Darlington was quite handsome. He had those tossed curls that all the men were affecting these days, from the Bishop of London (who should have known better than to have curls peeking out from under his hat) to her own brother Mayne. Mayne’s were, at least, natural, and Darlington’s appeared to be as well. There was nothing more unappetizing than the thought of a man patiently waiting while a servant crimped his hair. Darlington was lean and tall, and beautifully dressed, for all she knew that he didn’t have a penny to his name. Well, perhaps he had a penny or two. One had to think that the Duke of Bedrock wouldn’t toss off his youngest son to live in the gutter.
But Darlington needed to marry well. He was obviously trying to interest himself in Letty Hotson. Letty was standing next to him, her mouth slightly ajar, listening closely as he bent his head to tell her something. Even from across the room she could see the trace of self-loathing in his face, almost hear the detached sound of his voice. Dear me, Griselda thought, I shall be doing the man a favor by extracting him from that company. If there was one thing she knew about, it was marriage between incompatible persons. He and Letty would never share an intelligent conversation.
A moment later she was standing beside Mrs. Hotson, complimenting her on her daughter’s dress; Letty was swathed in lace from head to toe. And two minutes after that, Griselda was strolling away with Darlington’s hand under her arm, having cut him from the herd.
“Aren’t you going to regale me with a clever phrase about Letty’s lace?” she asked a moment later. “Lacy Letty?”
“I am too busy trying to ascertain why you wish to speak to me, Lady Griselda,” he said. “I fear that my sins have come home to roost.”
“Calling Josie a sausage was indeed a sin,” Griselda said, and her voice came out harder than she meant it to be.
“I vow never to do so again.”
She turned to look at him in surprise.
“I’ve been an ass, and I’m sorry.”
He had queer gray-green eyes with thick eyelashes. The odd thing was that he actually did look rueful. Why on earth hadn’t she thought of speaking to him before? Perhaps she could have cut off poor Josie’s miseries after the very first ball in which they heard giggles about the Scottish Sausage. “You’ve made her season a horrendous trial,” Griselda observed. Again her voice was more critical than she meant it to be, given that she was supposed to coax him into a flirtation and then extract a promise of better behavior.
It was a trifle disappointing to realize that she could simply walk away right now and consider their flirtation at an end.
“If you had asked me to close my mouth, I would have.”
“Why?” she asked, and then: “Not that there should be any reason for stopping behavior so cruel and—” She stopped.
“Ill-bred?” he put in, with an odd twist of his lips.
Griselda felt like saying the truth, so she did. “Aye, ill-bred. It is ill-bred to mock those who are less fortunate than you.”
“You’re right in every particular.”
“Although,” she added, “obviously you are not truly ill-bred.”
“One would hope not,” he said, but there was something sardonic in his voice that suggested that he, at least, felt that a father’s title as duke did not necessarily constitute good breeding. “May I ask you to dance with me?”
Griselda knew she probably should go back and report victory. If she hurried, she might even find Sylvie, Tess, and Josie still in the ladies’ retiring room. Rather oddly, Sylvie seemed to enjoy herself far more in seclusion than she did circling the ballroom floor. Earlier, Griselda had seen her circling the floor with Mayne, and Sylvie had looked almost—almost—bored.
But Griselda was never bored on the dance floor. “I shall dance with you, but only if you treat me to a taste of this oh-so-precious wit that I hear about.”
He shook his head. “I’ve decided to stop making my reputation at the expense of others.”
“It’s all very well to eschew unpleasant comments about defenseless girls,” she said tartly, “but surely you’re not planning to enter a monastery?”
The strains of a waltz began, and he smiled down at her as she put a hand high in his. “I thought perhaps I would become a truly boring person now. One of the ones whom everyone looks up to.”
He was a beautiful dancer. “I see precisely what you mean. There is something about you of the Puritan. I suppose you have a sweet and modest disposition, and you’ve merely been pretending to be wicked these past few years.”
“Precisely. I have had to put away my ardent desire to become a bishop, but perhaps I shall still give up the world and its vanities.”
“I shall have to test you,” she said, giggling a little. “You know all good men go through some sort of temptation.” His arm was warm and strong around her waist as they danced.
“In the desert, I believe,” he said, looking around in a way that made her break into laughter. She caught the startled eyes of a friend, Lady Felicia Saville. Felicia had never quite recovered from a bout of lovesickness she suffered over Mayne, and Griselda tried to avoid her as much as possible. But now she gave her a laughing smile. She was dancing with one of the handsomest, most intelligent young men in the ton, and she was enjoying herself.
“There’s no desert in England,” Griselda observed.
“That’s a good thing.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve heard tell that people go quite unclothed in the desert.” His eyes danced with laughter. For a moment she thought he was trying to seduce her, but that was ridiculous. “Consider Lady Stutterfield in that state, for instance.” He nodded toward a rawboned woman who moved by in a stately fashion, clothed in great quantities of starched taffeta.
“Perhaps it is just as well that England has no desert,” Griselda agreed.
“One never knows, of course, when the earth’s magnetic poles will change their position and turn this country into a sandy wasteland,” he observed. “I learned very little in school, but I do remember that.”
