Deverell’s jewellery box. ‘I don’t think Fagin would accept you into his gang wearing that. Here, this is the one.’
Between his fingers diamonds glittered.
Edie put her hands to her throat, suddenly afraid.
‘It’s too much, Charles,’ she said. ‘I can’t.’
‘You can. Turn around.’
She hesitated.
‘Turn around,’ he repeated, with soft but unyielding pressure.
She obeyed, shuddering at the weight of them. They seemed to imprint themselves into her skin in their setting of loops and teardrops and she wondered how any lady of fashion could forget she was wearing them. The point, presumably, was to be constantly aware of her value.
It struck Edie, quite suddenly, as a little disturbing – a display intended to reflect glory on the man who kept one, who bought one the diamonds. They felt like a collar.
‘Lord Deverell gave these to her?’ she asked, fingering them.
‘A wedding gift,’ replied Charles, fastening the clasp.
‘Why did she marry him?’
Charles laughed. ‘I think the answer is upon you, sweet one.’
‘I cannot believe that she is so mercenary.’
‘You do not want to believe it.’
‘No,’ Edie agreed, her voice low. ‘No, I don’t.’
‘What size shoe do you wear?’
‘A five.’
‘So does she. Let me find you some slippers.’
‘Charles,’ she said, stopping him en route to the dressing room.
He turned around, waiting for her question.
‘Do you hate her so much?’
His cheeks flamed and he gazed at her almost abstractedly, as if it were not really her that he saw.
‘I’m jealous of her,’ he said. ‘I suppose that’s it. And angry at her.’
Edie waited for him to say more, but he did not, ducking instead into the dressing room and returning with a pair of dark-blue satin slippers.
‘Put these on,’ he said blandly, ‘and we’ll go. Tom will be waiting for us. I ought to do something with your hair, but I’m no coiffeur. I can brush it and pin it, but no more. It’ll have to do. Put a feather in it or something.’
He pinned a decorative jewel-clipped peacock feather into her neat housemaid’s bun and took her arm.
‘Now, shall we?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, pleading for respite with her eyes. ‘I feel that this is wrong. I’m terribly nervous of dining with your brother and his … friend.’
‘I’ve told you. You’ve nothing to fear from Tom.’
He put his arm around her waist and compelled her towards the door.
‘What if Giles talks?’
‘Do you think Giles wants the details of his real relationship with Tom uncovered?’
‘No, but all the same …’
‘But all the same nothing,’ said Charles resolutely. ‘We’re taking cocktails in the Blue Drawing Room. Giles will do the honours. He mixes a sensational highball.’
‘How long have you known?’ asked Edie, tripping down the stairs on Charles’s arm. ‘About Sir Thomas, I mean. And Giles.’
‘Ages. Before the end of the war. They were in the same unit, you know, at Wipers.’
‘Ypres?’
‘Yes, yes, Ypres.’
‘I see. Were you there?’
‘Yes. He left after getting his leg shot to pieces at the Somme. I stayed out there until ’18.’
‘You were lucky to survive.’
‘I don’t need you to tell me that.’
‘No, of course. I’m sorry.’
‘When Tom was invalided out, he asked me to look after Giles for him. I kept an eye out for him for the next two years, made sure he was never to the fore of the front line. So you see, you have nothing to fear from Giles. Nothing whatsoever. He’s absolutely to be trusted.’
‘Yes.’ Edie felt sobered and foolish, trying once more to imagine what these men had suffered during the horror of war. She had heard stories, mainly from her friend Patrick McCullen, for few of her father’s circle had been anywhere near the trenches. Patrick himself had gone to sea, but he had lost many of his boyhood pals to that barbed-wired patch of hell, and been told the brutal truth of things by those that survived. ‘I do see that.’
‘Good.’
***
They halted before the drawing room door, Charles putting a hand on Edie’s shoulder and sweeping a gaze of approval from her crown to her toes.
‘They’ll wonder whom I’ve invited,’ he murmured, pulling her in for a kiss.
Edie, too nervous of being seen by a stray member of staff, wriggled out of his embrace.
‘Let’s go in,’ she suggested.
She tried to keep a step or two behind Charles but he steered her forwards on his arm, towards the two dinner-jacketed men sitting at the far end of the room beneath an astonishingly huge depiction of a hunt.
Sir Thomas stood immediately and made a formal bow, Giles scrambling up in his wake and copying him.
‘May I present Miss Prior?’ drawled Charles.
‘I say, it’s Edie, the new girl,’ said Giles, but he was silenced by uncompromising glares from both Deverell brothers.
‘Miss Prior,’ repeated Charles. ‘Meet Mr Salter, Sir Thomas Deverell.’
‘Oh, I do beg your pardon,’ mumbled Giles, shamefaced. ‘How do you do, Miss Prior?’
Sir Thomas echoed the greeting, a
dding a ‘Charmed, I’m sure.’
Edie allowed each man to kiss her fingers, horribly aware of how they tried not to stare. It was clear that they were noting the resemblance between her and Lady Deverell.
‘What a beautiful gown,’ said Thomas faintly, backing away towards the drinks cabinet. ‘What would you like to drink?’
‘Whiskey sour for me,’ said Charles. ‘Edie?’
‘Oh, just … I don’t know. Something with orange juice, perhaps?’
‘A screwdriver?’
‘Lovely.’
She sat beside Charles on a deep leather sofa, opposite the other pair of lovers, sipping at the cocktail Sir Thomas had handed her.
‘Do you like Dublin Bay prawns, Miss Prior?’ asked Sir Thomas. ‘I believe a fresh catch was delivered this morning.’
‘I hardly know,’ she said. ‘I don’t eat much fish as a rule.’
The heaviness of the atmosphere pressed like a weight against Edie’s chest. A mass of unasked questions and unspoken assumptions thickened the air into an awkward soup.
Charles broke the silence, throwing back the last of his cocktail and replacing his glass on a solid mahogany occasional table.
‘Shall we speak freely?’ he said. ‘Miss Prior and I are both aware of the nature of your relations, and I daresay you could hazard an accurate enough guess as to the state of ours. Let us be a duet of respectable married couples for the evening, shall we? Or, preferably, bohemian lovers who have run away to Italy or somewhere of that kind.’
‘Suits me,’ said Giles, taking one of Sir Thomas’s hands and squeezing it. ‘It’s so tiring, all the bloody secrecy – pardon my French, Miss Prior.’
‘It must be,’ she said sympathetically. ‘And do call me Edie.’
‘How long has this little tendresse been going on?’ asked Thomas of his brother. ‘I did think something was in the wind, but did not care enough to enquire.’
‘Edie and I have an understanding,’ said Charles, getting up to mix himself another cocktail.
‘Oh, don’t say that, it makes me sound like a –’
Edie stopped short. What did it make her sound like? Somebody bought and paid for, somebody no better than she should be. Was that not, after all, what she was?
‘I don’t mean to insult you, my love,’ he said, returning with his second cocktail and lighting up a cigarette. ‘The understanding is that you tolerate my attentions because you’re an angel. And I give them because I can’t help myself. That’s right, isn’t it?’
Justine Elyot Page 18
