“It’s quite all right,” Henrietta said, helping Josie knock over the last few of her men. “Josie, don’t shriek too loudly. We don’t want to wake Anabel from her nap.”
Henrietta got to her feet with some help from Darby. “Shall I ask Fanning to move dinner forward so that you can be there on time?”
“Do you think that I would go without you?” There was a curious testing in his voice.
She gave him a frown. “You must. An opening night is a very important occasion for Rees, especially if it is the very first to which you were invited.”
“Do you believe that I wish to go anywhere without my wife?” He began kissing her fingertips.
“That is not the point,” Henrietta said, trying to inject severity into her voice. “You must attend Rees’s opening night, because otherwise I would feel even more invalidish than I already am.”
It was Darby’s turn to frown.
“You must,” she said firmly. “I shall wait up until you return home to hear whether the opera is a success.”
He leaned closer. “Not to worry if you fall asleep. I quite like to wake a sleeping woman.” The smile in his eyes! Henrietta turned away quickly lest Josie see.
A few hours later Henrietta joined her husband in the drawing room. His only greeting was a profanity.
Henrietta looked down at herself with a tinge of anxiety. It was a formidable project to live up to her husband’s magnificence, but in the safety of her chamber, she had quite thought that she had. “Don’t you like the gown?” she asked.
His eyes moved from her head to her slippers. “I gather that is the fete dress we ordered from Madame Humphries?”
“Yes,” she said. And then, because she saw something in his eyes that gave her courage, she turned in a circle. Her gown was quite short, over a white satin petticoat, and it showed her ankles beautifully when it moved. But unquestionably the best part of the gown was its bodice of pale blossom-colored crape. It laced tightly up the front, and was extremely low both before and behind.
“Damn,” he said again.
“When I met you, I had no idea that your speech was so expressive.” She readjusted her white kid gloves so they clung just so to her elbow. “What do you think of my veil? Madame Humphries assures me that it is made from your lace.” Madame Humphries had used Darby’s lace in each and every gown she designed for Henrietta. This particular gown had no lace trim, so she created a little veil that fell from the back of the head and was carried over the arm as drapery.
He walked toward her and there was something panther-like in his stride.
“Very nice. I like the pearl beads.”
“It’s quite unusual to find them in this leaf pattern, or so Madame Humphries said.”
“I see the pattern is repeated on the sleeves.”
“If you can call them sleeves,” Henrietta said. “They’re much smaller than anything I’ve worn before.”
“The bodice is much tighter than any garment I’ve had the pleasure of seeing you wear.”
Henrietta choked back a smile. “That’s the lacing,” she pointed out. “You see that the bodice laces in front.”
He ran a finger over the lacing between her breasts. “I do see that.”
“You seem to like the gown,” Henrietta said, as his fingers lingered in that lacing. “So why the profanity when I entered?”
His head had been bent; suddenly he raised it and looked straight into her eyes. “This is not a gown that makes one wish to leave one’s wife at home,” he told her.
Her leg was throbbing with the exertion of standing up, and Darby seemed to know, because he scooped her up and carried her over to a chair by the window.
“I’m sorry,” she said. There was no way to signify precisely how sorry she was to be so lame that she couldn’t attend the opening of Rees’s new comic opera. Or to tell her husband the jealous desperation in her heart when she thought of an opera house full of beautiful women. That jealousy had spurred her to wear a fete dress to a simple dinner with her spouse.
He sat down and she folded into his lap as if they were designed to be together. “I’ve been thinking about it, Henrietta, and I do believe that your hip dislikes it when I put your legs on my shoulders.”
“You mustn’t say such things aloud,” she said, rather feebly. She was becoming accustomed to his blithe disregard for convention.
He shrugged. “This is our drawing room, my dear, and there isn’t a footman in sight.” His eyes had that wicked glint again. “There are many other positions just as delectable that we could try. Looking at you in that lacing, I’m just as glad that you’re not accompanying me to the opera. I can’t have every man in London dreaming of unlacing your gown.”
