The Virgin's Auction (26 page)

He backed away, matching her step for step, hands raised in a gesture of peace. She ignored it. “Have we
delighted
in the advantages of that situation?
Both
of us free to make the best choices available with the resources to hand?”

“No true lady would auction herself off. It would not even occur to a sheltered girl to do such a thing.”

“Thank you for your illuminating reflection on the situation. Thank you for your wisdom, shining a bright light on the darkness of my ignorance,” she said with withering sarcasm.

“Look, we both know you and my sister are not cut of the same cloth. There is no use trying to . . . to –”

“Make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear? I should just stop trying to pass myself off as a lady. Is that it?”

“I think you will be happier if you stop trying to be something you are not.” He said it quietly, with compassion even. If he had been angry she would have matched him, toe to toe. But that sympathetic look, as he calmly dispelled any illusions she might have harboured about his view of her and her place in society and in his life . . . the pain was devastating.

She would not show it. She would not let him know.

“Your kind concern has been duly noted. But I shall not disappoint your sister.”

“Melissa –” he began warningly.

“My name is Miss Spencer. I’ll thank you to use it,” she said icily, pivoting and striding away with all speed, back to the bedroom of her new ally. Thrusting herself into the room and closing the door behind her, she surprised Stephanie
Carstairs removing her beautiful riding hat.

With her back pressed against the door, firmly shut against any foolish, broken dreams, she smiled
a brittle smile.

“So, let us find a dress for me to wear!”

Chapter Twenty-Four

They chose a delicate confection of a gown, the shade of sea green foam. “Such a pretty colour,” sighed Stephanie. “And dash it all, you look a hundred times better in it than I. I cannot wait until I am a married woman and can wear jewel tones.
Blues and reds and greens. I am not made for pastels.”

“But you are charming in this,” said Melissa, to
uching the gauzy sleeve of Stephanie’s rose pink silk. You look like a flower, all blushing soft petals.”

“How poetic you are. Let me call Cranston to dress our hair. She is very stern, you will see, but she is a magician with the curling wand. You should let her cut your hair. You will be much more
a la mode
.”

“I like it longer.”

“Then she must dress it up so you can show off your neck. Now, I have a pearl necklace you must wear. Let me find it.”

The open hearted girl pressed every lovely thing onto Melissa, until she was dressed head to toe in the most dazzlingly beautiful clothes she could have imagined. She had placed a few delicate stitches at waist and bosom to take in the dress a little. Stephanie’s curves were somewhat more bountiful.

But the height was exactly right and the colour was exquisite on her. She looked like a princess. She looked like a wealthy young gentlewoman, decorously rich without ostentation, who deserved a place in society.

The pearls gleamed at her throat and there were more in her hair, just a few, with a subtlety that made her commend the light hand of the maid.

“Will it matter that I haven’t been presented, think you?” she worried aloud.

“Oh, have you not? I shouldn’t think so. I doubt anyone will take note. In fact if the Prince of Wales is there we can introduce you – for I met him just last week – and if he likes you then you are admitted to society just like that.” She snapped her fingers triumphantly. “Which would be very lucky, as it’s the most tedious bore in the world to have a court presentation. What a to-do, only for a curtsey to the Queen. I was most disappointed. And now we must go, for I want you to meet
Letty before everyone else arrives and she’s too busy for a comfy coze. You will just adore her. I know it.”

With light wraps about their shoulders against the chill of the evening, the two women climbed
into the landau and settled into the plush squabs. Melissa heard a firm step on the cobbles and then the door swung open to admit James in full evening regalia.

He climbed in and took his seat with his back to the horses, all without saying a word. He took in Melissa’s finery with one searing glance from head to foot, though in truth the wrap hid most of it. Then he looked out of the window, a muscle twitching in his jaw.

Stephanie smiled at him, and when he studiously ignored her she burst into giggles.

“Are you planning to ignore us all evening? See, he is in high dudgeon. Obviously we are in disgrace. We must make shift to look repentant. Like this.” She adopted a comical hangdog look, shoulders and lower lip drooping. Melissa
gave a mechanical smile at her clowning, her own spirits depressed from her earlier conversation with him. “No, not like that at all. It will never do to smile. He will think you don’t take him seriously and will be even more lugubrious. Pout with me. Like that. Yes.” The two of them turned their woebegone faces to him, and his lips twitched.

“You are a baggage,” he declared to his sister. The look he turned on Melissa was cooler by far, and she
felt certain it held a warning; to behave decorously? Not to disgrace his sister or himself? He need not be in a fret. She knew to an exact degree how to behave. For had she not read those books on manners too, and taught Peter, thinking some day he might need to play the part of a gentleman, and she of a lady? She knew the rules, and even better knew how to watch and keep her mouth shut when in doubt, and hang back until she saw how a thing was done, could mimic it without a hitch. She would show him. By God she would.

