Lady Windermere's Lover

by Miranda Neville

  The whole business left a sour taste in his mouth. As he spent more time with Cynthia, he fought the urge to trust a woman who was manifestly untrustworthy. Soon, he fervently hoped, he would know if she wasn’t with child. Then he would reassess the state of their marriage and decide how to go forward. Of one thing he would make damn certain: Any child she carried in the future would be fathered by him. It would have to be. Sharing a bed with a woman he wanted and couldn’t touch was straining his nerves. For two nights he got into bed and went straight to sleep. Conversation was too dangerous.

  He returned from a meeting at the Foreign Office, intending to spend the rest of the day in the library, looking over some reports sent by his man of business. A scent of hothouse flowers wafted through the opposite door, drawing him to the open door of the parlor. His wife sat on an upright chair looking at the French window. A folio-sized sketchbook was balanced on her knee while she plied her pencil.

  As he crossed the threshold, the pencil fell to the ground and her head jerked around. “My lord! I did not expect you this morning.”

  “I don’t think I said anything about my movements.”

  “No,” she said. “You did not.” She spoke without a hint of reproach, but it did occur to him that a husband should, out of courtesy if nothing else, inform a wife of his plans. He wasn’t used to being married, and perhaps it wasn’t so terrible after all. Coming home to a warm, sweet-smelling welcome from a pretty wife seemed very appealing. It would be even better if he were bedding the pretty wife and if she hadn’t bedded another man.

  “I didn’t know you drew,” he said. Of course he didn’t. He’d never asked her.

  She laid the sketchbook flat on her lap and nodded serenely. “I always enjoyed it at school. I took it up again while I was staying in Wiltshire with Anne Brotherton. I helped her by recording objects excavated from a Roman villa. This morning I decided to try my hand at the garden. The windowpanes break up the view and make it easier to tackle.”

  “I see. Natural squaring off.”

  “Did your mother teach you about that?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve visited artists’ ateliers in France and Italy. I am familiar with the basic techniques.”

  “Shall I ring for tea?”

  “Not for me, thank you. I have work to do.” He walked to the door, stopped, and turned. “Do you mind if I fetch my reading and keep you company?”

  “Not at all,” she said with a hint of surprise.

  “Tell me if I am disturbing you,” he said when he came back with a bundle of papers and found her staring at the window, a delicate crease between her brows.

  “You won’t. I’m not very good. Not like your mother.”

  “A lady is not expected to show a high level of skill at what should be merely an enjoyable pastime.”

  “I strive for excellence, nonetheless. I doubt I will ever be as good as Oliver, for example, but I don’t aspire to sell my work.”

  He wanted to look at her sketch, curious to see whether she was being modest. But he remembered how much he’d disliked showing his own work until he thought it ready for exposure to the critical eye. Settling at her small escritoire, he tried to concentrate on the reports from Amblethorpe and found them dull. He knew it was his duty as the owner to attend to the management of the northern estates. He’d listened to numerous lectures from his father about how an inattentive landlord was an unsuccessful one. As his father’s bluff accents, tinged with a hint of northern dialect, assaulted his brain, he felt his fingers itch as they had done so often during his father’s harangues. The scritch-scratch of his wife’s pencil on thick rag paper was a siren call. He forced himself to read a list of leases.

  So passed a silent hour that wasn’t uncomfortable, though he couldn’t say he felt at ease. He was too aware of his companion, and kept stealing glances at the golden head bent over the paper, the gentle frown of concentration. Every now and then she would catch him looking at her. She’d blush and hastily turn back to her sketch. He wondered what she was thinking. Probably lost in her work with the absolute absorption that art demanded. He suppressed a pang of envy and thought about sheep and drainage.

  “The light is fading,” she said finally, standing up and setting aside her drawing.

  “Are you finished for the day?”

