An hour later, he pulled his coat on once more, along with hat and gloves, and pressed extra coins into the girl’s hands. She looked up at him in honest surprise. “Sometimes it’s worth it, just to talk a bit, right, love?” she said.
He gave her a nod, and left. Perhaps he was a little calmer in mind, although his body had done nothing more to the young woman than to look upon a face that was nothing like the one he’d married.
As he firmly closed the door behind him, he propped himself up against the flocked wall of the corridor, leaning his head back, his eyes unseeing for a moment. What a damn fool he was. Salad days jollies, it turned out, were different once a vow had been spoken, at least for him. He supposed, with a short bitter laugh, that meant he was ready to settle down.
Perhaps it was as well Jacqueline was waiting amongst all this craziness for him, never expecting the kind of payment this poor girl called for. Jacqueline wanted him…and that was an increasingly difficult siren’s call to dismiss.
He went down the hall and out to his carriage. He arrived at Gentleman Jim’s a short while later, and immediately requested a bath, in which he washed for a half hour without feeling one whit the cleaner for all the scrubbing he did.
***
That night in bed, Alessandra told him she wanted to work out a bathing arrangement. He was oddly silent, brooding almost, but finally he said, “Whatever Maggie and Winters work out will be fine.”
He rolled over, leaving his almost-wife to wonder in what new way she had offended him.
***
Geoffrey looked down at Alessandra as he pulled on his driving gloves, his coat already in place. He had returned to their room this morning once the maid had come forth, for that was the signal they had decided meant Alessandra was decent enough to receive him. Clearly, his bride feared him again finding her in naught but a chemise.
“I had thought that today we would go to the—”
“Oh, Geoffrey,” she interrupted him with an apologetic tone from where she sat before her looking-glass. “Did I not tell you? I have promised myself to Mama and Emmeline for the entire day. We are going shopping, and to the lending library, and to hear a discourse on summer blooming flowers. Should I tell them I may not go along? It would only—”
“No, no, of course you must go. I’m sure it would be a lovely day for you,” he said at once.
“But I should not care to go if you had plans—”
“Another day,” he said brusquely. “I merely thought we might visit London Tower, but any other day will suit as well.” He looked down at her uncertain little face, and though a sudden and inexplicably keen sense of having his plans go awry assaulted him, he managed a smile, and said, “Please make free today with the monies I have given you, Alessandra, lest I fear you think me a tightfisted ogre.”
A look of distress crossed her features then, and she flushed uncomfortably. “Th—thank you,” she stammered.
He backed away from her, his throat suddenly constricted in the strangest way. She was a sensitive creature, for all that she little complained or harped or pouted. He must remember to be the epitome of correctness and politeness whenever they spoke, to avoid upsetting her in these small matters.
It was with such lofty intentions that he mounted his horse, and drove that poor beast across London without a thought for its comfort nor a more proper pace.
***
“How kind of you to call on us,” Lady Bremcott said. Her husband had been a baron, and their family and title name were the same. She gave her usual accompanying sniff. Geoffrey never knew if that signified approval or not.
“It is my pleasure. Lady Huntingsley is shopping with her mother and her sister today, so I thought it might be pleasant to come calling.” Even as he gave his explanation for the unanticipated visit, a picture of Alessandra’s face looking up at him so hesitantly as she offered to cancel her plans for his sake, caused a stab of unreasonable vexation. In turn it caused him to quickly push aside the feeling and try to focus on the conversation at hand.
“Oh, it is so charming that you’ve come,” Jacqueline chimed in from where she sat beside her mother, her face wreathed in smiles as she handed him a cup of tea.
“I believe the summer weather is beginning to come along,” Lady Bremcott said.
“It has been more pleasant during the day, but the nights can still be cool,” Geoffrey said, inadvertently thinking of that freezing monstrosity of a room where he spent his nights.
“Last Sunday’s service was pleasant, don’t you think? All those summer flowers.”
Geoffrey had to think a moment to recall any flowers inside the church. “Oh, yes, very nice.” He nearly yawned, but caught himself before the tactless act could be committed.