“I’m quite certain that I’ve heard it said that you took a First.”
“Firsts are so easy to obtain these days,” he said. “Especially if one is partial to gossip, as I am. History is nothing more than a large collection of such tales, and my First is in that subject, which should qualify me in your esteem.”
“History is made up of gossip? I thought it was made up of grand events and grander people. And dates. My governess quite despaired of my ability to keep dates in my head. I could never see the point of it.”
“Neither can I,” he said companionably, and she could tell he meant precisely what he said. “But think about gossip. What do you most prefer to gossip about?”
“People, I suppose.”
“Yes, but people doing things. I think that there are three truly interesting sources of gossip. One is eccentrics, and another is financial failures. One can practically sum up the history of the world in those terms. Alexander the Great? An eccentric, and then a financial failure. Napoleon, Charlemagne, our own English Henry IV…all make interesting history, and each of them is either an eccentric, a financial failure, or both.”
“You haven’t told me the third category,” Griselda observed.
“Shouldn’t you like to guess?”
She thought for a moment. “Adultery…or possibly murder. But on the whole adultery is so much more interesting to discuss; murders have a dreary similarity at the base.”
“One could argue the same of adultery, but I won’t,” he said, laughing. “You see, Lady Griselda, you would have had a top First, if only the universities weren’t such fools about allowing women to attend.”
“I’m sure I wouldn’t want one.”
“Why on earth not?”
“So that I could predict at what year England would turn into a desert? And pray, sir, what possible use would that news be to me?”
“You could prepare the ton for the eventuality of waltzing with
no clothes,” he said.
He was flirting with her. Really, she thought that as a woman who was ten years older than he, she would have to carry this conversation all by herself. But he was surprising her. First he swore to cease his talk of sausages, and now he was engaging in a flirtation.
“I’m afraid,” she said in a melancholy type of way, “that I would have to leave the ton if that became the normal way of things.”
“Couldn’t stomach it?” he said sympathetically. “Whenever I have to visualize something of an unpleasant nature, I think about muffins.”
“Muffins?”
He twirled her around the bottom of the room and their legs brushed together. “Muffins are very helpful in these situations,” he said gravely. “For example, if I think of Lady Stutterfield without her support garments, not to mention all that taffeta, I might feel faint. So I think of a hot, buttered muffin and I feel much better. On the reverse side, if I think of you, Lady Griselda, without your garments, I also feel faint, though for different reasons.”
“So you think of muffins?” she asked, her eyes caught by his intent ones.
“Dry, horrid muffins,” he said.
“I think you show a remarkable attachment to nursery food.” She drew back as the music came to a close, and curtsied.
“Will I see you tomorrow in the park?” he asked.
“Shall you be there, pursuing a marriageable young miss?” she teased.
“Yes,” he said baldly.
She was a bit surprised, but then realized that Darlington was presumably the sort who could flirt with a willing, presumably available widow and blatantly pursue a wife at the same time. She kept smiling and withdrew her hand. “Perhaps I shall see you there,” she said.
“Lady Griselda—” he began.
But she turned away with a dismissive flutter and a polite smile. While he was a most enjoyable man to share a waltz with, she had no particular desire to watch him hook poor Letty Hotson and her dowry of lace.
9
From The Earl of Hellgate, Chapter the Sixth
There we were, with our omelettes quite besmiring our garments—Dear Reader, remember your promise to me that you will make no attempt to discover the identity of my Hippolyta—and she said to me, in the prettiest manner imaginable, “Dearest Sir, will you not aid me in removing this unsavory breakfast from my person?” Reader, may I say that it was a meal I shall never forget?
The door opened, and Josie slapped her arms back in front of her breasts. They were far too large; she couldn’t say how it happened, but in the last year, her breasts had grown enormously. At least you don’t gain in your legs, Imogen had told her when they were looking at her reflection without The Corset. That was true. Her ankles and legs were fairly slim, compared to the rest of her. It was her hips and breasts that were vulgarly rounded.
Mayne handed her a gorgeous flowered dressing gown, keeping his eyes on the far wall. She slipped her arms through the sleeves. It was a sensual delight: smooth, sleek silk in a dark violet color, covered with arabesques and wild curls of Indian leaves. “This is so beautiful,” she said, tying the sash. “Have you traveled to India?”
“Good lord, no.”
“Clothes matter a great deal to you, don’t they?”
“Absolutely.” He turned around. “You look better in that robe than you do in a gown that doesn’t fit you.”
“My gown does fit me,” she said with dignity. “With the corset.”
He handed her glass of champagne back. “Now. You sit down and I’ll give you a lesson in how to walk.”
“So as to make a man slaver,” she prompted, sinking into a chair. It felt wonderful to be out of the corset. She crossed her legs and relished the sensation of being able to curve her back. The champagne slipped down her throat in a now familiar rush of apple bubbles. A queer rush of affection bubbled with it, for this exquisite dandy of a gentleman who was taking such time to show her how to succeed on the marriage market.
“Precisely.” Mayne reached down and grabbed her discarded dress. He gave it a speculative shake.
