I require a scandal, sir. As soon as humanly possible.
THE END
A Lady Unchained
‘Lydia.’ Catherine Hildebrande looked carefully at her friend, the carriage rattling as it sped through London. Evening was gathering, the air of the metropolis full of merriment—but inside the carriage, the mood was somewhat different. ‘Are you sure this course of action is a wise idea?’
Lydia Holt, anxiously picking at her reticule, did not answer for a moment. She was normally quick with both words and judgements; a tendency that had irritated her cooler-headed friend in the past. This time, looking out of the carriage window at the darkening sky, she chose her words as carefully as possible.
‘It is not wise, dear. Do not presume me ignorant enough to consider it wise. But—but it is important. Very important, to me.’
‘Lydia. You are to be married.’ Catherine’s eyes were full of reason; useful, but unwelcome. ‘I understand that this—this arrangement is important, but it is also—’
‘Dangerous. Scandalous. Foolish.’ Lydia nodded, her fingers curling around a loose bead on her reticule. ‘I know.’
Catherine, true to form, kept silent. Only people of rare quality knew when their friends were close to unacceptable displays of emotion, and Catherine Wentford was one of them. Lydia, resting her head gently against the side of the carriage, could imagine with some clarity what her friend was thinking.
Catherine’s voice sounded reproachful in her mind. You are to be married, and yet I have never seen your husband-to-be with you. Why?
You never mention your family without frowning. Why?
You tell me half-truths, or omissions, or outright lies… and then, out of the blue, you inform me of a scandalous arrangement between you and a business associate of my husband? An arrangement which requires my carriage, and my silence?
Why, Lydia? Why?
‘You have no idea what I am thinking, Lydia.’ Catherine’s tone of cool amusement brought a reluctant smile to Lydia’s face. ‘I know you think you do, but you do not.’
‘You must be wondering about my marriage.’
‘I have been wondering about your marriage for a month. Ever since the banns were read.’ Catherine shrugged. ‘I can hardly be expected to not wonder about a man who I have never seen by your side.’
Lydia sighed. ‘The earl is a reclusive man.’
‘But a titled man, and we all fish for titles. Quite how I netted James, I do not know.’ Catherine smiled softly. ‘You have managed to guess one thought.’
‘I believe I will be good at this game.’ Lydia paused. ‘I imagine you are also wondering about Mr. Weeks.’
She paused, the air inside the carriage changing slightly. Now there was a shy curiosity in the air. She had Catherine had never spoken of Mr. Weeks—why would they? All Arthur Weeks was, at least when it came to Catherine, was a quiet, moustachioed keeper of order at the Cappadene Club. The former eyes and hands of the previous owner, the mysterious Martin Ayres.
To Lydia, Arthur was someone very different. He was the writer of the pile of letters she had hidden beneath her mattress; a correspondence she had tremblingly begun, and breathlessly sustained. Letters that spoke of every civilised subject under the sun… and hinted at things so scandalous that Lydia, reading them alone in bed at the dead of night, quivered.
She could forget her impending marriage, while she read. She could forget everything. All she had to remember was that strange, scorching moment in the Cappadene Club, when she had met Arthur Weeks for the first time. When she had felt the dizzying pull at the base of her stomach, and known that something could begin.
Catherine was silent. Lydia, clearing her throat, decided to be a little bolder.
‘I am sure you must be at least wondering why I have chosen Mr. Weeks as a… a…’
‘A party to this arrangement? No.’ Catherine shook her head, smiling gently. ‘The reasons why you have chosen a tall, well-looking former prize-fighter with forearms like the trunks of aged trees for this particular task is evident enough.’
An answer she hadn’t been expecting. Lydia stuttered, gripping her reticule tightly, the image of Arthur in all his rough-hewn glory brought irresistibly to mind.
‘I have not—not chosen him for his forearms.’ She swallowed, acutely aware that she was probably blushing. Catherine, in her usual irritating fashion, was still staring at her coolly. ‘He is a cultivated man. He has diverse opinions on a wide variety of subjects.’
