by Mia Marlowe
“How did you know that I—”
Oh dear! He was about to realize she’d been peeking. Then a rush of inspiration saved her. “You haven’t hung any of your wet things on the screen.”
“Neither have you.”
“There.” She flung one of her stockings toward the top of the screen, expecting it to catch on the top, but it sailed over.
“You don’t have to throw things at me. Nice stocking, though.” The stocking reappeared, draped neatly over the screen. “A little French lace wouldn’t hurt, but—”
“You have a very commonplace mind, my lord.”
“Because I like the idea of a woman wearing lace even where a man cannot see? Why do women wear lace in secret places if they don’t want us to think about it?”
“Well, I don’t wear lace.” She peeled off her other stocking and stood to primly hang this one over the screen instead of lobbing it at him.
“No lace at all?”
“None.” The teeny bit at the hem of her chemise didn’t count. “I’m a practical girl. I don’t need lace.” Besides, her father’s slender purse couldn’t afford embellishments of that sort.
“Pity. I’d like to see you in nothing but lace.”
Her cheeks heated at that. Part of her would like for him to see her that way too, to see that curious, wanton part of her. She did her best to keep that bit of her nature in check, but it would be wonderful for John to accept it, maybe celebrate it. But then she remembered John had done probably more than his share of “celebrating” while he was in London.
According to Freddie, gentlemen were really dogs who walked upright.
“It sounds to me as if you’ve seen far too many ladies in nothing but lace,” Rebecca said waspishly.
“And it sounds to me as if you know far too much about the lower habits of gentlemen for your own good.”
More articles of his clothing began to be spread over the top of the screen. When his socks and garters finally appeared, Rebecca realized he was naked as Adam in glory just inches away from her, albeit separated by the screen. Her mouth went dry.
“You’re right,” he said softly.
“About what?” She’d never felt more wrong. She’d peeked at him in a way no respectable woman should. Freddie would think her the most shameless hussy.
“I have been with too many women,” he admitted.
Her belly spiraled downward. She’d flung out that comment about ladies in lace because it popped into her head and out her mouth before she had thought it through.
And it didn’t bear thinking of. She dreaded what he might say next. It was one thing to be aware that John had spent a profligate time in London. It was quite another to hear chapter and verse of his misdeeds.
“I’m not your confessor.” And she wasn’t about to give him absolution. Not for this.
Eleven
After a certain age, none of us float through life carefree as a bubble. Regret is the price of experience.
—Phillippa, the Dowager Marchioness of Somerset
“When I left Wiltshire, I was feeling pretty empty,” John admitted. “Everything I thought I was, everything I’d been, was suddenly gone. So I decided to try to fill up that emptiness.”
Rebecca sank back down on the chair. Her knees wouldn’t hold her any longer.
“I bought new clothes,” he said, “but no matter how fine, a garment doesn’t make a man.”
“That’s a good thing,” Rebecca said with a nervous chuckle. “I’d hate to see what sort of fellow you’d have to become to live down to that pink monstrosity of a waistcoat.”
“Don’t worry. I only wear it to irritate people into looking the other way.”
“Then I suspect it serves its purpose.” Whatever tailor had convinced him that color was the height of fashion should be shipped off to New South Wales for fraud. “But you know, you can’t blame others for leaving you alone if you push them away.”
“You’re right,” John said. “Perhaps I thought I’d beat them to the punch. And speaking of punch, since I’d been told I was a lord, I decided to drink like one. I poured enough liquor down my gullet to drown myself several times. And while I was foxed, I thought I was all the crack, but once I sobered up, the emptiness remained.”
In the silence that followed, Rebecca heard only the determined dripping from her hem to the floor. She knew she ought to continue disrobing, so she could get warm and dry, but she couldn’t seem to move as she waited for John to go on with his litany of sins.
“I filled my days with sport and idle games. I filled my nights with…”
She waited for him to say it.
“With women.” He exhaled noisily. “Women were such a mystery to me when I first arrived in London. The wellborn ones looked right past me, but there were others who…well, who didn’t.”
“You don’t have to tell me.” She didn’t want to hear. “You owe me no explanations. I have no claim on you.”
“That’s true. And I suspect you’ll hate me if I continue. I don’t blame you. As I look back on the last few months, I despise myself. But I want you to understand that even dallying with women didn’t work.”
She fisted the fabric of her gown and squeezed. “What do you mean?”
* * *
The silence from Rebecca’s side of the screen was like the London fog creeping up from the Thames to fill in the narrow streets. It smothered him, chilled him, blotted out the sun. He leaned toward the screen, hoping to hear something, anything, from her, but not even the sound of her soft breathing traveled to his part of the room.
“I’m not going to lie to you. Being with a woman is pleasurable, even when it doesn’t mean a damn thing.”
There was no reaction. The silence grew, fingering its way through the narrow slits in the screen and curling around him like cords binding a condemned man. Rebecca didn’t scold him for swearing this time. That depressed him. A woman really didn’t care a fig about a man if she stopped trying to improve him. Still, he was compelled to press on, in case there was a chance he could make her understand.
