Esme’s face lit with pleasure. “Bea, darling! Do join us. Mr. Fairfax-Lacy is telling me abominable jests about codpieces.”
“Codpieces?” Bea inquired, walking toward her. She was wearing a gown of slate-gray silk. Slate-gray was the kind of color governesses wore, but this gown was cut with cunning precision to make it appear that she was a governess hiding the soul of a Jezebel. The bosom was as low as an evening gown’s, but the addition of a trifling bit of lace gave the bodice a faint claim to respectability. “What is a codpiece?”
Naturally, the gentlemen stood at her arrival, so Bea nimbly slipped next to Esme, taking Stephen’s seat.
Stephen himself answered her question, one dark eyebrow raised. “Have you not heard of codpieces, Lady Beatrix? Gentlemen wore them in the sixteenth century. Rounded pieces of leather sometimes decorated with ribbons.”
“Wore them? Where did they—” Bea broke off, suddenly guessing where they wore them. Now she thought of it, she had seen portaits of men wearing codpieces over their tights. It was wicked of him to laugh at her in such a fashion, though.
“Life must have been so much easier for women in those days,” Esme said, her voice spiced with mischief. “One could presumably choose a man by the number of ribbons he wore. Bea, we must sit together all evening. Our gowns suit each other extraordinarily.”
Esme was dressed in a dark silvery crimson gown whose bosom was as low as Bea’s but didn’t include any disguising lace. Given the fact that Esme was approximately twice as endowed in the chest area, Bea figured that the contrast was personally unfortunate. But it was better than watching Stephen nestle up to Esme’s curves.
“So, would you insist your husband match his daily ribbons to your gown?” Bonnington asked Esme. There was a sardonic twist to his lips. To Bea’s mind, something smoldered in the marquess’s eyes when he looked at Esme. And the same could be said for the way her lips curved up at his question. If she laughed a great deal while talking to Stephen, she got a husky undertone when she spoke to the marquess that was utterly suggestive.
“Ah, what a dilemma!” Esme said. “I doubt my fiancé would agree to wear rosy ribbons, were I to wear a pink costume.” She threw Stephen a languishing look.
Stephen sat down in a chair beside the settee. He was suffering from awareness of the fact that if he were indeed an Elizabethan gentleman, wearing little more on his legs than some thin stockings, he’d be grateful for a codpiece, because his body’s reaction to Bea’s outrageous gown would have been all too obvious. “For you, Lady Rawlings, I would wear the colors of the rainbow,” he said, pitching his voice to a velvety earnestness.
“How fortunate that you, rather than I, are marrying Lady Rawlings,” the marquess drawled, leaning back in his chair and crossing his legs. “Lady Beatrix, would you demand that a man make an ass of himself?”
Bea could feel Stephen watching her. She gave the marquess a look of liquid promise. Bea had a distinct preference for dark hair, but the marquess’s tawny golden-brown hair could well nigh change her mind. “I do believe I would insist on the removal of all ribbons.”
“Oh?” he asked. He had lovely blue eyes. If only she weren’t so fond of dark eyes. “You prefer a naked codpiece, Lady Beatrix?”
“I would prefer that my husband not advertise,” she said. “Don’t you agree, Esme? If a man wore too many ribbons, he might become the target of many women’s attentions.” Bea looked at Stephen, her face as innocent as she could manage. “And the next thing one knew, one’s husband would have virtually turned into a peacock, thinking that every woman within eyesight is longing for his attentions.”
Vixen, Stephen thought. “Do you mean his eyesight or theirs?” he asked.
“I shall have to take the idea of naked codpieces into consideration,” Esme put in. “Perhaps we should have a game of charades. There must be some Elizabethan clothing up in the attics.”
She turned to Stephen and said, with a simper, “But, darling, wouldn’t you mind dreadfully if I stripped you of ornamentation?”
Bea thought Esme was playing a dangerous game. There was something wild about the marquess, something ungentleman-like, that made Bea a trifle nervous. And yet Esme was toying with him as if he were a mouse and she a kitten. But it was closer to the truth to see him as a tiger, and Esme a mouse.
