“Better than Count Burnet’s divorce petition? I must say that I find it difficult to forget the details of Burnet’s home life, at least as the servants described it.”
“I didn’t believe the half of those stories,” Emily said. “No, this is fascinating because he was one of us, Griselda!”
“Who? Hellgate?”
“Hellgate was your own brother, as we all believe. No—the author!” She leaned forward. “His name was discovered by a most enterprising reporter working for The Tatler.”
Griselda pulled her thoughts away from Portman Square and the blond man who had undoubtedly risen from his bed by now.
“Fascinating,” she said. “Surprise me!”
42
From The Earl of Hellgate,
Chapter the Twenty-seventh
It was a new experience for me to speak from my heart, rather than from my loins, Dear Reader. Only then did I realize how little my heart had been concerned with my many relations, even with my dearest wife. But now…how I yearned! And yet it was no physical lust, but a heart-filled, earnest love. I wanted the best for her, in her life, at all times.
So I had to face the truth: was I the best for her?
The letter arrived along with all of the mail, except that the butler, Cockburn, handed it to her instead of Mayne by accident.
Josie stared down at it, her fingers suddenly cold.
Neatly printed on the upper left was the name of the writer: Sylvie de la Broderie.
Sylvie was writing to Mayne? Why? What could she possibly wish to say? He was married.
The possibilities raced through Josie’s mind. She barely caught herself before she cast the letter into the fire.
The sick, muddled feeling beat at her stomach and at her heart too. She would like to kill Sylvie and her slender figure.
“Unladylike,” Josie muttered to herself. But when had she ever cared for ladylike activities? Ladies never read other people’s mail.
She wouldn’t do that.
Ladies never eavesdropped.
Some rules are meant to be broken. Likely Mayne would rip it open and read the note quickly. Likely Sylvie was writing to ask for advice, or to wish him the best on his marriage. That must be it. Of course. Sylvie had exquisite manners.
If she betrayed even the least interest in her husband’s letter, she would seem gauche and ridiculous. There was only one way to achieve unconcern.
By stealth.
When the Earl of Mayne returned to his study that afternoon, he found three letters waiting for him, precisely squared in the center of his blotting paper. He was still chilled from watching his most promising filly, Argent, canter around and around the training yard, so he scooped up his letters and strolled over to the fire.
Which allowed his wife, cozily seated on the floor behind the great velvet curtains, a perfect view of his face and hands.
He ripped open Felton’s letter first. It’s done, he read to himself. Ardmore took to the task with an enthusiasm likely resulting from his personal experiences with this sort of mongrel. We finished the business by offering Thurman’s services to the crew of a slow whaler on its way to Newfoundland. They needed a scrub hand for the deck. Mayne grinned. He owed Felton one. And Ardmore. It was a good feeling to have brothers-in-law. Men to watch your back.
The second letter he opened was from Griselda. He raised an eyebrow. His sister rarely took a hysterical tone, and yet there was a definite trace of hysteria in her words.
He must return to London at once. He must make all haste, in fact, he must leave that very night. He must give her deepest apologies to Josie, but he must return. That last word was underlined three times, and he thought he could even see the blur of a tear. What the devil was that about?
He turned over the sheaf of foolscap only to see that Griselda had apparently realized that he would wish for more information. About Hellgate, she’d scribbed. Those infernal Memoirs. Come at once and say nothing about my letter. I must ask you to say nothing to your wife as well.
Mayne sighed. The only good thing about all of this was that he didn’t have to make the two-hour coach ride by himself, bouncing along on the indifferent springs. He was married now. He and Josie could…amuse themselves for a few hours.
He tipped Griselda’s note into the fire and turned to his other missive. Why in the hell was his former fiancée writing him? Not that he didn’t wish her well, because of course he did. But there was no question in his mind that if he never saw Sylvie de la Broderie again, it wouldn’t grieve him.
He leaned against the fireplace and opened the letter. It was scented, an affectation he found unappealing, so he held it away from himself.
But then, reading her delicate French hand, he felt himself easing into all the charm and loveliness that was Sylvie. He hadn’t loved her for nothing, after all, although it was hard to remember the reasons when Josie was around.
For a moment he stared blindly over the sheet. Compared to Sylvie, Josie was everything warm and sensual and delicious. His love for Sylvie—if one could even call it that—seemed a paltry, brittle thing in contrast, based on nothing more than her charm.
Because she was charming.
My dearest Mayne, Sylvie wrote. I wish to write you to assure you that I am not désolée over your marriage to little Josie.
Little Josie? Compared to Josie, Sylvie was a spindly, scrawny thing. I’d be bedding that frosty twig, but for the luck of the devil, he thought to himself. And couldn’t help grinning.
I am exhausted by the constant round of parties in London, the letter continued. Mayne could just imagine. Sylvie couldn’t say no to an invitation; there were nights when they had attended three parties in a row, one after the other. I have decided to take a small trip with my close friend, Lady Gemima. She has persuaded me that Belgium is as delicious as France, and we are determined to recover ourselves. To be honest, Mayne, I am hesitant, but I do long to leave London for a short time. Somehow, I miss my Paris more than ever these days, and a change will be beneficial.
