“I see no reason why we should live under the same roof,” she said.
“Because the child will be my son or daughter.”
“Mine as well!” Helene snapped.
“Of course. I may be a rakehell,” he said, unconsciously echoing Mrs. Austerleigh’s condemnation of his rival, the Earl of Mayne, “but I’m growing old. I seem to be gaining some measure of responsibility towards my name.”
“That’s the first I’ve heard of it!” Helene scoffed. Then she asked the question Rees was rather dreading: “Is one to suppose, then, that you are planning to reorder your household to accommodate my presence? Won’t that be a sacrifice?”
The delicate irony in her voice made his stomach churn. He picked up a half-eaten cucumber sandwich.
“Don’t eat that!” Helene screeched. “It belonged to Lady Sladdington, and she has very bad teeth.”
Rees shrugged. “Do you think they’re catching?” But he put the sandwich down. “At any rate, no, I haven’t.”
“You haven’t what?”
“Told Lina to leave the house.” This was harder than he thought, now he was looking right at Helene. “I told Leke to clean out the bedchamber—the large bedchamber—next to the nursery for you.”
“You must be joking,” she said, staring at him with what appeared to be fascination.
“I’m not.” This was the tricky part. “You want a child, Helene, am I right?”
She laughed. “Not under those circumstances.”
“I want an heir as well. I hadn’t really thought about it until you brought up the question, but now I realize that I do. Tom shows no sign of marriage; he’s about as wet as a waterlily, and he’s never shown any interest in women that I know of. If neither of us has issue, the title and the estate would revert to the crown, you know. My father was an only child and as far as I know, there aren’t any far-flung cousins waiting for my obituary in the Times.”
“Why would you care?” she asked. “You’ve never shown any interest in the honor of your name. The very suggestion is laughable.”
“Well, now I do,” Rees said, picking up the sandwich and eating it. Who cared if all his teeth fell out? Not his wife.
“This is all very well,” Helene said impatiently, “but I fail to see that it has any relevance to the presence of a strumpet in my bedchamber, not to mention your absurd suggestion that I take over the nursemaid’s quarters.”
“You want a baby,” he said shrewdly, meeting her eyes. “Don’t you, Helene? All these—” he waved his hand at her “—these changes in your hair and dress, they’re because you want a baby.”
“Yes, although,” she said with a little smirk, “they have compensations of their own.”
“Mayne, I would gather.”
“Precisely,” Helene replied, noticing with appreciation that the idea seemed to irritate him. Esme had said that Rees was jealous and while Helene thought it was unlikely, the idea of causing her husband any sort of annoyance was too pleasurable to ignore. “Mayne was here this morning, and his attentions are most marked.”
“If you have a child with Mayne,” Rees said deliberately, “I’ll make its life a misery. I will divorce you, of course. Did you know that I keep your dowry in the event that we divorce on grounds of adultery? How will you raise the child, Helene?”
Her heart was sinking, but she kept her chin high. “My mother and I shall live together, just as we do now.”
“Now you have an extremely generous allowance from me,” he snapped. “As a divorced woman, you will have to live in the country, of course, but I believe your mother’s dower estate includes only this house in town. So you’ll rent some small house somewhere. Your child will go to the parish school, if there is one, and if they allow bastards to attend these days. I’m not sure about that. I am certain that he will be ostracized though. And what if you have a daughter, Helene? Who will she marry? What will her life be like?”
She stared at him, lips pressed together.
“She’ll live a life like yours, I suppose,” he continued ruthlessly. “She’ll grow old living with her mother—you. Except there won’t be very much money, especially after your mother dies and the dower estate reverts to your father’s cousin.” He didn’t feel good about what he was doing. She still hadn’t said a word, but he remembered something else that had to be said.
“And don’t think that Mayne will obtain an Act of Parliament to marry you,” he added. “Even if he stayed with you through the divorce proceedings. The man may be rich, but he’s slept with most of the wives of the men sitting in the House of Lords. They’re just waiting for some miserable cuckold to up and shoot the man, and believe me, they’ll pardon the offence as justifiable.”
“Why?” she asked between white lips. “Why would you do such a cruel thing, Rees?”
“Because I want you in the house,” he said coolly. “You’re my wife.”
“I’m not your property!”
“You’re my wife,” he repeated. “It’s that simple. You merely need to decide how much you want that child. We made a dog’s breakfast of our marriage, but we can surely pull ourselves together long enough to get this taken care of.”
“You just want me to be wretched,” she said flatly. “You must be out of your mind to even come up with this plan. Never mind my feelings about the matter: my reputation would be ruined!”
A great surge of resentment rose in his chest at the very mention of reputation. “Of course, your name is all important to you. It remains to be seen whether it’s more important than having a child. And may I point out, Helene, that your reputation will also be ruined if you have a bastard with Mayne? All the ton will watch the two of you like hawks on a pair of frolicking mice.”
She seemed to be huddling in her chair, and Rees had a terrible feeling, as if he’d wounded a bird in flight. He stood up to go, but he couldn’t quite make himself leave. She looked like a wounded sparrow, all shorn of its feathers now that she’d cut her hair.
