Your Wicked Ways

  “Damn it,” Rees said elegantly, heading for the door.

  Lina paused for a moment and very delicately, with just the tip of her rosy finger, pushed his score off the piano so that it drifted into the scads of trash wafting around her feet.

  “Coming, dearest !” she thrilled, adding a little tremolo to give him a frisson. Because it hadn’t taken her long to realize that her personal accoutrements did nothing for Rees Godwin. The luscious body and suggestive glances that had reduced Hervey Bittle to a stammering fool hardly interested the earl at all. Witness the fact that she was living in his wife’s bedchamber as if she were a nun.

  It was her voice that he had wooed from the opera house, and her voice was the only thing that he really wanted in his house. More fool she, to have been so blinded by infatuation that she didn’t notice.

  Oh well. Native Scottish practicality forced her to recognize that singing a few lines of music was infinitely preferable to being at a man’s beck and call in the bedroom. It wasn’t as if the earl had been any great shakes in the bed anyway. Mind you, he had a lovely body. But it was a matter of here, there, see you later.

  Lina shrugged and headed out to the hall to join the earl. But first she nudged the libretto once more with her boot to make sure it was completely buried in paper.

  Madame Rocque maintained an establishment at 112 Bond Street, an enclave that whispered money and screamed elegance, to Lina’s mind. She took a deep breath the moment they walked through the door. There was nothing she loved more than the elusive fragrance that wafted through silk-draped rooms like this one. It was the smell of rich satin, of French perfume, of ladies who changed their clothing four or five times a day and thought nothing of ordering three bonnets to match a gown, or two gowns to match a favorite bonnet, for that matter.

  The antechamber was made up to look like a lady’s boudoir, complete with a dressing table lined with ruffle after ruffle of crocus-colored silk. The walls were hung with silk of the same dulcet yellow. To one side, an exquisite evening gown was hanging over the back of a chair, as if a distinguished beauty might waltz into her chamber at any moment and put it on. One of Madame Rocque’s innovations had been her habit of making up each of her new models so that one could actually see a gown before ordering it.

  Rees stuck out in the midst of this exuberant femininity like a sore thumb. He looked like the very worst kind of degenerate today, with his hair falling out of its ribbon, and too long to begin with. Not to mention that sulky lower lip of his. Yet his title was the only thing that truly mattered to Madame Rocque. Sure enough, with the earl stomping along at Lina’s side they were ushered into an inner room the moment they entered the establishment, and by Madame herself. In the past Lina had been relinquished to a minion after being asked to wait in the antechamber for upwards of a half hour.

  Madame fluttered about Rees like a rather weedy sparrow courting a hawk. If she wasn’t such a fool, she’d realize that twittering like that would simply make his temper grow, Lina thought. He was like a child being told to wait for dinner. Madame had yet to greet Lina herself; she was obviously walking a delicate balance between desire for Rees’s patronage and a lavish desire to make it clear to her, Lina, that she wasn’t welcome.

  All right, Lina could accept that. There were other modistes who would be ecstatic to gown the chosen mistress of Earl Godwin, given his thousands of pounds. But she wanted the best. To her mind, if she had to live with Rees, she deserved the very best, and that meant patronizing the establishment where ladies went.

  So she sat down on a spindly chair upholstered in green silk and disregarded the way Madame Rocque was cooing over Rees. Perhaps she should refurnish her chambers in this green color. It would look like the first breath of spring in the woods behind her father’s vicarage. Lina crossed her legs and swung her ankle gently. She was willing to wait.

  As soon as Madame Rocque left the dressing room, Rees took out a piece of paper and began jotting down notes without saying another word to her. Madame Rocque’s establishment was rather flimsily constructed, Lina decided. Even draperies of green silk couldn’t hide the fact that the inner rooms were perfectly audible to each other. Two ladies in the next room were having a most interesting conversation.

  “Men like to see an expanse of bosom,” one lady said. She had a sort of honeyed, husky voice that Lina associated with stage actresses. She was an alto, a seductive, opulent contralto. Men must adore her voice: she could have made a fortune on the stage.