The widowed Lady Bremcott came to her feet, causing Geoffrey to rise as well. “In fact, it is such a pleasant day that I would like to suggest we remove to the gardens,” she said.
“Delightful,” Geoffrey said, though privately he thought it a bit breezy to be sitting out of doors. Nevertheless, he had decided to come here, so it was his duty to be obliging. It was not the ladies’ fault that he had just as suddenly changed his mind and wished he hadn’t come.
They sat on the terrace for a while—truly, for a town house, the gardens were quite fine—until a servant came to tell Lady Bremcott she had another visitor. She reached to accept the calling card the butler ought to have in hand.
“The lady said she was out of cards, my lady. She bid me ask you to indulge an old acquaintance,” the butler said with a well-trained servant’s careful lack of intonation in his voice.
“Why don’t you two children take a stroll while I see who has come to call?” she suggested, rising from her whitewashed garden chair.
Geoffrey, with an internal shrug, offered an arm to Jacqueline, who said, “I must show you Mama’s prize-winning peonies.” She led the way, at a very leisurely pace, down the steps and into the paved gardens, chattering brightly and smiling often.
It was not until he had started to relax and enjoy her ambling conversation a little, that he realized he had been rather glad of Lady Bremcott’s presence, wanting rather to avoid any more of those too-private, too-knowing conversations with Jacqueline. But now she was being her old self, quite charming, sparkling even, no hint of persuasion in her tone, except perhaps for the tinkling laugh that invited him to enjoy the latest bon mot. He started to come away from his own thoughts and begin to respond to her banter, letting her entertain him as she guided him several times around the garden paths.
***
Inside the house, the butler intoned, “Lady Chenmarth.” Having done his duty, he stepped aside from the parlor door to let the lady enter.
“Lady Chenmarth, what brings you to this end of town?” Lady Bremcott greeted her in a welcoming, if not exactly friendly, manner.
“Did I see my son’s chaise out front?” was Lady Chenmarth’s reply as she glided into the room, pulling off her gloves.
“You did. He is strolling the gardens as we speak, with Jacqueline, of course.”
“They are why I came here.” Lady Chenmarth’s expression did not change, except for her eyes, which narrowed. “I was wondering if any apologies needed to be made.”
“Am I to presume you are referring to the fact Lord Huntingsley married that Hamilton girl?” Lady Bremcott asked archly.
Lady Chenmarth nodded.
“My daughter explained why that had to be.”
Lady Chenmarth sat down, uninvited, slapping her gloves against her hand. “You seem to have accepted the change well. I am glad. Geoffrey was not unaware that he’d done your daughter a disservice. I came to see if there was bad blood between our families now.”
“Not at all,” Lady Bremcott said, her face a little pinched and belying her words.
Although Lady Chenmarth had just sat down, now she stood and crossed to the open doors leading out to the terrace. Even from her seat Lady Bremcott could see where Lord Huntingsley stood. She also saw he and Jacqueline were engaged in a kiss.
Lady Chenmarth stopped short as she noted this as well, but she said nothing, only slapping her gloves into her palm once again.
“Would you take tea?” Lady Bremcott offered.
“Thank you, no.” Lady Chenmarth considered a moment, then gave a flash of a smile. “Well then, I am pleased I came and that all is well between us,” she said, slipping her gloves back on, and leaving as unceremoniously as she had arrived.
Lady Bremcott moved out into the garden to find the young couple strolling again. Was it peculiar that Jacqueline did not hold Lord Huntingsley’s arm? Or was this belated discretion on their parts?
“Lady Bremcott, I must be going now, but I wanted to thank you for the tea and the company,” Huntingsley said, moving to her side at once as soon as he saw her.
“My pleasure, I’m sure,” she replied. A glance at Jacqueline’s becalmed face told her nothing.
The ladies saw him to the door, waited long enough to be sure he would not return unexpectedly, and then Lady Bremcott spun to her daughter to speak in an accusing whisper. “Huntingsley’s mother saw you kissing!”
“Lady Chenmarth was here?”
“She was, until she saw that kiss. I am only astounded she did not declare our acquaintance once and forever at an end.”
