A Spirited Affair

by Lynn Kerstan

  At least he’d learned his lesson, very much the hard way, in France. Mark Delacourt, Earl of Coltrane, had duties and a way of life patterned out by generations of men like his father. His path was preordained and he intended to follow it doggedly. If Jillian Lamb was a legitimate obligation, he’d see after her in the proper manner. In a year or two, when he felt up to it, he’d scout the Marriage Mart for a wife and sire an heir to carry on the name. Sooner than that, he’d buckle down and get business affairs in order. Foxworth was right about one thing. He’d done almost nothing useful since returning home a year ago.

  These last months he’d floated from his clubs—and he did like to gamble—to his mistress, where he’d spent much of last night and most of this morning, and through the rigid program of exercise prescribed for his back. That, at least, was showing results. He was noticeably better and could go for days at a time without the debilitating pain.

  All in all, his life was almost in order, except for the annoying intrusion of Jillian Lamb. With Margaret’s cooperation and a hefty dowry, she would soon be the responsibility of some other unfortunate man. Life was actually quite simple if you followed the rules and didn’t get overexcited. In that way his father had known best. There were at least ten portraits of the Old Earl at Coltrane House, each more forbidding than the last and every one of them more lifelike than the stern man his son had failed to please. He’d do better from now on.

  Mark opened his eyes to see Foxy draining the cooling water from his tub. Two kettles of steaming water were poured over him, singeing his skin but feeling wonderful on his back. “Aren’t you gone yet?” he murmured, rubbing soap desultorily over his chest and shoulders, enjoying the feel of warm water and bubbly lather.

  Sheer physical pleasure, mindless, tangible, and sensual, would be the last thing he’d relinquish. Even Richard Delacourt must have known passion in his youth, when he married the flamboyant Marie du Pres. It wasn’t until she ran away that he consumed himself with his art collection. Mark enjoyed art, and was nearly passionate about books, but he would never live a celibate life as his father had done for thirty years. Some part of his mother would always lure him to rich chocolate, the heady perfume of flowers, and elegant blondes with long legs and open arms. In measured proportions, passion was not a bad thing so long as it didn’t get out of hand. Already he’d advanced to the point where nothing got out of hand, except perhaps this latest small problem, and he’d have that leashed up in a day or two.

  The Earl looked around and found the room empty. The glass of claret was there, however, on a small table that had been moved within his reach. He took it and downed it whole, feeling an insane, inexplicable urge from nowhere to run his hands through that infernal girl’s bush of hair just to see what it felt like.

  Down the hall, in the Ivory Suite, Jillian leaned her chin against her knees in the cramped tub and sloshed lukewarm water over her soapy shoulders. A damp handkerchief was draped near her hand and she grabbed it barely in time to catch another outbreak of sneezes.

  Colds were so undignified, especially now when she needed, above all things, some semblance of dignity. There was absolutely nothing dignified about blowing one’s nose. With all the difficulties she’d overcome, who’d have imagined she’d come up point non plus against a moronic butler and a runny nose?

  And, of course, Mark Delacourt. Sit down. Be quiet. Behave. You’d do well to obey me, my girl. Lord, she’d been a hairsbreadth from launching herself over that desk and drawing his cork. These aristocratic icons must be stamped out like coins, because they certainly were not flesh and blood.

  Well, it was her own fault. She ought to have catered to noblesse oblige. Men liked to be strong and domineering, and she ought to have let him, but the Earl seemed to know exactly which nerves to twang. If she’d been sick and pathetic, a waif begging a favor, he’d probably have waved his hand in blessing, made the proper arrangements, and let her go. One simply had to find the key to a man like that and play on it until he was dancing to one’s tune.

  Next time she’d do better. After all, she really did feel rotten and a little convulsed with self-pity. It wasn’t easy to feign weakness when one really felt weak.

  She just didn’t know how to handle him yet. No, she probably did, but something about him made it awfully hard. His self-assurance riled her. His refusal to be stampeded made her want to bite at his heels. Jillian felt her forehead and, to her dismay, found it was very hot. Oh, damn. No wonder she was rattling on like this, like she actually understood the man.

