by Edith Layton
Although Warwick had always disliked the idea of setting up housekeeping, if only light, occasional night housekeeping, with any person, and could not quite forget he’d be paying for the privilege, still he knew that now he needed more distraction than he could get from chance-met, chance-taken females. She would be, he thought, even as she began removing her dressing gown at his touch, a person who would come to know and perhaps care for him, his needs, and his personality, and not just the demands of the body she was now urging him to uncover to her.
She had, he noted with growing pleasure, a body as full as her laughter, and as pliant as her morals.
“Oh, very nice,” she said, in her turn, eyeing him with pleased interest as he disrobed to join her in her wide bed, and he took it for false coin and paused, before he took her in an embrace, to tell her on a small laugh that it wasn’t necessary. But she’d told nothing but the truth as she saw it. She knew full well there were others in society she could have taken up with who were far more prominent in the ton she wished to make her mark upon. But she was young, and suddenly in demand, and so she’d reasoned she had time enough to indulge herself this once, instead of only her career. She’d chosen this unusual gentleman because she thought he had more than the killing wit she deeply appreciated: he had a thrillingly different, sensual sort of face, and a clean, well-coordinated body, and as she discovered so soon that she had no time to tell him any of this, he had a way about him, a way of making a female, even a professional one, forget what she was about to tell him, whether he would have thought it merely flattery or not.
But Warwick Jones, to his chagrin, discovered that he couldn’t stop thinking about how he was purchasing the right to what he was doing, no matter how he tried to transcend the moment and enjoy it only for its own sake, as he was used to do before he began to desire things he could not have.
Sometime later in the evening, when Miss Nettie began to wonder why the gentleman had not yet committed himself to her for even a short term, even after his obvious appreciation of her, she decided to rouse herself from her deep content to ensure that he would. She’d discovered, for all the reasons she’d originally imagined, as well as for several new ones that she couldn’t know had been caused by him trying to forget why he’d come to her, that he was precisely what she wanted, tonight and for the foreseeable future.
He was amused at her diligence, and being human as well as polite, cooperated beyond what he’d thought his desire to be. But at length, some of the doggedness in her effort communicated itself to him, and he left off stroking the nape of her neck and touched her lightly on the shoulder.
“You need not do this, you know,” he said softly.
“I know,” she said smugly, before she returned to her labors, “but I’m very good at it, aren’t I?”
He smiled wryly at that, and then, taking her by the shoulders, raised her up to end her persistence, which he now couldn’t help but feel was more akin to salesmanship than sensuality.
“You flatter me,” he said, and then added a little roughly, “now let’s see if you overestimate me.”
Laughing, she desisted, accepting that, and him. And if he found he wished, no, yearned, midst all his pleasure, for a lover who could offer him more than expertise, he never mentioned it, not then, not later.
But much later, as he drove back to his town house, he thought she’d looked a little saddened at his leaving, even though he’d left her a great deal more money that she’d expected, for he hadn’t proposed another meeting. He might yet return to her, he sighed, because she’d been very welcoming, and tonight at least, at last he felt numbed and weary, surfeited and content, entirely free of the compulsion that had sent him into the night seeking surcease. Still, he thought on a shrug, remembering her disappointed, subdued farewell, as he gave his coat to a yawning footman before chiding him for being up so late and dismissing him for the night, what else could he expect, she’d been a very good actress, such women always were.
It was while he was thinking of vagaries of womankind that he heard the slight sound, and following it to its source through his darkened hallway, he came to his own library. He wondered who might be ransacking his shelves at such an advanced hour of the night—no, he realized, at such an early hour of the morning. Only one lamp was lit, and as he edged the door open, he saw his guest, Miss Susannah Logan, crumpled in one of his great leather library chairs, weeping into the arm of it as though it were a wide brown comforting leather breast she’d cast herself upon.
She still wore the finery she’d worn earlier, only now, of course, the green muslin was crumpled and limp, and her hair had come down from its high riband, and the small flowers that had bloomed in the glory there were shriveled and half cast-off, with only a few still hanging loosely from their fair moorings. He found he could walk, all unnoticed, almost up to the chair, before she noted his presence. But then when he said, “Odd, I always thought Ophelia should be drenched in that final scene, but not with tears, precisely,” she started, leapt up, and stood before him, her tender skin blotched, pink-faced and red-eyed, and yet still, he thought, thoroughly lovely.
“Oh dear,” she sniffed. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” he asked curiously, reaching out a finger to catch one teardrop that spilled out from her glistening eye to trail down her cheek. “For weeping? But why? Nothing dreadful has happened, has it?” he asked, suddenly abandoning his playful, thoughtful air, alarmed, wondering anxiously if perhaps Moredon or some others had revenged themselves on Julian again, or, he thought wildly, taking in all of her disheveled appearance, on her, while he had been at his low pleasures.
“Oh no,” she said, speaking a little thickly because her voice was so glutted with tears. “I’m just being f-foolish. It’s only because I was so unhap…unhappy tonight at the Swansons’ ball,” she said, her lip quivering with misery.