  The other woman had a higher voice that was rather bell-like. In fact, it was rather like Lina’s own, so she was probably a soprano. The soprano didn’t agree with her friend, which was utterly foolish. Lina firmly agreed with the alto. Show a man a bit of bosom, and he’ll blather himself into a frenzy. She cast a glance at Rees. He was the exception to the rule. She could have dropped her gown to her waist and he wouldn’t notice, Lina thought rather bitterly. He had never shown much interest in her breasts, even in the first few weeks when he was so gratifyingly attentive.

  And when they were in bed, well, she could have been in a dead faint, for all he caressed her. Lina was practiced at turning her mind away from depressing subjects, so she went back to the conversation next door.

  The alto sounded a little exasperated. “How in the world do you think to catch a man’s attention if you dress like a Puritan?” The soprano presumably was in need of a husband. She must be coming out of mourning, since her voice had far too much maturity for a debutante. At that moment Madame Rocque came burbling into the ladies’ room—so that’s where she was!—and Lina could hear the swishing of silks being held up.

  The alto was obviously in charge. “We’ll try that one,” she said, sounding coolly approving. Lina memorized her tone. It was hard not to allow a note of pleading to enter her own voice when she spoke to Madame Rocque.

  There was some rustling as the gown was cast over the soprano’s shoulders, or so Lina assumed, and then the alto and Madame Rocque started cooing.

  But the soprano cut through it decisively. “I look like an orange without its rind,” she said firmly. “More so because this silk is quite an odd shade of yellow, Madame, if you’ll forgive me saying so.”

  No doubt Madame Rocque had put her in one of her newest gowns, the ones cut low in the back and even lower in the front. They were being worn with bared shoulders. Lina, naturally, wanted one of those herself, ever since she’d read a description in La Belle Assemblée.

  The alto was doing her best to convince her friend. “You look splendid—”

  But the soprano seemed to have a practical turn of mind. “No, I don’t. I look like a plucked chicken. There’s no point to wearing a gown designed precisely to expose one’s bosom when one hasn’t that bosom to expose!”

  She had a sound argument, to Lina’s mind. There is nothing worse than a stringy set of shoulders. She looked rather proudly at her own plump figure. Mind you, boredom had made her rather plumper than she’d like to be, but it was in all the right places.

  More to the point, Madame Rocque appeared to have chosen sides with the soprano. “I have another idea,” she said in her heavily French accent. Lina was absolutely certain that accent was contrived. She’d had to study in order to rid herself of her Scots accent, and she knew how easily an accent could be faked. Likely Madame Rocque was really Mrs. Riddle from Lower Putney, Lina thought to herself sourly.

  There was a moment’s pause and she heard Madame say something curt to one of her assistants. A moment later there was a light knock at their door and a girl entered holding a gown, obviously the same gown, since it was orange. Lina’s eyes narrowed. How many orange gowns could there be in this establishment? She expected to be served by Madame Rocque herself, not by a stammering girl clutching a gown that had just been rejected by another client. She had a mind to refuse to try the gown at all.

  “Put on the damn thing,” Rees growled at her. “I have work to do.”

  Lina took a closer look an
d changed her mind. The gown was lovely. The assistant began nimbly unbuttoning her walking costume.

  Next door, Madame had returned with another costume. “This gown is a concoction that I offer only to my most daring clients,” she said in her strident, Frenchified voice.

  There was a moment of absolute silence in the room next door. Lina strained her ears. Was the soprano being offered something more daring than the creation she herself had just slipped on? Because if so, Lina wanted it as well. Not that the gown she wore wasn’t lovely. It was precisely as described in La Belle Assemblée, and Lina fully intended to order one in primrose, and perhaps another in lilac. But—

  “I couldn’t!” That was the soprano. But she had the awed voice of a woman who clearly could.

  “My lady, if you will just remove your chemise, and corset, I will put the gown over your head. I think you will be most pleased.”