  She mustn’t start thinking of him as a man. He was a name on some papers. An obstacle to be overcome. A mountain. More like an Alp. One climbed an Alp, or one went around. One did not, absolutely could not, bore through. Next time she’d look for a path and follow it, instead of trying to dig a tunnel with her admittedly sharp tongue.

  Across the room Polly sat patiently on the edge of the bed, waiting for instructions. The water was getting cold, and Jillian pulled herself to her feet. “Could you hand me a towel, please?” she asked. Luckily for the Earl, her voice would be gone within a few hours.

  Polly scurried to help her dry off, settled her into the enormous canopied bed against a bank of pillows, and placed a tray across her lap. “Just some sandwiches and milk, M’lady. Mr. Gribeaux was already gone, and the rest of ‘em what works in the kitchen is from the Old Staff. Them does pretty much as they pleases.”

  “Really?” Jillian was intrigued by that. “The Earl does not strike me as a man who’d tolerate disobedience.”

  “I know. But ‘e does, all the time. Ignores it, I ‘spect. They be like soldiers dug into trenches, M’lady. ‘Ard to dig ‘em out, and ‘is Lordship don’t seem to want to fight ‘em.”

  That was the first good news Jillian had heard in a long time. Maybe he wouldn’t want to fight her, either, if she was stubborn enough. Lord, what tack should she take with this Alp? Dig in? Bore through? Climb over? Go around? She changed her mind every time she thought about it.

  Polly giggled. “‘Andsome, ain’t ‘e?” She buried her blushing face in the towel.

  Jillian looked at her in surprise. “Actually, I’d not thought about it, but I suppose he is.” So he was, she reflected as Polly supervised the removal of the tub and extinguished all lights but the one near her bed. Handsome, in an austere way. She hadn’t really noticed how he looked, but now she could picture him quite clearly—broad shoulders, well-muscled under his formal attire, a clean jawline, a long aristocratic nose, and eyebrows that were the only part of his face that showed any expression. They, she remembered, expressed disdain quite clearly. His hair, a pale, almost silvery brown, was thick and close-cut. Nothing out of place, even after a night and most of the day on the town. He was a perfect sculpture, except for the pain in his eyes.

  He did have a weakness. He hurt, and she recognized the symptoms because her father had suffered with his back for many years. It wasn’t a weakness she’d ever exploit, nor one she wished on him, but it was reassuring to know the Earl was not struck from Toledo steel.

  Jillian set the tray on the floor, untouched, and let the lamp gutter out by itself. She hurt, too, and balled a clean handkerchief in her hand for the uncomfortable night ahead.

  Chapter Four

  LADY MARGARET Ramsey gazed with interest at her nephew’s straight back as he stared out the bay window into the soot-black garden. His hands were stuffed inelegantly in his pockets, and he rocked on his heels like a sailor riding out a storm. Margaret sipped her tea, content to wait him out.

  Mark often stopped by but never stayed long. A man of three-and-thirty could not be expected to keep company with his widowed aunt, but she missed the old days when she was his refuge from Coltrane House and the rigid discipline imposed by his father. He would be surprised to know she still kept fresh flowers in his room. Delacourts were never sentimental.

  There
were only the two of them now, with her husband killed in Egypt, her son at Vimeiro, and her brother Richard—a man with no discernible weakness—suddenly betrayed by his own heart. It seemed she’d been in mourning forever. And always she worried about Mark, five years in France and never a word from him until he was carried home on a pallet. She’d nearly lost him, too.

  Eighteen months of deprivation and torture had left him gaunt and fevered. The doctors could do nothing for the excruciating back pain except dose him with laudanum, and she’d put a stop to that when he was so constantly groggy that he scarcely knew who he was. Only when his mind was clear could he decide for himself whether to endure the pain or live in a twilight of drugged stupor. She stayed with him night and day while he fought free of the opiates, and then left him alone to make his choice.

