He watched, waiting for her to reclaim herself, looking for the joy of living that transformed her face even when she did not smile. Instead she remained immobile, looking more like her mother than she had ever looked before.
The house and garden appeared strange to her. Foreign. The sense of home that she had experienced in it had disappeared.
She did not belong here. The decision to make this her residence and join Daphne in trade had been an act of confusion, not clarity.
She was not like Daphne Joyes or Audrianna. They did not share the same history or upbringing with her. Daphne’s elegant frugality had been learned over half a lifetime. Her good birth and breeding elevated even a penurious existence to something genteel.
The daughter of Alessandra Northrope had been raised for other things, and with different expectations and values. Her gaze took in the house’s proportions. She thought of the slightly worn upholstery. For a year or so all of this might satisfy her. The excitement of independence would sustain her for a while.
She had been schooled for a different kind of life in other ways besides material things, and their promise had always proven to be stronger lures. Even infamy was a kind of fame. The last five years she had experienced a virtuous nonexistence in obscurity. She had tolerated it because it was temporary.
Now, as she looked at the house, she wondered if she might not be better off fulfilling Mama’s plan and accepting Anthony as her first protector. She imagined herself ten years hence, moving plants around inside this house while she wondered if Mr. Albrighton might return to London this year.
Promise me that you will think about your future, and what you forgo and what you gain from any choice. Promise me that you will weigh it all fairly, without pretending you are other than my daughter.
It had been an easy promise to give a dying mother. She thought that she had fulfilled the pledge too. Only now, with the gain and loss so clearly defined for her, she realized she had not.
“You appear lost, Miss Pennifold.”
She startled and turned. Jonathan stood not far from her. She had not even heard him approach.
“Perhaps I am,” she said. “The bishops would say my thoughts might lead to the worst kind of lost, even if I believe they would be wrong.”
“Are you wishing that you believed they were right?”
“It would perhaps make my choices easier.” She had to smile as she admitted that. If she could believe that Anthony represented damnation of her soul, she might not be debating her path.
The warmth in his eyes beckoned her to confide. She felt the words swelling inside her. He did not really have a friendly face. She would even describe it as harsh, in a sharp way that had not been softened by the effects of too many society feasts the way it was with many men his age. A handsome face, to her at least, but perhaps too seasoned by life for a man who could not be much older than thirty.
Those eyes, however, changed his general countenance. She saw friendship in them, and the promise of discretion, and true interest, as if her next utterance would be all that he heard in the world.
“I am thinking about my legacy, as I promised my mother I would. It is past time to do so. Before I go too far down one path, I should give fair judgment to them all.”
A few shadows gathered around the edges of those eyes. “I hope that my inexcusable behavior is not the cause of this.”
“Hardly inexcusable. We both know that I gave you the best excuse. I promise that you have not led me astray. However, your words the day Anthony came here do cause me some confusion.”
“Which words?”
“Sometimes it just is, you said. You revealed a man’s view, I think. A man’s preference. My mother’s patrons probably just wanted it to be, many of them. Others, of course, wanted to play out a great love affair on the world stage. But she would never let it just be. She insisted there be a story that required all those expensive gifts. Without a story of some kind, a woman gains nothing.”
“If you believe that, you are still ignorant, for all of your mother’s lessons.”
She found that charming, and so masculine in the touch of insult it revealed. “You have no idea how thorough my mother’s lessons were. You are speaking of pleasure being what a woman gains, I assume. But I know that I do not need a man to experience that, any more than you need a woman.”
Her insinuation appeared to shock him a little. Enough that she had to bite back a giggle. Her throat unaccountably burned in the next instant. It had felt so good, that urge to laugh, that its contrast with her mood pained her.
“Your mother did not only offer those men pleasure. They could have paid a woman a few pence and been done with it, if that was all they sought.”
“Ah. So I am wrong. Perhaps they wanted the story even more than she required it.” She made a face. “I am not sure that I want the silly dramas and pretense, although I suppose I can live the lie if necessary.” She certainly did not want the story of first and forever that Anthony expected. Which did not mean she could not play the role if required.
He appeared rather formal suddenly. The warmth turned shallow and the gaze distant. “I expect you are correct. Even with me, it would probably not just be.”
“With you? Goodness, are you propositioning me, Mr. Albrighton?”
She spoke in a flirtatious tease, but he did not take the cue.
“If you conclude that you are willing to entertain propositions, I could never afford you. You will do it the way she taught you. The smart way.”
Of course she would, but she did not think he had to say it so baldly. Whatever had started between them, it had not ended yet. Or had it, right now in this garden?
She pictured herself preparing for her first man. For Anthony. She could do it. She could even know pleasure, the way Alessandra had taught her. She would not experience excitement, however. Or joy. Whatever she felt, Anthony would not be a part of it, only its agent. She imagined what her heart and soul would feel waiting for Anthony, and it was the calm calculations of a very practical woman.