“But I will never be as beautiful as you,” she blurted out. Red surged into her cheeks. Would she never learn to keep her tongue silent?
“Why on earth would you say that?” His fingers stilled on her chest, and he looked at her with curiosity.
It irritated her. “You never seem to remember that I’m lame. Deformed. You are perfect. There’s not the slightest thing wrong with your body.”
“I see no disfigurement in yours either.”
She swallowed. “Don’t you understand, Darby? It’s not just my hip. If a woman can’t give birth, she’s—she’s nothing. Bartholomew Batt says that children are a woman’s greatest accomplishment.”
“I am beginning to dislike Bartholomew.”
“Well, I agree with him. To be a mother is—is—” She couldn’t even put into words what it meant.
“When my father lost the estate I grew up on,” Darby said, dropping a kiss on her ear, “I couldn’t imagine what I would do with myself. After all, I was only trained to run a large estate. That particular estate, to my mind: the one my great-grandfather established. And it was gone.”
“Lost? How did your father lose it?”
“Gambling.” Darby’s lips dropped away from her skin, leaving an unwelcome coolness. “Gambling. He lost our house and land on the turn of a pair of dice. I still have them. He brought the pair home, swearing that he’d kill himself. He didn’t do that, but he did wake me up, give me the dice, and tell me that they were all I’d ever inherit from him.”
“How old were you?”
“Fourteen.”
“Oh, Simon, that’s awful.” Henrietta twisted around and kissed him. She had taken to calling him Simon in intimate moments, although she still couldn’t bring herself to do it in public.
“But now I have my own estate,” he said. “It’s not the one my grandfather lived on, but it is mine. And I am happy there. Are you happy in the nursery, Henrietta?”
She blinked at him.
“And how is that pestilent little child of yours today?” He dropped a kiss on her ear. “Did Anabel lose a meal on you, or just in your sight?”
She smiled wryly in acknowledgement of his point.
“Families are what we make them,” Darby said. “I have two brothers, Henrietta, did you know that?”
She shook her head, fascinated. “I had no idea. Where are they now? And what are their names?”
“I didn’t think you were the sort who had memorized Debrett’s Peerage. Their names are Giles and Tobias. They are twins. But as to where they are…no one knows.”
“What do you mean?” Henrietta asked. “Where could they be?”
“The world is a wide place.” His fingers slipped over her shoulders and wandered down her back. “They left England when they were eighteen.”
“But you must have some idea where they are!”
“None. My father put out inquiries every year, and I have continued the practice. My father was quite certain they had not been lost at sea. I am not so sanguine. It’s one of the reasons that I decided not to have children. It has given me a sharp sense that no one knows what may happen on the morrow.”
Henrietta slung an arm around his neck, and rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. “I’m so sorry. You must
miss your brothers dreadfully. I do hope they weren’t lost at sea.”
“So do I,” her husband said. “So do I.”
They sat snugly together in the twilight while Henrietta thought about lost brothers and found children. And then she decided that a wife’s role included cheering her husband in moments of despondency.
So she stood up, smiled down at Mr. Simon Darby, and began slowly, deliberately undoing the tight lacing that graced the front of Madame Humphries’s fete dress.
In the end, Simon Darby missed his closest friend’s debut as a composer of comic opera. The note he sent Rees the next day said that he’d come down with a sudden ailment that necessitated a few days confined to his chamber.
Rees read the note and snorted. One could only dream that Darby was covered with chicken pox. But he didn’t hold out much hope that an invasion of small itchy spots was keeping Darby on his back.
40
Of Frost Fairies and Other Surprising Beings
Henrietta wasn’t thinking in terms of routines. Cycles. Days of the month. But one morning she found herself lying sleepily in her bed, thinking about Millicent’s marital advice and how sad it was, truly, that her stepmother had found the experience so unpleasant, and that Millicent thought of mess rather than of pleasure.