They alighted from the carriage at the door of the house, climbing the stairs with a care for their skirts, and stepping into the hall where Mr and Mrs Leighton stood ready to receive their guests. Melissa watched how low the girl in front of her – a mere ‘Miss’ – curtseyed when she was introduced, and did the same when her turn came. She looked up into a pair of sparkling grey eyes, as Mrs Leighton looked expectantly at her and then at Stephanie.

“A friend of yours, dear?” she asked in a girlishly high voice that exactly matched her pretty confection of a dress.

“Indeed.
I feel I have known her forever, we get on so famously. When all your guests are here, come and find us and we shall go down to dinner together. I long to try that confit of quail you told me of.”

“I shall come when I can, but I make no promises, for I hope it will be a sad crush and I must stand here all night.”

“I hope so too.
Bonne chance
, my darling.” She pulled Melissa away, leaving James to lag behind to say his own greetings. Scanning the room, Stephanie located friends and took Melissa to be introduced in a harum scarum fashion that left her struggling to attach names to faces only moments after the introductions had taken place. She really must pay better attention.

She focused in on the conversation, light-hearted and shallow as it was. When questions were asked of her she deflected them lightly, turning the attention of her companions to other matters.

At first she was quiet, listening rather than speaking, but soon she felt ready to assay her own humorous anecdote. It was well received, and she knew a brief thrill of success at the laughter and expressions of approval turning her way.

The group standing about them slowly grew as other acquaintances drifted nearer, the beautiful young things of the
bon ton
slowly circling. The press of bodies increased, and Melissa felt the heat of the room, the many candles burning at the walls.

James was circulating too, for she saw him at different vantage points. Not that she searched him out of course. But she felt his eyes upon her, twice catching him at it before he could look away. He would not see anything untoward.

Instead he would see her success, as she was surrounded by young men who flirted charmingly with her. She played the shy and sweet young miss, more circumspect than Stephanie who was bold under the influence of admiration.

She accepted a dance and was led out by a tall and polished man, the son of a baron she was told by Stephanie in a whispered aside, who conversed almost by form but danced so well he made her own part look effortless.

The steps were a little difficult to remember – it was a long time since she had practiced with Peter in the attic of their home, chanting out a beat – but with fierce concentration she managed creditably, though she had no idea what words had passed her own lips in polite response to her partner’s. After the dance was finished he brought her back to the edge of the floor and bowed over her hand, before going obediently to fetch the glass of champagne she requested.

Looking around the room she sighed in small wonderment that she should be here, at a fashionable party amidst the ton, as if none of the events of the past months had ever taken place. Beneath her dress lay a darkening bruise that would make her stiff and sore by tomorrow, and both she and Peter were a little older, sadder and wiser. But tonight none of that mattered. Tonight she was here, and that was enough.

Across the room her gaze met James’. He was looking at her intently, as if trying to read something on her face. She lifted her head at a haughty angle and swept away to lose herself in the crowd.

For long hours she talked and laughed, danced and ate with admirers and with Stephanie’s friends. She felt as if she’d been introduced to everyone.

Certainly she had met the Prince, who took her onto the dance floor for a sedate minuet, flirting heavy-handedly throughout. She responded with smiles and a demure reserve, treading the line between attractive feminine grace and what might be anticipated as outright compliance. The Prince was notorious for his mistresses, and she had no intention of becoming one of the number. He held no appeal for her.

When he parted from her with a smile and a bow she knew she had triumphed tonight. She was now an accepted member of polite society. What – if anything – she would do with that distinction was moot. With no funds, no connections, no dowry, she would never be worthy of the marriage mart, even if her crucial virginity was still intact.

But it satisfied some dormant longing in her to know if all else had been equal she could have inhabited this world and moved amongst its denizens. The knowledge that should have been her heritage from her mother had instead been scraped together from books and careful observation. Nonetheless she had it, sufficient to pass at least this cursory inspection.

Chapter Twenty-Five

She had triumphed indeed. For hours he watched her, trying not to draw attention to either of them by his vigilance, but unwilling to make a scandal of himself or his sister.

What if it came to be known he – and Stephanie – had smuggled a commoner into an elite ball? His own mistress, no less, arriving under the aegis of his sister.

Scandal enough indeed.

He had waited for her to betray herself, certain under the pressure of this performance her playacting would give way. He was ready to swoop in, divert attention and remove her the second she drew censure.

But around her were only smiles and nods, bows and civility. Everywhere she met with success. She was discussed of course. No one who looked as she could fail to draw attention.

“No fortune.” “A nobody.” “Who are her people?” “I’ve no idea.” And certainly those mamas who had brought young sons watched with a hint of anxiety as their progeny circled this new potential hazard.

