Bea managed to simper. “Actually, I am quite well versed in the Bible myself.”
“Oh goodness, how wonderful! I shall seat you just beside Mrs. Cable, if you don’t mind. You can quote at each other in perfect bliss.”
“Mr. Fairfax-Lacy seems quite sanctimonious,” Bea put in before she could stop herself. “Mrs. Cable would likely approve of him. All those good works.”
“Do you think so?” Esme asked with some doubt. “I believe that the man is undergoing some sort of internal upset. He doesn’t appear to be interested in Parliamentary doings at all. And that is his reputation, you know.”
“All work and no play?”
“Precisely.” Bea thought about Stephen’s activities in the goat pasture and rather agreed with Esme. The man was not thinking about Parliament. No: he was on the hunt for a mistress. Or perhaps a wife.
“But he must be accustomed to tedious speeches, so I shall put him at your table,” Esme continued. “Helene can sit there as well and rehearse dallying with Mr. Fairfax-Lacy. You must prompt her if she neglects her practice. Although I must tell you, Bea, it’s my opinion that your poetry will have to do the trick if Helene and Fairfax-Lacy are to become intimate. I’ve known Helene for years, and it simply isn’t in her nature to play the coquette.”
“But she did elope,” Bea said, wondering how on earth that had happened. Who would elope with a woman who had all the sensual appeal of a matron of sixty? Yet when Helene laughed, she was surprisingly captivating.
Esme shrugged and opened the door. “Her husband, Rees, effected that miracle somehow, and they’ve both spent the last ten years regretting it. I do believe the marriage ended before they even returned from Gretna Green, although they resided together for quite some time.
“I am counting on your bravery at luncheon, then.” She paused for a moment and looked at Bea. “Amazing! I would hardly have recognized you. I suppose you are revisiting the artless Lady Beatrix Lennox of age sixteen or thereabouts.”
Bea gave her a rather crooked smile. “I hate to disillusion you, Esme, but I was fourteen when my father discovered that I was coloring my lashes with burnt cork. He never recovered from that initial shock.”
“Oh, parents!” Esme said, laughing. “You should hear my mother on the subject of my innocence! Or the lack thereof. According to my mother, I sprang from the womb a fully fledged coquette—shaped in my aunt’s image, as it were.”
Bea grinned. “You could do worse.”
“Much,” Esme said with an answering grin. “At luncheon, then!”
When Bea slipped into a chair next to the redoubtable Mrs. Cable, her mind was not on the meal. She was wondering precisely how a Puritan gentleman greets a woman he vigorously kissed in the goat pasture the previous afternoon. Would Stephen pretend that they had never grappled with each other? That his tongue hadn’t slipped between her lips? That she hadn’t—
Bea could feel that rare thing, a real flush, rising in her cheeks, so she hurriedly pushed the memory away. She hadn’t spent a good twenty minutes painting herself with sheer layers of Maiden’s Blush only to find herself blushing.
The gentleman in question was rather exquisitely dressed himself, if the truth be told. Bea watched under her lashes as he strode into the room. He was wearing a costume of the palest fawn, with a severely cut-away jacket. For a man who spent his time roaming about the House of Commons, he seemed to have unaccountably powerful thighs.
“Oh Lord, there he is,” Helene moaned, sitting down next to her. “This is such a foolish idea.”
“You’ve no reason to worry,” Bea said to her encouragingly. “The poem can do the work for you.”
“Countess Godwin,” Mrs. Cable announced, snapping her napkin into her lap, “we have met, although I expect you have no memory of the event.”
“I remember perfectly,” Helene said. “And how pleasant to see you again.”
“It was a dinner that Lady Rawlings gave some few months ago,” Mrs. Cable told Bea.
“How lovely that must have been!” Bea said breathlessly. She was rather enjoying playing the role of a virtuous maiden. It was a new experience, after all, since she’d spent her youth trying to infuriate her father with less-than-virtuous antics.
“It was not lovely,” Mrs. Cable said darkly, “not at all. Countess Godwin, I daresay you have formed the same aversion as I to even thinking of the occasion. Quite scandalous.”
