Irresistible (6 page)

They both wagered modestly and won modestly and drank sparingly. They spent a great deal of time talking and laughing, just being friends together. They went their separate ways well after dawn.

And then the night before Rawleigh’s party they went, the two of them, to the theater, joining Kenneth and Moira, Rex and Catherine in Rex’s box. He did not fancy a brothel again that night, Nathaniel had told Eden over dinner at White‘s, or any other night if it was all the same to his friend. He would prefer to employ a mistress for the Season and set her up somewhere where he could visit her at his leisure. The idea of having a different girl every night had lost its appeal sometime during that orgy they had indulged in after Waterloo.

Eden had laughed at him but had suggested the theater and the green room afterward. There were doubtless several dancers who would take Nat’s fancy, and if he was in luck at least one of them would be currently without a protector. Eden himself had cried off long-term mistresses ever since the last one, who had been with him for over a year and had been devilish difficult to cast off.

“I felt somehow responsible for her, Nat,” he said. “It was almost like trying to shed a wife. It was only by a remarkable stroke of good fortune that I discovered the minx was earning a bit on the side with old Riddings. He is so decrepit with age and riotous living that it is surprising he can still get it up, and maybe he cannot, but he paid well—in diamonds. As far as I know, he is still paying and Nell doubtless does not have to work near as hard as she did when she had me.” He chuckled. “But I am not getting myself into that sort of pickle again. No entanglements is my new motto. None whatsoever. A one-nighter suits me admirably.”

There
were
some pretty dancers, particularly a tall, lithe, auburn-haired beauty with long legs. And they did visit the green room after the performance—and after discreetly seeing their married friends and their wives drive away in Rex’s carriage, having loudly declared their intention of walking together to White’s. Rex had grinned and Ken had winked at that announcement, of course, but there had been ladies’ sensibilities to consider. A few of the dancers were free, though most of them were in conversation with would-be protectors. The long-legged dancer was one of them, and though she appeared bored when Eden and Nathaniel joined the group of gentlemen surrounding her, she perked up noticeably on sight of them. It was not difficult, Nathaniel found—it was amazing how the old skills came back to one after so long—to cut out the opposition so that soon he was in private tête-à-tête with the girl.

And she was clearly very willing indeed. She had lips his own ached to kiss and a body he unclothed garment by garment in his imagination. She had legs a man would dream of having entwined about his own. She was clean and smelled good. Someone had given her elocution lessons with the result that she did not murder the English language as soon as she opened her mouth. She would be expensive—but he could afford her. She would also be good. She could satisfy all his hungers during the coming months.

He took her hand in his after talking with her for half an hour, bowed over it, raised it almost but not quite to his lips, favored her with his most charming smite—and then saw himself as if from the outside, a mere observer. What was he
doing?
Why was he trying to recapture an unsavory past he had deliberately and gladly given up some years before?

He bade the dancer good night.

“She said
no,
Nat?” Eden asked when they were outside the theater. “I do not believe it. She was devouring you with her eyes. Is there already a protector who would cut up nasty if she defected? Hard luck, old chap. We must try again tomorrow after we leave Rex’s. Damn, but I could have sworn—”

“I did not ask her,” Nathaniel said.

“Eh?” His friend frowned at him. “She almost tempted
me,
Nat, though she is doubtless angling for something a little more secure than one night. I would have at least tried, though, if you had but signaled your lack of interest.”

“I was very interested,” Nathaniel said, “Until ... it is just ... well, never mind.”

“It is just what?” Eden was still frowning.

“She probably has no choice,” Nathaniel said. “She probably came to London with the dream of being a great actress. She finds herself instead a mere dancer in a chorus, unable to support herself sufficiently on her wage. And so she must take the obvious additional employment. Poor girl.”

“Poor girl?” Eden looked quite mystified. “Nat, my lad, I never saw you perform, but I can well remember the besotted looks all your women shared when they emerged from your bedchamber. Any one of them would have gone back for a second session between your sheets without pay. You do not imagine that country living has made you lose your touch, do you? Eva complained last night? Or looked bored? Or tried to get through the night with the least number of performances?”

“They need the money,” Nathaniel said. “We need sex. I am not sure it is a fair exchange, Ede. I suppose I have developed something of a conscience. I am not sure I can do it any longer.”

“Well, devil take it, old man,” Eden said. “You will have to marry, then.”

Nathaniel grimaced. “Hardly,” he said. “It is not a strong enough reason for marriage, is it? The simple need for sex?” They were wandering in the direction of White‘s, he noticed. Good. A safe, male haven. They would doubtless end up playing cards again.

“Why do men marry, then?” Eden asked. “Is there another reason?”

Nathaniel chuckled while his friend grinned. “Probably,” he said, “though I’ll be damned if I can think of a single one at the moment. I’ll not be marrying, Ede. I cannot imagine wanting the same woman living in my home and managing both it and me for the next forty years or so. And to be fair, I cannot imagine any woman wanting to put up with me and my foibles for that same length of time. I have no intention of becoming a monk, of course. There has to be some solution. An
affaire de coeur,
perhaps? They are common enough, are they not? An affair between equals?”

“A married woman?” Eden said. “I would not advise it, Nat. Pistols at dawn can be injurious to the health.”

“Not
a married woman,” Nathaniel said quite firmly. “The very idea, Ede.”