But there was no venom to it,
no outrage or shock. Stephanie – even as young as she was – carried the clout of their ancient name and fortune and by association Melissa gained a certain cachet, only magnified by her own attractions.

Nothing in her behaviour counteracted those powerful forces. She was entirely proper and moderate. More so than Stephanie, whose intemperate laughter rang out across the crowd, making him
sigh. Still, much would be forgiven an orphaned heiress with a dowry of a hundred thousand pounds. She could afford to be a little reckless.

Though as his concern about Melissa’s progress waned, he did not leave her to her own devices. Instead he found himself
shadowing her from room to room; no longer as a guard but more for the pleasure of it. She shone like a jewel in this setting; a diamond of the first water. She dazzled him, as she dazzled the foolish young bucks who hung about her.

Half a dozen times he discovered a scowl on his own face watching a touch on her elbow, the kiss of her gloved hand, an exchange of smiles as she danced. He knew as always he would be watched himself, and the last thing he wanted was to give onlookers something to gossip about at his own behaviour.

Yet he couldn’t help himself. Try as he would to distract his own attention with dances and dinner, pretty faces and polite conversation, he always eventually ended propped against a wall and gazing at Melissa.

How did she do it? How did she move so seamlessly from one setting to another?

He had seen her frightened but courageous on an auction block; undressed and lost in passion in his bed – and the memory sent a shaft of desire through his body, arousing him embarrassingly; shy and small as a mouse in the guise of a seamstress in a rural village; a polite young woman in a carriage; a matter-of-fact negotiator of her terms of engagement for an affair; a stern and vengeful warrior in protection of her brother, herself, and even his good character – as he recalled how she had stopped him from choking her nemesis.

By God, he would have squeezed the last breath out of that cur, only for terrorising Melissa. When he thought how his heart had clenched to hear her screams . . . words could not describe it. He felled thieves and cutthroats like they were nothing, took the stairs three-at-a-time, desperate to reach her bef
ore those screams were silenced; yet bursting into that room he found her unhurt, her foe staggering from a blow about the head with a chamber pot.

What a woman!

Now here she was, so cool that butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. She took her place amongst his people and looked so right there it was hard to imagine her in any other context.

Could it be true?

Was this where she truly belonged?

He had thought the idea a fiction conjured up for the sake of a higher auction price, dismissed it entirely as he felt the lusty passion of her uninhibited response to him in his bed.

When he next encountered her as a working class girl in Bourton, that had seemed a more likely truth: that a commoner had learnt enough of manners from some source to ape her betters, all for a grand sum of money twenty times what a respectable working man might earn in a year.

With that as her dowry a common woman could marry well among her kind and her new husband would likely turn a blind eye to the lack of blood on the sheets of the marriage bed.

Not that he had examined the logic of the matter too closely. He was too consumed with convincing her to furnish his bed again. For never had he felt such a mountainous lust as for her fair body, nor lost himself so completely in his enjoyment of a woman.

Nor yet been so devastated at finding one gone from him the morning after, with no note or direction where to find her.

He had paced his empty bedroom in the chill light of dawn, in a turmoil, looking again and again at the tousled sheets, the small, bright stain of blood. His room had never felt so empty, so forlorn as it did in that moment when there should have been a warm, willing woman in it. Not just any woman. He had convinced himself she would re-emerge, that he only need wait.

Then time had proven that assumption wrong also.

He had thought finding her again the greatest stroke of good luck and pursued her single-mindedly until she confronted him with a new and horrid vision of his place in her life.

Then fate gave him the opportunity to make her glad of his presence – helping her find her missing brother – and he seized on it, never weighing up why her good opinion was so crucial to him.

Helping her felt good; the noble course of action. And as she came to lean on him he discovered a fierce satisfaction at the chance to protect her.

It was the right course, too. For on that journey she saw sense and agreed to be his mistress. Oh, the relief at possessing her again! It was like food to the starving.
Like water to a thirsty man.

It was like coming home.

They had saved her brother, then saved her. Though he had managed neither alone. She was clever and resourceful, finding a way to fetch him when trapped. Without her assistance the Runner and he might never have found her, with no exact pinpoint of Black Jack’s location other than a general knowledge of the area in which he operated.

Surveying her on the journey back to his townhouse after his rescue of her he felt such pride of possession. She was a woman to cherish
: intelligent, loving and brave; and beautiful with it. His body had sung with exultation to think he could have her in his bed again that night; surreptitiously of course, so as not to alert her brother or the servants.

But now it had all changed. It wasn’t only the presence of his sister in the house, nor yet the ball. There would be hours after the ball in which to disport in private.

Yet . . . it felt wrong. Looking at her now, it felt wrong to imagine bringing her to his room in shadowy secretiveness. Stripping her and possessing her, that bright and beautiful woman lowered and . . . dirtied by her association to him.

