“What on earth are you thinking about?” she finally asked.
“Eating blackberries,” he said lazily.
“Really?” She looked surprised.
“Finding them in a blackberry patch, when you have to reach in among the prickly branches. When you bite them they’re sour as the devil if they’re not ripe, and God’s perfection if they’re ripe.”
She looked at him suspiciously.
“What I like to do,” he said gently, “is roll one between my teeth. Did you know that that’s the best way to test for…ripeness?” He couldn’t stop himself and reached out with one hand and casually touched her on the nape of the neck.
She shook her head.
“Just roll it between your teeth and curve your tongue around the berry. If it’s perfectly ripe, it will bathe your mouth with sweetness.”
She swallowed, which gave him untold satisfaction. “I don’t think you’re talking about berries,” she said, finally.
He was caressing her ear, his fingers sliding down her slender neck. Thank goodness Henrietta’s couch was at an angle to the rest of the company, and it looked as if they were all preparing to enter the dining room.
“May I escort you to the table?” he asked. His voice was a little strained, but that was only because this ineligible woman had caused an unsightly bulge in his pantaloons, merely by sitting next to him and allowing him to touch her neck.
She gave him her little crooked smile, the one that she gave when her leg hurt.
“There’s something wrong,” he said, eyes narrowing. “Did you injure your hip yesterday?”
“No, of course not.”
Her eyes looked truthful enough. But there was that smile. She obviously had no idea how easy she was to read.
“What is it then?” She started to get up, but he let his hand slide down her back in an utterly inappropriate gesture. He looked around quickly. Everyone else had left the room. Slope had apparently not seen them, tucked away on the couch.
Oh, why not? He leaned forward and just tasted her. Just put his lips on hers. Just a touch.
But the touch…well, the touch had her arms around his neck and his hand sliding up her neck. The touch meant that he didn’t hear Esme’s butler Slope until the man loudly cleared his throat just behind the couch.
He would have expected Henrietta to pull back as if the furies were behind her, to gallop into the dining room. But she just stared at him, and then raised a hand to tuck a lock of hair behind his ear. And her lips curved in a different sort of smile.
I have to leave tomorrow, Darby thought numbly. I’m over my head.
“Lady Henrietta, Mr. Darby,” Slope was saying. “I fear that the dinner party is awaiting your arrival.” He had an oddly pleased look about him.
Darby rose and held his arm out for Henrietta. Then he thought again and helped her to her feet.
Her little blush deepened when he did that.
“Thank you,” she said.
Slope had turned his back and was pacing majestically toward the door.
“Steady,” Darby said, holding back. “Ready to make an entrance?”
She nodded, eyes on his.
An entrance didn’t even cover what ensued. Normally, Darby rather liked being the center of attention. He always thought that the more attention he received, the more time his lace received in the fashion columns. One thing leads to another.
But he had never walked into a dining room and had clinking glasses freeze, and heard a roomful of shrill voices come to an utter standstill.
Slope was obviously enjoying himself as he majestically paced about the table. “Lady Henrietta, if you please,” he said. “Mr. Darby.”
He was seated next to her. Darby sat down and realized that he was in a frenzy of sexual attention such as he hadn’t suffered through since he was a schoolboy and fell in love with the third housemaid, Molly. Then he would lurk in the hallways until he saw her, living for the moment when she would brush past him with a muttered, “Excuse me, Master Simon.”
It was precisely the same now. He edged his chair over to Henrietta’s so slowly that no one could see him. By the time the first course was served, he’d managed to put a leg against hers. When she turned startled eyes on him, he moved his leg, but a moment later he touched her arm with his.
And that flush—that flush on her cheekbones deepened. Oh, she felt it too. I’m leaving tomorrow, Darby thought recklessly. Leaving tomorrow, and I won’t come back.
She was smiling again. Smiling with her eyes. Smiling with a promise. Every glance to his left told him that he wasn’t wrong when he thought Henrietta was exquisite.
