Regency Innocents

by Annie Burrows

  Deborah sidled into the salon some time later, feeling completely exasperated. She had made the mistake of lying down in the only dress she had with her. It had not withstood the abuse well. She had agreed with Cherry that there was nothing for it but to borrow one of the late Miss Lampton’s gowns until her own could be brushed and pressed into some semblance of respectability.

  Miss Lampton had clearly been somewhat shorter, and a great deal more plump, than she was.

  ‘What,’ her husband said, his eyes lighting with amusement, ‘are you wearing now?’

  ‘Another borrowed garment,’ she flashed, ‘since you did not give me time to pack anything of my own.’

  His amusement faded, to be replaced by a look that in another man she might have described as contrition.

  ‘Now, Deborah, you surely understand by now the reason for my haste in getting you to the altar. I could not risk Lampton getting wind of my plans, or he would have done his utmost to overset them. He had tried such a trick before, don’t forget.’

  She nodded, her hands tugging ineffectually at the voluminous skirts that left her legs bare almost to the calves.

  ‘No, do not try to pull your skirts lower. You have very pretty ankles. I like looking at them.’

  ‘It is hardly proper to be talking about my ankles,’ she snapped, although she knew it was not talking about her ankles that had annoyed her, so much as hearing once again of his reluctance to confide in her.

  ‘Deborah,’ he said, holding out his hand towards her, ‘I know I must have taxed your patience to the limit. I whisked you away from your home without giving you time to prepare, and I have been so anxious that something would prevent our marriage I fear I have been less than polite to you at times.’

  ‘Well, yes, I have to confess your manner has been a little … abrupt,’ she conceded.

  He smiled his lopsided smile, the one that always tugged at her heartstrings.

  ‘I do regret the necessity for keeping you so much in the dark,’ he said, removing her excuse for maintaining any anger with him. ‘But given your close friendship with Miss Hullworthy, and her own infatuation with that boor, how else could I have acted?’

  You could have trusted me … She sighed, settling on to a chair and taking the glass of lemonade someone had placed on the table beside it.

  ‘If I had laid my cards on the table,’ he continued, ‘would it not have been a burden on you?’

  She bit at her lower lip, watching a pip bobbing about near the bottom of the cloudy liquid. Yes, she admitted, she would have found it hard not to have gone to Susannah and warned her about Lampton’s duplicity. She supposed it was just possible that he had been trying to shield her from anxiety, just as Lady Walton had suggested.

  However, she reflected bitterly, taking a tentative sip of the drink and finding it surprisingly pleasant, it was more likely that her husband was so used to barking orders at inferiors, and never having to explain himself, that he had just not considered her feelings at all.

  Although to be fair to him, she sighed, taking a large, unladylike gulp of the refreshing beverage, he was not a man given to trusting anyone. Why should he? He had been surrounded by treachery and betrayal since before he had been born.

  Mrs Farrell came in to announce dinner was served, and they both rose and went to the door.

  ‘Oh, how lovely!’ Deborah exclaimed on passing through the double doors of the dining room. Crystal glasses sparkled in the rays of the setting sun that slanted in through the mullioned windows. Silverware glittered at the place settings laid out on a heavy damasked tablecloth, and the whole room was scented by masses of fresh roses prettily arranged in bowls along the table.

  Her reaction brought a delighted smile to Mrs Farrell’s face.

  That look faded to one of affront, as Linney helped her into her chair, saying, ‘Thank you, Mrs Farrell. I will take over from here.’

  He had arranged things so that the food came from the kitchen to a sideboard just inside the door. He brought it to table, served his master and mistress, and removed the empty plates and dishes when they were finished with.

  She would have to have a word with Mrs Farrell, and explain her husband’s aversion to having strangers watching him eat, so that she did not take offence at Linney’s peremptory dismissal. Thankfully the servants were used to serving an eccentric employer. They would grow used to her husband’s foibles far more readily than some.

