Duchess Quartet - A Wild Pursuit Part 30

"How are you going to ask him to marry you?" Esme asked, fascinated.

Bea bit her lip. "I only just this moment decided to do so. I really don't know."

"Poetry," Helene said positively. "Obviously, you must use poetry."

Esme clapped her hands. "We'll have a small party tomorrow night, just amongst ourselves, and we shall complete the poetry reading that we began."

"That means I shall have to find an appropriate poem."

Bea said. "I suppose I had better hie me to the library." She looked at Esme. "You didn't read a poem at our last such reading."

"I haven't such a pressing need as yourself," Esme said lightly.

"Humph," Arabella snorted. "That's one way of putting it."

Esme frowned at her.

"Well, you've got an eligible man visiting your chambers on the sly," Arabella said irrepressibly. "You might as well let him make an honest woman of you."

Bea's eyes grew round. "Which man?"

Arabella replied. "The marquess, naturally."

Helene laughed. "Oh Esme," she said, "you are truly Infamous Esme, are you not?"

"I most certainly am not," Esme said with dignity. But all her friends were laughing, so after a bit she gave in and laughed as well.

Chapter 38.

The Poetry Reading.

Mrs. Cable was rather scandalized to find that she was attending a poetry reading. But while inviting the Sewing Circle, Lady Rawlings had noted that she herself intended to read from the Bible, and Mrs. Cable had decided that encouragement of such a devout practice was a virtue. And if she was honest, she was finding the presence of the scandalous Marquess Bonnington rather enthralling. He was, well, wickedly attractive. Mrs. Cable secretly thought that she'd never seen anyone quite so mesmerizing: those dusky golden curls, and he had such a powerful body! Although she hardly put it to herself like that. In truth, Mrs. Cable had some difficulty dragging her eyes away.

There certainly was enough to see at this particular gathering. She was absolutely certain that Lady Beatrix, for example, had reddened her lips, if not worse. Naturally Lady Winifred was having the time of her life trundling around the room with her dear friend Arabella. It was quite a sorrow to see how susceptible Lady Winifred was to the lures of the fas.h.i.+onably impure. And Mr. Barret-Ducrorq was almost as bad. He seemed to be fascinated by Lady Withers, and Mrs. Barret-Ducrorq had had to call her husband to heel quite sharply. Mrs. Cable looked with satisfaction at her own husband. He was sitting next to her, nursing his brandy and looking stolidly bored. Mr. Cable had attended the reading only after bitter protest; he did not consider poetry to be palatable entertainment.

Lady Rawlings clapped her hands. "For those of you who have recently joined us, we have been entertaining ourselves in the evening by giving impromptu poetry readings. We shall have two readings this evening. First Lady Beatrix will read a piece from Shakespeare, and then I shall read a piece from the Bible."

Mrs. Cable felt cheered. She must have had an influence on the young widow. Shakespeare and the Bible: what could be more unexceptional than that? Lady Beatrix walked before the group and stood in front of the fireplace. She was wearing a dinner gown of moss silk, in a bright rose color. Of course, the bodice bared far more of her neck and bosom than Mrs. Cable considered acceptable. But Lady Beatrix looked nervous, which Mrs. Cable counted in her favor. A young lady entertaining a group of distinguished guests ought to be fairly shaking with fright.

And, indeed, had she but known, Bea was literally trembling. She kept sneaking glances at Stephen, but he hadn't even smiled at her. There was nothing in his demeanor to indicate that he had spent virtually the whole of last night in her bed. "I have chosen a dialogue," Bea told the a.s.sembled company, "from Romeo and Juliet."

"An excellent choice," Lady Bonnington commented. "I am very fond of Mr. Shakespeare's works. I don't hold with those who criticize him for frivolity."

"I suppose you need a man for your dialogue," Esme said. "Do choose a partner, Bea."

My goodness, but Esme's eyes had a wicked suggestiveness to them, Bea thought. It would serve her right if she chose Marquess Bonnington, if she stole Esme's supposedly unwanted suitor from under her nose. Naturally Esme was cus.h.i.+oned between the two most eligible men in the room. She had Stephen on her left and Marquess Bonnington on her right.

But Bea didn't chose Bonnington, of course. She turned to Stephen and gave him a melting smile. "Mr. Fairfax-Lacy, would you be so kind?"

His face gave nothing away. He came to his feet with easy grace and accepted the open book she handed him.

"We'll read from the balcony scene," she told him.

"Very good! Very good!" Lady Bonnington trumpeted. "I've always been fond of 'Wherefore art thou, Romeo'?" She turned to her son. "Do you remember when we saw Edmund Kean perform as Romeo last year, dear?"

Sebastian frowned at her. He had the feeling that something quite important was happening and-more important-it looked to be the kind of event that might derail Esme's patently artificial engagement to Fairfax-Lacy. Lady Beatrix seemed to be a handful, but the way Fairfax-Lacy was looking at her, he was ready to take on the task.

