“Perhaps her disappointment will make her rethink her current ambition to become a vulgar lightskirt.”
“Lady Maitland is no lightskirt,” Gabe said. And then: “I should know.”
“I would gather that you are implying that your mother should be known by that label,” Rafe said. “I would never think such a thing. The family solicitor has recently told me of my father’s devotion to your mother, as have you.”
“I am only saying that Lady Maitland has turned to me in an effort to stop grieving for her husband.”
“And because she desires you,” Rafe said with a faint, twisted smile.
“I am certain that you are as aware as I am of the inadvisability of acting on such an emotion.”
“And I assure you that if I lectured Imogen on the subject, it would make no difference to her determination to seduce you,” Rafe said. Even he could hear the raw raggedness in his voice. “Dammit!”
“Yes,” his brother said, his eyes amused.
“Don’t look at me like that. I’m not quite brokenhearted.”
“Just a bit touched,” Gabe said after a moment’s consideration.
“Not even.”
“Overcome by bashfulness, are we?” Gabe said, suddenly finding that he was enormously enjoying the role of younger brother.
Rafe glared at him balefully from beneath lowered brows.
“You’ll have to go in my stead.”
“What?”
“Tomorrow night. Stick on the mustache, cloak, etc.”
“Don’t be an ass!”
“Would you rather that she is humiliated by my rejection? Because while I would not want to spurn her, I am not—”
“Not what?” Rafe said fiercely.
“Not interested.”
“Rubbish. There’s no man alive that wouldn’t be interested in Imogen.”
“I don’t wish to marry her.”
Rafe’s eyes visibly darkened. “Then—” he stopped.
Gabe stood up. “Bring a carriage to the orchard gate at nine o’clock tomorrow night.”
“I won’t.”
Gabe paused at the door. “If you don’t,” he said gently, “Imogen will wait for me. I imagine that she will be humiliated by my nonappearance. I suppose you could comfort her.”
Rafe just stared at him, eyes narrowed and chilly. He was remembering all those stories of Cain and Abel and just how much sense they made.
“Oh,” Gabe said, reaching into his pocket. “I forgot this.” A long black mustache flew through the air and landed on Rafe’s bed like a limp mouse skin. “Just in case you decide to spare your ward the humiliation. Nine o’clock at the orchard gate. You are taking her to Silchester to see a singer from London, by the way. I think her name is Cristobel.”
“Cristobel?” Rafe said, his eyes narrowing. “Are you quite certain?”
Gabe shrugged. “I saw something nailed to a tree. The woman likely has all the skill of a caterwauling cat.”
“You’re a professor of divinity, and you promised to take my ward to see Cristobel?”
“Imogen is not a child,” Gabe said, opening the door. “If you allowed yourself to see Imogen as a woman rather than someone fit to play with toys, she might truly surprise you.”
The door closed quietly behind him.
18
A Chapter of Intelligent Conversation About Intelligent Subjects
Gillian Pythian-Adams had been seated in the library for two hours, painstakingly copying out actors’ parts from The Man of Mode. At the moment she was copying out Mrs. Loveit’s part so that it could be sent to Miss Loretta Hawes. As she wrote, Gillian was trying to memorize the part; surely the stage manager of a theatrical event should know all the lines better than the actors.
“I know he is a devil,” Gillian murmured to herself. What a stupid line that was. If the man was a devil—and every indication was that Dorimant was just that—then Mrs. Loveit should spurn him, not waft around the stage sighing that she must love him, be he never so wicked. Wicked men were to be detested. Especially the wicked kind like Dorimant, who had obviously dallied with half the women in London.
Dorimant was rather like Mr. Spenser, to tell the truth. Mr. Spenser looked innocent as an angel—a divinity professor!—while in truth he was importing his mistress into the household. Because that was the conclusion Gillian had drawn about Mr. Spenser’s suspicious interest in Miss Hawes’s welfare. At the same time, there was Imogen, and her ambitions for Mr. Spenser’s further acquaintance. Yes, perhaps she should switch Mr. Spenser to Dorimant and make the duke play Medley.
