A Lascivious Lady

by Jillian Eaton

  Knowing that getting Josephine to agree to go at all was no small victory, Amelia nodded vigorously. Now all she had to do was forge a second invitation, track down Lord Gates, get him to accept, and make certain neither Josephine nor her husband knew they would be going to the same place.

  How hard could it be?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  To say that Catherine was thrilled upon receiving Josephine’s positive response to her invitation would have been an understatement. The second she had the envelope in her hands and recognized the navy blue seal, she ripped it open, read her friend’s familiar scrawl—

  I shall come visit, but only

  if you keep those squalling

  brats away from me.

  All my love, J.

  —and ran shrieking into her husband’s study.

  Alarmed by his wife’s sudden appearance, in addition to the near ear splitting noises that were coming from her mouth, Marcus set his ledger aside and stood up immediately, his dark brow furrowed and his face paling as his took his exuberant wife by the shoulders and drew her against him.

  “Cat, what is it? What is wrong? I swear I was not going to work much longer. I have not forgotten that we are taking the children to the pond at ten—”

  Brushing her blond hair from her eyes, Catherine beamed up at her husband and brought her finger to his lips. “No, no, it is not that,” she fairly sang. “It is this!” Thrusting the letter into Marcus’ hands, she danced away to peer out the window that overlooked the sprawling front grounds of Kensington Estate. She smiled as she saw her eldest daughter, Elizabeth, governing over the two youngest, Abigail and Sarah, three years and one month of age respectively. Their newborn brothers, Jacob and Jason, were sleeping upstairs in the nursery under the watchful eye of the nanny.

  “Darling,” Marcus said, coming up behind her.

  “Yes?” she said absently, leaning into his embrace as he wound one arm around her middle and pulled her snug against his chest.

  “Is this letter from your friend Josephine?”

  “Mmmhmm.”

  “You invited her to come visit?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does she often refer to our beautiful children as ‘squalling brats’?”

  Twisting in her husband’s arms, Catherine smiled up at him and tucked a stray lock of black hair behind his ear. “You know how she feels about children, whether they be ours or not. It is simply the way she is. I think getting her to spend some time in the country will be good for her.”

  “Do you?” Marcus said, but Catherine could tell by the dangerous glint in his eye and the roving nature of his hands that the invitation had already been forgotten. Squealing as he cupped her derriere and jerked her tight against his hard frame, she threw her head back, allowing him to nuzzle at her exposed neck.

  “Oh… Marcus…,” she moaned as his fingers pulled expertly at the lacings of her dress. “We mustn’t… The children…”

  “Are otherwise occupied,” he growled. Slamming the door shut with one arm, he picked her up easily with the other and in a tangle of limbs they tumbled to the floor.

  “Are we there yet Melly?”

  “Not yet,” came the maid’s disgruntled reply.

  “I could have sworn Kensington was closer than this.” Frowning, Josephine pulled the blue velvet curtain aside and peered yet again out the carriage window. The same rolling countryside stared back at her, a seemingly endless stretch of fields dotted with trees, meandering streams, and the occasional wooden fence line. Hissing out a little sigh, she slumped in her seat and pulled at the uncomfortably high collar of her maroon traveling habit.

  It seemed as though they had been in the bouncy little carriage forever with no end in sight. Although she could only count on one hand the number of times she had visited her dear friend Catherine (she really did despise the country), she had not remembered it taking this long to get there.

  Finally, however, the grand estate with its oak line stone driveway, impressive white pillars, and old, sweeping architectural lines came into view and in what seemed like no time at all Josephine and Amelia had been deposited at the front steps and were watching the carriage drive away, Amelia’s expression one of thinly veiled satisfaction while Josephine’s bordered more on the painfully resigned.

  “One week,” she murmured to Amelia under her breath as the front door flew open and not one, not two, but three children spilled out and tottered down the stairs.

  Amelia just smiled and knelt to receive the blue eyed, blond haired girls. “Here now,” she said, her eyes sparkling. “Who do we have here?”

