A Wild Pursuit (12 page)

H
e wasn't in her chamber when Esme opened the door. Of course, she was glad of that. What would her maid think, to find the gardener in her bedchamber? It sounded like a tidbit from a gossip rag:
“A certain lady widow, in the absence of a husband, seems to be relying on her staff.
” Tomorrow she'd start her new life as a respectable mother. Of course she wouldn't take lovers once her baby was born—for one thing, she could never risk having another child, since she had no husband.

But she couldn't seem to concentrate on her future respectability. Her whole body was humming, talking of the night to come. She felt almost dizzy. She and Sebastian had never had an
assignation
before. They'd made love once in a drawing room last summer. Then she had visited him in his gardener's hut a few times, but always on the spur of the moment. He had never come to her. Well, how could he?

She had never known beforehand that he would enter her room at night. That she would watch him undress. That he would lean over her bed with that smoldering look of his. Her inner thighs pricked at the thought.

“I feel particularly tired,” Esme told her maid, Jeannie. “A bath immediately, please, with apricot oil.” Jeannie chattered on about the household while Esme tried to ignore the fact that merely washing her body was making her feel ripe…aware….

Suddenly a tiny movement caught her eye. Her windows were hung with long drapes of a rich pale yellow. And under one of them poked the toe of a black boot. Not a gentleman's boot either. A gardener's boot.

A great surge of desire sank right to the tips of Esme's toes. He was watching. Her whole body sung with awareness of those hidden eyes. Jeannie had bundled her hair atop her head to keep it dry; Esme reached up as if to ascertain that no hairpins fell. Her breasts rose from the bath, drops of water sliding over her sleek skin. The curtain moved again, just the faintest twitch.

Esme smothered a grin and lay back against the edge of the bath. “My skin is so dry these days,” she said to Jeannie, hoping that the maid didn't notice that her voice seemed deeper. “May I have the oil, please?”

Jeannie poured some into her hand and slowly, very slowly, Esme opened her hand and let the sweet-smelling oil trickle first down her neck, and then down the slick curve of her breast. Jeannie was darting around the room, folding up clothes and talking a constant stream as she did so. Esme spread a hand across the swell of one breast. The oil sank into her moistened skin, turned it satiny smooth. The curtain moved again, and Esme smiled, a smile for him. For the man waiting for her. Those unseen eyes made a simple bath feel scandalous, forbidden…made her feel sensuous and erotic. She raised her arms to her hair again, a ballet of tantalization.

The curtains swayed. He
was
watching…

“Now, that's odd,” Jeannie said, starting toward the windows. “I could have sworn I shut that window, but there must be a draft.”

“There's no draft!” Esme croaked.

“I'll just make certain, my lady.”

“No!”

Jeannie stopped short of the windows. “My lady?”

“I think that I shall take a longer bath than I expected. Why don't you go downstairs and”—her mind was utterly blank—“help Mrs. Myrtle with something?”

Jeannie looked utterly astonished, but at least she turned away from the windows. “But my lady, Mrs. Myrtle doesn't need my help! She's far too grand to ask
me
to do aught for her!”

That was likely true enough. Esme's housekeeper was a formidable sort of woman. “I would like to be alone,” Esme said bluntly.

“Of course, my lady! I'll just return in ten minutes and—”

“No! That is, I shall put myself to bed tonight.”

Jeannie's mouth actually fell open. “But my lady, how will you rise from the bath? And if you fall? And—-”

Jeannie had a point, but Esme could hardly say that she had an assistant at hand. “Help me up,” she said, reaching out a hand. Jeannie brought her to her feet, and Esme stepped onto the warm rug next to the bath, grabbing the toweling cloth Jeannie held out. The last thing she wanted to do was give Sebastian a good look at the enormous expanse of her belly. He'd probably run for the entrance. Then she waved toward the door in dismissal.

Jeannie was obviously bewildered. “Shall I just return in—”

“I will be quite all right,” Esme said firmly. “Good night.”

Jeannie knew a command when she heard one. She stood blinking for a second and then curtsied. She ran down the back stairs, utterly confused. She was that distracted that she actually told Mrs. Myrtle what had happened, although in the normal course of things she would never share an intimacy with that dragon of a housekeeper.

