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.”
Charlotte brought Alex’s hand to her lips, kissing his palm. Her mouth curved against his hand in an irrepressible grin. “Luckily, I’ve always been fond of fools,” she said, her teasing reply half muffled by his warm skin.
“I am an idiot, a dolt,” Alex continued indomitably. “There were so many times I should have known. Do you remember when I asked you to marry me in your mother’s Chinese Salon, and afterward I touched you?”
A rosy glow suffused Charlotte’s face, but she nodded.
“You said thank you.” Alex’s voice was full of tormented self-hatred. “And I thought—fool that I am—how surprising it was that for a moment you reminded me of my garden girl, but I didn’t think any further. Because, you see, the garden girl thanked me too, and you were the only two women who were ever so courteous…. I deserve to be whipped,” he said savagely. “I caused you so much misery—”
Charlotte broke off his speech by the simple expedient of clamping her hand over his mouth.
“Don’t!” she cried. “Don’t you see … Don’t you know how happy you make me? The only thing that matters is that it was you. It was you all the time. And now you know, and what does it matter that you didn’t remember immediately? You still wanted me, don’t you see?” she whispered achingly. “If you had come back and you had remembered taking my virginity, I never would have been able to trust that you wanted me for myself. I would always wonder whether it was your gentlemanly sense of honor. Do you know what I remember most clearly from the time we spent in the Chinese Salon?”
Alex shook his head, mesmerized by her glowing eyes.
“You said … you said that you didn’t want to continue kissing me because you would ruin me, and you didn’t want to do that. And all I could think was thank God you didn’t remember that you had ruined me before, because it meant you wanted me now. Not just to make up for a moment’s indiscretion in a garden, but for myself.”
Alex pulled her into his arms, burying his head in her neck. “You’re too good for me,” he said. “I don’t deserve you.” There was a moment’s silence between them.
“But it wouldn’t have been like that if I had been less of a bumble-head and able to put things together,” Alex said more calmly. “In many ways the course of my whole life has been dictated by that garden girl: you. Do you know that I dreamed about you for weeks afterward? You were crying and I was trying to comfort you, or you were lying in my arms, and I was kissing you. Either way the dreams were a torment. I forced Patrick to go back to that Cyprians’ Ball with me the next Saturday, but I couldn’t find you. I went to five ton balls in the next two weeks, but I couldn’t find you there either. And then I went to Rome, and I found someone who looked like you … and so I married her, but she wasn’t you either. And finally when I met the daughter of a certain duke in London, even though I had no idea she was my garden girl, I wanted nothing but her. I planned to marry you abo
ut two minutes after meeting you at the ball, you know.”
He smiled down at his wife’s dazed expression. “I’m afraid, my love, that you must be my fate.”
Charlotte clung to him, relishing the feeling that came from being in his arms. And now there were no shadows between them.
“I missed you,” she whispered. “I missed you so much.”
“I missed you too. I missed you even when I was the most furious. Do you know, I always knew that we would be together again? Even as I raged about the house saying hideously stupid things, I knew that no matter what, I had to have you back, because you are part of my heart. Losing you would be losing myself.”
Alex’s wife smiled up at him, her clear eyes shining with love. “You couldn’t lose me, darling. Next time you storm out of the house I’ll follow you wherever you go.”
“But don’t ever leave me, Charlotte. I couldn’t bear it.”
“I won’t.”
“And I will cherish you,” Alex whispered. “Until we are old and gray: past that time, for all time.”
Charlotte made no answer to Alex’s promise, for the promises they exchanged then were silent ones, given in sweetness, taken in sweetness, remembered forever.
A Note about Potency
and the Pleasures of
Scandal
In 1612, the unhappy marriage of Robert Devereux, the third Earl of Essex, erupted into a prolonged and contentious scandal. His countess, Frances, declared to all and sundry that Essex was impotent and that their marriage had never been consummated. One of London’s notable gossips reported that “there was a divorce to be sued this term twixt the Earl of Essex and his lady, and he was content (whether true or feigned) to confess insufficiency in himself.” But when it came to the actual trial Essex refused to acknowledge impotence—except in matters of his wife. A group of gentlemen were invited to witness his manly potential and agreed to its general working order; a group of ladies in turn inspected a heavily veiled Frances and pronounced her a virgin. After months of acrimony King James ordered the marriage dissolved on grounds of nullity. The Lord Chamberlain himself reported (with some glee) that “it was truth that the earl had no ink in his pen.” But many London gossips firmly maintained that Frances had petitioned for divorce solely because she was in love with a dashing, handsome young lord, the Earl of Somerset, whom she married shortly after the annulment of her first marriage.
Alex is only roughly modeled on the Earl of Essex—my Earl of Sheffield and Downes is not and never was impotent—but the pleasures and dangers of scandal as depicted in Potent Pleasures are fully historical. The third Earl of Essex was plagued by charges of impotency throughout the remainder of his life. When his second marriage produced no children, the whispers grew louder. On the other hand, Frances was never free from scandal either. When she was accused of murder some years later, most of England linked the charge to her dubious claims of virginity.
Yet scandal and love are sometimes true bedfellows. Frances and her second husband, the Earl of Somerset, lived together until her death in 1632. Their marriage—consecrated in the midst of intense speculation—was celebrated by the poet John Donne in one of the most beautiful of English love poems:
Now, as in Tullia’s tomb one lamp burnt clear
Unchanged for fifteen hundred year,
May these love-lamps we here enshrine,
In warmth, light, lasting, equal the divine.
