Potent Pleasures

  Will couldn’t think of a good lie. “Lady Charlotte requested it.”

  Chloe’s eyes darkened. “It’s not like that,” Will said urgently. “Charlotte is not that kind of person.”

  Chloe looked down at her hands involuntarily twisting the dark twill that her mother insisted her dresses be made out of. How could she go up to that box and sit with this beautiful woman he carelessly called Charlotte? She longed to be home, perhaps adding up a column of figures for her father, or watching her mother pack up boxes of shirts for the poor.

  Her mother leaned forward suddenly. “It is acceptable to us, dearest,” she said in her Dutch accent. Chloe stood up. She hardly had a choice if her own mother was ready to condemn her to be laughed at by a bunch of … of peacocks! Tears stung her eyes but she walked steadily out of the box and down the red-carpeted corridor. People were pacing up and down the corridor, defeated by Act One of the play and simply waiting for intermission. Chloe walked with her head down, certain that they were all staring at her.

  When they reached the top of the stairs, Will pushed open a door adorned with an elaborate coat of arms. The door led to a brief corridor which was very dark since the entrance to the box proper was hung with heavy curtains. He stopped for a moment in the velvety darkness. His hand pushed up her chin and a voice said, “Courage!” And then a mouth touched hers, very lightly. Chloe gasped. There was a brief instant of silence and then she heard Will’s voice again, sounding rather surprised. “Let’s try that again,” he said, and she felt rather than saw his head descend. His lips touched hers and then she jumped as his tongue smoothly slid into her mouth. Chloe jerked her head back.

  “No, don’t,” Will said rather thickly, dropping his arms around her back and pulling her against his chest. This time his lips were forceful, demanding, and she opened her lips. Even through her whalebone stays Will felt the little shiver that traveled over Chloe’s body. His breath was warm against her lips and then, he couldn’t help it, he took her mouth again, unable to believe how a simple kiss affected him. His hands moved down her back. “My God,” Will finally said roughly. He turned Miss van Stork sharply about and pulled open the curtains leading to the box, half-pushing her through them.

  They emerged just as Act Two began. Will pulled Chloe down on a chair, allowing silent, smiling nods to serve as introductions for the moment. Chloe was surprised: both Charlotte Daicheston and Sophie York were watching the stage intently, completely ignoring the rustling audience around them, even though many of those people were looking only at the two women. She would have thought people like them—people whose names were always in the gossip columns—went to the theater only to see and be seen. But Charlotte, in particular, was so absorbed that her knuckles were white on the box railing. Chloe turned her own attention to the stage. The king, or ex-king now, was hulking about his eldest daughter’s house, demanding to keep a hundred armed men.

  Chloe felt a certain amount of sympathy for Goneril, the king’s eldest daughter. Who would want to keep a bunch of feckless soldiers about? Look at the problem her father had with their servants, and they weren’t even armed. The footmen were always in brawls of some sort or another, and her father had a separate butler’s fund just for use in bailing the servants out of prison. Still, it was heartbreaking to watch the old king divested of all his trappings, all his kingliness….

  For his part, Will couldn’t keep his mind on the play at all. He felt absolutely astonished. Chloe was watching the play, her chest quietly rising and falling as if nothing at all had happened in the corridor. Whereas he was distinctly uncomfortable in his tight pantaloons. Even sitting with his legs crossed wasn’t helping, given the proximity of Chloe’s round arm. At least her dress didn’t cover every single inch of her body. He looked speculatively at the part of her arm that was visible. Her skin was a flat, creamy white, and her wrist so delicate that he felt as if it might snap at any moment. He shifted his legs again. This was not the right thing to be dwelling on at the moment.

  By the time intermission finally came around, Alex, for one, was thoroughly bored. Shakespeare was one thing. For God’s sake, they had acted King Lear themselves when he was a schoolboy at Eton. But this wasn’t King Lear. This was a stupid, adulterated muddle. He couldn’t believe his own eyes when the Fool started dancing an Irish jig. It was clear already that this Cordelia was not going to die, not if the theater manager had anything to do with it—and he already had had entirely too much to do with the whole play. Who were these new characters, for example? And some had definitely disappeared. He knew damned well that Gloucester used to have a bastard son, because that was the role he played at school! He felt nothing but relief when the curtain finally fell on the end of the third act.