For his part, Stephen was fairly certain that his courtship of Esme was piquing Bea’s jealousy. There was a stormy something in her eyes that he liked. So he picked up Esme’s hand and told her, “I would strip myself naked, if you wished.”
“Even in this state?” Esme said, gesturing toward her nonexistent middle.
“If carrying a child made every woman as beautiful as you, Lady Rawlings, England’s population would be growing by leaps and bounds.” Stephen kissed Esme’s hand as he watched Bea out of the corner of his eye. Her hands were clenched into fists. Stephen felt a burst of cheer. As long as he wasn’t knocked into a corner by Bonnington, his plan was a success.
“I do believe that most women would faint at the idea of gaining such a waistline,” Esme was saying.
“The most beautiful things in nature are those about to burst into flower: a bud on the verge of becoming a rose, a tree dripping with ripe apples. And you are more beautiful than a rose, Lady Rawlings.”
“Quite the dandy, aren’t you?” Marquess Bonnington said to Stephen. There was a dangerous gleam in his eyes. “I wouldn’t have thought a politician would have so much address. You could do much worse for a husband, Lady Rawlings.”
“I merely speak the truth when I feel pressed,” Stephen said promptly, hoping that Bonnington wouldn’t lose control and floor him. Clearly the man had a prior claim. “Lady Rawlings is so beautiful that one can hardly stop oneself from singing her praises. It was the most surprising moment of my life when she agreed to marry me.” He sighed, a languishing expulsion of breath. “The keen pleasure of that moment will never leave my memory.”
Esme blushed faintly, and Bea realized that Esme had, indeed, decided to marry Stephen, no matter what her previous relationship with Marquess Bonnington might have been. Who could possibly choose to raise a child alone when she might have Stephen as a father? To Bea’s annoyance, Stephen began kissing Esme’s every fingertip. Now her stomach was churning with jealousy.
“Your eyes are the color of sapphires,” Stephen said, his voice a low croon. “And your lips are finer than rubies.”
Bea cleared her throat. Stephen looked around in a faintly irritated fashion and then said, “Forgive me, Lady Beatrix, Marquess Bonnington. You must forgive the flush of early love, the delight with which one greets his bride-to-be….”
“I’ve never met a woman whom I wanted to compare to sapphires,” the Marquess Bonnington said with an easy shrug of his shoulders. “What appeals to me is a kind of willowy grace…an elegance of form.”
Esme stiffened slightly.
“Isn’t it the poet Petrarch who compares his lady to a slender willow, swaying in the breeze? That appeals to me much more than comparing my lady to flinty little gems.”
“Petrarch loved a woman who was only twelve years old,” Stephen said dismissively. “I leave the younger set to you, Lord Bonnington. I find young women tiresome. A woman who is a woman is the most appealing.” He carefully didn’t even glance at Bea. Unless he was much mistaken, a pale pink nipple was just visible through the lace of her bodice. One more look at her chest and he would pick her up and stride right out of the room, and it wouldn’t be his decoration that was stripped.
Bea was having trouble biting back an unpleasant comment. Clearly she was a member of the younger set whom Stephen professed to find tiresome. And presumably Stephen expected her to compete with Esme, though how she was supposed to do that, short of stuffing her corset with all the cotton in Wiltshire, she had no idea. The least she could do was to help the cause of true love.
“Lord Bonnington,” she said rather jerkily, “I brought the most exquisite book of poetry wit
h me. And you had not yet joined the house party when we read some of it aloud. Would you like me to introduce you to the work?”
“I would be more than pleased,” he said, rising and giving her an elegant bow.
Bea didn’t look to see what Stephen thought. He was probably grateful. After all, if she took Bonnington off of Esme’s hands, he had no competition to worry about.
They walked into the corridor together. She took a deep breath and gave Lord Bonnington the full benefit of one of her smoldering looks. There must be something wrong with her. He looked no more impressed than had Sebastian. Bea blinked to hold back sudden tears. Was she…was she losing her attractiveness to men? That was inconceivable. It was all she had.
