The Pirate and the Pagan (58 page)

S
ummer entered that period of her life where she sought to know herself. Since that fateful day long ago when she arrived in London and glimpsed Lord Ruark Helford, her life had been tumultuous. The passion which had almost consumed them had been too scorching not to cool and by his rejection he had sent her headlong into the arms and bed of his brother. She had committed the mortal sin of letting both men make love to her until it had culminated in a child.

She was now completely celibate and at last her conscience was at rest. It was such a relief to have everything sorted out, to get off the seesaw of loving two men. The only one she loved now was Ryan. He was the only male in her life who meant anything and everything to her. Peace and quiet had brought her contentment, especially now that she had been able to put the ghost of her excessive love for Lord Ruark Helford to rest.

Her contentment was short-lived. The Earl of Bristol was taking her to the King’s Playhouse on Drury Lane to see Ben Jonson’s
Volpone.
It was the talk of the town and she dressed with great care because she knew the house would be packed with fashionable women. She chose a sophisticated black gown to set off her rubies and swept her hair up in a rather severe, yet most elegant fashion.

Summer was amused by the envious glances she received from
the other women at the play and knew it was because of the earl’s devastating good looks. She liked George immensely; they were good friends because she wasn’t the least bit infatuated by his handsome face. It took a more rugged countenance to set Summer’s pulses beating. The earl held her seat in the private box and she gave him a dazzling smile as she shrugged the black fox fur from her shoulders and looked across the theater to see a small group arrive. It was the King, and Summer was amused to see that he had escorted both Barbara Castlemaine and Frances Stewart to see the fashionable play. Barbara was resplendent in purple; she laid claim to the color because of its association with royalty. She flaunted her diamonds and Summer grudgingly admired her. Sitting there, filled with another royal bastard, she had more than earned her diamonds. Summer’s eye fell on Frances Stewart and again she wondered what possible attraction the girl could hold for a voluptuary like Charles. She was so young, so slim, so pale. Only a prim little strand of pearls adorned her small bosom. She felt a fleeting stab of pity for poor Charles caught between two loves, then the pity was swept away as she saw clearly that Charles was an aging roué who lusted for the girl’s extreme youth and virginity. Her lip curled and she was about to make a cynical remark to her escort when her eyes traveled to the next box. “Good God!” she exclaimed.

“What’s amiss, my dear?” asked George, who saw clearly her look of distress.

“It’s Helford. He’s with a chit young enough to be his daughter!” An unreasoning hot jealousy swept her with such ferocity it deprived her of breath.

George chuckled and she turned to bestow a look of outrage upon him. “Actually it’s
my
daughter.”

Her brain had ceased to function. “Your daughter?” she repeated stupidly.

“Georgie. She’s up from the country for the first time and Ruark has taken her under his protective wing … to keep off the fortune hunters,” he added confidentially.

“Georgie?” she echoed with unconcealed loathing. She felt acutely unwell. A sudden pain almost cut her in half and she realized with dismay that it was her heart which was hurting. Her throat constricted so much she began to pant. Her eyes narrowed and swung between Helford and the King. Both dark faces smiled down at little girls and she saw Charles reach out to fondle
Frances’s knee. They were like two peas from the same disgusting pod! Whoremongers! Lechers! It was unbearable; she was outraged.

Good God, in the eyes of the court it would look as if two men had conspired obscenely to swap a daughter for a wife, yet the Earl of Bristol sat there with a fatuous look on his face as if the world were unfolding as it should, when in reality it was hurtling toward destruction!

Ben Jonson’s masterpiece made little sense to Summer as she tapped her foot, impatiently waiting for intermission. The actors droned on until she wanted to scream, then mercifully the velvet curtains swung closed and the applause burst forth like thunder. Summer clapped her hands enthusiastically, glad that the damned thing was at least half over. As the occupants of the boxes mingled in the circular promenade where wine was served, George and Summer came face-to-face with Ruark and Georgie. Why in the name of heaven had she worn black? It turned her skin sallow and aged her unbelievably. Her coiffure, which had seemed elegant at the outset of the evening, now seemed hideous.

