by Mia Marlowe
“He was younger than you.”
She glared at him. “Only by ten years, but oh, what a difference those ten years made. I must admit, Blackwood, there is much to be said for younger gentlemen.” She closed her eyes, the better to savor the delicious memory. “They’re so…vigorous.”
“He was barely out of the schoolroom.” Blackwood laid a hand on her knee and squeezed gently. “Besides, I assure you there’s much to be said for a man of experience as well.”
“Dear Blackwood.” She caressed his cheek, and then pointedly removed his hand from her leg. “I wouldn’t doubt it for worlds, but you’ve already said you don’t wish to marry me.”
“With your track record for husbands, can you blame me? Even young Sir Aubrey met his Maker in an untimely fashion.” He tapped his temple. “Let me see if I remember what unhappy accident caught up with him.”
She narrowed her eyes. “He fell out a fourth-story window.”
“From the chamber of one of your maids, I believe,” he said with a decidedly nasty sneer.
“Which just goes to show, there is such a thing as being too…vigorous.”
Drat Blackwood for making her revisit Aubrey’s unfortunate peccadilloes. He really had been a delight when he wasn’t shagging the help.
Evidently his heart was not as strong as his other attributes. It was a good thing that window had been large enough for Chloe to shove him through. She’d have had the devil’s own time wrangling his body to the head of the stairs to make it look as if that fall had done him in.
Sometimes she thought she ought to have left him in the maid’s chamber and let the authorities see him in all his naked shamefulness. He deserved it if he couldn’t be more circumspect about whose bed he was caught in. But in the end, Chloe decided it was better that she dressed him and let folk think he’d taken a flying leap out the window on his own.
“Now I’m all alone and out of mourning again. I’m told that black becomes me, but honestly, it is tedious after a while. And jet jewelry is so very uninspired.” Chloe walked her fingers down Blackwood’s chest. “Are you sure you don’t want to tie the knot with me?”
“I’d like to tie something with you.” He leaned forward and nuzzled her neck.
He leaned in to try for a kiss again, but she pressed against his chest to keep him at bay. “No doubt we’d both find it delightful, but I make it a firm rule not to tumble into bed with anyone I haven’t promised to stick with till death do us part.”
“Till death do us part,” he repeated. “Aye, there’s the rub. I understand a woman’s desire to be wed, but never say you don’t indulge in affaires de coeur on the side.”
“I respect you far too much to play coy. Yes, of course, I enjoy the company of men. But my life is complicated. It’s all a matter of timing, you see. When one is freshly bereaved, one must have comfort, mustn’t one?” She blinked languidly at him. During the early days of each of her bereavements, she often had more than one lover at her beck and call. “But once I am actively seeking a husband, as I am now, it is not practical to take a lover. Gentlemen tend to resent that sort of thing in a prospective bride.”
“Your logic is unassailable.”
“So I go into a period of nun-like abstinence when I’m on the husband hunt.” She sighed.
He shook his head. “The life cycle of the man-eating she-spider is endlessly fascinating.”
“You beast!” She swatted him on the chest.
“I take it back, but you must admit you are unlike most women,” he said, hands raised in surrender.
“Only in that I am more honest about my needs and wants than most.”
“Point taken,” he conceded. “Help me understand, my dear. Once you marry, I take it you are faithful to your husband.”
She slanted him a sly glance. “As faithful as he is to me.”
“So, no.”
“Not so far. You see, I’ve yet to find a man who can love with singleness of heart—not even Lucius, my first husband. Do you know I caught him in the linen closet with a chambermaid while we were on our honeymoon?”
“The dog.”
“He was, but his behavior wasn’t all that remarkable from what I hear of other marriages. It’s naive to expect fidelity,” Chloe said. “Of course, if a gentleman is discreet, there’s no real harm done. If a husband of mine keeps a ladybird in a discreet nest somewhere, who am I to complain? He has his life. I have mine. I simply engage my own lover and everyone’s happy.”
“Especially your lover, I expect.”
“Use your imagination.” She leaned forward so he could get a good look down her décolletage. Lord Blackwood understood her. They’d be good together. “What do you think?”
His mouth went slack below his neat mustache, and he dragged his eyes back up to meet her gaze with difficulty.
“I think it’s in my best interests to see you wed posthaste.” Blackwood leaned toward her, tilting his head in preparation for a kiss. She was of a mind to let him have it this time.
However, before their lips met, someone cleared their throat in the open doorway to the parlor with a loud “ahem.”
Chloe straight-armed Lord Blackwood and turned to find Wilkenson, her butler, standing under the lintel, his back stooped, his face frozen in its perpetual hangdog expression. Whether happy or sad, his eyes were always droopy and his jowls sagging.
He’d be a wizard at the poque table. Fair hand or foul, it would never show. “What is it, Wilkenson?”
“A Lord Hartley to see you, my lady.” Wilkenson advanced toward her bearing a single card on a silver salver. “Shall I show him up?”
Five
“Will you swim into my net?” said the angler to the trout.
“You’ll love its charms so very much, you never will want out.
But if by chance you do, you see, don’t cry that life’s unfair.
