In the Flesh (29 page)

She knew there was another reason, too. He’d thought she had money, and when he’d discovered she was impoverished, she wasn’t much use to him. In fact she’d presented a hindrance if he were to pursue young women more advantageously placed.

“But the plates were stolen,” Eustace protested, although with little assertion. “That wasn’t my fault…and I was prepared to overlook the disgrace. It was just Mother who couldn’t set it aside, and she’s so delicate that a scandal would make her ill.”

Mrs. Lloyd had the constitution of an ox, and many of that beast’s physical characteristics, but Beatrice held her tongue on the matter. The situation was unpleasant enough as it was, without her worsening it with childish insults.

She tossed down a mouthful of brandy, barely tasting it this time. “So why then has she all of a sudden decided that I’m acceptable?”

“She wants me to be happy and she accepts my fondness for you.” Eustace seemed calm but he poured himself more brandy.

Your mother doesn’t want anybody to be happy, Eustace. Least of all you.

In a flash of insight, Beatrice realized that his mother’s unloving nature probably had a lot to do with Eustace’s behavior and the course of his actions. A pang of sympathy for him twined with her crossness. It wasn’t his fault his family were so horrible. She decided that conciliation was a better course than furious hostility.

“Dear Eustace, I am flattered by your…um…proposal. But we really aren’t suited. I sincerely feel that. And I’m certain that you’ll soon find someone with whom you’ll be far happier.” It sounded weak, but even if the business with the photographs had never occurred, she couldn’t accept this pale shadow of a man when she’d already basked in the sun. She opened her mouth, attempting to frame some tactful mention of another “friend,” when Eustace set his glass down with a clatter.

“That bastard Ritchie will never marry you, if that’s what you’re thinking! You won’t get anything more than a bit of cash, a few trinkets and the occasional seeing-to from him, you silly girl.”

Beatrice spun away from him, unable to bear the ugliness in his eyes. To think she’d once been fond of this man.

But it was his words that had rocked her. Despite the fact that she was now going to refute it utterly, every fiber of her being longed to be Ritchie’s. To be his wife, so they could spend the rest of their days together. She’d tried to deny the fact to herself, but now Eustace had compelled her to accept it. For which she found her anger blowing a storm with him.

“Mr. Ritchie is a friend and he’s been very kind to both me and Charlie. He’s helped us out of our temporary financial difficulties.”

“Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie is a whoremonger and a despicable vindictive cur.” Eustace’s lip curled nastily. “He might be taking his revenge on me now on your behalf, Bea. But that’s only because it amuses him. Mark my words, when he gets fed up of fucking you and he’s ready to move on, he’ll toss you aside like the lowest trollop in Whitechapel!”

Beatrice almost teetered on her heels, but managed to hide it. What had Ritchie been doing? How had he harmed Eustace? As she’d deduced, her lover obviously did know that Eustace was behind the photographs and, inevitably, he’d taken action somehow to “avenge” her.

“Don’t be absurd. Ritchie is friend. I can’t imagine why you think he’s harmed you in any way. He isn’t that kind of man.”

But that was a lie.

She’d seen the murderous look in Ritchie’s eyes when that man had looked at her salaciously outside Belanger’s. Her lover was fiery and territorial, and even if it were only a temporary arrangement, she was his possession, or as good as.

“You’ve no idea what kind of man he is, Bea dearest. He’s maneuvered me out of a dozen lucrative deals in the markets in this last week alone. Caused doors to be closed to me at certain clubs. Even rooked me out of a racehorse I had my eye on.”

Beatrice’s anger surged. And not solely in Eustace’s direction. What was Ritchie thinking of? Eustace was a pathetic creature, she saw that now. And just because he believed he was some kind of lord of the London society jungle, Ritchie still had no business crushing lesser beasts under his heel. Especially not on her behalf. If he had done what Eustace claimed, she’d have serious words with him next time she saw him. But for now, she had to deal with the lesser beast.

“Ritchie is a shrewd businessman. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that he’s pipped you to the post on certain deals. I can’t imagine in a million years that he’d try and do you down simply on account of…of his friendship with me. That’s just absurd.”

