Potent Pleasures

  “Where are my parents, Campion?” she asked the butler.

  “I believe the duchess is attending a fête de champagne given by Lady Bridgeplate, and I am not cognizant of the duke’s location,” Campion replied, holding out her chair with a flourish.

  Charlotte looked at the table. “What are we eating tonight, Campion?” she asked.

  Campion brightened. He loved to talk about food, although this family simply didn’t appreciate it as they ought to. “Poulet à la diable, crab rémoulade, and fraises à la Chantilly.”

  “Oh,” Charlotte said flatly.

  She sat down and stared at the steaming consommé that Campion placed tenderly before her. The solitary life was, well, so solitary…. Perhaps she should find a companion. She thought of an elderly lady with a cap, and pursed her lips. Perhaps not. Two old maids, she thought. She didn’t feel bitter, but it did seem tedious.

  Perhaps she had made an error. In the course of fending off eight marriage proposals, Charlotte had discovered that, in fact, she didn’t have a wanton sexual response to each and every man who tried to kiss her. When the Earl of Slaslow offered his well-phrased and elegant proposal, she responded in dulcet tones; when he refused rejection and hauled her into his arms, kissing her fiercely, she didn’t respond at all. Instead she stood with her mouth tightly closed and except for grinding his teeth against her lips, there was nothing he could do about that. So Braddon gave up and backed away, even pouting a little.

  On the other hand, when the well-known fortune hunter William Holland—an impoverished baron but so good-looking!—pulled her against his chest, she did open her lips, and she did enjoy the kiss. She even felt a little swooning feeling in her stomach. But it was nothing like the raw emotion that had flooded her at the masked ball.

  Now, three years later, she didn’t remember the footman’s face very well (for that was what she had decided he was), but she definitely remembered her own reaction. And she’d grown rather tolerant of herself. While it was true she probably shouldn’t get married, given her lack of a maidenhead, she had heard lots of stories about maidenheads that never existed, especially if one was active and rode horses.

  Perhaps she should take more interest in the whole process, now that her mother seemed to be relinquishing control. Charlotte even found herself wondering whether Will Holland had found the rich wife he needed.

  Campion entered the dining room and removed her untouched consommé and gently placed a half chicken, à la diable, before her. Charlotte didn’t like eating alone. It made her low, in fact. She liked painting alone: Her mother had turned over a large room on the third floor, which had good light in the morning and excellent light in the afternoon. She loved entering her studio, putting on her apron, and mixing paints.

  At the moment she was copying paintings. One after another, she took down paintings from all over the ducal estates and carried them up to her room, keeping them for a month or two, even (in the case of the duke’s only Rembrandt) for six months.

  “Why, darling?” her mother had asked hopelessly that afternoon, looking at Charlotte’s third copy of their sturdy Elizabethan ancestor, Sir Vigilant Daicheston. Adelaide looked back and forth between the two easels.

  “Do you think his eyes are quite right, darling?” she asked. “He looks so—well, so piggy, in your version.”

  Charlotte smiled back at her mother lovingly. “I know, Mama. I had a problem with his eyes, and then I decided that it emphasized his corpulence rather well. He might have been a quite greedy man, after all. He certainly managed to acquire a lot of possessions, didn’t he?”

  “But why copies, dearest? Why not make some more of your own pictures, perhaps some fruit? I love your fruit, and the series of violets you did for Violetta’s wedding were so splendid! I almost burst with pride,” the duchess said.

  “I’ll tell you what, Mama,” said Charlotte. “As soon as I’ve finished with Sir Vigilant, I’ll paint you a really beautiful bunch of flowers for your room.”

  “Do you know what I’d like, Charlotte?” said her mother. “I would like you to paint a picture for your great-aunt Margaret. It’s getting quite difficult for her to leave her chambers now, and—I know!” she said with great excitement. “When Margaret was young she was known as Marguerite. I believe she was quite beautiful, and so everyone called her after the flower. You can paint her a vase of marguerites, and I vow she’ll be so happy!”

  And so Adelaide bustled off to find Campion and arrange for a boy to visit the flower market first thing tomorrow morning and bring home loads of daisies.