I’ll take you home and fry you up and then you’ll cease to care.”
If this is the sort of thing they read to children these days, I wash my hands of the next generation altogether!
—Phillippa, the Dowager Marchioness of Somerset
“Hartley, how good of you to visit me.” Chloe rose and extended her hand to the handsome young lord. And how nice that she was at home, en dishabille and not wearing gloves. Men loved to touch a bit of skin in private that was forbidden to them in public. Besides, if done correctly, the tip of a man’s tongue placed at the juncture of the index and middle finger could create a remarkable sense of stimulation in another place on a woman’s body. “I don’t believe you’ve ever called on—goodness me! What’s happened to your eye?”
“Oh, that. It’s nothing. I’m sorry if the sight of it distresses you, but please don’t be concerned.” Hartley removed his topper and took her hand, bending to brush his lips across her knuckles with correctness. Clearly the newly elevated lord had picked up a few high-toned manners along the way—more’s the pity. “The bruise looks much worse than it feels.”
Chloe returned to the settee and draped herself artfully across it. In a little while, she’d tuck her neatly shod feet up beside her on the seat, taking care to make sure she displayed more ankle than she ought. But she’d do it in such a way as to make it seem inadvertent. Chloe did so enjoy teasing gentlemen with what she wasn’t prepared to give them.
Yet.
She waved Hartley to the striped chintz Sheridan chair across from her.
“Never say you engaged in a boxing match and I didn’t get to watch,” she said with a pout.
Lord Hartley’s face brightened like a little boy who’d just been invited to display the toad in his pocket for her inspection. “As a matter of fact, I did, but it was no place for a lady. Besides, I fear it was all quite illegal.”
“So much the better.” Chloe gave a shiver of delight that wasn’t entirely feigned
. “Do sit down and tell me all about it.”
Blackwood had already described the match to her in some detail. She loved watching half-dressed young fellows go at each other hammer-and-tongs and was quite put out at Blackwood for taking Hartley to the boxing crib without her. She had a full suit of men’s clothing she kept for just such occasions, when women weren’t allowed. She often joined the Daemon Club on their jaunts about Town that didn’t involve ladies of light virtue.
Even if she didn’t go incognita, since Chloe was a widow many times over, her movements weren’t as restricted as most ladies. If the evening involved cards or dice, she could often venture out and she wouldn’t be the only woman present. Chloe wasn’t received by the fashionable set in any case, and thus she had very little reputation to protect.
Hartley settled in to give a blow-by-blow account of the match that was worthy of a boxing coach.
“But I didn’t get this in the ring,” he said pointing to his shiner. “That came later, after I left the crib.”
The thought of his being set upon by ruffians sent a thrill rippling through her. She wondered how she’d have fared if she’d been with the Daemon Club when that pack of human wolves gathered around. Perhaps if she’d pulled out the little pistol she always carried in her reticule, Lord Hartley would be able to see out of both of his soulful, dark eyes now. The floor-to-ceiling draperies that were pulled shut over her Palladian windows moved slightly. Blackwood was hiding there.
“I didn’t come here to talk boxing with you, Lady Chloe.”
“You have me on pins. Why did you come?”
“To invite you to Somerfield Park.”
Chloe blinked at him in surprise. He was too good, this country mouse her city friends had brought to her notice. No one ever invited her anywhere respectable, and the seat of the Somerset marquessate was the pinnacle of respectability. “Me? Go to the country with you? Why?”
“Lord Somerset is hosting his annual hunt, and the house will be filled with his friends,” Hartley said. “I’d like to see a few of mine there as well. That’s why I’m asking you to come for the next fortnight. Please say you will.”
Chloe had heard of Lord Somerset’s annual hunts. Each fall, the cream of English aristocracy repaired to the marquess’s vast estate. By all accounts, they had a simply marvelous time procuring dead heads with antlers to hang on the walls of their own country manors.
“I am not received by Polite Society,” Chloe reminded him.
“Neither am I. That’s why my…my family…” He seemed to stumble over the word. “At any rate, they seem to feel a turnabout is in order. If I’m in a position to receive Polite Society rather than be received, it will change matters. As I understand it, being at Somerfield Park will give some of the ton a chance to reconsider me and my unusual circumstances.”
He leaned forward, balancing his elbows on his knees. “Perhaps if they have the chance to spend time with you there in the country, they’ll reconsider you too.”
Chloe hadn’t been welcome in a proper parlor since she returned from Italy in widow’s weeds. Since her very first bereavement, she hardly knew what it was like to meet a respectable woman on the street. Most of them crossed over to the other side rather than be forced to acknowledge her. She’d suffered more than her share of cuts direct before she decided to thumb her nose at the ton and stop seeking their approval.
“I don’t know,” Chloe said with a sigh. “I don’t want to hurt your chances, Hartley.”
Where on earth had that come from? She hadn’t had an altruistic thought in years. Clearly Lord Hartley was a bad influence on her.