Fire ever doth aspire,
And makes all like itself, turns all to fire,
But ends in ashes; which these cannot do,
For none of these is fuel, but fire too.
This is joy’s bonfire, then, where love’s strong arts
Make of so noble individual parts
One fire of four inflaming eyes, and of two loving hearts.
Look for the exciting new
novel from Eloisa James
Midnight Pleasures
Available from Delacorte Press
in August 2000
Chapter 1
London, December 1804
Brandenburg House
Mayfair, London
Lady Sophie York, the only daughter of the Marquis of Brandenburg, had refused to marry a baron who had asked on a balcony. She had refused two honorables, a handful of sirs, and a viscount, all of whom punctiliously requested that honor in her father’s study. She had refused a marquess in the midst of a hunt, and plain Mr. Kissler at Ascot. Less fortunate young women could not fathom Sophie’s motives. In two seasons, Sophie had rejected the ton’s most eligible bachelors. But after tonight there would be no more proposals, hurried, paced, inarticulate, or otherwise. After tonight the uncharitable would unite in agreement: The girl had held out for a man of high rank. Lady Sophie was affianced to an earl, and she would be a countess by next season.
Sophie grimaced at her mirror, thinking of the avid faces and deep curtsies she would face at the Dewland ball that evening. Uncertainty quaked in her stomach, an unusual flutter of self-consciousness. Was this the correct gown in which to announce her engagement? It was constructed of pale silver, gossamer-thin silk. Perhaps the color would make her look washed out in the ballroom, once she was surrounded by glittering plumage, the bare breasts and crimson cheeks of the female half of the beau monde. Silver was such a nunlike color. A glint of amusement lit Sophie’s eyes. A nun would swoon at the very idea of wearing a bodice made in the French style, low-cut and caught just under the breasts with silver ribbons that wound around the bodice. And the skirt flowed narrowly past Sophie’s curves, flirting with the roundness of her hips.
Just then the Marchioness of Brandenburg swept into the bedroom.
“Are you ready, Sophie?”
“Yes, Maman” Sophie said, throwing away the idea of changing her gown. They were already late to the Dewland ball.
The marchioness’s eyes narrowed as she looked over Sophie’s apparel. Eloise herself was wearing a gown of mouse-colored satin embroidered with flowers and fringed at the bottom. If it wasn’t precisely hooped, it gave that impression. It resembled nothing so closely as the styles of twenty years ago, from the early years of Eloise’s marriage.
“That dress,” Eloise said with asperity, “is a disgrace.”
“Yes, Maman.” That was Sophie’s usual response to her mother’s sartorial comments. She gathered up her wrap and reticule, turning toward the door.
Eloise hesitated, uncertainty crossing her face. Sophie looked at her in surprise. Her mother was French and seemed to view life as a battleground in which she was the only general with a standing army. It was uncommon to see her pause.
“Tonight,” said Eloise, “it will be announced that you have accepted the hand of the Earl of Slaslow in marriage.”
“Yes, Maman” Sophie agreed.
There was a short pause. What could be the problem, Sophie wondered. Her mother was never short of words.
“He may desire some token of your affections.”
“Yes, Maman.” Sophie lowered her eyes so her mother wouldn’t see her mischievous enjoyment.
Poor Mama! She had been raised in a French convent and had likely come to the marriage bed exceedingly ill prepared. Given that Eloise had married an English marquis so obsessed by France and things French that he preferred the French spelling marquis to the English marquess, her daughter had been raised in a house thronged with French émigrés. Her nanny was French, the servants were French, the cook (of course) was French. Eloise had no idea just how earthy discussions had become in the nursery, long before Sophie had even made her debut. The last thing Sophie needed was instructions on what men wanted from women.
“You may allow him one kiss, perhaps two, at most,” Eloise said heavily. “I am sure you will understand the importance of this limitation, Sophie. I am thinking of you. Your reputation …”
Now Sophie’s eyes flashed and she looked directly at her mother, who was, however, gazing at a spot somewhere to her left shoulder.
“You
have insisted on wearing gowns that are little more than scraps of tissue. Your neglect of a corset must be obvious to all, and sometimes I have wondered if you are wearing a chemise. I have many times been embarrassed by your behavior, your flirtatiousness, if one can call it that. You have the chance of an excellent marriage here and I demand that you not ruin your prospects by encouraging the Earl of Slaslow to take liberties.”
Sophie could feel her heart beating angrily in her throat. “Are you implying that my behavior has been less than correct, Maman?”
“I certainly would say so,” her mother responded. “When I was your age, I would no more have dreamed of spending time alone with a man than I would of going to America. No man kissed me before your father. I knew my place and what was proper to my position. You, on the other hand, have shown no respect for the position to which you were born. You have consistently embarrassed your father and myself with your fast behavior.”
Despite herself, Sophie felt a curl of mortification in her stomach. “I have never done anything out of the proper, Maman” she protested. “Everyone wears these clothes, and manners are more liberal than they were when you were my age.”
“I take part of the responsibility. I have allowed your extravagant escapades to continue, and I have overlooked many of your lapses. But now you are to be a countess, and what may possibly be overlooked as youthful spirits in a girl can never be done so in a countess.”
“What lapses? I have never allowed a man to take liberty with my person!”
“I know that chastity is an outmoded word, but it is not an outmoded concept,” her mother rejoined sharply. “Your constant joking and flirting makes you seem more accomplished than you are. In fact, Sophie, you have precisely the manners of a top-flight courtesan!”
For a moment Sophie stared at her mother in outrage, then consciously took a deep breath. “I have never done anything out of the proper,” she repeated firmly.