I beg to remain, Madam, your most obedient servant...
The signature was a squiggle, with “Chief Clerk, Rothschilds’ Bank” neatly printed below.
Cordelia burst out laughing. She had forgotten that Aaron the Jew owed her half the value of Mama’s jewels. Or not quite forgotten, but having convinced herself she must not rely upon ever seeing a penny, she had long ago pushed the memory to the back of her mind. She should have known she could count on James’s uncle.
Sitting cross-legged on her hard bed, Cordelia rocked with laughter. She could not stop. Tears ran down her face and her throat ached and still she laughed. Until Aunt Tabitha marched in and slapped her cheeks.
Cordelia smiled at her. “Thank you, ma’am. I fear I was growing a little hysterical.”
“The best cure for hysteria is bread and water for a week,” said her aunt grimly. “Give me that letter.”
“Oh no, Aunt, it is mine.” She felt quite serene now. “And I shall not live on bread and water for a week, not even for a day. I am leaving at once, you see, or as soon as I can procure a carriage.” Though she’d walk if necessary.
“Leaving! Going to your lover, I presume? A harlot, just like your mother.”
“Yes, Aunt.”
Yes, she was going to James. She was not a beggar now. If he wanted her, she would be his harlot. If he spurned her, she would go and hide her broken heart in a cottage in the country—under an assumed name, and anywhere but Norfolk.
But oh!
please,
let him want her!
Sir Hamilton’s farewell was a frigid statement that he washed his hands of her and she need not expect to be taken in a second time. Aunt Tabitha called her a wicked, ungrateful slut, and a great many other epithets. By the time the hired gig carried her down the drive, Cordelia was passionately determined to scrub floors for a living rather than ever again set eyes on either of her nearest and dearest.
Not that it would ever come to that, thanks to dearest Mama’s foresight. She felt the bank’s letter in her pocket, and wished she still had the ill-spelled letter Mama had left with the jewels, so full of humble love. All these years she had betrayed Mama in her thoughts. No more.
When she reached Norwich it was too late in the day to set out for London. She took a comfortable chamber at the Rampant Horse and settled in a wing-chair by the window to read Aaron’s letter. Writing in the Turkish language with the Roman alphabet, he hoped she had had a pleasant journey—that made Cordelia giggle. Next she breathed a sigh of relief: Amina and Aisha were safe at Aaron’s house and he had already found a possible husband for the lively Amina. Ibrahim had evaded the pasha and taken ship for Alexandria, determined to set up as a barber in the great hammam at Cairo.
In closing, Aaron begged her to convey his kindest regards to his nephew, James, who he trusted had been helpful on the voyage.
Cordelia leaned her head back against the chair. Yes, James had been helpful, she thought dreamily, when he had not been utterly infuriating. Sometimes both at once. She would convey his uncle’s regards. Could she possibly pretend—just to start with—that that was her purpose in seeking him out?
Now she came to think of it, she was absolutely terrified of facing him, of making the offer which would confirm the world’s opinion of her as her mother’s daughter. When James told his aunt and uncle she was intrepid, he had not envisaged anything like this.
She was going to do it, though, because a few more months with James, a few years if she was lucky, were worth fighting for.
Next day, the journey seemed to go on for ever, yet it was over all too soon. Cordelia had decided to stay a few days at an inn, to call on Mr. Rothschild and to have at least one pretty, fashionable dress and pelisse made up before she saw James. But now she was just a mile or two from his side, a quarter of an hour in a hackney, she could not wait.
The lemon muslin would have to do. “Arlington Street, St. James’s,” she told the jarvey.
The pillared, Portland stone façade of Wyvancourt House was much grander and more intimidating than she remembered it. She paid the jarvey, then stood on the front steps, wavering. Considering her errand, should she have sent a note asking James to meet her elsewhere?
Too late. She must go through with it now or she might lose her courage entirely. Raising her chin, she took a deep breath and knocked.
George, the footman she knew, opened the door. “Miss Courtenay!” His eyes widened before his training took over and he schooled his features to impassivity. Cordelia could not make out whether he was horrified or merely surprised.
“I should like to see Mr. Preston,” she said, with all the aplomb she could muster.
“Yes, miss. I shall enquire whether Mr. Preston is at home.”
