“Helene, did I understand you to say that you are leaving us?” Lady Rawlings said, turning to Lady Godwin.
“I’m afraid I must,” Lady Godwin said quickly, demonstrating that she too had come to understand the signs that indicated Fanny’s impending attack of temper. “Gina, the Duchess of Girton, writes me that she is expecting a child and she would be grateful for companionship. I am planning to take a carriage in two days, if you have no immediate need for my presence.”
“Nursing mother? That must be some sort of witticism you thought up to horrify me,” Fanny said acidly, ignoring her daughter’s diversionary tactics. “My stomach is positively turning at the very thought.” And she looked it. Honoratia thought there was a fair chance that Fanny would lose her supper.
“Mama, perhaps we could discuss this at a later time,” Lady Rawlings said pleadingly, putting her arm on her mother’s sleeve.
She shook it off. “I shall not be fobbed off. And I am certain that these ladies are as repulsed by what you said as I am!”
Honoratia took a sip of her tea. When Lady Rawlings first demanded to nurse her baby, she had been repulsed, certainly. The very idea of allowing a child to munch from one’s private parts was instinctively revolting. But then she had been in the nursery yesterday while Esme nursed William, and it was hard to reconcile that experience with her own repulsion.
“While I am quite glad to have utilized a nursemaid myself,” she announced, “I do not find Lady Rawlings’s actions distasteful.”
Fanny flashed her a hostile look that had Honoratia stiffening. Didn’t Fanny realize that she was of far lower rank than she, Marchioness Bonnington? Why, it was pure kindness on her part that kept the friendship intact.
“Be that as it may,” Fanny said with frigid severity, “the majority of the polite world agrees with me. Are you telling me that the fleshy expanse of chest that you are exposing to the world is due to this unsavory practice, Esme?”
Lady Rawlings sipped her tea quietly. “Yes it is, Mama.”
Honoratia had to admit, Esme Rawlings had backbone.
“Had I ever been blessed by a child, I hope I would have had the courage to be as excellent a mother as is Esme,” Arabella put in.
Her sister turned to her with the lowering look of a striking serpent. “It was the will of God that you not be given children, and no more than you deserve!”
Arabella went pure white, rose from her chair and walked out. There was no sound other than a faint swish of silk and then the click of the door shutting behind her.
“That was most unkind,” Lady Rawlings said, looking straight at her mother. “It was unworthy of you.”
“I spoke the truth as I saw it.”
“I would urge you to apologize to Aunt Arabella. She has a forgiving soul, and if you make haste, she may overlook your unkindness.”
Fanny merely took a sip of tea. There was a suppressed air of triumph about her. “Now,” she said brightly, “you must all forgive us for this unwarranted display of poor judgement. I assure you that our family is not generally so rag-mannered!”
But her daughter was standing up. “You will have to forgive me,” she said to the company at large. “Mama, I know you will act as a hostess in my absence. I shall speak to my aunt.” And she was gone.
Fanny turned to Lady Beatrix Lennox. “As my sister’s dame de compagnie,” she said with a sapient smile, “perhaps you would like to join her, given that my daughter seems to think that Lady Withers might be distressed?”
Lady Beatrix gave her a stony look and stood up, curtsying. “I can think of little that would give me greater pleasure.”
“Now we can be cozy,” Fanny said, once the door closed again. “I find the presence of impure women to be extremely trying on my nerves. One has such an impulse to help, and yet no help is ever enough. Once lost, a woman’s reputation can never be recovered.” She shook her head. “I fear it is all a question of nature. Clearly, my daughter inherited my sister’s disposition.”
That was the moment when Lady Bonnington discovered what it felt like to have Made a Mistake. She accepted a tart from Fanny while she thought about it.
Countess Godwin was a lovely, if rather pale, woman. Yet when she leaned forward, Honoratia caught her breath. In profile, the countess looked like an accusing angel, a stone statue of Saint Michael standing at the gates of Paradise with a sword. “I wish you to be the first to know,” she said, speaking with great precision.
“Oh?” Fanny said, looking a bit uneasy.