“Friendship? Don’t make me laugh…the man’s out to ruin me purely because I happened to see his mistress naked before he ever did. The man’s a blackguard.”

“No, he isn’t! He’s tender and considerate! And generous…”

And he was. Generous in goods and gifts, but more generous in spirit and emotion. Despite the fact he’d bought her, Ritchie had treated her like a queen, and barely asked for anything in return for his great bounty; certainly nothing that she wouldn’t have given to him gladly.

“Ha! So generous and tender and considerate that he’s got a wife he claims is insane locked up in a lunatic asylum, just because he grew tired of her!”

Eustace’s face twisted in an ugly sneer, but Beatrice barely saw it. Dark splashes formed before her eyes, and she felt she might swoon, but for a supreme effort of control she managed to exert.

“Yes,” her taunter went on, “that’s why he’ll never marry you, you silly bitch, even if he ever wanted to. He can’t marry any woman because he’s got a wife already!”

* * *

AFTERWARD,
Beatrice could not have told anyone precisely how she concluded her interview with Eustace. But she must have managed it somehow, and completely without succumbing to a fit of the vapors. She found herself still upright when he’d gone, and no Polly or other servant hovering over her, trying to revive her.

She just felt cold. And a little numb. But also angry.

It wasn’t even a surprise to her, when she thought about it, to discover Ritchie was married. Some of Eustace’s tale was no doubt perfectly true, but she hoped in her heart that a larger portion of it was exaggerated.

Ritchie just wasn’t the kind of man to lock up a sane woman simply because she bored him. But then again, he was ruthless in the pursuit of what he wanted. The tales told at the Ladies’ Sewing Circle were only the tip of a vast iceberg of his single-mindedness and determination, and the way he’d snared her certainly bore witness to it. As did his apparent pursuit of retribution on her behalf.

Eustace was quite unprincipled, and she’d wished ill fortune on him herself on plenty of occasions, but she knew that if it came to it, she wouldn’t truly want anything terrible to befall him. Wanting his downfall wasn’t a Christian attitude and despite admitting she was a sinner in any number of ways—especially lately—she still tried to cling on to a belief in charity.

Oh Ritchie, why do you have to be so extreme in every possible way?

Extreme in passion. Extreme in revenge on her behalf. Extreme in the way he’d bewitched her and compelled her to love him.

It was a measure of how besotted she’d become with him that her reaction to Eustace’s visit had been so…so much
less
than extreme. She’d barely seen the man, except from a considerable distance at a public exhibition, since the afternoon of the photographs. She should
really
have been more flustered on seeing him again, or perhaps flown at him and attempted to box his ears. But in truth his presence barely seemed to have touched her.

It was Ritchie, with his evasions and omissions, his outrageous acts and, yes perhaps, even his matrimonial heartache that consumed her every thought. She had to have everything out with him. Bring into the open all the things he was concealing from her, and those that she was concealing from him.

Only then was there a chance they could satisfactorily continue their liaison.

And continue it to the very last moment of the very last hour of the very last day…because she couldn’t deny herself even a second of the time she had left with the man she loved.

* * *

BACK AT HIS LONDON ROOMS
, Eustace Lloyd hurled a glass against the wall. The brandy he’d had in South Mulberry Street had barely affected him, and now, rejected and furious, he needed more.

“Bitch,” he growled, ignoring the splinters and the stain on the wallpaper and snatching up another tumbler which he filled, almost to the brim.

How could she still care for Ritchie, knowing what she now knew?

Eustace tossed more brandy down his throat, barely tasting it. Instead of thanking him and then warming to his overtures, Beatrice had rejected him. He’d seen the shock in her eyes, and a flare of anger, but instead of directing it at Ritchie, she’d turned it on the man she should be showering with gratitude.

It was intolerable. His innards burned in a way that had nothing to do with alcohol.

He hadn’t bargained for the effect Beatrice had wielded over him, facing her in the flesh again after a little time apart.

She was more beautiful than ever. Glowing. Ripe. More erotic even in her expensive but sober gown than she’d been lying naked on a chaise longue while he’d photographed her.

