Barbara Metzger (9 page)

The maid was a neighbor’s girl who had a fondness for children and was willing to stay with Nanny’s grandchildren while her Miss Kitty was out. She also had a fondness for Little George, “a man what won’t argufy with everything a lady says.”

There was nothing to stop an excursion to the park, except Miss Partland herself.

“Oh no, my lord, I’ve been poked and prodded, fitted and fashioned, into a woman of style. Now I wish to broaden my mind. There is a world of history and art right at our doorstep. Surely the park can wait.”

So they set out for Westminster and the Tower, Lincoln’s Fields and the British Museum. Courtney was thinking that it was amazing what a bit of sunshine could do. London sparkled like a grande dame in her jewels, even if the sooted snow gave the appearance of soiled hems. It was also amazing what a few fripperies could do for a woman’s temperament. Very well, Lord Chase had paid enough linen-drapers’ bills to outfit the army in Spain, but it was worth it. Miss Partland—he must remember to begin calling her Kitty—was exquisite. That went without saying, with her hair in a new upswept style trailing black ringlets along her ivory cheeks, and her bonnet decorated with silk forget-me-nots that matched the color of her incredible eyes. He was also surprised and relieved to find that her figure in the slim, high-waisted gowns wasn’t skin and bones as he’d thought; it was elegantly ethereal, curving delightfully just where it ought.

The big surprise, however, was that Kitty herself was everything charming. She was interested, appreciative, and pleased to share her excitement in the day. The viscount could not have asked for better company. That he’d had to buy it was the only disappointment. While Kitty was cooing like a dove, he was missing Kathlyn’s sharp talons, for at least they were honest. Still, if his wealth could turn a harpy like Miss Partland up sweet, it ought to purchase him any bride he selected.

Noting Kitty’s sudden concern for his leg, her attention to how he took his tea, her apparent respect for the knowledge he had about the London landmarks, Courtney had to wonder if he was waiting his whole life for an ideal that did not exist. Was he going to have to buy his wife’s affection, too, or was there a woman in all of London who could love him for himself? And how was he to know the difference?

There were chaps he knew in his position who went incognito into the countryside, to find an unspoiled bride whose eyes would shine with love, not the color of gold. But he didn’t have time for that fustian. He had properties to oversee, his seat in Parliament, his work with the War Office. Besides, he didn’t want a milkmaid; he wanted a woman who could take her place with him in London society, where he was known too well to pretend poverty.

That wasn’t all, though. He didn’t simply want a bride to fill the position of his viscountess. He wanted one to fill his heart. And he didn’t want to be some ambitious female’s first choice among the eligible bachelors—he wanted to be her only choice. If he couldn’t have that, a love for all time, till death do us part, then he’d been wasting his life. Instead of waiting years for his heart’s mate, he could have been enjoying his days and nights with females like Kitty Parke, confound it.

* * * *

How charming his lordship could be when his leg wasn’t paining him. Old Mr. Thistlewaite at home used to be the same, growly with the rheumatics in stormy weather, sweet as a lamb when the sun shone. Or, speaking of lambs, perhaps it was all the flibbertigibbet females making sheep eyes at the viscount that had him in good spirits today. He was so handsome, with the sun on his fair hair and his coat stretched over broad, muscular shoulders, that it was all Kathlyn could do not to make sheep eyes herself.

Whatever the cause, Kathlyn couldn’t remember a day she enjoyed more. Why, it was as if all of British history, and some Greek, Roman, and Egyptian as well, was laid out for her perusal. The awesome cathedrals, the impressive seats of the government, the collections of masterpieces, had her nearly speechless in wonder. That would have been enough, but on top of the sight-seeing. Miss Kathlyn Partland felt that she was on top of the world.

Here she was, dressed like a lady, being treated like an equal by this proud, elegant gentleman who was turned out to a shade, drove to an inch, and was the envy of everyone they passed. And he was being kind.

This was beyond anything Kathlyn could have imagined in her most vivid daydream. Of course, she wasn’t about to let her head get turned by one day’s pleasure. Her fine new feathers still had no nest of their own, she still needed a position, and the viscount was still worlds above her touch, no matter how kind he was acting. She wouldn’t let herself forget that his courtliness was an act.