Jacqueline did not seem overly perturbed, although there was a tiny frown on her perfect brow. “Did she see him push me away?”
“I… What? He pushed you?”
“Oh, he kissed me back for a moment, but then I think he lost his nerve, silly man.”
Lady Bremcott’s mouth worked for a long moment. “Jacqueline! You are getting married in less than a week. And Lord Huntingsley couldn’t have you even if you called off the wedding. He is himself already married!”
“I know, Mama. No wedding is being canceled. It is…was but a dalliance of the moment. Do not concern yourself,” Jacqueline said. “Do not forget the modiste is coming for a final fitting of my wedding gown tomorrow.” She leaned in to peck her mother on the cheek, then calmly walked up the stairs to change for supper. Lady Bremcott, however, sank back in her seat, more alarmed than comforted by her daughter’s assurances.
“I don’t feel like cribbage tonight,” Geoffrey said as he looked to find Alessandra had entered the Sapphire Room. He was obviously surprised she’d walked in on him. Why wouldn’t he be, since she’d avoided any time in this room with him when one or the other of them wasn’t sleeping. He had turned in his chair at the desk in their room, implements in his hands, which had gone still in surprise at her entrance.
“Nor I,” Alessandra said. She saw she surprised him further by not seeking a wrap or brush, but instead curling up in one of the chairs in front of the fire.
Geoffrey remained frozen in place for a long moment. She watched him consider what to do next, his hands filled with glue pot and brush. “I’ve been working on this model. Is it well with you if I quickly finish what I was doing?”
“Oh, do not mind me,” she said, but she knew she wanted him to mind her. Why else had she come here? Why else had she forced herself to stop acting a hurt ninny? You could ask him for a divorce, and he has said he will give it to you. Or, she told herself for the sixth time today, you can get on with what you really want, the reality you’ve been trying to deny to yourself… Only, how did one go about seduction? It seemed, suddenly, a much more difficult thing than mere flirtation.
Maybe…start with flirtation?
“I’ll just read for awhile then,” she said, crossing to the table on her side of the bed and randomly choosing one of the books piled there. She tried to walk slowly, in a hip-twisting way she’d noticed other women did sometimes. She kept a gentle smile on her face, and one eye on Geoffrey in case he should glance her way. It felt as if her heart started and stopped repeatedly, an echo perhaps of the way her thoughts swung between deciding to do this, and longing to stop playing a fool and flee.
She settled in the chair, and reflected it had been a good day, very enjoyable. So much so, in fact, the memories had goaded her into this attempt to break the impasse between them. Geoffrey had taken her to see an experimental museum—the scientific exhibits moved from town to town on gypsy-style wagons—and they had taken lunch at a fashionable inn, complete with ices at the end. Then he had taken her for a stroll through the park, this time at the fashionable hour. There had been several acquaintances there who claimed to be sorely disappointed they’d not repeated the lovely picnic idea. She’d laughed and promised to do so another time—forgetting there might not be “another time.” She had relished being out and about, enjoying the outing almost as much as the one to St. Paul’s, and the prior one at Green Park, that breezy, breathtaking day when he had tied her hat on for her… The fresh air today, the pleasant company had left her feeling a pleased glow. One that had grown and spread, and led her feet up the stairs to where she knew he had retreated.
Reading was pointless; she made no sense of the words. Soon she abandoned the book and reached for an unlighted lamp as an excuse.
“May I have a light?” she asked, setting the lamp down on the desk where he worked.
He put down a brush, reached for a rush, and stuck it down the chimney of one of his lamps until it guttered into flame. He pulled it out and lowered it to the wick in her lamp, which sparked into life.
“Thank you.” She moved the lamp to one side, closer to his work.
“You’re welcome.”
“I see you are working on a model of a ship.”
“Yes, and do you see this?” he said, leaning back and reaching for a glass bottle, which he held up for her inspection.
“A ship in a bottle? I remember Uncle Malcolm always tinkered on such projects. He must have shown you how to do it.”
“After a certain someone tattled on me when I destroyed his.”
