A Wild Pursuit Read online

  One thought prevailed: how would those slender fingers feel on my body? The image brought neglected parts of his anatomy to attention. Perhaps corsets weren’t such an impediment, a thought supplanted by an image of a Norse goddess, pale hair swirling over her slender shoulders, unlacing her corset with delicate fingers….

  3

  So Young and Yet So Diabolic

  Lady Beatrix Lennox was inclined to think that she had wasted her efforts dressing. She had expected more excitement from a house party being given by the scandalous Lady Rawlings. But Countess Godwin was the only guest other than those Arabella had brought with her, and the countess didn’t interest Bea. First of all, she was female. Secondly, she was prudish, proper and a strange choice of friend for the infamous Lady Rawlings. Thirdly, Bea had little patience for the martyred wife role.

  Were I foolish enough to marry, Bea thought, wandering toward the windows, and were my husband as flagrantly unfaithful as is Earl Godwin, I’d take a fork to him. Outside there was nothing to see but a few stone walls with rusty ferns growing from them. She took a sip of sherry. It had a smoky sharpness that went with the gray afternoon.

  A husband who invited an opera singer to reside in his wife’s bedchamber obviously deserved violence. Shattered china came to mind. She would have quickly taught the man better manners.

  When someone tapped on her shoulder, Bea was far away, imagining a confrontation with her imaginary husband’s imaginary mistress. She spun around with a suppressed gasp. The countess herself stood before her.

  They curtsied and exchanged the usual trivialities, and then the countess turned and stared at the same rusty ferns Bea had been looking at. After a second, she said, “You looked so absorbed by the view that I thought it must be magnificent. I forgot that this window looks only into the back courtyard.”

  Bea was feeling that pulse of wicked boredom, the one that always got her in trouble. “I was meditating on unfaithful husbands,” she said, looking at the ferns and not at her companion.

  “Oh?” the countess sounded startled, but not appalled. “I have one of those. I hope you’re not planning to follow my example.”

  Bea laughed. “I have no plans to marry, and so hopefully I shall avoid that conundrum.”

  “I eloped,” the countess said rather dreamily. “That was the problem, I do believe. Elopement is about the intoxication of acquaintance. And acquaintance is hardly a solid basis for marriage.”

  “I always thought elopement was rather romantic,” Bea said curiously. It was hard to imagine anyone wishing to elope with Lady Godwin, to be honest. The countess was a slender woman with stark cheekbones and a good deal of braided hair, not a look that Bea admired much. It made her look positively medieval. Plus, she was hideously flat-chested. Bea’s own undergarments were cleverly designed to enhance every inch of flesh she had, as well as suggesting many inches that she didn’t have, and she maintained a lively scorn for any woman who didn’t avail herself of such garments.

  “I must have thought elopement was romantic as well,” the countess said, sitting down. “I can hardly credit it now. Of course, that was years ago, and I was a foolish girl.”

  Bea’s mind had jumped back to her bloodythirsty fantasies. “Do you ever think of taking your husband in hand?” she asked.

  “Taking him in hand?” The countess looked up at her, one eyebrow raised.

  Bea’s streak of mischief grew larger. Surely, listening to the countess’s marital woes would be more fun than examining rusty ferns out the window. She sat down as well. “Why haven’t you evicted the opera singer from your bedchamber?” she asked, precisely as if she were inquiring the time of day. This was a deliciously improper conversation, even given that Bea rather specialized in unsuitable topics. Surprisingly, Countess Godwin didn’t turn a hair at her impropriety.

  “Absolutely not,” she said, gazing into her glass of sherry.

  “I would never allow another woman to sleep in my bedchamber.”

  “To evict the woman in question would imply that I had an interest in entering that bedchamber.”

  Bea waited. She had discovered that silence sometimes inspired interesting confidences.

  “If she weren’t in my bed,” the countess continued, “who would be there? I think of her as a necessary evil. A nuisance because everyone is so aware of her presence. Along the lines of a bed warmer.”

  Bea choked. She had just discovered why the notoriously proper Countess Godwin was friends with the equally notoriously improper Lady Rawlings. “A bed warmer?”

