A Precious Jewel

by Mary Balogh

  Sir Gerald had spent the whole of the long weekend determinedly following about and conversing with Miss Majors’s aunt and even flirting with her a little. The woman was sixty if she was a day, so a little flirtation seemed harmless. Instead of being deterred, the brother and niece seemed to have decided that Sir Gerald was already making himself one of the family.

  He had been invited to accompany them all to Vauxhall and the opera within the following two weeks. And what could he have done when the invitations were made face-to-face and so unexpectedly that he had not been given even a moment of time in which to think up suitable excuses? He had accepted the opera invitation. The best he had been able to do with the Vauxhall one was to frown, stare off into space, and declare that he was not at all sure that he was not committed to some other entertainment on that particular evening, though he could not for the life of him remember what.

  The opera! Devil take it, he hated the stuff. He did not mind music. Indeed, he played the pianoforte for his own amusement when in the country and had once been told to his infinite discomfort that he had some talent at the instrument. But he hated opera. It was nothing but screeching sopranos and tragic heroes and heroines dying with great dramatics all over the stage.

  And Vauxhall. The chit would have him up one of the darker, lonelier alleys before he knew it if he did not pay attention every moment of the evening. And the father would be greeting him with an expectant smile at the other end of the alley.

  But he would be damned before he would let that happen. He was not going to be trapped into any leg-shackle this side of the grave. He would definitely discover that he had another engagement for that evening.

  “Getting a trifle foxed, ain’t you, Stapleton?” Lord Barclay commented cheerfully a little after midnight.

  “I must be a slowtop, then,” Sir Gerald said gloomily. “I expected to be more than a trifle foxed by this time.” He raised one hand to summon a waiter.

  “Has that new ladybird of yours kicked you out already, Stapleton?” someone else asked.

  Sir Gerald examined the liquid in his glass and swirled it about before downing it in one gulp. And that was another thing. Priss. He had scarcely been able to get his mind off her all weekend. He had tossed and turned each night wanting her. He had counted the hours until he could go to her on Monday evening.

  He had pictured her standing in the middle of her parlor, small and dainty, her hands reaching out to him in welcome, her face lit up with the pleasure of seeing him. He had pictured the delicate arch of her spine as he unbuttoned her dress, her arms reaching up to him from the bed, the warm and soft welcome of her body beneath his.

  Damnation! He should never have done it. He should have left her where she was. Kit would have dealt with the man who had abused her. Anyway, she was just a whore who must expect occasional abuse. It had not been his concern at all.

  Somehow during one of the nights at Majors’s, when he had been half asleep, half awake, the pictures of Priss had got all mixed up with pictures of his mother. The warm smile, which extended all the way back into the depths of her eyes; the welcoming arms; the warm, soft body; and the sense of being wanted and welcomed.

  His mother had died suddenly when he was eight years old. She had just disappeared. He had not been called to her deathbed or taken to her funeral. It was all of five years later when he had discovered that there had in fact been no deathbed and no funeral. His mother had grown tired of living with his father and had taken herself off to live with her two unmarried sisters.

  She had not taken her young son with her or said good-bye to him or written to him or ever sent him any presents or any other token of her love. That meant that she had grown tired of him, too, that she had never loved him, that all her protestations and shows of love had been so much playacting.

  There was no real welcome in Priss’s face, either, or in her arms or her body. She was just damned good at her profession—she had been trained by Kit, of course, and Kit was generally recognized as the best. Priss was a woman working for a living and doing a thoroughly good job of what she did.

  He must not begin to take the illusion for reality.

  He would not go to her, he had decided. He had come to White’s instead to get drunk.

  “Hey, Stapleton,” someone was saying with a laugh, “the brandy is supposed to be poured into the glass, old chap, not on the table.”

  There was a general roar of mirth as Sir Gerald adjusted his aim.

  He would not go to her tomorrow, either, or the next day. She would be expecting him tomorrow. Let her wait. Let her know that she was not an essential, or even an important, part of his life, that he could take her or leave her. Let her know that he led a busy life apart from her, that she had only the one function in his life, and that he did not need that with any great regularity.

  Let her know that she was nothing more than his mistress.

  Miss Majors, he thought at the same moment as he realized that he had succeeded in getting himself very drunk indeed, brayed when she laughed. He did not like her laugh. And she did it too damned often.

  “Hey, Stapleton,” someone was saying, “I think you have had enough, old chap. Let me help you home. I’m going your way, anyway.”

  “No, you ain’t,” Sir Gerald said, setting his glass very carefully down on the table, which insisted on swaying with a quite irregular motion. “I’m going to P-p…, to P-pr …”

  “To Prissy’s,” the same voice said. “It is two o’clock, old chap, and you are about as far into your cups as a man can get without drowning in them.”

  “Prissy’s,” Sir Gerald said, swaying to his feet. “That’s the place. Got to go there. She ’xp … She’s ’xpecting me.”

  “Not at two o’clock in the morning,” the voice said. It sounded faintly amused. “And she wouldn’t enjoy having you vomit all over her, take my word on it.”

  “Priss won’t mind,” Sir Gerald said. “She’s ’xp … She’s waiting for me.”