Mrs. Myrtle raised her eyebrows. In the old days, of course, such behavior would have meant that the missus had other plans for the evening. But obviously that wasn't the case. “Pregnant women are like that,” she advised Jeannie. “Irrational as the day is long. My own sister ate nothing but carrots for an entire week. We all thought she'd turn orange. Never mind, Lady Rawlings will be as right as rain in the morning.”

 

If Jeannie had but known, the very experienced maid, Meddle, who attended Helene, Countess Godwin, was just as bewildered. Her mistress had also ordered a bath. And then she had tried on all four night rails she'd brought with her, seeming to find fault with each. One wasn't ironed correctly, another had a pulled seam…Obviously her mistress had an assignation that evening. But with whom?

“It's plain as a pig's snout,” Mr. Andrews said, waving his fork about. “She must have an assignation with my gentleman, Lord Winnamore. He's had no success with Lady Withers, and he's decided to cultivate greener fields.” Andrews was a boisterous Londoner who had only served Winnamore for a matter of days.

“I do not agree,” Mr. Slope said magisterially. As the butler, he never allowed even the mildest discussion of their mistress, but he had been known to lend the benefit of his expertise when it came to the foibles of other gentlepersons. And his expertise was considerable; everyone had to agree to that. After all, as butler to one of the most notorious couples in London for some ten years, he'd seen every sort of depravity the peerage got up to.

Mrs. Myrtle raised an eyebrow. “You're not suggesting Mr. Fairfax-Lacy, my dear Mr. Slope? And do have a bit more of this pickled rarebit. I think Cook has outdone herself.”

Mr. Slope chewed and swallowed before replying; his manners were an example to the understaff. “I am indeed suggesting Mr. Fairfax-Lacy.”

“My gentleman a partner to adultery? Never!” Mr. Fairfax-Lacy's valet was on the naive and elderly side. Mr. Fairfax-Lacy had rescued him from near destitution, when the poorhouse had been staring him in the very face.

“It would be an act of kindness,” Meddle pointed out. “What's poor Lady Godwin to do, then? Her husband left her ten years ago. If the stories be true—it was before my time—he put the missus out on the street. Made her take a common hackney to her mother's house. Didn't even allow her to take the carriage with her when she left! That's evil, that is.”

“Ah, if it's an act of kindness you want, then Mr. Fairfax-Lacy is the one to do it,” his valet said, leaning back satisfied.

“I think Lord Winnamore is an excellent choice,” Andrews said stubbornly. “My master is known the breadth and length of London. And he's rich as well.”

“He's known for faithful courtship of Lady Withers,” Mr. Slope pointed out. “Now you, Mr. Andrews, have admitted to all of us that you are still green in service.” A few of the younger footmen looked blank, so he explained, “Mr. Andrews has not served as a gentleman's gentleman for a great period of time.”

“That's so,” Andrews said. “Came to the business from tailoring,” he explained. “I finished my apprenticeship and found I couldn't stomach the idea of twenty years of sewing. So I found this position.”

“When you are further along, you will learn to read the signs. Now Mr. Winnamore…where is he at this very moment?”

“Why, he's in bed, I suppose,” Andrews said. “In bed with the countess!”

“You undressed him?”

“In a manner of speaking.” Andrews had found to his great relief that his master didn't need any personal assistance. He didn't think he was up to pulling down another man's smalls, even for the sake of a steady wage.

“That proves it,” Mr. Slope said with satisfaction.

“Why?”

“A gentleman doesn't undress before he visits a lady's chamber. What if he were seen in the corridor? He makes pretense that he is fetching a book from the library or some such.” He chuckled. “There have been nights in this house when the library would have been empty of books, if all the stories were true!”

Andrews had to accept that. It sounded like the voice of experience. And Mr. Winnamore certainly hadn't looked as if he were planning an excursion down the hallway when Andrews left him. He'd been reading in bed, the same as he always did.

“Mr. Fairfax-Lacy, eh? He's a Member of Parliament, isn't he?” Andrews said, throwing in the towel.

