The Courtship (8 page)

“We either turn back to our separate paths now, Esther, or we forge ahead together. The choice is exclusively yours.” He laced his fingers with hers where her hands lay amid her unbound hair on the cloak. The feel of that, of his hands linked to hers, was both a portent and a reassurance.

“Together,” she said. “Now, let us be together.”

She braced herself to feel him probing at her body, but he surprised her with lazy, sweet kisses, teasing kisses and big, manly sighs, until she was a mindless puddle of female wanting beneath him.

“Percival, please.”

“Soon.”

His idea of soon was
maddening
. “Now.”

He nudged about, in no hurry at all. Purely at her wit’s end, Esther lunged up with her hips and found herself… found herself a lover. The sensation was wonderful and strange, and yet when several moments of silence and immobility went by… “Percival, will you move?”

His hand came around to cradle the back her head. “You’re all right?”

Only a few words, but so tender.

“I am mad for wanting you,” she began. “You have no sense of dispatch, and I am relying on you entirely to know how to go on, as difficult as relying on anybody for anything is for such as I, but I take leave to doubt whether—”

He laughed—a low, happy chuckle signaling both affection and approval—and he
moved
, a lovely, sinuous undulation that soothed as it aroused as it fascinated.

“You can move too, love. Move with me.”

Esther’s
body had a sense of dispatch, a sense of soaring, galloping pleasure in the man she’d chosen for her first intimate encounter. She moved as he’d suggested, and found he knew things, marvelous, subtle things about how to leave a woman breathless with wonder and panting with ecstasy.

Percival Windham knew that a woman’s ears were marvelously sensitive. He knew that patience on a man’s part was an aphrodisiac. He knew exactly when to increase the tempo and depth of his thrusts, when to cradle Esther’s head so she could cry out softly against his throat. He knew to hold her just as closely as her pleasure ebbed, and to hold her more closely still when an urge to weep tugged at her happiness.

For the rest of her life, Esther would treasure—and miss—Percival Windham and the things he knew.

And yet… Percival braced himself over her, giving her just enough of his weight that the night breezes cooled her skin without leaving a chill. She took a whiff of cedar and spices and stroked her hand through his unbound hair.

“What about you, Percival? Are you to have no pleasure for yourself?”

“If I endured any more pleasure, my love…”

She stopped his inchoate blather with her fingers over his mouth. “No flatteries, no prevarications, Percival. I have withheld nothing from you. Nothing. I only wish…”

He snuggled closer, a large, fit man, to whom Esther was sure the term “sexual athlete” might be accurately applied, and yet he’d been so careful with her.

He shifted, so his lips grazed her neck. “What do you wish?”

His hair was so marvelously soft, as soft as moonlight. “I wish I knew how to render you as witless and befuddled as I am, as…”
in
love.
That would be trespassing against common sense, so she compromised. “As helpless.”

A beat of silence went by, while Esther feared her limited disclosures had overstepped whatever the rules of dalliance permitted, but then Percival began to move, slowly, powerfully.

Intimately.
“My love, you already have.”

Hours later, when the crickets had gone quiet and the nightingale no longer stirred, Percival retied the bows on Esther’s nightclothes, wrapped her in his cloak, and put himself to rights while Esther watched through slumberous eyes. He carried her—effortlessly—through the gardens and up three flights of steps to deposit her onto the little cot in the little garret.

He sat at her hip then leaned down to kiss her on the forehead.

“I will see you in my dreams, my lady, and they will be sweet dreams indeed.”

She murmured something about cracking the window—she was already half dreaming herself—felt a cool, sweet breeze waft into the room, and heard the door latch click shut in the darkness.

When she rose in the morning and went to down to breakfast, eager to see by daylight the man with whom she’d shared such wondrous intimacies by moonlight, she learned that Percival Windham, along with his brother Anthony, had quit the premises entirely.

“Do I take it you’re jaunting into Town with me to ride chaperone on any trysts I might stumble into?”