“And definitely not a young virgin,” Eden said. “Irate papas are just as capable of hoisting pistols as injured husbands are. And—worse—they can nudge one quite determinedly into matrimony. Some lovely and lively widow, then. She should not be difficult to find. You have merely to pick one, smile nicely at her, and wait for her to signal that she has accepted the invitation. We will have to put it to the test. This adds considerable piquancy to the idea of attending balls, by Jove. I can hardly wait. In the meantime I shall search my mind for likely prospects. They must be legion—though the chosen one must be both lovely and lively. I insist upon it.”

Nathaniel was laughing. And yet the idea was not without its appeal now that he and Eden between them had thought of it. An affair between equals. Satisfaction for both. The exploitation of neither. It sounded very civilized and very satisfactory. The distaste he had felt a short while ago in the green room had taken him by surprise. But he knew he would not be able to go back there or to any brothel.

And he certainly was not ready—he doubted he ever would be—to start any courtship.

Yes, an affair would be ideal. Though he did not share Eden’s optimism about the prospects being legion.

It did not matter, he decided. He was enjoying the company of his friends and he must remember that his primary purpose in being here was to introduce Georgina and Lavinia to polite society and to find them husbands.

He had, after all, had a woman again after two years. Three times. He grinned to himself. At least he knew he could still do it.

He turned into White’s with cheerful steps.

SOPHIA FOUND HERSELF after all looking forward with some eagerness to the evening at Rawleigh House. She looked over her array of gowns suitable for such an occasion and sighed in some frustration. There were pitifully few and none of them were new or anywhere near in the first stare of fashion. But she had known that before she looked. There was no point in upsetting herself or telling herself that she would send her excuses to Rawleigh House.

Rex would not mind if she looked shabby and dowdy. Neither would the others. When had she looked much different, after all? In Spain and Portugal she had always dressed more for comfort than for elegance or fashion. And Walter would have smiled as cheerfully and spoken as heartily to her whether she had worn the finest silks or a coal sack. He had never noticed her appearance. She had just been “Sophie, old girl” to him.

She sighed. There was no way of being beautiful. Why imagine that if only she had pretty clothes ...

She would still be just “good old Sophie” to the Four Horsemen. She would wager a quarter’s pension that Lady Haverford and Lady Rawleigh were extraordinarily beautiful women.

“And then there is me, Lass,” she said with a laugh to her collie, who was sitting—against the rules—on her bed.

And so she prepared for the evening at Rawleigh House with calm practicality even though she grimaced at the sight of herself dressed in her dark green silk gown—the one Walter had bought her for the Duchess of Richmond’s ball in Brussels before Waterloo—with the inevitable pearls, her only adornment of any real distinction. Her brown hair, thick, very curly, and too long for sense, had been tamed into something resembling respectability, but it was a disaster even so. She had begun to notice lately that short hair was fashionable. She was tempted to have hers cut, but what if her hair cut short turned out to be just as unruly as it was long? What would she do with it then? At least now she could twist it ruthlessly into a topknot.

She smiled ruefully at her image. Nobody looking at her now would guess that her father had been a wealthy man, that Walter’s chief inducement to marry her had been her dowry—as hers to marry him had been the simple desire to wed a respectable, decent man.

Walter had had his pride, at least—and he
had
been decent. After a certain—
confrontation
early in their marriage, he had declared his intention of caring for her entirely on his officer’s pay, taking not a farthing more from her father. And he had done it too. She had never gone hungry or cold or companionless.

“Oh, Walter,” she murmured, fingering her pearls, his only frivolous gift to her—just after their confrontation.

But she turned determinedly from the looking glass and gathered up her shawl and reticule from the bed. Eden would be arriving at any moment and those glorious blue eyes of his would sweep over her before smiling with the rest of his face. He would see—Sophie. Good old Sophie.

Well, there were worse things to be than good old Sophie. And than being the friend—the pal, the chum, the comrade—of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. She looked forward immensely to seeing them again, to conversing with them, to listening to them. And to meeting the two wives.

But she sighed one more time before leaving the safe haven of her own room and making her way downstairs. Why was it that age made handsome men even more attractive ? It was not fair to her sex. It definitely was not fair at all. They looked more dashing, more gorgeous than ever, the four of them.

She was eight and twenty years old. She grimaced. Where had the time gone? Where had she misplaced her youth? What was ahead for her? What was there to look forward to? Especially now ...

She gave herself a mental shake. One day at a time. And this evening she was to spend at Rawleigh House.

 

Nathaniel had left his sister and his cousin at home in a fever of excitement. At least, he had left
Georgina
in a fever of excitement. It was quite beneath Lavinia’s dignity to admit to any such emotion. She had been apparently engrossed in the pages of one of her library books. But even she, he suspected, was excited at the prospect of her first London ball the following evening. Tomorrow their Season would begin in earnest. But for him there was this evening during which to relax and enjoy himself with his friends.

He was going home early tonight, he had told Eden. To sleep. Gone were the days when he could survive and even have a functioning brain on no more than an hour or two of rest night after night. But he certainly had enough energy left for the evening. And he knew everyone, he discovered when he arrived. Apart from Ken and Moira, Eden and himself, Rex and Catherine had invited several other mutual friends and a few relatives, including Rex’s identical twin, Claude Adams, and his wife, Clarissa; Rex’s sister Daphne, Lady Baird, and her husband, Sir Clayton; and Catherine’s young brother, Harry, Viscount Perry. And Sophie was there too, of course, looking very slightly disheveled and very slightly shabby and altogether familiar and dear.