Sir Charles caught Magda’s hand and regarded her as if she were a Bath Bun herself. “Well met, Madame de Chavannes. You and I must have a little talk,
s’il vous plaît!”
Chapter 21
“An
absence of vulgar behavior is often a sure sign of attachment. It means that the suitor is trying to prove his good manners and his concern for your comfort and reputation.”
—Lady Ratchett
Bath abounded in sites of interest, Roman ruins, lovely parks, pavilions where one might revel in bucolic splendor to one’s heart’s content. In one such public garden, Conor Melchers inspected his surroundings with a disapproving, bloodshot eye. This dissatisfaction had nothing to do with the beauty of the tree-lined walks and shady bowers, and everything to do with the abominable nature of the hour. Rakehells should not be expected to savor the benefits of early morning exercise.
At least here in the gardens his ears were no longer assaulted by the bawlings of newsboys, muffin sellers and milkmen. Milkmen, by God. The last time Conor had encountered a milkman was not because he’d risen early, but because he hadn’t yet been to bed. Furthermore, the blasted sunlight hurt his eyes.
Still, he was curious. It was one of his many besetting sins. Mr. Melchers reflected upon these various shortcomings as he strolled along a graveled path past an artificial wallow, surveyed a sham castle complete with cannon, observed the entrance to the labyrinth, crossed an elegant cast-iron bridge. Though the gardens were far from deserted—Bath provided a constant supply of new faces, at least some of which were respectable, not that Conor cared for
that
—he met none of his acquaintance, for which he was grateful, because he would receive no end of ribbing at being seen in such a place at such an hour. Mr. Melchers was not here of his own inclination, and if he didn’t shortly find the lady who had requested his presence, he was going to return home and go back to bed.
He saw her at last, pacing back and forth in front of a half-circular stone pavilion at the top of the principal walk. Hard to imagine garb more respectable than that cottage bonnet and green printed pelisse. She had brought a maidservant with her. For protection? Conor began to be amused.
Daphne spied the gentleman walking toward them, and knew at once that she beheld temptation personified. “As I live!” she breathed. “You didn’t— You wouldn’t—” But she had already been threatened with strangulation if she mentioned the word ‘improper’ one more time. “Think what Lady Ratchett would say, Your Grace!”
Elizabeth was disappointed that her abigail was turning out to be a chicken heart. “You are beginning to sound like Maman. You should go and live with her. And I have told you already that I do
not
want to be called ‘Your Grace’!”
Daphne would allow herself to be boiled in scalding oil before she returned to Lady Ratchett. She pressed her lips tightly together and withheld comment about sultans, and harems, and how those pampered ladies spent their time lounging in the bath, or peeling grapes, or warming the sultan’s bed, and seldom set foot out-of-doors unless wrapped in heavy veils. Her mistress, who was less well-read, might not realize she was engaged in a clandestine meeting with a libertinish gentleman. Daphne, however, knew a philanderer when she saw one. This was a philanderer worth being drowned in a burlap sack for, she admitted gloomily, and wished that she might smoke a Turkish water pipe herself.
The duchess looked both worried and determined. Her abigail looked distressed. Conor disliked any female to be distressed in his vicinity. He viewed it as a reflection on himself. “Good morning, Duchess. I came as soon as I had your note.”
Elizabeth wasn’t sure he
would
receive her note; she’d paid a street urchin to deliver it, not daring to entrust such a thing to any of St. Clair’s staff. “It was good of you to meet me, especially in light of your condition. I recognize the symptoms. My step-papa is prone to occasional overindulgence in the grape, but this is the first time I have seen consequences so severe.”
It was also the first time she’d had an assignation, Conor wagered. The young lady was as jumpy as a cat on hot bricks. “I am
not
a kind man, Duchess, and the sun is damned bright. Let us go inside while you tell me why you dragged me out at this curst ungodly hour. Even the roosters must still be abed.”
Elizabeth led the way into the paved pavilion, which was supported by several stone pillars, and had within it a seat that commanded an excellent view of the park. “There is virtue in rising early, Mr. Melchers. As Mr. Franklin told us, ‘Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.’ ”
“And as Mr. Kyd would have it, ‘What outcries call me from a naked bed?’ There may be virtue in rising early, but there is infinitely more pleasure to be had lying in late of a morn.” Wickedly, Conor smiled.