Digby’s daughter wore baby blue. Summer thought the clusters of blond ringlets bouncing upon her shoulders looked like disgusting sausages. “Oh, Daddy,” she said, bubbling, “I’m having a simply divine evening.” She glanced adoringly up at Ruark and said, “Lord Helford’s eyes match the emeralds you gave me for my birthday.”

“Really?” drawled Summer. “They always remind me of gooseberries floating in syrup.”

Ruark’s face was impassive, his manners impeccable, as he said, “Lady Georgina Digby, may I present Lady Summer St. Catherine.”

“Oh,” said Georgina, suddenly looking very sulky, then remembering her manners, she curtsied to the older woman.

Summer’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not quite a dowager yet, darling.”

“Daddy, Lord Helford has asked me to the Countess of Lauderdale’s party after the play. May I go, Daddy, please?” she begged prettily.

“It’s unlike you to play gadfly,” George remarked to Ruark.

Summer said sweetly, “It’s hard to be yourself when you’re trying to make a good impression.” The currents between Summer and Ruark flowed furiously, yet amazingly father and daughter seemed unaware.

The earl could deny his child nothing. “You may go to your party if you’re home at a respectable hour.”

Ruark’s eyes caught Summer’s as he said smoothly, “I’ll have her in bed before eleven.” Summer gasped in disbelief at the double entendre, but Helford had swept the girl off on his arm to enjoy the rest of the play. The girl hadn’t the vaguest notion that Lord Helford had ever been married. As he took her empty glass from her Georgie whispered to Ruark, “So that’s Summer St. Catherine. My father’s in love with her, you know, and I’m dreadfully afraid she’s got her hooks well into him.”

Ruark’s hands balled into fists. The empty wineglass was crushed into minute shards.

Georgie was aghast. “Oh, my lord, did you cut yourself?”

He shook his head and replied through his teeth, “Didn’t draw blood … though I might before I’m finished.”

Summer said to George, “I cannot approve your choice of escort, milord.”

“Helford? Why, he’s the most honorable fellow I know.”

“That damns your friends with faint praise indeed,” she said coolly, struggling in vain with the green-eyed monster who had her by the throat. “I wouldn’t trust him in a convent.”

George hugged her to him, his eyes laughing down into hers. “Your wicked wit is devastating. ’Tis one of the things about you which utterly fascinates me.”

    The next day she lost no time paying a visit to Lil Richwood. Her aunt had an uncanny ability at picking up whispers before they became common gossip, and Summer bombarded her with questions about the Earl of Bristol’s daughter. “She’s obviously a sly little bitch who has her father wrapped about her little finger. He actually bought her emeralds, the other day … emeralds begod!”

“She’s his only heiress, darling, and she got a fortune when her mother died.”

“Well, you’d never know it by her clothes,” said Summer with a shudder. “She was as commonplace as mud. ’Fore God, she was in predictable baby blue.”

“She was in pastels because she’s not yet sixteen,” soothed Auntie Lil.

“For Christ’s sake, is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Stop it, Summer! Next you’ll be fancying he annulled the marriage so he could take another wife.”

“Is that what you’ve heard? Is that what you’re trying to keep from me?” demanded Summer.

Lil rolled her eyes heavenward, desperately seeking divine help. “’Tis as plain as a pikestaff that you’re still mad in love with him. If I can see it, it only stands to reason that he’s well aware of it. It’s beyond me why he doesn’t drag you by the scruff of the neck to Cornwall to make more babies.”

Summer burst into tears.

“What’s the matter now?” asked Lil, softening.

“Tomcats drag females by the scruff of the neck. That’s exactly what he is, a tomcat!”

Lil was exasperated. “I’ve only so much patience and you’ve had the lot. What you need is a damn good roll in the hay. Take a lover. Let him fill you with cream until you purr.”

“Who?” asked Summer blankly.

Lil laughed. “You’re like someone at a banquet who starves! The court is chocablock with randy males; you have your choice from the King down … or up, whichever your perspective. Or better yet, marry George Digby and become a countess.”

Summer suddenly became very still. After a few moments she gathered her fan and her muff and departed, her mind far off in deepest thought.

“Good God, what maggot have I unleashed in her brain?” muttered Lil to no one in particular.

