They were wrong.
Either he’d use the Sausage or he’d find some other thing to be clever about. It was that simple.
15
From The Earl of Hellgate,
Chapter the Fourteenth
I know you are literate, you are well-read, you are all that is admirable…I have endowed each of my all-precious ones by the names of characters in the incomparable Shakespeare’s most beloved play…a work that, like this memoir, is about dreaming and beautiful women…If the incomparable Bard wrote A Midsummer Night’s Dream, then I, poor I, am writing of Midsummer Nights’ Affaires…
The best suite at Grillon’s Hotel had a large bed and a number of charming seating arrangements. There wasn’t a hard-backed chair in the place. Darlington wandered about, touching the marble mantel to make sure there was no dust. The hotel was the opposite of the Bedrock estate, where he was raised. Bedrock Manor was made of a pinky-golden stone, and stood on a hill, so that in the summer the grass all around burned brown, and it took on an almost Italian aspect, like a Tuscan house dreaming in the sunshine. It hurt to think about those days, running about in the vale with his two brothers, never knowing that there was nothing for him, that it was all for his brother Michael.
They don’t tell you, when you’re sprouting, that you’re nothing more than a spare in case the eldest doesn’t make it. They let you run free around the estate, in and out of stables, up and out of trees that would never belong to you. Because not even one tree would belong to you. They give you only two choices: go into the army and kill people; go into the church and bury them. Well, three choices. You could fix on a way to support yourself that disgraces the family honor, at least from the family point-of-view.
It’s my failure that I didn’t find a respectable third way, Darlington thought to himself. Instead I sank into a rage that apparently lasted for years. Father would never have considered raising me to a business, and yet no one—but no one—seemed to have noticed that doing nothing leads to no income.
He shook the thought away.
An appropriate third way was obvious, always had been. Prostitution. Marry for money, marry well, marry a dowry.
To kill, to bury, or to screw.
Really, there wasn’t any choice about it at all.
She was just late enough so that he thought she wasn’t coming, and that the suite was to be wasted. It was after eleven when he heard the discreet knock on his door. He was sprawled in a chair, but he leaped up as a footman ushered in a heavily veiled female form and then left.
His heart bounded, and he walked over to her, laughing. “Is there anyone under these veils?”
“Oh no,” came a demurely smiling voice. “There’s no one here but I.”
“And you are the Ghost of the Lady of Shallot, I suppose,” he said, lifting off one veil only to discover another.
“Was the Lady of Shallot the woman who dashed about on her horse wearing no clothing?” Griselda demanded when he had tossed aside her third veil.
“That’s Lady Godiva,” he said, grinning down at her. He was clutching her hands with all the enthusiasm of a vicar greeting a sinner come to mass. “If you’d like to put on a performance, I’ll be happy to be your steed.”
He saw the moment the jest made sense to her, because her eyes widened. Then a naughty chuckle erupted from her throat. “I’ll have you know that I am a very proper widow,” she said severely, “and no one speaks in such a manner to me.”
“You aren’t a widow tonight,” he said. She had turned and was wandering about the room, so he came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her.
“I’m not?” Her hair was the sulky yellow of a peach, and tied up in elegant ladylike ringlets that hadn’t even been disturbed by her veils.
He nipped her in the ear. “You’re not,” he breathed in her ear. “I think you’re actually Lady Godiva, and you wandered into my room by accident.”
Her body was still, and he couldn’t tell if she were the sort who would welcome imagination, or whether she was a woman of rigid common sense.
“And what am I doing, wandering into a gentleman’s bedchamber?” she asked. His heart began to pound in his ears, because her voice was inquiring.
He ran his hands from her shoulders down the front of her pelisse, and then quick as a wink undid the twists that held it together. As he drew it off her shoulders, he said, “Well, you lost your clothing, of course.”
She turned around and smiled at him, and it was as if a perfect Dresden shepherdess leapt into vivid life, wrinkling her nose at him. “How did that happen?” She sauntered over to the table where the champagne stood, wrapped in a cold wet towel. “I should tell you, Darlington, that I rarely lose my clothing.”
He was there, pouring champagne. “I somehow know that,” he said, handing her a glass.
“This will be my third such encounter,” she said, waiting until he had a glass as well. “And my last.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I’ve made up my mind to marry.”
These weren’t flirtatious smiles, but the rueful sort shared by campaigners on the eve of leaving for a battle. “I as well.”
“You do need to marry,” Griselda said, sipping her champagne. She looked delightfully concerned for him.
He leaned over and dropped a kiss on her lips. “So do you.”
“I?” she asked, and one perfectly arched brow flew into the air.
“Surely Willoughby has been dead ten years,” he said. “And Lady Godiva has only found herself wandering three times?”
“For one night only in each case,” she told him. “An inflexible rule. I always think it is so helpful for everyone if we are quite clear from the beginning.”
“One night,” Darlington said, feeling a pang of regret that nearly felled him to his knees. He only had one night before he must begin his marriage campaign. But none of that mattered in the face of the ravenous desire he felt for Griselda.