  Without conscious thought Alex smilingly raised Daphne from her seat and suggested a stroll in the corridor. Daphne showed no sign of surprise when they headed directly for the stairs leading to the next level of boxes.

  “I would be happy to meet Lady Charlotte again,” she finally said, tired of walking next to a silent companion. Now they were not being watched by the entire audience, the earl seemed to feel no need to speak to her at all.

  Alex came to a halt. “Am I so obvious?” he said with a charming, ironic smile.

  “Oui,” said Daphne. “You do not hide your feelings so well. But then, that is not an English trait,” she said meditatively.

  Alex began walking again, albeit more slowly. “And Lady Charlotte?” he asked.

  “Well.” Daphne gave a very Gallic, dismissive shrug. “She too has no ability to disguise herself.”

  They arrived at the Brandenburg box, only to find that the hallway outside was filled with men trying to jostle themselves into a position to get through the door to the box. A little hush fell when Alex and Daphne appeared, however, and as if by magic the gentlemen pulled back slightly. Alex walked gently through the crowd. The footman guarding the door doffed his hat and Alex and Daphne disappeared through the door, pulling it decisively closed behind them.

  They emerged into the glare of the theater slightly blind after the silky darkness of the corridor. The Marquess—or Marquis, to use the preferred spelling—of Brandenburg turned around sharply. He had distinctly told Pierre not to allow any more men into the box. There were already more than enough young bucks in here, breathing down his daughter’s low dress. He groaned inwardly when he saw who had breached the footman’s defenses. Lord! This would make Eloise breathe fire.

  But the Earl of Sheffield and Downes was bowing pleasantly enough and introducing the lovely Frenchwoman who accompanied him. The marquis’s eyes brightened. He had a distinct tenderness for all things French and this young lady, he saw at a glance, was as distinguished as his own wife and far more beautiful. So Alex walked forward without Daphne, who was laughing kindly at the marquis’s rather worn jokes. It was pleasant to hear her own language at least. People had no idea how difficult it was to set up a flirtation in a foreign tongue, especially one as graceless and unnuanced as English.

  As Alex slipped between chairs there was a sudden flurry at the front of the box. Sophie York rose with a twirl of flimsy skirts, laughing up at the four men surrounding her, each of whom had attempted to help her stand.

  “Now!” she said gaily. “We are going to take some air. You”—she emphasized her choices with a tiny rap of her closed fan—”you, and you. Will you accompany me?”

  The three beaux she had chosen stumbled over themselves to clear a path through the chairs scattered around the box. As Sophie passed Alex she raised her head, nodding a greeting.

  “My lord,” she said demurely. He could swear that the small smile trembling on her lips was a conspiratorial one. An answering gleam lit his eyes.

  Sophie continued out of the box, a little startled despite herself at Alex’s sensual appeal. Charlotte was lucky, she thought almost wistfully. Then she emerged from the corridor, causing something of a riot, and all thought of Charlotte flew from her mind.

/>   With one eye Alex noted that Will was talking quietly to the young woman sitting beside him, rather than hanging over Charlotte’s bosom. He cast a minatory glance at the young bravo who had his hand on the back of the chair Sophie had just vacated, about to sit down, and the man snatched his hand back as if the chair burned, sinking his red ears into a high starched collar. Alex smiled at him kindly and sat down himself. For a moment Charlotte didn’t turn her head. She knew, of course, that he was there. She knew the minute he entered the box.

  Alex stretched out his long legs, ignoring the loud reaction of those theater patrons who had not left their seats, hoping to see precisely something like this. Lady Charlotte Daicheston and the Earl of Sheffield and Downes, seated side by side! Sarah Prestlefield, who had just entered the Brandenburg box to greet her dear friend Eloise, felt a glow of satisfaction. This was such an interesting tangle. The only shame, thought her scandal-loving soul, was that Charlotte’s parents weren’t at the theater. She would love to see the so-calm Adelaide put out by her daughter’s obvious penchant for the Ineligible Earl, as everyone was calling him.

  Finally Charlotte could not pretend to be listening intently to the flimflam of the young man on her right any longer. She turned to Alex, an involuntary smile lighting her eyes.

