An Affair Before Christmas (15 page)

One had to suppose that was what made thresholds so unpleasant; one exited one ambiance only to be greeted by something quite different and yet equally sweet.

Equally unpleasant was the fact that Lady Flora always seemed to know where he had been. He went to Pitt’s quarters in the Inns of Court, and she was ready with a comment about Pitt’s Indian policy. He went for a ride with Gill, and that evening she commented that Gill was getting a bit old for his short pants.

“Gill doesn’t wear short pants!” he snapped, wondering if she’d gone mad.

She smiled. “It’s merely a gentle comment about the earl’s need to grow up,” she told him. “I hear he tries to draw portraits, like a veritable maiden. One has to wonder whether he’s even had a woman, if you will excuse the indelicacy.”

He did mind the indelicacy, though there was no way to say such a thing. He didn’t want an indelicacy from his mother-in-law. In fact, he didn’t want to see her ever, not at breakfast, nor at luncheon, nor waiting up when he returned, breathing concern. But not curiosity—never curiosity, because she always seemed to know what he was doing.

Occasionally she would inform him, in passing, where she was going or the changes she had made to this or that room.

“Did you ask Poppy?” he asked once, when she informed him that she was changing the hangings in the east parlor to a rich persimmon.

“Poppy?” she said, looking as startled as if he’d mentioned King George himself. “Poppy? Of course not.” And she walked away, looking as if the ghost of a daughter fled before her.

Fletch couldn’t help thinking it was peculiar.

It had been months since he’d even seen Poppy. Though of course he wasn’t really looking for her, because he was establishing—
trying
to establish—himself in the House of Lords. But he had been to every party worth noting and she was never there. Yet she was still living with Jemma. Or perhaps not. No one would tell him.

He had received a discreet note from his banker, informing him of Her Grace’s private account; of course he dispatched a large sum of money immediately. One did, when one’s wife left. That is, none of his friends’ wives had actually left, but he felt the etiquette of the situation was obvious.

The question—the real question—was what he should be doing with himself.

He knew what Poppy thought he was doing. He was supposed to be indulging himself in the company of women.

In reality, he was spending most of every day in the House of Lords. He was bent on making a name for himself, making a difference in government. Making a difference to his country.

His wife thought he was simply frolicking with courtesans. And she didn’t care.

The thought was searing.

Why should Poppy care? She never liked making love to him. And now she said she never loved him at all.

So why should that bother him?

He was due to luncheon with Fox, at Mrs. Armistead’s house. And he’d heard rumors of lovely women and intimacies…

It shouldn’t bother him.

“Please do me the honor of sitting,” he said. “Thank you for paying me a call.”

The manservant rushed forward with a chair and she sat.

Villiers didn’t say another word, just looked at her. Charlotte was suddenly aware of every aspect of herself, of her windblown brown hair, her reddened cheeks, the unexciting ruffle at the bottom of her prim gown. The room smelled like peppermint and lime-water.

“What may I do for you, Your Grace?” she asked, trying to keep her voice low and calm, as befitted a deathbed.

“Nothing, I expect,” he said.

Funny: he didn’t sound as if he were dying. He sounded faintly amused and just a bit tired. Charlotte risked another look at him.

He had closed his eyes. Oddly enough, he was even more beautiful when ill. His skin was so white that his lashes looked fantastically long and dark against his cheeks. “Surely there must be something I can do, since you wrote me a letter,” she said, finally.

“Did I?” There was a faint tone of surprise in his voice that nettled her and she started to rise.

“Please forgive me. I must have received the letter in error.”

“Please,” he said. “Please stay. I’m sure I did write to you. I remember it now.”

She subsided, wondering what one said to a dying man.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“Well, if you did write me, I am wondering why you told me that you missed Benjamin, and whether you meant Barnabe.”