  “Remove my corset? I would feel quite uncomfortable without a light corset,” said the soprano. “I’m afraid that’s out of the question.”

  Lina almost giggled. She had given up wearing corsets the moment she left Scotland. She heard some rustling, presumably the gown going over the soprano’s corset.

  The alto cleared her throat. “Glory be, Helene, you look—you look—”

  “Exquisite, is it not?” Madame Rocque sounded extremely pleased with herself. “You see, when a lady has not quite the endowments that one would like—” she caught herself.

  The soprano must be flat as a chessboard, Lina thought with some amusement.

  “This style of dressing compliments the grace and delicacy of your form, my lady. It is sensual, enticing, and yet, as you see, there is nothing uncovered.”

  The alto laughed. She had a dark chocolate laugh, and Lina thought again that men must love that laugh. Proving her point, Rees raised his head to listen.

  “It’s utterly glorious,” she said. “I think you’ll have it in amber, Helene? Amber will suit your hair, and it’s quite the rage these days. And perhaps in a shot silk as well, Madame?”

  Madame Rocque’s voice had all the satisfaction of a cat encountering a bowl of cream. “I would suggest just a delicate pearl border, Lady Bonnington, if you agree.”

  Rees had snapped to attention like a terrier confronting a mastiff. Lina cast him a curious glance.

  “Do you like this gown, Rees?” she asked, twirling in front of him. A man would have to be a limp lily not to appreciate the way her breasts swelled from the crimped satin riband that wound its way over her shoulders.

  He didn’t even notice, just said, “That’s my wife next door, for God’s sake. My wife. With Esme Rawlings—Esme Bonnington now. Christ.”

  “What?” Lina said, hardly listening. Perhaps she would order the gown she was wearing in white, with black trim. That way men would instinctively look to the black ribbons outlining her breasts. She smiled and turned before the mirror again.

  “That’s my wife next door!” Rees hissed at her. “Take your pelisse. We’re getting out of here.”

  This time Lina caught what he said. It was too delicious! She had been dying of curiosity about Rees’s wife. The papers ignored the countess, never even reporting on her gowns. Had she, Lina, been Countess Godwin, she would have ensured that every costume she wore was reported in detail.

  She deliberately raised her voice, knowing full well that her voice rang as clear as a bell and had the power to carry to the back of a theater. “Why Rees, darling, why such a hurry? Surely you can’t wish to return home already?”

  Rees narrowed his eyes at her and if she didn’t have the fortitude of an elephant—and she did—she might have been almost afraid. But she’d learned long ago that Rees’s bark was worse than his bite.

  There was absolute silence next door, not even a whisper.

  “I’m not ready to return to the house,” Lina said. “Why this gown, even if it is a quite odd shade of yellow, is positively enticing, isn’t it darling? Or…”—she let a teasing hint of delicious pleasure enter her voice—“is it the very delightful nature of the bodice that has inspired your wish to return home, Rees? And in the midst of the afternoon!” She giggled naughtily.

  Rees had turned an ugly shade of dark red and Lina thought he was probably at the boiling point. Still not a sound next door. “Your manly enthusiasm is so gratifying,” she cooed.

  “Shut up!” he growled at her in a low voice.

  “Of course, you may suffer from some competition once men see my figure in this gown!” Lina continued blithely.

  He rose and was coming toward her. It was probably time to go but oh, what fun that had been! She hadn’t had an audience in over two years. She pranced toward the door, pausing for one last second. “I hardly think, Rees dar—” But a large hand clamped over her mouth and Rees carried her straight through the anteroom and almost threw her into the carriage.

  Alina McKenna hadn’t gotten free of a dark and draughty vicarage, the cold fields of Scotland, and the windy corridors of the King’s Theatre in the Haymarket without regular use of her not inconsiderable intelligence. That same intelligence suggested that she sit quietly in the corner of the carriage and not say a word about her walking costume, left behind at Madame Rocque’s. Instead she spent the ride home examining the exquisite workmanship that made up the deep yellow gown she was wearing. The stitches were so small they could hardly be seen against the silk. She would send a message immediately requesting another of these gowns in a deeper color. She changed her mind about white and black. That was a bit garish. Perhaps amber.