  The eldest, a miniature replica of her mother, stuck out her chin and boldly pointed at Josephine. “We are here to visit Aunt Jo,”

  she declared rather pompously. “And to take her inside for lemonade and sweet cakes.”

  For all her talk to the contrary, even Josephine was not completely immune to the charms of an adorable four year old. Bending low, she swept Catherine’s eldest daughter up in her arms and, doing her best to ignore the thought of what the child’s sticky hands would do to her traveling habit, marched inside. “Hellooo!” she called, poking her head in the front parlor. Spotting Catherine standing by the window, she said, “Are you replacing your butlers with children these days? If so, their manners leave much to be desired.”

  “Jo!” Spinning on her heel, Catherine all but flew across the room, embracing her friend and daughter in one fierce hug that left them all breathless. “How are you? How was your journey? Not overlong, I hope. Here, let me take Elizabeth. Have you seen the twins?”

  “I have her,” Josephine demurred as she settled into a cream colored chair and balanced Elizabeth rather awkwardly on her lap.

  “And I believe Amelia took them into the kitchen for a treat.” Gazing down upon the child’s ill contained curls – the dear thing was not even wearing a bonnet – she felt the urge to sweep her fingers through the pale blond ringlets, but stopped herself just in time. Willingly taking a visit to the country and coddling children? It simply would not do. She did, after all, have a reputation to uphold. Still, she could not quite stop herself from leaning forward to nuzzle Elizabeth’s chubby cheek, nor would her hands quiet until she had straightened out the girl’s tiny yellow frock.

  Glancing up when she was finished, she caught Catherine’s astonished stare and shrugged her shoulders defensively. “What?

  You had best start presenting your daughter in a more comely fashion, my dear. She will not catch a husband looking like she just crawled out of a pig pen.”

  “I can assure you, my daughters do not commune with pigs,” a voice drawled from the doorway. Catherine’s entire face lit up, and Josephine felt an unfamiliar pang somewhere deep in her chest. Was it… jealousy she felt as she watched Catherine go immediately to her husband and bestow a rather lavish kiss upon his cheek? Jealousy that a man could make her friend look so completely happy? Jealousy that a husband would look upon his wife with love itself shining in his eyes?

  She did not realize her grip on Elizabeth had tightened until the girl let out a squall of protest and wriggled free. Skipping across the room, she grasped her mother’s full green skirts and swung behind them, disappearing from view.

  Standing, Josephine sank into a graceful curtsy. “Your Grace,” she said, referring to Marcus, who was the seventh Duke of Kensington. Once she had despised him for what he had done to her beloved friend and although he had long ago been forgiven, there was oft an unspoken tension between the two. Josephine could not trust men who had committed such grievous wrongs, and Marcus could not trust women who were unfaithful to their husbands.

  “Lady Gates,” he replied, his steel gray eyes unreadable.

  Catherine watched the exchange with a troubled frown, and when it had concluded she marched across the room and grasped Josephine’s arm. “Come, let us get you out of your habit and into something far more comfortable. Higgins has already taken your trunks upstairs to your room, a
nd Amelia can watch the children with Hannah,” she said, referring to her maid turned nanny. “We have much to discuss and catch up on.”

  Arm in arm, the two women glided past Marcus without a second glance. At least, Josephine did not look back. Catherine tossed a rather saucy wink over one shoulder and licked her lips, a silent promise of what was to come that instantly had Marcus stiff as a board and inwardly cursing his house guests.

  For what felt like the hundredth time, Traverson unfolded the slim piece of parchment on his lap and reread the words that were already etched into his mind.

  Lord Traverson Gates,

  It is be my plesure to Invite

  you to our Cuntry Estate

  for a breath of fresh air.

  Fundly,

  Catherine

  Being fortunate enough to possess a quick wit and highly attuned mind, Traverson realized at once the letter that had found its way on his doorstep the afternoon following the debacle in his wife’s townhouse was not, in any way, shape, or form, written by Lady Catherine, Duchess of Kensington.