She glanced around the room, and he decided to lay down a rule of his own. “I have never married, but I’ve heard that such encounters take place under the sheets.”
“Indisputably,” Griselda said, her face not revealing a thing about her marital relations.
“And I imagine that affairs among the nobility often have the same lack of vivaciousness.”
“If one considers setting vital to…vivaciousness.”
“One does,” he said simply. “Tonight Lady Godiva rides in the open.” And just to give her an idea of what he meant, he pulled off his jacket and threw it to the side, pulled off his shirt and sent it flying in the same direction.
He knew he was desirable to women. True, he’d made love to very few. He had no stomach to make love to a sour-smelling lass who’d give herself for free in a tavern, little money to pay one who might smell better, and no heart to flirt with a maiden to whom he couldn’t offer marriage. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t seen their eyes follow him, seen a certain interest in her face when a woman surveyed his chest or glimpsed his forearm.
Griselda’s eyes rested on his chest, but he couldn’t tell what she was thinking.
“If we only have one night,” he said softly, “then I think that Lady Godiva should begin her ride, don’t you?”
But she was not a woman to be hurried.
He took down her hair, pin by pin, and made a delicious discovery. Those ringlets, the lady’s claim to propriety and beauty, were only for show. Down tumbled her hair, and it was thick as silk and straight, until it reached the end where it formed perfect little ringlets.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said, pulling them and admiring how they curled back into a perfect spiral.
“My maid puts in the curl,” Griselda said.
“How does she do that?” He was entranced, wanting to know every detail. “Do you stand there, naked, flushed, warm from the bath?”
She laughed at him. “I sit, respectably clothed in my dressing gown, and she wields a hot iron b
ehind my shoulders.”
“I’m your maid for the night.” He took his time removing her gown, unlacing her corset, finally pulling off her chemise.
Surely she would insist on the lamp being turned down?
But she didn’t. She didn’t even glance at the light. Under all that clothing, she was as ripe and delicious as a peach, her breasts falling into his hands with an abandon that made his laughter catch in his throat, laughter that couldn’t make its way to the open air because he was in the grip of a lust so fierce that he’d never felt the like.
He was intoxicated by her long sweep of corn silk hair, with its little jubilant twists at the ends. He brought it over her breasts, and then pulled her in front of the mirror. They stood there together, she a study in creamy skin and silky hair, and he a harder, golden version of the same. “We look—” he said, and cleared his throat.
Griselda tipped her head back against his shoulder and watched him.
“I thought ladies were terrified by nakedness.” He was kissing her neck and talking between kisses.
“I’ve always liked looking at myself,” she said, watching his hands on her body in the mirror. “I like looking at you as well.”
He ran a hand down the curves of her side. She loved the intent look on his face.
“Willoughby was not fond of mirrors.”
“Hmmm,” he said, obviously only vaguely listening. It was half a caress, his touch, and half a shaping.
“Our wedding night was something of a fiasco.”
He raised his eyes.
“Neither of us had any experience in the area,” she said, laughing. She’d never told a soul about the night. It felt enormously freeing.
“Poor Willoughby,” Darlington said. “None at all?”
She shook her head. “Not that I know of.”
“What happened?”
“We couldn’t make it work. Not really. His belly was in the way, and it was mortifying for both of us, and so he kept losing his—his interest, as it were.”
“Poor sod!” Darlington said, horror in his voice.
“We tried again a few days later and it was more successful.” Darlington was beautiful: a muscled, young stallion of a man. Her two previous lovers had been cautious men in their forties, men who slid gently under the bedcovers and expertly, charmingly, made her as comfortable as they themselves were.
Darlington was another matter. She turned around so she could see him better, and found herself fascinated by the hollows in his hips, by the tight arch of his behind, by the golden sheen of his skin.
“Are you always like this?” she finally asked.
“Like what?”
“Naked. When you’re with a woman.”
His eyebrow shot up. “Have you seen me wandering through ballrooms without my waistcoat?”
“No, foolish one. I meant when you’re engaged in intimate activities.”
“Well, as to that,” he said. And pulled her against him, a shock of skin to skin. “I haven’t found myself in many intimate situations, and that’s the truth.”
“You haven’t?” She blinked up at him, wondering.
He shook his head. His hands slid down the planes of her back, making her feel deliciously smooth…feminine.
“Why not?”
His hands dropped away. He turned and picked up his glass. “No money to pay for the privilege, no living to back up the indiscretion…how could I?”
It seemed he had a code of honor, this man whom half of London considered despicable.
“How did you afford this room?” Griselda asked.
He turned. “Mad use of funds,” he said. “Every person deserves a last madness before they settle into domestic slavery, don’t you think?”
“Domestic slavery?”
He drained his champagne. “How else could one describe marriage?”
“Companionship,” she said. And thinking of Annabel’s, Tess’s, and Imogen’s marriages, “Passion, friendship, love.” She added, “Children.”