  And it seemed as if the mere wish had brought it about. He was banging the knocker without stopping at the door of the house he had leased for Priss and wondering vaguely how he had got there and what had happened to the owner of the amused voice. He rather thought that both the owner and the voice had accompanied him onto the street, but he did not know for sure. He did not much care, either, he thought, laying his forehead against the door while continuing to bang the knocker.

  “Prender … Prendergast,” he was saying, “tell Priss to come to me in the parlor, will you? Or is she there? She’s ’xpecting me.”

  “It is half past two, sir,” the servant said in a poker voice. “I will inform Miss Prissy, sir.”

  Sir Gerald rested one arm along the mantel and his forehead on his arm. It would have been rather pleasant to go to sleep, he thought, if the room would just stay still when he closed his eyes instead of floating off into space, taking his stomach with it.

  “Gerald?”

  His mother’s sweet voice. She would put him to bed and tuck him in snugly and smooth away with her hand and her voice all fear of the devils and ghosts that lurked in shadowy corners and in large wardrobes.

  “Gerald?” She touched his arm.

  “Priss.” He turned and caught her up in his arms, arching her slender body to fit against his. Ah, yes. “I didn’t have to come, y’know. I could have gone home. But you were ’xpecting me. Didn’t want to dishpoint you.”

  “Gerald,” she said, her arms up about his neck. “Did you walk here? All alone? Come and lie down, dear.”

  “Can’t,” he said. “The infernal room won’t stop spinning, Priss.”

  “I know,” she said. “Come and lie down and I shall fetch you some water and some coffee to drink. Are you thirsty?”

  “I’m foxed,” he said.

  “I know, dear,” she said. “I shall take care of you. Come and lie down. I shall loosen your neckcloth and help you off with your clothes.”

  She took him by the ha
nd and led him into the bedchamber and sat him down on the edge of the bed. And she talked to him in a quiet soothing voice, though he did not listen to the words, and loosened his clothing, and eased him back until his head was lying on a soft pillow. She lifted his legs to the bed. At one point she was telling Prendergast to prepare some coffee and to bring some water in the meanwhile. He was sipping on the water, her arm beneath his neck.

  Her fingers felt soothing against his head.

  “Deuced room won’t stay still,” he said.

  “It will be better once the coffee has come,” she said.

  “I’m going to be sick,” he announced suddenly, sitting up sharply.

  “I have a bowl here ready for you,” she said.

  A slim, cool hand stayed firmly against his forehead all the time he was retching up a quantity of liquor.

  “Devil take it, Priss,” he said perhaps minutes, perhaps hours later. He was lying back against the pillows again, the taste of strong coffee in his mouth. “Why did I come here? This is damned humiliating.”

  “You are better here with me than at home alone,” she said. “Lay your head on my arm, if you wish, Gerald, and try to sleep. In the morning, I will soothe your headache with lavender water and make sure that the house remains quiet.”

  He turned gingerly onto his side and nestled his head gratefully on her shoulder. He breathed in the warm, clean soap smell of her. He was naked, he realized. She was wearing a silky nightgown.

  God, he felt wretched. But she felt so good.

  “Priss,” he murmured, settling one hand at her small waist, “I missed you.”

  “And I you,” she said.

  He felt her lips brush softly against his temple.

  He lost consciousness.

  SHE DID NOT see him for five days after the night when he had come to her so drunk that she wondered how he had found the right house.

  It was hard. There had been days when she had been working at Miss Blythe’s—many of them when she had dreamed of being her own person again, her time her own, her home her own, her body her own. And it was blissful, she told herself often during those days, wandering from room to room upstairs, rearranging her books, restacking her stories and poems, spreading her embroidered cloth over a table to see what it would look like when it was finished, arranging her easel so that the field of daffodils she was painting would catch the light from the window—it was blissful to be able to be Priscilla Wentworth again.

  The chambermaid she had hired enjoyed walking, she discovered, and so the two of them sallied forth a few times each day to shop or visit the library or stroll in one of the parks. The only trouble with Maud was that she liked to talk without pause, recounting all the gossip of London belowstairs—and some from abovestairs, too—in a hurried, confidential manner.

  Priscilla decided that since she could not silence the girl or ignore the sound of her voice, she might as well draw amusement from the stories. And so she still enjoyed her walks, though not on the level that she could do so when alone.

  She visited Miss Blythe one afternoon and spent four whole hours—neither of them could believe how much time had passed when Priscilla finally got to her feet to leave—talking about books and paintings and poetry and music and a whole host of other topics that had nothing to do with simple gossip.

  “Goodness,” Miss Blythe said with a smile, “we have not even discussed the weather, Priscilla. Whatever can we have been thinking of to neglect that topic? And such a beautiful summer we are having, too.”

  “Yes,” Priscilla said. “The parks are lovely, Miss Blythe. Have you been out?”

  Her old governess looked severely at her. “You are not wandering about alone, are you, Priscilla?” she asked.

  Priscilla laughed. “Only once,” she said. “Gerald caught me at it and threatened to take me over his knee if he ever caught me again. I believed him. He was furious.”