Bea clasped her hands and widened her eyes. Stephen was on his way to their table, and she wanted him to see her in the midst of full-blown girlishness. “Oh, what could have happened!” she cried, just as Stephen arrived.
Helene, who had just noticed Bea’s transformation, gave her a sardonic look. “Nothing you couldn’t have topped, Bea.”
The Puritan created a diversion by bowing and introducing himself to Mrs. Cable, who seemed enraptured at the idea of sharing a table with a Member of Parliament.
Somewhat to Bea’s disappointment, he didn’t even blink when she gave him a girlish smile and a giggle. Instead he bowed just as one would to a damsel still in the schoolroom, then turned readily to Countess Godwin and kissed her hand.
“Earl Godwin was there, of course,” Mrs. Cable said in her sharp voice, returning directly to the subject. “Mr. Fairfax-Lacy, we are discussing an unfortunate dinner that I and Countess Godwin attended in this very room, some months ago. I won’t go into the details in present company.” She cast a motherly look at Bea, who bit her lip before she could grin, and then looked modestly at her hands.
Stephen caught a glimpse of Bea’s downcast eyes and felt like bellowing with laughter. She was a minx. It wasn’t only that she was dressed as primly as an escapee from a nunnery. Somehow she had managed to make her whole face look as guileless as a babe in arms. Gone was the mischievous twinkle and the lustful glances. She had the aura and the innocence of a saint, and only that one dimple in her cheek betrayed the fact that she was enjoying herself mightily. Other than that dimple, she was the picture of a naive duke’s daughter. If there was such a thing in England.
“I daresay your husband told you,” Mrs. Cable was saying to Lady Godwin, “that he and I exchanged some pointed words on the subject of matrimony. Not harsh, not at all. But I think I made my point.” She smiled triumphantly.
Helene smiled weakly and took a sip of wine. “It would appear to have slipped Rees’s mind.”
Bea felt a surge of admiration. She herself would likely have lost her temper by now and started screeching at that harpy.
Mrs. Cable shook her head. “A man shall leave his father and mother, and cleave unto his wife, and so it says in the Bible.”
“Alas, Rees is notorious for his defiance of authority,” Helene replied.
Bea watched Helene trying to defend herself and felt a surge of fury. Who was this old harridan, and what right had she to say such an unaccountably insulting thing to Helene?
Mrs. Cable looked at Stephen. “I’m certain you won’t mind if I act as if we are all old friends,” she informed him. “I have given much thought to Lady Godwin’s situation in the ensuing months since I dined with her husband.” She paused for a drink of water.
Bea saw that Helene’s slender hand was clenched so tightly on her napkin that her knuckles were white. “Were you not quoting Genesis just now, Mrs. Cable?” Bea cooed.
Mrs. Cable gave her the approving look of a headmistress with a promising student. “Precisely, Lady Beatrix. It’s a true pleasure to meet a young lady with a proper education. Now, Lady Godwin, if I might offer a few—”
“My father puts great faith in religious instruction,” Bea interrupted.
“Quite right,” Mrs. Cable rejoined. “Now I think that I can bring some wisdom to bear on the situation.” And she turned back to Helene.
That old snake can see that Helene is defenseless, Bea thought in a fury. “Why, when I fell in love with one of my father’s footmen,” she said in a high, ringing voice, “my father made me memorize the ent
ire Book of Maccabees in punishment.”
“Indeed,” Mrs. Cable said, obviously taken aback at this information.
“Yes,” Bea said, favoring her with a dulcet smile, “I offered myself to the footman in question, you see, and my father truly did think that I should not have done so.”
Mrs. Cable’s eyes widened.
“But I don’t agree,” Bea continued blithely. “Because, of course, the Gospel of John counsels us to love one another. That’s chapter thirteen,” she told Mrs. Cable. “But I expect you know that.” Stephen was shaking with suppressed laughter. Helene’s hand had relaxed, and she was biting back a smile as well.
“Yes, I—”
“Even if my love was unconventional,” Bea said with a soulful tremor in her voice, “I’m quite certain that it was ripe with virtue.”
“Ripe would be the word,” Stephen said dryly.