  ‘Your things should be arriving in a day or so,’ Captain Fawley remarked, as Linney brought out a dish of quince jelly.

  ‘I shall be glad of it,’ she admitted, shifting uncomfortably in the dress that, in spite of all she could do, would keep slipping off one shoulder.

  ‘Yes, the sooner we can get you out of that dreadful gown, the better pleased I shall be.’

  Deborah felt a flame of heat engulf her at the prospect of her husband taking off her gown. Guiltily she lowered her head, concentrating fiercely on her pudding. She was sure Robert would not have deliberately said something so indelicate in front of Linney. But when she eventually regained her composure, and lifted her head, he shot her a quite unrepentant grin.

  She felt her cheeks heat to an unbecoming degree.

  ‘You are looking a little flushed, my dear,’ he said, leaning back and contemplating her thoughtfully. ‘Are you feeling unwell again?’

  ‘N-no, that is …’

  He nodded, his face solemn, as he lay his napkin down beside his place setting. ‘You probably just need another lie down. An early night would do us both good, I think. Linney!’

  ‘Yes, Captain?’

  ‘Get someone else to finish clearing away in here. My wife needs to get to her bed. I do not want to keep her waiting.’

  Deborah wished she could sink through the floor. How obvious could he be making it that going to sleep was the last thing on his mind? She found herself exerting a vice-like grip on her dessert spoon, as he rose and limped past her to the door.

  As soon as I am ready, I shall send Linney to fetch you,’ he shot at her over his shoulder, as he went out.

  She looked at her dessert. She measured the distance to the door that had just closed on her insufferably insensitive husband. She picked up the bowl … and thought of Miss Lampton’s staff. It would not be fair to indulge in a childish tantrum on her very first night here. Why should they have to clean up the mess she had made of her life?

  She slammed the bowl down on the table, slinging the spoon in with a little cry of vexation. He had warned her how it would be, yet somehow, she had not believed he could be so … crude.

  Well, she was not going to put up with being ordered to his bed, in front of a servant, as though she were a woman of easy virtue.

  Getting to her feet so abruptly her chair overturned, she left the dining room and went down the stairs in pursuit of her husband.

  She hesitated on the threshold of their bedroom, knowing he was probably in the process of having Linney remove his false limbs. Even though he had just humiliated her, she did not think it right to descend to the same level. She just needed to draw a line, across which she refused to let him go!

  Raising her fist, she banged on the door.

  When Linney opened it, she drew herself up to her full height. ‘I do not care what your master asks of you. I will not have you marching into my dressing room, while I am in a state of undress! Send a message to my maid, when it is appropriate for me to come to bed, and she can relay the information to me.’

  ‘Yes, miss—madam,’ he corrected himself. ‘Will that be all?’

  Would that be all? As though she had requested he bring her a cup of tea, rather than touch upon a subject that was so delicate she wondered at herself in broaching it!

  ‘Yes. That will be all,’ she said, with as much dignity as she could muster, before turning with a twitch of her voluminous, borrowed skirts, and heading down the corridor to the other door that opened on to her dressing room.

  Chapter Eightr />
  She reminded him of a bristling alley cat when she finally stalked into his bedroom. Her eyes were snapping, her fists were clenched at her sides, and if she’d had a tail, it would have been twitching.

  She had never looked more beautiful.

  Wondering what it would take to goad his very correct young wife into losing her tenuous grip on her temper, he eyed her ill-fitting nightwear, and said, ‘Take it off.’

  She did not mistake his meaning, and, though her eyes narrowed, she just tugged the ties of her wrapper open, flung the garment to the floor and kicked it away from her feet.

  And stood before him gloriously, furiously naked.

  ‘Satisfied?’ she demanded, planting her hands on her hips.

  ‘Not yet,’ he growled, though he knew satisfaction was not far off. It had not escaped his notice that tonight she had left her hair loose. Anticipating his demands. ‘Get into bed now.’