Thinking of messiness made her entire body rigid.
She’d had no flux. Feeling as if the breath were being squeezed from her body, she began to count backward. They had been married almost four weeks. That meant it had been over six weeks since she last had her monthly bleeding. She was late.
She lay back, arms and legs leaden, and tried to catch her breath. How could this have happened? She had followed Esme’s instructions regarding the sheath faithfully. She kept counting and re-counting the days, as if that could make a difference. Her maid appeared with an offer of clothing. She waved her away. Why dress when you’ve received a death sentence?
It was one of the worst mornings of Henrietta’s life. Darby was meeting with his man of business. The children were upstairs playing with a lively new nursemaid.
She had never felt more alone in her life. She spent the morning staring into the lace canopy over their bed. She didn’t cry. She just tried to breathe.
Finally she rose and took off her night rail and looked at her body in the mirror. It looked precisely the same. No signs of a swelling in the belly. Her eyes stared back at her, ringed with dark circles. As far as she knew, her tummy might pop out at any moment. There were a few women in the village who seemed able to conceal a pregnancy for a matter of months, but the small ones like herself looked very large from the beginning.
She spread her hands over her tummy and thought dangerous thoughts. Inside her, a little bud had started to grow. A baby. A child of her own. Perhaps a little girl with Darby’s somber beauty. Her body shook with longing at the thought. If only…
But the moment her husband found out, he would inquire about that little bottle he gave her on their wedding night—the pennydub, or pennyroyal, whatever it was. And Darby would be right, she thought, trying to persuade herself. Everyone said it was a miracle that she herself survived. Would she give up her life, only to lose the baby’s life in the process? What would be the good of that?
No good, beat her heart. No good. No good. No good.
Blood pounded through her body, telling her with every beat that she had no choice. She could hear it roaring in her ears. If Henrietta had been capable of it, she would have had a fit of the vapors. But instead her heart just keep beating, and her mind kept racing.
That night she requested privacy, pretending that she’d taken cold. Darby slept in another room. He asked what was wrong in such a sweet fashion that she almost told him—but telling him meant the end. She couldn’t do it, not yet. Not take that bottle, and give up her little babe. Not yet.
An hour or so after he retired to the other room, she realized that when one’s life might be counted in a matter of months, spending even one night alone was idiocy. She slid into bed beside him in an ecstasy of gratefulness for the familiarity of his roughened legs against hers, for the sleepy way he turned and drew her into his arms. For the way they lay together, she curled inside the circle of his arms as snug as a walnut in its shell.
She drifted into uneasy dreams. At first, she thought she was still in a dream. He was touching her gently and his strong hands rolled her to her back. Sleepily, she thought about protest, but there was something about her husband that made her allow him liberties. Her stepmother wouldn’t approve. But then the realization of what he was doing sank in. Was there no privacy in married life?
“Simon Darby!” she snapped, sitting up in bed. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”
He grinned at her. “I took care of that sheath, my dear. And now that we have that out of the way…” He picked her up and carried her over to the window overlooking the garden.
At that she really did protest. The room wasn’t cold, due to a large fireplace with a still glowing fire, but it was winter and she was naked, thanks to someone removing her nightgown while she was sleeping.
But he ignored her, just brought her to the window seat, and said, “Look, Henrietta.”
The back of the house had turned into a fairy landscape. The garden was usually a delicate stretch of trees and rosebushes. But now ice gleamed from every branch, even the tiniest twig. Moonlight skittered and danced from silver point to silver point. Even the window was decorated with hoary ferns and flowers of ice.
“Frost fairies have been here,” Henrietta said, touching one with her finger. “Oh Simon, how beautiful.”
“Mmmm,” he said, kissing the delicate bone that topped her shoulder.
“It makes me want to cry,” she whispered. The garden looked unearthly, like a wedding cake decorated for giants.