  The countess nodded, looking as serene as a dowager discussing a baptism.

  Bea could see her point. If Lady Godwin didn’t want to bed her husband, the opera singer might as well do the chore for her. But all the world knew that Lady Godwin lived in her mother’s house, rather than in her husband’s house on Rothsfeld Square.

  “That’s not equitable,” she pointed out. “You should be able to sleep in your own house. You are married to the man.”

  The countess cast her a sardonic glance. “Have you found that life is fair to females, then, Lady Beatrix? I think we would both sum it up as deplorable.”

  Until then, Bea hadn’t been quite sure whether the countess remembered her scandalous past. “I don’t consider my situation a deplorable one.”

  “If my memory serves, you were caught in an indiscretion with Sandhurst. His reputation was untouched by the scandal; yours was ruined. You were forced out of your childhood home, and”—she paused, looking for the right word—“ostracized by a great many people you once knew.”

  “But I didn’t want to marry Sandhurst,” Bea pointed out. “Had I married the man, I suppose it would have all blown over. I refused him.”

  “I admit, I thought the offer had not been made,” the countess admitted. Then, after a moment, she added, “Why didn’t you wish to marry him?”

  “I didn’t like him very much.”

  The countess swirled her sherry, then drank it in one gulp. “You are wiser by far than I, Lady Beatrix. I didn’t discover a similar dislike until I was already married.”

  Bea smiled at her. “They should outlaw Gretna Green weddings, perhaps.”

  “Perhaps. Do you really think that you’ll never marry?”

  “Yes.”

  “And did you always feel that way?”

  Presumably the countess knew as well as Bea did that no respectable man would wish to marry a person like her. Bea didn’t say anything.

  “Of course you thought to marry,” the countess said to herself. “Otherwise, you never would have refused Sandhurst’s offer. I’m sorry.”

  Bea shrugged. “This is a case where dreams have been supplanted by reality. I could not tolerate a husband such as yours, my lady. I’d probably take to him with a blunt instrument. Truly, I am better off in my position.”

  Lady Godwin was grinning. Bea was surprised to find how enlivened her face was by humor. She didn’t look boringly medieval anymore, but sparkling and quite lovely, in a slender kind of way.

  “And just what would you do to my husband?” she asked with some curiosity. “And by the way, you must call me Helene. This is one of the most intimate conversations I’ve ever had with a complete stranger, after all.” In fact, Helene was surprised at herself. There was something about Beatrix Lennox, some sort of mischievous sparkle, that reminded her of Esme. Which must explain why she, Helene, was being so uncharacteristically indiscreet.

  “I would love to, as long as you call me Bea. I gather that you do not wish for your husband to…play an active role in your life,” Bea said, trying for a delicate tone. Subtlety wasn’t exactly her strong point.

  Helene laughed, a short, rather bristly laugh. “No.”

  “I would make him sorry, then. I would make him very, very sorry that he ever thought to leave my bed. At the same time that I made it clear he hadn’t the faintest hope of returning.”

  “Revenge is mine?” Helene asked, eyebrow raised again. She
rather liked the idea of revenge. There were whole days—such as the one when Rees appeared in the Godwin opera box, doxy in tow—when she thought of nothing but doing Rees serious injury.

  “Precisely,” Bea nodded. “Besides, revenge is not only sweet in itself, but enjoyable. You, Lady Godwin—”

  “Helene.”

  “Helene,” Bea repeated obediently. “You have the kind of reputation that the three other women in this room could only dream of. That is, if we had the desire for such dreams.”

  Helene looked around. True enough, Bea, Lady Arabella and Esme herself could hardly be called champions of propriety. “Esme is turning over a new leaf,” she pointed out. “I believe she does indeed dream of being a proper matron, or widow, rather.”

  Bea shrugged. “Lady Rawlings may be aspiring to a chaste reputation, but I certainly am not. And I’ve seen no signs of such ambition on Arabella’s part either. The point is, though, that you are the one of us who has been most flagrantly slighted by a man, and yet you are the most prudent of all of us. If I were you, I would be flaunting my affairs before my husband.”

