Your Wicked Ways

  Rees’s laughter had been the beginning of a disastrous night. They were on their way to Gretna Green but had stopped at an inn, as Rees had pointed out that her father would never bother to chase them. Of course, he was correct. It wasn’t every day that the heir to an earldom elopes with one’s daughter, and Helene’s father was likely swilling champagne at home while his daughter waited in a bedchamber, fairly trembling with adoration for her almost-husband.

  She had waited, and waited, and waited. But Rees had apparently decided to loiter in the tavern, and when he finally appeared in her doorway, he had to catch himself against the door frame so as not to fall down. She had giggled, thinking it all romantic. There was nothing Rees could do wrong: not this big, beautiful man who thought about music as much as she did. When he kissed her, Handel’s arias exploded in her mind, aching, arching waves of sound stretching to the very tips of her fingertips.

  Well, if their kisses were Handel, then the actual bedding was naught more than a Beggar’s Opera. Because Rees pulled off her gown and then fell about laughing, finally asking whether her breasts had evaporated in the last rain. By an hour later, it was clear to her that the rest of her body was as unsuited to matrimony as was her chest. Helene dismissed the memory with a little shudder.

  Saunders, Helene’s personal maid, obviously didn’t know what to make of her mistress’s transformation. At the moment she was bustling about folding clothing, but she kept stealing glances over her shoulder. “Would you like me to make some nice curls in your hair, my lady?” she said now, waving a curling iron. “We could wrap a bandeau around your head and with just a few curls, it would look quite, quite—” Saunders couldn’t bring herself to say fashionable. The fashion was for ringlets bobbing around one’s ears, and Lady Godwin didn’t have enough hair for even one ringlet.

  Helene smiled and seated herself at her dressing table. “I like my hair as it is, thank you. Saunders, do we have any rouge?”

  “No, my lady.”

  Helene bit her lower lip. Her cheeks were the color of a frightened ghost.

  “Mrs. Crewe has a large collection,” Saunders added. “Would you like me to fetch it?”

  “Mrs. Crewe?” Helene said, picturing her mother’s starchy housekeeper. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen Mrs. Crewe wearing face paints!”

  “She confiscates them from the maids,” Saunders explained. “No one is allowed to use paints in the house, of course. Once in a blue moon, when she’s in a good mood, Mrs. Crewe takes out the basket and allows the downstairs maids to play about in the evening. Not that I’ve done so for years.” Saunders had developed a strong sense of her dignity when she was promoted to personal maid five years ago.

  A few moments later Saunders plumped a large wicker basket on the floor. “Oh my,” Helene said, fascinated. She picked up a small tin box.

  “Chinese colors,” Saunders said importantly. “Too dark for you, my lady.” She burrowed in the basket. “If I remember correctly, there’s a box of red sandlewood in here. That Lucy, who only lasted a few weeks before she was let go for stealing Mrs. Crewe’s own brooch, she had it. Likely nimmed it from her previous mistress, unless I’m much mistaken.” Saunders held out a round box, enameled all over with pansies.

  “The box is very pretty,” Helene said uncertainly.

  “I’ll use a little on your cheeks,” Saunders said. “We’ll use the darker one, the Chinese colors, for your lips. And here’s black frankincense. We can darken your lashes with this, and your eyebrows as well.”

  “My goodness, Saunders,” Helene said, smiling at her maid. “I had no idea that you had so much facility with face paints.”

  Saunders was standing back and looking at her work. “I’m that used to seeing braids atop your head,” she said slowly. “But shorter hair does make you look years younger. Everyone said so, below stairs.”

  “That’s good,” Helene said, cheered.

  Saunders was expertly sweeping frankincense onto a brush. “Tomorrow you might wish to go to that perfumer, Henry and Daniel Rotely Harris, where all the ladies go. They’ll make up colors just for you.”

  “Goodness,” Helene said rather faintly, “I had no idea that was a possibility.”

  Saunders began wielding the tiny brush around Helene’s eyebrows. Helene had to admit that the change was very dramatic. Her brows suddenly appeared as high arches, emphasizing her eyes.

