Something broke in her, split and burst. Deep where he touched a painful barrier fell, and a new pleasure crashed through her. The shock made her essence scream, first with shock, then with relief. The waters of that flood were so beautiful that she had the urge to weep. They filled her so completely that for a timeless spell nothing else existed.
She could not speak afterwards. She had no strength. He turned her into his embrace and held her, and she huddled against him while her heartbeat gradually slowed.
His head turned, and she looked where he did. A thick shadow moved toward them, and she heard Verity’s quiet conversation with Hawkeswell on the breeze.
Castleford led her through the dark, back up to the table and the lanterns, all but carrying her as if she was too infirm to manage her own limbs. He sat her down on the settee.
She heard steps coming closer and collected herself. She looked to her dress and readjusted the skewed bodice. She looked at him anxiously. “How do I appear? Normal?”
He laughed quietly. “I fear you look like a beautiful woman who has just been overwhelmed by pleasure.”
That would never do. She closed her eyes and, before Verity arrived back at the table, she found something of herself, of the Daphne she knew, even though the other one she had met tonight was much more exciting.
Chapter Eleven
C
astleford could not believe that once again he had been thwarted, only this time by his own unaccountable impulse to spare a woman’s sense of delicacy.
He took some solace in having driven Daphne Joyes to ecstasy. However, his failure to achieve the same bliss suggested he would soon dislike Vauxhall Gardens as much as he currently did not favor flowers. It did not help that Hawkeswell and Albrighton appeared smugly contented when they strolled back from the stern of the barge.
By the time the shallop pulled over and they all walked up the steps, Castleford had recovered physically, but an irritable humor had settled on him. Fortunately, the ladies occupied themselves in exclaiming over the sights and musicians and the fireworks that soon commenced. He therefore did not have to converse much with anyone.
“You seem out of sorts,” Hawkeswell said an hour later while they trailed Albrighton and the ladies.
“It is nothing that two fingers of brandy will not fix.”
“Ah. I understand. I remember that happening, now that you mention it. When I stopped getting raving drunk three times a week, I would sometimes find myself suddenly in a bad humor too.”
“I must have a stronger constitution. I find it hardly affects me and does not account for my moods at all.” That was not entirely true, but it was now. “If I am in a bad humor, it is not because of lack of drink. I merely said drink would cure it.”
Hawkeswell paced on. “I believe, then, that apologies are perhaps due for spiriting off my wife like that. Did you and Mrs. Joyes have a row while we were gone?”
Castleford took a deep breath to rein in his impatience. “Do not apologize for going off. The pavilions were put there for that purpose. My only regret is that I did not have three set up.”
“You mean Albrighton . . .”
“Yes.”
Hawkeswell thought about that. “I fear that we denied you your cave below the river. However, with all of us gone, you had the rest of the barge to yourself. The lack of a pavilion on one of your floating dens of pleasure has never stopped you before.”
“Hell, she isn’t a whore, you ass. I am hardly going to bend her over the railing.”
Hawkeswell did not like being insulted and had a quick temper that now prickled. “You have never worried about such niceties before. Can you swear that no woman of gentle breeding has ever found herself stripped naked under that barge’s canopy in full daylight, let alone in the dark of night?”
Castleford marched on, thinking that a good bout of fisticuffs was just what his mood wanted, and that Hawkeswell’s nose was asking for a punch.
“No answer, I see,” Hawkeswell taunted. “You had better be careful, Castleford. Mrs. Joyes may be making you
boring
.”
“Not so boring that I won’t thrash someone senseless in the middle of Vauxhall Gardens.”
“Hell, you have never been able to thrash me senseless, even when your dissolution had not yet sapped your better strength. But if it will make you feel better about your intended conquest bringing you to your knees, take your chance.”
“Thrashing? Gentlemen, gentlemen—that will never do.”
Hawkeswell stopped in his tracks and turned to look at the man that had just chided them. Castleford stopped too, but he did not bother to look. He recognized the voice.
Fate was conspiring against him tonight. That it should do so on a day when he had shown uncharacteristic consideration toward a woman, much to his own inconvenience, seemed very unfair.
“Hell, Latham, did the French teach you to eavesdrop?” Hawkeswell snapped.
“One does not have to eavesdrop to hear two men having a loud argument.”
Castleford sighed and turned around. The Earl of Latham, now the Duke of Becksbridge, beamed a bright smile. His expression said
Here I am. I know that everyone wants to welcome me back. Isn’t it wonderful to see me again?
The exaggerated bonhomie did not become him. Latham’s face had always been a bit soft and given to ruddiness, and living in Paris had taken its toll. So his bright blue eyes, which tended toward glassiness even when sober, peered out like two shallow pools sunk in a rosy sand landscape. His tawny, sedately dressed hair formed some surrounding brush.
“Latham,” Castleford said. “I had no idea that paragons of virtue visited Vauxhall Gardens. Isn’t it a sin to enjoy yourself?”
Latham laughed, as if it had been a joke. “I came to witness people of all classes mixing freely, enjoying their commonalities. As for paragons of virtue, I cannot claim to be one, but my uncle the bishop is here with me, along with his wife, so I trust there is no sin in it.”
“Only one of your family’s bishops is here?” Hawkeswell said. “Makes one wonder what the other one is doing.”
“Perhaps he is enjoying a quiet evening of marital bliss,” Castleford said.
Hawkeswell craned his neck to look over the crowd. “We should find the ladies and relieve Albrighton.”
“You go. I will join you soon.”
Latham’s smile grew sardonic with Hawkeswell’s departure. “I have a supper box. Come join me for some wine.”