Meanwhile Stephen looked down at Bea and felt as if his heart would burst with pure exhilaration. She was wooing him, his own darling girl had decided to woo him. He glanced down at the book. " 'But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.' " His eyes told her silently the same things he read: She was his east, his sun, his life. But she hardly glanced at him, the silly girl, just kept looking at her book as if she might lose courage.

Bea gripped her book as if holding its pages would force her fingers to stop trembling. She was doing it: she was stealing him, taking him, ruining him..." 'Good night, good night!' " she said steadily, " 'As sweet repose and rest come to thy heart as that within my breast!' " She risked a look at him. The tender smile in his eyes was all she ever wanted in life. She took a deep breath and kept reading until there it was before her. She glanced at the group watching: met Esme's laughing eyes, and Helene's steady gray ones, Sebastian Bonnington's sardonic, sympathetic gaze, and Lady Bonnington's look of dawning understanding. Then she turned back to Stephen.

She had no need of the book, so she closed it and put it to the side. " 'If that thy bent of love be honorable,' " she said clearly, ' "thy purpose marriage, send me word tomorrow ...' "

But his voice joined hers as he held out his hands. " 'Where and what time thou wilt perform the rite, and all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay, and follow thee my lord throughout the world.' "

"I will," Stephen said, smiling at her in a way that broke her heart and mended it again, all in one moment. "I will, Bea, I will."

"You will?" she asked with a wobbly smile, clinging to his hands. "You will?"

"What's that? Part of the play?" Mr. Barret-Ducrorq said. "Quite the actor, isn't he?"

"I will marry you," Stephen said. His voice rang in the room.

Bea's knees trembled with the shock of it. The smile on her lips was in her heart. She'd wooed a man. His mouth was hungry, violent, possessive, and she nestled into him like the very picture of-of a wife.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Stephen said a moment later. He turned, his arm snug around Bea. "May I present the future Mrs. Fairfax-Lacy?"

Esme was laughing. Marquess Bonnington bellowed, "Good man!" Even Lady Bonnington gave a sedate little nod of her head, although she quickly turned to Esme. "You would appear to have lost your fiance," she observed. And then, "How fortuitous that your mother left this morning."

"Yes, isn't it lucky," Esme said, smiling at her.

Stephen pulled Bea away to sit next to him on the settee, where he could presumably whisper things in her ear not meant for public discussion. Esme straightened her shoulders. Her heart was hammering in her chest from nerves. "I shall read from the Bible," she said, picking up the book from the table and walking to the front of the room. It was Miles's Bible that she carried, the family Bible, into which she had written William's name. But she had the feeling that Miles approved, almost as if he were there in the room, with his blue eyes and sweet smile.

"It is a pleasure to see a young widow immerse herself in the Lord's words," Mrs. Cable said loudly. "I believe I have set an example in that respect."

"You're not a widow yet," her husband said sourly.

Sebastian was the picture of sardonic boredom. Obviously he thought that Esme was merely cultivating her Sewing Circle, quoting the Bible in the hopes of polis.h.i.+ng her reputation. Esme swallowed. He was looking down at his drink, and all she could see was the dark gold of his hair. "I shall read from the Song of Solomon," she said. Sebastian's head swung up sharply.

" 'The song of songs, which is Solomon's,' " she read, steadying her voice. " 'Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.' "

"Didn't she say that she was going to read from the Bible?" Mr. Barret-Ducrorq asked, in great confusion.

"Hus.h.!.+" Lady Bonnington said. She was sitting bolt upright, her stick clutched in her hands. Her eyes were s.h.i.+ning and-wonder of wonders-she was smiling.

Esme kept reading. " 'Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love.' "

Abruptly Sebastian stood up. Mrs. Cable was looking at him. Esme looked at him too, telling him the truth with every word she read. " 'My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.' "

He strode toward her, skirting his mother's chair, the settee, Mrs. Cable sitting in rigid horror.

" 'For lo, the winter is past,' " Esme said softly, only for him. " 'The rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth.' "

He was there before her, taking the book away, taking her hands in his large ones. She looked up at him.

" 'My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies.' "

His arms closed around her with hungry violence. A shudder ran through Esme's body as she lifted her mouth to his. How could she ever have thought that anything mattered more than Sebastian, her love, her deep center, her heart.

He tore his mouth from hers for a moment. "I love you," he said hoa.r.s.ely.

Joy raced through Esme's body, sang between them.

"And 'I am sick with love for you'" she said softly, repeating the beautiful old words of the ancient book.

Mrs. Cable's mouth snapped shut. She grabbed her husband by the arm and hauled him to his feet. "I am appalled!" she hissed. "Appalled!"

Lady Rawlings didn't heed her, crushed as she was into that degenerate marquess's arms. Mrs. Cable could see what had happened. She had lost the battle for the widow's soul, yes, and the devil had won. l.u.s.t and Lasciviousness ruled this house.

"We are leaving!"

She turned to go and found her way blocked by Marchioness Bonnington. "I pity you!" Mrs. Cable croaked, narrowing her eyes. "But perhaps your son is well matched by such a lightskirt."

