Candice Hern (31 page)

"You're making perfect sense. You've just discovered how love changes everything, even sex. Especially sex. It will never be the same for you, my friend. You had better marry her."

Rochdale snorted. "She'd never have me. And I don't think she wants that from me. She is still starry-eyed from newly discovered lust — she obviously never had more than a quick poke and a grunt from the old bishop — but I don't believe it goes any further than that. There was an unspoken acknowledgment between us that Newmarket and anything beyond is only what it is ... a discreet affair and nothing more."

"Will she allow it to continue here in London?"

"I assume so. She made it sound as if she wanted to be with me again. We made plans to go to Drury Lane next week, so I am hoping we will resume our affair that evening."

Cazenove lifted an eyebrow. "And if not? If she decides it is to too risky to see you in town, or has second thoughts about an affair at all?"

"Then I fear I am destined for a monastic existence, at least for a while."

"And what of the wager? What if she finds out you made love to her only to win a horse?"

"She won't find out because I will not win."

"But you
did
win."

"As far as Sheane is concerned, I did not win. I am going to tell him tomorrow that I concede defeat."

Cazenove almost dropped his cup and had to steady it with both hands. "And you will lose Serenity?"

Rochdale shrugged. "That is the price I must pay for having involved Grace in this damnable business. Even if she never learns of the wager, I find the idea that she gave herself to me in exchange for a horse to be intolerable. So there will be no exchange."

Cazenove smiled. "And this is precisely why a woman like Grace Marlowe is drawn to you. Deep down, my friend, you're a good man."

Rochdale winced. "Don't go spreading any rumors. I've got a reputation to protect."

* * *

Grace paced anxiously in the rose garden behind Marlowe House, the gravel crunching loudly beneath her half-boots. Today was the last official gathering of the trustees of the Benevolent Widows Fund, before some of them left town for one of the spas or country estates. They met here as a group regularly while they were all in town, going over the lists of residents and reviewing any progress made in finding permanent situations for them, and generally inspecting all the workings of the House. Each of them visited on their own more frequently, but they gathered together at least once a month in their formal capacity as the Board of Trustees.

Grace, however, did not have board business on her mind. She was fairly bursting to tell them her news, but she wanted all of them to be present, and Penelope had yet to arrive.

"Is something troubling you, Grace?" Beatrice, seated on one of the stone benches that lined the gravel paths, looked at her with concern. "You seem very ... anxious. Is everything all right?"

"Oh, yes. Everything is fine." She suppressed a giggle. The old Grace Marlowe never giggled. The new one found herself giggling at the oddest moments. "More than fine. I will tell you all about it when —"

"Here at last!" Penelope's breathless voice rose above them as she came dashing down the path from the herb garden. When she reached the arched entrance to the rose garden, thick with the blush pink blooms of a Chinese trailing rose, she paused and fanned herself with a gloved hand. "I am sorry to be late. Eustace dropped by with this cunning little floral offering." She gestured to a pretty cluster of red rosebuds pinned to her bonnet. "Aren't they sweet? And I had to thank him properly, didn't I, before I could dash away."

"Red roses." Marianne was seated on another bench, across from Beatrice. "A sign of love?"

Penelope went to sit beside her and made a great show of arranging her skirts. At last, she looked up with an uncharacteristically demure expression. "Yes, as a matter of fact, Eustace has declared his love for me."

Marianne flung an arm around Penelope's shoulder and squeezed. "Oh, Penelope, how marvelous! I knew that man was besotted. And I think you must be in love with him, too. You haven't shown the least interest in any other gentleman since Eustace Tolliver came into your life."

Penelope smiled. "Yes, I will admit that I love the sentimental fool."

"Are you going to put the poor fellow out of his misery," Beatrice said, "and marry him?"

Penelope shrugged. "I haven't decided. I have been enjoying life as a Merry Widow. I don't know if I'm ready to give up my independence again."

"You will find that you can be just as merry as a wife," Beatrice said, grinning, "as I am sure Marianne will agree."

"Even more so," Marianne said, a wistful look in her eye.