“Let me worry about that. If the ton chooses to cut me over my choice of friends, so be it. When I first came to London, you were one of the few who didn’t make me feel as if I had a bit of dung on my shoe and then tracked it into the parlor. Can you blame me for wanting to be sure of a few friendly faces in Somerfield Park? I hope one will be yours.” He ran the brim of his topper through his thick, capable-looking fingers. At least, she’d like to learn what they might be capable of. “If you’re concerned that you won’t know anyone, don’t be. I intend to invite Blackwood, Smalley, and Pitcairn as well.”
“Now I know you’re trying to bungle your chances.”
Hartley laughed. “Those fellows aren’t so bad. At least they’re lively and will keep the party from becoming stodgy.”
“That’s God’s truth.” The Daemon Club was an entertaining lot…if they didn’t burn the manor house down in the meantime.
“Then you’ll come?” Hartley said.
“I will.” Someone had to watch out for this lost lamb. Chloe hadn’t realized before this how very gullible he was. She rose to her feet and he did too. Then a new thought crossed her mind, and with it, her estimation of his intelligence and cleverness ticked up. “Oh! Now I understand. You wish to tweak Somerset’s nose. Inviting the Daemon Club and me will not bring your family any ease, will it?”
A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “How well you know me, my lady. I confess, the fact that having Blackwood, Pitcairn, and Smalley at Somerfield Park will discomfit the dowager marchioness out of all knowing does add to my enthusiasm for having them there. But that does not apply to you.”
“Does it not? Surely your family will be horrified to have a merry widow in residence. In some quarters, I am considered beyond the pale.”
“Not by me,” Hartley assured her. “You ought not to be condemned for having had bad luck. And if I can help your luck change, I will be gratified. I understand Lord Somerset invites the most important lords for his annual hunt, and you’ve made no secret of the fact that you are open to taking another husband. No doubt you’ll embark on a hunt of your own.”
“Why, Hartley, you’ve a positively devious streak I never suspected.”
“I’ve always heard it’s the quiet ones people ought to worry about,” he said with a grin. “As for inviting the rest of the Daemon Club, no matter what the Barrett family may have to say on the matter, they are my friends. If a man doesn’t stick by his friends, he’s not much of a man.”
“But if I may? A word of advice as you prepare to mingle with the fashionable set. It doesn’t do to greet the world with too open a heart.”
A shadow passed over his face. “Don’t worry on that score. My heart is safely tucked away where no one can touch it.”
“I just mean, don’t be too trusting. Even…” How could she tell this fresh-faced young man that the ones he thought of as his friends would sooner laugh at him than with him? “Be careful, will you?”
“I can take care of myself, my lady,” he said, bowing over her proffered hand as he prepared to take his leave. “Don’t let the shiner fool you. Several of the other fellows looked much worse.”
After Hartley left, Blackwood came out from his hiding place. “Seems as if I should be going too. I wouldn’t want to miss my invitation to Somerfield Park. What a bag of moonshine. This is going to be a golden opportunity to make a proper bumble-broth of everyone involved.”
“Hartley believes you’re his friend. Have you no conscience at all?”
“None, and neither do you.” He ignored her offered hand and leaned in to buss his lips on her cheek instead. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be considering young Lord Hartley for husband number five.”
“Who said I—”
“No one had to. I could tell from the way your voice went all soft and squishy-sounding while you spoke with him.” He pitched his baritone into a breathy falsetto. “‘It doesn’t do to greet the world with too open a heart.’” Then he laughed. “What rubbish. But good luck to the pair of you. The sooner you wed that bumpkin, the sooner you can take me as your lover.”
She whacked his shoulder. This time it was not at all playful.
“Good day, my lady. See you in the country.”
Blackwood strode
from her parlor, leaving a cloud of his strong cologne hovering in his wake like a bergamot-and-musk-scented ghost.
Chloe sank back onto her settee. “John Fitzhugh Barrett,” she mused.
She hadn’t been considering him as husband material before, but now she mulled over the possibility. He was on the youngish side, perhaps five years or so her junior.
That would bode well in the boudoir. And Hartley struck her as the sort who could be trained to give her what she needed.
She’d heard the Somerset estate had been on shaky financial ground, but from all accounts, the younger Barrett son, Lord Richard, seemed to be taking those matters firmly in hand.
Besides, money was not her immediate concern. Her collective late husbands had left her comfortably well off. She’d simply have to have her solicitor draft a contract that allowed her to retain control of her own funds even after she married.
But the real strawberry in the situation was that someday, Lord Hartley would become Lord Somerset. Chloe would be a marchioness. She’d take precedence over all but a duchess.
No matter how sordid her marital history might be, the ladies of the ton who shunned her now would be toadying up to gain her favor then. Countesses would curtsy deeply to her. Baronesses would plead with her to come to their teas.
She’d be able to destroy any of them with a single withering glance.
Her decision made, she rang for Wilkenson. Despite his hunched posture, her butler appeared with surprising speed.
“How may I serve you, my lady?”
“Send Suzette up to my chamber to pack. Apparently, we are going to the country.”
“For how long, my lady?”
She’d heard much of the splendors of Somerfield Park and now happily imagined herself as its mistress. “Let’s leave that open-ended, shall we?”
Six
While I’m all in favor of planning—no one can live a well-ordered existence without it—sometimes, it is the things we don’t plan that make life worth living.
