Potent Pleasures (43 page)

Postscript

August 1803

A
lex rode through the warm twilight with Lucien Boch and Will Holland, all three men silently enjoying being outdoors at the very moment when the sun began to wink under the edge of the heavy woods surrounding Lord Holland’s country estate. Their horses pranced, sensing that they were finally heading home after a long day.

“This is a lovely spot you have, Will.”

Will smiled and then checked his horse as they approached the gatehouse. “Excuse me a minute, won’t you? My gatekeeper’s wife has been ill and I’d like to inquire about her.” Will jumped off his horse and disappeared into the thatched cottage.

Lucien pulled his horse up and turned to face Alex. “You have never let me thank you properly,” he said, his voice lilting slightly with a French intonation.

“There’s nothing to thank me for,” Alex replied.

“Yes, there is,” Lucien insisted. “I know, of course, of the scandal that your wife had to suffer in our absence. Had I not asked you, you never would have left her, especially at such a delicate time. If only you had told me she was pregnant!”

“We didn’t know,” Alex said lightly. “Besides—it has resolved itself. Charlotte put up with a little gossip, but it’s all settled down now; no one would
dare
to suggest that Sarah was not my child.” She was his to every curve of her face and twitch of her baby eyebrows.

“Yes, but I am very regretful that—”

“Lucien. It was nothing.”

Will emerged from the gatehouse and swung back up on his mount, ending their conversation. Alex nudged his horse to a gallop, eager to return to the house. He had been gone for hours, looking over the grounds and being shown Will’s new mills. He missed the children … and Charlotte.

Lucien caught up with Alex again. “I understand it is your birthday,” he said slyly. “I believe there is a surprise in store for you.”

Alex shot him a sideways glance. “The devil you say.”

“So I believe.” Lucien gave him a secret smile.

But there was nothing surprising about the fact that Pippa dashed toward him across the velvet lawn before Will’s manse. Well, perhaps it was an exaggeration to say that Pippa dashed—she trotted toward him, shouting “Papa! Papa!” in a piping voice. Alex jumped off his horse and swung his daughter up on his shoulder where she whispered blackberry-flavored secrets in his ear about the kittens in the barn and the berries that grew in the kitchen gardens.

And there was nothing surprising about the fact that his wife’s eyes met his with such a stir of love and desire that Alex found himself barely under control, and right there in the drawing room had to stroll over and examine Chloe Holland’s china cabinet—as if he were a halfling again! His wife’s gurgle of laughter was nothing new either, even if it did make him long to toss her over his shoulder and head for the bedchamber.

Dinner passed without incident. Chloe presided over the meal with an engaging lack of formality—she had taken to her role as baroness with effortless ease. The party talked of the possibility of a Napoleonic invasion and of the unsavory death of Bishop Burnham (in the arms of a woman with a dubious reputation). No one mentioned Alex’s birthday at all. Alex almost felt piqued. But then … perhaps Charlotte was planning a special treat for him in their bedchamber. His wife, tied in a large bow. He rather liked the sound of that. The ladies rose and retired to the drawing room; Alex, Will, and Lucien settled in the library with tumblers of scotch.

The door to the library swung open to reveal Will’s butler. He was French and professed to speak little English.

“My lord,” said the butler. Alex looked up inquiringly. The butler held a white card in his gloved hand. He bowed magnificently and handed it to Alex.

Alex glanced over at Lucien and saw his secret smile break out again.

“My birthday?”

“Quite so,” his friend replied.

Alex broke the seal and read the note rapidly. Then he crooked an eyebrow at Lucien.

“I am instructed to proceed upstairs and dress appropriately.”

“Then by all means, Alex, do not let us keep you.” Will jumped up, a conspiratorial grin covering his face.

“Does everyone know what my wife is planning?” Looking at his two friends, their eyes lit with mischievous laughter, Alex knew the answer to his question. He ran quickly up the marble stairs, his mind racing to elaborate pictures of what “appropriate” dress might be. What would Charlotte be wearing, for example?

But the bedroom held no one but Keating—no dressed, or deliciously undressed, wife.

Keating had laid out formal dress on the bed. Alex’s protest died on his lips. Obviously this was a surprise that Charlotte had elaborately planned. It would be churlish of him to refuse to comply. Still, he knit his brow when Keating swirled his old green domino around his shoulders.

“Am I going to a masquerade? In this part of the country?”

“I couldn’t say, my lord. I am merely following the countess’s orders.” Keating didn’t mention that Charlotte had asked him to take Alex’s green domino out of the attic some two months ago, and that the birthday excursion had been in the planning stages somewhat longer than that.

Finally Keating ushered his perplexed master out of the bedroom. Will’s butler was waiting in the hall, a devilish French smile on his face, Alex thought rather crossly. The butler majestically led the way to a carriage outside.

Finally, Alex thought, quickening his pace. He climbed inside, brushing off the footman’s extended arm.

But the carriage was empty, and before he could register the fact, the door was flung shut behind him and the horses picked up.

“For Christ’s sake,” Alex said blankly, to himself.

They didn’t go far, driving perhaps twenty minutes. Alex helped himself to a basket placed on the backseat, clearly for his pleasure. But even a glass of excellent champagne didn’t soothe his feelings. Where was his wife? What was the delight of drinking champagne alone? His eyes grew dark as he imagined her sitting opposite him in the carriage. Then he smiled wolfishly. He’d have his revenge for this lonely birthday party! She’d have to be in the carriage on the way home, after all….