  “She’s not done with Sir Vigilant yet,” Adelaide confided in Campion. “But having marguerites in the room will put her in the mood, so to speak. Who will you send? Fred? Well, Fred must be sure to tell the flower stalls that we shall be wanting marguerites every morning for at least six to eight weeks. You know how long it takes.”

  And indeed he did. The whole household revolved around the progress of Charlotte’s paintings, although she would have been amazed to realize it. When she began a new piece Charlotte worked long hours and danced down the stairs, her face glowing. And when Charlotte danced, the house danced.

  She always noticed if a footman had a toothache, for example, and sent him back to the servants’ quarters immediately. She asked about the housekeeper Mrs. Simpkin’s two nieces, who were growing up a bit unruly; she never forgot to inquire kindly about Campion’s only son, who had been a chef-in-training over in France, but had to get out quickly when the Frenchies went crazy, and now he was doing very well for himself, training over at the Maison Blanche on Thurston Street.

  But if a painting bogged down because a nose or an ear gained a misshapen air that didn’t match the original, then the house hummed rather than sang. Housemaids tiptoed past Charlotte’s studio on the third floor, and dust accumulated in the room because the servants never knew when she would be found standing in front of an easel. Once an upstairs maid entered the room at eleven o’clock at night to replace the candles, and accidentally walked in on Lady Charlotte, who sent her away with a sharpish remark. After that Mrs. Simpkin and Campion monitored the progress of pictures themselves, and regulated the household accordingly.

  So Campion nodded sagely and smiled at his mistress. He’d take care of the marguerites first thing, and Her Grace shouldn’t worry about a thing, he murmured. And then he reminded the duchess of her engagement at a fête de champagne. Adelaide dashed lightly up the stairs to get dressed. She didn’t think of asking Charlotte, and the duke was out at his club.

  Charlotte sighed heavily. Campion swam silently into the room and removed her barely touched chicken, suppressing his own sigh at the sight.

  The Calverstill chef, Renoir, was wasted on the family, absolutely wasted. But Renoir would never know. When the family dined alone Campion always removed the dishes himself, and they invariably returned to the kitchen as if a rejoicing family of ten had surfeited themselves. It was part of his campaign to keep Renoir happy, and he knew that the underfootmen, Fred and Cecil (a ridiculous name for a footman), would never reveal that they too enjoyed duck à l’orange or poulet à la diable of an evening.

  Charlotte wandered back up to her bedchamber rather disconsolately. She could dress and follow her mother to Lady Bridgeplate’s fête but it would look rather odd. And what if her mother had gone on to another party, something she was quite capable of doing? Charlotte would arrive and find herself without a chaperone, and Lord knows that would be bad for her reputation.

  Her maid was down in the kitchens, so Charlotte pulled open the doors to her wardrobe and looked at the array of gowns. She hadn’t done much about her apparel lately. She realized it was partly an act of pique, a way of telling her mother to leave her alone. But now she gazed with dislike at her dresses. They weren’t exactly out of fashion (her maid, if no one else, would never let her wear something actually dated), but they weren’t in the newest style either. And perhaps even worse, they were all naive paste
ls, the soft buttery colors of innocence and youth.

  And I, Charlotte thought savagely, am not young! So why should I dress that way? She began ruthlessly pulling out dresses and throwing them on the bed. When Marie entered the room some ten minutes later, never expecting to find her mistress in her chambers, she was dumbfounded to see piles of gowns on the bed, and her mistress gazing with a satisfied expression at four or five morning gowns left in her wardrobe.

  “Mon dieu!” Marie breathed, wondering if Charlotte had suddenly gone mad. Her mistress, she privately thought, was already as odd as could be. Perhaps she’d decided to join those nudists who were emigrating to America!

  “Marie!” Charlotte said, without turning her head. “I’ve decided to make a change. Tomorrow I shall go to Madame Brigette’s and order a whole new wardrobe. Everything. From top to bottom.”

