A Lady Awakened (6 page)

God. His chest heaved. That had been some work, after all. He rolled off and sank down on the other side of the bed, bringing his breathing back to normal. A month of this. Devil take it. How did he get himself into these things?

“Was that … typical?” came a voice from beside him. “As to duration?”

“Typical?” He raised his head from the pillow to peer down at her.

“It was not, perhaps … briefer than usual?” Her forehead showed slight furrows. She studied the bed’s draperies again.

“As I recall, you were eager to get the seed and be done with it.” His head dropped back to the pillow. “If you want a marathon, ask for a marathon.” Ha. Not likely, that.

“No, I have no complaints. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised.”

Well, that makes one of us
. He wouldn’t say it out loud. He sat up and grasped for his pillow. “Here. You’ll want to lie on this.” Her face softened with uncertainty as he slipped his hand under the small of her back.

“Oh.” She settled her hips on the pillow. “I see.”

He leaned back on his elbows. How long was one obliged to linger, in this sort of arrangement? He didn’t like to be rude. Perhaps he ought to have given this whole thing a bit more thought.

With nothing particular to say to the woman at his side, he looked about him. Pink paper in this room too. It was a smallish bright room, white draperies pulled back from the bay window and pale pink paper on every wall, with a pattern of darker pink flowers. Foxglove, they looked like. Poison. Digitalis. Odd thing to allow into one’s bedroom.

“I was married ten months,” the widow said, unbidden, “and I never conceived a child.”

“None that was lost early, even?” He turned back to inspect her afresh.

She shook her head, lips pursed and eyes still on the draperies above.

This was not at all propitious. “Did you and your husband have regular relations?”

Her face snapped into the already-familiar lines of disapproval as she angled it toward him. “You cannot really be expecting me to speak of that.”

“I assure you I’ve no interest in a narrative account. I’d only like to know I haven’t been set on a fool’s errand. I presume you must have some grounds to believe the problem lay with him and not with you.”

“He had a wife before me, and she never gave him any children in ten years. I think the problem must have been his. Don’t you think so?” Under her words, in the keenness of her gaze, he sensed the slightest shadow of urgency. She wanted reassurance, and she had no one from whom to get it but him.

“Yes.” God, but a woman’s need always made him go soft at the core. “I certainly should have drawn that same conclusion in your place.” He sat up to reach for the sheet, rumpled down at the foot of the bed, and pulled it up to cover her.

“Do you know very much about it?” Her eyes left his face to watch him tucking the sheet the way she’d done, nearly to her chin. “About getting children?”

“Not especially. As I said, my efforts have always tended rather in the other direction.”

“You knew about lying on a pillow, though. That’s more than I knew.” She shifted under her cover, settling herself more comfortably and looking skyward again.

“Well, one hears of things that may make a difference.” Idly he smoothed the sheet over her body. “Time of day. Phase of the moon. Whether or not the woman attains release.”

“That last is not true.” She spoke straight ahead of her, as though to convince the canopy. “I really don’t see how it could be true.”

Already he knew better than to argue. “Things you eat and drink might make a difference,” he said instead. “Parsley, nettles. Other things. You’d probably do better to ask a woman.” He stroked away the sheet’s last rumple, over her thigh, and sat up again. “But I shouldn’t worry if I were you.” His clothes lay in a haphazard pile on the carpet; he’d been in a hurry, he now recalled, to get into bed and begin. “You’re young and apparently in sound health, and you have me for a partner. You’ll breed without trouble.” Those were the words she’d want to hear. “Now shall I call tomorrow at this same time?” He stood.

“If that is convenient for you.” Her eyes traveled over his body and her forehead etched itself with two or three severe lines.

“What? Do you see something amiss?”

“No, I only …” She raised her eyes, sober and intent, to his face. “I may assume, may I not, that you would never have agreed to this if you harbored any sort of dissolute disease?”

Thus were his kindly impulses repaid. “I told you I’ve been careful.” He bent to retrieve his shirt, and pulled it on over his head. “I’ve confined myself to reputable courtesans and decent adulterous wives.” He picked up his pantaloons; they snapped angrily as he shook them out. “And for the love of reason, next time ask that question
before
you let a stranger debauch you.”

“I wouldn’t say you debauched me, exactly,” was all she had to murmur in reply. Theo could not have argued if his life, her life, and every life in the British Empire depended on it.

Chapter Three

D
ID
S
ETON
Park really employ all these women? Some of them, Martha had no recollection of ever seeing in ten months. Yet here they were, seated in concentric ranks round the dining-room table, faces turned expectantly to her.

“Thank you all for coming.” Her voice sounded high; insubstantial. One wished for an authoritative contralto of the sort Miss York had always deployed so effectively in the schoolroom. “I’m sure you will be wondering what changes await you in the wake of our recent sad loss.” Several of the older women nodded. Several of the younger ones looked a bit stunned at being addressed by the lady of the house.

To call such a meeting was irregular, certainly. But
irregular
rang quaintly in the ear, she found, once one took the step of hiring a libidinous wastrel to perform in one’s bed.