So by the time the carriage jolted to a close, Alex’s mood was restored. In fact, he was feeling quite cheerful, having finished near to the whole bottle of champagne.

He tossed open the carriage door and jumped out, only to find himself face-to-face with Keating. A quick glance showed him that they had stopped in the manicured driveway to a country house.

“Keating!”

“My lord,” his valet said quietly. He had apparently just climbed down from the driver’s seat; his cheeks and nose were bright red with cold.

“Good God, man, what are you doing here? And where are we?” Alex demanded.

Keating hesitated. In his hands he held a black piece of cloth.

“My lord, I must ask you to turn around,” he replied.

Alex glanced at the cloth and then at his embarrassed valet’s face. Charlotte was going a long way with this masquerade. He shrugged and turned around, allowing his valet to fit the black cloth snugly over his eyes.

Keating guided him back into the carriage and it jolted off, up the drive, unless Alex missed his bet. He was starting to sour on the whole business again. If his wife wanted him blindfolded—or tied up, for that matter—why didn’t she just do it herself? Why all this rigmarole involving the servants?

The carriage stopped and Keating put a hand under his elbow. Alex shrugged it off and stepped out of the carriage. Oddly enough, it sounded as if they had arrived at a party. He could hear the shrill laughter of women and the chords of a small orchestra.

“My lord,” Keating said softly. And this time Alex suffered him to take his elbow and steer him up some ten steps and into what seemed to be a crowded hall. The party-goers were intrigued by a blindfolded man, Alex heard that. But he also heard some very surprising accents. This wasn’t a party solely attended by the gentry.

Alex was about to wrench off the blindfold and demand an explanation when Keating stopped him, saying, “Beware, my lord. You are at the top of a flight of stairs.”

Then he felt the tie of the blindfold ease and the cloth fell away.

Alex stood at the top of a flight of marble stairs, looking down into a very crowded ballroom. He scanned the room in surprise. The ballroom was hot, and the heat was exacerbated by the aggressive smell of tallow dips and overheated dancers. Long forgotten memories stirred, telling Alex that he’d been in this room before.

On the dance floor ruffled skirts competed for space with soiled-looking Greek robes. A few women sported small masks, but lavish makeup seemed to be a more common disguise. Alex frowned. Where on earth was he? The French windows were hung with shabby maroon velvet….

Of course! This was Stuart Hall—and—and this must be the Cyprians’ Ball. The Saturday Cyprians’ Ball. It was a Saturday, Alex thought numbly.

His eyes rose, and stopped. There she was. Next to a statue of Narcissus was a slender woman dressed in a black domino, powdered hair piled high. With a sense of leaden inevitability Alex skirted the exuberant revelers on the steps and walked down into the ballroom. He walked through the crowds of dancing party-goers, his green domino brushing against the powdered shoulders and garish frills of the fashionable impure. But he didn’t look either to the left or the right. He didn’t want to break eye contact with his wife.

For her part, Charlotte felt as if she had been waiting her whole life for this moment. There was her beloved, beloved footman at the top of the stairs, in his green domino with his silver-shot hair. But he looked for
her
this time. And when Alex’s eyes met hers, a message of such tender passion passed between them that she shivered and had to hang on to Narcissus’s cool stone arm in order to catch her balance.

Then her shiver turned into a grin. Alex was striding through the ballroom as if the servants, merchants, and the rest didn’t exist. No one, watching his combination of unconscious arrogance and effortless grace, could reasonably think him a footman. Even in a cloak some five years old he was clothed in the nameless confidence of high blood matched by high intelligence. Finally, after an eternity, he stood before her.

Her hair was powdered. Her skin was so white that her hair
had
to be red. She was wearing a black domino, and sheltering herself in the shadow of a statue. She was herself … she was his garden girl … she was Charlotte.

Without missing a beat, Alex wrapped his wife in his green domino and kissed her so possessively, so lovingly, and so passionately that Charlotte’s knees gave way and she had to cling to him for balance. She slid her hands inside his formal black coat, hands drifting over the faintly rough texture of his fine lawn shirt, over the muscled expanse of his back.

Alex looked down at her from underneath his black eyelashes. “I should kill you for this trick,” he said, his voice hoarse with emotion. “Or I should kill myself for being such an utter, unmitigated idiot.”

Charlotte grinned up at him impudently, still leaning against his chest.

“Happy birthday, love.”

“Vixen,” Alex growled, bending his head again.

When a patron of the ever-popular Cyprians’ Ball swept through the throng of revelers holding a woman in his arms and headed up the stairs, hardly anyone in the assembly spared him a second glance. And the fact that the man in the green domino pulled his
amour
into his lap the minute they were settled in the carriage, without exchanging a word, would have been considered unsurprising as well. It wasn’t until much later that night—nearly morning, actually—that the Earl and Countess of Sheffield and Downes had the time and breath to discuss the earl’s birthday present.

“You see,” Alex said, pulling Charlotte’s head against his shoulder so that he could punctuate his words with kisses dropped into silky curls, “I put together the fact that you looked like Maria, but I didn’t want to think too much about it. Mutton-head that I am, I never thought of the fact that I married Maria
because
she looked like the girl in the garden, and that meant that you looked like her too, and … that meant you were the girl in the garden.” He gave a wry, self-condemnatory grimace. “I’m an idiot, darling. You’ve married an idiot.”