  With the tenacity a Coltrane brought to any enterprise, Mark began to exercise. First in bed, then in a chair, and finally on his feet, he stretched his muscles and built up his strength by lifting weights. When he could walk, he walked for hours—up and down the passageway, up and down the stairs, round and round Berkeley Ring, and then through Hyde Park until he could trace its pathways in his sleep. Seven months later he was able to ride, and recently he’d begun to spar at Gentleman Jackson’s. Margaret worried about that, but after one black eye he seemed to be holding his own. He said he was perfectly healthy now, feeling fine, thank you, and there was nothing in his appearance to disprove it.

  He was, in the patrician way of Coltrane men, exceedingly handsome, with no hint of his mother’s vivid coloring in his cool blue-grey eyes and light brown hair. Marie had drawn every eye when she entered a room, but unless Mark found a likeness of her in France, he probably had no idea what a beauty she had been. Richard had commissioned several portraits of his bride, but he destroyed them all when she left him.

  In every way Mark was Richard’s son, except for his mobile, almost sensuous lips and the rare glint of humor in his hooded eyes. Even his mistress was sculpted in ice . . . tall, elegant, reserved, with exquisite manners that would grace any ton ballroom had she been admitted there. Margaret stirred more sugar into her tea. Whatever was troubling Mark, she hoped it had nothing to do with the Swan. A virile young man required a mistress, and Angela was perfect for him. Her ambitions did not include marriage, at least to an earl requiring an heir, for she was unable to conceive and made no secret of it. Margaret, who always kept her finger on the wire, knew the Swan was as honorable as she was beautiful and approved of her nephew’s taste.

  When the time came, she would nudge Mark to the altar, but for now marriage was the furthest thing from his mind. He was just beginning to pull his life back together and, except for restoring his health, not doing a very good job of it. No Coltrane man ever did.

  They were so carefully measured out, only one male per generation for the last two hundred years, one heir to be bred to his destiny. Too few of them to get any balance, rare birds caged before they could fly off and do something inappropriate to the species. Her father was so stiffly aristocratic that even now, when she inadvertently called him to mind, he looked for all the world like a stuffed owl.

  Her brother Richard had been stamped from the same mold, any rough edges smoothed off before he was out of short coats. By the time she was born, he ruled the nursery with an imperious will. The only way to survive in that family was to conform, and Margaret grew into a model Coltrane woman, doing everything expected lest her father remember she existed. That, she’d found, was never pleasant.

  Only in their marriages had brother and sister proved exceptional. Richard, to everyone’s amazement, had married for love. Art was his preoccupation from childhood, and he’d been in Paris adding to his collection when he met the luscious Marie du Pres. They were man and wife when he brought her home to England, and the Old Earl never forgave his son for diluting the Coltrane line with foreign blood. Noble blood, because her father was a marquis, but French blood, nevertheless.

  Margaret had never much liked her stodgy brother, but he was altogether different with Marie. Mark, a discreet nine-month-old baby, was doted on, and when they could tear themselves away from their son, the young couple sparkled through the ballrooms of London. Everyone envied them until the night Marie packed up and ran away. It was rumored she’d gone off with an Italian music teacher, but that was never confirmed. At the time, Mark was two years old.

  The Earl insisted that Richard divorce his wife immediately, and when he refused, the last tenuous bonds between the two men were severed. They never spoke to each other again. Three years later, word came from Marie’s sister that she’d died of cholera.

  Margaret was certain her father had destroyed Richard’s marriage, in the subtle, cruel ways he had of enforcing his will. The man could wear you away a bit at a time, imperceptibly, like water dripping onto a rock. He’d drawn Richard into a career in politics and sent him abroad on diplomatic missions while promising to care for his wife and child. Like a gardener clipping and pruning, the Old Earl lopped off Richard’s new sprouts and planted the lively Marie in desolate soil by exiling her to a tiny country house in Yorkshire. No wonder their love could not survive, although it never fully died in Richard. It ate away at him the rest of his life, leaving nothing for his son except a compulsion to wipe out any trace of Marie in the child’s personality. Richard was never cruel as his father had been, but he disciplined Mark with the same iron hand until he produced an image of himself. The brief disorder Marie had stirred up in the cold stream of Coltranes was gone as if it had never been.