“This bombast on your part doesn’t explain why you want me in the house alongside that woman,” she said, looking up at him. “If indeed you want an heir, get rid of her.”
“No.” Rees knew he was being stubborn, but he didn’t care.
“Then you wish it merely to force me to live in a house of sin due to some perversion in your character. You’re a devil, Rees.”
“It’s no house of sin,” he said brusquely. But he could feel a wave of guilt coming. “Tom arrived yesterday. We have our own resident vicar.”
“Your brother Tom? What does he think of your domestic arrangements? And did you even dare to tell him of this scheme?”
Rees’s lips twisted. “He’s worked up some sort of idea that blames my father for all my excesses. He didn’t seem to mind Lina too much, but he said you wouldn’t come to the house.”
“He’s right!”
“And I told him,” he continued, staring down at her with that fierce look he had, that seemed to look into her very soul, “that he had no idea how desperately you want that baby. Or am I underestimating you, Helene?”
“You’re mad,” she said, standing up. “You were always odd, and now you’ve gone stark, raving mad. I’m actually glad that we didn’t manage to create a child yesterday, because I wouldn’t want to pass on any sort of dementia.”
“We didn’t?” he asked, staring at her. “You already know?”
“Yes,” Helene said, glaring back. She had gone from shock, to rage, to despair, and she was back to rage again. But threads of rational thought were stealing back into her mind. He was bluffing. He had to be bluffing. It wasn’t truly in Rees’s nature to act in such a cruel—nay, almost wicked—fashion.
He took her arm, stopping her from leaving the room. “How much do you want a child, Helene?”
“Enough so that I accepted the fact that it may look like you,” she said coolly. “And enough to know that you’re not the only man capable of making one.”
“You
would condemn your own unborn child to bastardy. She will hate you someday, when she has no one to marry except the local cowherd. Let’s face it, it’s not as if you and I would particularly enjoy being next door to each other anyway. Did you really want me able to enter your room at any hour of the day or night and slip between your sheets?”
She spat it at him. “Absolutely not!”
“Right. The chamber on the third floor is easily larger than my mother’s room. You can fit a piano in there.”
“That’s not the point! I do not wish to spend even a moment under the same roof as your doxy, a fact which should be clear, even to a person with your perceptive nature.”
“All right,” he said. “We’ll compromise. You live in the house until we conceive the child. You can come in secret, so there won’t be any scandal. And then you can take the child and raise it elsewhere. Here, with your mother, if you wish. But I refuse to continue trailing around after you and stripping off my pantaloons in public.”
“You could come here on occasion.”
“I’m not going to waste my time flitting around to balls, and to my mother-in-law’s house, trying to find my own wife. I have work to do.”
“I don’t spend my time flitting around to balls!” she retorted. “You know as well as I do that I spend most of each day here working on my piano. You could come here.”
“I noticed an advertisement for Arrangements of Beethoven Piano Sonatas for Four Hands, by a Mr. H. G.,” Rees said, distracted for a moment. “Are those the pieces you were working on last summer?”
She nodded. “I’m writing a waltz at the moment,” she said. “Well, this has been an utterly enthralling conversation, Rees, but I really must—”
“I need you, Helene.”
“What?”
“I need help.” He said it jerkily, in the tone of a man who hasn’t asked for help since he was eleven years old. “I have to put an opera on the stage next season, and I’ve only written a few songs that are even decent. I shouldn’t have left the house this morning.”
“That’s not like you. I thought you poured out all that comic stuff as if it were dishwater.”
There was a muscle working in his jaw. “Believe me, Helene, the stuff I’m writing now is worse than dishwater.”
He met her eyes with the old flare of obstinacy and anger, but there was something else too. A plea? She frowned. “You need my help? How could I possibly help you?”
“I thought perhaps we could make an exchange. You’ve gotten better and better over the years. Whereas I’ve become pedestrian.” He couldn’t think how to frame it in proper terms. “If you can help me turn my score into something playable, I’d be grateful.” It was clear how his gratitude would be expressed.
Helene felt her cheeks going pink. “That’s—That’s—” she spluttered. “Absolutely not.”
He turned away, raking his hand through his hair. “All right.”
Helene watched him suspiciously. He was giving up, just like that? He must not have wanted her help very much. And did he really think that she was a better composer than he?
“If you can wait nine months or so, until the opera is rehearsed and opens, I’ll start coming over here whenever you want me to,” he said, sounding extremely tired.
“Couldn’t you possibly do so now?”
“I really couldn’t.” He was looking out the window, back to her. “I’ve dried up, Helene. I slave over the damn melodies, and they get worse every time I touch them. I lost most of last night due to the Hamilton ball. I can’t afford to do that again.”
“What part is she taking?” Helene said sharply, suddenly realizing something.
He looked at her. “The lead.”
“So you need her in the house to sing the parts,” Helene said, working it out.
“Yes.”
“And for other reasons,” she pointed out with a little edge to her voice.
He’d got his satirical gleam back now. “It’s not as if you would like to do any recreational bedding, is it, Helene?”
