Not Quite a Lady (33 page)

“I pretend it was a bad dream,” he said.

“It’s going to be good from now on,” she said.

“I know,” he said. He settled back on the pillows. “Maybe you should pretend those other things—the ones that make you cry—pretend that’s all part of a bad dream.”

She smiled and stroked his cheek. “You’re right,” she said. “I’ll do that.”

“Maybe you could kiss me good night again, too.” He grinned. “I like that very well.”

She laughed and kissed her son good night.

Darius went himself to his family, to request their attendance at his wedding. As one might expect, they were all at Hargate Hall in Derbyshire—all but Rupert and his wife, who were still in Egypt, along with Benedict’s nephew Peregrine.

What Darius didn’t expect was to find his grandmother there, too. She rarely left London. Her friends the Harpies lived there year-round, and even in summer London was more entertaining. The country, she said, bored her witless.

Yet this summer she’d come with her offspring to Hargate Hall.

She wasn’t in the drawing room when Darius announced his betrothal. His parents and assorted family members were there, though. They bore the news of his coming nuptials with straight faces for the most part. He went on to explain how and why he was going to begin wedded life with a ten-year-old son.

They bore this stoically, too. None of the ladies present fainted. None of the brothers present commented. They all looked to Lord Hargate for his reaction.

He said, “Darius, I shall expect you in my study in a quarter hour.”

A quarter hour later, Darius stood in the study, an almost exact replica of the Inquisition Chamber at Hargate House in London.

The meeting began, as one would expect, in the usual infuriating way.

“Couldn’t make a go of the property, I see,” said his father.

“My year isn’t up,” Darius said, drawing on all his willpower to remain unruffled—outwardly at least.

“But it hardly matters now, does it?” said his sire. “The prize was not having to marry. Since you are now engaged to be married, what is the point?”

“The point is, I can revive Beechwood, and I shall,” Darius said. “Now, thanks to my wife’s immense dowry, I shall have the wherewithal to do it quickly and efficiently. I am confident of recovering the investment and more within the time we set. It
can
be done, Father, and I shall do it.”

“I don’t doubt you will,” said his father.

Darius blinked. Twice.

“Lady Charlotte is a good girl,” his father said. “A good girl and a brave one. I am glad you had the wisdom to see this. I am proud of you.”

Darius did not faint.

He did open and close his mouth several times, to no audible effect.

“You’d better see your grandmother now,” said Lord Hargate. He waved his hand, dismissing his bewildered son.

Darius went up to his grandmother’s apartments with about the same level of happy anticipation King Louis XVI must have felt as he climbed the steps of the guillotine scaffold.

He found her as one usually found her, in her boudoir. This room, like its counterpart in London, was decorated in the style of her youth, reputedly, though he’d always thought it resembled a brothel.

Her person, too, was adorned in the style fashionable many years ago. She sat among her numerous pillows, dripping lace and jewels.

He placed a dutiful kiss on her wrinkled cheek and gave her the fan.

“What is this, a bribe?” she said, wasting no more breath than he would on preliminaries. “You want me to lend countenance to your soiled dove, is that it?”

Though she hadn’t been present for the announcement, Darius wasn’t surprised she’d heard the news so quickly. It was more than possible she’d known all along about Charlotte’s secret since Grandmama knew everything about everybody.

He wasn’t at all surprised, merely irritated.

“It is a bribe, but she is not a soiled dove,” said Darius. “I cannot believe you of all people would use that hackneyed phrase. And talk of the pot calling the kettle black. I’ve lost count of your lovers.”

“I waited until I was a widow,” she said.

“What nonsense,” he said. “You did it after you’d been married, and Charlotte did it before. There isn’t a bit of difference, and you know it. Come, Grandmama, you must appear at my wedding.”

“Ah, well,” she said. “If my grandson says I must, I must. What say has a feeble old lady in such matters?”

Darius rolled his eyes.

She examined the fan. “This is one of Lady Margaret’s fans, I see. No one ever could match her for taste. She was exquisite, poor thing. I, too, was married young to a man twenty years my senior. But Hargate knew how to make a woman happy. Mind you do that, sir. Make your lady happy—or she’ll make you live to regret it.” She waved the fan at him, much in the way his father had waved his dismissal. “Go away now. I have letters to write, and I must decide what to wear to the wedding.”