She laughed, not at all chastised. She moved to the empty quarter of the desk, leaning down on her forearms, her hands clasped together. She knew what this did to the bodice of her gown. “You’ll have to pardon me for that, as I was only five. Five-year-olds generally are tattlers, you know. But, however does one get the ship in the bottle?”
“You see these masts? They can be collapsed, if you are very steady of hand, and very clever—as am I, of course.” One side of his mouth quirked up. “You slide the collapsed model into the bottle with a string attached, settle it, then pull the masts aright.”
“Have you ever spoiled one?” she asked, peering down at the tiny replication of a full-masted frigate nearing completion, amused by his self-given compliments.
“Not when it came to the sliding and setting of the sails aright, but I do have a terrible time carving things the way I wish them. Only see this porthole on this one side, it’s not even with the rest. I thought I had it, but it’s not quite right, is it?” He pointed to the starboard porthole nearest the stern.
“Oh, but I don’t know...it appears to me that you followed the line of the ship. Isn’t that how it ought to be?”
He stared at it and grunted, and turned to the picture in the book spread out on his desk, comparing back and forth. “Hard to say. Perhaps another book? I must search your father’s library.” She nodded, and reluctantly stood upright. He hadn’t glanced once at her décolletage.
It was the work of a moment to pull over her chair from before the fire, and settle in it. She held up a small, sharp object. “What is this?”
“Carving tool. Tiny, for this very kind of work, you see. Careful, it’s sharp.”
“I see what you say about the masts. They are so perfect, but so thin. I would think one slip of the knife, and that would be the end of your mast.”
He leaned back, his cupped hand sweeping a pile of broken, shredded sticks to where she could see them on the desk.
She laughed, and he joined her as he capped the bottle of glue and wiped clean his brush. Only then did he fully look at her, his gaze considering. “Do you know, you could be of some help to me,” he said.
“Could I? How? I should love to be of help,” she said eagerly.
“I’ve no one to model my figurehead after.” He tapped a finger on the open book. “The illustration on this ship is a far sight from what I would choose for mine. Would you pose for it?” His finger moved to point to the place it would need to be on the bow of the tiny ship.
Her eyes widened. “To be immortalized in wood? I should say I would like to do it,” she said. She ought not to be so thrilled, she knew. The offer was merely a small sign he did not utterly begrudge her presence—but it was a sign.
“Is now too soon?”
“No, not at all. How is this?” she asked, standing to strike a pose, chin forward, one foot behind her for balance.
“Hmm. No, it needs to be more exaggerated.” He stood, towering over her as he reached to tilt her chin up further, his other hand pressing on the small of her back.
A shock ran through her at his touch, so that she almost pulled away. No, stay put! Stop being missish. She flicked him a glance from the corner of her eyes as he gently lifted her chin a little farther.
“You should look as though you are scanning both the horizon and the heavens at once, seeking to avoid any dangers for your gallant crew. Your arms down and pressed back, as though cradling the bow,” he said. He pressed with the flat of his hand, forcing her back to become more sloped, her breasts thrust forward in the classic design of the figurehead. “Yes, very nice.”
Was it her imagination, or did his hands linger longer than they needed to? No, she wasn’t being foolish, there was something there. He made her very aware that he stood near, that his mouth was not very far from her own. Although she did not have an experienced woman’s insight, her heart began to skitter around her ribcage.
He started to bend down to her, one hand on the desk as he leaned in, she was sure he was leaning his mouth toward hers… But suddenly he jerked and gave a small cry. They both looked down, seeing where he’d leaned atop one of his carving tools, which had sliced deep into his middle finger. He lifted his hand as though puzzled by the welling blood he saw there.
“Oh no!” she cried, pose forgotten as she snatched up one of his work rags to press into his other hand. She watched him wrap the finger tightly. “We have the makings for a plaster, shall I fetch them?”
“That would be well,” he admitted.
She left, taking up her lamp, hurrying downstairs to the antechamber that led the way out to the separate laundry building making up part of the mews. Maggie had a basket for this very purpose, making it short work for Alessandra to grab. Taking up a pair of scissors and Mama’s own specially prepared ointment, she was back upstairs in but a few minutes.