To a casual observer it appeared that Summer was taking Lil Richwood’s advice as she readied some of her more elaborate gowns to take to Court. She needed a man and the place to find a man, of course, was Court. In a few days there was to be a gala reception honoring ambassadors from France, Spain, and Russia, and Summer decided the occasion definitely called for ostrich feathers. Ryan was six months old and just about weaned, but the day before she left for Court she spent the whole day cuddling him. Mrs. Bishop shook her head over Summer’s behavior. “’Tis most unfashionable for a lady to be constantly seen with a babe in her arms. Soon he won’t just be spoiled, he’ll be ruinated! He has too many women fussing about him night and day.”

“You’re quite right, of course, Bish. He needs a father as well as a mother. I think it’s time I did something about it. I’m going to be
spending more time at Court. I wouldn’t be able to do that if I didn’t have you, Mrs. Bishop.”

The older woman was worried. She didn’t see what was wrong with the father he already had. There would be hell to pay if Ruark knew she was husband hunting. Bish knew he would take his son in a minute rather than let another man have him, and she felt in her heart that he would be justified.

Summer stood inside the wardrobe in the Helford rooms down by Whitehall’s bowling green. For a moment she was lost in another world, her hand on one of Ruark’s old doublets, its scent of sandalwood filling her nostrils, stirring half-forgotten dreams from the past, then briskly she pushed it aside to make room for the clothes from her trunk. She planned to arrive after the banquet but before the dancing. There was no way she was going to sit through an interminable dinner where the speeches would be fatuous and the food cold.

Two hours later she arrived in the great banqueting hall. Her ostrich-feathered fan wafted frangipani about her beautiful shoulders and every eye was riveted upon her. Everything about her gown was outrageous, from its cost to its vivid color of peacock. Every breath of air wafted the delicate downy tendrils of her hair into a fluttering, floating mass which caressed her breasts and shoulders with shivering, shuddering undulation and alternately revealed and concealed as she was greeted by one man after another. Her wicked juices bubbled tonight. She was there for one purpose only, to torment Ruark Helford and make him as miserable as she had been since he’d begun his liaison with Lady Georgina Digby. The corners of her mouth turned up in a secret, delicious smile as she spotted him at the far end of the hall laughing with the King, while the little grubworm made a polite effort to make sense of the Queen’s fractured English.

Jack Grenvile came to her side as soon as he saw her. He kissed her hand and tickled her palm suggestively with the tip of his tongue. She tucked her arm in his and invited, “Come, you handsome brute, let’s do some husband baiting.”

When he saw where she was heading, he whispered, “I don’t think Bristol’s little gel is any competition for you, sweetheart.”

“No, poor little mouse,” purred Summer. She had eyes only for the King as he looked at her with undisguised admiration mixed with lust. She curtsied to the Queen and enjoyed the stone face of
Ruark as Charles looked down the front of her gown. The King said, “You are a vision of loveliness tonight, Summer.”

Grenvile agreed heartily. “The plumes look a lot better adorning Summer than the ostrich.”

Lady Georgina pressed her lips together in disapproval and said, “How cruel.”

Summer bestowed a dazzling smile upon the girl and traced her finger along the expensive ermine trim of her gown. “That rabbit died for you. My ostrich is merely running around in the nude.”

The King and Grenvile laughed, but Ruark Helford did not. “I believe this is our dance,” he said to Summer in a tone which brooked no refusal.

“You are mistaken,” she said softly, flirting outrageously with Charles. “I believe I’m yours, Sire.” The King swept her into a courante and Jack Grenvile partnered Georgina. Ruark bowed to the Queen and begged her to dance with him. When the dance ended, they were all in approximately the same place they had started. Summer looked at Georgina Digby’s emerald pendant and said, “Your emerald is lovely. If I were you, I’d get Daddy to give you matching earrings. When he takes a countess, I’m afraid she’ll claim all future jewels.”

Georgina looked alarmed.

Summer saw the Earl of Bristol emerge from the crush. “Darling,” she said, lifting her face for his kiss.
“Je suis désolée sans toi.”

A tall footman offered a silver tray to His Majesty and Charles reached for a glass of champagne. Summer took two, draining them both while the men adored her with their eyes. The music started up and she said gaily to Helford, “An ugly fellow like you deserves to stand against the wall, but if I don’t take pity on you, who will?”