“Shall we have to walk a great way?” Sylvie asked.
“Oh no,” Griselda said. “We’ll be dropped directly at our box.”
Sylvie smiled.
Griselda sat back, feeling a qualm of true anxiety. Sylvie wasn’t entirely happy. What would Mayne do if he were jilted, for the second time, by a woman whom he loved so tenderly? It made her feel ill just to think about it.
21
From The Earl of Hellgate, Chapter the Seventeenth
I name her, Dear Reader, after one of Shakespeare’s fairies, for she was as elusive and sweet to me as one of those sprites. You will loathe me for the truth of it…but when I beheld her gentle countenance, I burned with the desire to possess her. And yet marry her I could not…she was married to a worthy burgher. I tremble as I write the words:
The bonds of matrimony did not stop me.
Lucius Felton’s box at Ascot was, without doubt, the most luxurious on the grounds. The King’s box was a rather simple structure, lined in red velvet, and boasting chairs that were uncomfortably thronelike. But Felton had decided to take a box at Ascot only after he married, and he had a particular fondness for enclosed racing boxes. Since there wasn’t one to be had at Ascot, he bribed the manager of the racetrack a fabulous amount—some said it was enough to run the entire operation for the next year—and built himself an elegant little box, with a roof to keep off the sun and rain. It was open along the track, naturally, but it extended far enough back so that there were a few little rooms off it, necessary to a lady’s comfort when her husband (like Mr. Felton) was a devout enthusiast of the track.
There was, Josie discovered with extreme pleasure, a small retiring room for ladies, boasting a chaise longue. “Tess does have a lovely life,” she said, sighing at the beauty of it all. The retiring room was an oasis of calm luxury, papered in silk the color of a spring beech leaf. When she walked in, Sylvie was already there, carefully turning her pink lips to a more intense peony color.
“Your Tess is indeed a very lucky woman,” Sylvie agreed. “I am sorry that I did not see Mr. Felton before she did.”
Josie smiled at Sylvie’s frank assessment. “You might not have liked him.”
“I would like anyone with his resources. And may I say that I am glad to be out of the marriage market before you appeared?” she remarked, looking Josie up and down. “Now that you have shed those strange undergarments, you are a rival.”
Josie burst into laughter. “No one can say that you aren’t generous, Sylvie.”
“I speak a truth,” she said, with her little French shrug. “I am of course slimmer than you, and I think that my nose is a trifle smaller, but I have not that air of”—she waved her hands—“séduisant, that you have.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t speak French,” Josie said, rubbing a little bit of lip color on her lips as well.
“It means you look like a good bedfellow,” Sylvie said baldly. And at Josie’s giggle, “Did I say it wrongly? I work hard at this English, but it is difficult.”
“I am sure that you look like an entrancing bedfellow yourself, Sylvie!”
“Oh no,” she said. “I don’t because I won’t be. I’m not very interested in that sort of thing. But luckily for me, there are men who feel as I do.”
“Mayne?” Josie said, suddenly horrified by the turn in the conversation.
“Precisely.” Sylvie put down her lip color, picked up a small enameled box and began powdering her nose.
“Are you sure,” Josie said hesitantly, “that is, Mayne is not known for…”
“Oh, I know that his reputation is of the worst,” Sylvie said, waving her hands again. “But men do not look for the same thing in their wives that they desire in a casual companion. Unless I am very mistaken, my fiancé would be taken aback by an expression of carnal interest on my part. And since I feel no such interest, we are well matched.”
Josie bit her lip. Sylvie saw her face and smiled kindly.
“You must not color people with your brush,” she said. “Does that make sense?” And at Josie’s shake of the head, “Ah well. What I mean is that Mayne falls in love only with the women who are unattainable. It is a common type of man. In fact, from something Griselda told me, he has been in love only once before, and the lady in question was happily married.” She closed her powder box, clearly considering her opinion on the subject final.