“You will have heard rumors, I don’t doubt, and perhaps none of what I say this morning will come as news to you. I say it, though, to make clear where my allegiance lies. To have certain things open between us.” She paused to take a sip of tea. Or not tea, exactly, but a concoction of nettles Sheridan had been so kind as to brew for her. The maid sat one row out from the table now, and gave a small encouraging smile as Martha’s eyes landed on her.

Decidedly she needed all the encouragement she could get. “Here are the facts,” she said, and, over the rabbit-like racing of her own heart, managed an account of the will and the hope for an heir—a legitimate heir, of course, as the unseemly truth was better kept secret—and the consequences if that hope failed. The bit about Mr. James Russell was news to no one. Mrs. Kearney, the housekeeper, had obviously made his infamy known.

“This was years ago, mind, and I have no evidence he continues so corrupt.” Her pulse beat strongly still, but steadily. More like a running horse than a bolting rabbit. “If he has reformed, then perhaps I wrong him.” She set down her tea and spread her fingers on the white damask tablecloth, leaning forward. “So be it. I will take that risk, before I will risk the safety of any of you by leaving you ignorant of the facts. So I tell you.” She looked from face to face to face. “Because if I were one of you, I would want to be told.”

What an odd sensation: like the little fountain of sparks that went up when a stick broke in the grate. Something—who could say what?—seemed to have broken in the middle of her, and those sparks went charging all through her blood, warming her limbs and bringing color to her face. “What to do hereafter is your choice.” The words came now as though she’d waited all her life to say them. “If you wish to seek a new situation at once, I’ll give you a character and whatever other help I can. If you’d rather wait until the question of an heir comes to some resolution, I’ll inform you as soon as I know any more of that matter. You have my promise, in either case, that I’ll do everything in my power to prevent your falling victim to such a man.”

If only
everything in my power
could have taken some grander shape! If she could face down Mr. James Russell with a sword in her hand and an army at her back, for instance. Or lead every last one of these women to safety through smoke and flames. She ventured a smile round their ranks—they were all watching her as though she were some wild-eyed stranger come to impersonate the mistress—and reached for her nettle brew again.

She would do what she must. Lie still and bear the breaching of her body by a stranger, and then hope the stranger’s seed bore fruit. Sacrifice came in different shapes, for a woman, and if it brought about the proper result, that would have to be grandeur enough.

I
’VE ARRANGED
all the books that will be of most value to you in this row.” What a pathetic place the library looked, with no family in residence to fill its shelves with novels and leave periodicals lying about. Mr. Granville’s collection took up only two shelves and a half, and doubtless each work was duller than the last.

“I like the ceiling.” Theo threw his head back to study it, hands in his pockets and feet planted apart. “Barrel-vaulting. You don’t see that often. Gives the place a sort of Roman look, wouldn’t you say?” The built-in bookshelves all arched at the top, echoing the ceiling’s curve, and what furniture there was had clean, classical lines. He could approve of this room, if it were given a little life and perhaps a mosaic-patterned carpet.

“Roman, quite.” Granville was brandishing something at him; he could see it from the corner of his eye. “Here’s a work I think will make a good general introduction, and from there you might progress to any of these others.”

He took the pamphlet and cast an eye on its cover.
The Utility of Agricultural Knowledge to the Sons of the
Landed Proprietors of England, and to Young Men intended for Estate-Agents; illustrated by what has taken place in Scotland. With an Account of an Institution formed for Agricultural Pupils in Oxfordshire. By a Scotch Farmer and Land-Agent, resident in that County
. God help him now.

“That’s neatly tailored to the occasion, isn’t it?” He sank into the nearest armchair and flipped a few leaves. Page of oppressive text succeeded page of oppressive text.

“My thoughts exactly.” The man beamed as though he’d written the accursed thing himself. “Now, will I disturb you if I stay here and do a bit of work?” He gestured unintelligibly. “I’d like to finish this map of the parcels available for enclosure, and I’m afraid the gatehouse hasn’t any surface suitable for such drawing.”

“By all means, stay and work.” Parcels? What parcels? Had he dozed through some discussion of that? And would Granville expect him to make a petition for enclosure? Splendid. Another opportunity to display his ignorance. He bent his head over the book and watched sidelong as the agent settled himself before a slanted table on which lay a great sheet of paper all marked in pencil. Drawing maps looked a good deal more interesting than the
Utility of Agricultural Knowledge
. But then, what didn’t?

“I called on the widow yesterday,” he said after several pages turned.

“Mrs. Russell?” Granville glanced up. “And how is she?—I haven’t seen her since the unhappy event myself. I expect her spirits must be low.”

“I think so.” He had yet to see her smile, now he thought of it. He wouldn’t count that sham quirk of the lips by which she’d lured him into discussion of Brighton. “But I don’t suppose I’m the best suited to judge, just meeting her. She strikes me as being of a sober temperament altogether.”

“To be sure.” The other man held up several pens, examining their points in the light. “A good, serious-minded woman. Not so interested in the lighter things as some women are.”

“I received that impression as well.” He turned another page, its papery whisper a punctuation to his thoughts, though he’d read none of it.

“She had business to discuss, then?” The best pen selected, Granville set the others aside and uncapped a bottle of ink.

“Yes, she had a number of things to say.”
Was that typical
?
As to duration
? “Concerning land, and land management, and so forth.”