Henrietta’s lips curved in a smile that might—just might—be sarcastic. But that faint curve on rosy lips had heat pounding in his groin in a way that another woman’s licking smile could not.
28
The Pleasure of Good Deeds
Mrs. Cable was delighted to find that Lady Rawlings had seated her next to Rees Holland, Earl Godwin. He was likely the most scandalous earl in the entire aristocracy, which meant that she could dine out on this encounter for years. Not to mention the fact that she might be able to help the poor man into a better understanding of the errors of his ways.
She waited until the soup course had been served before she addressed the subject. “Lord Godwin, it is a pleasure to see you and your dear wife at the same event,” she said, conscious of her own rashness. But after all, if one is to take the Lord’s work seriously, one must work boldly. Not like the vicar, Mr. Fetcham, who was talking to Lady Holkham as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Even though he was positively surrounded by sinners.
Rees Holland turned and looked at her for the first time. So far, he had been rather annoyingly ignoring her presence. He had shocking black eyes, the earl did. No wonder everyone called him degenerate. He looked it, with those fierce eyebrows. “Should I say the same to you, Mrs.—Mrs.—”
He hesitated, having obviously forgotten her name. No more than she would have expected.
“I am Mrs. Cable, sir. And Mr. Cable accompanies me to all events,” she informed him.
“A brave man,” he drawled. “I am always amazed by the courage people show in their daily lives.” Then he turned his eyes away and swallowed some more soup.
Mrs. Cable was pretty sure that she’d been insulted. Either she or Mr. Cable. “It’s a sin—” she said rather shrilly, and then recalled where she was and lowered her voice. “It’s a sin to forsake the matrimonial bed.”
Godwin looked her over. His eyes were dreadfully cold. “Bed? You wish to discuss beds? You amaze me, Mrs. Cable.”
But sinners and their wicked jokes were of no interest to Myrtle Cable. “Paul’s letter to the Colossians counsels men to love their wives,” she announced.
“He also says that women should submit themselves to their husbands,” Godwin said. He looked bored and irritated, but Mrs. Cable paid that no mind. The devil quotes scriptures for his benefit, she reminded herself, and returned to the attack.
“A man may have business outside the house, but he returns at night to his wife. Psalm 104,” she snapped.
He paused for a moment, spoon halfway to his lap. “Almost, I would enjoy sparring with you, Mrs. Cable,” he said mockingly, “but not if you alter your text. Psalm 104: Man goeth forth unto his work, and to his labour until the evening. It says nothing in that text about his wife.”
“You know the psalms?” she asked, studying him more closely. He looked like nothing more than an indolent, spoiled aristocrat, although he was distinctly less elegant than the normal breed of Londoners. His hair was unattractively long, and he had stubble on his chin.
“I set 104 to music,” he said. “Glorious words there: The Lord makes the clouds his chariot, and walks on the wings of the wind. Who could forget those lines?”
Mrs. Cable was impressed. A fallen angel, perhaps. Something about his careless arrogance rankled. “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mot
her, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh,” she said primly. “Genesis.”
“Proverbs: It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and an angry woman,” he said. They both instinctively looked to his wife, seated across from them.
To Mrs. Cable’s mind, the countess didn’t look like a contentious woman at all. Naturally Mrs. Cable didn’t value fashion much, since it was clearly the devil’s lure. But she wasn’t blind either. The countess was wearing a lovely crape robe with a border of shells around the bosom. It was elegant but restrained, without the low bodices that women affected these days. Moreover, the countess’s hair was bound in smooth braids with just a pearl ornament. That too was more proper than most women wore these days.
“She looks like a true countess,” she told Lord Godwin. “Virtuous, not like so many gentlewomen these days.”
He took a bite of fish and said, “Oh, she’s virtuous all right.”
Mrs. Cable was feeling uncertain. She had made her point. How much could she emphasize? Perhaps she should just let the seeds of God’s love work in his barren heart. One more dash of wisdom wouldn’t hurt.
“Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies,” she commented.
Lord Godwin looked her square in the face, and Mrs. Cable felt an odd tingle in her midsection.
She turned promptly to her other dinner partner. He was a dangerous man, Lord Godwin, for all he looked too messy to be attractive to young girls. No wonder he had such a desperate reputation. He probably did live with an opera singer, just as the gossip said.
Slope played his part to perfection. Esme waited until after the soup had come and gone, and fish had been eaten. She kept a sharp eye to make certain that Helene and Rees weren’t going to explode in a cloud of black smoke, because then she would have to improvise a bit, but besides the fact that Helene was going to get a stiff neck from looking so sharply away from her husband, they were both behaving well.
The roast arrived, and Esme sent Slope for more wine. She wanted to make certain that her part of the table was holding enough liquor to respond instinctively. Mr. Barret-Ducrorq was ruddy in the face, and saying bombastic things about the Regent, so she thought he was well primed. Henrietta was pale but hadn’t fled the room, and Darby showed every sign of being utterly desirous of Henrietta. Esme smiled a little to herself.
Just as she requested, Slope entered holding a silver salver. Speaking just loud enough to catch attention of the entire table, he said, “Please excuse me, my lady, but I discovered this letter. It is marked urgent, and feeling some concern that I might have inadvertently delayed the delivery of an important missive, I thought I would deliver it immediately.”
A little overdone, to Esme’s mind. Obviously Slope was an amateur thespian. She took the note and slit it open.
“Oh, but Slope!” she cried, “This letter is not addressed to me!”
“There was no name on the envelope,” Slope said, “so I naturally assumed it was addressed to you, my lady. Shall I redirect the missive?” He hovered at her side.
She had better take over the reins of the performance. Her butler was threatening to upstage her.
“That will be quite all right, Slope,” she said. Then she looked up with a glimmering smile. “It doesn’t seem to be addressed to anyone. Which means we can read it.” She gave a girlish giggle. “I adore reading private epistles!”
Only Rees looked utterly bored and kept eating his roast beef.
“I do not go for weariness of thee,” Esme said in a dulcet tone, “Nor in the hope the world can show a fitter love for me. It’s a love poem, isn’t that sweet?”
“John Donne,” Darby said, “and missing the first two words. The poem begins, “Sweetest love, I do not go for weariness of thee.”
Esme had trouble restraining her glee. She could not have imagined a comment more indicative of Darby’s own authorship. He actually knew the poem in question! She didn’t dare look at Henrietta. It was hard enough pretending that she was the slowest reader in all Limpley Stoke.
“Never will I find anyone I adore as much as you. Although fate has cruelly separated us, I shall treasure the memory of you in my heart.”
“I do not believe that this epistle should be read out loud,” Mrs. Cable said, “if it truly is an epistle. Perhaps it’s just a poem?”
“Do go ahead,” Rees said. He appeared to have developed an active dislike of his dinner companion. “I’d like to hear the whole thing. Unless perhaps the missive was addressed to you, Mrs. Cable?”
She bridled. “I believe not.”
“If not, why on earth would you care whether a piece of lackluster poetry was read aloud?”
She pressed her lips together.
Esme continued dreamily, “I would throw away the stars and the moon only to spend one more night—” She gasped, broke off, and folded up the note, praying that she wasn’t overacting.
“Well?” Mrs. Cable said.
“Aren’t you going to finish?” Mr. Barret-Ducrorq said in his beery voice. “I was just thinking perhaps I should read some of this John Donne myself. Although not if his work is unfit for the ladies, of course,” he added quickly.
“I believe not,” Esme said, letting the letter fall gently to her left, in front of Mr. Barret-Ducrorq.
“I’ll do it for you!” he said jovially. “Let’s see. I would throw away the stars and the moon only to spend one more night in your arms.” He paused. “Sizzling poetry, this Donne. I quite like it.”
“That is no longer John Donne speaking,” Darby remarked. “The author is now extemporizing.”