His warm body crowded behind her. She knew that hardness now and leaned back against him, welcomed it as a glutton does a feast.
“Crying seems to me an unnecessarily glum reaction to a chilly night,” he said. His voice was shot through with desire, and his hands were on her breasts, so sure and knowing that her head fell back against his shoulder and a whimper escaped into the quiet night.
He rubbed his fingers against the icy window and then ran an icy trail around her nipple. She gasped and squirmed. It felt too good. He rubbed the window again and trailed ice down her tummy, down to her sleek folds, burning for him, bucking against his finger.
Where his fingers had melted the frost, the window turned black as pitch, reflecting only the long line of her flank back into the room. She knelt on the window seat, trying not to wake the whole house as his icy fingers slipped everywhere. He pressed his lips to the glass and then kissed her neck, laughing as she squirmed away.
Later, she heard no laughter, only the breath rasping in his chest, as hard warmth replaced chilly fingers. His strong body bowed behind hers. At some point she even bumped her cheek against the icy glass but it didn’t matter because she was burning, her body consumed with the feeling of him, with the hundred points of liquid fire that flew throughout her body at his every stroke.
He carried her back to the warm nest of their bed, afterward. As she curled into his body, she felt him rise against her belly again. She reached down to touch him, to bring that strength and warmth to her.
He was kissing her, cupping her face in his hands, and kissing her eyes and her mouth and her cheeks.
“I love you,” she gasped, in between his kisses. “I love you, Simon.” His mouth took hers and stifled her voice, but her heart sang with the truth of it.
She dreamed that she had a child, a little boy. He had ringlets just like hers, and Anabel’s high joyous laughter. She was having tea with the vicar, and ladies from the sewing circle kept wandering through the room carrying flowers for a funeral. Finally the vicar left and she went to retrieve her baby from the nursery, but the nanny hadn’t seen him. And Henrietta couldn’t remember leaving him there in the morning. She
began running, searching through piles of old clothes, trying desperately to find him, but he was so small. She couldn’t find him. Her heart thumped against her ribs. She was too frightened to weep, too breathless to scream.
She woke. Lack of air gripped her ribs.
She spent the morning staring at the lace canopy of her bed. When there was a little scratching noise at her door, she sat up wearily, expecting her new maid, Keyes, with a hot bath. But it wasn’t Keyes. It was Josie.
“Hello,” Josie whispered loudly, slipping into the room.
“Hello!” Henrietta said, smiling.
“Nurse Millie says you’re ill. Are you going to lose your breakfast?” Josie said, hovering near the door.
Henrietta could understand Josie’s reluctance to enter. In a mere month as Anabel’s mother, she’d seen enough vomit for a lifetime.
“Not a chance of it,” she said reassuringly, holding out her hand. “I just have a little cold. Come tell me what you two did yesterday.”
Josie’s smile warmed the corners of Henrietta’s heart. “I came to visit you because Nurse is cleaning up after Anabel lost her breakfast milk.” She clambered up on the bed.
Henrietta wound an arm around Josie’s shoulders. “Do you think Anabel’s stomach is getting stronger?”
“No,” Josie said, after considering the issue for a moment.
“Well, she’s bound to stop soon. I don’t know any adults with her peculiar habits.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure,” Josie said, with that solemn combination of adult behavior and a childish voice that always made Henrietta long to laugh.
Keyes scratched on the door and entered, followed by two footmen with hot water.
Josie pulled on Henrietta’s sleeve. “May I stay? Please don’t make me go back to the nursery.”
“While I take a bath?”
Josie looked at her, lower lip thrusting forward. “I am a lady. Nurse Millie bathes Anabel and me together because we are both ladies.”
But Henrietta had barely recovered from her husband’s blithe invasion of her bath time. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Josie,” she said gently. “Very young ladies, like yourself and Anabel, may bathe together. But grown-up ladies bathe in private.”