It had not occurred to Elizabeth, when she sent her summons, that Mr. Melchers might have been entertaining a companion. “I wouldn’t know!” she snapped. “Pray stop provoking me. Magda has gone off with Lady Augusta to the Pump Room, and I wanted to speak privately with you. We haven’t much time.”
Mr. Melchers was much too wise in the ways of the world, despite his somewhat befuddled condition, to assume the young lady desired his participation in an amorous liaison, though had she desired such a thing, he would quite naturally have been happy to oblige. “I would be delighted to be private with you, Duchess. However, we are not private at the moment, and I admit to a certain prudery about such matters. I daresay you will be astonished to hear it. But a witness would greatly cramp my style.”
Elizabeth took his meaning, and felt her cheeks turn pink. “I did not ask you here to flirt with me, Mr. Melchers. I am seeking your advice. As for Daphne, I have no secrets from her.”
“Ah, but I might.” Conor winked at the maidservant. “You may go for a walk and enjoy the gardens, Daphne. Your mistress will be safe with me.”
No female between the cradle and the grave would be safe with this rascal. He even had Daphne in a flutter, and she knew what he was. On one hand, she didn’t want to be shipped back to Lady Ratchett because she’d given offense. On the other, the duchess was as green as grass, and this dark-eyed rascal could charm the skirts right off a nun.
Daphne actually wrung her hands together, so badly was she torn. “It’s all right,” Elizabeth soothed. “I will be perfectly safe with Mr. Melchers. If it will make you feel better, you may keep us in view.”
“No, she may not!” inserted that gentleman. “I dislike chaperones. Go for a walk, girl, and come back in a half hour. I can do little damage to your mistress in that time. Or I
could,
but I won’t. It’s not my style.”
He
was
a handsome devil. Still, Her Grace wasn’t one to throw her bonnet over the windmill. Trying hard to assure herself of the latter, Daphne set out to chase her own tail.
Conor returned his attention to his companion, who was twisting her wedding band. “It is a lovely ring,” he said gently. “Are you in trouble, puss?”
“Trouble? You might say so.” Elizabeth managed a wan smile. “Things couldn’t be in a worse case. Magda told St. Clair you gave me the kitten after I told him you and I had barely spoken. He was so angry I feared he might drown us both. Now he’s going about looking like a thundercloud. When he deigns to speak to me, which he hasn’t yet, he’s bound to read me yet another scold.” She sniffled. “Or tell Sir Charles to take me home.”
Unlike the duke, Conor had no dislike of weeping females. Conor had no dislike of females in any mood save those pertaining to leg-shackling him. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. “Sweeting, I’m not worth brangling about.”
“No, you’re not.” Elizabeth grasped the handkerchief and blew her nose. “It has become a matter of principle. If St. Clair may have Magda, I don’t see why I should give you up.”
Conor Melchers was somewhat more experienced than Elizabeth’s step-papa in the matter of feminine logic. “Simple. You have not yet provided the requisite heir. However, once you have—”
“Yes, I know you are one of the wicked! You need not keep trying to convince me of it,” Elizabeth said, so crossly that Conor laughed. “I’m sure I would be pleased to provide St. Clair with his heir, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to go about it when I cannot even persuade him to— That is— Blast!” She broke off, hugely embarrassed by what she’d almost said.
Not one of St. Clair’s admirers, Conor revised his opinion even further downward. The duke was a nincompoop. “If I am to help you—and I imagine I am here because you want me to help you—you must tell me all. Don’t be embarrassed. It is the way of us rakehells to be unshockable.” There, he had made her smile. “In all seriousness, I am at your service, Duchess.”
Elizabeth glanced up at him. Mr. Melchers was a kind man, no matter what he said. “It is Sir Charles’s opinion that I must have bungled the thing somehow. I had hoped you could explain to me what it is I’m doing wrong. What I’ve found in books is of no help. I know how the business is done, because Maman told me, but I don’t know—” She paused for breath. “I have
tried
to be amiable and accomplished, and sunny-natured, and to show good sense.”
Conor reflected that the lady wasn’t displaying particular good sense at the moment, which was fine with him. She added, “I can hardly turn to Magda for advice, since it is she who— Well, they did elope! Augusta probably knows no more than I do, if as much. It is difficult to speak of this. Are you shocked by my boldness, sir?”