‘I see.’ Catherine paused. ‘And do you intend to discuss opinions on a wide variety of subjects, over these two days with Arthur Weeks? Or do you intend to gaze at his forearms?’
‘I—oh, you are impossible.’
‘Forgive me.’ Catherine began to laugh, her eyes twinkling with merriment. ‘You do not, of course, intend to do either. But as we are both so very respectable, we shall—we shall—’
Shoulders shaking, she burst into proper laughter. Lydia joined her, grateful for the brief moment of levity in what had been a trying few days. A trying few months, if she were completely honest with herself.
It had not been easy, convincing her family of a meeting with a woman she had entirely invented. Alice Marks, Lydia’s fictional female, was a pious girl, a good girl—and a poor girl, which neatly meant that Lydia’s father wouldn’t attempt to ingratiate himself with her parents. Having Arthur sign his name as Alice at the end of his letters had been an inspired touch, if somewhat unnecessary—his letters were well-hidden.
Inventing a fictitious address for Alice in a down-trodden but respectable part of London had been even more creative. Inventing a bad fall for Alice at the very moment when her family were planning on decamping to Surrey for a day or two? Why, she practically deserved a medal.
With a different family, and a different father, such elaborate deception would not be needed. With Sir Reginald Holt for a father, however… it still didn’t feel like enough.
A shiver ran through her; one unconnected to the cold of the evening, or her own nervousness. A sickening feeling, running up and down her spine in cold waves.
It couldn’t be illness. It just couldn’t. Lydia, shutting her eyes for a moment, tried as firmly as she could to banish the shivers from her body.
If a fever came to her now, just as she was on the point of doing something that she truly, truly wanted… no. She would not accept it. She rejected it with every particle of her being.
‘Lydia… when this is done, and you are home, we must speak plainly.’ Catherine’s gaze softened a little. ‘We must speak as friends of such long acquaintance should. Not of Mr. Weeks, or of your impending marriage.’
‘Those seem like the only two pieces of my life that require discussion.’
‘Not true.’ Catherine lowered her voice. ‘I am speaking of your parents. Your father.’
‘My family are too dashed dull to speak of.’
‘That is the excuse you have always given me. The excuse I have always accepted.’ Catherine sighed. ‘But your coloured gowns are disappearing. Your father grows more and more prominent, and yet your mother and sisters are seen in public less and less frequently. The last time I visited your house, you told me that Sir Reginald had begun to read your correspondence. These are things that not only must be discussed, but remedied.’
Lydia could only not tightly in response. Catherine, after an expectant silence, slowly settled back into her attitude of cool repose.
Lydia’s heart fractured a little. It wasn’t fair, not being able to confide in her closest friend. But if she confessed to Catherine how tyrannical her father was becoming, how cruel, and the gossip became public… she could not imagine the brutality of her father’s reaction.
When she married, it would be bearable. Not pleasant, but survivable. Yes, she barely knew the earl of Winchester, and yes, he was a friend of her father—but she would not be living at home. She would not have to live with Sir Reginald criticising everything she did, or sai
d, or thought.
Her mother had submitted to his will long, long ago. Her sisters, Lavender and Winifred, had always been less rebellious than Lydia—although Winifred showed flashes of independent spirit, she was still far too young to withstand her father’s rages.
Lydia was alone. She had felt lonely, too—terribly lonely. Until she had decided to write to Arthur Weeks, and her world had blossomed like a flower.
‘We can speak of more pleasant things if you wish.’ Catherine reached out a hand, gently patting Lydia’s knee. ‘Anything you like.’
‘It is quite all right, dear.’ Lydia closed her eyes as another strange, unwelcome chill ran through her. Sickness was not permitted—not now. Not so very close to something that she wanted.
‘Whatever we speak about, it will be three words at most. Perhaps four.’ Catherine looked out of the window, a note of wry humour entering her voice. ‘We appear to have arrived.’
Lydia turned to the window, her heart in her throat. Beckman’s Stables stood bustling in the twilight; not the most fashionable stables, but not the poorest. One of the most anonymous places to meet someone you were not supposed to meet… how wonderful it looked, despite the coarse cries of the stable-men and the whinnying of the horses.
