by Bonnie Dee
Finally she couldn’t take the tension any longer. She must at least speak to Chris before she left. She had to hear his voice, which she’d missed so much in the days since they’d left the country. God, why had she ever wanted to end those blissful days? She couldn’t remember any longer. Why had she driven away the best man to ever stumble into her life? Fool!
She excused herself from Rupert and casually made her way through the crowd until she was near Chris and his group of admirers. Then she casually stepped backward and bumped into him, turning and steadying herself on his arm. “Excuse me… Why, Mister Whitby! What a pleasant surprise.”
He stared into her face with cool blue eyes, his mouth set in a thin line. “Madame la Comtesse.” He gave her a curt nod, then turned away, back toward Hortense Simon, who’d been giving a harrowing description of a near-accident on a recent carriage ride.
The tailored back of his coat seemed as big as a wall when he turned it toward Meredith, closing her off. She was aware of the young ladies’ widened eyes and exchanged glances at the obvious affront. As soon as she walked away, there would be whispers at her expense and gossip circulating the room about how young Christopher Whitby had cut the Countess de Chevalier.
For one brief moment, her pride stripped and her heart open and bleeding, Meredith considered taking his arm and begging an audience, asking him to please take a turn with her in the garden. She wanted desperately to get him alone and explain herself, to suffer his rage if that’s what it took to get him to talk to her, anything besides accept this dismissive silence.
But she knew she’d earned it. He was reacting from wounded pride and a damaged heart as was to be expected, and wasn’t this the result she’d been moving toward all along—a complete severance of relations?
Meredith turned and slipped between two large matrons with broad bosoms and towering hair. She hid behind the bulwark of their hefty bodies, out of Chris’s sight, if he should happen to glance toward her.
Locating Rupert, she made her way across the room and joined him again. “Take me someplace,” she ordered, taking his arm. “This party bores me. I need some real entertainment.”
“Gladly,” he answered, leading her toward the door. “Anywhere you desire, madame. Your pleasure is my pleasure.”
• • •
The crowd at Crockford’s pressed shoulder to shoulder around the gaming tables. Cigar smoke hung in a choking pall over the men in their black suits and the women in glittering diamonds and a rainbow display of satin and silk. The scent of men’s hair pomades and ladies’ perfumes mingled with the rancid stench of sweat. It was even worse than the crush of bodies in the ballroom.
Meredith recognized many familiar faces, slack from drink or opium, swollen with excess, jaded from indulging in every pleasure and depravity they could discover or invent. These were her friends, the people she’d come back to London to see?
The moment she and Rupert entered the main salon, she wished she’d asked him to take her someplace quiet for a drink—or ten.
“Feeling lucky tonight?” His moustache tickled her ear and his breath puffed hot against her neck. “I’ve had a bad run lately myself. Maybe you’d better place my bets for me.” His hand pressed against her back as he propelled her toward one of the faro tables.
After betting and losing several hundred pounds on the cards in less than fifteen minutes, they moved on to hazard. The excitement and jocularity of the players gathered around the table as they bantered with wry cynicism and lost their inheritances was like the chattering of monkeys. Meredith couldn’t believe she once got a thrill from the simple act of throwing dice. The foolishness of gambling no longer appealed, and her headache was growing worse.
“You were supposed to be my good luck charm, madame,” Rupert teased after she’d thrown a straight succession of twos and threes, losing another few hundred pounds. Money that would’ve kept a working class family afloat for months.
Meredith felt a little ill as her friend pressed a glass of whiskey into her hand.
“No matter. Come on. Let’s see what’s going on in the fight room.”
She tossed back her drink, the alcohol burning down her throat and setting a fire in her belly. She took Rupert’s arm and he led her deeper into the maze of gaming rooms. Beyond the main salon were antechambers where private card games went on for hours, or even days, and fortunes were won and lost on a single hand.
But Rupert was taking her to the lower level where cockfights, dogfights and other match-ups took place. The contact of bloody combat was a visceral thrill for gentlemen whose home lives were as tidy and clean as starched linen.
Very few women were in the basement chamber of Crockford’s gambling hell. Even the whores and mistresses who enjoyed gambling with their lovers were generally barred from the violence that went on below.
But the countess was an exception. She’d always gone where she wanted and done what she wanted, gaining entry even into this sacrosanct men’s world.
Her stomach lurched as she saw the entertainment for the evening was a bare-knuckle fistfight between what looked like two bums someone had pulled in from the alley. They were scrawny, sickly drunks, not the brawny lads one would expect in a proper boxing match. But that was the kind of sick twist the young bucks of the ton thought was hilarious, to make japes of the poverty-stricken dregs of society.
“Oh my, who thought up this depressing tomfoolery?” Rupert chuckled and shook his head. “Quick, which one shall we back? Neither of them looks like they have much fight left in them.”
The older of the two skinny men took a poke at the other and hit his chin. His opponent staggered backward into the cheering circle of men. Someone pushed him back into the fight. He earned another jab to the face that snapped his head sideways and sent blood spraying from his nose.