  “My lord.”

  “Lady Charlotte.”

  There was a small pause. Alex wanted, very badly, to lean over and kiss Charlotte’s neck. Then he would pull her to her feet, walk to his carriage, and rip that bit of muslin she called a dress right off her. His eyes darkened and he felt himself growing hard. Damnation.

  “What do you think of the play?” he asked, nodding toward the now empty stage.

  Charlotte considered his question. “I liked the first two acts very much, but the third act was flimsy…. Would a mad king really wander about the moors with only his fool? And why did that monkey suddenly appear?”

  “Yes, the monkey.” Alex scowled. “Didn’t you read Shakespeare at school?” he asked.

  “Of course. But there were many plays they wouldn’t allow us to read, and then there were always blacked-out parts in the plays we were allowed to read.”

  “Blacked-out parts? What about this one?”

  “We didn’t get to read Lear at all. Although I’m not sure why. It seems lighthearted enough, too light.”

  “Lighthearted! The third act is supposed to be bitter … terrifying. Do you remember when the king sang a little jig about being mad as the wind and the snow?”

  “I didn’t like it.”

  “Those lines are supposed to be howled, not sung—brilliant lines, spoken by a man who is howling mad: mad as the wind and the snow.”

  Charlotte considered this in silence. “The verse too … it hops and leaps,” she said. “For instance, the king’s speech about old age was brilliant, but then that man, what is his name? Reginald—he seems to be speaking prose, not verse.”

  Alex shuddered. “That’s because Reginald is an adornment that this ass of a stage manager decided to give to Shakespeare’s play. There’s no Reginald in the original.”

  “How lucky you are,” Charlotte said regretfully. “We were forbidden to read so much.”

  “Well, couldn’t you read the plays now?” Alex could never figure out what gently bred ladies did all day long. Men took care of investments and met their estate managers and gave speeches in Parliament, as well as boxing, gambling, and wenching. But what did women do? He remembered his mother counting the linen and carrying around food to the poor, but that was it.

  “Oh, no,” Charlotte replied absently. “I work in the mornings and I never seem to have time for reading these days.”

  “You work?”

  Charlotte caught herself. She never talked with men about painting; they immediately fancied her as a water-colorist, painting sweet little wreaths of flowers onto paper bags.

  Charlotte looked up into Alex’s face, a hint of a smile glimmering in her eyes. “Do you know that they wouldn’t even let us read all of Romeo and Juliet?”

  Alex cast his mind back. They hadn’t acted the play at school; he couldn’t think of anything offhand that might need censoring.

  Charlotte continued. “My friend Julia Brentorton—she’s now married and lives abroad—figured out that they excised precisely ten lines, all from Juliet’s epithalamium, you know, her soliloquy before Romeo climbs up the rope ladder to her window.”

  “Of course!” Alex said, startled. “For he shall lie upon me like snow on a raven’s back, like day on night….”

  Charlotte colored. She would look like snow if she lay on top of Alex’s chest; his skin was the color of dark honey. She jerked her thoughts away.

  Alex was more interested in Charlotte’s mention of work. “What kind of work?” he asked bluntly.

  Luckily at that moment Sophie reappeared, followed by a flock of admirers.

  “Charlotte, dearest,” she said in her half-laughing, mischievous tone that drove all the men behind her mad with desire, “this play is simply not Shakespeare, is it? But Lord Winkle has a delightful suggestion … that we eschew the second half and go to Vauxhall instead.”

  “Oh,” Charlotte said rather stupidly, her eyes instinctively meeting Alex’s. What she met there made her feel feverish. She knew without question that her mother would forbid an excursion to Vauxhall in company with the earl. Vauxhall had far too many dimly lit pathways and shadowy arbors.

  “What does your mother say?” she finally asked, looking up at Sophie.

  “She doesn’t like it, but she has agreed.” Sophie bent over, ringlets brushing Alex’s cheek. “I think my father fancies that he has an amour with Miss Boch,” she said softly, “and my mother would like to leave the theater.”

  Charlotte rose immediately. She felt as if she had been ridiculously naive before the conversation with her mother. It would never have occurred to her that the marquis might try to fix an interest with a young lady, even if she were French. She never would have given a second thought to a lively conversation between them, or guessed that the marchioness might dislike watching her husband laugh genially at Daphne’s French witticisms.