  “Now your lashes, my lady,” Saunders said. “If you would just close your eyes, please.”

  Helene obediently did just as she said, and then almost gasped when she opened them again. Her ordinary gray eyes had been transformed into jewels: they looked green and seductive, like mermaid’s eyes. And instead of her cheekbones sticking out like those of a hungry beggar, a delicate wash of color emphasized the heart-shaped triangle of her face.

  “Oh, Madam,” Saunders said, sounding awed by her own work. “You look ravishing!”

  “Thanks to you,” Helene said, smiling. She could do this. The face paints helped. The timid, skinny woman who wrote waltzes and was never asked to dance them was hidden behind the colors on her face. The pale, timid Helene who had cried when her young husband laughed at her breasts was behind a mask. This Helene had impudent, seductive eyes. This Helene wouldn’t care a bit that her husband preferred women with udders rather than breasts. She walked across the room and the delicious feeling of thin silk made her feel like dancing. There was something about the way the silk caught between her legs as she walked and then swirled away that made her feel far more naked than when she rose from her bath.

  It remained for her to take herself, her gown, and her determination to have a child…and let events take their natural course. Because Esme had promised, nay had sworn up and down, that the gown would do all the work and Helene could simply choose a father for her child from a bevy of suitors. And for the first time, Helene began to believe her. Courage rose in her. Men would like the way she looked.

  “Will you wear the diamonds tonight?” Saunders enquired.

  “I believe my rubies would suit this gown.” Helene never wore the rubies set because they had belonged to her late mother-in-law, and she herself had never really felt like Countess Godwin…but the color would be perfect. The rubies settled around her neck with a delicious rosy glow. Saunders put ruby drops in her ears. Helene almost laughed with the surprise of seeing her own reflection, even as Saunders fastened rubies around her wrist. Could this glowing, beautiful woman be her, Helene?

  At that moment there was a knock and Esme tumbled into the room. “Hello, darling! I’ve just come to—” she said and stopped.

  There was a moment of extremely gratifying silence. Then:

  “You are not to come within two feet of my Sebastian, do you hear? Not within two feet!” Esme squealed.

  Helene made a little pout. It was the most delicious thing in the world to pout with cherry red lips, rather than her own pale pink mouth. “But Sebastian must dance with me at least once. We are attending the ball together, after all, and he’s so handsome.”

  Esme was laughing. “I think not, my girl. I’m not letting him anywhere near you. However,” she took a list from her reticule, “here are a few men with whom you may dance.”

  Helene dismissed Saunders. The last thing she wanted was the entire servants’ quarters enjoying the contents of Esme’s list, let alone discovering the reason for its existence.

  Esme, meanwhile, had thrown herself into a chair and taken off her slippers. “It is so distressing,” she said, revolving her slender foot in the air. “These slippers are deliriously beautiful but they already hurt, and I’ve only been in them for an hour or so. I shall have to dance barefoot, and that will offend Sebastian’s sensibilities.”

  “I thought your husband was a reformed man, and no longer had any sense of proprieties,” Helene said rather absentmindedly. And then, without waiting for an answer: “Esme, are you out of your mind? I can’t lure Lord Guilpin into my bedchamber. The man is o
bviously searching for a wife. I myself saw him in Almack’s the other week. The last thing he wants to do is dally with an aging, married woman!”

  “You are no aging, married woman,” Esme said. “You are about to be revealed as the most desirable woman in all London. And I like Guilpin’s looks. Those gray eyes are very taking, don’t you think?”

  “I never gave his eyes the slightest thought.”

  “Well, you’ll have to do so now,” Esme said. “To my mind, Guilpin is tired of looking for a wife. We’re well into the season, so he’s seen all the young women being presented. More to the point, he’s not dancing attendance on any of them, which means that he’s quite likely to dance attendance on you instead. All three men on that list are debauched enough to lure you into a chamber at the ball and do what comes naturally to them. And each of them is both intelligent and reasonably good looking. That way, your child won’t be born hunchbacked or hare-brained.”