She nearly said that if he was out she would wait, then she realized that “at home” was a polite fiction. The footman knew very well that James was in, but not whether he wished to see her. If he was “not at home,” she might just as well start looking right away for a cottage in the country.
Several black-and-white striped chairs stood against the walls of the vestibule, but Cordelia was far too agitated to sit down. She paced. She went to smell the roses on a side-table—their fragrance brought a sorrowful flash of memories of her mother. She studied portraits of former Prestons, without noticing anything except the men’s resemblance to James.
He would see her, she told herself, if only to find out whether she was in need.
The stately butler came to her. “Miss Courtenay,” he said, his tone kindly—or was it pitying?—though his expression preserved the proper imperturbability, “Mr. Preston is dressing for dinner, so—”
“Oh dear, I did not realize it was so late!” Was he going to tell her to come back tomorrow? Would she ever be able to screw her courage to the sticking point a second time?
“Mr. Preston will be down shortly. May I suggest that you wait in the Blue Drawing Room?”
He showed her into a small sitting room, comfortably furnished. Trying to still her fluttering nerves, Cordelia bent over another bowl of roses, red and white, breathing deeply of their perfume. Her nerves continued to flutter. She crossed to a gilt-framed mirror on the wall, took off her bonnet, and tried to tidy her hair. It was still too short to pin up easily, and she had lost several pins in the coach.
She froze as the door opened behind her. Reflected in the mirror, a slim, elegant gentleman hesitated on the threshold, his head hidden by her upraised arm. Black buckled shoes, white stockings, black satin knee-breeches, black evening coat with white waistcoat, glinting ruby pin in his neckcloth—a guest, or Lord Wyvancourt come to tell her to go away?
She moved a trifle and saw his face. James! In her mind he was still a ragtaggle rover, dressed in whatever costume suited the moment. This polished perfection made him a stranger.
Then she noticed that his hair was uncombed, a corner of his snowy cravat had somehow escaped to stick up beside his ear, and he had cut himself shaving.
“James, you’re bleeding!” Fumbling in her reticule for a handkerchief, she hurried towards him.
“I was shaving when George came to tell me you were here.” He stepped into the room, shutting the door behind him. As she dabbed at his chin, his hand closed over hers. “No, dash it, Cordelia, it’s no good doing it that way, you have to press till the flow stops.”
“You do it, then.” She extricated her hand, burning from his touch, and moved backwards, away from his unsettling nearness.
He stared at her as if he could not believe his eyes, the hand clutching her handkerchief gradually lowering as he forgot about the cut. “You came back.”
“Yes. I...” Cordelia fixed her gaze on her clasped hands, half aware of the white knuckles, the nails digging into her palms. “James, if you want me, I should like very much to be your mistress.” There, it was out, unrecoverable.
The stunned silence rang in her ears. Then he said, odiously patient, “My dear girl, that’s quite impossible.”
Hope and energy drained from her. “I’ve left it too late,” she said in a dull voice. “Now you have your pick of any number of Paphians much more beautiful and desirable than I am.” She looked up, pleading just as she had promised herself not to. “But James, you would not have to give me expensive jewels. Your Uncle Aaron sent me the rest of the money from Mama’s jewels and I am quite rich.”
“Rich, beautiful, desirable, what more can a man ask for?” He was laughing at her, the wretch!
“But I’m not—”
“You don’t believe you are desirable? Come here, I’ll show you.”
He swept her off her feet and carried her to the nearest sofa. Sitting down with her in his lap, he cradled her head in one hand and feathered a kiss across her lips, while his other hand fumbled at the buttons of her pelisse.
Cordelia tried to protest that someone might come in. In her own ears her protest sounded ineffectual, chiefly because she could not find the breath to finish the sentence. James ignored it completely. His mouth had found a spot just below the tip of her ear and was doing something to it that made her feel most peculiar inside. His fingers had mastered her buttons and were now mastering her breast as if the thin muslin did not exist. Her nipple tingled.