Anthony sounded put out as only a younger brother can when saddled with the unwanted company of an elder sibling. Percival tossed a coin to the coaching inn’s stable lad and swung up onto Reveille before answering.

“I have pressing errands in Town, and the last thing I want is to be a party to your amorous endeavors.”

Anthony considered him from Anthem’s back. “Are you perchance going to pay a call on the O’Donnell creature? Get the manly humors back in balance?”

The very idea had Percival aiming his horse away from the inn yard at a brisk trot. “The O’Donnell creature and I are not now nor were we ever an item of significant interest, I’ll have you know.”

Anthony’s gelding easily kept pace. “You were of interest to her, or it certainly seemed that way last month.”

“My wallet was of interest to her, until some general offered her a more lucrative arrangement. I wish her well.” He also spared a thought for the general, because the poor fellow was taking up with the most mercenary female Percival had ever made the mistake of allowing into his bed.

“I rather like Mrs. St. Just.” Anthony rather liked everybody, including attractive, friendly Dublin-born redheads of easy virtue.

“You are trying to get rid of me, Anthony, but you need not bother. I will not be your duenna for any passionate interludes you have planned with Miss Holsopple, nor will I be calling on the fair Mrs. St. Just. She departed for Ireland prior to the Heckenbaum house party, and while her charms were considerable, our liaison is at an end.”

And what an odd relief that it was so. Both Mrs. St. Just and Cecily O’Donnell were beautiful, intelligent, sexually experienced, and worldly wise—also interested only in exploiting a man’s base urges for financial gain, though the St. Just woman seemed to genuinely enjoy Percival’s company. No matter how generously Percival reimbursed them, neither lady would ever demand kissing lessons from him; they would never listen to his memories of service in Canada; they would never understand—he, himself had not understood—that for Her Grace to send sons into the cavalry had to have been particularly difficult.

“I’m going to ask Gladys to elope with me.”

Percival brought his horse back to the walk. “Why in blazes would you tell me such a thing? Am I supposed to stop you or abet you?”

“Both. Neither. I got a note from Gladys, you see, and it’s confounded complicated.”

Anthony was cheerful by nature, but this plan of his had him sounding morose.

“Are you sure she’s the one, Anthony?”

“Yes.”

Anthony was also not decisive by nature, and yet, Gladys Holsopple had his unequivocal allegiance. What was it going to be like, to know Esther Himmelfarb had granted to Percival the same, immediate, unquestioning devotion? To know she accepted it from him?

“Why not honor your Gladys with the usual approach? You ask her papa for permission to court, you ask her, you set a date, the ladies make a great fuss, you wait…”

“That waiting business can be problematic.”

Percival digested that for about a quarter mile. “How far along is she?”

Anthony heaved the sigh of unmarried prospective fathers the world over. “That’s part of the confounded problem. She isn’t sure she is, she isn’t sure she… isn’t. Not all fillies are the same, and we only had three occasions, so to speak.”

Three?
“Fast work, Brother, and once is enough.”

Though if Anthony’s situation with Gladys bore any resemblance to Percival’s with Esther, once would never, ever be enough.

“She’s all up in the bows over this, and it tears at a man, to know his lady is upset and he can do nothing to comfort her.”

It
tore
at
a
man
simply
to
be
parted
from
his
lady.
“So you will comfort her now and hatch up desperate plots. I hope you do not have need of them, but I will do all in my power to aid you.” The words should not have been necessary—Tony was his
brother
—but the relief on Tony’s face suggested the assurances were appreciated.

“And you too, Perce. If you and the Himmelfarb girl need reinforcements, we’re here for you, Gladys and myself.”

“My thanks.”

Except Gladys was under her mother’s watchful eye in Town, an elopement would see both parties haring off to Scotland, and winning the Himmelfarb girl’s heart was an uncertain undertaking, regardless of how passionately she’d shared her body.

***

“You look as tired as I feel.” Michael tugged on Esther’s sleeve and led her to a dusty little room full of guns, game bags, and other hunting accoutrements. “Are you getting any rest at all?”