He grinned at her then, he couldn’t help it, she looked so absurdly sad and so very young. And she, seeing that fellow feeling in his tilted grin, drew a sobbing breath and then came into his open, comforting arms, just as he’d intended. Once there, she wept freely again, and midst sniffles and new freshets of tears, stammered out her woe: how they had all ignored her, how everyone had let her alone, how she couldn’t find Julian all night, and how no one had spoken to her, how she had to pretend it hadn’t mattered.
“Hab you eber…?” she began, only to stop in watery laughter as he pointed out how nasal she sounded, by mimicking, “No, I neber…” before he urged her to use his proffered handkerchief. She did, and then immediately went on, more clearly, “Have you ever had to stand and pretend it made not the slightest difference that everyone ignored you in a roomful of chattering people for hours? Oh, Warwick,” she moaned, sinking into tears again, “I didn’t let on to Julian when I came home here, I was so brave! I didn’t want him to feel bad, but I couldn’t find him anywhere until it was time to leave. And then I came down here because I couldn’t sleep or stop weeping once I started. I was so alone. It was awful, bloody awful, as Charlie would say, and just die if he heard me say it…yes, bloody awful,” she repeated, before she began weeping and laughing at the same time.
He held her close and comforted her with foolish little half-words and sounds until she subsided entirely, only lying in his arms and heaving little broken half-sobs at the end, as a tired child would do. His chest was hard where she laid her head upon it at last, but it was comfortable to be held thus against a muscular frame, with strong arms around her, and a deep voice she could hear at its source murmuring comfort. His jacket was softest velvet and his scent was a cool and pleasant blend of spice and fern. She rested peacefully against him, and he never wanted her to move from him again, until, looking down at the crown of her pale hair at his lips and finally scenting its honeysuckle fragrance, he realized that once her sorrow stopped, he’d become aware at last of the exact shape of each contour of the form pressed so closely, if innocently, to him. Then he stepped fractionally
away from her, and as if his distancing had woken her from her reverie, she looked up at him at that.
He was gazing at her as though mesmerized. Despite all his best efforts, he was helpless again in the grip of the desire he felt for her. It hadn’t diminished, nothing he’d done this evening had even blunted it. Because, he distantly realized, it was of a different order entirely from the lust he’d slaked tonight and so hadn’t been so much as touched by anything he’d done.
“But you’re not alone now, Susannah,” he said then, very softly, and then hesitantly, almost against his will, added, “for if Julian’s not, I’m here now. Won’t I do?”
And looking down at her hurt brown eyes beneath their long tear-beaded lashes, and seeing her swollen lips, he found the impulse irresistible at last, and never taking his dark blue gaze from her puzzled eyes, he moved closer and only looked to her mouth at the last as he slowly brought his own lips to hers. But then her eyes widened as she became aware he was about to do something she was unprepared for, and startled, she stepped back quickly, exclaiming, “Ah, no!”
She hardly had to, for though he’d no awareness of drawing back again, he’d done so too in that moment, before she’d ever spoken. For he’d been jolted back by a sudden thought before his lips had even grazed against hers. He’d not remembered his manners, or that he was her host, or any proper thing he was supposed to. Instead, all that he’d done all through the night had come back to him in brilliantly clear obscene images and full force. Then he’d withdrawn instantly, as if even unthinkingly he hadn’t wanted to sully her with his lips, with his hands, not this lovely trusting girl, not now after all that he’d so lately done. Only after he’d pulled his head back did he hear her exclamation of horror. Then he stood stiffly still, after drawing in his breath as though she’d stabbed him, and watched her with opaque eyes.
She said nothing more at first, but stared at him as if seeing him for the first time. After a few silent seconds she recovered herself and tried to explain her cry, appalled to recognize it as insult, but he, after that moment, said gently, in a quiet, consoling voice, “It’s very late. Odd things happen at this hour. Things will look better in the morning, or so my nurse always said, though personally I always found they just looked clearer, perhaps because of all the light. You’re very weary, so am I, go to sleep now and we’ll talk it over, all of us, then.”
She said nothing more than good night to him, and went directly up the stair to her room, as he’d asked. He saw her safely there and then went slowly to his own rooms. Then he sank to his bed, his head in his hands, and congratulated himself bitterly, remembering the shock in her eyes when he’d drawn close. “Well done, Goblin,” he muttered. In the midst of his self-loathing he realized that naturally he’d found relief tonight where he’d sought it, but obviously, no surcease where it was needful, for he could never be allowed that, of course.
And after she’d closed her door, Susannah closed her eyes in embarrassment, as she finally realized what she ought to have noticed despite her own preferences, or his own kindnesses. Now, too late, she was aware at last that whatever else her host was, he was, of course, what she’d entirely forgotten or ignored: a man.