The pelisse was in the way. Impatient, James helped her shrug out of it. The buttons on the back of her gown took a moment longer, and then her breasts were exposed. Weighing one white globe in each hand, he gently squeezed and Cordelia moaned. He shifted her off his lap, onto the sofa, lying on her back while he knelt on the floor. His mouth closed on the tip of one breast. His hand found its way beneath her skirt, ran up her leg, caressed her naked thigh. The liquid throb inside her became an agony of tension urgently demanding release.
And then, with a gasp, he sat back on his heels. Breathing heavily, he said in a rough voice, “Well, do you still think you are not desirable?”
“But if...then why...?” Her lips quivered.
“You were right, it’s too late.” He pulled her skirt down, the bodice up. “Sit up, dear girl, and turn around so I can button you. It’s nothing to do with the birds of Paradise queuing to... Well, never mind that. It’s too late to make you my mistress because I discovered months ago that what I wanted was not merely to seduce you but to make you my wife. I did keep asking you,” he added in an injured tone.
“Oh James, I thought you were just being noble. Are you sure...?”
“Quite sure.”
“But I cannot marry you!” she cried tragically. “I shall never be respectable. People will never forget poor Mama.”
“You’d be surprised what people will forget when they know you’re going to be a marchioness. Besides, have you forgotten I myself am a criminal wanted by the law?”
She turned to him, knowing before she saw it that he was grinning. “Only the Turkish law. In England you are a hero—and I am a pariah. Lord and Lady Wyvancourt will disown you if you marry me.”
“On the contrary, they have promised to help establish you in Society.”
Cordelia stared. “They have? How on earth did you persuade them to accept me?”
“I told them all about our adventures, and how many times you saved my skin. And I told them if you were not to be my wife I should be off very shortly on a mission to Japan. The next heir is an unsatisfactory sort of fellow, much what you thought me to be... You have changed your mind?”
“You know I have!”
“But more important, they are rather fond of me. They want me to stay safe at home and settle down to start a family.”
Cordelia took his dear face between her hands. He encircled her wrists in a light clasp. She gazed into his eyes, trying to discern the truth. “You will really go to Japan if I don’t marry you?”
“Yes. I don’t wish to force your hand, but without you my life will be meaningless. At least another mission would give it some meaning. You see, I love you.”
“Oh James, I love you too!”
She was in his arms, held close to his heart. “Why did you go away?” he demanded in a choking voice. “I thought I had lost you.”
“I overheard your aunt and uncle telling you... Don’t they say eavesdroppers never hear good of themselves? I knew I wasn’t worthy of you, and I was sure they would convince you. Then you didn’t come to Norfolk, and that confirmed it. Why didn’t you come?”
“Partly just to give you time for your reunion with your father.” He hugged her closer. “But that was really just an excuse. You had refused me several times. I hoped you would think better of it when you discovered I’m not a good-for-nothing adventurer, but then you ran away. It seemed to mean you didn’t want me for a husband even though I am quite respectable after all.”
“My darling sapskull, how could anyone not want you for a husband? Yes, please, I will marry you.”
He kissed her, and the kiss—cut off before it could reignite the smouldering embers of desire—was a promise of long years together.
“Strict propriety until we are wed,” James said firmly, “and a very short engagement. Dash it all, I suppose I ought to post to Norfolk first to beg your papa’s permission.”
“No! He has washed his hands of me, and I am glad. James, he was perfectly horrid, cold and unkind, and my aunt was even worse. At last I understand why Mama ran away. I cannot be angry with her any longer. It helped me to realize that respectability is less important than being with the man I love.”
“Then I must bless her for that, and for making you the woman I love.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Though you shall have me and respectability too! So much for your father. I must write and tell Uncle Aaron.”
“Yes, how surprised he will be.”
“Not he.” His voice laughed at her, but she didn’t mind any more. “When he sent me to you, Aaron said you were far too respectable not to marry a gentleman after travelling so far alone with him. And he wrote to me asking me to convey his respects.”
“He did? He wrote to me asking me to convey his kindest regards to you!”
“The crafty old fox! He wanted to make sure of us. He knew we were made for each other.”
“Ahem!” George stood in the doorway, red-faced and rigid, his gaze fixed on the far side of the room. “Her ladyship wishes to know if...erhem...if “the two of you’ will be joining her and his lordship for dinner. Her ladyship told me to point out that dinner has already been held back half an hour and Cook will have the hysterics.”