“You’re an optimist,” he said. “I see marriage as a fiduciary transaction. I will bring to the marriage little more than my skills in bed. My father made that clear to me at an early age. Under those circumstances, I’ve always found it hard to indulge an impulse to dally with a woman.”
“Because it took on the flavor of practicing your marriage-bound skills,” she said, sipping her wine and trying not to ogle the long line of his thigh.
“The taint thereof,” he corrected her. “But I do believe that I’m finally old enough to face my fate, coward that I am.”
She walked toward him, feeling her hair soft on her back. He had his back turned to her, so she ran her hands, palms flat, up the strong planes of his back. He shivered, but said nothing.
“’Tis a dismal way of looking at marriage,” she said, curving her hands around the muscles of his shoulders.
“Reality so often is disappointing.”
“Not tonight.” Then she came squarely up against him and felt his intake of breath through her body as well as his.
“I believe that we are in an altogether different realm than marriage.”
“I maintain, sir, that a marriage can be passionate.”
“I beg you to relinquish such unpleasant thoughts.” He turned around.
And what he was doing with his hands…well, it was enough to make every thought in Griselda’s head fly away.
An hour or so later Griselda was boneless, weak, satiated. “It’s time to leave,” she said, battling her own inclination to sink back into the bed. She bent over to pick up his dressing gown, but Darlington made a noise like a growl, a deep urgent noise in his throat, and she hesitated. And then he was wrapping his arms around her again.
She could feel his arousal, and her own blood sped into a throbbing melody in response. Some dazed part of her mind was measuring this evening against her other experiences and finding them to have no correlation. No other man had shown interest in more than one polite, cheerful coming together in which both parties were mutually satisfied.
“I don’t—” she gasped.
“Lady Godiva,” he breathed into her ear, “ride me.” He picked her up as easily as one might swing a child in the air, carried her across the room, and then he was sinking back into one of the large armchairs, his face alive with laughter and wicked pleasure, a sinful pleasure that had everything to do with her body and his, and nothing to do with beds.
“Shouldn’t we return to the bed?” she asked.
“Bed?” He was laughing aloud now. “I’d like to make love to you in the outdoors.”
She felt herself blushing, and he was pulling her forward, lowering her. It was an odd way of proceeding. He stopped, hand between her legs. “I like to watch you,” he said silkily. “Your eyes almost close, but not quite, did you know that? And when you breathe so quickly, your breasts move. Your cheeks are pink, you know.” And all the time his clever, clever fingers were dancing between her legs.
“Charles,” she sobbed, and finally, finally, he let her fall forward, onto him. And then he stopped talking and made a hoarse noise in his throat.
She knew instinctively how to ride. It must be a skill that comes to Lady Godivas in time of need, because she found herself throwing her hair back so that it fell to his knees, arching her back and laughing.
He wasn’t laughing anymore. His face was rigid, his teeth clenched. “Ah, God, you’re so—” But the words disappeared somewhere and he just concentrated on shaping her breasts with his hands until he really couldn’t take it anymore, so he ran a thumb across her rosy nipples. Her eyes drooped and suddenly he was helping in the race, thrusting upwards with all his force.
And then she was crying out, falling forward into his arms, and he was clutching her tight, that lovely damp back, as tight as he could, wrapping his own lady in his arms so she couldn’t ride away from him.
16
From The Earl of Hellgate,
Chapter the Fourteenth
r /> At the time I met Helena—in the ballroom at Almack’s, Dear Reader—I thought I had sipped the cup of passion to the dregs. In short, I thought to marry. For surely marriage is the counterpart to the inertia of old passions, the weariness that comes from seeing one’s former lovers in all four parts of the ballroom.
Yes! Such was the extent of my depravity…
Lady Mucklowe knew exactly what it took to make a ball into a tremendous success: a single stroke of genius. A few years ago she had created the most talked-about event of the season by inviting Lord Byron to read aloud his favorite love poem. That had ensured the presence of every wanton woman in London, as she later boasted to her sister. Wanton women cheer everyone up: gentlemen in the hope that such a woman might do them a favor, and gentlewomen in the realization that they had someone interesting to talk about.
Tonight she was confident that her place as the reigning queen of the interesting party would be confirmed. “I’m not sure I understand, Henrietta,” her husband said fretfully. Henrietta Mucklowe told herself for the fortieth time that if she had been lucky enough to have a more interesting spouse, she wouldn’t have such imaginative parties. Because if Freddie weren’t Freddie, they might actually have something to talk about at home, and she wouldn’t spend most of her time dreaming about fantastic entertainments.
“Masks, dear,” she repeated. “The footmen will be giving one to everyone as they come in. And they must wear them; it’s a requirement of entrance.”
Freddie looked nonplussed, so she explained, “Like wearing knee britches into Almack’s. You can’t get in without them.”
“What about York, eh?” Freddie asked. Occasionally he did have a pertinent point. “You can’t just tell a royal duke that he’s got to wear a mask or be done with it.”
“Perhaps he won’t come.”
“Saw him today.” Freddie grunted as he readjusted the garters on his stockings. “He told me he wouldn’t miss it after that other ball you gave.”