“But a thing can feel good at the time and still not fill up the emptiness,” he said softly. “In fact, every time it was as if more pieces of me were being sheared away.”
John lost part of himself with each mindless coupling. A bit here, a bit there, a chunk from his heart, a fragment off his soul, the man he’d been dissolved and sizzled away in the heat of rutting. He didn’t know what was being reassembled from the remnants of his former self, but he didn’t much like it.
He didn’t think Rebecca would either.
“So now I’m a dry husk,” he said. “I’ve spent myself, like the Prodigal. Riotous living has left me so riddled with holes, I’ll never be filled again.”
She drew a shuddering breath, the only sign there was still someone else in the room.
“Never is a very long time,” she whispered.
It wasn’t much, but it gave him the courage to go on.
“The last few months seem like a dream and not a very good one at that,” he said. “To be honest, the best thing about being in London was meeting you.”
“I don’t see how that’s possible,” she said, louder this time. “The first time I met you, Freddie and I practically snubbed you in the museum. And the second time, you took a beating for me.”
“I don’t know what it is about you, Rebecca, but you make me remember what my life was like before I became Lord Hartley,” he said. “What I was like and maybe could be again…”
If I were with you.
There was something clean and honest about her. He hadn’t found that in his circle of friends in London. He doubted he’d find it at Somerfield Park either. She made him want to live up to his best self—if he still had a best self…
“Don’t give up on me.”
; “Oh, John.”
Her voice quavered, but she called him by his name, not by his title. It was like being reborn. In that instant, he knew who he was because she seemed to know him.
He tucked the blanket around his waist and walked bare-chested around the dressing screen. Rebecca was seated on the straight-backed chair, still fully dressed, still dripping onto the plank floor. She gasped at the sight of him.
“Don’t be afraid.” He knelt before her and took her hands.
“I’m not afraid, but you promised,” she said. “You said you wouldn’t peek.”
“I didn’t peek. I came around. I didn’t promise not to do that.”
“You…are a…a very bad man.” Her hitching breaths made it hard to complete her sentence.
“That, my dear, is not in dispute.”
Her sweet face crumpled. “And I shouldn’t care a bit about what happens to you.”
“No, you shouldn’t.”
“You should leave right now.”
“I agree completely, Rebecca. I’m a very bad man. You shouldn’t care about me a bit, and I ought to leave immediately. And yet, I’m not going to because I don’t think you can get out of this wet gown without my help.”
He stood and raised her to her feet. Then he wrapped his arms around her and held her close. To his great relief, she didn’t fight him. She melted against him, her whole body shaking.
Damn, I’ve turned into a selfish lout. Only an absolute cad would be grateful for a shivering woman in his arms. John wished he could kick his own arse up between his shoulder blades, but he couldn’t wish that he wasn’t holding her. He had ceased being surprised by the depths to which he could sink.
“Come,” he whispered. “Let’s get you out of those wet things.”
He turned her in his arms. She obeyed when he told her to stand still, but couldn’t seem to stop her slight tremble. He made short work of the row of buttons marching down her spine and peeled off her gown. Then he tackled her stays, removing the light corset-like garment until she was standing in only her chemise and pantalets.
She turned around and faced him, her eyes enormous, her lower lip quivering. The chemise was wet enough that all his questions about her figure were answered, and in a very affirmative way. Her waist, always a mystery in the current Empire styles, was supple and slender. Her breasts were high, their rounded shape about the size of carnation blossoms. Her nipples showed all rosy through the damp fabric, small points that had come to attention for him.
Her eyes held a question. What was he going to do to her?
John didn’t claim to know everything about women, but he knew enough to realize he could seduce Rebecca now if he wished. She was in a weakened state. Vulnerable. A few minutes of kissing and caressing and he’d have her naked in that string bed, ready for anything.
But that would be like gambling with a stacked deck. He might win a quick pot or two, but when his cheating was discovered, he’d lose it all.
Rebecca was going to be a long game if he had any chance with her at all.
John picked up the counterpane that was folded over the back of the chair and held it up between them. Then he shut his eyes.
“All right,” he said. “You do the rest.”
He fought against the urge to peek as he heard the rustle of fabric. His imagination ran riot as he heard her pull her chemise over her head and untie the drawstring at her waist that held up her pantalets. “Ready?”
“Mmmhmm.”
Eyes still closed, he wrapped the counterpane around her. It was torture to feel her hills and valleys under the fabric and know she was in nothing but her glorious skin. John was determined that, for once, he’d behave as if he were still a decent gentleman.
He scooped Rebecca up and carried her to the bed and then laid her down on it with all the tenderness he felt for her. He didn’t know why she should bring on this unexpected warmth in his chest, but she did. He was glad to feel it.
He didn’t know he could still feel something so fine and good.