On the nineteenth of July, at ten o’clock in the forenoon, Lady Charlotte Hayward and Darius Carsington were married by common license in the church at Lithby before an unusually large crowd of witnesses.

Mr. Badgely performed the ceremony. Mrs. Badgely was in attendance as well, after a hard battle with her moral principles.

She did not condone the practice of bearing children out of wedlock, naturally, and she was not at all sure that allowances ought to be made, even for one’s cousins.

The trouble was, she did not get to London often, especially now that her daughters were all wed and she had no good excuse and ought to have more important things to do than indulge in extravagant frivolity. Starved for fashion, she was desperate to study the latest modes the London ladies would wear, and she wanted to be able to drop the names of all the attendees. And so, in the end, like everybody else, she set her scruples aside in favor of enjoying a party that would be talked about for months afterward.

The festivities had been planned weeks earlier as part of the house party events. The Lithbys had only to make room for more guests.

Among other members of the Carsington family in attendance was the Dowager Lady Hargate’s great-granddaughter, Olivia Wingate-Carsington, age thirteen.

Following the solemnities, Pip took Olivia to meet the pig. He fell into the sty. She fished him out. They returned to Lithby Hall covered in muck and reeking. They received a sharp scolding from their great-grandmother, followed by baths and a change of clothes. After this, they adjourned to the schoolroom, where Olivia taught Pip card tricks and the thimble rig until her mother, Lady Rathbourne, came in and put a stop to it.

“But Mama, how can Pip know he’s being gulled unless he understands the cheat?” said Olivia, all wide-eyed innocence.

“You’ll be teaching him how to pawn his mother’s jewelry next,” said Lady Rathbourne. “You will desist at once, Olivia, or you will not be allowed to watch the fireworks.”

Her new husband stood behind Charlotte, his arms wrapped about her, his chin resting on her head while they watched the fireworks from a quiet corner of the garden.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he said.

“I’m not thinking,” she said. “I’m simply…happy.”

“It is quite a spectacle,” he said. “The sort of thing one would expect for, say, a son’s coming of age or a king’s coronation.”

“Or the marriage—at last—of an only daughter.”

“Or the marriage—at last—of that last troublesome younger son.”

“Papa and Lizzie do love to entertain,” she said. “They are like children when it comes to parties.”

“I think they are most unchildlike,” Darius said. “I suspect a family conspiracy. No one was in the least surprised when I announced that we were going to be wed. I cannot help wondering what brought my grandmother to Derbyshire. She hates the country.”

“Last year, they all wanted me to marry Lord Rathbourne,” she said.

“Ridiculous,” he said. “Anyone with a grain of sense could see you’d never suit. You are not half–shocking enough for him. Lady Rathbourne is a descendant of the Dreadful DeLuceys. Compared to them, you are a model of purity and virtue.”

“In any event, your brother thought me a great bore,” she said. “And so I reckon Papa and Lizzie decided to make do with you. They were desperate, after all.” She laughed.

“Of course they were desperate,” he said. “You are practically in your dotage. You are nearly at the end of your prime reproductive years—if you are not already past them.” He drew her more tightly to him. “Perhaps we’d better get started on the reproduction business without further loss of time.”

“We already started,” she said.

“I mean, in a methodical manner,” he said.

“Now?” she said. “Here?” The thought was not without its appeal. What a strumpet she was!

“Not here,” he said. “And not now, furtively and hurriedly, as we’ve done before. This time, we shall do it in a proper bed, in a proper way.”

“Methodically,” she said.

“Don’t mock the methodical approach until you’ve tried it,” he said. “Let’s go home, Charlotte.”

My home,
she thought, as the bridegroom carried her over the threshold she’d crossed so many times before.

She’d even had a hand in making a home of Lady Margaret’s neglected house. Not that the work was finished. Far from it. A great deal remained to be done.

Still, while one might have to dodge scaffolding and ladders elsewhere, Lizzie had made sure the master bedroom was completed before the wedding.