"I hope you will agree to marry him," Grace said. "He looks at you with such longing that I fear you will break his heart if you do not."

"We shall see," Penelope said. "It is rather delicious to have a man so infatuated with me. I do not wish to give in to him too soon. I'd much rather enjoy being wooed for a bit longer."

"Don't be too long about it," Wilhelmina said, bending over a bush of white roses. "He might get tired of waiting. And speaking of Merry Widows" — she straightened and turned to face the group — "I believe Grace has something to tell us."

"Oh my goodness," Penelope said, leaning forward and cocking her head to one side as she studied Grace. "You have that glow about you. Doesn't she, ladies? Just look at her. Grace Marlowe, you sly cat, you have done it, haven't you?"

Grace laughed, then remembered what Rochdale had told her about her laughter, and her cheeks flamed. "Yes, I have. I am now, really and truly, a Merry Widow. Rochdale and I have become lovers."

"How wonderful!"

"I can't believe it!"

"My, oh my."

"With Rochdale?"

"I am so pleased for you, Grace."

"You really are glowing."

"Are you as happy as you look?"

"Are you in love with him?"

"He is said to be one of the best lovers in London."

"Tell us everything."

Swearing them all to secrecy, she told them about Newmarket and Rochdale. Grace owed them the truth, since that had been part of their Merry Widows pact. She was not, however, as comfortable as Penelope or Beatrice in relating the intimate details of their lovemaking, but she did want these women, her dearest friends, to know how she had been changed by it.

"You were right, of course," she said, "all of you, about the importance of physical pleasure in one's life. I just hadn't known what I was missing."

"The old bishop never made your eyes shine like they do now, did he?" Penelope asked.

"No, I am afraid he never did. I do not believe he thought of marital relations as pleasure, but more as coarse urges that men had to give in to from time to time. I am sorry he felt that way, but that's who he was and he could not have changed. I think, now, that I was not the right wife for him. I had those urges from the start, you see, but he would not let me express them. I feel so much more alive and complete now that I have given in to them. I am not the woman he thought I was, a prim paragon of virtue. And I no longer wish to tie myself to his memory as the Bishops' Widow. I need to make my own way in life, as Grace Newbury Marlowe."

"Thank heaven you have finally come to that understanding," Marianne said, reaching out and taking Grace's hand. "It is a life-changing epiphany, is it not? I went through the same thing with David's memory, so tenaciously bound to my identity as his wife and his widow that I couldn't imagine giving that up. I almost lost Adam over it. I am so pleased that you have decided to get beyond the bishop's memory."

"Toward that end," Grace said, "I have decided not to continue with the work I have done in editing his sermons. I am not the right person for the job. Not only is my heart no longer in the work, but I find I can't accept some of the things he wrote, especially about the role of women and their inherent weaknesses."

She now understood that her husband had seen women as either black or white, madonnas or whores. Grace knew in her heart that she was neither of those, and never had been. And neither were any of these women who offered her so much love and support. She could not, therefore, in good conscience put her name on a book of sermons she no longer believed in.

"I applaud you, my girl," Wilhelmina said. "I had not wanted to disparage your late husband, but I never did like the idea of you burying yourself in his hidebound attitudes by editing those sermons. Put them in a drawer and move on to something more interesting."

"Actually," Grace said, "I have decided to bundle them up and take them to Margaret. She has always disapproved of my editing them. I shall turn the project over to her."

"An excellent idea," Beatrice said. "I have always thought she was even more tied to the bishop's memory than you were. More the Bishop's Daughter than the wife of Sir Leonard Bumfries."

"Surely the most henpecked husband in all of London," Penelope added.

"I believe it is only fitting," Wilhelmina said, "that Lady Bumfries edit her father's sermons. It is wise of you, Grace, to allow her to do it. Perhaps it will keep her too busy to be vexed about you and Rochdale."

Grace hoped Margaret would never learn of the extent of her relationship with Rochdale. The Merry Widows would never betray her secret. And though Rochdale hadn't specifically promised he would not tell anyone, she did not believe he would spread tales about her. She had discovered a core of honor in him that she trusted would oblige him to protect her.

