Sinful in Satin (13 page)

Celia began to think Daphne and Mr. Albrighton were going to have a row. Verity thought so too, from the way she watched the exchange.

“Your concern is admirable, Mrs. Joyes,” Jonathan soothed. “However, Miss Pennifold has accommodated herself to my presence. If you are protective, consider that she is very safe with me here, and the ladies will not suffer the vulnerabilities most women face when they live alone.”

He bowed and took his leave then, and disappeared down the garden path. Daphne watched him go, her lids low.

Finally, she turned away from the window and opened her account book again. “Small wonder that you no longer wanted to live out in the country, Celia.”

“I did not move here because of Mr. Albrighton, if that is what you are implying. I really did inherit him. His tenancy came as a complete surprise, and his continued residence a nuisance.”

“I never doubted that discovering his claims on that chamber came as a surprise.” She smiled. “Truly.”

“He’s an earl’s son,” Verity offered. “The last Earl of Thornridge’s bastard.”

“Verity, since you have found love with an earl’s son, you may think they are all good men of high character. Regrettably, my experience has been that a title makes neither a fit father in and of itself, nor a reputable son without dispute. However, if our Celia thinks he is a decent man, and that she is safe here with Marian and Bella, that is all that signifies.”

“I am safe. And while he is a nuisance, he is not as intrusive as I worried. Why, he is hardly ever around.”

“How convenient, then.”

“He built these shelves,” Verity said, trying to help again by putting in a good word for him.

“That probably explains all those nails. He appears the sort of man who wants to make very sure things stand as he intends.”

“I am tired of talking about him,” Celia announced. “Today marks the beginning of our partnership, Daphne, and that is much more interesting. Verity, I think we should move these tall ones down one step.”

Daphne watched as Verity and she made much of moving the plants, discussing each one’s placement. All the while Celia felt her older friend’s eyes on her.

“Has he trifled with you, Celia?” The question came out of nowhere a half hour later.

“Trifled? Who?”

“As if you don’t know.”

“Oh, you mean Mr. Albrighton. Of course not. I am not stupid, Daphne. I am not a child either.”

“That is true—you are neither stupid nor a child. You are a young woman who has always viewed life with almost ruthless honesty. My question was one of curiosity, not criticism or judgment, or even a prelude to advice. I just wondered if that handsome man had trifled with you.”

“Well, he hasn’t.” She was not sure what Daphne meant by
trifled
, but she decided that one kiss did not qualify.

“Pity, that,” Daphne mused as she jotted in her account book. “I expect his trifling would be rather pleasant.”

Celia gaped. She looked at Verity. They both looked at Daphne in shock. Then all three began laughing.

C
elia mounted the stairs to the attic, holding a key of good size. She paused at the top landing.

The door she wanted was across the passage from Mr. Albrighton’s chamber. This was the only space that she had not carefully examined in this house. Now that the plants had come, and she had arranged for a hired wagon to deliver them to houses during the next week, she had time to devote to this necessary chore.

Not only lack of time had delayed her, she admitted. She both craved to see what was stored here, and dreaded the potential disappointment. She might learn the truth about her father the way she hoped, or learn nothing at all. She could not bear to face the latter, especially when she had no other idea of how else to pursue the truth if her mother’s own belongings failed her.

The chamber held the dry, dusty smell one finds in unused attics. The chill, as winter’s cold penetrated the small windows and roof, did not dispel that distinctive atmosphere.

She left the door open a crack to let in some fresher air, then surveyed the items stored here. There was much more than she expected. Not only that trunk that she had spied lived in this chamber.

A rolled carpet rested on the floor. She toed at its edge until she saw its pattern, and recognized it as an Aubusson that had once graced Alessandra’s private apartment on Orchard Street. Her mother had been very proud of that carpet.

Two large framed watercolors rested against the wall behind the carpet. They also had once decorated the other house. Gifts from lovers, both represented airy sketches by French artists popular at the end of the last century. One was a painting of a nude model who looked a lot like a young Alessandra.

She stepped around some chairs and plant stands so she could investigate the largest of three trunks cramming the small space. She paused after she lifted its lid. A gorgeous fur mantle rested atop a pile of other garments. A quick examination said this trunk held a wardrobe far more valuable than the one left at the other house.

She went to the next trunk. There were more garments in it, but less grand. They cushioned small decorative items made of china and glass, and other personal belongings perhaps of sentimental meaning to the woman who owned them.

The third trunk surprised her the most. She gazed at its contents while nostalgia mixed with shock.

These were her own belongings. Her wardrobe, chosen so carefully that year, to be worn in the park and at those afternoon salons, lay neatly folded inside. Flipping through them, she also found dresses and gowns never worn, the ones ordered from modistes for a young woman’s debut into a very special society.

Memories came to her of studying fashion plates, and choosing fabrics at the draper’s. She pulled out the dinner dress that had been her favorite. At the last fitting, she had pictured herself presiding over a party as Anthony’s wife. All the faces around her had been a blur in her mind, except his.

A sound startled her out of her reverie. She looked to the doorway and saw Mr. Albrighton there, his hand still on the latch.

He strolled into the chamber, his gaze quickly surveying its contents. “So this is storage. I thought perhaps you thought to let it to another tenant, or use it for more servants.”

She refolded the dinner dress, and smoothed its liquid satin surface with her fingertips. “It was past time for me to see what lay behind this door. I expected a trunk or two, from my quick glance before. I never anticipated all that.” She gestured to the end of the room farthest from the door, which was out of sight when she had stuck her head in.

He stood beside her and looked down. She saw him assessing the silk beneath her fingers.

“These are my things,” she said, even though she did not have to explain. “When they were not at the other house, I just assumed she had sold them, or given them away.”