Sylvie tripped out of the room, and Josie sat staring at the mirror, her heart wrenched by the idea that Mayne could only fall in love with women who were unattainable. Surely after they married, Sylvie would grow more—more carnally interested, to use her own word.
Or she wouldn’t, Josie thought, picturing Sylvie’s cool little profile. Given that Sylvie was engaged to Mayne, and yet uninterested in him…what could change her mind?
22
From The Earl of Hellgate,
Chapter the Seventeenth
I assure you that she came to no harm from our frolicking. I persuaded her, Dear Reader, that my blemished soul could be healed only by her ministrations, and she, lovely Peasblossom, adored sprite, believed me. She soothed my soul…and other parts of my anatomy, in my carriage. One afternoon that I shall never forget I met her in the ruins of a lovely chapel, and there amongst the wildflowers and fallen stones, we…
The Ascot
If Darlington was supposed to be looking for a spouse, he certainly wasn’t going about it in a very productive way, to Griselda’s mind. Instead, he was hanging around their party and seizing every opportunity to say scandalous things to her. This made life interesting, but, of course, virtue suggested that she send him away.
“You must go off somewhere else,” she scolded him. They were all walking toward the royal enclosure, because Griselda had heard that the new Duchess of Clarence had arrived. Somehow they had drawn slightly ahead of Mayne, who had Sylvie and Josie on either arm.
“I shan’t,” he said into her ear. “I can’t.”
“You should be finding a young lady to court,” she said. There was something in his eyes that made her feel groggy and quite unlike her capable self. Hadn’t she decided to find a spouse for herself as well?
“I will stay here and help you choose your future spouse,” he said, as if he could read her mind. “Lord Graystock appears to be wandering in our direction, for instance.”
Griselda looked obediently. True enough, Graystock was ambling toward them. He was a shaggy fellow with a cheerful face and a sharp nose.
“He resembles nothing more than an amiable badger, given that white streak in his hair,” Darlington said. “The two of you could settle in the country and set up a badger run.”
Graystock was bowing now and saying hello in a determined fashion that showed that he, at least, would find the idea of a badger run with Lady Griselda quite acceptable.
But Griselda eyed his rather yellow teeth and withdrew her hand quickly.
“He’s not so terrible,” Darlington said, after Graystock had taken himself away. “There are those who would find Lady Griselda Graystock a less than salubrious sobriquet, but I’m sure you would get used to it.”
“You are very unkind,” Griselda pointed out.
“Always,” Darlington said with a grin. “Are there any more of your suitors about?”
“After all, I must marry a worthy man, just as you must marry a worthy woman,” Griselda said, tipping back her parasol and looking up at him.
“Must your spouse exhibit a badger-like worthiness?”
She smiled at him. He wasn’t as sharp-tongued as he liked to pretend; in his eyes she could see the kind of disappointment that her brother used to display, back in the days when he had a toy he didn’t wish to share. She changed the subject. “Have you read Hellgate’s Memoirs?”
“That piece of rubbish? Absolutely not.”
“I am finding it fascinating. Did you know that most people consider my own brother to be the basis for the book?”
“So you told me.”
> “I wish that the book hadn’t been based on my brother,” she said with a sigh. “It makes him seem so paltry, do you know what I mean? Mayne had these little attachments over a twenty-year period, but reading them all at once makes him seem despicably puerile.”
“I don’t see why you are certain your brother is the model,” he said, looking as confused as men always did when one tried to explain the finer points of literature. “I was under the impression that Hellgate married, for example, and your brother is unmarried, is he not?”
“You will simply have to take my word for it,” Griselda said. “Hellgate quotes the poet John Donne, and I promise you that my brother could spout poetry from morning to night if he wished to.”
“Unexpected depths,” Darlington murmured. “Aren’t you feeling rather hot and weary? Perhaps ready to retire to a more secluded spot?”
“Not at all.”
“You look quite hot.”