  Marie instantly grasped what was happening. Her mistress had finally woken up to the truth: A woman needs a man. At least, that was what Marie had confided over and over to her beloved, the second footman Cecil, when they were lying snug in Marie’s room. Campion and Mrs. Simpkin, the housekeeper, didn’t know that, of course, but Marie’s French sensibilities did not require that she adhere to English morality. She and Cecil could not get married until she had sufficient money for a dot, but until then she saw no reason to deny herself or Cecil the pleasure of occasional company.

  Marie’s eyes brightened. “And your hair, my lady! Shall I summon Monsieur Pamplemousse?”

  “Yes, Marie, that’s a very good suggestion.” Charlotte perched on top of the bed and looked into the mirror over her dressing table, unthinkingly crushing four or five layers of delicate dresses. She pulled her hair from its ribbon at her neck. “I think I shall have something entirely different … perhaps I shall cut my hair!”

  “Oh, Lady Charlotte, I’m not certain,” said Marie, thinking of the beauty of her mistress’s silky black curls as they dried before the fire. “Men like such things, long hair,” she said, her Gallic accent pronounced. Marie’s parents had immigrated from France some ten years ago, when she was just a girl, but she tended to slide into a thick French lisp in moments of excitement.

  “This short hair … well, it’s very new, isn’t it? Lady Marion Carolly cut all hers off, of course, and Pearl Clotswild, the American heiress, and …” Marie’s voice trailed off. She was an avid reader of the gossip columns, and she knew that cropped hair was one of the most daring things a young lady could do.

  Marie came around the bed and pulled Charlotte’s heavy black hair off her shoulders. Together they stared into the mirror over her dressing table, Marie’s tiny face gazing intently, her lips pursed. She twisted Charlotte’s hair this way and that.

  “Perhaps,” she said finally. It was true that Charlotte’s face sprang into high relief when it escaped from its mantle of hair. In the three years since Marie had become Charlotte’s maid, her mistress had never let her spend more than ten minutes arranging her hair, and so Marie had finally taken desperately to threading a simple ribbon through the front, which at least held most of the weight off Charlotte’s face. But the style didn’t emphasize Charlotte’s eyes. Now she saw they were a remarkable size, slightly almond shaped, and her eyelashes were as black as her hair.

  “We shall see what monsieur says,” Marie announced. She had the greatest reverence for Monsieur Pamplemousse, about whom one heard the most riveting stories: He was the hairdresser to Louis XVI, he had escaped from the very shadow of Madame Guillotine, he was the hairdresser to Napoleon’s beloved Josephine. Of course the English all abhorred Napoleon, but Marie reserved judgment. To her mind, Josephine was a model of feminine beauty and fashion, and her husband of rather less account.

  “And as for Madame Brigette’s, my lady,” Marie said earnestly, “had you thought of perhaps visiting the establishment of Madame Carême? Madame Brigette creates perfect dresses for young girls, but …”

  “You are right, of course,” Charlotte said, her voice rather bleak. She was not, and would never again be, a “girl.”

  She met her maid’s worried eyes with a brilliant smile. “Actually, Marie, I never was much good at the girlish look anyway. It is time to try another style. I saw a woman in the park yesterday in one of those new high-waisted dresses, and no corset. Of course,” she said, “I think the lady herself was probably not of the highest moral fiber, but the point is that the new French styles are rather charming, don’t you think?”

  Marie clapped her hands. “Oh, yes, Lady Charlotte! Madame Carême is just the person to visit. And,” she said shrewdly, “you have just the figure to neglect the corset. Perhaps … you might order one gown in gold? I have often thought that you would look splendid in a dress the color of the morning-room curtains!”

  Charlotte was startled for a moment, and then smiled. “I shall wear no more pink,” she said. “Nothing rosier than a strong peach. And”—more slowly—”no flounces, no ruffles, no embroidered flowers, no bows.”

  “Absolument, oui, oui!” Marie was almost babbling.

  Charlotte looked up, smiling. “Now, Marie, would you like to take all these dresses away?”

  Marie’s eyes shone. Not that she would ever wear such outmoded clothes herself, but she could sell them for a tidy sum (in perfect condition as they were!) and she and Cecil would be that much closer to marriage.