  The smouldering look that went with that peremptory command scythed right through her anger. Dropping her gaze to the folded-back edges of the bedcovers, she clambered in beside him.

  Immediately, he hooked his arm round her waist and pulled her close. His weight pressed her back into the pillows as he kissed her forcefully.

  Ohh …’ She shuddered when, eventually, he paused to draw breath. She wondered whether it was silly of her to feel flattered that he had not hesitated, as he had done the night before. She must have pleased him, though she was so inexperienced, for him to have set to work so swiftly.

  ‘Oh, indeed,’ he murmured thickly against her throat.

  As his mouth worked hungrily against her neck, she felt as though she was melting. He raised himself slightly, just far enough so that he could run his tongue around the delicate whorls of her ear, and she found that she was running her hands up and down his flanks. He nipped the lobe gently with his teeth. She hooked her leg over his, so that she could run her foot over the calf muscles.

  And they went up in flames, just as they had done the night before.

  Deborah was amazed that he could want her with such ferocity, in the darkness of their bed, when by daylight, he did not seem to want her anywhere near him. But her awareness of how little she meant to him did not stop her from responding with her own fierce delight. And marvelling that this time, when he finally entered her, there was no pain, only an intensifying of her own pleasure.

  Afterwards, they sank back into the soft feather mattress, side by side, not quite touching, though she was aware of every breath he took. She felt as though she was waiting for something for him. Some sign. And wondered why she should suddenly feel wary, when they had just been so closely engaged.

  It was a bit like a truce after a bloody battle, she mused, when each side gave the other time to collect their wounded from the field of combat, each aware of the other, but in no fit state to engage in further action. They had even communicated their passion through their sighs and moans, neither of them quite daring to shatter their tenuous bubble of harmony by putting anything into words.

  As Deborah slipped into an exhausted sleep, she wondered if she would always feel as sad as this after they had been together.

  The bedchamber was still shrouded in darkness, the heavy curtains firmly shutting out the feeble rays of early daylight, when she woke, to hear Linney moving about the room.

  All the previous night’s anger surged back. It was one thing having her husband see her naked, though that had been embarrassing enough. But she drew the line at having his servant wandering about the room while she had no clothes on!

  Sitting up, having first made sure that the sheet was decorously clutched over her breasts, she turned a furious face to the manservant.

  ‘Get out!’ she yelled at him.

  He paused in the act of settling a tray on a small table under the window.

  ‘Begging your pardon, miss … madam, but I always bring the Captain’s breakfast to—’

  ‘Not any more you don’t! Not while I am in his bed. If the Captain wants you, he can ring for you.’

  Linney straightened up, his face blank. ‘He did ring for me.’

  She turned to look at her husband, who was regarding her with a look of barely concealed impatience.

  Mortified, she slumped back on to the pillows, her only recourse to pull the covers completely over her head. Only once she had deduced, from the noises of crockery clattering, floorboards creaking, and the door squeaking open and shut, that Linney had left the room, did she emerge from under the covers.

  ‘Good morning, to you too,’ he growled.

  ‘I don’t know what kind of women you usually associate with,’ she replied, resorting to frosty haughtiness to overcome her sense of humiliation, ‘but I am not in the habit of displaying my naked body to anyone, let alone male servants!’

  ‘Linney is more than just a servant to me,’ he replied darkly.

  Deborah gasped. He really put the dignity of his servant before her own discomfort. But then he added, ‘Though, of course, I can see we cannot continue in quite the same habits we used to have. It’s merely a question of logistics.’

  ‘L-logistics?’ she squeaked, increasingly outraged by the way he was treating her.