The newlyweds could spend the night there without worrying about pieces of the ceiling falling on their heads, she assured them.

Tonight they had the luxury of complete privacy. The servants were all at the Lithby estate, along with most of the village. Pip was staying one last night with his grandparents, becoming acquainted with his new families. When last Charlotte saw him, Pip was with the Dowager Lady Hargate and his cousin Olivia, learning to play whist.

Within, Beechwood House was quiet but for their footsteps and the odd sounds old houses make. Outside, the noise of the fireworks had died away, leaving the insects and night birds to their summer concert.

Though only the candle Darius had carried up from the ground floor lit the room, Charlotte could see that Lizzie had performed her usual magic. The big room was simply but beautifully decorated, comfortable, and clean.

“This is a good house,” Charlotte said. “Lady Margaret was unhappy here, but the house was here long before she came, and I think it wants to be a happy house.” She turned to her husband. “You have made me so happy. Have I told you?”

“Yes, I believe you have,” he said. He unwrapped his neckcloth and threw it onto a chair. “I’m going to make you happier. Grandmother says I must, or there will be the devil to pay.”

Charlotte moved nearer to him. She brought her hand up to his cheek. He turned his head to kiss her palm.

Then he took her hand and led her to the bed. It was large and ornate, and probably dated to the time of the Stuarts. He lifted her up as though she weighed nothing at all and tossed her onto the middle of the mattress. She laughed.

“I’ve imagined doing that,” he said, “from the time you were explaining stoved feathers to me. In the library at Lithby Hall.”

“I had a feeling you weren’t really attending,” she said.

“I was.” He took off his coat. It was snug, deceptively simple, exquisitely tailored. She watched the play of his muscles under his formfitting attire as he worked his way out of the coat, lithe as a cat. His waistcoat came next.

She lay where he’d thrown her, her head resting on the pillows while she drank in the strong, beautiful torso his shirt so thinly veiled. They’d made love yet she’d never seen him—well, not more than the crucial part of him. This was a true wedding night, she thought, a night to discover each other.

How lucky she was! Everyone made mistakes, sometimes terrible ones. Not everyone got a second chance.

He knelt on the bed and crawled toward her. He straddled her. “I hung on your every word that night,” he said, “all the while wishing I was hanging on your lips.” He bent and his mouth hovered over hers, a mere breath away. “Like a bee drawn to a flower.” He kissed her lightly, as though her lips were the most delicate of flower petals.

“I remember,” she said. “You stood improperly close.”

“I almost kissed you.” He brushed his lips over hers.

“I almost kissed you back,” she said, doing the same to him.

He kissed her deeply, so tenderly. She answered in the same way, giving with all her heart all the love he’d reawakened in her. She gave and felt it returned to her, in the taste of him and the sweetness of the kiss. She felt it in a surge of warmth and happiness and a strange peace she hadn’t known since her girlhood, along with a girlish excitement she thought she’d outgrown.

“I want to see you,” he said. “All of you.”

“Yes,” she said. “I want to see you, too.”

He lifted his head, smiling. “Where to begin unwrapping this wondrous gift?”

“Wherever you like,” she said. “I place myself entirely in your hands.” She looked at his hands, so large and deft. Those hands, oh, those hands.

He studied her for a long moment in that intent way of his. Then he bent and cupped her face and kissed her. He slid his hands down over her naked shoulders, making her shiver. He found the fastenings of her bodice and loosened it. He brushed his mouth over the skin he’d exposed. “Women’s clothes,” he murmured. “Complicated mechanisms.”

But he had no trouble ascertaining how her gown functioned. He easily located the drawstrings and hooks. Then, while she giggled, he drew the gown up, and she lifted herself enough so that he could pull it over her head. She saw amusement in his candlelit face as he threw the gown aside.

In a moment he was serious again, studying her underthings with the same absolute concentration he might apply to a chemical experiment. She watched him, aware of her blood taking fire merely at his looking at her. Then his hands moved over her, caressing her through layers of fine fabric, as though what touched her was dear to him, too. And she was dear to him, yes. She had no doubt of that. She saw it in his face and heard it in his low voice.