  “Thank you, my lady,” she said, sweeping Charlotte a graceful curtsy. Marie flung a huge stack over her arm and half-staggered out of the room, blinded by underskirts puffing into her face. It took three trips and then Charlotte had the room to herself again.

  She paced about, frowning slightly. Then she began to take down the china figures on the mantel, and all the knickknacks that had sat on her bedside table since she was five years old, and to place them carefully on her dressing table. The room was still too frothy. It was a girl’s room, for a girl’s dreams, all buttercups and daisies.

  It will have to be changed, Charlotte thought, but I can do that tomorrow. She envisioned something cooler, perhaps even blue, the color of cornflowers. She had retained a horror of blue, based on memories of her coming out ball, but that was foolishness.

  Charlotte went to bed without a thought for the almost-finished third version of Sir Vigilant Daicheston, waiting on the third floor. Instead, she went to sleep thinking dreamily about herself, dreams in which she was dancing with a man who had silver-shot hair, and she was wearing a silk gown of Persian blue, and he was gazing at her in adoration, desire stark in his eyes.

  He bent his head and his lips brushed against hers, once, twice, three times, inviting, beckoning, promising. Charlotte turned restlessly in her sleep and woke up, her heart pounding. She stared into the dark for quite a while, thinking. Tomorrow morning she would definitely inquire whether William Holland had found himself a wife. It’s rather odd, Charlotte thought amusedly, to join the ranks of husband-seeking women so late. But it didn’t strike her as an insurmountable task by any means. All she had to find were brains, given her new wealth. Brains, and something unnameable, Charlotte thought. Whatever that footman had. With a sigh she snuggled back into her covers and went to sleep.

  Chapter 4

  No one greeted Charlotte’s determination to buy a new wardrobe with more joy than her mother. They visited Madame Carême together, the very next day, and while Charlotte recklessly ordered dozens of wispy, high-waisted dresses, so light that the outline of her entire body could be seen through them, Adelaide watched happily from a comfortable chair.

  In turn, Madame Carême was ecstatic. In Charlotte she saw a young lady with an exquisite figure and perfect bones. Her dresses would dance out of the shop after this particular duke’s daughter appeared at a few balls wearing her creations. Adelaide’s eyes twinkled when she heard the price of a particularly elegant gown that Charlotte was considering. She estimated the price to be rather less than half the going rate, but madame was shrewdly correct to reduce the price, she thought. Without a corset, her d
aughter’s body was revealed to have developed natural, luxurious curves. Men would swoon when they saw the way her breasts smoothly rose out of Madame Carême’s tiny bodices, looking perfectly shaped and utterly unrestrained. Women would order the same gown, hoping to duplicate the effect.

  “She won’t lose the top of that dress, will she?” Adelaide asked with some anxiety.

  Charlotte was standing in front of a three-sided mirror, wearing a startling gown. It was stark white and its only ornamentation were six or seven narrow black ribbons falling straight down the skirt, which seemed endless as it began just under Charlotte’s breasts. And there was practically no top at all, Adelaide thought, wondering what Marcel would think when he saw the gown. It was the most starkly fashionable dress Adelaide had ever seen.

  She cleared her throat. “Charlotte,” she said. “You must have it. You will start a new fashion.”

  Charlotte turned around. “Oh, yes,” she said happily. “I shall have it, thank you, madame.” And madame smiled, and ferociously beckoned to a girl hovering in the corner with another creation reverently laid over her arms.

  At forty-one, Adelaide considered herself far too old for the new fashions, but even she was talked into buying just a few morning dresses: pale, delicate gowns with the so-fashionable Greek key pattern embroidered at the hem. They are constructed, madame whispered confidentially, so that one might wear a light waist corset with them, should one desire. And Adelaide did so desire. Not for her, this naked look that Charlotte was taking up so quickly!

  Still … Adelaide smiled, thinking with satisfaction of the cattish remarks that some dowagers had made to her recently about her youngest daughter being likely to “stay on her hands,” and “never fall off the shelf.” Nonsense. No one, she thought, looking at Charlotte’s long slender legs and lily-white skin, would ever murmur to her again about Charlotte being long in the tooth. Not in these clothes!