"I daresay he is," the marchioness replied. There was something in her eyes that gave Mrs. Cable pause. "Surely you wish to give the happy couple your congratulations before you leave so precipitously?"

But Mrs. Cable had a backbone to match the marchioness's. "I do not," she said, fixing her beady eyes on Lady Bonnington. "And if you would inform your dissolute daughter-in-law that her services are no longer desired in the Sewing Circle, I would be most grateful."

The marchioness stepped back, something to Mr. Cable's relief. He was beginning to fear that his wife would actually pummel a peeress of the realm.

"I should be most happy to fulfill your request," Lady Bonnington said.

The smile that played around the marchioness's mouth so enraged Mrs. Cable that she didn't even realize for several hours that the rest of her Sewing Circle had not followed her from the room.

Alas, it was the demise of that excellent inst.i.tution.

A month or so later, Mrs. Cable began a Knitting Circle drawn from women in the village, priding herself on bringing the Lord's words to illiterate laborers. Without her leaders.h.i.+p, the Sewing Circle drifted into dissolute activities such as attending Lady Rawlings's wedding to the degenerate marquess. Society noted that Lady Rawlings's mother did not attend. But the smiling presence of Marchioness Bonnington, and the weight of her formidable power in the ton, established the marriage as the most fas.h.i.+onable event of the season.

Rather more quietly, Lady Beatrix Lennox married Mr. Fairfax-Lacy from her own house, with only her immediate family in attendance. It was rumored that her only attendants were her sisters, and that they wore daisy chains on their heads, which sounded odd indeed. The newly wed couple returned to London, and by the time that society really noticed what had happened, and with whom, the new Mrs.

Fairfax-Lacy proved to have such powerful friends that hardly more than a murmur was heard of her blackened reputation. Besides, the Tory party quickly realized that she showed considerable potential as a political wife.

Helene, Countess G.o.dwin, traveled to attend her friend the d.u.c.h.ess of Girton's confinement. Through the whole summer and fall she brooded on the child she was determined to have. By hook or by crook, with the help of her husband, or without him.

But that's a story for another day...

The First Epilogue.

Plump as a Porker.

Esme started awake, as always, with a bolt of fear.

Where was William? Was he all right? A second later she realized that what had woken her was a chuckle, a baby's chuckle. The curtains were open and early sunlight was streaming into the room. Sebastian was standing in front of the window, wearing only pantaloons. His shoulders were a ravis.h.i.+ng spread of muscles. And there, just peeking over his left shoulder, was a tiny curled fist, waving in the air.

A cascade of baby giggles erupted into the room.

Sebastian was dancing William up and down on his arm. The question of chilly drafts leaped into Esme's throat. She never let William go anywhere near a window. But then... it felt as if high summer had come. Sebastian spun around and William screamed with laughter. He was sitting on the crook of Sebastian's arm, and he wasn't even wearing a nappy.

Esme's heart skipped a beat. She never took all William's clothes off at once!

But the baby was clutching Sebastian's hair and squealing. Sebastian obligingly bounced him up into the air again. Esme found herself looking at a stunningly beautiful man, all muscles and smooth golden skin, and tumbling curls.

And then, suddenly, she looked at William. It was rather like looking sideways and suddenly catching sight of oneself in the mirror without recognizing who it is. Because the naked man in her bedchamber was holding one of the fattest, healthiest, happiest babies she'd ever seen.

That was William. Her sickly, fragile son?

Esme's mouth fell open.

Sebastian still didn't know she was watching. He was holding William in the air and laughing up at him. Pudgy little legs kicked with delight, "You love that, don't you, son," he said. And every time he jiggled William, the baby giggled and giggled. Until Sebastian nestled him back against his chest. It was when Sebastian was kissing William's curls that he caught sight of Esme's wide eyes.

He was clearly unsure of Esme's reaction to William's undressed state. "He loves it, Esme," he said quickly. "See?" And he tickled William's plump little tummy. Sure enough, William leaned back against his shoulder and giggled so hard that all his fat little bits shook with delight. And there were many parts jiggling.

"He is healthy, isn't he?" Esme said with awe.

"He's a porker," Sebastian said.

"Oh my goodness," Esme breathed. "I just-I didn't-"

Sebastian brought William over to the bed. "I promise you that he's not chilled, Esme. Not in the slightest. I never would have removed his clothes if I thought he might take a chill."

William lay on the coverlet kicking his legs and waving his arms, gleefully celebrating freedom from three layers of woolens.

"It's summer, Esme," Sebastian said gently. "Roses are blooming in the arbor. And I do believe some exercise will do him good." He rolled the baby over. William squealed with delight and then poked up his large head inquisitively. "He's gaining some control over his neck," Sebastian said, looking as pleased as if William had taken a top degree at Oxford University.

Esme opened her mouth-and stopped.

The sun was s.h.i.+ning down on the st.u.r.dy little baby's body, on his brown hair that was so like his father Miles's hair. Onto his unsteady head, blue eyes blinking up at Sebastian with precisely the sweetness that Miles had given to him.