She bit her lip as she caught sight of a tall, broad-shouldered figure.
‘Be careful, Lydia.’ Catherine paused. ‘Send a message to me, if you have need of me.’
‘I will.’ Lydia kept staring at the silhouette of Arthur Weeks.
He looked so strong. So dignified. When it came to two days of scandal, she had no need of anyone but him.
He had wanted her from the first. Ever since he had seen her in the receiving room of the Cappadene Club, watching her strange friend declare her love for the most scandalous duke in England, Arthur Weeks had wanted Lydia Holt with a passion that strengthened him as much as it surprised him. As he waited by Beckman’s Stables, the smell of leather and horse-flesh hot in the air, he realised that he was unaccountably nervous.
It wasn’t just her beauty. The ripe, full-bodied majesty of her; her queenly presence. Her refusal to shrink and fade in pale, mournful colours. Underneath that sensuous, responsive face, her curvaceous body, lay a mind and soul that called to Arthur’s inner self with sweet, passionate persistence.
Her first letter had been a surprise. A brief, elegantly-written enquiry as to the architectural history of the Cappadene Club’s building. Arthur had read it with growing incomprehension, wondering why someone wished to know so very much about columns and window-frames… and then he had seen the signature.
His heart had skipped a beat. When he had seen the postscript, his hands had begun to tremble.
Call yourself Alice, in your reply.
A false name was a clear invitation to scandal. Arthur, picking up his pen, had quietly thanked the Devil for setting such temptation in his path.
Architecture had become art, which had become nature, which had become a thousand dancing subjects—each more thrilling than the last. Given that most women of a certain class assumed that men like Arthur couldn’t write, let alone form complex thoughts, such intellectual stimulation was astonishingly addictive. As was imagining Lydia write in her bedroom, wearing a nightgown, more often than not wearing nothing at all…
… and then came the invitation.
Well. Perhaps invitation was the wrong word. It had been a statement of fact. The Holt family would be travelling away from London for a day, perhaps two—and Lydia had managed to remove herself from their party. She would be alone, and capable of travelling—not to mention in desperate need of diversion. The kind of diversion that Arthur was both ready and willing to provide.
He smiled to himself as he imagined it. Diversion with Lydia Holt… whatever they did, wherever they went, it was sure to be an unparalleled delight.
Until it ended, of course. Until Lydia Holt returned to her secure, gilded cage of a life, and Arthur was left in the dust.
The sight of the Wentworth carriage, complete with crest, disrupted his line of thought. He stood taller, trying to control the beating of his heart, watching the carriage come to a halt.
Strange that he was so tense, so excited, about something that was meant to be one or two days of consequence-free pleasure. Such an exaggerated reaction required examination. But before Arthur could begin a thorough exploration of his motives, Lydia stepped cautiously out of the carriage.
She was here. She was real—realer than anything, even his own nervousness. Arthur approached, sternly telling himself not to stare as Lydia turned to face him, already knowing that he wouldn’t be able to resist.
Oh, but she was beautiful. The same nervousness he felt in his own breast shone in her face. She was out of place here, away from the refined elegance of her quiet street—why had he dragged her here, into the mess and muck of common London?
Lydia smiled at him. Arthur felt his own doubt peak and fade, replaced with a kind of marvelling joy.
‘You are here.’ He stepped forward, the smell of the horses and cries of the drivers no longer a concern. Her scent washed over him; a clean, starched smell of soap, powerfully erotic in its simplicity. ‘You—you are truly here.’
‘Yes.’ Lydia’s eyes were bright, almost too bright, as she nodded. Arthur wondered for a moment if she was sickening for something, before her next words dislodged the thought. ‘I know I should not tell you this, but—but I have been waiting with quite ferocious expectation.’
Her full lips, saying such hoped-for things, made Arthur want to be ferocious in turn. He wished to kiss her, here in the middle of the street, onlookers be damned. He stepped closer still, wishing he could tuck one of Lydia’s loosely-pinned curls behind her ear.