Mayne thought about that for a moment. Gemima was a great gun, as everyone called her. She would take care of Sylvie. Or rather, all those attendants she carried about with her would do the chore. In fact, Sylvie would likely have the time of her life.
I did not want to leave without saying farewell to you, best of friends. But I am saddened by the thought that you might have suffered some loss of esteem that drove you into a hasty marriage. I have come to believe that I myself am not made for marriage. But I shall always carry the greatest regard for you in my heart, dearest Mayne. You are the only gentleman of my acquaintance with whom I could have countenanced such an undertaking, and I am only troubled at the thought that you might carry a lingering sense of insult, given the graceless way by which I ended our affections.
She was a good little thing, was Sylvie. A good, sweet lady who didn’t want him—or anyone else, as it seemed. But loving her hadn’t been a shameful waste, as Josie described his affaires. In fact, it had been a fairly decent thing to do, on the whole. He wasn’t always a fool. Just once in a while.
Adieu, she wrote. I wish all the greatest happiness for yourself and Josie. I think you shall find it together. At that, a ghost of a smile touched his lips.
He raised the letter to his lips and smelled, one more time, the complicated French scent that symbolized Sylvie—all her femininity, her delicacy, her Frenchness. Her wrongness for him.
Then, with one sharp twist of his wrist, he threw her letter in the fire.
And walked out of the room to find Josie. He had a mind to make Josie laugh. To see her crinkle her nose at him and maybe—just maybe—he would snatch her up and throw her on the bed, just to hear her deep chuckle, the one she gave when she was excited, and giving in, and about to kiss him as if she would never stop.
43
From The Earl of Hellgate,
Chapter the Twenty-seventh
I lay awake at night, Dear Reader, wrestling with the
fragments of my conscience. All that was good in me told me to let her continue to walk in the pure and delicate light of her chastity. But my heart sobbed and wept for her. Finally I decided to ask for her hand. How did I ask, you may wonder? I used Shakespeare, of course.
Josie sank to the floor as if her knees were made of water. She’d known it, hadn’t she? She knew Mayne loved Sylvie. He’d told her that he loved Sylvie, back when he first made love to her. He’d told her again, in so many words, when he offered marriage and said that love wasn’t important.
But it was more cruel to see him kiss a letter from Sylvie. What had she done? Oh, what had she done?
It wasn’t just Mayne’s feelings for Sylvie that she’d overlooked when she married Mayne under false pretenses. Apparently she’d underestimated Sylvie’s feelings as well, because otherwise why would she write him?
Perhaps Sylvie was the sort of woman who fought with her loved ones, who threw rings back at her fiancé, and didn’t mean it. Now she thought of it, Frenchwomen were notorious for that sort of drama. Sylvie probably thought that Mayne would come around in the morning, ring in hand, and beg for her hand again.
And she, Josie, with her foolish notebook full of schemes about how to win a husband, and how to arrange a marriage: she’d overlooked the most important thing of all. That a husband who loves another, no matter how enthusiastic he is in bed, is a heartbreaking companion.
None of her quips and her cleverness mattered in the face of this. She could make Mayne laugh. She could make him pant in bed. But she could never supplant the sweetness of the love he felt for Sylvie.
She could no more imagine him kissing a letter that she wrote him than she could imagine him kissing a saddle. Which was probably about where she mattered in his life: as a lusty, buxom saddle that he could ride on at will.
Josie rose, but discovered that her knees were weak, and she had to cling to the curtain for support. Finally she straightened up feeling ragged and destitute, like an ancient beggar woman.
How could she have been so stupid as to think that she wanted a husband under any circumstances? Her heart was burning like a coal in her chest.
Outside of the room she was greeted by Cockburn, who informed her that his lordship wished to leave for London within the hour.
The letter. Sylvie must have summoned him.
She walked into her bedchamber and allowed her maid to change her into a traveling costume. Blood thudded in her ears. Her eye fell on the little crimson book in which she had so carefully written down the complicated and fascinating ways by which heroines of the Minerva Press found their husbands.
Useless. She had a husband, and none of those books told how to make someone fall in love, or more important—fall out of love. For that she needed the drug Shakespeare talked about in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Love-in-idleness, it was called. The fairy dropped it in a gentleman’s eyes, and he promptly fell out of love with Hermia.
How could Mayne truly love Sylvie? Truly? She was lovely, of course. But he thinks my body is lovely too, Josie thought. Sylvie didn’t care for horses. And she didn’t, really, care for him.
I do, Josie thought, with every drop of longing in her body. Oh, I do. I love my husband.
She was clutching the book so hard that her fingernails made marks in its leather cover.
There was a scratch at the door. “His lordship is ready to leave for London, my lady, whenever you’re ready.”
Josie got up numbly. Tess would help. Annabel was presumably on her way back to Scotland with her husband and child, and Imogen was on her honeymoon, but Tess would help.
As she left the house, Mayne came toward her. “I received a note from Sylvie,” he said, smiling as if it was of little import. “She’s leaving at five o’clock on the Excelsior, so I thought we might see her off.”