Fucking. That was what had changed her. Transformed her from a beautiful but naive and trusting young woman into a goddess. Confident and sensual, she was radiant with experience and a knowledge of passion. And the fact that his own shortsightedness had denied him the pleasure of her seared him like vitriol.

Damn you, Beatrice. Damn you.

He had to have her now, more than ever, but if he couldn’t he’d spoil her pleasure with her lover and split the two of them.

It was time to put his plan into action. Time to remind Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie of his responsibilities…and introduce the lawfully wedded Mrs. Ritchie to her husband’s whore.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The Lion in his Den

EVEN THOUGH IT
had been difficult until now to winkle information about Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie out of his faithful man, Jamie Brownlow, Beatrice supposed her ferocity had finally done the trick.

She’d marched into the study he was using, and found the man in question and her brother poring over the document-covered desk. Carefully setting aside the fact that the two of them were unsuitably close to each other, and that Jamie’s hand on Charlie’s shoulder looked suspiciously affectionate, Beatrice had demanded to know Ritchie’s whereabouts and an approximate time of return.

“I believe Mr. Ritchie will be home this afternoon, Miss Beatrice. He usually sends a telegram if his plans are likely to change, but as yet, I haven’t received one, so I assume all has proceeded as he anticipated.”

“Excellent, then I’ll visit him this afternoon. Could you oblige me with his address?”

The handsome Jamie looked troubled, then surprisingly, seemed to glance to Charlie for an opinion. Charlie shrugged and gave a little grin. “Better tell her, old chap. She’ll find out anyway, if she wants to. Bea has a way of wheedling out whatever information she requires.”

“Thank you, Charlie. So, Mr. Brownlow, where does your employer actually live? Despite the fact that he and I are intimate, he hasn’t actually told me.”

Charlie looked a bit pink, and Jamie looked even more uncomfortable, but after a moment’s hesitation, he yielded up an address.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake! The impossible weasel! He only lives a couple of streets away!”

Beatrice simmered, and was still simmering at two o’clock when she set out from South Mulberry Street in her walking jacket, and with her hat set at a determined angle. For more than a fortnight she’d been trysting with Ritchie at Belanger’s and other neutral locations, while the wretched man only lived around the corner.

So much he was keeping from her. So many secrets.

Of course, she reminded herself for the hundredth time that he
owed
her no revelations. She was his mistress, and a temporary one at that. She had no rights over him, and could entertain no expectations beyond their arrangement.

And yet part of her knew deep inside that it was more than that.

Are you keeping me at a distance because
you
want more, too? Because you care more than you should? Because your heart is engaged, just as mine is, and this liaison has become more than simply a confluence of our libidos and my debts?

She strode out on the pavement, a woman alone, so far beyond respectable convention now that she didn’t think twice about walking out unaccompanied. Jamie Brownlow had suggested he escort her to Ritchie’s house, but she’d squashed his offer in no uncertain terms.

Charlie had been beetroot-red in the face when his sister had refused accompaniment and announced that she would probably end up either boxing Ritchie’s ears or requesting him to fuck her until she couldn’t see straight.

Because yes, despite it all, her body still yearned for him.

On reaching 17 Prudholme Place, Beatrice rapped impatiently with the knocker, not giving herself a chance for second thoughts. She was going to beard the blond lion in his den whether he wanted her to or not. Waiting patiently at home and cooling her heels like a good mistress was not for her anymore. She had to make her voice heard.

After just a few moments’ wait, the door was opened by a smartly dressed middle-aged parlor maid. It seemed strange that Ritchie had a household and a life she knew nothing of, but she supposed his other paramours had never been interested in such minutiae the way she was.

“I should like to see Mr. Ritchie, if you don’t mind? I’m a friend of his. Miss Beatrice Weatherly.”

The maid, obviously used to protecting her employer’s privacy, seemed hesitant. Was Ritchie, the married Lothario with a locked-up wife, often hounded by other women after all?

“I’ll see if he’s receiving visitors. May I take your card?”

Beatrice considered simply pushing her way in regardless, but years of drilled-in politeness stifled that urge. Fishing a card from her bag, she handed it to the protective servant, and then was surprised to be ushered inside into a small reception room and invited to wait.