Later that afternoon, when she accompanied boxes of the bishop's papers brought to Margaret and Sir Leonard's house on Henrietta Street, her stepdaughter's manner dripped with icy disdain. Margaret said only that she was glad Grace had dropped the project, then ushered her into the morning room on the ground floor while the boxes were carried upstairs to the library.

Margaret did not sit or give any indication that Grace was welcome to stay. Instead, she stood before the fireplace, stiff as a poker, hands clasped tightly at her waist.

"If you had not brought the bishop's papers," she said in a voice that bristled like a cat's fur, "I should have come to collect them. After the spectacle you have made of yourself with that ... that scoundrel, you are no longer fit even to handle them, much less edit them."

A tremor of anxiety danced down Grace's spine. Margaret could not possibly know about Newmarket. At least Grace prayed she did not. "I have told you, Margaret, that Lord Rochdale is a major patron, the most significant patron, of Marlowe House and the Benevolent Widows Fund. I have not —"

"I shudder to think what you have given him in return."

"Margaret! What a hateful thing to say."

"I am only grateful that you have turned over Father's papers voluntarily and not forced me into public battle with you over them. Because there is no way in heaven I would have allowed your name to sully the work of such a great and pious man. Not after what I have heard."

Grace had to wonder again if Margaret knew about Newmarket. But she simply couldn’t believe it. Her own household staff did not know where she'd been. It was unlikely she had been recognized there. The veils had been effective masks, and the only people to see her without a veil were the dressmaker and milliner, who believed her to be "Marie."

Grace was greatly tempted to simply turn and walk away, tired of Margaret's self-righteousness. But curiosity compelled her to discover what Margaret knew, or thought she knew. "I have no idea what you are talking about that could be so shocking. Unless you believe sharing Lord Rochdale's box at the opera somehow puts me beyond the pale."

Margaret uttered a contemptuous huff. "To be seen on that man's arm in public is bad enough. I cannot believe you have so little concern for your name and position. But when you become the object of a wager between two lecherous scoundrels, it is simply too much."

A wager? Dear God, had she become fodder for the betting books at White's and other gentlemen's clubs? How mortifying. Heat rose in her cheeks at the very idea. It was common knowledge that wagers were often logged in the betting books regarding the outcome of various courtships:
Mr. Smith will marry Miss Jones before Michaelmas
, or
Miss Jones will reject a proposal of marriage from Mr. Smith
. Surely they were not wagering that Rochdale would marry her. From what she had learned about odds, such a wager would be far too risky.

"I know of no wager," she said, "but I cannot be held responsible for the thoughtless cruelty of certain gentlemen, no doubt in their cups, who make game of respectable women in the betting books by wagering on the outcome of courtships and weddings."

"From what I hear, it had nothing to do with a respectable courtship. On the contrary, it was something much more ... unsavory."

The merest flush of alarm prickled Grace's skin. "Either tell me your gossip or don't. I have no patience for your innuendos."

Margaret's face pinched up into an angry scowl. "I do
not
gossip. You cannot imagine I would take pleasure in spreading tales about my father's wife. But I cannot help it if I happen to hear things. And what I heard shocked me to the core."

Grace glared at her, not willing to give her the satisfaction of asking what she'd heard. She knew Margaret would tell her anyway. It was what she was dying to do.

"Mrs. Randall heard it from Lady Handley who heard it from her husband who heard it from Sir Giles Clitheroe who was there when the wager was made. Apparently Lord Sheane bet Lord Rochdale that he could not seduce a certain woman. Speculation is that the woman is you."

The words stung her like the barbs they were meant to be. There was a moment of almost physical pain, a sharp twitch across her chest and throat, and then a flush down her arms and legs that felt like a fever.

"Given the amount of time Lord Rochdale has been spending with you," Margaret continued, "the speculation seems quite logical, don't you think? And that large donation to your charity ... it is rather suspicious, you have to agree." A glint of triumph shone in her eyes.