It was all rather depressing, for some reason. Of course Imogen was so beautiful that Mr. Spenser would succumb to her wiles.
Mrs. Loveit was complaining about all the odious fools in London. Well, she, Gillian, knew about fools. After all, she’d been engaged to Draven Maitland, hadn’t she?
“Excuse me,” came a deep voice.
She jerked her head up. “Oh!”
“I merely wondered if you would like some assistance.” How could he be so devilish when he looked so blameless?
“That is very kind of you,” she said. “But as you can see, I have only one copy of The Man of Mode, and I am afraid that only one person can use the book at a time.”
Mr. Spenser moved closer to the table and looked down at her. He had a lovely square jaw. Not that Gillian was noticing in particular. “If I sat next to you,” he suggested, “I could copy out a part at the same time.”
“Oh, no—” Gillian said, but he was already pulling a chair close to her and drawing a scroll toward him.
“Where are you?”
“I’m in Act Two,” she said weakly. “Mrs. Loveit.”
“Shall I do Dorimant’s part?” he asked, glancing over her sheet. “We can add his earlier lines at another time.”
“I won’t be able to write with you so close to my arm, Mr. Spenser,” she protested. He smelled like soap and the outdoors.
He politely moved his chair to the right. “In that case, why don’t you read Mrs. Loveit’s lines aloud, and I’ll write down the lines?”
Gillian smiled weakly at him. “All right. I’ll start with Dorimant’s entrance. Is this the constancy you vowed?”
“Is that Mrs. Loveit?” His eyebrows were delicious when they pulled together with that little pang of bewilderment.
“Yes,” Gillian said with a gulp. “Of course it is. And then Dorimant says: Constancy at my years! ’tis not a virtue in season; you might as well expect the fruit the autumn ripens i’ the spring.”
“A charming fellow,” Gabe said as his pen scratched across the foolscap.
“Like all men,” Gillian said before she thought.
“You think that constancy is in short supply in my sex? That an honorable man is, in fact, as rare as autumn fruit in the spring?”
Gillian hesitated a moment and then nodded. Normally she didn’t share her opinions with males, but surely Mr. Spenser was the exception. He could have no interest in her, what with his Loretta and Imogen, and Lord only knows who else.
“A harsh judgment,” Mr. Spenser said, sounding genuinely perplexed.
“I hardly think so,” Gillian said. “This play and its hero is only one of many celebrations of the rakish hero. Is a rake, a man like Dorimant, anything to venerate or to adore? Dorimant abandons Mrs. Loveit, flirts with Belinda, and courts Harriet. What sort of man is he to admire?”
“Why on earth did you chose the play? I have always found it a paltry bit of entertainment, as I said at the time.”
“But the only suggestion you came up with was translated from ancient Greek,” Gillian said, nettled. “We have no skills for solemn tragedy; this company will be hard put to perform a comedy.”
“A play should correct vices, not celebrate them. We might as well be putting on one of those foolish bits of fluff called Love in a Hollow Tree.”
“Man of Mode does not precisely celebrate vice. It laughs at the vanities of men
like Dorimant,” Gillian pointed out. “One never truly admires the person who is the subject of humor.”
“But the author gives him excellent lines,” Mr. Spenser said. He took the book from her hands and turned back a few pages. “Here he defends himself: Should I have set up my rest at the first inn I lodged at, I should never have arrived at the happiness I now enjoy!”
“That proves my point!” Gillian said triumphantly. “No one could be expected to admire such a man. He’s treating women as little more than a rest at an inn. Why, he might as well say that Mrs. Loveit is nothing more than a bed to him.” Gillian colored.
Mr. Spenser looked down at her, his gray-blue eyes amused. “A descriptive turn of phrase, Miss Pythian-Adams.”