Griselda blinked for a moment. She didn’t feel hot. Was he really saying that her face was unattractively flushed? To her mind, there was nothing more pedestrian than a lady checking her face in a small glass. “I am absolutely comfortable,” she said, though there was a bit of an edge in her voice.
“I beg to differ,” he said, staring down at her with such an alarmed face that she actually began to wonder what could have gone wrong. Could her carefully applied face paint have smeared in the sun? Surely not. She wore only the slightest touch. “Oh dear,” he said, peering into her face.
Griselda’s heart was beating quickly and it wasn’t from fear of a facial disaster. “Really?” she asked weakly. He was only an inch or two from her mouth. But he couldn’t, he couldn’t possibly kiss her here, with crowds of persons about and—
“You are ill.”
“I am?”
“You are quite ill. Don’t you feel rather odd?”
Griselda had to admit that perhaps she did. Her heart was racing alarmingly, and her knees felt quite weak. And now she thought about it, her cheeks were warm. She opened her mouth.
“Don’t try to speak.”
She began to speak anyway but her attention was caught by the color of his eyes. They really were extraordinary: a beautiful cool gray color that shaded into blue.
“You are about to faint. I can see it in your pallor.”
Pallor? Griselda thought. How could I be pale? Visions of herself delicately patting on a small amount of Virgin’s Blush that morning drifted through her head.
She frowned at him, just as something clipped her behind her knees and her right foot skated out from under her.
With a startled gasp, she dropped her parasol—but there he was. She was scooped into his arms, for all the world like the heroine of a melodrama. “Don’t worry,” he said to her with such a sweet, anxious expression that her heart thumped even harder. “I’ll take care of you.
“It’s just heat,” he said to Josie, who had turned and was looking concerned. “Nothing to fear,” he told Mayne. “I shall accompany Lady Griselda to her home, since she has grown faint.”
Her brother was obviously torn between brotherly devotion and his horse. “I’m fine,” Griselda said, not struggling to get down. After all, since Darlington deliberately tipped her off-balance, he might as well strain his muscles holding her above the ground. Who was she to cavil about the fact that she felt no faintness whatsoever? In fact, perhaps she was dizzy. She certainly felt wildly happy.
Mayne must have glimpsed her face because his eyes narrowed and he started to say something, but Darlington had already turned and was plowing through the crowd. Griselda put her head against his shoulder. He must be terribly strong to carry me along like this, she thought.
“You will put me down if you’re about to fall over, won’t you?”
“Why would I fall over?”
She glanced up, and sure enough, his face had the utterly wicked look of joy that a boy gets when he hides his favorite toy rather than share it. “You,” she said, “ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
“I so frequently am that I’m afraid the emotion has lost some of its punch. I will take you to my house.”
They were almost at the hackney enclosure now. His long legs were carrying her through the crowds at top speed. “I can’t go home with you,” Griselda said. He put her on the seat, but then he stopped, arms braced on either side of her, and leaned toward her. His body blocked the light coming in the carriage; surely no one could see.
“You certainly can,” he said. “I’ll put a blanket over your head and pretend you’re a potted plant.”
“I can’t!”
“You can.”
Griselda pushed herself up, ready to do battle even though it brought his lips within an inch of hers. Sure enough, he dipped his head. Some moments later she came out of a daze to find that she was clutching his shoulders. “I don’t do this sort of thing,” she said wonderingly.
“Neither do I.” She met his eyes and knew it was true. “I don’t sleep with women, and in fact, I’ve never invited a woman other than my mother into my apartments. But I would like you to come, Ellie.”
“Ellie is a servant’s name,” she said, pushing her bottom lip out, just because she wanted to make him look.
Of course he did more than look, and by the time that kiss was over, she would have gone with him anywhere. And he knew it. He looked down at her with a slumbering little smile in his eyes and then finally pulled himself entirely into the carriage.