10
It rained in the early morning after the Swansons’ ball, and the next day dawned cool and gusty. No one who’d been there was surprised, fewer still were disappointed, and a great many people never noticed it at all. The warm heavy dampness resolving itself into cleansing rain lifted spirits rather than depressing them. The servants who had to clean up after the affair were just as glad that it wasn’t a balmy spring day they were missing, and most of the noble guests poked their noses out of their covers, and feeling the chill in the air, decided to sleep the rest of the day away.
But Warwick Jones was in his small dining room taking coffee with his newspaper at his usual hour just as though he’d been to bed as early as a deacon, although his guest thought his heavy eyelids drooped a bit lower and his usually olive complexion was a shade lighter. She didn’t have an opportunity to study him long, for almost as soon as she set a silent foot into the salon, he looked up at her. She hadn’t the time to read the expression in those dark blue eyes before she dropped her own gaze and made her way to her seat, murmuring her good morning as stiltedly and awkwardly as though, she thought in disgust, when she’d heard herself, she’d just dropped a pitcher of milk in his lap and not a curtsy in his direction.
But there was no one else at breakfast as yet, and so as soon as the butler had left the room and the footman bearing a pitcher of cream had gone to refill it, she spoke.
“I have to explain and apologize to you,” she began hurriedly, speaking even faster when she saw his surprise, registered by an uplifted brow and his coffee cup suspended in air. “I never meant to insult you, indeed, I’m very grateful to you for comforting me when I was so wretchedly unhappy last night, and you never actually, ah, did anything, ah, to me, so I believe I was only extra sensitive and being absurd and foolish and—”
“What a lot of rubbish,” her host commented pleasantly, putting his cup down in its saucer at last, and cutting across her hasty speech in laconic but clearly audible tones. “I believe I’ll stop it now, although I’ll admit I’m curious to hear what other abuse you can heap upon yourself, ‘absurd’ and ‘foolish’ being, I perceive, only an introduction to a more comprehensive list of your faults, but Mr. Fox is fleet-footed and I’m positive he’ll return before you’re done, and I do want to have my say before my toast grows cold. But no, my dear, there was nothing irregular in your behavior at all. I may not have ‘done’ anything precisely, but you’re entirely right in what you imagined I planned to do, and so entirely correct in your refusal to be party to it. Some religious persons hold that the thought is equal to the deed, only it’s not half so much fun, I’d say. In fact”—he paused and seemed to ponder, his head tilted in thought, before he went on—“if I thought that were the case, I believe I’d go ahead and do everything I thought straightaway, since it would eventually be weighted equally in the eyes of the Creator. I suppose,” he mused, “that’s just what I’ve been doing all my life anyway. But I digress,” he said calmly, looking at her expression of incredulity with amusement.
“And I apologize to you, Miss Logan, for a gentleman ought not to force his attentions on an unwilling female of any sort, not to mention one that is his guest, as well as a friend he’s supposedly comforting. I hope I don’t presume in that as well—saying that we are friends,” he prompted, seeing her confusion, “and I do hope we shall be able to remain friends. And I promise not to repeat the episode.”
“But of course we’re friends, at least I’d be proud to think that we are,” Susannah said at once, “and I still think I was being missish and you don’t have to make any such promise, or any promises at all, really, because I know it was late, and you were only trying to comfort me.”
“And I was foxed and you were mistaken and I was so weary I only wanted to rest my lips against yours and it was merely a trick of the light and a thousand other polite lies, yes,” he said with infinite weariness, “yes, I see, but thank you,” he added with something like amusement in his voice, “for refusing my promise of future good behavior. It lifts my spirits—there’s nothing like having something naughty to look forward to for cheering a fellow up… Ah, good morning, Julian, Contessa, you come in perfect time to prevent Susannah from straying from the paths of righteousness. The marmalade must have been left to ferment too long, she’s making all sorts of rash statements this morning.”
“I’m the one who strayed, Warwick,” Julian said as he slid into his chair, and sighing, added, “and you can’t know how sorry I am, forgive me, Susannah,” looking at her with such contrition in his clear light eyes that she would have forgiven him anything, even the fact that he’d deserted her the previous night, as he now asked her to do.
“It never occurred to me,” he explained to Warwick, as soon as she’d protested there was nothing t
o forgive, “that she’d be left alone, how was I to know everyone would behave like such a pack of dunces? She was clearly the prettiest one there,” he went on, as Susannah thought: Ah yes, but your lady was the loveliest one, wasn’t she?—“and I expected her to be surrounded by admirers. But Bly and Bessacarr left early, and Leith was in a snit over something some chit said to him, and cut out as soon as he could too. In fact, a great many other fellows made a run for it as the ballroom heated up. Swanson must have been trying to hatch eggs as well as get his filly popped off.”
“It was certainly a tropical atmosphere,” the contessa put in, as she steadily spooned her eggs, “and a great many gentlemen did leave because of it. But I believe the difficulty lay in what was said within the ballroom by those who remained, and not in what was not said by those who left it early.”
“Indeed?” Warwick said with great interest, looking at the contessa with sudden interest just as his two guests were, but not displaying shock at her sudden loquaciousness as they were.