Look at her there. No one would guess she was not chaste and pure. She looked like the pinnacle of lovely womanhood, pale and perfect, waiting for a husband.

Only he knew differently.

Her father and he had changed that reality for her.

That was what he was refusing to acknowledge. He did not have all the information, but he thought he had enough. Her father had lived in the City, been at least well enough to do to need a man of affairs. He sought a moneylender who turned out to be a villain, presumably borrowed from Black Jack and then died some time afterwards.

He might easily have been a gentleman, though he might also have been in trade. Peter would know. He should ask the boy.

When Peter fled she told James she feared Peter was going to pay a man who had already been repaid. So she must have used some of the money from the auction or from some other source to repay her father’s debt, and had still enough left over for Peter to steal from her and attempt to use it.

Why then had she been in the Cotswolds? Why not stay in the City? And why had she been so certain Black Jack meant Peter and her ill?

Why take up the lowly trade of seamstress when she had some money? She could have lived for a time on that, waiting until her brother reached his majority, then depended on him for an income. Or become a governess, though that was truthfully a harder proposition when one had a brother to house and care for.

So the possibility did exist that she had been a gentleman’s daughter all along. And he had debauched her. Between her father’s criminal neglect of his family’s security and his own hedonism she had been spoilt for marriage and a respectable future with some decent young man.

Broodingly he watched her with those young men. She would have done it too; secured a husband and her place in society. She had a winning way about her, a gracious charm coupled with humour and intellect. Perhaps she could even have garnered wealth or a title through marriage and risen even higher.

But now she would have nothing.

He had ruined her. Secretly, so only a prospective husband would ever need know. But that was ruin enough.

But he could redeem her, just as easily. All it would take was marriage. And when the thought flickered through his head if he gifted her with sufficient dowry some buck could be found to take her, regardless of her virginity or lack thereof, he quashed it instantly, shaken by the moment of sheer
rage that had risen within him at the thought of another with the right to touch her, worship her body, get children on her –

He heard a snap, and looked down to discover he had broken the stem of his empty wine glass right through with the force of his grip.

He set the pieces down on a nearby table and looked at them lying there.

What if he was wrong? What if she was not of good family? What then? Could he make her his mistress with no guilt, enjoy her then eventually set her aside? Surely he could not marry her regardless. He owed more to his family, more to his good name than that.

Though bedamned if that seemed to matter quite so much when he imagined keeping her always to the shadows of his life, never seeing her again at a ball such as this. Happy. Talking with animation to Percy Fuller, who was forty if he was a day, but had a bright, enquiring mind behind that saturnine face. She seemed to have discovered it, for she laughed out loud, as did he, then they shared a conspiratorial glance. Yes, she was happy.

He wanted to see that look always on her face. Or the other one: that dreamy, peaceful gaze with a delicate smile hovering about her mouth, the way she looked standing alone after dancing with the Honourable Richard Long.

He wanted to be the one to put the smiles on her face. He wanted to make her happy.

He was a fool.

And doubly a fool for the things he had said to her before they left his townhouse. He had meant well, had thought to spare her the strain of maintaining her charade in front of such a critical audience; though in all honesty his greater concern had been for his own reputation.

But he had hurt her. She hid it well, but he saw the quiver of her lip and the way her eyes had glistened, before she gave him that glare he was coming to recognise: resolve, all resources brought to bear to defeat a foe.

That she must summon bravery to face him – that he must be counted amongst her enemies – no, he did not relish that thought at all. When he remembered the wave of tenderness that had washed through him as she wept in his arms today, he thought he could spend a lifetime protecting her from all harm and think his years well spent. Though he suspected she would protect him right back, with whatever savagery was required.

He grinned again at the chamber
pot conjured by his mind’s eye. Not to mention the knife. She drew her enemy’s blood without hesitation, all the while commanding James to spare the man’s wretched life. So that he need not bear the death on his conscience, no less.

“She’s a fine piece. Looks just like that gel you bought at
Dukey’s.”

Slowly, coolly he turned his head to survey the man at his shoulder, leering cheerfully in Melissa’s direction
; Nash, who had almost bought her at auction before James stepped forward.

There was a moment’s silence as his mind raced, though he kept his face calm and still.

“Yes, remarkable resemblance, isn’t it? I thought the same when I saw that tavern girl. This is Miss Spencer, a long time friend of my sister’s. I bought the one as I couldn’t ravish the other; much as I wanted to.”

“I thought the tavern girl was gentry.”

James snorted in apparent amusement. “Gentry? Hardly. Pretty enough, but common as muck underneath her dress.”

“I wouldn’t mind getting under that dress. Be a mite cheaper by now, though I do like a nice virgin.”

“She’ll be in some brothel or other, I’ll warrant.”

“Best mind your manners around that tender filly,” he indicated Melissa with a tilt of the head, “or you’ll find yourself leg-shackled.”