“Barnabe?” he asked. “I don’t know a Barnabe. I meant Benjamin, the Duke of Berrow. In truth I believed I was sending a note to his widow, but somehow the letter went astray. My fever recurs in the afternoons, and my mind becomes horribly confused. There are too many B’s involved here, Barnabe, Benjamin and Berrow. Not to mention Beaumont. We met at the Duchess of Beaumont’s dinner party, did we not?”

“Yes, we did. And I would be glad to contact the duchess for you, Your Grace,” Charlotte said. “I could do it immediately. Shall I ask your man for some writing paper?”

“You’re that young woman Beaumont has set up a flirtation with,” Villiers said suddenly. “Lord Thrush wrote and said that you revised one of Beaumont’s speeches to Parliament and he thought you made it better.”

Charlotte felt a blush edging up her neck. “I didn’t revise it,” she said. “I merely gave His Grace an idea of how to structure it.”

“You needn’t do that Your Grace and His Grace business here,” Villiers said. “Surely my man told you that I’m dying?”

Charlotte’s mouth fell open.

“You look like a dying fish yourself,” he said. “I wonder that being on my deathbed hasn’t made me any more charitable. I don’t feel in the least like consigning myself to almighty powers and turning myself over to good works, you know. Not in the least. My doctors have been telling me that I’m dying for weeks now, and I haven’t heard even a single note of the heavenly choir in my ear.”

“You show a great deal of confidence in the opinion of your doctors,” Charlotte observed.

He smiled faintly. “My doctor would be much affronted if I decided to live. I have the distinct impression that he thinks one should only act under proper medical advice.”

“May I suggest that you live just to affront them?”

“An excellent suggestion. If I weren’t so tired, I would take it seriously. I’m not used to visitors, you know. You’re the first person I’ve seen in months, other than my valet.”

“Your family?” she ventured.

“I don’t have one. I expect it would be even more tiring to die while people weep around you. You, on the other hand, show a refreshing lack of sentiment.”

“I assure you that I would be tearful if I knew you a bit better,” Charlotte said, smiling. It was hard not to like the phlegmatic way he was approaching the whole subject.

“We must remain strangers then. Tell me something interesting, please.”

“As a stranger?”

“Yes. The best strangers are the ones who tell you intimate truths about themselves and then are never met again.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever met that sort of stranger,” Charlotte said.

“That’s because you’re a woman and so they never let you alone. I spent a number of years on the continent. It’s amazing what strangers will tell you if you’re trapped together in a sandstorm, for example.”

“You’ve been in a sandstorm?”

“No, but if I were I would babble all my most intimate secrets, I assure you.”

“I don’t have any intimate secrets,” Charlotte said, a little sadly. “I wish I had, if only to enliven the conversation.”

“Well, you’re flirting with Beaumont, for one. Are you in love with him?”

Charlotte didn’t think his eyes were condemning, just tired and curious. “A bit,” she said. “But really only because there’s no one else to be in love with. He listens to me.”

“He’s a politician. If he’s listening to you, it’s because you’re useful to him.”

“I know that. But I’d rather be useful to him than useful to no one.”

“Whereas I quite like being useful to no one. Of course, that does lead to disconcertingly empty bedchambers. I suppose if I’d made myself useful to a woman I’d have a flock of children in here now.”

Charlotte glanced around. The room was exquisitely elegant and thoroughly male. The only accoutrement was a hairbrush, its handle covered in the same color as the walls.

“I agree with your tactful silence,” his deep voice said from the bed. He had his eyes closed again. “It’s hard to imagine children with me or me with children. What about you? Did you want children?”

“I’m not dead yet!” she exclaimed.

“Well, in terms of the
ton
I expect you practically are,” Villiers said. “You’re all of, what, twenty-six?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Twenty-six and you’re engaged in a very public flirtation with a very married man…unless you’d like to have an illegitimate son to a duke…”

“I don’t suppose you’re offering,” she snapped. She was stinging all over from his matter-of-fact assessment.

“Alas, my candle is quite limp. Even your manifest charms couldn’t light it at this moment.”