  “I think so.” She closed the sketchbook and walked over to the window. All he could see was the blue paper wrapper of the manufacturer. He wished she’d offer to show him what she’d done that afternoon. “I suppose I had better draw the curtains,” she said, “but I never want to. When the days are short I hate to waste even a few minutes of daylight.” She rested her nose against the window, staring out into the garden.

  Was she thinking of Julian and how she hadn’t been able to meet him at night?

  “What’s that?” she said.

  He heard it at the same time, a soft squeak or cry. She reached for the door handle.

  “You’ll catch cold,” he warned. “It’s drizzling.”

  “There’s something out there.” She rattled the glass doors. “This door is locked and the key is missing. There is some poor creature out there. What was Ellis thinking, removing the key? I shall speak to him about it.”

  “I’ll ask him,” Damian said quickly.

  “Hurry! It’s starting to rain in earnest.”

  Having retrieved the key from a desk drawer in the library, he unlocked the door. “It was on the table in the next room,” he said. “One of the footmen must have moved it by accident. No harm done.”

  She slipped outside and down the terrace steps to where a kitten stood on the path, indignantly mewing. She scooped it up and brought it inside.

  The small gray cat knew a cozy berth when it found one. It ceased crying and curled up against his wife’s bosom. “Oh look!” she cried. “It’s purring.”

  He’d be purring too.

  “It probably has fleas,” he said sourly.

  “I wonder how it got into our garden. I’ll have to send inquiries to all the houses on this side of the square.”

  “London is full of stray cats.”

  She crooned, stroking its little head and muttering endearments. “If it doesn’t belong to anyone, I shall keep it. I always wanted a pet. I wonder if it’s a male or a female.”

  Damian fought off an idiotic pang of jealousy. It was a cat, for heaven’s sake. He carefully plucked the creature from her breast and held it up. Its little stomach panted under his palm. “Female,” he said, and happily relinquished her to her benefactress.

  “Do you mind if I keep her, Damian?” she said. She looked at him eagerly and he wondered if she was aware she’d addressed him by his Christian name for the first time. “Do you object to cats?”

  “I’ve never had one in the house. My father preferred dogs.” Big, raucous beasts that accompanied him shooting. He never permitted an animal in the house that wasn’t of sporting use. “I have no objection.”

  “Oh thank you!” she said with a smile that made his heart jump. For a moment he thought she was going to kiss him. “Are you hungry, my sweet?” The kitten mewed again. “I’ll take you down to the kitchen and find you some milk and a bed. I’m sure the cook will be delighted to see you.”

  All further remarks were addressed to the feline and Damian was left alone, forgotten. He drew the curtains against the twilight and threw a couple of pieces of coal onto the fire. About to return to his work, his eye was drawn to the abandoned sketchbook. It was hard to resist taking a look, but he restrained his curiosity. Instead he picked up the pencil, riffled through his papers until he found a blank sheet, and started to draw. In his mind’s eye he saw the pure line of Cynthia’s profile: the smooth forehead, slight upturned nose, the perfect bow of her upper lip, the small but determined chin. With a few strokes the face took form as his pencil moved faster, adding shading as he’d been taught so long ago in Paris. He’d always had a knack for producing a likeness, but when he stopped and held the paper a
t arm’s length, he was dissatisfied. They were Cynthia’s features, close enough, but there was no life to the portrait. It communicated nothing of her character. Perhaps it was because he didn’t really know her character. Or perhaps he hadn’t the skill. He heard his father’s voice again, this time telling him not to waste his time on an art that was suitable only for females and certainly not for any gentleman. He ripped the paper into four neat pieces and threw them onto the fire.

  Without letting himself think about it, he flipped open the sketchbook. Drawings of battered Roman artifacts covered several pages. There was a portrait of a dark-haired young woman with an intelligent face. His heart beat faster when he turned the page to find a man’s face, but it wasn’t Julian, as he had feared. He knew those handsome, smiling features: Marcus Lithgow, another of his former friends. More pieces of broken pottery, and then the view from the parlor window. She hadn’t got far with it, barely sketched a tree seen through one pane. Neither was it the last drawing in the book. He turned the page and discovered why he’d caught her looking at him that afternoon. It was he, all right—she drew a fair likeness. But that wasn’t his expression.