  Since amber was a fashionable color these days, or so she’d heard it said.

  Quite the rage, really.

  Five

  Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

  Esme had often thought that the only thing lacking to make Helene into a devastatingly beautiful woman was a little animation. Helene was always calm, always exquisitely polite, always…evasive.

  Not at the moment.

  “I cannot believe that I patronize the same shop as that doxy!” Helene snapped, eyes flashing with rage.

  Madame Rocque rushed into a frothy waterfall of apologies, but Esme cut her off. “If you would be so kind as to bring a cup of tea to soothe Lady Godwin’s nerves.”

  As Madame gratefully closed the door behind her, Esme observed, “I’m afraid the coincidence is not unusual. After all, Rees’s mistress must be flush with money, and there is no more fashionable modiste in London than Madame Rocque.”

  Helene narrowed her eyes. “For the demi-mondaine, perhaps!”

  “I have bought all my gowns from her for the past two years.”

  “She should maintain higher standards in her clientele.” Helene shuddered. “That woman is wearing the yellow gown that I had on my body a mere moment ago. And Rees likely overheard everything we said!”

  “Good,” Esme said uncompromisingly.

  “Good?” Helene’s voice rose to a shriek. “What’s good about it?”

  “Perhaps Rees will wish to join the competition for your favors.” Esme pointed to the mirror before which Helene still stood. “Look at yourself.”

  Helene swivelled. “The last thing I would want is for that reprobrate to approach me.” But she looked, obediently.

  “You must remove your corset. The fabric is so fine that I can see the trim on your chemise in the back. But the gown is vastly becoming to you.”

  “Likely all the courtesans are wearing the same piece!” she said rather shrilly.

  Esme shrugged. “You’re getting a little priggish in your old age, darling.”

  Helene turned on her like a viper. “Don’t you dare call me priggish simply because I am overwrought at being made fun of—humiliated!—by my husband’s mistress. Lady Childe was never less than gracious to you, when you were married to Miles and she was his mistress.” She collapsed into a chair. “The woman was making a game of me. Did you hear that comment about her bosom? Clearly, Rees has told her everything about our marriage.??
?

  Esme busied herself with looking into her reticule. She didn’t want to make Helene embarrassed, but naturally she was longing for more details about her marriage. “What might he have told?” she said, trying to look utterly uninterested.

  “Oh, that he—we—”

  “Yes?”

  “Bedroom details!” Helene snapped. “He has told his mistress of private events.”

  “I gather your marital intimacies were not all they could have been,” Esme said delicately.

  Helene stared at her. “How would I know? Listening to your jokes about bedding men, I have always felt as if we lived in two different worlds. No sane woman could possibly wish to repeat that experience. And yet you have willingly engaged in—”

  “Bedding,” Esme put in cheerfully, powdering her nose.

  “How you do it, I shall never know,” Helene said with stark conviction in her voice. “I found the experience repulsive. It’s some defect in myself, no doubt. Rees said I was incapable of women’s pleasure, if there truly is such a thing.”

  “But did it never occur to you, Helene, that perhaps the fault was with him? In my experience, men often try to cover up their own failures by blaming the woman in question.”

  “I fail to see what skill has to do with it.” Helene seemed to have thrown her customary reticence to the wind. “It hurt. It hurt initially and then it continued to hurt, and I do think Rees was right in thinking that I simply am not suited to the act. And I have to say, Esme, I am much happier not having to perform those duties. It’s very hard to countenance a man pawing me about in that manner. Last year, for example, I could not bring myself to allow Stephen Fairfax-Lacy any intimacies. I am not accustomed to it.”

  Obviously whatever happened between the bedsheets in the Godwin bedchamber was beyond repair at this point, so Esme reverted to practicality. “When do you think to wear your new gown?”