Lord Chase needed Kitty Parke to prove his virility to his circle of acquaintances. What woman would enter a marriage knowing that she’d have no children, that her husband’s estates would be left elsewhere when no heir was forthcoming, that she would never experience the joys of the marriage bed? Only the most ambitious, who wouldn’t mind a lifeless marriage of convenience. Or a female in love, who was going to be monstrously disappointed.

Kathlyn wouldn’t think about the morality of duping some innocent miss into throwing her cap over a windmill with missing parts. Then again, perhaps his lordship suffered a temporary handicap and his marriage would be normal. She hoped so, for his sake, for if there was anything she knew about the nobility, it was their fixation on assuring their successions. She couldn’t ask Nanny about Lord Chase’s problem, nor, heaven forfend, the viscount himself, the poor, brave man.

She smiled at him, and he patted her gloved hand in the crook of his elbow, pointing out his favorite Turner seascape. Once Kathlyn was in his employ, it seemed, he’d become kindness itself, treating her with as much care and respect as he accorded Nanny. Why, he’d even insisted on purchasing for her an entire wardrobe, not just a few ensembles for public notice.

Back home she’d have been thrilled with a new nosegay to refurbish her old bonnet. Now most of her old clothes were being given to charity, for not even Lizzie would wear them, and Kathlyn was to have everything new from the skin out. No one was going to see her bedclothes, yet Lord Chase convinced her that the modistes would gossip inordinately if she didn’t have gossamer nightgowns. She might freeze, but she would look the part of mistress even in her sleep. And he was right, fancy underpinnings of silk and lace did make a woman feel prettier, more feminine. Her favorite of the new clothes was the pelisse of celestial blue she wore now, with its bleached rabbit-fur lining. Let those true birds of paradise enjoy their scanties; Kathlyn thought there was nothing more heavenly than being warm.

What the cloak couldn’t warm, the viscount’s approving regard could. Of course it was all for show, Kathlyn reminded herself again, but she was determined to repay his kindness by being the female he needed. If only she knew what that was.

“Shall we take a turn about the park now, Kitty, before heading back to Nanny’s? It’s the fashionable hour to see all the nobs on the strut.”

“And to be seen, according to Lizzie. But, my lord, before we join the public parade, before you have to introduce me to your friends, perhaps we should go somewhere for a more private conversation. You see, I do not know how a mistress behaves.” She was blushing like a schoolgirl. “In public. That is, I don’t know how a mistress conducts herself in private either, of course.”

And he did? Well, yes, he’d seen enough high flyers on various friends’ arms. On the way to Gunther’s he considered the matter. Some of the doxies were openly flirtatious, both with their escorts and with every other man in the vicinity. Looking for their future protectors, he assumed. No, he’d not want Kathlyn acting so brass-faced. “No flirting with other men,” he iterated.

Kathlyn thought it made sense for a mistress’s loyalties to be engaged along with her other attributes. She nodded.

Courtney thought of how many light-skirts he’d heard cajoling their lovers for another expensive bauble. There was no pretending to anything but a sordid business arrangement when the jades withheld their affections until their protectors held out another glittering bribe. He didn’t think Miss Partland was grasping, not when he’d had to encourage her to purchase even the minimum amount of gowns, and she insisted on purchasing her gloves and stockings at the Pantheon Bazaar with Lizzie, instead of at the more expensive modistes. Still, most women were inveterate shoppers. Now that Kitty had a taste of lavish spending, she might crave it as a steady diet. “Don’t get greedy.”

Kathlyn thought she had everything she could need for the next lifetime. How could any man be more generous, and how could any woman ask for more? She nodded again. “What else?”

Why bother mentioning that a mistress should be discreet? Miss Partland had as much to lose in exposure as Courtney did. Instead he told her, “Don’t show jealousy. It’s unbecoming.” He remembered one of Algie’s ladybirds who threw a tantrum—and a candelabrum—when Algie was going off with himself and Woody to a mill, instead of dancing attendance on her.

Kathlyn thought he meant she should turn her back when his attentions turned to women of his own class. Of course, she would. That’s what this was all in purpose of, wasn’t it, finding him a bride? “What else?”