“There’s no need to be rude. Just because you’re dying doesn’t mean that you must indulge yourself at my expense.”

He opened his eyes very wide. “In truth, I didn’t mean to do so.”

“Yes, you did. I know perfectly well that my nose is too long, and my face undistinguished. And my clothing is all very well, but hardly of the latest
mode.
I look like what I am: an old maid with a paltry dowry who will never have children.” And with that she burst into tears.

“Oh, bloody hell,” came from the bed.

Consort: it was a kinder word than prostitute. Mrs. Armistead was beautiful, but more stately than her cousin.

Fox was across the room, discussing strategy. Fletch hardly knew any of the men in the room, which made it easier. The wine was deep and rich and burned its way to his stomach. It was dark and intense, like Cressida’s eyes.

“I’m married, you know,” she said, after they’d been talking for a while.

“As am I,” he said.

“I know that,” she laughed. “Everyone knows the marital circumstances of dukes. I know all about you. And your duchess.”

“What about her?” he asked, suddenly protective.

“She’s a most estimable lady,” Cressida said. “Actually my husband isn’t bad either. He’s a tailor. He lives in Suffolk and pretends that he doesn’t know what I’m up to. And I always go home for Christmas, and sometimes in the summer, if I can bear to do it.”

“How long have you been away?”

“We’ve been married for nine years,” she said, finishing her drink. “I was married out of the cradle, of course. But since the moment when I decided that I couldn’t abide another conversation about satin or thread, I came to live here at St. Anne’s Hill. A lady-in-waiting, I suppose you could call me.”

“It’s a beautiful place to live,” Fletch said, glancing at the damasked walls.

“Fox treats her very well,” Cressida said. “But in case you’re wondering, I’m not available for this sort of arrangement. I’m a lady-in-waiting, and not in waiting for a protector, not matter how noble.”

Fletch laughed. He couldn’t help liking her, with her odd flaring black brows. She wasn’t entirely beautiful, but she was frank and very funny.

“Would you like a tour of the house?” she asked.

For a moment it felt as if the world held its breath. And then Fletch’s mouth opened, and he heard himself say, “Yes, of course. Of all things,” and then she took his hand, and she was smiling at him and they left the room.

It was that easy.

And it was easy enough to find themselves in a bedchamber too, a beautiful one all hung with rose and pale green. Cressida kept laughing, and saying sarcastic funny little things, and somehow Fletch found he was kissing her.

It was all different from kissing Poppy. Of course. Her mouth was—well, bigger and wet and—

Fletch knew it wasn’t going right. But of course, she didn’t know that. And somehow it grew imperative to him that she not guess. So every time she reached out toward his breeches, he pulled back. He kept kissing her, though, and caressing her.

Somehow she had only her chemise on a short time later, and he was still kissing her, and caressing her.

He was miserable.

Sick feeling, really. Poppy had left him months ago.

By all rights, he should have been congratulating himself. All those nights when he’d worried that he’d never be able to satisfy a woman again were proven wrong. But finally Cressida reached out and he didn’t roll to the side fast enough and her body stilled because she knew exactly what she was feeling. Or wasn’t feeling, as the case may be.

“Odds bucket,” she said, pulling her hands back. “What are you doing, then?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I wish you wouldn’t play your games with me,” she said, staring up at the ceiling. “I was having fun with you, and now you’ve made me feel shabby. What’s the matter with you?”

“It’s nothing to do with you.”

“I suppose you’re one of those that prefer men,” she said gloomily, sitting up and pulling her stays toward her.

“No.”

The twist in her mouth showed that denial was a common event.

“I—I’m married,” he said.

“You’re a fool.”

“That too.”

“And I suppose this is the first time that you’ve considered being unfaithful.” Cressida was pinning up her hair now, sounding more resigned than angry.

“Practically.”

“Amazing. Most of the gentlemen I’ve met are unfaithful before the ink’s dry on their marriage lines. What’s gone wrong, then?”