Bea ignored him. “After all, while it is true that a footman would have had difficulty supporting me as a wife”—she glanced modestly at her gown, which cost more than a footman earned in six months—“Proverbs does say that where love is, a dinner of herbs is better than a stalled ox. Although I always wondered what a ‘stalled ox’ is? Mr. Fairfax-Lacy, perhaps you have come across the term in your many years in Parliament?”
Alas, Stephen didn’t have a chance to deliver his opinion because Mrs. Cable sputtered into life again, like a candle that found itself briefly in the path of a rainshower. Now she was viewing Bea with the acute horror of someone who has discovered that an exquisite pastry is rotten in the center.
“Lady Beatrix,” she said on an indrawn breath, “I am quite certain that you do not realize the impression your little story might create on the assembled company.” She swept a glance around the table.
Helene met her eyes blandly. “Lady Beatrix never fails to surprise me, for one,” she said. “A footman, did you say, Bea? How very adventuresome of you!”
“I don’t know that I agree,” Stephen drawled. He felt a thrill of danger when Bea’s eyes met his, especially since the thrill went right between his legs. She was a glorious, impudent piece of womanhood, and he liked her defense of Lady Godwin. If only she knew, she had utterly ceased to look sixteen years old. Her face was too alive for all this nonsense she affected. “I, for one, would like to know how the footman answered Lady Beatrix’s overtures,” he put in. “Didn’t you notice, Mrs. Cable, that while Lady Beatrix apparently offered herself to the footman, she said nothing of his response. Can it be that the man in question refused her?”
Mrs. Cable huffed. “I cannot fathom why we would even discuss such a repellent subject! Surely Lady Beatrix is merely seeking to shock us, for—”
“Not at all,” Bea said. “I would never do that, Mrs. Cable!”
Mrs. Cable narrowed her eyes. “And where is your father, my lady?”
“At his house,” Bea replied, suddenly reverting to her maidenlike docility. “I’m a sad disappointment to him,
Mrs. Cable. In fact I make my home with Lady Withers now.”
Mrs. Cable huffed. “And the footman—”
“Oh, it wasn’t due to the footman,” Bea said blithely. “Father moved the footman to a house in the country. It was—”
“I’ll not listen!” Mrs. Cable said shrilly. “You’re making a May game of me, my lady, and it’s not kind of you. I could take one look at you and know that you aren’t one of those scandalous women you’re pretending to be.”
Helene threw Bea a warning look and put a gentle hand on Mrs. Cable’s wrist. “You’re absolutely right, of course,” she said. “I do keep begging Lady Beatrix to be less frivolous, but I’m afraid that she’s quite a romp. But, naturally, it’s all in fun, Mrs. Cable.”
“I knew that,” Mrs. Cable said, blinking rapidly. “I’m a fair judge of character, to which Mr. Cable agrees. Now Lady Beatrix, you may attempt to shock us, but your true purity of character shines through. It’s written all over your face. What did you say that was?” she asked the footman. “A regalia of cowcumbers? Indeed, I’ll try some.”
Stephen looked at Bea for a moment, and she had no trouble deciphering his thoughts. He was thinking of the goat pasture, and the true purity of her character.
10
The Heights of Pleasure
By the time that Esme finished luncheon, she was resigned to the fact that the house was gradually filling with her aunt’s friends, not one of whom was precisely respectable. Her Sewing Circle was doubtless scandalized by her guests, since the said guests substituted cynical wit for gentility. And since they delighted above all in displaying that wit, the house rang with laughter.
Or perhaps it was more accurate to say that the house simply rang with noise. Lady Arabella had taken charge of the housekeeping from top to bottom and seemed to be bent on proving her mothering ability by cleaning from the attics to the cellars. Mind you, it wasn’t as if she touched dirt herself.
“I’ve instructed the maids that we want this house to shine from top to bottom,” she announced to Esme. “This is what a mother would do. Remove all worries! You have enough to think about. When will that child come?”
Never mind the fact that Esme had no interest in the attics at all. She was hardly the matronly sort, even in her current respectability. But Arabella didn’t stop with the attics. “And I’ve sent men up on the roof to fix the slate. I’ve no tolerance for gardeners simply sitting about, and there’s nothing to be done outside at any rate.” March rain was taking fitful turns with sunshine.