The library was just down the corridor from the Rose Salon. Esme’s library was a snug nutshell of a room, all lined with books that gave off a sleepy, satisfied smell. Bea felt better immediately. The library had been one of the few places in her father’s house where she’d felt happy.
Lord Bonnington walked away from her and looked out one of the arching windows that faced into the garden, so Bea followed. She still could hardly believe that he hadn’t shown her the faintest interest. Perhaps—perhaps it had been too dim in the corridor. Perhaps he hadn’t seen the expression in her eyes.
It had rained all day. A silver layer of mist crept over the garden, drifting down to a blocky structure that Bea knew was the rose arbor.
“I gather you think that Lady Rawlings should marry Mr. Fairfax-Lacy,” Lord Bonnington said abruptly, looking at the garden, and not at her.
“I—”
“And you brought me here to give them breathing space.”
Bea swallowed. She could hardly say that she’d brought him to the library in a weak effort to make Stephen Fairfax-Lacy jealous. Or to prove that she was still desirable.
“I do think that Lady Rawlings would be happier if she were married,” she said, steadying her voice.
“Married to him?”
The scorn in his voice lashed her into speech. “Esme would be extremely fortunate to marry Mr. Fairfax-Lacy!”
“He’s a stick,” Bonnington said, still gazing out into the garden.
“No, he’s not. He’s quite handsome, and he’s funny, and kind. And he…he seems to care for her,” Bea said.
“So do I.”
What could she say to that? She stood next to him, feeling the chill that breathed off the leaded window panes.
“Did she tell you to take me away? Did she send you some sort of signal?”
“No, no,” Bea said. “It wasn’t like that at all! I merely…I merely…”
He turned and looked down at her. After a moment, he said, “We’re in the same boat, then.”
She couldn’t ask what boat that was because she was afraid that she knew. “Absolutely not,” she replied stiffly.
“Are you saying that you don’t wish to marry that proper M.P. in there?” The touch of disbelief in his voice made her raise her head.
“I do not.”
There was a skeptical curl to his lip.
“I don’t wish to marry anyone.” She walked over to the couch and sat down, not bothering to tilt her hips from side to side in the walk she had perfected at age fifteen. The man was not interested in her. That slow fire she saw in his eyes was for Esme, not for her.
But he did follow her, throwing himself down on the couch. “If I thought jealousy would help, I would have a go at pretending to be in love with you. But it wouldn’t make any difference,” Bonnington said flatly. “I’m sorry to say that the man appears enamored of Esme Rawlings. And once she draws you in, it’s damn hard to look at another woman.”
“I am not interested in Mr. Fairfax-Lacy,” Bea insisted, more for the sake of her pride than anything else.
He didn’t even answer her. “I expect he thinks you’re too young.”
“Too scandalous,” Bea put in, unable to pretend any longer.
“Scandalous, hmmm?”
She nodded. She knew Marquess Bonnington by reputation; well, who didn’t? He used to be considered one of the most upright men in the ton. There’d never been a whisper of scandal about the man until last summer. Not even a shred. If he knew her past, he would spit at her and leave the room immediately. But he didn’t seem to be reacting with condemnation.
“Didn’t you side-step with Sandhurst? Why on earth did you choose that odious mushroom?” he asked, and she couldn’t hear any censure in his voice. Just a kind of lazy curiosity.
She shrugged. “He had a lovely bow. He complimented me.”
He looked at her without saying anything.
“And my father loathed him,” she added.
“I expect the noble public servant holds it against you, though.” The marquess’s eyes were kind, too. As kind as Stephen’s. What was it with these men? They didn’t react to her best overtures, and then they made her feel like crying.
“Actually, Mr. Fairfax-Lacy said that he wanted a mistress with less experience,” she said, her wry grin crooked.
He stared at her. “Fairfax-Lacy said that?”
She nodded.
“You’re better off without him. Why on earth would you wish to be a mistress to such an intolerable lout? Or a mistress to any man, for that matter?” He was looking at her so intently that Bea wondered whether he’d suddenly noticed she was a woman. Was he going to offer her a consolatory kiss? For all she’d drawn him to the library, she didn’t want him to touch her.