“Wrong?”

“You must have been in love,” she said, looking at him with a strange combination of pity and sharpness in her eyes.

“She doesn’t like bedding me.” It actually felt good to say it out loud. “She doesn’t say no, but she only suffers it.”

“Some women are like that. Mind you, every woman feels like that sometimes. Touch me and I’ll scream.”

“She never says that.”

Cressida took the pins out of her mouth and said, “Some women never like the act. We had one girl here like that. She just couldn’t tolerate it after a while and then one day she ran away.”

“But this isn’t a brothel,” Fletch said. “Why did she have to run away?”

She didn’t answer that. “If you change your mind and decide that you would like a woman in your bed who can really plea sure you, you know how to find me. And I’m a bargain compared to some of those trollops out there.”

“But you said—”

She turned around and laughed at him. “You believed me?”

He saw her with different eyes.

“Duke,” she said to him, “how would a woman like me support myself in my old age? Do you think I can just traipse back to my husband any day of the week and he’ll take me in? Oh, I go there for Christmas because he has to let me in as it would disappoint the boys too much.”

“Boy—”

“Two of them. Smart little poppets.” Her smile faded. “They’re starting to ask questions, though. I need to find a protector, one like Fox. One who will support me and buy me a house. Then maybe the boys could come to me, or I could visit them in a carriage. My husband would respect that.”

Fletch thought it was unlikely that her husband would ever let his sons visit their fallen mother.

Perhaps she read it in his eyes; she turned away and poked the last pins in her hair. “You’re not the one, I can see that.” She was gone before he could craft an offer. Did one give guineas? Or send jewelry later, by messenger?

He sat in the bedchamber and thought about jewelry. One sent jewelry, and had it arrive the next day, he decided. Even, or perhaps especially, when intimacies were disrupted.

He went home before he remembered that Lady Flora would be waiting. She rustled forward to greet him. “Your Grace,” she said, holding out her hand. He bent to kiss it.

“Hmmm,” she said. “You smell like roses, a woman’s scent.”

He straightened hastily. But she was smiling at him as if he’d achieved something. Fletch cautiously moved backward.

“I hope I do not insult by my candor,” she told him, her blue eyes glinting in the candlelight. “It is my opinion that every young gentleman should find a female libertine who will entertain him. Some gentlemen seem to take longer to come to this realization than others.”

Fletch gulped. Could she possibly be saying what she appeared to be saying? She was wearing a grotesquely high headdress, with ostrich feathers stretching feet above her head and brushing the candlelabra hanging from the ceiling. Alas, the candles were only lighted for formal occasions because otherwise she might have caught on fire.

An unkind thought, he told himself, and bared his teeth in an approximation of a smile.

“I am glad to see some evidence that you’re not one of our”—she tittered—“less than
virile
men. Every gentleman should have an Amazon of his own.”

He clenched his jaw.

“You do understand me, don’t you, Your Grace?” she smiled at him and Fletch thought he’d never seen a woman who more resembled a wolf. “My daughter should not have to bear the burden of your dissolute desires. Perhaps the lady who scented her person and thus yours can become a regular habit for you. That might be enough to persuade my daughter to return to your side.”

Fletch swallowed his rage and bowed again. “I had no idea that my wife was quite so anxious for me to find female company.”

“Ah, but men are so selfish, are they not?”

She paused, which seemed to imply he was supposed to answer. “Not to my knowledge.”

“No?” She raised a delicately arched eyebrow. “Of course, those who are most selfish generally do not see themselves as such, do they?”

“I couldn’t say, madam. Would you consider yourself to be selfish, for example?”

She smiled at him. “In every sense of the word. To be selfish is to be self-interested. There is only one area in which I would not consider it a weakness and a distraction to think of another above myself: and that is where my daughter is concerned. For her sake, and only for her sake, do I put myself to such discomfort as to reside with you.” She paused, and added, “Your Grace.”