“I am having an affair with your daughter’s fiancé, Mr. Fairfax-Lacy. We enjoy each other in ecstastic union every night.”
Fanny gasped. “What a thing to say to me!” she said shrilly.
“If it be sin to love Mr. Fairfax-Lacy…well, then sin I!” retorted Lady Godwin. She stood up. “I expect my presence will make you uncomfortable, so I shall leave.”
Honoratia raised her eyebrows. There was something distinctly odd about the phrasing of Lady Godwin’s parting shot. And as someone who’d watched many a marriage and many a sinful union, she doubted that Lady Godwin had ever experienced ecstatic union. Still, loyalty was an admirable quality, and Lady Godwin had it in spades.
Fanny had stopped looking horror-struck and was eating one of those lemon tartlets that she never consumed in the evening. They were left alone, two hardened old harridans with shining reputations and naught much else. Neither of them had had an illicit proposal in years.
Fanny patted her mouth delicately. “I wonder that you chose this house to retire from the season, dear Honoratia,” she said. “I leave tomorrow at dawn to return to Lady Pindlethorp’s house. I told Esme as much this morning, and now my mind is made up. You would be more than welcome to join me.”
“Wouldn’t you rather stay and make further acquaintance with your grandson?”
“It’s far, far too painful. My daughter has no understanding of the grief I still bear every time I think of my dear departed son. And I am very much afraid that my initial qualms about my daughter’s rehabilitation are entirely correct. I admire your generous nature, my dear, but you are far too optimistic. Are you aware that my daughter has no real idea whose child she birthed?”
“Certainly not!” Honoratia replied in her most quelling tone of voice. Surely—surely—Esme’s own mother wouldn’t repeat such a vicious piece of gossip about her own daughter.
Fanny took a bite of tartlet. “I queried her on the matter, most discreetly, you understand, through the post. She did not respond to my query, which speaks for itself, does it not? This tea is quite cold.” She rang the bell. “As I said, I would be more than welcome for your company tomorrow morning.”
Honoratia stood up. Fanny looked up, startled. Honoratia thumped her stick, and, sure enough, Fanny quailed with as much fear as any lazy housemaid. “You will not say a word to anyone about your grandson’s patrimony,” she ordered.
“Well, naturally, I—” Fanny said, flustered. “I only tell you as you are a very close friend!”
“From this moment, we are not close friends,” Honoratia said, pulling herself even straighter. “In fact, we are not friends at all. If I ever hear a breath of scandal about your daughter or your grandson that has begun at your lips, Fanny, I shall ruin you.”
Fanny stared up at her, faded eyes wide.
“Do I make myself clear?”
Fanny jumped but said nothing.
“Do I make myself clear?” Honoratia said, with the snap of a carnivorous turtle.
Fanny twittered. “I can’t imagine why you would think that I would ever do something as ill-bred as gossip about my daughter’s debased circumstances.” Then she faltered, seeing Honoratia’s expression. “I shall not!” she said shrilly.
Honoratia didn’t bother with a reply. She just stumped over to the door and left Fanny there among the crumbs of lemon tarts and cooling cups of tea.
37
Nights of Ecstatic Union
“And then I sai
d that we spend every night in ecstatic union with each other!”
“Ecstatic what?” Esme asked.
“Ecstatic union. It was the only thing that came to mind. It is a rather odd phrase, is it not? And then I quoted a bit of the poetry Bea lent me, the part being a sin to love. Your mother was quite horrified, Esme.” Helene looked triumphant.
Esme choked with laughter. She was sitting on her aunt’s bed, arm wound around her aunt’s neck. Helene was standing before them like a militant, raging angel. Bea was curled up on the little armchair to the side.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Arabella said damply, blotting a last few tears with a handkerchief. “Drat! I’ve taken off all my facepaint. I must look a veritable hag.”
“You look beautiful,” her niece said, giving her a squeeze.
“Fanny really doesn’t mean to be so horrible,” Arabella said. “She’s had a most difficult life.”
“Yes she does,” Helene said firmly. “I’m sorry, Lady Withers, but your sister is a truly poisonous woman. And I’m sorry for you, too, Esme.”