“That's right,” Mr. Slope nodded. “An esteemed one at that. Lady Godwin couldn't have chosen better. I wouldn't mind another bite of that shepherd's pie, Mrs. Myrtle, if you would be so good. Now, perhaps we should all discuss the proper manner of exiting a room during dinner, because I happened to notice this evening that young Liddin barged through that door as if a herd of elephants were after him.”

H
elene was battling pure terror. If she could have thought of a way to send Mr. Fairfax-Lacy a note without creating a scandal in the household, she would have done so in a second. The note would have said that she had come down with scarlet fever and couldn't possibly entertain callers in her chambers.

She felt like…like a bride! Which was incredibly ironic. She remembered distinctly waiting for Rees to walk into their room at the inn. They hadn't even married yet; they'd still been on their way to Gretna Green. But Rees had guessed, correctly, that her papa wouldn't bother to follow them, and so they'd stopped at an inn the very first night.

If only she had had enough character to walk out of that inn the very next morning and return, unmarried, to her father's house. She had waited in that chamber just like any other giddy virgin, her eyes shining. Because she'd been in love—
in love!
What a stupid, wretched concept. When Rees had appeared, it had been immediately clear that he'd been drinking. He'd swayed in the doorway, and then caught himself. And she—fool that she'd been!—had giggled, thinking it was romantic. What was romantic about a drunken man?

Nothing.

The very thought steadied her. Stephen Fairfax-Lacy would no sooner appear in his bride's doorway the worse for liquor than he would appear in Parliament dressed in a nightshirt. Which made her wonder whether he would come to her room in a nightshirt. If she simply pretended that he was no more unexpected than Esme paying her a visit…

There was a knock on the door, and Helene almost screamed. Instead she tottered over to the door, opened it, and said rather hoarsely, “Do come in.” He was fully dressed, which she found daunting. She was wearing nothing more than a cotton night rail. Helene straightened her backbone. She had survived marriage with Rees; she could survive
anything.

He seemed to see nothing amiss, though. With a little flourish, he held up a flagon and two small glasses.

“How thoughtful of you, Mr. Fairfax-Lacy,” she said.

He put the glasses on the table and walked over to her. “I think you might call me Stephen?”

His voice had that rich, dark chocolate sound that he must use to mesmerize the House of Commons.

“And may I call you Helene?”

Helene
on his lips sounded French and almost exotic. She nodded and took a seat by the fireplace. He sat down next to her and poured a little glass of golden liquor. Helene tried to picture what would happen next. Would he simply disrobe? Should she turn to the wall and allow him some privacy? How was she to take off her night rail? Luckily Mr. Fairfax-Lacy—Stephen—seemed perfectly content to sit in silence.

“I've got no practice with this sort of thing,” she finally said, taking a gulp of the liquor. It burned and glowed to the pit of her stomach.

He reached out and took her hand in a comforting sort of way. “There's nothing very arduous to it, Helene. You and your husband have not lived together for years, have you not?”

“Almost nine years,” Helene said, feeling that inextricable pang again. It was just that she hated to admit to such a failure.

“You cannot be expected to go to your grave without companionship,” he said. His thumb was running gently over the back of her hand, and it felt remarkably soothing. “As it happens, I have never met a woman whom I wished to marry. So I am also free to take my pleasure where I may, and I would very much like to take it with you.”

Helene could feel a little smile trembling on her lips. “I'm just worried about…about…” But how did one ask bluntly when he was going to leave? If he spent the night with her and her maid found out, she would die of shame.

“I am perfectly able to prevent conception,” he said. He moved his hand, and her fingers slipped between his.

Helene's heart skipped a beat. She wanted a child—desperately, in fact. But not this way. “Thank you, that would be very kind,” she said, feeling the ridiculousness of it. Oh for goodness' sake, perhaps they should just get it over with, and then she could begin the process of curdling Rees's liver. “Would you like to go to bed now?” she asked.

He stood looking at her for a moment and nodded. “It would be a pleasure, my dear.”

Helene crawled into her bed and pulled the covers up. “I shall close my eyes so as to give you some privacy,” she said. Surely he would be grateful for that small kindness. After all, there was no reason why they had to behave like wild animals simply because they were embarking on an affair.