Her shoulders were bare. Her thin clavicle was a fragile line beneath smooth skin, inviting him to trace its path with his lips. The slight indentation at the base of her throat throbbed with her pulse, making him ache to kiss it. He didn’t dare look her in the eye or he’d lose his resolve not to seduce her.
So John turned away. He strode purposefully back to the dressing screen and draped all her items of clothing over it. After that, he crossed back to his side of the room and got dressed.
His clothes were still slightly damp, but if he were going to continue behaving as if he were a decent gentleman, he needed to leave the room with some urgency. She didn’t say anything from her counterpane cocoon, but he heard occasional hitching breaths.
Once he shrugged on his tailcoat, he walked over to the bed and looked down at her. Her mouth was kissably slack, her eyes wide. She was achingly beautiful, but too fine for him to touch.
“Please believe me when I tell you I’m sorry I burdened you with my sins,” he said.
“We all have things in our pasts of which we are not proud.”
“I doubt it in your case,” he said. “But I thought you weren’t my confessor. That almost sounds like absolution.”
A small smile lifted one corner of her mouth.
A tenuous bridge between them was all he could hope to build, but he’d take it. John leaned down, bracing himself on his palms on either side of her, lest he lower himself to her completely. He wanted more than anything to kiss her deeply, to make love to her sweet mouth.
But he didn’t deserve to kiss Rebecca like that. Instead, he brushed his lips on her cheek.
Softly. Reverently. Then he straightened and walked out the door.
They were the hardest ten steps he’d ever taken.
Twelve
They say that travel is broadening, that one is enriched by new sights and sounds, by the experience of life in a different venue. But they only say that to distract one from the general inconvenience of it all.
—Phillippa, the Dowager Marchioness of Somerset
Porter paced the length of the below stairs common room in Somerfield Park. It was a pleasant enough space, dominated by the long pine table at which the servants gathered for communal meals. There was a cozy fireplace to warm the room, and Lord Somerset didn’t stint on firewood as some employers were known to do, letting their servants shift for themselves to find wood to burn or be forced to bundle up even inside when the weather turned foul. In the evenings, ample tallow candles released a faintly beefy scent into the air along with light enough to read or do some mending or play a hand of cards. Now that Porter was finally settled into the great house as Lord Hartley’s valet, he thought he’d be happy all the day.
Instead, he was wracked with worry.
“Something must have happened to them,” he muttered.
“Still fretting, Mr. Porter?” Mrs. Culpepper bustled in with a tray laden with a steaming pot of tea, a sugar bowl, and a pitcher of milk.
The servants wouldn’t be given their supper till the Family was done with theirs, so this late afternoon fortification was essential for keeping everyone sharp as the workday slid into the evening. Mrs. Culpepper’s new helper, Theresa Dovecote, followed the cook with a basket of fresh buns and a pot of clotted cream. The girl so closely resembled her sister Eliza, Porter had to look twice to make sure which of them it was. Of course, Theresa wore her blouses ever so much tighter than Eliza did. The little horn buttons that marched down the center of her bosom were taxed mightily by remaining fastened.
Porter feared that looking twice at Theresa might get him into trouble some day.
“If I’m fretting, it’s with good reason,” Porter said as he plopped into one of the chairs around the table. Worried or not, he wasn’t about to miss an opportunity to sample some of Mrs. Culpepper’s
baked goods. Her cooking was one of the best things about his position as Lord Hartley’s valet.
And if something horrible happened to Lord Hartley, he’d lose his livelihood and access to her cooking, almost before the appointment had begun. It was nearly enough to kill his appetite.
“His lordship ought to have arrived home last night,” Porter said as he held up his teacup for her to fill. “Thank you kindly, Mrs. C.”
“But ye don’t know for certain when Lord Hartley left London, so how can ye know when he should arrive?” Mrs. Culpepper plopped a brown lump of sugar into his tea without him having to ask for it.
She remembers how I take my tea, he told himself and did a little self-congratulatory jig in his mind. Of course, he usually liked two lumps, but he could get used to just one.
“Ye ought not to borrow trouble,” Mrs. Culpepper went on, moving down the long table to serve Sarah, Drucilla, Toby, and the others who’d gathered for a bite and a respite.
Porter noticed that she gave each of the others a single sugar lump too. So she didn’t remember how he took his tea…or how he could learn to take his tea. Oh, bother and confound it! He was in a state of constant befuddlement when Mrs. Culpepper was around. This business of fancying a woman was making a muddle of his usually orderly mind.
“Ye don’t know if they decided to stop along the way—oh, I know ye can make the trip to Town in a day, but it’s a long, hard day by all accounts, and then only if the weather’s fine.” Mrs. Culpepper rounded the end of the long table and started back up the other side. “And old Lady Somerset isn’t the traveler she used to be. She might not want to pound out the miles as vigorously as a young man might. Likely that’s why Lord Hartley and the rest are taking their time.”
Privately, Porter thought that the dowager could put them all under the table at whatever she decided to attempt. But Mrs. C’s words did comfort him a bit.
“You’re right,” he said. “Women don’t travel as well as men.”