“Hmmm,” Mr. Barret-Ducrorq said.
“Did that letter refer to a night in your arms?” Mrs. Cable asked, quite as if she didn’t know exactly what she had heard.
“I fear so,” Esme said with a sigh.
“Then we shall hear no more of this letter,” Mrs. Cable said stoutly, cutting off Mr. Barret-Ducrorq as he was about to read another line.
“Ah, hum, exactly, exactly,” he agreed.
Esme looked at Carola, who turned to Mr. Barret-Ducrorq and sweetly plucked the sheet from his stubby fingers. “I think this sounds precisely like the kind of note that my dear, dear husband would send me,” she said, her tone as smooth as honey and her eyes resolutely fixed on the page, rather than on her husband. “In fact, I’m quite certain that he wrote me this note, and it simply went astray.”
Esme could see that Mrs. Cable was about to burst out of her stays. Henrietta was deadly pale but hadn’t run from the room. Tuppy Perwinkle was torn between laughter and dismay. Darby looked mildly interested and Rees not interested at all.
Helene raised her head. She had spent most of the meal staring at her plate. “Do read your husband’s letter, Carola,” she said. “I think it’s always so interesting to learn that there are husbands who acknowledge their wives’ existence.”
Esme winced, but Rees just shoveled another forkful of beef into his mouth.
Carola obediently read, “I shall never meet another woman with starlit hair like your own, my dearest Henri—” She broke off.
All eyes turned to Henrietta.
“I’m sorry! It just slipped out!” Carola squealed. “I truly thought the letter must be from my husband.”
Henrietta maintained an admirable calm, although a hectic rose-colored flush had replaced the chilly white of her skin.
To her enormous satisfaction, Esme saw that Darby was looking absolutely livid.
Mrs. Cable said, “Who signed that letter?”
Carola didn’t say anything.
Mrs. Cable repeated, “Who signed that letter?”
There was an icy moment of silence.
Esme said gently, “I’m afraid it’s too late for prevarication, Carola. We must look to dearest Henrietta’s future now.”
Mrs. Cable nodded.
“It is signed ‘Simon,’” Carola said, looking straight at him. “Simon Darby,
of course. It’s a quite poetic letter, Mr. Darby. I particularly like the ending, if you’ll forgive me for saying so.”
“Read it,” Lady Holkham said in an implacable voice.
“Without you, I will never marry. Since you cannot marry me, darling Henrietta, I shall never marry. Children mean nothing to me; I have a superfluity as it is. All I want is you. For this life and beyond.” Carola sighed. “How romantic!”
Then Henrietta did something that Esme had not anticipated, and which was absolutely the best of all possible actions.
She slid slowly to the right and collapsed directly into Darby’s arms.
She fainted.
29
The Fruits of Sin
In the years that followed, Darby was never able to think of the ensuing half hour without shivering.
Henrietta’s faint was immediately accepted as a sign of guilt. The fact that she fainted to the right—in other words, directly into Darby’s lap—was another signifier, obviously.
Darby barely got his mouth shut when Henrietta’s stepmother turned to him and smacked him on the cheek so hard that his head snapped back.
“That’s because my husband isn’t here to do it for me!” Millicent shouted.
Darby privately doubted that her husband could have done much better. His entire jaw ached.
“I gather you did this abominable act before I told you about Henrietta’s condition and this was your idea of a goodbye letter to her?”
He just stared at her.
“Seducer of young women!” she said fiercely. “You will marry Henrietta now. You will. And your punishment will be that you will have neither heir nor child.”
Darby felt as if he were facing Medusa. A woman he had thought a sweet-faced motherly type had metamorphosed into a gorgon. She glared at him like the avenging mothers of Greek tragedy.
Luckily Henrietta blinked her eyes and appeared to be recovering from her swoon. Darby still hadn’t said a word, hadn’t denied writing the letter nor denied spending the night with her. It was as if his brain had frozen.