She was flustered and rosy and altogether enticing. Conor took her hand. “Rakehells are seldom shocked. I would be more likely to encourage you in wrongheadedness than to tell you not to flout society’s rules. But back up, if you will. What
did your Maman tell you? And I don’t refer to sunny nature and good sense.”
Elizabeth lowered her gaze and explained, as best she could, about lust turning even the most proper gentleman into a slavering beast; closing her eyes and clenching her teeth and wishing herself elsewhere. “Rubbish,” said Conor at the end of this recital. “You might close your eyes and clench your teeth if the gentleman involved is doing his job properly; you might even curse and yell; but you won’t wish yourself elsewhere.”
No? This was encouraging. Elizabeth had been right to try and get the facts straight from the horse’s mouth.
“Is
it such a chore? St. Clair seems to find it so. He referred to bedding me as a duty. And said he’d made a dreadful mistake.”
The duke had made more than one mistake, reflected Conor, as he shook his head. “It is not a chore but a pleasure, Duchess. You must have misunderstood.”
Elizabeth contemplated her hand, which Mr. Melchers still held in his. “St. Clair doesn’t lust after me. He hasn’t slavered once. Maybe it
is
my fault, as Sir Charles says. I did pop him in the nose, and though I didn’t mean to, it may have put him off. I also cast up my accounts. Then Magda arrived, and I believed she was his mistress, because no one had bothered to tell me they had been divorced, which made me cross. I accused him of having licentious tendencies.
Does
St. Clair have a mistress, do you know?”
Conor was fascinated by this glimpse into married life. “I don’t. And neither should you.”
Naturally Mr. Melchers subscribed to a masculine viewpoint. Elizabeth removed her hand from his. “Were you ever in love with Magda, sir?”
Here were dangerous waters. Conor had a notion what she really longed to ask. “I am not such a jingle-brain,” he replied, ungallantly but with perfect truth. “I know the lady too well.”
St. Clair
had
been
a jingle-brain. Elizabeth had not yet decided if he still was. “But you are fond of her.”
“Immensely.” Conor removed the reticule from her grasp and set it down beside her on the bench. “Magda is one of my closest friends. Why do you ask?”
What was it about Madame de Chavannes that prompted such devotion? “St. Clair must have loved her a great deal.”
Conor shrugged. “If so, he got over it. St. Clair is married to you now.”
This practical comment went wide of its mark. Rather than reminding Elizabeth that her husband had cast off her predecessor, it reinforced her belief that the Duke of Charnwood was a powerful man who could cast off any number of unsatisfactory brides, among them herself. She fought against a renewed onslaught of tears.
Rakehell Mr. Melchers might be, but he did not lack chivalrous instincts, and beside him was a lady in distress. He drew her closer to him on the bench.
“What are you doing?” Elizabeth inquired, damp-eyed.
Conor ran his fingers along the fine line of her jaw and tipped up her face to his. “I am going to kiss you,” he murmured, and lowered his mouth to hers, and did.
It was not one of Mr.
Melcher’s better kisses; he was aware that in his arms was not one of his worldly flirts but an untried miss; and he wanted not to destroy her innocence, but to further her education a little bit.
Satisfied that he had done so, he released her. Elizabeth said, “Oh.”
Conor’s lips twitched. Though the kiss had not been one of his better efforts, he had anticipated a somewhat more animated response. “Do you not show more enthusiasm, you will do irreparable damage to my opinion of myself.”
“Oh!” Guiltily, Elizabeth’s eyes flew to his face. “It was an excellent kiss,” she said earnestly. “But—”
“But I am not the person you want to kiss you.” Hoist with his own petard. Conor had liked the kiss sufficiently to anticipate a repeat.
Elizabeth flung out her hands in frustration. “No you aren’t! Which just goes to show the extent of my wrong-headedness, because I make no doubt there are few women in all of England who wouldn’t want to kiss you. There must be something wrong with me. I didn’t feel the slightest tummy flutter. Although I am not certain—
Do
ladies feel lustful, sir?”
When Conor had pondered what else he might teach the duchess, he had not considered that he might not only receive a set-down in the process, but also wind up providing an explanation of the facts of life. He caught her fluttering hands before she could do one of them an inadvertent injury. “I solemnly assure you that ladies
do
feel lust, might even slather, if the circumstances and company are right.”