But Gillian could feel her backbone stiffening. She was not going to be condescended to by this man, who was practically worse than Dorimant himself. For all Dorimant was a rake, he didn’t claim to be a divinity professor. “And yet,” she said, looking him straight in the eyes, “when is a woman truly more than a mere temporary inn for a man? Your sex decides to marry with as much prudence as if they had decided to visit a spa and take the waters: in fact, with precisely the same combination of disenchantment and carelessness.”
He had a small crooked smile that might soften a woman who was more inclined to be softened. “We see marriage quite differently, Miss Pythian-Adams. Marriage seems to me the most fascinating of states.”
“Why on earth would you say that?” Gillian asked with genuine surprise.
“Love can be a fleeting thing. But once married, a man and woman are bound to live for each other, not for pleasure.”
“Dorimant, married, will continue to live for pleasure,” Gillian said. For some reason her heart was beating extremely quickly.
“That may, of course, be true,” Mr. Spenser said thoughtfully. “But I think that Harriet will tame him, don’t you?”
“I think she will learn to tolerate him. And that is quite different from taming.”
“In fact, she says that she will learn to endure her husband.”
“The fate of many women.” For some reason, all Gillian could think about was how empty the library was, and how silent the large house felt around them. It was as if there were only the two of them in the whole building. Mr. Spenser’s eyes were so—so thoughtful. It was enthralling to have his fixed attention.
“Do you believe that?” He looked genuinely curious.
“How can one love such a creature?” Gillian asked, speaking the truth as she never had before. “You must forgive me the libel to your sex, sir, but men are dictatorial, frequently tedious, and almost always inconstant, as we noted when this conversation began. They—” And then she suddenly had the horrified thought that he was the child of an adulterous union and would likely feel quite mortified by the topic.
He didn’t look mortified.
“They?” he prompted.
“This is an unseemly subject for conversation,” Gillian said. “You must forgive me.” She turned back to her foolscap, noticing with irritation that her fingers were trembling slightly.
“Why don’t I read?” Mr. Spenser asked. “While I do not care particularly for the play, there is an enchanting scene between Harriet and Young Bellair.”
“When she instructs him in how to woo?”
“You have dimples when you smile,” Mr. Spenser said, and a look of near horror crossed his face.
For goodness sake, Gillian thought to herself rather crossly. He needn’t act as if she were unavailable, given that no other woman in the house seemed to be.
He cleared his throat. “Forgive me for not having thought of this before, but is there a chance that your reputation will be dented by being alone with me? Shall we ring for your maid, or your mother, or some other person to join us?”
“I very much doubt it,” she said.
“I was under the impression that young ladies were not to entertain gentlemen in private.”
“My mother is an extremely sensible woman,” she said. “In my experience, claims of compromised female reputations follow young women who are ardently interested in the state of marriage. I assure you that I have not the least wish nor need to force a man into marriage.”
“In that case, why don’t I read aloud from this scene, and you write down Harriet’s words?” His voice was as even as ever.
She poised her pen obediently.
“This is Young Bellair,” he said. “Now for a look and gestures that may persuade them I am saying all the passionate things imaginable.”
“Oh, I know this part,” Gillian said. “Harriet tells him to put his head to one side and tap his toes.”
“Your head a little more on one side, ease yourself on your left leg, and play with your right hand.”
Gabe was furious. Absolutely furious. The more he thought about it, watching Miss Pythian-Adams’s pen move across the page, the angrier he felt. True, he was illegitimate. But that didn’t make him a eunuch. She should be worried about being in a room alone with him. Perhaps not because her mother would consider them compromised, given that he was apparently about as marriageable as a spoiled chicken. But because—
“The next line?” she asked. And then when he looked at her, “Harriet’s next line?”
“Now set your right leg firm on the ground, adjust your belt, then look about you.” She had beautiful hands, slim hands that looked as intelligent and ladylike as she was.
“Turn your face to me, smile, and look to me,” he said, watching her hands. They were like her lips, sweet, innocent and clean. Ladylike.