  Will looked questioningly at Chloe van Stork, who had watched all the traipsing around the box with rather wide eyes. She looked at him quickly and then down at her hands. Will thought he would rather like to lure Chloe into a dark avenue and kiss her again. He thought of her soft lips under his.

  “Shall we join them?” he asked, his tone smooth as honey.

  “Vauxhall,” Chloe said. “My mother would not like it.”

  But when Chloe appeared at the van Stork’s box, flanked by her huge blond cavalier, her mother surprised herself by nodding agreeably. Katryn cast a loving look at her serious daughter. There was pink in Chloe’s cheeks and her eyes were shining. She had watched Chloe in the Brandenburg box and felt a little guilty. Chloe looked like a crow, surrounded by gaily fluttering gowns. Perhaps she was too prudish in her notions of dress. She certainly didn’t want Chloe to marry one of the solid, plump Dutchmen who thronged into her husband’s workrooms. While this Lord Holland was undoubtedly a fortune hunter, her shrewd assessment was that he was also an honorable man. And she was starting to think that he and her daughter might even make a genuine marriage.

  “Will you be properly chaperoned?”

  Will explained that the Marquis and Marchioness of Brandenburg would accompany the party.

  “Yes, go, daughter,” she said, and nodded at the baron. He bowed politely to Chloe’s abstracted father. Her father was properly dressed, an elegant evening coat straining across his plump stomach, but he looked distracted, as if he was thinking of his work.

  “Ah, humph,” her father said in farewell.

  A small smile lit Chloe’s eyes and she dropped a kiss on his bald head. She put her hand on Lord Holland’s arm, ignoring the secret tingle that she felt at his touch. She felt as if she were in some kind of dream. What was she, plain Chloe van Stork, doing at Vauxha
ll with Charlotte Daicheston? In the last months the gossip columns had anxiously chronicled every move Lady Charlotte made. She knew with absolute certainty that her own name would appear in The Tatler tomorrow morning. Chloe shivered a bit with excitement and looked up at Will Holland.

  His bright blue eyes looked almost black … it must be the lighting in the corridor, Chloe thought. He drew her quickly down the stairs and toward the carriages. Finally she was almost running to keep up.

  “Sir,” she gasped, pulling him back slightly.

  Will turned his head, completely surprised. He was feverishly thinking of getting Chloe into the carriage and kissing her again; he didn’t remember ever being so obsessed that he forgot the normal social graces.

  “I apologize,” he said. And then it just came out of his mouth: “I wanted to kiss you again, in my carriage.”

  Chloe’s eyes widened. She knew that Will Holland was courting her only for her money. Why on earth was he so eager to kiss her? It must be part of his courtship routine. Will felt her infinitesimal withdrawal and cursed inside. He tucked her hand back into the crook of his arm.

  “I’ll tell you what,” he said firmly. “We will amble toward the carriages and I won’t touch a hair of your head: how’s that?” He turned rather anxiously to look down into her blue eyes.

  But she surprised him again. Chloe’s eyes were dancing, unmistakably enjoying his discomfort.

  “I should enjoy that,” she replied.

  Will looked ahead again. Enjoy what? What would she enjoy? Ambling? Or him not touching her? He drew her hand closer to his side and consciously controlled his walk. Chloe smiled to herself. They proceeded toward the carriages at a snail’s pace.

  Chapter 10

  By the time all the carriages met at Vauxhall and the group had reassembled and found each other, they were around twenty persons. Charlotte felt a moment of annoyance. She hated large parties where you never got to talk to anyone seriously and you spent all your time shouting over someone’s shoulder. Besides, Alex was behaving in a most offhand manner, strolling on ahead with a group of men. The men had all lit cigars and were talking loudly of a boxing match scheduled for the coming week. She found herself next to Chloe van Stork, walking toward the brightly lit pavilion. Charlotte studied Chloe’s profile again and felt a quickening of interest. Yes: This was the person she wanted to paint next. Chloe was very beautiful, even though she didn’t know it, but more interesting was the painfully honest look she had. As if she would always blurt the truth and would never gain the smooth social apparatus that Sophie was probably born with and which she herself had painfully acquired in the last three years.