  “Perhaps if he cared, I would. But Rees wouldn’t give a hang, to be honest.”

  “Nonsense. Men are like dogs: they want the whole manger, even though they don’t eat hay themselves. If you have an affair, especially one in the public eye, it will curdle his liver.” Bea said it with a certain relish. It was gratifying to see how closely the countess was listening to her. “Not to mention the fact that you will enjoy yourself.”

  “My goodness,” Helene said. Then she smiled again. “Naturally, I like the idea of curdling his liver.”

  “Your husband has the best of all worlds,” Bea insisted. “He has that opera singer, and he has you. The world and all knows that you’re faithful to him.”

  Helene chewed her lip for a moment. “The problem is that I’d have to have an affair in order to flaunt one,” she pointed out.

  “Precisely!” Bea said, grinning at her. “You have nothing to lose but reputation, and what has that got you?”

  “Respectability?”

  But Bea knew she had her. She paused and looked at Helene from the top of her tightly coiled braid to the tips of her slippers. Her gaze spoke for herself.

  “I think they warned me about women like you when I was in the schoolroom,” Helene observed.

  Bea fluttered her eyelashes. “So young and yet so diabolic?”

  “Something of the sort.” But Helene had come down to earth with a thump. She looked back into the depths of her sherry. “It hardly signifies, because I haven’t the faintest hope of attracting a man with whom to have an affair, if you must know. No one has made me an indecent proposal in years. In fact, I think my husband may have been the first, and the last, to do so.” She felt a crawling mortification at the admission.

  “Nonsense. Available men are everywhere,” Bea said, giving her an encouraging smile.

  From Bea’s point of view, Helene thought glumly. She was likely propositioned every other day.

  “Men do seem a bit thin on the ground at this particular party,” Bea continued. “What about that—that politician Arabella dragged out here? I’ve forgotten his name.” She nodded toward him.

  “Mr. Fairfax-Lacy?” Helene asked. “I’m not sure that—”

  “I know, I know. I thought just the same: Church fathers, propriety, honor, Old Testament…A boring old Puritan!” Puritan was Bea’s worst insult.

  “I didn’t mean that! I actually find Mr. Fairfax-Lacy quite attractive, but he is unlikely to make imprudent love to me. Let alone in front of my husband. Men simply do not think of me in those terms.”

  Bea hesitated. She could hardly inform a woman whom she had just met that she needed a new wardrobe. “Sometimes those Old Testament types are longing for a diversion,” she said. “If not, why on earth did the man take up Arabella’s invitation? This is not the house party for a prudent public servant. Arabella is not interested in him for herself; she would have told me. Besides, she dislikes younger men.”

  They both stared across the room at Mr. Fairfax-Lacy, who was talking to their hostess.

  “Do you think he knows anything of music?” Helene asked dubiously.

  “What’s that got to do with the price of oranges?”

  “I couldn’t—I’m very fond of—that is, I couldn’t spend my time with someone who didn’t like music.”

  At that very moment, Mr. Fairfax-Lacy turned to the pianoforte in the corner of the room, sat down with a twinkling smile at Esme, and began to play a lively tune.

  “Does he pass muster?” Bea asked. She herself had been trained on the harp, since her father considered tinkling little tunes to be indicative of ladylike thoughts.

  “Not in terms of taste,” Helene said a bit sourly. “He’s playing one of my husband’s arias. You do know that my husband writes comic operas, don’t you?”

  Bea nodded, even though she hadn’t had the faintest idea. Helene was married to an earl. Did earls write comic operas?

  “The piece he’s playing comes from an opera called The White Elephant. Drrread-ful,” Helene said. “Overall, the opera wasn’t bad. But that particular song was absolutely dreadful.”

  “What’s the matter with it?”

  “The soprano has to sing an F in alt. The poor girl nearly strangled herself trying to reach it, and the audience thought her stays were pinching,” Helene said, gazing across the room. “And the overture had so many dissonances that the orchestra sounded as if it were sight-reading the piece. Disaster. It was an utter disaster. The fact that Mr. Fairfax-Lacy liked it enough to memorize the piece doesn’t say much for his taste.”