A moment later she felt the bed tilt slightly as he got under the covers. She opened her eyes and hastily shut them again. He was leaning over her, and he hadn't any shirt on. “You forgot to snuff the candles,” she said in a stifled voice.

“I shall do so immediately,” he replied.

Stephen was so different from Rees. His voice was always calm and helpful, ever the gentleman. Would Rees have snuffed the candles on her request? Never. And Rees's chest was all covered with black hair, whereas Stephen's was smooth. Almost—almost feminine, except that was such a disloyal thought that she choked it back.

He returned to bed, and she made herself turn toward him. Thank goodness, the room had fallen into a kind of twilight, lit only by the fireplace off to the side. She took a deep breath. Whatever happened, she was ready.

Except that nothing happened for a few moments.

If the truth be known, Stephen was rather perplexed. Helene clearly wanted to have an affair. But she wasn't exactly welcoming. That's because she's a true English lady, and not a trollop, he told himself, dismissing the image of Bea's creamy breasts that popped up, willy-nilly, to his mind. He had doubts about those breasts anyway. They'd seemed slightly skewed to the left after she'd wriggled herself out of her spencer in the goat pasture.

With a start he realized that he was in quite a different bed and should be thinking very different thoughts. He bent over and kissed Helene. Her lips were cool and not unwelcoming. He slipped his hands around her shoulders. Her husband must have been something of a boor; the poor woman was trembling, and not with passion.

But Stephen was nothing if not patient. He kissed her slowly and delicately, each touch promising that he would be a gentleman, that he would be slow, that she could take her pleasure as she would. And slowly, slowly, Helene stopped trembling. She didn't exactly participate, though. He kept having to push away fugitive thoughts about the way Bea had made little sounds in her throat when he kissed her in the goat pasture.

Twenty minutes later, he judged that they had reached a point at which she wouldn't mind being touched. He ran a hand down her shoulder and edged toward her breasts. Helene gasped and went rigid again.

“May I touch your breast?” he whispered. A small voice in the back of his head was saying quite obstinately that this was all extraordinarily unexciting. The last woman he bedded who'd shown as little initiative as Lady Godwin had been his very first. And she was all of fifteen, as was he. But Lady Godwin—Helene—was clearly trying.

“Of course you may,” she whispered.

It was the whisper that did it. The very small trickle of desire that had crept into his veins died on the spot. She was being polite, and she was being brave. Neither emotion did much for Stephen's desire. The desire he had wilted, in all senses of the word. He slid his hand very carefully around her back and pulled her close. She felt rather like a fragile bird, nestled in his arms. Then he rested his chin on her hair and said, “I thought I knew why I was here, but now I'm not sure that I do.”

There was silence. Then: “Because we are beginning an affair?”

He couldn't even tell where all that desperation was coming from. From the idea of bedding him? In that case, why on earth was she putting herself through such an ordeal?

He chose his words very carefully. “Generally, when a couple embarks on such a…a relationship, it is because they feel a mutual attraction. I certainly think you are a beautiful woman—”

Helene chimed in with the exquisite manners that accompanied everything she said or did. “You are
extremely
handsome as well.”

“But do you really wish to sleep with me?” He ran a coaxing hand down her arm.

When she finally spoke, it sounded as if she were near tears. “Of course!”

“I've never been so attractive that a woman felt she
must
bed me,” Stephen said teasingly, trying to lighten the atmosphere. It didn't work. He could feel his chest growing damp from her tears. Damn it, the whole day was a fiasco, from beginning to end.

“I should never have done it,” Helene said shakily, wiping tears away as fast as she could. “I simply thought…” Her voice trailed off.

Stephen was struck by a sudden thought. “Did you think to use me to prove adultery?” That would destroy his career in two seconds flat—a notion that didn't seem to bother him as much as it should.

“No,” Helene sobbed. “I would never have used you in such a way. I thought we might—we might enjoy—and then I could tell my husband, and—” Her voice trailed off.

They lay there for a while, a lanky English gentleman and a sniffling countess. “I'm sure my face is quite red,” Helene said finally.