“No scenes, no nagging. If there’s anything a man doesn’t want in a mistress, it’s aggravation. He can get that from his wife.”

Public spectacles were the mark of vulgarity; carping, the trait of a shrew. She nodded her understanding. “Although that doesn’t say much about your opinion of the wedded state. No matter, you’ve only given me what a mistress must not do, which is no help in knowing what I should do.”

Courtney was wondering if he could come out and say a mistress should be adoring, alluring, and provocative. Not while Miss Partland had a raspberry ice in her hand, he decided. He also wondered if Miss Partland had any passion whatsoever in her governess’s soul.”Oh, just be yourself,” he concluded, hoping for the best.

Taking it for a compliment, Kathlyn smiled up at him in as doting a fashion as he could have wished, the raspberries making her lips seem that they’d just been kissed. Oh yes.

* * * *

Gorblimey, who read all this claptrap? What did anyone care which duke was sniffing after what baronet’s wife or how long some general had been away from his lady and her interesting condition? Inspector Dimm closed the newspaper with a snap. Interesting, pah! Mr. Dimm found it disgusting. Didn’t any of these toffs keep their vows? His own wife, Cora, God bless her and keep her, would have had his guts for garters if he looked at another woman.
He never was unfaithful, by George, not in all the years of his marriage, and hadn’t been unfaithful to Cora’s memory since she went to her reward.

But Cora’d been gone awhile, and, well, a fellow got lonely now and again. He wanted to feel something soft and small and warm and cuddlesome, something other than his cat. Maybe the nobs had the right idea, taking pleasure where they found it. And maybe Miss Partland just got to feeling lonely after her pa died. She wasn’t coming to the park today either, so Dimm decided he may as well go on home, to his empty, echoing house. He also decided that he’d ask that nice widow lady, the dark-haired one who came veiled to the park every day to feed the squirrels and who took such an interest in his work, if she wanted to share a hackney. Dimm didn’t like seeing women out on their own without escorts. London was too rough for the delicate dears.

Chapter Ten

A thousand suns were shining at the Opera House, what joy! The candles, the chandeliers, the gem-studded audience, Kathlyn was entranced by it all, even if this was merely a benefit night. The Opera House would not open officially until April when the social season began for the upper crust, but Kathlyn’s official debut as a rich man’s tart would occur this evening.

Lord Chase had decided that Kitty needed a bit of exposure to the public eye before the Cyprians’ Ball, especially after she confessed to never having attended an assembly of more than a hundred people back in Cheshire. She’d known most of her dance partners there, the neighboring tenant farmers and tradesmen, for her entire life. The local gentry rarely deigned to appear at such provincial gatherings, for which the commoners gave thanks and another shilling to the fiddler to play another country dance. Nothing in Kathlyn’s life as the dowerless daughter of an impecunious Latin instructor could have prepared her for this night. She was going to get a crick in her neck from swiveling it, trying to see everything—and the curtain hadn’t even been raised yet. If others, especially the young bucks in the pit, were standing on the benches trying to get a good look at her in his lordship’s box, Kathlyn didn’t care. She felt like a princess tonight.

Her spirits had never been higher, and her neckline had never been lower. Nanny and Lizzie both assured her that ladies of the ton had their bodices cut still narrower. No one ever mentioned what ladies of the night wore, and Kathlyn didn’t inquire. Her gown was something a fairy godmother might have conjured out of cobwebs and moonbeams, a slip dress of silver silk with a midnight blue net overskirt. She had long silver gloves and silver sandals, and a coronet of white roses holding her hair, except for the long black curl twining over her shoulder.

Kitty mightn’t be offended by the ogles and whistles from the pit and the other boxes, but Courtney was and he resented them on her behalf, since she appeared too excited to notice. It was what he wanted, of course, for his companion to be admired, but those loudmouthed boors were going beyond the line. Not that Courtney could blame them; he could barely keep his eyes off her himself, so stunning was his little snow waif. Hah! She was the most beautiful female here this evening, and she was with him. He touched that silken curl on her shoulder—which he’d been longing to do all night—to stake his claim. He left his arm draped across the back of her chair. Kathlyn just turned and smiled. “Isn’t it exciting, my lord?”