Meredith’s stomach twisted again, and she clutched Rupert’s arm. “Let’s go.”
“Just a moment. I want to see—”
“Now! I’m going to be ill,” she whispered urgently. “Unless you want vomit on your shiny shoes.”
He stared into her face. “You are quite pale. Come along then.”
Rupert took her arm and led her from the room, back upstairs, through the overpowering stench and noise and finally into the blessed coolness of the night air. It was hardly fresh, this being London. The smell of coal smoke, urine and decaying garbage in the gutter, and horse dung in the street mingled in the aroma of a city.
Meredith longed for the fresh green scent of earth and plants. Why had leaving her country home ever seemed like a good idea? How had she imagined that breaking Chris’s heart was the right thing to do?
“What’s the matter, darling? You don’t seem yourself tonight?” Rupert stroked her hand, which was still looped through his arm and clutching his sleeve. “I know we haven’t seen each other in a long time, but you appear quite changed.”
“Me? Nonsense.” Her laugh sounded crisp and brittle to her ears. “It was something I ate at the Overtons’ atrocious buffet coupled with too little fresh air. A turn around the park in your landau and I’ll be fine.”
“Absolutely. Then back to your place?” Rupert’s eyebrow raised and Meredith had no doubt what he was asking about.
“We shall see.” She lowered her eyelids and gave him a coquettish smile, despising herself even as she flirted. Why was she doing it? She didn’t want this man. Not even for one night. She wanted nothing more than to go home, fall into bed and sleep for a thousand years.
But a doggedly determined part of her insisted on living up to her outrageous reputation. She would be the cold-hearted woman Christopher thought she was, proving him right, but also proving to herself that she didn’t care.
The open-carriage ride through the park actually did make her feel better. The stars glowed overhead except where the dark foliage of trees blotted them out. Rupert’s body was warm and familiar beside hers. His arm around her shoulders felt comforting. His mindless gossip about mut
ual friends was pleasant. Meredith relaxed, letting her head fall back against his arm and her hand rest on his thigh.
He covered it with hand and began to toy with her fingers, light caresses designed to stir her desire.
Unfortunately, her body remained rigid, cool and uninterested in the sudden, warm pressure of his lips on the side of her neck.
“I’ve missed you, my dear. It’s been too long.” His breath against her face stank of cigars and whiskey.
Meredith turned toward his mouth and faced his kiss as if it were a punishment. She went through the motions of flirtation, laughingly accepting his compliments and kisses, his increasingly suggestive touches. His hand pressed between her thighs, seeking warmth through layers of dress and petticoat.
“You’re too well-bundled. I think we need to go someplace more private.” Rupert’s eyes sparkled with lust and alcohol. He handed her his flask and she took a long drink.
“All right. Why not?”
Her body still felt like lead, not responding to him in any way, but maybe once out of her clothes she would begin to thaw. That was the way to erase Christopher from her mind. Rupert had always been a skilled lover. He would provide her satisfaction and make her forget Chris’s inexperienced fumblings.
Soon she’d be her old, confident self, and the boy nothing more than the receding memory of a summertime fling.
• • •
Meredith suggested they go to Rupert’s house. She didn’t want to entertain him in the familiarity of her own home. Or maybe it was the servants’ censure she was avoiding, which was something she’d never considered or worried about before. Her staff was used to her guests spending the night. In fact, she thought they might rather enjoy their mistress’s eccentricity which made her household a much more interesting place of employment than most.
But she knew the servants had liked Chris. With no words spoken, she’d felt the general warmth toward him. Cecile had been particularly eloquent in her disapproving silence after their return to London. Her cinching of Meredith’s corset earlier that evening had been nothing short of torture.
Stopping at Rupert’s town house was definitely preferable to bringing him home. Besides, that way she could leave whenever she wished.
By the time they entered the foyer of the Chadwick’s once elegant home, now in shabby disrepair due to Rupert’s gambling debts, Meredith could barely walk straight. She’d taken control of the flask and drunk deeply and, as she’d predicted, her body began to loosen and warm under the influence of alcohol and Rupert’s hands.
She fell against him in the front hall, pushing his topcoat and jacket off his shoulders. He shrugged out of the heavy garments, letting them drop to the floor.
Her hands squeezed his biceps through his fine silk shirt. She pulled the tail of the shirt from his trousers and slipped a palm underneath. His stomach was a little paunchy from a life of nothing more strenuous than playing cards and drinking, but he was solid, warm, male, and most importantly, there.
Pushing away comparisons to Chris’s body, the sound of his voice, the particular way he kissed her, Meredith focused on the man she was with. It was going to be all right. Rupert’s hot, wet mouth covering hers was fine. His kiss sent a sweet ache through her breasts. Her nipples drew tight. Her pussy heated and clenched in response. Her body was reacting exactly as it should. If there was still a core of coldness within her, it was simply from the long carriage ride in the chilly night air.
Rupert’s hands spread across her back, he kissed a trail down her jaw and neck and nuzzled at the swell of her breasts. He stood between her spread legs, and his erection pressed into her. Closing her eyes, she relaxed into the pleasure his mouth, hands and body gave.