  “I don’t care very much about looks,” Helene noted. “More important is that he know something of music. Just imagine if my child wasn’t musical!” She looked horrified.

  “Any child lucky enough to have you as a mother will undoubtedly end up horse-mad and unable to sing a note,” Esme said, laughing.

  Helene was still looking at the list, and she had begun to laugh as well. “Garret Langham? You mean the Earl of Mayne? The very idea of Mayne trying to tempt me into a side chamber is ludicrous. Half the women in London would like to bed him!”

  “And the other half already have,” Esme said smugly. “I being one of them. So I can tell you that Mayne’s aristocratic nose is echoed with becoming size in other parts of his body, and he knows what he’s doing.”

  “He’s predatory,” Helene moaned. “I couldn’t allow such a thing!”

  “Why on earth not? Mayne may be a wee bit rapacious, but I have only the most ravishing memories of our night together. And darling,” she said, slipping her foot back into her slipper, “obviously poor Rees is a bungler in the bedroom. A night or two with Mayne and you’ll feel entirely different about the whole experience of bedding. I’m quite certain he’s very red-blooded. My mother-in-law informed me that red blood is the trick to conception, and she seems to know that sort of thing.”

  “Everyone is red-blooded,” Helene told her, wondering if she should slip the little box of sandlewood into her reticule. If there was even a chance that Mayne would approach her, she would need ruby-colored lips for courage.

  “There are matters of degree, I suppose,” Esme told her vaguely. “Well, at any rate, Mayne may be a libertine, but he’s not overly dissipated, and he happens to be between attachments. The very moment he sees you in that gown, he’ll be dragging you into the library.” She smiled fondly. “If I remember correctly, it was a library.”

  “Esme, you’re married to Sebastian. You oughtn’t to be sighing romantically over Mayne!”

  “Of course I’m married to my darling Sebastian,” Esme said with a wicked grin. “And I have every intention of dragging my libertine husband into a library if the opportunity presents itself. But marriage hasn’t damaged my memory.” She stood up and readjusted her bodice before the mirror.

  “Mayne would never consider me.” He was like a bird of prey—beautiful, untamable, and far above her head. Helene shook off the thought. She wouldn’t want such an uncomfortably sensual companion. “You look absolutely lovely!” she said, looking at Esme in the mirror. “If only I looked like you, this whole escapade would be simple.”

  “This is the gown that you discarded,” Esme said rather smugly. “I had it made up in violet. It only arrived this afternoon, but Sebastian was quite gratifyingly dumbstruck when I tried it on.”

  “I have no doubt,” Helene said. Esme’s black curls tumbled down in such a way that they promised to cover the lush expanses of breast barely confined by her gown, although they didn’t quite do it. She looked back at the list. “Why on earth is Rees on your list?”

  Esme wound her arm around Helene’s waist and met her eyes in the mirror. “For practicality’s sake. It would be considerably easier if you had a child with your own husband. I know Rees is an uncomfortable companion, and even worse, he’s inept between the sheets. But should Rees show the inclination to drag you into a side room, you might want to give it some thought.”

  “You’re out of your mind!” Helene said, shaking her head. “He would never consider such a thing, even if he were at the ball. Lady Patricia Hamilton is giving this ball for her daughter’s debut, if you remember. Persons such as Rees and his inamorata won’t be welcome!”

  “The opera singer certainly is not,” Esme said, “but Rees is. I asked Lady Hamilton to send him a card.” She decided not to mention that she had also sent Rees a separate note.

  Helene was frowning at her. “I may have jested about wishing to attract Rees, but truly, I was just funning. He’s likely to burst with laughter when he sees me in this gown!”

  “Now that,” Esme said with satisfaction, “I truly doubt. He might puff up, of course, but it won’t be a matter of humor.”

  Helene rolled her eyes. “Your puns grow worse and worse, Esme. Rees and I are married. Rees has never shown the faintest interest in what I wear, and the idea that he might drag me off to a side chamber in a surfeit of passion is laughable! In fact, I haven’t heard of many husbands who have inclinations in that direction.”