Griselda fell back, feeling as if her heart were going to pound its way out of her chest. “And what do you think the driver thought of the way you were stuck halfway in and halfway out of this hackney?” she said, hearing the gasp in her own voice.
He just grinned at her.
“Lord knows, anyone could have walked by the carriage,” she said, fussing with the bodice of her dress because it had become slightly disarranged.
“Have you ever been in a gentleman’s lodging?”
“Of course not!”
“A first for both of us, then.”
23
From The Earl of Hellgate,
Chapter the Nineteenth
Now I come to the darkest chapter in my lurid career, Dear Reader, and I must beg of you again to close the pages of this book…set it to the side and take out your Prayerbook instead. Within you will find verses to nourish your inner spirit and true life, whereas here…
Oh Reader, Beware Indeed!
Mayne was conscious that he ought to be the happiest man on earth. Gigue had won her heart. Not only was he the richer by some thousands of pounds, but Rafe’s entry had been soundly beaten. There’s nothing like trouncing a dear friend to make one’s joy complete.
What’s more, he had his exquisite fiancée on his arm, and she was showing every sign of enjoying the Ascot. He glanced down at Sylvie. She was wearing a daring French coat of imperial satin in a lavender-blossom color. She had informed him of the particulars; in fact, he felt he knew her costume down to the color of its thread: the lilac color, bordered at the waist, the brocade ribbon of a shaded jonquille color (whatever that was), the scalloping around the feet, and the pièce de résistance, an Indian turban cap with a white sarsenet parasol with Vandyke floss fringe.
It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate the picture she made, tripping along in her Indian turban. She looked dainty, French, and charmingly au courant. Perhaps it was just that he wasn’t a turban sort of man. Or it might be the way the French coat pressed Sylvie’s front so that she looked (a thought never to be revealed) as flat as a plate in the front. There were moments when women’s fashion was inexplicable from a man’s point of view.
Josie’s costume was altogether more simple. She was wearing a walking dress in a scarlet color, very simple, rather than trimmed and fringed and au courant. She’d taken off her bonnet, and was swinging it from the hand that wasn’t tucked under his elbow. And she was paying no attention whatsoever to Sylvie’s observations, but kept craning her neck to wa
tch horses thunder by on the track.
She looked as fascinated by the racetrack as if she’d never seen a horse run before, whereas Sylvie showed little interest in the sport. It was probably just that Josie was practically still in the nursery, though you’d never know it now that she’d discarded that hideous corset. She presented an entirely delicious picture of curvy womanhood. No garment in the world could make Josie flat as a plate, not even that horrendous corset. In fact, Mayne had noticed that every man who passed them was ogling her greedily.
“Mayne!”
He turned and looked down at his fiancée, who was looking up at him inquiringly.
“Boots of scarlet cloth trimmed with velvet,” she said pointedly.
Mayne prided himself on quick recoveries. “Yes indeed,” he said, with all the experience of years of talking to Griselda.
“But the gold and pearls—blended, you understand,” Sylvie said, wrinkling her nose. “Entirely overdone, don’t you think?”
“Yes, indeed.” His attention wandered away again. Josie had stopped and was standing on tiptoe, watching as a group of horses thundered past them. “Look!” she cried, pulling his arm. “Unless I’m mistaken, one of Rafe’s horses has won!”
Mayne peered over to the final line, and sure enough, it seemed that the winning horse was wearing Rafe’s colors. He supposed he could allow Rafe a victory now and then.
“Divided on the forehead, like horns,” Sylvie said to him.
“Of course.” Surely they had seen enough? He was longing to return to the box where he could watch the races from a decent vantage point.
“Mayne!” Sylvie was laughing at him, he realized with a start. “You’re not paying the slightest bit of attention, are you? I just observed that the Duchess of Piddlesworth was wearing a horn of pearls on her forehead and you agreed!”
“I do apologize,” Mayne said, although he felt rather irritated, to tell the truth. “Would you like to return to our box now? It is rather difficult to see the races from here.”