The boxes were not far away, and Latham’s was near the end of the row. The bishop and his wife had left, so they had the box to themselves.
Castleford stretched his length on the chair and looked out at the passing crowd that in turn looked in at him.
Latham poured some wine. It tasted off. The man had no taste, among other deficiencies. Castleford set the glass on the table.
“What are you really doing here, Latham? Looking for a servant to grab and rape on a dark path?”
Latham’s lids lowered. “Are you still fussing like an old lady about that, after all these years? I told you long ago that you misunderstood what you saw.”
“I misunderstood nothing, or the way that girl ran for her life when I pulled you off her.”
“She was embarrassed, that is all. She wanted it. You know how it goes. She came back for more later, after all.”
Castleford did not need to hear that. He did not want to know that his silence on what he saw had left that girl vulnerable to more of the same.
“I hear that you did not attend my father’s funeral,” Latham said.
“Nor did you. Too busy settling your affairs in Paris?”
“An unavoidable matter delayed me a few days, and it is best to bury quickly in summer. I was at the reading of the will, of course.”
“Of course.”
“And so, also of course, I am aware that my father left you a bequest.” He cocked his head. “How odd.”
Castleford shrugged. “I took it as a very small token of his very small affection.”
Latham laughed. “Rather like damning with faint praise, eh?
I have remembered you in my will, and this is what I remember your being worth
.”
“Of course, he could not do the same with you. He could not keep you from the bulk of it, no matter what he thought you were worth.” Castleford gathered his limbs and sat forward. He gave Latham a good look. “Did you get anything that was not yours by entailment? Or did he make sure it went elsewhere, with these small bequests?”
Latham’s face flushed. His eyes glinted. “Of course he left me more. Among other things, he left me his power.”
Castleford laughed heartily. “Damn, you sound like the villain in a bad comic opera, Latham.
His power
. The only power you will have is what your birth always gave you, and the only people who will tremble in awe are the servants you treat like slaves.”
“Perhaps you are right. I have discovered the might of the pen, however. Words are so much more efficient in their influence when published. It is astonishing, really, how easily people can be led by prose that appeals to their sense of their own righteousness.”
Latham spoke bluntly, the way they had always spoken with each other. He admitted his hypocrisy with impunity to the only person with whom he had ever truly revealed himself.
Castleford sensed an effort here to re-form those old bonds. Maybe Latham found it lonely to have to play a role with the world and wanted a fellow sinner available again, so he might be offstage on occasion.
“So you pander to what people want to hear and read and call it moral philosophy,” Castleford said.
“I do not call it that. If others do, I cannot stop them.”
“What do you call it?”
“Fun. A wonderful joke. A game to see how many sheep will follow and just how far they will go with me. I have entertained myself to no end the last few years, Tristan. While I wield my pen, I often think of you and how you will howl with laughter when you read the treatise.”
Unfortunately, he was the only one laughing. Others took this fool seriously.
Castleford had already accepted that he was going to have to exercise his own power more regularly now, just to make sure that Latham did not accumulate too much influence in the government. What a bloody bore that would be. The reemergence of this man promised to be a tedious nuisance all around.
“I saw you walking by with Hawkeswell and that other man. The three ladies with you were notably beautiful,” Latham said. “I think that I recognized two of them.”
Castleford waited and said nothing. Latham had seen them walk by, and these two women were the reason why he followed, apparently. How ordinary.
“The golden haired one, the shorter blonde—isn’t she that Northrope whore’s daughter?” Latham asked.
“She is married now.”
“Pity. I offered for her, back when her mother was hawking her like a prize calf. The bitch of a whore would not hear me, because she had some fool of a boy in mind.”
More likely Mrs. Northrope sensed the character of the Earl of Latham. “She never entered her mother’s trade, and her husband would not hesitate to kill you if you insulted her. I am not joking, Latham.”
Latham seemed to accept the wisdom of not pursuing Mrs. Albrighton. “The other one—the tall fair woman. I am sure I know her too.”
Castleford ignored the prompt. He’d be damned before he encouraged this turn in the conversation.
“People change with the years, and she has matured, but I think that is Miss Avonleah. She was a governess for my father’s young girls after I had left the household.”
“I know her only as Mrs. Joyes.”
“I am sure that it is the same woman, although I have not seen her in—well, it must be eight or nine years now.” Latham speared him with a quizzical stare. “Is she your mistress? Or was she the intended conquest Hawkeswell spoke of?”
“She is a friend of Lady Hawkeswell and not my mistress. As for a conquest, she is too refined and reserved for me.”
Latham laughed lewdly. “That is right, I forgot. You like them vulgar, fast, cheap, and willing, Tristan.” He sipped more wine. “Unless they are vulnerable, sweet, and criminal instead.”
“I am in no mood for your poor attempts at being sly, Latham. Nor for this odd pretense that we still have a friendship and that I will not mind your addressing me by my Christian name the way you did when we were boys. You are bold to make even that oblique reference to Marie. You are even bolder to return to England with that on your head.”
“I had to return, but that business would not have stopped me anyway. I stole from a thief, at worst, if you insist on being meticulous. As it turned out, I also sold her a few extra months of life.”
“You remained silent when you knew where the money was going.”
“Hell, you have always made too much of that too. Her friends were never going to succeed in funding an army. She was on a fool’s errand, and at worst I fleeced a spy.” He smiled his old smile and tried to look appeasing. “Let us not talk of it. I would much rather learn about the lovely Miss Avonleah—your Mrs. Joyes. I vaguely remember her as a pretty girl, but she is a stunning woman. Rarely does maturity suit a female so well. I am relieved for my own sake that you have not put your brand or set your sights on her.”