She hates me, Fletch thought. Well, the feeling is mutual. “I presume that your Herculean sacrifice is not intended to last forever?”

“For my daughter, I put my own comforts to the side.” She dropped into a chair, giving an excellent imitation of a lady overcome by cruel exigencies that had her living in a ducal mansion with some fifty-four servants at her beck and call.

“Then do allow me to know how I could persuade you to return you to your former comforts,” he said.

“Why, is it not obvious?” she said, smiling at him as genially as if they were at a tea party. “Your marital intimacies are distasteful to my daughter. You appear to be incapable of producing an heir, but I strongly suggest that you leave that little problem to the side for a year or so. Poor Perdita has done such an excellent job of servicing your disordered desires. It’s too much to ask her to pick out a suitable gentleman to play your part in the marital saddle at this point. Goodness,” she said, looking rather pleased with herself, “that
was
harsh, wasn’t it? I find that I am divided between the strongest pity for poor Perdita and the naturally homicidal feelings that any mother must feel in this situation.”

“Homicidal?” Fletch said, sitting down and crossing his legs. “Dear me, I see that the situation is rather more urgent than I thought. I gather that my embracing of a courtesan would be a positive interest to my wife. I wonder that she didn’t tell me this herself.”

“Perdita?” Lady Flora said, raising an eyebrow. “You think that dearest Perdita could bring herself to tell you? I call a spade a spade, Your Grace. My daughter is a weak-kneed fool, with a soft heart. She could not bear to tell you how disgusting you are to her. I consider it my prerogative as her mother to tell you of her feelings. I told her that you simply didn’t realize the truth.”

Fletch couldn’t bring himself to reply. All those nights…he knew Poppy wasn’t enjoying herself, but he never thought she was discussing things with her mother. The very idea made his skin crawl.

Lady Flora was not one to allow silence to grow. “Men rarely understand these things,” she said. “Of course your bodies disgust those of the delicate sex. Our sensibilities are sweetly tuned; our bodies beautifully curved, as all the poets celebrate. How could you think that a lady would honestly desire intimacy with a hairy…Well. I leave Poppy’s feelings to your imagination.”

Fletch rose and bowed. “If you’ll forgive me, Lady Flora, I find that—”

She was looking at him with amusement. “You’ll have to beg her.”

“I—”

“Beg her to come back. Tell her you finally found yourself a courtesan and you won’t use her like a common washer-woman any more.”

“I shall certainly speak to my wife,” Fletch said, resisting the impulse to commit homicide. Though who he wanted to kill—his mother-in-law or his wife—he didn’t know.

“When Perdita agrees to return to your house, I shall naturally return to my own,” she said sweetly. “That should provide you with some impetus, should it not? I expect you wonder why I am so active in Perdita’s behalf?”

“In fact,” he ground out, “given your self-proclaimed selfishness—”

She didn’t let him finish, of course. “I don’t believe Perdita should reside much longer with the Duchess of Beaumont. You do remember how my poor daughter fancied herself in love with you, don’t you?”

He didn’t move a muscle.

“Don’t you?” she said impatiently. “It wasn’t that long ago. At any rate, she’s a trifle weak in the head, my daughter, though it pains me to say it. If I leave her with that light-heeled duchess in Beaumont House, she’ll fall in love again—and it won’t be with you, Duke. Do you understand me?”

He nodded.

“She’s a romantic. Forever thinking that men are more interesting than they could possibly be. You know that strange hankering she has to attend meetings at the Royal Society?”

“She has?”

Lady Flora smirked at him. “I gather you aren’t spending much time talking to Perdita? You didn’t know of her utter fascination with naturalists? Why do I even ask?”

Fletch shook his head. He felt cold from head to foot. “Are you implying—”

“Not yet. But there’s no saying now that she’s moved out of your house into Beaumont House where God knows adultery is merely a fashionable vice, and one much indulged in.”