She set that boring speculation aside and considered the man in front of her now. Her blood hummed just on seeing him. He had aroused her that first night, and ever since. Their affair would have been brief and strangled with discretion, but at least it might have been an adventure.
She moved closer to Mr. Albrighton. To Jonathan. To his warm eyes and dark enigma. She wanted to bridge all of the distances he had created here in the garden, for a final moment at least.
He looked down at her, his expression hard now, maybe angry. She laid her fingertips, no more, on his cravat, very lightly.
“It can never just be, unfortunately,” she said.
He captured her hand against his chest, and held it there tightly. She felt his body beneath her palm, hard and pulsing with the heart within. She could not extricate her hand now even if she wanted to.
“It sounds as if your debate with yourself is well along. Far past the question of whether virtue is a virtue, Celia.”
The warmth of his gaze drew her in, as it always did. A warmth so in contrast to the brittle danger he could project. It was a world away from chilly practicalities concerning Anthony. Regret strangled her, and it was hard to respond.
“Yes, it is well along.” Further than she had realized until this instant.
“And you will go to that fool?”
“He is as good a fool as another, and will be more foolishly generous than most.”
“The hell you say.” The danger emerged in him, and the darkness.
She tried to remove her hand from his grasp. He clutched it tighter, so she could not. The hard heat of his body entered her through her touch. She could not ignore the arousal that flowed with it, teasing her like so many wicked licks.
She had been trained to feel such things to their fullest, not deny them. She ached for more contact, more pleasure, and for the happy melody playing in her blood to become a soaring aria. Once, at least once, before
she chose any path forever, it would have been nice to know all that sensual pleasure could be when it was truly shared.
He was angry now. Coldly furious. “I’ll be damned before I see you do this.”
“The decision is mine alone. You have no say in it.”
“The hell I don’t.”
He looked at her darkly, intensely, but he said nothing more. She stretched up to kiss his cheek, in a gesture of friendship and to acknowledge what they had shared.
He moved his head away, so she could not. “A final kiss, Celia?”
“A friend’s kiss, Jonathan.” But, yes, a final one too. For herself, to remember.
“I told you it could never be one kiss again. Whatever your decision, that has not changed.”
He walked away. He left her alone in the garden, sadder and more dismayed than she had ever expected to feel.
Many men will think it is like a horse auction. You must make it clear that you will not merely award the prize to the highest bidder, and that any liaison will always be your choice.
Your choice. It appeared that she had just made hers, for good or ill, despite what Jonathan believed. It had been inevitable, once she acknowledged her place in the world, and the brand of her birth. Once she stopped fighting the rules of the world. Alessandra had always known she would reach this decision if she gave the truth a fair hearing.
She should be content, and confident in her choice. She should be anticipating the gowns and luxury, and the comforts of that fashionable house, and taking joy in being able to save this home for Marian and Bella and maybe others like them.
Instead grief burned her heart, and tears blurred her sight so badly that she had to turn away from the sun.
He had to leave the house. There was no staying there that day. He was too aware of her presence and her spirit and every distant sound she made. He was sure that his hunger and anger filled the whole building like an invisible mist. Every minute inside those walls was torture.
He went out and called on Summerhays. He barely heard what the man said during the hours they talked. As a result, however, Summerhays and Hawkeswell joined him when he met with Castleford for the boxing match.
The duke was not happy to see he was not alone. “Why in hell did you bring the two aunties?”
Summerhays laughed.
Hawkeswell did not. “We are not going to interfere with your fun. You can drink until you drop, and we will cheer you on.”
“It won’t be the same.”
“What ho? Are you saying that the presence of halfway responsible individuals makes your total lack of that quality embarrassing?”
“I am thinking that with two angels harping in Albrighton’s ear, it will drown out my speaking in his other one.”
They positioned themselves to see the match well. Standing among the other shouting men, they laid their bets with the roving keeper of the books, bought glasses of spirits, and lit cigars.
Summerhays flashed that smile of his. “Are we here as angels? Your invitation to come along was pointed, now that I recall.”
“Not angels. Excuses, perhaps, to prevent this being a party that lasts until morning.” He looked at Castleford, who had recovered from his pique and was busy explaining to Hawkeswell which of the pugilists would win. “Perhaps I was wrong in assuming that marriage sends you home before dawn.”
“Not always, but knowing what Castleford intends for those last hours, we will be taking our leave much earlier.”
“As will I. I told him so, but he did not believe I could not be swayed.”
“Do you need us to sway you?”
“Not at all.” These friends might keep him from leaving so early that the duke was insulted, however. He did not want to be here at all. Most of him wasn’t, but instead back in his chamber, suffering the titillation of the close proximity of a woman who had told him today that their passion did not fit with her plans.
If she thought he would accept that and just stand down, she was much mistaken.