Esther glanced around, her gaze landing on a stag’s head mounted on the opposite wall. The animal’s glass eyes stared at a preserved hare crouching on a set of quarter shelves in a corner.

“House parties are fatiguing,” Esther said. “In your case, I’d say they’re impoverishing as well.”

Michael’s gaze narrowed as he pushed the door closed with a booted foot. “I’m trying to express concern for you, and your response is to nag? Even a cousin finds that tiresome behavior in a female.”

Was he concerned? Esther gave herself leave to doubt that. “Lady Morrisette remarked last night after dinner that she will make it a point to oppose you at whist, because she’s sure to increase her pin money that way.”

“Women’s gossip. She opposes me at whist so she might make free with her hands on my person under the table, while our partners likely do the same across the table.”

Esther thought back to the previous evening, when Sir Jasper and Charlotte Pankhurst had completed the foursome at Michael’s table.

“You might well be right, but, Michael, I am worried for you. These people are above our strata. We’re tolerated here to make up the numbers, and they are not our friends. Your folly would provoke their amused scorn, not their sympathy.”

He crossed his arms while his expression became superior. “And what of you, Esther Himmelfarb? Lurking in gardens with a ducal spare? That’s more than a bit ambitious, I’d say, even for an earl’s granddaughter.”

An arrangement of silver hunting flasks sat on the quarter shelf below the hare. The flasks were going a bit tarnished, but they’d make satisfying missiles fired at Michael’s head.

“Were you spying on me, Michael?”

“I was taking a bit of air, Cousin, and heard voices on the other side of the garden wall.
Percival
St. Stephens Joachim Windham
was getting quite friendly with you.”

He’d forgotten a name—Tiberius. Thank God the wall had been high and solid.

“I can visit with whom I please, Michael, and regardless of how I’m spending what little spare time I have here, you are supposed to be courting the ladies, not financial ruin.”

Michael apparently decided on a tactical retreat. “What can you tell me about Herodia Bellamy?”

And this was likely the point of Michael’s “concern.” He was losing badly at cards, and instead of browsing the available brides himself, he expected Esther to do his scouting for him.

“Marriage is intended to resolve a lack of companionship, Michael, not a lack of coin.”

His smile was quick and genuine. “You sound exactly like Uncle Jacob. Marriage can solve both. The best families have known this for generations and prosper as a result. Tell me about the Bellamy girl.”

There was no reason not to, though Esther eyed the flasks with longing. They would make such a loud, satisfying crash pitched against the old speckled mirror above the mantel.

“Herodia is a trifle too smart for her own good. She’s bored silly but knows better than to get tangled up in anything truly disgraceful. Engage her mind, and she’ll notice you.”

“I’d rather engage her mind than spend my days complimenting hair bows.” Michael looked thoughtful. “I’m also hoping I might make progress with the Needmore heiress now that the Windhams have gone larking into Town.”

Esther barely refrained from clutching her cousin’s arm to wring further details from him, though she manufactured an indifferent expression rather than pique Michael’s curiosity. “I wasn’t aware they’d departed from the gathering And her name is Needham.”

Michael began a perambulation of the room, inspecting the hunting paraphernalia and trophies as he wandered. “Lord Percy is partial to mistresses with flaming red hair and lush proportions; at last report he had at least two of that description meeting his needs in Town. Lord Tony probably went along for similar entertainments, or perhaps they share—though I ought not to offer such speculation in your company. Where do you suppose Lord Morrisette killed this thing?”

A man would do that—leap in conversation from mistresses to hunting trophies and be oblivious to the non sequitur, or maybe not even grasp that there might be one. “It’s a skunk. Perhaps he purchased it from somebody who’s hunted in the New World.”

The animal was probably very pretty when alive. Lush black and white fur ended in a graceful plume of a tail, and yet in death, the beast’s eyes bore the same blank stare as every other prize in the room.

“Well, I’m off to hunt a bride or perhaps some sport more entertaining than dodging Lady Morrisette’s overtures.” He paused by the door and regarded Esther for a moment. “You’re too decent for a gathering like this. I’m surprised Aunt and Uncle let you attend.”