Her wry tone told Stephen that she had regained control. Her face was indeed all red, and her hair was starting to fall out of its braid into wisps around her face. For some reason, he found it very sweet that she hadn't even known enough about an assignation with a man to loosen her hair.

“Helene,” he said gently, “this isn't going to work.”

“Why not?”

He blinked and realized her surprise was genuine. “Because you don't truly wish to make love to me,” he pointed out.

Helene could have screamed with vexation. How stupid could the man be! If she didn't want to make love to him, would he be in her room? Would she have humiliated herself by appearing in dishabille before a man? Would she have allowed an unclothed man anywhere in her vicinity? “I do wish to make love to you,” she managed.

He reached out and rubbed away a tear. “I don't think you do,” he said, and there was a sweet look on his face.

A sweet, condescending look.

A whole flood of naughty words—the words she had been taught not to use, and indeed, had never even used in thought—came to Helene's mind. “That's
rot,
” she said. “You're a man. Men
always
want to make love to women under any circumstances. Everyone knows that.”

Stephen bit his lip, and Helene had a terrible feeling he was trying to keep back a smile. “They generally like to feel that the lady they are with is willing.”

“I am willing!” Helene said, hearing her voice rising. “How much more willing can I be?”

He looked embarrassed now. “Perhaps I'm not phrasing this correctly.”

“I'm willing!” Helene said. She reached up and wrenched open the buttons that ran down the front of her night rail. “Go ahead. Do whatever you wish.”

For a moment they both just stared at Helene's breasts. They were small in comparison to Esme's, but they had a nice jaunty air to them. At least that's what Helene thought until she forced herself to look at Stephen. He looked absolutely mortified. But Helene was starting to enjoy herself. It seemed that she
was
capable of shocking people!

She wriggled her night rail back over her shoulders so it pooled around her waist. “Now if I remember this whole procedure correctly from my marriage,” she said, feeling a slightly hysterical giggle coming, “you should be overcome by lust at this point. At least, my husband always was.”

Stephen looked almost goggle-eyed. “He was? I mean, of course he was!”

At this point one obviously laughed or cried. Helene chose to laugh. There was only so much humiliation a woman could take in one evening. She folded her hands over the top of the sheet and grinned at Stephen, quite as if they were at a tea party. “I suppose we could have an old-fashioned game of ‘you show me, I show you,'” she said. “Or we could simply give it up.”

His eyes flew to hers, and the relief in them was palpable.

“I gather that I need more practice before I can induce a man to actually
stay
in my bed,” Helene said. “I have to tell you, Stephen, that it is quite a personal triumph that I lured you into my bedchamber at all.”

He reached over and pulled the sheet up above her breasts, tucking it about her, quite as if he were tucking a child in at night. Then he said, “Now you'll have to explain to me, Helene, exactly why you lured me up here. After all, your husband is not a member of this house party.”

Helene swallowed. But he deserved a real explanation. “I want a divorce. But when I asked my husband whether we could simply manufacture the evidence of my adultery, he laughed and said no one in the world would believe that I was adulterous. It has to be a woman's adultery that dissolves a marriage, you know. It's grotesquely unfair, but the letter of the law.”

“I agree with you,” Stephen said, nodding. “Especially in cases such as yours, there ought to be other provisions. And I'm sure there will be changes to the law, in time. So…”

“So I thought perhaps you and I…we…might…” Helene trailed off and then stiffened her backbone. For goodness' sake! She was half naked in bed with the man; she might as well be frank. “I like you very much,” she said, looking into his eyes. “I thought perhaps we might have an affair, but I see now that I was mistaken. There's a great deal I don't understand about bedroom matters.”

Stephen pulled her snug against his side again. “There's time.”

Helene couldn't help grinning. Here she was in bed, half naked, and snuggled up to a naked man! If only Esme could see her now! Or Rees, for that matter! “It was a lowly impulse,” she said, feeling more generous now that the acute sense of humiliation was gone. “I just wanted revenge. Rees laughed when I asked him for the divorce. He says I'm frigid, and no man would ever want me.” Her tone had a bitterness that she couldn't hide.