“Oh, but I don’t think that line—”
But he caught her face, that ladylike sweet triangle in his hands, and pressed his lips to hers. She tasted startled, but not outraged, although of course in a moment she’d be beating him about the head and screaming. But she was startled into silence, and he meant to make the moment last as long as he could.
Gillian tasted like everything he’d ever wanted in his life. She smelled clean, and sweet, with just the faintest hint of something—a perfume that smelled like peaches, not like the lush heavy scent of roses. There was no oily red color on her lips either. He ran his tongue over her plump lower lip, and she made a startled little noise in the back of her throat.
The little bird he’d caught had never been kissed, perhaps. Gabe was having the oddest sensations. As if he were Dorimant himself, the rake called the worst man breathing. Dorimant wouldn’t hesitate to kiss an innocent in the library, and take advantage of her inexperience…The thought slipped away because Gillian hadn’t fled yet. She must be so startled that she’d gone into shock, like a rabbit afraid to move. He’d be a fool to waste time.
So he nibbled on her full lower lip, but of course she wasn’t like Loretta, or the other women he’d bedded—not that there’d been that many. Gillian had no idea what he wanted, he could tell that. So he just slid into her mouth between one breath and another, a sweet, deep stroke into her mouth.
He felt her astonishment as if it were his own body. And yet…still she didn’t begin to scream for help.
Gabe was having a rakish feeling that he had literally never had before. It was as if Dorimant had leaped off the page and was whispering in his ear. Before he knew it, he scooped Gillian’s sweet little body off her chair and plumped her down on his lap, and without ever stopping the kiss—that same slow kiss that couldn’t end.
She gasped again when she settled on his lap, but her arms went around his neck, and so he dared to wander from her lips and run his mouth across her smooth cheek. No powder, no color, no bitter taste of strange potions designed to make a woman’s skin white, or red, or smooth. Just Gillian’s pure, sweet skin, and the tiny sound of her breath and the way her breath hitched when he pulled her closer.
He could feel her corset, and it was one of those kinds that held a woman upright and encased as if in steel. Paradoxically, it made him wild with desire. She clearly had three or four layers of clothing on
, and his fingers trembled as they soothed the layers and he couldn’t help it, he dipped back into her mouth.
Now her fingers curled into his hair.
He delved into her sweet mouth as if he were on the edge of death, which he was because any moment now she’d come to her senses and realize whom she was kissing. But for the moment he was Dorimant, strutting down the London street with all the bravado and the beauty of an angel.
“Kiss me back, sweetheart,” he said, and his voice came out as dark and liquid gold as any actor’s.
“I—I—”
He shifted her just a little so that he could rub a thumb up her neck. “You taste like peaches,” he said into her mouth. “Gillian.”
And then, all of a sudden, she was kissing him back. All that sweetness turned wild, and the little hoarse sounds he heard were his as well as hers. Stunned, he pulled back and looked at her.
Her hair was falling around her shoulders. Her eyes weren’t bewildered anymore. She raised her eyelashes as if they were too heavy. Her lips were as deep crimson as if she’d painted them. He froze, hands in the silky sweep of her hair.
What had he done?
“I shouldn’t—” he said hoarsely.
And just like that, all the passion disappeared from her eyes and she looked at him with all the cool calculation of an aristocrat. “You,” she whispered.
“It’s all right,” he said uneasily, picking up a hairpin and handing it to her.
She leaped from his lap as if he had poked her with the pin. “You’re a man of no principles.”
“You’re quoting from the play,” he said, making a grimace that might count as a smile.
“It seemed a useful line.”
Strangely enough, she didn’t begin screaming, just looked at him as she briskly wound her hair back up into a chignon that hid all that glowing color as if it didn’t exist. “Well, I suppose I should thank you,” she said briskly.
She really was one of the oddest women he’d ever met. In fact, he couldn’t even think of a repost to that.
“This has taught me sympathy for the women of the play. I previously thought Mrs. Loveit and Belinda were rather foolish women, negligible in intelligence and prey to their passions.”