  But Bea had already made up her mind that Helene and the politician were a possible match, and she wasn’t going to allow his inadequate musical judgment to influence Helene. “I’ll walk you across the room, and you can improve Mr. Puritan’s musical taste,” Bea said encouragingly. “Men love it when a beautiful woman corrects them. Meanwhile we can assess whether he is worth your time and effort. He’s old enough to be going soggy at the waistline, which is far worse than a lack of musical ability. Trust me on this.”

  “It hasn’t been my experience that men enjoy correction,” Helene said, “and I’m hardly—” but Bea was pulling her across the room like a determined little towboat.

  Stephen looked up to find the glorious bit of disrepute, Lady Beatrix, and the graceful Lady Godwin peering over the pianoforte. His fingers almost stumbled when he realized what a mistake he’d made in choosing a piece of music, and he leaped to his feet.

  But the countess was smiling at him, and there was amusement in her eyes. He gave her a wry grin.

  Lady Beatrix also smiled at him, but damned if she didn’t turn a normal greeting into a shamelessly wanton invitation. It was something about her eyes, the way they melted into a sultry little examination of his body and lingered around his middle. Luckily his stomach was as flat as the day he left Oxford—or was she looking lower? But the last thing he needed was a flagrant affair with an unmarried lass who already had the reputation of a highflier.

  He wrenched his eyes away and looked to the countess. “Lady Godwin, I had the pleasure of hearing a canzone of yours at a musicale some years ago. Will you honor us with a composition?”

  Lady Godwin gave him a reserved but genuinely friendly smile and took his place at the keyboard. “I’d be happy to play something else for you, but I rarely play my own compositions in public.”

  To Stephen’s surprise, Beatrix Lennox didn’t seem to have realized that he had snubbed her; perhaps she was so ready with her invitations that they weren’t even personal. She leaned over the pianoforte, looking like a schoolgirl, an absurd comparison given that her bodice was so low that her breasts almost touched the glossy surface of the pianoforte.

  “I didn’t know you wrote music, Helene!” she said. “What a wonderful gift. Will you play us something you have written yourself?” And then, when Lady Godwin hesi
tated, “Please?”

  Stephen had to admit that Lady Beatrix was pretty damn near irresistible when she pleaded. Lady Godwin blushed and nodded.

  “Would you like to hear something polished or something quite new?”

  “Oh, something new!” Lady Beatrix exclaimed.

  Naturally, Stephen thought to himself. That sort of flippery young woman would always be looking for the very newest attraction.

  Lady Godwin smiled. “All right. But I have to ask a favor of mine own, then.”

  He bowed. “For the pleasure of your music, my lady, anything.”

  “I’m working on a waltz at the moment, and it is so difficult to maintain the rhythm during the transitions. Would you and Lady Beatrix dance while I play?”

  Stephen blinked. “I’m afraid that I haven’t had much practice in waltzing.”

  Lady Beatrix was looking at him with one slim black eyebrow raised. “One Christmas I taught my grandfather, who is quite unsteady on his feet, to waltz,” she put in, with a sweet smile that didn’t deceive him for a moment.

  She thought he was akin to her grandfather. Stephen felt a stab of pure rage.

  “It’s not a question of skill,” Helene said earnestly. “I’m quite certain that you will be nimbler than my music, Mr. Fairfax-Lacy.” She called to their hostess. “Esme, may I employ your guests for a practical purpose? Mr. Fairfax-Lacy and Lady Beatrix are kind enough to attempt one of my waltzes.”

  “I only wish I were capable of dancing myself,” Lady Rawlings said cheerfully, hoisting herself from a chair and waving at her butler. A moment later the footmen had cleared a long, polished expanse down the center of the Rose Salon.

  Stephen eyed it with distrust. Holding a seat in the House of Commons hadn’t left him a great deal of time to spin women around the dance floor, especially in this newfangled German dance. Damn it, he’d probably only waltzed three or four times in his life. And now he had to try it before an audience. He stalked to the floor. She flitted out before him, the better to display that round little body of hers. Well, she wasn’t so very little. He was a quite tall man, and yet she wasn’t dwarfed by his height, as so many women were.