“That is an unusual color. Like the fairest fawn.”

His description was apt, and better than she would have managed. “It is one of the modest dresses, for public view.”

“There are other kinds?”

“Oh, yes. I was not being groomed to be a bride. I knew that, and yet still allowed myself to pretend it could turn out that way, as you know.”

His kind smile acknowledged her scathing disappointment that day. His deep-set eyes compelled her attention and she floated in their connected gazes for a timeless moment.

“For example, there was this one.” She looked away and thumbed the corners of the garments until she reached a silk the color of geraniums. She pulled it out. “Hardly a demure hue, but fashionable and not scandalous in itself. However—” She held up the dress so it opened along her bodice and lap. The top of it consisted of lace and nothing more. “Only a fool would forget the future she would have if her mother buys her this, don’t you think?”

“I think you did not err if you thought that lace might be appropriate no matter what life you would have. Not all husbands treat their wives like perpetual, blushing virgins.”

She laughed, and set the dress aside. “Then perhaps I will give it to Verity or Audrianna. I have cause to believe neither one’s husband will be shocked.”

“Hawkeswell or Summerhays? I assure you, neither would be.”

She rose to her knees to dig deeper in the trunk. “One for each, then. I am sure there is another of similar intention.”

He dropped to one knee beside her and held out his arms, so she could place the luxurious fabrics on them instead of the floor. She stacked them up to his chin before she found the soft pearl-toned dress that she sought. She flipped it open to examine its low neckline and very sheer bodice.

“This would suit Verity, I think,” she said. “Don’t you agree?”

“It would be inappropriate for me to picture Lady Hawkeswell in it.”

“You can at least admit the color would favor her.”

“I think the color would favor you more.”

She glanced at him, and in those deep eyes she saw the image of herself in this dress, surrounded by other luscious silks on pillows and drapes, and a tall dark man full of mystery admiring the erotic image she made.

She felt her face warming, and other parts too. She made much of turning her attention to folding the dress while the possibilities and expectations throbbed between them in the tense silence.

She began to reach for his stack of fabrics when something in the trunk caught her eye. Pushing aside a dove gray wool pelisse, she uncovered a folio flat on the trunk’s bottom. She lifted the cover.

“Her paintings and drawings,” she said. “It is very thick. Perhaps they are all here.”

He peered in, interested. His angle brought him closer to her. So close she could smell the soap he had used to wash. So close she could see how thick his eyelashes were. Her heart beat more quickly and she feared stammering like a schoolgirl.

She took the garments from him, and quickly stacked them back in the trunk. She gazed at the other items in the chamber while she tried to ignore how he still remained down there with her on his one knee, too close really. She imagined him touching her again, and the next kiss, and—

Reckless thoughts. Stupid ones. He was not for her and she was not for him, at least not in any respectable way. And yet, her body was not caring much about that, and her thoughts were not very proper. Instead the things Mama had described kept presenting themselves, and some of them seemed appealing for the first time in her life.

She forced the scandalous images out of her thoughts. “I am supposed to inform the executor about these things, aren’t I? That carpet is very valuable, and one of the trunks holds her furs.”

He shrugged. “Send him the carpet if you would feel guilty not doing so. As for the rest, there is little value in used garments that may no longer be in the latest fashion. Not enough value to make a difference. You own the contents of this particular trunk anyway, so it is not part of her estate.”

“I wonder why they are here. I would have expected it all to be in the other house.”

“Perhaps it was her way to preserve what she valued most for you. If the executor did not know she lived here on occasion, he would never think to inventory this house’s contents.”

Could he be correct? Had it been deliberate, and a plan on Alessandra’s part to hand down something at least, besides a tarnished reputation and a very specialized education?

“I think that I must take my own inventory, but it is too chilled in this attic to do so. I will move these trunks to my chamber and sort it all at my leisure.”

He stood, and reached down to close the trunk. “Allow me. They are too heavy for you, even with Marian’s help.”

He followed her down to the second level and to her chamber. He set the trunk down. “Perhaps you should investigate one at a time. If all of them are here, you will have little room to walk.”

There was some truth in that. This was not a large bedchamber, and the other trunks were of good size. “That might be best. Thank you.”

His gaze had been taking an inventory of sorts as well, of the contents of her room. The last time he had been here it had been too dark to see much. It struck her that she had never had a man in her chamber before him. Not ever, even as a child. This one did not leave his masculinity at the threshold, and his intrusion created an intimate spell.

“It is not what I would have expected of your mother,” he said, observing the crisp white muslin at the windows and serving as bed drapes.

“Perhaps you thought it would be red satin?” she teased, her voice steady even though she feared it would squeak.

“No, but more of the town and less of the country.”

She fingered the simple fabric. “I find the anonymous simplicity of these hangings soothing, in part because they speak of no particular taste at all. They are very practical too, despite what one would think. They can be washed just like a man’s shirt.”

His gaze moved over those window drapes, then the ones on the bed, then the bed itself. Finally it settled on her. The chamber all but trembled from the degree to which his presence seemed to dominate it now.

“You think this chamber does not speak of its occupant now, Miss Pennifold? I find it whispers most eloquently about the woman who lives here.”

She wasn’t sure whether it was a compliment or not, although the way he looked at her suggested he had meant it to be.

They stood there longer than necessary, with the trunk that contained the remnants of her year with Mama between them. Or perhaps it wasn’t long at all. Maybe the way her heart beat slowed time for her.

“Are you deciding whether to kiss me again?” she asked.

“Do you want me to kiss you again?”

“Of course not.”

“Of course? Have you told yourself you did not enjoy it? And here I thought you were one of the rare women who does not lie about that.”