Esme looked up with a rueful smile. “And what a dreadful thing in a daughter to agree with you.” But she didn’t disagree either.
Arabella gave a last sniff. “I haven’t cried for years,” she said, “so I suppose I was due for a bout of tears. Fanny’s comments generally don’t distress me very much. But Robbie and I did so want children. I thought perhaps when he died…well, I didn’t have my flux for months. And I thought that perhaps I carried a bit of Robbie with me.” She gave another sniff. “But finally the doctor said that it must have been due to grief.” She wiped away some tears. “What a wet blanket I’ve become!”
“You’re not a wet blanket,” Esme said. “You’re one of the bravest people I know.”
Arabella chuckled damply. “Well, that’s a new compliment for me. Thank you, my dear.”
Esme’s own smile wavered. “And the dearest as well. No mother could have helped me more than you have, Arabella, nor a sister more than you, Helene.” She met their eyes, and now they were all a little teary.
“I couldn’t have loved a child more than I love you, dearest,” Arabella said.
Helene sat down hard on Arabella’s dressing table stool. “Do you still feel a great deal of grief due to not having a child, Lady Withers? If you don’t mind my asking?”
Arabella gave her an unsteady smile. “It is not terrible, no. But it is a sadness to me, since I would have been delighted to be a mother. Yet just having the chance to be with William is very healing in that respect.”
Helene pressed her lips together. “I want you all to know that I am going to have a child.”
Unexpectedly, Bea, who’d been sitting silently to the side, yelped, “What?” And then clapped her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry! It’s none of my business.”
“My dissipated husband returned to London still refusing to divorce me, and I have decided to have a child irrespective of my marital situation. If Rees wishes to divorce me after the fact, on the ground of adultery, I truly don’t give a bean.”
“Would you then marry Mr. Fairfax-Lacy?” Bea asked. The strain in her voice made all three women look at her.
“Stephen? No!” Helene said. “Stephen has no aspirations to my hand. Or bed, for that matter, although he was kind enough to pretend so before my husband.” There was a pause. “Are you going to marry him?”
Bea swallowed and then looked to Esme. “Lady Rawlings has precedence.”
Esme laughed. “I surrender my claim.”
“Then I am,” Bea said sedately. A smile was dawning on her face. “I am going to marry him.”
“Bravo!” Arabella said, tossing her handkerchief onto her dressing table. “I knew the man was good marrying material. Didn’t I tell you so, dear?” she said to Esme.
“I merely have to ask him,” Bea put in.
Helene blinked at her. “Hasn’t he asked you?”
“Not in so many words. He wishes to be wooed.”
“What an extraordinary thing,” Helene said slowly. “Do you know, I am coming to have an entirely different idea of how to behave around men?”
Arabella nodded. “If you wish to have a child, you will need to move decisively. That’s why I married so quickly after Robbie died. I wasn’t in love, wasn’t even in my right head, I think now. But I wanted a child. Mind you, it didn’t work for me, but it might well for you.”
Helene nodded. “You may not wish to acknowledge me in the future,” she said, looking at Esme. “I will create a tremendous scandal by having a child. Everyone in the polite world knows that I have no contact whatsoever with my husband.”
Esme stood up and gave her a fierce hug. “You never deserted me, and I would never desert you. What would I have done without you and Arabella these past few months? Besides, I do believe I shall give up some of my aspirations to respectability.”
“Thank goodness!” Arabella said, with a world of meaning in her voice.
Helene turned to Bea. “I trust you don’t mind my saying that you are very inspiring. I mean to copy down that poem, if you don’t mind. Perhaps I shall have use for it another day.”
Bea grinned. “As long as you are not planning to direct your invitation to Mr. Fairfax-Lacy, you may use it as you please.”
“How are you going to ask him to marry you?” Esme asked, fascinated.
Bea bit her lip. “I only just this moment decided to do so. I really don’t know.”
“Poetry,” Helene said positively. “Obviously, you must use poetry.”
Esme clapped her hands. “We’ll have a small party tomorrow night, just amongst ourselves, and we shall complete the poetry reading that we began.”