‘Where must we go?’ Lydia’s voice lowered a little. ‘To—to your rooms?’
Arthur stopped. His joy faded, replaced with growing self-recrimination.
Scandal. That was all Lydia Holt was searching for. The message of her letters had been clear enough, even if the words had been veiled. Two days of sin, perhaps three—and then, with a light heart and no regrets, she could await her staid and respectable marriage.
He would be left alone. Alone, with a heart that felt dangerously broken.
He had to delay such a fate. To postpone such a miserable future for himself, for as long as humanly possible.
‘No.’ His voice was more forceful than he had intended; Lydia’s cheeks coloured a little. ‘Not yet. Let me take you for a bite to eat—you must eat something.’
‘I do not believe I could eat so much as a crumb. But—but I am thirsty.’ Lydia looked at him appealingly; Arthur wished he could take her hands in the middle of the street. ‘Forgive me if I am behaving incorrectly. I… I am unused to this.’
I am unused to this as well. Believe me. Arthur wished he could say it—wished he could tell her the truth. That despite his many experiences with women of every kind, being with Lydia felt utterly unique.
‘You are behaving perfectly.’ He gestured to the bustling road, the evening groups of revellers beginning to swell. ‘Come. Let us walk.’
Lydia nodded, happily falling into step beside him. Arthur, glancing surreptitiously at her gown, spoke cautiously.
‘Your gown. It is grey. You normally wear bright colours, do you not?’
‘Yes. Usually.’ Lydia’s tone carried faint surprise. ‘Did I write that in—’
‘One of your letters.’ One of the very first letters. Arthur ploughed onward, not wanting Lydia to know how much he had learned her words by heart. ‘It is strange, to see you in grey.’
Lydia stopped walking. ‘Do you not like it?’
‘No—no. It is very becoming.’ Arthur stumbled over his words, not knowing how an innocent conversation had become so very loaded. ‘It is simply—’
‘A surprise?’ Lydia, to Arthur’s confusion, smiled. ‘Would you like to know a secret?’
Arthur nodded. He watched, rapt, as Lydia bent to lift the he
m of her skirt.
Scarlet. A flash of pure, wicked scarlet; a ribbon, sewn into the hem. The colour filled Arthur’s core, tightening it, flooding him with desire.
‘Mr. Weeks.’ Lydia’s smile widened. ‘I believe I have surprised you.’
Oh, Miss Holt. Arthur nodded, his heart full. You have mastered me completely.
One hour later, London mapped beneath their wandering feet, they sat in the King’s Mount—a disreputable pub, in the meagre corner of London where Arthur had grown up. Fighting unexpected shyness, already ashamed of how much he had spoken as they had wandered together, he looked timidly at Lydia from across a scarred wooden table as she cautiously sipped weak beer.
He had wanted to take her somewhere elegant. Somewhere befitting of her magnificence. But Lydia’s eyes had lit up when they had passed the King’s Mount, and he had told her of his boyhood days drinking and fighting in the small, brightly-lit space…
… And now she was sitting across from him, tentatively drinking and looking at him, and he couldn’t stop looking at her. Looking at the splendid, rare peacock he had found in a city of pigeons.
‘You keep looking at me.’ Lydia spoke with a small, secretive smile; one that inflamed Arthur from within. ‘I keep thinking that I am doing something wrong. I am sure that I am drinking this incorrectly.’
‘You are drinking perfectly correctly. More correctly than anyone else in this establishment.’ Arthur looked briefly at the other drinkers, all of them too engaged in their own illicit business to pay attention to his. They could be anyone, here; a gentleman and his courtesan, two actors drinking away a night of bad reviews. A husband and wife. ‘Forgive me. I shall stop looking at you.’
‘No. I—I like it.’ That smile again; so delicious, so guilty, as if she were afraid of enjoying herself. ‘I simply wish to know why.’
‘You know full well why.’
‘I do not. Do you think me so silly that I would ask a question you know the answer to?’
Dukes of the Demi-Monde Page 8