Esme had been listening rather absentmindedly, but she snapped awake at that one. “You sent the gardeners up on the roof?”
Arabella blinked at her. “Haven’t you heard the hammering? They started first thing this morning. I noticed that the slate had practically evaporated from your roof in several parts. Without repair, we shall have leaks in short order. No doubt the task will take a few weeks or perhaps a month. But it needs doing.”
“It’s not safe!” Esme said. Panic surged into her stomach, and she suddenly felt a little dizzy.
“Of course it’s safe,” Arabella said. “They won’t drop slate off the roof. Most of the work’s being done in the back of the house. But perhaps I’ll station a footman at the front door so he can check that the coast is clear before anyone leaves the house. In fact, darling, that is an excellent idea. We have far too many footmen as it is. I seem to have overestimated the difficulty of hiring staff in the country.”
“It’s not safe for the gardeners,” Esme said, trying to calm her racing heart. Sebastian was up there. Up on a slippery roof, likely on the verge of falling to his death. She could not bear it if that happened. Not—not after Miles.
“Gardeners? Gardeners? They’re likely ecstatic to be up in the air,” Arabella said, waving her beringed hands. “Much more engaging than digging up weeds, believe me.”
She left before Esme could say another word. Perhaps she should tell Arabella the truth about Sebastian. There was probably no one in the world who would be more receptive to the idea that Esme had her former lover installed in the bottom of her garden. Panic beat in her throat. Sebastian had to come down from the roof this very moment.
She went downstairs, bundled herself into a mantle, and slipped out the side door. The sound of hammering bounced off the neighboring hills. Starlings were converging on the elms at the side of the house, pirouetting against the grayish sky. Every blade of grass bent with rain. Now and then she heard the echo of male voices, but she walked all the way to the back of the house without seeing a soul.
And then, as she rounded the house to the west, there he was. Sitting with his back to a chimney, eating a hunk of bread as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Marquess Bonnington wasn’t hanging from the gutter by one fingernail. He wasn’t spread-eagled in the rainy grass, face drained of color. He was—he was fine!
In fact, Esme could hardly believe that Sebastian was a marquess. Not this great muscled man, wearing a rough white shirt and sle
eves rolled up to show great muscled forearms. No gentleman had muscles like that. Nor thighs, either.
She pulled herself together. What was the point of staring at Sebastian like a lovesick cat? The man would probably roll off the roof in a moment. He wasn’t trained for this sort of activity.
“You!” she shouted. Her voice evaporated into the air. He tipped his head back against the chimney, turning his face up to the sun. It turned his neck to honey, kissed his hair with gold…that hadn’t changed. He was just bigger…stronger. There was more of him.
What was he calling himself these days? She couldn’t remember. But she could hardly shout “Bonnington!” either. If any of her guests discovered that Marquess Bonnington was snugly living on her estate, they’d dine out on it for days. Her name—and her child’s name—would be mud. The thought gave her backbone.
She picked up a rock and threw it at the roof as hard as she could. It skittered across the sandstone. She tried again and managed to get up to the level of the slate roof, but all the rock did was ping gently and fall to the gutter.
“Drat!” Esme muttered, eyeing the ladders that were braced against the house. Of course she couldn’t climb a ladder.
At that moment a voice spoke nearly in her ear. “May I be of service, madam?”
Esme jumped into the air. “Slope!” she gasped.
Her butler bowed. “I noticed your progress from the Rose Salon, my lady, and I ventured forth in the hopes of being of service.”
Esme’s cheeks burned. What was she to say? What the devil was she doing out here, anyway?
But Slope didn’t wait for a reply. “Baring!” he bellowed at the roof. “Her ladyship wishes to speak with you. Be quick, man!”
Baring—or Marquess Bonnington, however one wished to think of it—looked down the roof with such a sweet smile that Esme felt her stomach turn over. He pulled on a cap and descended the ladder. Esme watched for a moment as he climbed down, but she found her eyes lingering on muscled thighs, so she turned to Slope.