  Margaret’s own arranged marriage flourished. Terence Ramsey, Baron Kingsford, was wealthy, influential, and a pattern-card of aristocratic propriety. Just the sort of husband her father would choose for her, except that Terry was also sweet, generous, loving, and wise. They were blissfully happy for twenty-two years, until he bought a commission in the early stages of the war and was one of the first to die.

  Margaret could scarcely abide her brother after Marie left, but she never lost touch with his son, and when Mark was seventeen she did something no woman dared to do in the Coltrane family. She interfered. Margaret still believed the best thing she ever accomplished, short of bearing Trevor, was seeing to it that Mark joined her son at Cambridge. Delacourt men always went to Oxford, so the break with tradition was tantamount to a revolution, but Richard caved in. Was worn away, really, for she started her campaign early, while Trevor was raising hell at Harrow and Mark was plying his books dutifully at Eton. It wasn’t only the Coltrane men who could be relentless.

  At Cambridge, in the company of Trevor and his gaggle of semi-wild friends, Mark learned to have fun. He was a joy then, like his spirited mother, and Margaret, having seen what he could be, was all the sadder to watch him later revert to the classic Coltrane archetype. A twinge of guilt plucked at her scalp. These days, she was little better. She rarely went out, and if she maintained a number of friendships, most of her entertaining was confined to small tea parties in this same upstairs parlor where Mark ruminated by the window.

  Whatever was bothering him, it would take a lever to pry the story loose. Coltrane men never acknowledged troubles. They made them go away.

  “The tea is already cold,” she said, breaking the long silence. “Would you care for some brandy?”

  Startled, Mark pulled his hands from his pockets and turned around. “Forgive me. Was I gone a long time?”

  “Long enough. In fact, you are nearly ten minutes past your usual obligatory look-in to see how the dear old aunt is getting along. The brandy is in that mahogany sideboard, I believe. Have you eaten?” On the tea tray were sandwiches and slices of poppyseed cake, his favorite sweet.

  “I’m on my way to Watier’s,” Mark said quickly. He always came equipped with another engagement somewhere else. “I’ll have something there.” Prowling through the cabinet, he found a bottle of vintage cognac.

 
“Pour me a bit, will you?”

  The Earl glanced up, surprised. “Tippling on the side, Megs?”

  “In the open, wretch. Filthy weather today, don’t you think? I’m glad I wasn’t out in it.” He shot her a suspicious look. Guilty, she could have sworn. “Were you?”

  “Briefly.” He passed her a goblet and lifted his own in a toast. “Cheers.”

  “Yes, indeed. We could use a bit of cheer in this room.”

  “If you imagine I’ve come to be read a lecture, Megs, cut line. Today’s quota has been filled.” Mark resumed his position near the window, head bowed as he contemplated the patterned Aubusson carpet.

  “Is anything wrong, my dear?” Lady Ramsey asked softly.

  “Of course not. Everything is the same.”

  “Ah, that is a pity. I’d rather hoped something was different.”

  He shrugged. “It is. Well, not anything important, you understand, but a small matter requiring your advice.”

  “My advice? Fustian. You have yet in your life to ask for anybody’s advice, Mark Delacourt. Whatever this concerns, you have already made up your mind.”

  “Don’t jump the gun, Auntie. The awful truth is, this may be one of those things for which there is no acceptable solution.”

  “But one of the possible solutions requires my help, I suspect. If it will help you decide, the answer is yes, so tell me what this is all about.”

  He scuffed one toe in the carpet, tracing a border of twined ivy in the colorful springtime pattern. “The thing is,” he muttered, “I seem to have come into an inheritance.” His toe discovered a daisy and marked out its petals.