When he pulled away, he was breathing hard. His eyes glowed in the candlelight that illuminated the foyer.
“I’ve missed this, all the good times we used to have. Remember the time we had sex with Highgate’s mistress…what was her name? Pamela? That was quite a night!”
Meredith remembered. Unbridled passion, three bodies twining together in every possible combination, silky skin, rough stubble, cocks, breasts, pussies and hands, hands, hands touching and stroking everywhere. She licked her lips and squeezed her thighs together to ease her throbbing pussy.
Rupert brushed his thumb over her lower lip, his hungry eyes trained on her mouth.
“I have a pretty young housemaid, Ginny or Jenny, something like that. If I called her down from her bed, we could have another such entertaining evening. What do you think?”
The icicle inside Meredith spread tentacles of frost to her limbs. Her aching pussy went suddenly numb.
“Would young Ginny or Jenny have a choice in whether she wishes to participate?”
“Of course! I’d never take advantage of a servant.”
“How young?”
“I’m not really sure. Her breasts are well-budded so she’s past puberty at any rate. Fresh in from Devonshire. These country lasses blossom early, all that wholesome air and milk, I suppose.” He laughed. “And her little cunny is so tight and hot you wouldn’t believe…”
Meredith’s fingers clenched, her nails digging into her palms. Naturally the girl would do whatever her master bid for fear of losing her place. No matter that he was jovial in his request. It was still a command as far as the girl was concerned.
“I think not, Rupert. Not tonight.” She tucked her spilling cleavage back into her bodice and smoothed down the front of her skirt. “As a matter of fact, I still feel rather queasy from earlier. I’m afraid I must bid you goodnight.”
“No, Meredith! Rest in my bed a while. I’ll give you something for your stomach and you’ll feel better in a bit. The evening doesn’t have to be a total loss.”
“I’m sorry. I really need to leave.” Meredith felt the need quite literally. She wanted to push him aside, bolt out the door and run all the way home.
“Now,” she added firmly. “Will you call your driver for me, or must I walk?”
Rupert’s mouth thinned to a straight line beneath the brush of his moustache. A frown furrowed his brow. “Very well.”
He shrugged and offered a weak smile. “I guess, Jinny and I will have to make do with each other tonight.”
Meredith stooped to pick up her cloak, which lay in a wine-red pool on the marble floor. Shivering, she pulled it around her shoulders and faced the man who’d once been her friend and occasional bed-partner.
“Rupert, don’t. Let the girl sleep in peace tonight.”
She walked back out into the cold, black night. Wind whistled down the empty street, driving dead leaves before it and cutting right through her cloak.
Meredith shook uncontrollably. She felt as desolate and fragile as the powder dry leaves that lodged against her foot. The heat of whiskey in her blood had evaporated. She thought she’d never be warm again.
Chapter Twelve
Chris walked the familiar paths of the Botanical Gardens for what might be the last time in a very long time…perhaps forever. He might choose not to return from his travels. If the specimens he gathered and documented were important enough and he could keep the grant money coming, he might not return to England for years.
He paused to examine the broad, flat leaves of a palm, then crouched to study a lichen growing on the trunk, noting the shape and color and identifying it automatically. Breathing deeply, he inhaled the loamy scent of the earth in which the tree’s gnarled roots grew and thought about what it would be like to be rootless, free to travel to India or the Americas, from forest to swampland, jungle to desert, anywhere there was unique plant life.
When he’d shared the news of his appointment at the university and his impending departure to China for a year’s study of medicinal plants, his father and mother had been shocked. Actually, that was putting it mildly. Father had roared like a lion and Mother had nearly fainted, although the latter was more a theatrical than an actual condition.
“What the hell is wrong with
you, boy? Why can’t we have a normal son, who’ll act like a man and carry on the family name? Why in the world would you want to go to a heathen country, where you can catch some foreign disease, just to look at a bunch of…plants!” Father spat the last word like it was stuck to his tongue.
Chris didn’t bother answering the rhetorical questions nor did he bring up his knowledge of his father conspiring with the countess. There was really no point. Nothing he could say would lessen his father’s fury.
And nothing would assuage his own bitter sense of betrayal.
Instead, he’d turned and walked silently from the room. In that small, defiant act, a strength and calmness settled over him. He wondered if Father had already done his return favor for the countess, because the old man surely wouldn’t consider their deal resolved to his satisfaction now. His son wasn’t planning on fitting into society nor was he anywhere near close to choosing a wife and getting an heir.
As he had hundreds of times over the past few weeks, Chris wondered about the bill that had been so important to Meredith she’d been willing to sell her body to see it passed. He still felt a sharp stab of pain every time he thought of her.
Snubbing her at the dance hadn’t satisfied him nearly as much as he’d expected. In fact, it had made him feel worse. His childish need to try to hurt her had dissipated the moment he’d turned his back on her. But when he’d looked for her, intending to go someplace private for a talk, she was leaving the ballroom with another man.