  “My husband does,” Esme said. “And we’d better return downstairs, Helene. I’m not sure that Sebastian and your Major Kerstings have much to talk about, since Sebastian is not fond of opera.”

  Helene let Esme walk down the stairs before her. Only a deranged woman would stroll through a door arm-in-arm with Esme. She lingered for a moment and looked at herself in the hallway mirror. A fire of determination went up her spine. She could do this.

  She heard the low rumble of Esme’s husband, Sebastian, asking a question, and the quieter voice of her escort, Major Kersting, answering. If she didn’t walk through the door, she was betraying all her dreams of having a child. She was dooming herself to living with her mother for years to come. More years. They had already lived together for eight years of her married life.

  Helene straightened her back (which caused her breasts to point forward, she couldn’t help noticing), and marched through the door.

  Eight

  Of Cravats

  Number Fifteen, Rothsfeld Square

  “He’s at it again,” Rosy shrieked, bursting into the butler’s pantry. “Uncle John, the master called me a bad name!”

  John Leke, butler to Earl Godwin and uncle to Rosy, looked up from the silver he was polishing. “There’s names and names,” he said. “The master may be one screw short of a dozen, but he’s not ill-tempered. What did he call you?”

  “Hell-begotten brat,” Rosy said rather triumphantly. “And Mum said that I wasn’t to stay in this position if I heard anything low. So I think I would do best to leave the house immediately.”

  “Why’d the earl call you such a thing?”

  Rosy pursed her lips. “I needn’t give any notice, Uncle John, not after such an objectionable thing was said to me. It’s bad enough that I’m working in a house of sin, but to take abuse is more than a person such as myself need endure!”

  Leke had known his niece since she was a mere bantling, and he took her dramatics with a grain of salt. Moreover, he and Rosy’s mum had agreed that Rosy was a headstrong girl, and the better for working under her uncle’s eye. “Now what did you do? I’m guessing that you earned the phrase the earl called you. What was it again?”

  “Hell-begotten brat!”

  “Nothing that I haven’t thought myself,” Leke said, eyeing her. Rosy was just fifteen, but her bouncing ringlets and saucy manners had started to bring entirely too much attention for her own good. The sooner they found her a solid husband, the better. “Rosy?”

  Her pout turned sulky. “It’s the master’s own fault for not hiring enough staff.”
br />   “I’m in charge of hiring the staff,” her uncle pointed out. “If we don’t have many, it’s because I won’t hire the ones who aren’t straight, and the others don’t want to work in this house.”

  “Well, I burned his neck cloth, ironing it,” Rosy said in a rush. “But if he had a proper valet, I wouldn’t have had to go near an iron!”

  “Bring him another cloth, girl. Step to it.”

  “There aren’t any more!” Rosy moaned.

  “What do you mean, there aren’t any more? The man has at least five cravats. Mind you, in a proper household, he’d have upwards of two dozen.”

  “I ruined them,” Rosy admitted.

  “You ruined them all?”

  “Honestly, Uncle John, I didn’t know I was doing it! You know how untidy he always looks. I thought I’d better starch them. I did it just as mama does, with a cloth over them. Course the iron was sizzling hot, but I was thinking about not burning myself, and there was a terrible amount of steam, and then I don’t like the smell of starch, so I just rattled through them as fast as I could—”

  “You burned them ALL?” her uncle roared.

  “They aren’t exactly burned,” Rosy protested. “The starch just put yellow streaks…”

  But Leke was already bounding up the servants’ stairs. He found the earl seated on a chair by the fire, scribbling on a piece of paper. He was tapping his finger against the armrest, looking as balmy as a breadbasket.

  Leke gave a silent sigh of relief. Godwin didn’t show signs of being driven mad by Rosy’s ironing. “I am distressed to hear that your neck cloths have suffered an injury due to my niece’s inept ironing, my lord,” he said, bowing.