  The face she’d caught in three-quarter profile lacked any kind of feeling. It was sleek, cold, impenetrable—even a little ruthless.

  Chapter 10

  Damian paused at the door. The strain of celibacy was becoming acute, and he assessed the risk of letting his wife sleep alone. Even if he didn’t hear her leave in the middle of the night, the garden door key was hidden again. But she would think it odd if he suddenly absented himself. As far as he knew, there had been no change to the mattress and apparently there was something wrong with his bed curtains. He’d better put himself through the discomfort of her all-too-desirable proximity because, after all, she might try and sneak out. It had nothing to do with a sudden reluctance to sleep alone. Nor was it because he had enjoyed their afternoon together.

  He found her already in bed. “We have company, I see.” To avoid looking at her, he concentrated on the new pet, running a finger along the curving spine of the kitten, curled up on her lap. “She purrs a lot.”

  “She’s well fed and comfortable.”

  “Does the new member of our family have a name?”

  She gave him a quick, surprised glance. It was an odd thing for him to say. He’d never thought of them as a family.

  “I was thinking something Shakespearean. Viola, or Miranda, or Perdita, perhaps, since she was found in a storm.”

  “Rather a dramatic way to describe a little rain, don’t you think?”

  “Perhaps,” she said with a smile. “And maybe those names are too grand for such a tiny, funny creature.”

  The kitten rolled onto her back, and stretched out her paws. “That tummy looks very well fed. Careful or she’ll grow pudgy.”

  “Pudge! I like it. Hey, sweeting, what do you think of your new name?”

  Pudge signaled her approval by closing her eyes and purring even louder.

  “Is that noise normal?” he asked. “Will it keep us awake?”

  “If it bothers you, the mattress in your room has been restuffed.”

  “Or Pudge might prefer a new mattress.”

  “She has already tried every other bed in the house, including yours, and none was to her taste. If you are going to sleep in here, you will have to put up with Pudge’s presence.”

  “Even though they say that two is company and three a crowd?”

  “It’s up to you, my lord, but the cat remains.” She looked up at him with a little pouty smile, illustrating why overwrought poets compared their mistresses’ lips to rosebuds. Even in an all-enveloping nightgown, she was as enticing as an Eastern dancer wearing nothing but diaphanous veils. Perhaps he’d better have his valet order such a flannel garment for him. It would be an extra barrier between him and his increasingly attractive wife. On the other hand, he had every intention of resuming marital relations as soon as he knew she wasn’t with child, and he didn’t want her to find him undesirable. She had, after all, told him she didn’t wish to lie with him. She thought it was her decision alone that they shared a chaste bed. Since he very much hoped that their bed would not be chaste for long, it was time to start wooing her.

  He climbed in beside her. He gave her credit for not wishing to give herself to both lover and husband at the same time, but little did she know that her affair with Denford was over. Seducing her himself was one way of making sure.

  “You called me Damian this afternoon,” he said. “You address both Bream and Denford by their Christian names.”

  “They are Caro’s intimates. Everyone in her set is on easy terms, as you no doubt recall.”

  “Yet you persist in addressing me as ‘my lord.’ ”

  “And you call me ‘my lady.’ I assume such formality is what you prefer. It doesn’t seem strange to me. My uncle and aunt always address each other as Mr. and Mrs. Chorley.”

  “My own mother and father were formal too, but I don’t know how they spoke to each other in private.”

  “We’re not in private. Pudge is here.”

  “At the risk of shocking Pudge, do you think we might use each other’s given names, Cynthia?”

  “Yes, Damian,” she said, her voice husky with surprise. “It would be . . . proper, I think.”

  He seized her hand and gave her knuckles a lingering kiss. Her cheeks grew pink; she said nothing, but she left her hand in his.