“He does know his whores, if one is of a mind to have one. I daresay he could write a book on them,” Summerhays mused.
I don’t want one of his whores.
Castleford overheard. “That is a splendid idea. You always preach that I should use my station for the greater good, Summerhays. I think you have hit on a way for me to do so.”
“Sort of a Sites and Monuments of London, only Venuses, Abbesses, and Soiled Doves?” Hawkeswell said.
“I would need a better title than that,” Castleford said. “Something less obvious and more poetic.”
“If you are too poetic, the average man coming up to town will not know the value of the tome.”
Castleford put his mind to it. “The title can wait. The form of the content occupies me most intriguingly, however. There is no point in including the most celebrated courtesans, since the men who would buy my book have no chance with them. To be truly useful, it must only be women accessible to anyone with the coin.”
Hawkeswell looked at Summerhays and Jonathan. “Damnation, he almost appears sober all of a sudden. I think he is seriously contemplating it.”
“Of course I am. Such a book would be a great boon to mankind. I wish someone had given one to me when I first went seeking women in this town.”
The notion distracted him all through the boxing matches. Jonathan wondered if Castleford was choosing the chapters despite his vocal cheers of the pugilists he had bet on. The duke’s eyes did appear more sober than earlier, as if the better part of his mind remained on this new literary endeavor.
Jonathan’s own remained on something other than the blows being exchanged in the center of the room too. As time ticked by he imagined the women in that house going about their normal routine. He saw Marian serving the dinner, then Bella cleaning the dishes. He saw luminous, beautiful Celia, presiding over it all and making them laugh.
The last match ended after midnight. Castleford cajoled him to play on, in the games waiting to fill the hours. He refused, and slipped away with Summerhays and Hawkeswell. They went home to the certain satisfaction waiting with their wives. Jonathan rode toward a woman he was determined to seduce.
Chapter Fifteen
Celia put a little more fuel on the fire, then began folding the satin dresses strewn on her bed. Her examination of her scandalous wardrobe had been most practical. She had indulged in no sensual pleasure in the fabric’s feel this time. Instead she had scrutinized each garment for any need of repair, while reciting the lessons her mother had taught her.
A clean sheet of paper waited on the small writing table. An inkwell stood at attention beside it. She gathered her resolve, left the dresses, and sat down. It was time to write to Anthony.
She penned a simple note. She invited him to call on her, and signed her name. As soon as he saw it, he would understand that he had won.
She looked around her chamber. Would it happen here? He would not want to wait. Her mother’s voice chanted in her head. No, not here. Not yet. The arrangement must be settled before she gave him what he wanted. She would make him purchase that house in her name first, and furnish it. And when it happened there, finally, that indenture her mother had signed would be waiting on the mantel to be burned as soon as it was done.
Once all was agreed, there would be no turning back. There would be other letters to write then, to Verity and Audrianna, and probably even Daphne. They might still see her very privately and very discreetly once she did this, perhaps. She prayed they would. If not, those friendships would be the true loss and true cost.
An odd sorrow filled her heart. One too encompassing to be relieved by mere tears. Much like grief, it just sat in her, to be accommodated in the days ahead as she lived the reality of who she was and released the illusions of who she had tried to be.
She returned to the bed and finished folding the dresses. As she did, the silence of the house changed just enough to arrest her attention. Subtle sounds from below came to her softly. Movement.
Steps.
Jonathan had returned.
She paused and listened to those sounds of his presence. They brought her comfort, although they should not. She closed her eyes and saw him in the garden today, angry. His image changed to his face before he kissed her the first time. So sweet that kiss had been.
She startled out of her reverie. The footfalls were not following the normal path up to the attic. They came closer, down the passageway on this level. Panic scattered her thoughts.
Boot steps, near her door. They stopped. Then, silence. No knock. No voice. She felt him through the wood. Felt that energy he exuded and that intensity.
She waited. Nothing. Perhaps he had rethought whatever his reason for coming here. She all but held her breath as the time pulsed.
She walked to the door. Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, she opened it.
He stood there, arms crossed, shoulder resting against the ridge of the threshold.
“Were you going to stand there all night?” she asked.
“I did not expect to.”
He knew she would hear him if she was still awake. She wanted to think he had not knocked or called out of consideration, but he did not appear very thoughtful and kind right now. Rather the opposite.
“Did you want to say something to me? Why are you here?”
He crossed the threshold. She stepped back instinctively. She saw his face in the firelight as he entered the chamber. He answered her question with one direct glance that required no words. You know why I am here.
His gaze was drawn to the silks on the bed. He went over and lifted one. The soft satin flowed down like a waterfall, so in contrast to his masculine hand in form and color. “I thought there were only two such gowns, and that you were giving them to your friends.”
“There were more. I saved them for myself.”
His gaze drifted down her body, sliding over her breasts and hips much like the flow of the silk that he held. She instinctively touched the lawn fabric of the undressing gown she wore.
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