The room was quiet and pleasant, not cluttered with a thousand things as many such rooms were, including those in her own home. There were few ornaments, only one or two unobtrusive pictures on the wall, and absolutely no photographs to be seen anywhere, on any surface.

Well, he certainly wouldn’t want pictures of his wife, would he, if he’d shut her away somewhere to
avoid
seeing her?

But Beatrice didn’t believe Ritchie was as callous as that, not for a minute. Bitter Eustace had every reason to exaggerate and to malign his enemy, and he’d also wanted to hurt her for rejecting him.

The moments ticked by, marked by a small lacquered clock with a decorated enamel face. It was the fanciest thing in the room, and very pretty, but Beatrice wasn’t in the mood to appreciate its attractions. She just wanted the time it marked to pass, and Ritchie to appear, and she couldn’t sit down in one of the comfortable but elegant chairs until he did so.

Where are you, you wretch?
she thought, pacing.

As if motivated by the power of her will, the door swung open with some force.

“Good afternoon, Bea. You’ve anticipated me. I was about to call on you when I’d finished my toilette, but alas now you’ve caught me in my dressing gown.”

He’d only been away a couple of days, but Beatrice’s eyes feasted on her lover as if they’d been apart for years. Despite everything, it amused her that she’d caught him in his dressing gown, just as he’d ambushed her in hers what seemed like a lifetime ago, when they’d first forged their arrangement.

Clad in his rich blue robe of paisley silk velvet, Ritchie was the very picture of freshly bathed male pulchritude, his jaw just shaved, his hair wet and curling, his eyes bright with unfeigned pleasure at the sight of her.

“You’ve caught me in less,” she answered quickly, her heart skittering, her fingertips tingling inside her glove with the need to touch him. He seemed more desirable to her every time they encountered each other, and no amount of deception and dark history could alter that.

Ritchie gave her a long look, pursing his lips. She could see him ticking off every sign she was exhibiting. Then he tugged the sash of his robe tighter, as if he were arming himself.

“If I’m not mistaken this isn’t a call to welcome me home from my travels with passionate lovemaking, is it?”

“No, I came in search of conversation, not carnality, Ritchie.” She felt herself twisting at the strap of her little bag and forcibly stopped herself. Fidgeting was revealing. “My status as a mistress, bought and paid for, decrees that I should refrain from asking questions and probing the secrets of your life, I accept that. But I’m afraid my nature is to seek enlightenment and knowledge…in order to give me strength.” His blue eyes flickered as she spoke. “Especially since the last time I was too trusting…well…I suffered the consequences.”

Ritchie drew in a deep breath. “Your reasoning is sound, Beatrice, and I understand it. Believe me, I know full well the perils of trusting that all will be well.”

Who had Ritchie trusted? Even with the clamor of her own questions and doubts, Beatrice heard the note of sorrow and bitterness in his voice. It must be his wife, his supposedly mad wife in whom he’d mistakenly put his trust.

“I don’t know where to begin,” she blurted out, at a loss in the face of how much she wanted and needed to know.

“Well, why not sit down, for a start.” Ritchie gestured to a leather-upholstered settee, hesitated, then took a seat himself, holding out his hand to draw her down beside him. “Please?”

Beatrice sat, keeping her distance from him, fiddling with first her bag, then her gloves, making a meal of taking them off.

“Ask anything you want, Bea. Anything.” She thought he was going to lean back, lounge against the upholstery, a challenge to her curiosity, but he didn’t. Instead he leaned forward, took her gloves from her, dropped them on the seat, then folded his hands around hers.

Yes, make it more difficult for me, you devil!
His touch tingled like a galvanic current, radiating out from the contact to every part of her body.

“Are you married, Ritchie? I know it’s not my business, really, because I’m only your…your
courtesan
or whatever we choose to call it on any given day, but I’ve decided I would like to know.”

There, it was out. Perhaps the hardest question.

“Yes, I’m married, Bea. I’ve been married twice. My first wife died—” so much depth of sorrow in the quietly spoken little words “—but my second wife is very much alive.”

“But she doesn’t live with you?”

Ritchie let out a sigh, not of exasperation but of a resigned acceptance.