“I suppose I don’t wish to be a mistress,” she said, dismissing the memory of Stephen’s kisses. “Nor a wife either.”
“Humph,” he said, looking unconvinced. “Well, then, where’s that poetry you brought me in here for? I shouldn’t like to go back to the salon without having read some of it. Lord knows what they’ll think we were doing.”
Bea smiled back, feeling an unwilling pulse of friendship. He got up and threw another log into the fireplace and then walked back to the couch.
“Here it is,” she said, plucking the book off the end table.
He started reading and his eyebrows rose. “I suppose this is from Esme’s personal library?”
“No.” She blushed. “I brought it with me. Truly, some of the poetry is quite…quite unexceptional.”
Bea liked his chuckle. She drew up her legs and curled into her favorite position—the one she would never assume before a man because it didn’t emphasize how slender her limbs were.
“I like this,” he said. ‘ “O faire Boy, trust not to thy beauty’s wings.’”
She nodded.
He looked over at her with a wry grin. “I spent a great deal of my life trusting the wrong things. My title, for example.”
“Your beauty?” she said daringly.
“Not so much…I was convinced that I had to live up to the dignity of my title. I suppose I trusted my reputation too much.”
Bea’s smile mirrored his. “Whereas I simply threw mine away.”
“Then perhaps you are the one who trusts your beauty overmuch.” He put the book to the side. “Shall we return to the salon, Lady Beatrix?”
She put her feet down and rose. He looked down at her, and Bea felt a faint blush rise in her cheeks. “If I hadn’t met Esme first, you likely would have been the making of me, Lady Beatrix.”
“I’m not suitable for someone who honors their reputation,” she observed, starting toward the door.
A large hand curled around her hand, drawing it under his arm. “Ah, but it wouldn’t have taken long for you to convince me of the worthlessness of reputation. Esme didn’t even try, and I was ready to throw it away as soon as I met her.”
She looked a question as they walked through the corridor.
“She was married at that point.”
“Now she isn’t,” Bea observed.
“And therein lies my trouble. I am of the fixed opinion that Esme should marry me and no other.” He glanced down at Bea. “I am telling you this merely because I woul
dn’t want you to worry if I have to take out your darling Fairfax-Lacy.”
“Take out?” Bea said sharply. “What on earth do you mean by that, sir?”
He shrugged. “I doubt it will come to violence. But no one is going to marry Esme but myself.”
24
Waltzing on One’s Deathbed
Trying to not feel guilty because one’s wife is dying is a difficult task. Damn near impossible, Rees finally decided. After all, they’d been married for years—nine or ten, he estimated. He’d married Helene when she was barely out of the schoolroom. They were both too young to know better. Yet it wasn’t entirely his fault the marriage failed, no matter what she said about it.
But he never, ever thought of her as not being there. Not there to send him nagging letters, or curl her lip at him as they passed. Not there to send him horrid little notes after he debuted a new piece of music, putting her finger directly on the weakest spot, and not saying a word about the best of it.
Damn it, she couldn’t die.
He’d been to Lady Rawlings’s house a mere few months ago, and Helene had seemed perfectly healthy then. A little too thin, perhaps. But she was always thin. Not like Lina’s overflowing little body, all curves and fleshy parts. Rees frowned. Surely it wasn’t correct to think about one’s mistress while riding in a carriage to greet one’s dying wife. And was greet the right word?
It was with a great sense of relief that Rees realized his carriage was finally pulling up in front of Shantill House. It wasn’t that he cared for his wife, of course. He didn’t. Hadn’t the faintest feelings for her of that nature. It was merely natural anxiety that had his chest feeling as if it were clamped in a vise. His fists kept curling, and he could bellow with rage. At what? Helene, for growing ill? No!
He had to be sweet, calm, tell her loving things. Because she was dying. His bitter-tongued, frigid little wife was dying.
God knows, that should probably have given him a sense of relief. Instead he couldn’t seem to swallow, and he actually had to support himself on the side of the carriage when he descended, because his knees felt weak for a moment.