  For one thing he had once happened to see an example of the Duchess’ writing in a letter to Josephine and unless her penmanship had dissolved to little more than chicken scratch in a year, he doubted it was her who had penned the invitation. For another he was hard pressed to believe a woman of such superior rank (although it was entirely possible) would forget their silent vowels with such alarming consistency.

  Faced with those two glaringly obvious hints, Traverson was forced to deduce that the invitation had not, in fact, been written by Lady Catherine, nor by Josephine, but rather by a third party entirely of which he could not procure even the faintest of guesses.

  He had gone immediately to his wife’s townhouse to try to ferret out an answer, only to find the brownstone devoid of any occupants save a skeleton staff that eyed him suspiciously from the front windows. As it had been twelve in the afternoon he knew Josephine was not off at some party, which could mean one of two things, the first being what he had chosen to act upon.

  All signs pointed to Josephine being at Kensington. Had he been a man of intelligence and common sense, Traverson would have wisely gone the opposite direction. As it stood, he was pulling up the driveway of the grand estate at that very moment, with not a thought in his head as to how he would explain his sudden appearance.

  A female servant, dressed in black with her hair askew beneath her lace cap and what appeared to be blue paint smeared across one cheek, opened the door before he even had a chance to raise the knocker.

  “Have you seen the children?” she asked, staring at him from wide set brown eyes.

  Traverson drew a blank. “I… The children? What children?”

  “The children,” the maid said in exasperation. “Although they are more like wee devils if you ask me,” she grumbled under her breath.

  Belatedly Traverson recalled that Marcus and Catherine had several children, two of them just born, if his memory served him correctly. “Are you speaking of the Duke and Duchess’s children?”

  The maid cocked her head to the side. “And who do you think I would be talking about? You look familiar. One of the husbands, I suppose?”

  One of the husbands. If by ‘husband’ the rather impertinent maid meant a man married in name only to a wife who despised the very sight of him then yes, he certainly fit in that category. “Traverson,” he said, extending his hand.

  The maid stared at his fingers and burst out laughing. “Oh, now I remember who you are! The peculiar one married to that one.”

  Her eyebrows nettled together beneath the brim of her cap. “You poor man. What are you doing here?”

  Before Traverson, now flustered beyond all measure, could muster the words for a response, the door opened a few inches wider and a woman with eyes the colors of sapphires and golden hair several shades darker than Josephine’s peered out.

  “Hannah, who are you talking to? Oh, Lord Gates! You… What a splendid surprise. Do come in.” Graciously stepping to the side, Catherine beckoned Traverson inside with an impatient flick of her wrist. She gave Hannah a telling glare, which Traverson caught out of the corner of his eye, before she shooed the maid outside to “find the children before they let the piglets loose again” and shut the door smartly behind her.

  “I do apologize for Hannah’s behavior,” she said as she led him into a bright, cheerful parlor off to the right with enormous ceilings, a wood floor polished to a high gleam, and furniture in varying shades of blue. “She has been with me for a number of years and often forgets that one should not always speak exactly what is on their mind. In that regard I find her quite similar to your wife, Lord Gates. Do you not agree?”

  Were all women so wickedly clever with their words? Traverson used to think it was just Josephine who could say one thing and mean something else entirely, but now he suspected it was the lot of them. Dear God.

  Stalling as he desperately thought up something to say in return – clever with his words he most definitely was not – Traverson wandered across the parlor and gazed out one of the windows that faced east, towards the back lawns. “I… That is to say… Er, I do seem to attract outspoken women, Your Grace.”

  “Please, just call me Catherine. We have known each other too long for such formalities. Pray tell, Lord Gates—”

  “Traverson,” he interrupted.

  A smile flitted across Catherine’s face. “Very well. Pray tell, Traverson, what are you doing in this part of England?”