  ‘Yes, you see, Linney and I have got into a routine that has worked for us both for several months now. It is not a simple matter to get me prepared to face the day. I warned you that you would have to get used to him being an integral part of our life. He is not just a valet, who lays out my clothes, pours my washing water and shaves me.’ He speared his fingers through his fringe, pushing it out of his eyes. ‘Damn it, Deborah, have you no sensitivity at all? Do I have to spell it out for you? I need help just to piss in the mornings! And if you don’t get your carcass out of this bed, and ring for him to come back, you are going to have to be the one to hold the bottle to my …’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ she stammered, sliding out of the bed and groping on the floor for her wrap. ‘I’ll ring for him to come back, and get out of your way.’ Her cheeks flaming, she did as she had said, then hastily made for the door to her dressing room.

  Once again, she had only looked at things from her own point of view. Her husband had told her he did not want her in the room while Linney undressed and put him to bed at night. She pressed her hands to her flaming cheeks, recalling the crude way he had spoken of having the man carry him back to his own bed, if she insisted on having her own room. Why had she not taken in the significance of what he had been trying to tell her? He could not get about with any ease, once he had removed his false leg, without the help of his burly serving man.

  She sank to the floor by the washstand, bowing her head in her hands. She had not really comprehended just how awkward things that she took for granted were to him. And with her clumsy insistence on her own rights, she had forced him to speak of the weakness he managed to conceal from the rest of the world with such resounding success.

  She felt thoroughly ashamed of herself.

  And, worse, experienced a sinking feeling that she had given her rather touchy husband yet another reason to dislike her.

  Captain Fawley lifted his eyes from the balance sheets, to see if Travers was trying to make fun of him.

  There was nothing in the factor’s pale eyes to show he was anything but a diligent employee.

  ‘Are you quite sure?’ he eventually brought himself to ask.

  ‘Well, of course, the figures are only to the end of last quarter. Bound to be some fluctuations in the overall value since then. But not to any significant extent.’

  ‘I had no idea.’

  Travers smiled for the first time since he had walked into the office, as arranged, to go over the books with the new owner of The Dovecote.

  ‘Nobody did, save Miss Lampton and myself,’ said Travers, a gleam of enthusiasm lighting his formerly colourless demeanour. A very astute mind, had Miss Lampton. Invested very wisely.’

  Captain Fawley suddenly found himself assailed by a wave of curiosi
ty towards his benefactress.

  ‘Explain,’ he barked, inadvertently reverting to the attitude of commanding officer towards a subordinate up on a charge. Travers automatically sat a little straighter in his chair.

  ‘Well, Miss Lampton, you see, sir, did have a little money of her own, when she initially came to live here. Her father had banished her from the parental home when she refused to enter the marriage he had arranged for her. But instead of begging his forgiveness, Miss Lampton found that his harshness had stiffened her resolve to become independent of any man. And so, secretly, she began to, umm, speculate in various ventures ….’

  ‘On your advice?’

  ‘Oh, no, sir. She had her own ideas about how she wanted to invest her money. Very forceful, she was. Would have dealt with the city traders herself, but for the fact such activity is forbidden a lady. Disliked having to use me at all, to tell you the truth, at least at first. After a few years, though …’ he smiled as though indulging in fond memories ‘… well, we got used to each other.’

  A very successful partnership, in effect.’

  ‘Yes sir, as you can see.’ Travers indicated the ledgers which lay open on the desk.

  Almost every single venture Miss Lampton had decided to dabble in had paid huge dividends. The wealth she had bequeathed to Captain Fawley was stupendous. He could live like a lord for the rest of his days. He frowned. His own modest requirements would scarcely make a dent in such an enormous fortune. He was too disfigured to try to cut a dash in society. At one time, he would have been delighted at the prospect of being able to indulge in his love of horseflesh. Now he could scarcely control the gentle mare Lensborough had trained and sold to him on terms that were akin to giving the creature away.

  ‘I cannot continue on the path she trod,’ he admitted to his factor, after a moment or two of reflection. ‘I have always been a soldier. I have no head for business.’

  ‘She foresaw that eventuality,’ Travers said just a shade too quickly. ‘She suggested you might like to simply sell up, invest in the funds and live a life of indolence.’