“That means I shall have to find an appropriate poem,” Bea said. “I suppose I had better hie me to the library.” She looked at Esme. “You didn’t read a poem at our last such reading.”
“I haven’t such a pressing need as yourself,” Esme said lightly.
“Humph,” Arabella snorted. “That’s one way of putting it.”
Esme frowned at her.
“Well, you’ve got an eligible man visiting your chambers on the sly,” Arabella said irrepressibly. “You might as well let him make an honest woman of you.”
Bea’s eyes grew round. “Which man?”
Arabella replied. “The marquess, naturally.”
Helene laughed. “Oh Esme,” she said, “you are truly Infamous Esme, are you not?”
“I most certainly am not,” Esme said with dignity. But all her friends were laughing, so after a bit she gave in and laughed as well.
38
The Poetry Reading
Mrs. Cable was rather scandalized to find that she was attending a poetry reading. But while inviting the Sewing Circle, Lady Rawlings had noted that she herself intended to read from the Bible, and Mrs. Cable had decided that encouragement of such a devout practice was a virtue. And if she was honest, she was finding the presence of the scandalous Marquess Bonnington rather enthralling. He was, well, wickedly attractive. Mrs. Cable secretly thought that she’d never seen anyone quite so mesmerizing: those dusky golden curls, and he had such a powerful body! Although she hardly put it to herself like that. In truth, Mrs. Cable had some difficulty dragging her eyes away.
There certainly was enough to see at this particular gathering. She was absolutely certain that Lady Beatrix, for example, had reddened her lips, if not worse. Naturally Lady Winifred was having the time of her life trundling around the room with her dear friend Arabella. It was quite a sorrow to see how susceptible Lady Winifred was to the lures of the fashionably impure. And Mr. Barret-Ducrorq was almost as bad. He seemed to be fascinated by Lady Withers, and Mrs. Barret-Ducrorq had had to call her husband to heel quite sharply. Mrs. Cable looked with satisfaction at her own husband. He was sitting next to her, nursing his brandy and looking stolidly bored. Mr. Cable had attended the reading only after bitter protest; he did not consider poetry to be palatable e
ntertainment.
Lady Rawlings clapped her hands. “For those of you who have recently joined us, we have been entertaining ourselves in the evening by giving impromptu poetry readings. We shall have two readings this evening. First Lady Beatrix will read a piece from Shakespeare, and then I shall read a piece from the Bible.”
Mrs. Cable felt cheered. She must have had an influence on the young widow. Shakespeare and the Bible: what could be more unexceptional than that? Lady Beatrix walked before the group and stood in front of the fireplace. She was wearing a dinner gown of moss silk, in a bright rose color. Of course, the bodice bared far more of her neck and bosom than Mrs. Cable considered acceptable. But Lady Beatrix looked nervous, which Mrs. Cable counted in her favor. A young lady entertaining a group of distinguished guests ought to be fairly shaking with fright.
And, indeed, had she but known, Bea was literally trembling. She kept sneaking glances at Stephen, but he hadn’t even smiled at her. There was nothing in his demeanor to indicate that he had spent virtually the whole of last night in her bed. “I have chosen a dialogue,” Bea told the assembled company, “from Romeo and Juliet.”
“An excellent choice,” Lady Bonnington commented. “I am very fond of Mr. Shakespeare’s works. I don’t hold with those who criticize him for frivolity.”
“I suppose you need a man for your dialogue,” Esme said. “Do choose a partner, Bea.”
My goodness, but Esme’s eyes had a wicked suggestiveness to them, Bea thought. It would serve her right if she chose Marquess Bonnington, if she stole Esme’s supposedly unwanted suitor from under her nose. Naturally Esme was cushioned between the two most eligible men in the room. She had Stephen on her left and Marquess Bonnington on her right.
But Bea didn’t chose Bonnington, of course. She turned to Stephen and gave him a melting smile. “Mr. Fairfax-Lacy, would you be so kind?”
His face gave nothing away. He came to his feet with easy grace and accepted the open book she handed him.
“We’ll read from the balcony scene,” she told him.