“No!” It was madness. Utter madness. And yet, she couldn’t bear the idea of waiting months. She’d already waited half her lifetime, or so it felt. If she were honest, there was also a small part of her reveling in the idea that he wanted her help. That he admired her music. Fool that she was.
“I’ll do it for one month, and on one condition.”
“What?” Rees was rather startled to find how much he wanted her to agree.
“You can’t even enter that woman’s bedchamber while I’m in the house. Not under any circumstances, Rees. Do I make myself absolutely clear? You are not going to parade from one bed to another. She can stay and sing, but that is all.”
He looked at her, and for a moment she thought he was going to refuse. Bile rose in her throat.
But then he said, “I see no problem with that request.”
“And no one can know that I’ve returned to your house,” Helene commanded. “I’ll inform my household that I’m traveling in the country. It’s not as if anyone from polite society would think of paying you a call.”
“No one ever comes to visit. But you would have to be a virtual recluse, Helene. And servants talk.”
“Do you still have Leke?”
Rees nodded.
“Leke won’t talk,” Helene said. “You’ll have to let anyone go whom you think might gossip.”
He shrugged. “We haven’t hardly any staff at the moment. There’s Rosy, Leke’s niece, a couple of footmen, and Cook.”
“How you can live in such a pigsty, I don’t know,” she said.
“I’ll tell Leke to expect you this evening then,” Rees said, controlling his voice so that not even a trickle of pleasure came through.
“No. I’ll arrive in a few days. What did you tell your singer?”
“The same thing I told you.” He pulled open the door and told the butler to fetch his greatcoat. “Her name is Lina McKenna, by the way.”
“What did Miss McKenna say of this scheme?” Helene demanded, dumbfounded to find that she was even considering such an action.
Rees shrugged. “Something about the two of you pouring over fashion plates together.” He left Helene staring at the door.
Sixteen
The Nature of My Sex
“What do you wish to do this morning?” Tom asked Meggin as they left the breakfast table. She didn’t seem to have eaten much, although who knew what a child this age should eat? And why didn’t he think to ask Mrs. Fishpole when her birthday was? He wasn’t even quite certain how old she was. He’d have to return to the inn. How did children amuse themselves?
Meggin just looked up at him and didn’t say anything.
“Would you like to have a bath?” he asked.
She didn’t reply. It was rather irritating. Or it would be irritating, he quickly corrected himself, if she wasn’t such a little girl. One couldn’t be annoyed by an innocent orphan. Could one?
“What would you like to do today?” he said, rather more loudly. They were climbing the stairs. Meggin wasn’t even pretending to pay attention. She was caressing the satiny finish of the stair rail as if it were a cat. What was needed here, obviously, was a female.
He paused. “Wait here,” he instructed her and then turned around. Meggin was nothing if not obedient. She sat down on the stair and began stroking the stair railings.
Tom clumped down the stairs feeling extremely irritable. He’d been thinking about this trip for over two years now. He had planned to arrive at Rees’s house, and—and there’s the rub. Talk to him. Tell him he missed him? Their father’s taunts rang in his ears just as loudly as they obviously still did in Rees’s: expressing such an emotion would be girlish. How could he tell Rees that he missed his big brother, that he missed talking to him, that he wished they were friends? From what he could see, the only friend Rees had was Simon Darby, and that all went back to the days when Rees would flee the house and disappear to the Darby household for days.
Tom sighed. “Leke!” he shouted.
“Here, sir.” The butler trotted through the green door, drying cloth in hand. “I’m just on my way to the employment agency, sir. I think we could use a few maids.”
“Undoubtedly,” Tom said, allowing faint irony to enter his tone. The corners of his room were festooned with cobwebs.
“Had I known of your arrival, sir,” Leke said majestically, “I would have had your room prepared.”
“Never mind that, where’s your niece? The one and only maid? I need someone to care for the child.”
“I’m afraid she has let us down,” Leke admitted. “She’s run back to her mum this morning. I’m sure my sister will send her back with a good ear-warming, but meanwhile, there isn’t a woman in the house barring Cook. And Cook is not the sort to do any child-minding. Takes her position very seriously. After all she cooked for the Prince of Wales once; his lordship pays her one hundred guineas a year just to stay in the household.”
“Bejesus,” Tom muttered. One hundred guineas was nearly what he made as vicar, and more than most of his parishioners made put together.
He started back up the stairs. Cook wasn’t the only woman in the house. Lina was a woman. Anyone except a blind man could see that. Halfway up the stairs, he passed Meggin and she got up without a word and started following him, for all the world like a curious kitten. At the top of the stairs he turned left and marched down to his mother’s room.
The door opened immediately. “Well hello, Reverend,” Lina said, smiling as wicked a smile as any self-respecting Whore of Babylon would give a bishop.
Tom felt that smile all the way down to his groin. No wonder his brother had thrown his wife out and moved Lina into the bedchamber next to his. God help him, he probably would have done the same. He gave himself a mental shake. She’s a fallen woman. Someone to pity and succor, not lust after as if he were a common ruffian.