  “I hope we can get on better than we have in the past, Cynthia.”

  “I hope so too, but, as I said before, I’d like time to know you better.”

  “I confess that I wish to know my wife better too.”

  Stroking her palm with his thumb did not have the intended effect. She snatched away her hand and regarded him with narrowed eyes. “You had a chance when we were first married and seemed to have very little interest. If you recall, all our conversations were in French, which had a most inhibiting effect on the exchange of information.”

  Oh God! Those terrible, awkward evenings, when he’d used the excuse of improving her languages to keep her at a distance. “I owe you an apology for that. I meant it for the best, but I was wrong.” He smiled winningly. “I don’t make you speak French anymore.”

  “That’s an improvement. But if you want to know me you must hear what I have to say and it may not always be pleasant.”

  “Complain away,” he said magnanimously. She must want to berate him for leaving her two weeks after the wedding and leaving the country within a month. He was willing to admit she was justified.

  “During our honeymoon you left me alone most of the days.”

  “I was busy about the estate.”

  “You made me speak French, which I couldn’t do. And then at night,” she went on, stumbling over her words, “you came to me as though I were, I don’t know, nothing. Of no more importance than a piece of meat.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You never even kissed me!”

  It came as a nasty shock that the lack of care he’d afforded her in bed had not gone unnoticed. She was right. She had meant nothing to him at the time, and their coitus was merely a duty he’d had to get through.

  He didn’t feel that way now. When he was ready to take her again, he’d do the job properly and make sure she attained her own pleasure. Julian had no doubt seen to it. A lump formed in his chest and threatened to choke him. He was angry with himself and furious with Julian. Oddly enough, he didn’t feel nearly as angry at Cynthia. She had been neglected by him and led astray by Julian. The poor girl, unfamiliar with the wicked ways of the world, didn’t know any better.

  “I’d like to kiss you now. Will you let me?”

  And because he was afraid of getting the wrong answer, he took her head in his hands and lowered his mouth to hers. He started out slowly, just a brush of his lips over hers, moving gently and resisting the urge to taste the sweetness within. He kissed her as though undertaking a diplomatic overtur
e: make contact, assess the reception, soothe any resistance.

  His restrained approach was rewarded by a noticeable reciprocation. He pressed a little harder. She placed her hands on his shoulders, her fingers firebrands through his linen shirt.

  He parted his lips, sipping at her mouth. To his joy he felt her warm breath mingle with his as she opened to him, but a hesitation when he ventured to trace the opening with his tongue. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered, and retreated a step, massaging the soft skin of her temples with his thumbs. He waited, senses alert to her reactions, wanting to make their first kiss as perfect as their beddings had been mediocre. A new start for them, he thought hazily, but his attention was fixed on the physical. When her breath deepened and all tension ebbed away so she was all melting and pliant against him, he advanced the kiss, tasting her for the first time and finding her as sweet as he had anticipated.

  He didn’t allow himself to take her passionately. They couldn’t come to the natural conclusion this evening. So he kept things warm, not heated, a slow, almost lazy enjoyment of each other. But he leaned back against the pillows and drew her down to him, kept one hand threaded into her silky hair while the other circled her waist, finding the womanly curves beneath thick flannel as exciting as the finest linen or satin. They kissed for what seemed a long time until his desire flared too hot to be ignored.

  With reluctance he broke the kiss. Not ready to end the connection, he rested her head against his neck. Her breath, as elevated as his, warmed his skin. With an unsteady hand he stroked her disordered hair and ran two fingers up and down the nape of her neck. She nuzzled his collarbone in approval and he made a mental note that she enjoyed being touched there, a tiny addition to the sum of his knowledge about his wife. Her movement disturbed him all the way to his distended cock. Gently he disengaged from the embrace and laid her on her side next to him. She gazed at him with eyes wide and dreamy.

  “Was that a good first kiss?” he asked lightly, recovering his voice and his wits.