“No, Margarita doesn’t live with me. We haven’t lived as man and wife for years. She’s not in her right mind. She’s been diagnosed as insane and resides in a private nursing home, in Wimbledon, where she can have as safe and comfortable a life as possible and be well cared for…and not hurt herself or anybody else.”

Ritchie paused, almost as if his mouth and jaw were locked by tension. Observing him, Beatrice recalled again his naked back and shoulders, and the scars. The wounds from cutting and from fire.

Margarita’s doing? It seemed the obvious explanation.

About to pursue the point, she hesitated. Ritchie looked as if a barrier had come down behind his eyes, to keep him from pain or memory. Or both. When she opened her mouth to quiz him, he broke in, his voice harder than before.

“What prompted the sudden desire to question, Beatrice? I expected gentle enquiries long ago—it’s a woman’s nature to want to know such things.”

Beatrice gritted her teeth, torn by conflicting emotions.

Sympathy. Aggravation. Curiosity. She wished she’d never come here, and yet she knew it would have been impossible not to.

She shook her hand free of him. Those hands of his made it difficult to think straight. “As I said, I didn’t think it was my place…but then someone paid me a visit and apprised me of certain home truths.”

“Eustace Lloyd.”

If a glacier of cold disdain could be two solitary words, these were they. Ritchie’s voice was flat and dismissive.

“Yes, the very man you’ve apparently ruined on my behalf, it seems.” Beatrice snatched up one of her gloves and began to mangle it again, not sure what she would have done if her hands were free. “Although if you’d stopped to consult me on the matter, you’d realize that wasn’t what I wanted at all.”

Ritchie took the glove out of her hands again, and tossed it and the other and her bag all aside. Removing ammunition? “Lloyd exaggerates. I merely saw to it that he was excluded from two or three choice business arrangements in the last couple of weeks. And that his memberships at two of my clubs—where he’s been repeatedly caught cheating at cards, I might add—have been rescinded.” He stared at her, his blue eyes steady, challenging her to protest. “That’s hardly ruin, Bea, and he’s a resourceful man. Perhaps he’ll find some other trusting young woman to pose nude for his camera, and recoup his fortunes in the pornography market?”

Anger bubbled like hot acid in Beatrice’s chest, all the more coruscating because she didn’t quite know where it was directed. At Ritchie? At Eustace? At Polly, or Charlie, or Jamie, or whomsoever had finally confirmed to Ritchie that Eustace had photographed her? Perhaps it was self-directed even, and that most of all? Bereft of her gloves to wrench at, her hands clenched into fists, and before she knew it she was pummeling Ritchie’s chest, thumping the front of his blue robe and the solid muscle beneath.

“Yes, very well, I
was
trusting. I admit that! And he put a little laudanum in my champagne to loosen my sensibilities,” she cried as he grabbed her wrists in a firm but not unkind grip. “But I
wanted
to do it, too. Do you know that? I wanted to do something daring and forbidden. I’m not a paragon of genteel womanhood, Ritchie, and I never was, really. Why on earth do you think I found it so easy to contemplate fucking you for money?”

Ritchie’s hands tightened. “He drugged you?” The face she thought so beautiful hardened. Ritchie suddenly looked older, and furious. Murderously furious. “I’ll kill him. Never mind ruin him, I’ll kill the bastard!”

“Don’t be absurd! He didn’t hurt me.” Ritchie’s fury was mighty to behold and a little frightening, but inside Beatrice felt a deep atavistic thrill. What was wrong with her? She should be horrified by his threats of murder on her behalf, and yet she exulted. For her, a warrior would fight…

And there were practicalities. Before Ritchie could protest, she went on. “But, Ritchie…if he’d never taken those photographs, we would never have met. You wouldn’t even have known I existed.”

Ritchie looked away for a moment, his hands still holding her. “We’d have found each other. I know that. One day I’d have looked across the room at a ball or a reception, and I’d have wanted you immediately.”

“And then where would we have been, might I ask? I might have been married, and then you’d never have had me.” The irony made her laugh. “I might be a notorious trollop now, but if I’d married, I would never have countenanced betraying my husband.”