  “Good for Sir Gerald,” Miss Blythe said. “He is treating you well, Priscilla?”

  “Yes.” Priscilla smiled. “I have always liked him.”

  Miss Blythe sighed. “If only circumstances had been different,” she said. “But no matter. That girl of yours will be heartily sick of the sight of my kitchen, Priscilla. You had better go and rescue her.”

  “Your cook will doubtless be the one who needs rescuing,” Priscilla said with a laugh. “Maud never stops talking.”

  It had been a wonderful week, Priscilla told herself. It was almost like old times, except that her father was no longer there. But it had been a hard week, too. Every afternoon and every evening she had expected Gerald but he had not come.

  Had he grown tired of her already? Did he regret setting her up as his mistress? Was he embarrassed by the memories of that night, when he had vomited three separate times into the basin beside the bed and talked drunken nonsense for much of what remained of the night? Had he remembered calling her his mother once? Did he find it hard to face her after spending the morning and part of the afternoon on the sofa with his head in her lap while she had bathed his temples with lavender water and smoothed her hand lightly through his hair?

  She missed him. It was dreadful. She should rejoice at the week’s respite she had had from having to perform the essential function of her profession. But she missed him.

  He came back finally quite late on a Sunday evening, when she had already undressed for bed. She heard the knock on the door and stood silently and expectantly in the middle of her bedchamber until Miriam tapped on her door and told her that Sir Gerald Stapleton awaited her downstairs.

  She removed her dressing gown and her nightgown with feverish hands and drew on her rose-pink evening gown. She drew a brush through her hair and pinched color into her cheeks. She ran lightly down the stairs.

  “Gerald,” she said, going to him, her hands outstretched and seeing with some relief that he was not drunk, “how lovely to see you.”

  “Hello, Priss,” he said, squeezing her hands and releasing them. “It must be almost a week, is it? How time flies. I have been busy.”

  She smiled and a knife she had not known was lodged in the region of her heart twisted a little.

  There was a brief silence.

  “Will you come to the bedchamber?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said, “that is why I have come. I can’t stay long, Priss. I just thought I would look in on you.”

  “It will be as you wish,” she said, closing the door of the bedchamber, beginning the ritual of her occupation.

  He said not a word and did not once look into her face until he was leaving. He allowed her to pleasure him in the usual way and took a great deal of time about it, as he liked to do. And he slept on her afterward for almost half an hour, as he had always used to at Miss Blythe’s. And then he rose and dressed himself, as he had always done there too, telling her that he had to go.

  He looked at her before he left. She was sitting on the side of the bed, wearing a dressing gown, as she had always done at Miss Blythe’s. He touched her chin with one knuckle.

  “Thank you, Priss,” he said. “You are very good.”

  She smiled warmly at him. “I am here to give you pleasure, Gerald,” she said.

  He left without another word.

  Priscilla sat on the edge of the bed for a long time before rising to begin the cleansing ritual. You are very good, he had said. A very good whore. Very good at following directions. Good at opening herself to him and holding herself still for him while he took his pleasure from her body in the way he best liked to do it.

  Yes. She had got the message. She was very good at reading messages, too.

  THERE HAD BEEN two days of rain, but the sun was shining again on Monday. It was a good day for an outing. It was the day he would have been going to Richmond with Miss Majors and a party of her friends if he had not wriggled out of it by pleading a prior engagement, Sir Gerald remembered.

  Well, his prior engagement would be with Priss. He would take her to the To
wer of London. Doubtless she would be impressed with the Crown Jewels and delighted with the menagerie. Females usually were. And he remembered telling her once that it was his duty to take her about since she was his mistress.

  He could permit himself an afternoon out with her, he decided. In the past week he had clearly established to her the real nature of their relationship, if she had ever misunderstood it, though he had to admit that Priss had never ever been demanding, even in the smallest of ways. More important, he had convinced himself in the past week that he could relegate her to the proper place in his life.

  There was Lady Leighton’s ball to attend that evening and his obligation to dance the opening set with Miss Majors. Yes, he could allow himself an afternoon with Priss.

  She was in the hallway tying the ribbons of her bonnet beneath her chin when he arrived.

  “On your way out, Priss?” he asked, looking into her startled face. It was the straw bonnet, he saw, the one he liked.

  “Oh,” she said, “just for a walk, Gerald.” She smiled. “With Maud, so you must not frown at me like that. But I will be delighted to entertain you instead.” She pulled free the strings of her bonnet.

  “I have come to take you to the Tower,” he said. “That is a devilish pretty dress, Priss. Is it new?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I have had it an age, and it is dreadfully out of fashion, I am afraid.”

  “I don’t know anything about fashion,” he said. “Fashion is just to keep the ladies buying, if you were to ask me, and the gentlemen too, if it comes to that. But I do know that it suits you, Priss.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “The Tower, Gerald? Are we going to see the armory and the weapons and the dungeons?”

  “Oh, nothing too heavy,” he said. “Nothing to addle the female brain. I thought you would enjoy seeing the animals. The elephant is a great favorite, so I have heard.”

  She was tying the ribbons of her bonnet again. “I would prefer to see the weapons and the armory, if you please,” she said.