She almost choked. “Perhaps you might say farewell for both of us. I would like to be taken to Tess’s house, if you please.”
He bowed. “Of course.”
“I have a terrible headache,” she told him.
He bowed again. “My condolences.”
She climbed into the carriage, snuggled into the corner and closed her eyes. She had all of two hours on the way to London to figure out what to do.
Since no King Oberon was likely to offer her a handy dose of love-in-idleness, she would have to come up with Mayne’s cure by herself.
44
From Hellgate’s Memoirs,
Chapter the Twenty-eighth
I knelt at her feet. “I burn for you,” I told her. “I pine for you. I perish…thinking of you. If you will not have me, I shall throw myself into the frigid Thames and die, thinking of you. To me, you have the purity of a cloud, the clarity of ice, the whiteness of snow.
“Marry me.”
Don’t argue with me,” Josie snapped. “I know it’s a complicated plan, but it’s the only one that I can think of.”
Tess’s eyes were wide. “Complicated? It’s utterly insane, Josie!”
“It is not insane. In fact, it is well-designed.”
“You must be joking. Tell me you’re joking.”
Josie’s eyes narrowed. “If you won’t help me, I’ll simply hire those who will.”
Tess was shaking her head. “No. You can’t do this!”
“Yes, I can.”
“No, you can’t! You can’t drug Mayne.”
Josie waved her hand. “It’s the mildest drug in the world. We give it to horses just to calm them, and Peterkin gave it to the stable boys all the time when they had to have a tooth pulled. It will simply make him sleepy and malleable.”
“You’re talking about your husband,” Tess said, half horrified and half laughing. “How can you possibly plan something like this?”
“It’s necessary,” Josie said stubbornly. “He really thinks he’s in love with her, Tess.”
“Yes, but he’ll come to realize—”
“No, he won’t. I didn’t think about it clearly until I saw him kiss her letter. I can’t live with him, knowing that he loves someone else. I can’t.”
“I don’t believe he does love Sylvie,” Tess said, much more seriously.
“Neither do I.”
“Well, then—”
“He thinks he loves her.”
Tess gave a helpless little laugh. “I just don’t see how—”
“Sylvie is sailing to Belgium. That’s at least two nights on board ship, perhaps more.” She leaned forward. “Neither of us have been aboard ship, but you know what Mr. Tuckfield told us about his trip around the Horn of Africa with his wife.”
“He said that he almost threw her overboard three times,” Tess said. “But Josie, Mr. Tuckfield is a Scottish horse breeder.”
“When Mayne is on board ship with Sylvie, he’ll discover that he’s not in love with her. He won’t throw her overboard—”
“I should hope not!” Tess interjected.
“But he’ll stop kissing her letters and thinking about her.”
“You don’t know that he thinks about her.”
“I don’t know that he doesn’t.”
“Ridiculous!” Tess cried.
“Oh? How would you feel if you thought that Lucius was thinking about someone else when he made love to you?” Josie met her sister’s eye. “If he looked thoughtful, and you didn’t know whether he was remembering a woman he lost? If he murmured something while he was kissing you, and it sounded like a woman’s name to you?”
Tess frowned.
“It will poison us. It already is, a little bit. I can feel it.”
“You are so dramatic. I honestly think you’ve read too many novels, Josie. You never would have come up with this crazy scheme if you hadn’t read all those books.”
“I have always thought a plan of action is the best way to tackle problems.”
“That’s true enough,” Tess said reluctantly. “But I don’t see why this plan has to be so complicated. And involve drugging Mayne!”
&
nbsp; “It is actually quite simple. I shall give Mayne a drink that will make him cheerful and sleepy, and then I will send him to the wharfs.”
“You will send him? Like a parcel?”
Josie thought for a second. “I’ll inform the footmen that Mayne wishes to board the Excelsior. That’s the name of Sylvie’s ship.”
“I don’t see why you have to drug him.”
“He won’t get on the ship otherwise.”
“True.”
“You see,” Josie said. “This will work, Tess. And I don’t need your help in the least, so you needn’t worry about it.”
“You do need my help,” Tess said. “Your footmen are Mayne’s footmen, may I remind you. They are not going to drag their sleepy, drugged master onto a ship and leave him there.”
Josie frowned.
There was a moment’s silence and then Tess said reluctantly: “But my footmen will do it.”
“Will you?”
“I don’t approve!”
“Of course not. But will you? Tess”—and there were tears glimmering in her eyes now—“I can’t live knowing that he loves Sylvie. Whether he loves her or not, I mean. I can’t bear the idea that he thinks he loves her.”
Tess gave her a hug.
Griselda was waiting for her brother in her sitting room. “You came!” she cried, jumping to her feet.
He walked in, looking as elegant and unconcerned as ever. Which had to mean that no one else had the chance to inform him before she did. The words started tumbling out: Darlington…Hellgate…the Memoirs…
Mayne dropped into a seat before the fire and sat there frowning. He looked outraged. Griselda’s heart dropped into her slippers. He was going to threaten Darlington. Challenge him to a duel. Perhaps kill him.
“You can’t!” she squeaked.
“Can’t what?”
“Call him out.”
“Why the devil would I do that?”