“I’m nominally under Lady Pott’s wing, when she’s awake. You’d best be going lest somebody remark our tête-à-tête, but I truly wish you’d limit yourself to farthing points.” Esther wished as well she could tell her numbskull cousin she’d been “permitted” to attend mostly to keep an eye on him.

Michael pursed his lips in a sulky pout. “Schoolboys play for farthing points.”

When the door clicked softly closed behind him, Esther informed the hare, the skunk, the stag’s head, and a four-foot-long silver-and-black snake twined around a limb above the mantel, “Even schoolboys know their debts of honor must be paid.”

And Esther knew that Lady Morrisette had endless tasks waiting, and yet, this dusty, ghoulish closet-shrine to idle masculinity was probably the closest thing to a refuge Esther might find. She took a seat on a worn leather hassock and tried to absorb that Percy Windham had made passionate love with her, tucked her up in bed—
left
her
there
—and gone off a few hours later to disport with not one but two beautiful mistresses.

Her parents’ marriage had been a love match, but Esther knew such unions were unusual in the better families—the titled families.

The world certainly expected her to be celibate, but what right had she to expect
Percival
would be celibate?

“Every right,” she assured the skunk. For the duration of one brief house party, he might have at least limited his attentions to her. She remained on her hassock, mentally lecturing herself for treasuring memories that clearly were of no moment to her lover.

The feel of his hands in her hair.

The sound of his voice in the darkness.

The feel of his body joined carefully and intimately with hers…

“Miss Himmelfarb.” Sir Jasper had opened the door so quietly, he was inside the room and had the door closed again before Esther noticed him standing under the stag. “Of all the ladies to find being private with the impecunious Mr. Adelman.”

Esther remained seated. If the only rank she could assert was that of lady, then assert it, she would. “Is he impecunious, or unlucky in his choice of games?”

“Touché, my lady.” He slouched closer, the dusty light making his face powder appear another artifact of zoological preservation. “Though it appears I’m the one in luck at the moment. I don’t hear Lady Zephora whining for her tea, and the word at breakfast was that the Lords Windham had gone off to revive themselves with some sophisticated sport in Town. Quimbey is out shooting hares, and here you are”—he came to a halt beside Esther’s hassock, which had the disagreeable result of putting his falls at her nose level—“all by yourself, at your leisure at last.”

His fingers brushed her chin, a hint of threat in his touch. Esther tried hard not to move, not to flinch. He wasn’t hurting her; he wasn’t even groping her.

But he was
insulting
her. For all Percival Windham might at that very moment be bathing with both of his mistresses, Lord Percy had not offered Esther insult, nor had he taken liberties beyond what she’d willingly shared.

Esther batted Sir Jasper’s hand aside so stoutly, she had the gratification of seeing surprise on his face as she rose, brushed past him, and left him to the company of creatures already dead, stuffed, mounted, and gathering dust.

***

Five years of making war on colonials had impressed upon Sir Jasper several important lessons—lessons not taught on the hallowed playing fields of Eton.

First, what counted was neither who had better form, nor who charmed the spectators, nor who looked better on a horse. What counted in any contest was who won.

Second, marching about in straight lines, forming up into squares, and keeping a bright red uniform spotless was so much lunacy when the enemy soldiers respected no rules, could melt into the woods like wraiths, and used any weapon at hand to advance their cause.

Third, a baronet’s succession was as important to the baronet as a duke’s might be to the duke.

With those verities in mind, Sir Jasper waited in the conservatory at teatime, knowing it to be Mr. Michael Adelman’s favorite place to avoid company.

“Are you considering a career in botany, Mr. Adelman?”

The younger fellow startled as Sir Jasper emerged from behind a thriving stand of some enormous cane plant.

“Sir Jasper. I enjoy the quiet here. I assume you do as well, so I’ll leave you to it.”

Not
so
fast, pup.
“Before you scamper off to the charms of our fair companions, might I enquire as to when you’ll be redeeming your vowels?”