  “I, uh, I have… Somewhere, in here,” he said vaguely as he searched the pockets of his vest, “I received an invitation but I seem to… I believe I left it in the carriage.” His shoulders slumped. Would he be forever mucking things up? No wonder Josephine hated him. She needed a real man, a strong man, the kind of man who would shoot another in the leg simply for daring to look at his wife.

  Unfortunately, the kind of man Josephine needed him to be made appearances few and far between. The rest of the time he was the bumbling oaf he appeared now, unable to string two sentences together without humiliating himself. Helpless, he shrugged his shoulders and stared miserably out the window.

  “Well,” Catherine said brightly after a pause, “of course you received an invitation. Since I did not receive a response I thought you were unable to visit, but I see now your reply must have been lost in the post. It is quite common, actually. We are so far removed from London that letters often fail to find their destinations until months later.”

  Wide eyed, Traverson spun to face the Duchess. She smiled at him, her blue eyes bright with innocence, and he hastened to think of a reply. “Well… I… yes, that sounds…”

  “Of course,” she continued, her smile widening, “since I was not expecting a sixth house guest, I fear all of the extra rooms have been taken.”

  What the devil is she getting at? Traverson wondered silently.

  “But not to fear, since you wife is in attendance – a fact I am sure you already know so it hardly bears repeating – you two will naturally stay together in the Primrose Suite. She is up there now, actually. Why not be a dear and bring up the tea I just had made for her?” Looking as sublimely pleased with herself as a cat that had just swallowed the proverbial canary, Catherine nodded to a silver tea set resting on a carrier in the hall. “I am certain Josephine will be thrilled to see you.”

  Something they both knew to be false. Surprised? Yes. Furious? Most definitely. Thrilled? Traverson swallowed hard. Not in a million years. And he would be bringing her ammunition to throw at his head. He glanced at the heavy tea pot and winced as he imagined the lump that would leave.

  As if she could sense his sudden trepidation, Catherine stepped closer and patted his arm. In a whisper she said, “I admire your bravery in coming here, Lord Gates. I know you and Josephine have had your trials, but I also know that you are the perfect man for her.”

  Traverson barely contained his snort of disbelief. “That is very kind, Your Grace, howev
er I—”

  “I know what I know,” she said sternly, narrowing her eyes at him. “And I know that while Josephine may think she needs a man strong enough to bring her to heel, what she really needs is a man gentle enough to understand her. Can you be that man, Lord Gates?”

  “I can certainly try.”

  “Very good.” Releasing his arm, Catherine rubbed her hands briskly together and pointed at the tea set. “Go up the stairs and turn left. It is the third door on the right. Oh, and Traverson dear?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do remember to duck.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Josephine was on her hands and knees searching beneath the bed for a missing earring when she heard the door to her bedroom creak open. Without turning she said, “I sincerely hope you brought a tumbler of scotch with that tea, Catherine. How you stand living out here for months on end is beyond me. One hour and I am already bored to tears.”

  It was a lie. Josephine had already found herself charmed by the elegance of Kensington and the simple quietness of it all. From outside her bedroom window she could see a towering oak with a shady spot just perfect for curling up and reading a book, something she had not done since she was a child. The white ducks in the pond beyond the oak were amusing to watch, and she thought she had spied ducklings bobbing along next to the cattail strewn shoreline. Even the children, with their sticky fingers and whooping yells, were entertaining, as had been the expression on Amelia’s face when Josephine asked her to help Hannah round them up.

  Giving the earring up for lost with a regretful sigh, she scooted out from underneath the bed and dusted her hands off on the skirt of the cheerful violet walking dress she had changed into upon her arrival. Blowing a stray curl from her eyes, she pivoted to face the door… and froze.

  “You,” she breathed, her lips parting in shock as she saw Traverson. “I – you – what…” Drats! Why was it only her husband had the unique ability to foil her tongue and make her sound like a babbling idiot? No matter how shocked she was around her peers –