It was short work to coat the cut with ointment and to shape a plaster around his finger.
“Sorry,” he said, looking sheepish. “No carving for me tonight, eh?” he added, laughing briefly.
“I should say not.”
“Will you pose for me later? In a few days, when this cut is healed?”
“Of course,” she said, not quite looking at him.
A knock came on the door.
“Come in,” they called together, stepping apart.
Emmeline opened the door just enough to put her head in. “Maggie said she saw you go past with Mama’s medicine basket?” Her eyes quickly found the wrapped finger on Geoffrey’s lifted hand.
“A mere cut,” he assured her. “Well tended to.” He cast Alessandra a quick smile.
Emmeline’s head quirked, but then she nodded. “Just so all is well.” So saying, she withdrew and closed the door.
If there had been any ease between Geoffrey and Alessandra, it had faded. A moment of silence hung heavy between them, until he broke it by turning to retrieve his carving implements, He set them in their places in the case for them. He closed the wooden lid, then looked up at Alessandra where she still stood. She eyed his hand to see if he was going to bleed through the plaster, but there was no stain.
He cleared his throat. “I think I'll go to the library, to see if Lord Warring has any other pictures of frigates to be found there.”
“Very well. I am going to read in bed for a while,” she said, then blushed a little, thinking that sounded suggestive, as though she meant to wait up for him. She had not meant it to sound that way…but perhaps it was a happy accident…
“I may be gone some time.”
“Oh. I’ll leave a lamp burning for you.”
“Thank you,” he said. They stood unmoving another long moment, but then he moved away.
“You’re welcome,” she called after him. “I’ll say good night then.”
“Good night.”
Once he’d gone, she dressed in her nightclothes slowly, not in her usual dash about, concerned-he’ll-come-back style. Truth, she admitted to herself, was that she was disappointed. For a moment there she’d been sure they were going to kiss.
Dash that carving tool, she thought. Then she decided the oath was not adequate to express her aggravation, so she daringly allowed herself to think And damn Emmeline for coming along just at the wrong moment.
With furrowed brow, Alessandra crawled into bed, already feeling guilty for abusing her sister’s undoubtedly well-intentioned nature.
She’d taken up a different book, but it ended up neglected, too, as she reconsidered Emmeline and Mama’s so different recitals of men’s expectations, their appetites. This would have been just a kiss, yet didn’t kisses lead to...that other? Despite little having happened, had she and Geoffrey taken a step forward just now? Or had things just gotten more discomfited? Had he wanted to kiss her? It was hard to convince herself he hadn’t…but what did that mean?
Her thoughts tumbled on and on, the book lying forgotten where it lay across her chest as she stared restlessly out from the emptiness of the bed into the darkness of the silent night.
***
When he came up to bed, his candle guttering in its stick as he slid quietly across the marbled floor, he saw the lamp on his side of the bed was flickering and about to die out, and that Alessandra’s already had. Her book rested face down across her nightrail-covered breasts, and her long plait of dark hair had escaped to fall over the edge of the bed. Her sleeping face, already so young in appearance, was even more so in repose.
He watched the book rise and fall as she breathed, and reached to carefully remove it, setting it aside on the bedside table. He bent to lift her long plait, caressing its silky texture for a moment before he settled it on the bed along the lay of her arm above the covers. That her arm, clothed in spun cotton, was outside the covers and her head uncovered by its usual cap was an indication the nights were finally holding onto the July heat of day.
He reached to rub his tired eyes, then bent and blew out the candle he had set on her table. He crossed to his side of the bed, and blew out that lamp as well. The moon was bright, poised in the single arc of window glass above the other curtained windows.
The moonlight did nothing to make her look less delicious, less desirable.
Ought he wake her up? Ought he lie beside her, and just start kissing her? On her mouth, her shoulder, wherever his mouth could press? Had she leaned into him tonight? Certainly she had sought his company…
She rolled over and gave a gentle snore.
Despite the clear sign he’d be disturbing her, it took a moment for chivalry to override yearning.