“What on earth are you doing?” she asked. He was wrenching off his coat. “Why are you undressing?” She might have been naive, but even she could tell that this was no scene of seduction, in which he managed to take off her clothes under a ruse, only to strip himself naked.
“I think I could show you best if I put the dress on,” he said, frowning in an adorable fashion. “Thank goodness, it has short sleeves. I’m afraid my arms are unfashionably burly from working with horses.”
And before she could say anything, he stripped off his shirt as well. He wasn’t even looking at her, so Josie just sat, transfixed. He would never be able to put her dress on, any more than she could. He was all smooth, sharp-cut muscle, beautifully defined. She thought men had mats of hair on their chest; she’d seen hair curling from the shirts of men working in her father’s stables. But Mayne was smooth, smooth except for the muscles standing out under his skin.
Now he looked utterly unfamiliar. The sleek, exquisitely groomed Mayne, in the moonlight filtering through those small overhead windows, looked wild, like Bacchus, the god of wine. He would be perfectly at home in a shadowy wood, vines wound in that mop of curls, a sleek mat of hair beginning at his waist.
Without noticing, Josie had frozen in her chair, not making a sound, as if a wild animal stalked her chamber without seeing her. She felt a blend of attraction and fear, of amazement and shock.
A second later the attraction turned to helpless laughter.
Mayne picked up her pink dress and in one swift movement ripped it down the back. Then, before she could utter a protest—one of Madame Badeau’s special creations! Made of the finest silk, with an overskirt of rose gauze and trimmed everywhere in tiny white glass beads!—he pulled the sleeves briskly up his arms. She could hear a faint ripping sound, but really, did it matter at this point?
“Now,” he said, stopping to have a swallow of wine. “Here I am.”
“There you are,” she said, laughing helplessly. His muscled arms stuck out of her little pink cap sleeves with all the incongruity of a tiger wearing an apron.
“Pay attention,” he said severely. “As I said, here I am. Miss Lucy Debutante.”
Josie leaped to her feet and dropped into a curtsy. “What a pleasure to meet you, Miss Lucy.” She couldn’t help noticing how much easier it was to curtsy when you were wearing a dressing gown, and had no corset to poke you in the back of the legs.
Mayne dropped a very credible curtsy as well. Then he strode to the side of the room. “All right,” he said. “Now watch me carefully. Lucy is young and unknowing, but she’s been a coquette from birth. That means that she instinctively knows that men wish to see a woman’s hips sway when she walks. Do you understand?”
“No,” Josie said. “My governess, Miss Flecknoe, taught me to walk with a book on my head.” She put on Miss Flecknoe’s mincing voice. “Ladies must walk upright, without unnecessary wiggling of the torso.”
“Miss Flecknoe is an idiot,” Mayne said. “Wiggling is precisely what you do, in a refined manner, you understand.” He put a hand on his pink-clothed hip and began to walk across the room toward her. Somehow, like magic, his walk took on the sleek stroll of a female predator, a woman so confident of her appeal that her hips swayed like a ship encountering a swell of water.
He turned around and giggles burst from her mouth. Of course her poor dress came nowhere near meeting in the back. In between the gaping seams was a broad expanse of smooth skin.
“Stop chortling, witch,” he said over his shoulder. “It’s your turn.”
“My turn?”
Somehow Josie found herself next to him. “Let your hips sway,” he said. “You have lovely hips; I could see them even when you turned yourself into a sausage.”
“I don’t—” Josie said, but weakly. Perhaps the corset would have to go.
She walked beside him, across the room, but it didn’t work.
She didn’t feel like a coquette, for all she put a hand on her hips and swayed. She was trying not to think about how wide her hips would look, going back and forth like that. And then she realized that what she’d really like would be Mayne’s body in a female form, because his hips were absolutely flat and of course that was why he looked so sensual when he pretended to be a woman.
He stopped short with a little exclamation. “You’re not giving this your attention, Josie!”
“I am,” she protested. “I really am. I’ll try again.” And she ran back to the wall and, under his gaze, walked toward him, trying to waddle from side to side. Because that’s how she felt about it: as if she were waddling. If waddling would make men slaver, or even ask her for a dance that hadn’t been arranged by one of her sisters, she was eager to do it.
Mayne’s eyes narrowed and she could read failure there.
“Maybe I simply…” her voice trailed away.
“You’re not feeling it. Have you ever kissed anyone, Josie?”
“Of course I have!” And then she realized what he meant. “You mean, kiss a boy?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of kissing a man,” he answered, amused.
She shook her head. Who would want to kiss her? Was he blind? He must have read that in her face.
“There’s the problem. You don’t have any sense of yourself because you—you don’t have any sense of yourself. Have you—” But he checked himself. Whatever that question was, it clearly couldn’t be asked, even under the influence of far too much champagne and moonlight.
Then he was there, in front of her. He was wearing a pink dress with cap sleeves. The glass beads painstakingly sewn on by Madame Badeau’s seamstresses glittered in the moonlight. He should have looked absurd, but instead, Josie felt as if Bacchus himself had indeed wandered into this strange little turret room and was there, with a deep wild invitation in his eyes.