Enchanting Pleasures (12 page)

“That is absurd,” Gabby replied sharply. “If she were poor, she wouldn’t be so elegant.”

“Her gown may have been elegantly fashioned, but it was made of plain cambric,” Quill observed. “Her shoes had been overdyed, and she was exhausted. I think it’s quite likely that Mrs. Ewing is engaging in some sort of work. It reflects badly on the Thorpe family that she is so pressed. Perhaps they are estranged.”

“Oh, dear.” Gabby swallowed hard.

Then she felt a soft touch on her cheek. “Nothing you can do about it, Gabby,” Quill said. His large hand tipped up her chin and he brushed his fingers over her lips.

Gabby looked up at him without moving.

It was irresistible: her drifting jasmine perfume, her speaking eyes. Quill bent his head and their lips met. She tasted faintly like blackberry jelly. But that pedestrian flavor had nothing to do with the fire that raced up his loins when Gabby’s tongue met his—shyly, sweetly, something less than innocently.

Quill’s frail self-control crumbled, and a large hand stroked the middle of Gabby’s back, a delicious persuasion that made her press closer.

“Well, well,” a strident voice sounded in the room. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, Gabrielle. Leave a man alone for a moment and he is overcome by lust.”

Gabby sprang back so fast that she almost overbalanced. “Forgive me, Lady Sylvia,” she gasped.

“For what?” Lady Sylvia strolled into the room to the sounds of yips and yaps. “I’m not the one being kissed. The Dewlands always were a lusty lot,” she added meditatively. “Now, if I think back to the details of Kitty’s first season …”

Quill shuddered. The last thing he wanted to hear about was his parents’ youthful indiscretions. “I can assure you, Lady Sylvia, that my reprehensible behavior will not recur.”

Lady Sylvia waved her hand imperiously. “Go on, why don’t you? Go do something intelligent, Erskine. I’m sure that I ought to deliver a lecture on propriety now, and I don’t need you around to hear it.”

Quill frowned.

“Leave,” Lady Sylvia growled.

“Lady Sylvia, Miss Jerningham.” He bowed and left the room.

“Prickly, isn’t he?” Lady Sylvia wandered over to the tiger table. “Good gracious, this table is a monstrosity. I can see that Kitty’s taste has gone from being somewhat indiscriminate to appalling.

“It’s none of my business, of course,” she went on, blithely ignoring her role as chaperone, “but you’re kissing the wrong one, aren’t you, gel?”

Gabby nodded, hot crimson in her cheeks.

“Do you want to marry Erskine, then? Mind you, it’s a better match, on the surface at least.”

“Oh, no,” Gabby exclaimed. “I’m very pleased to be marrying Peter, Lady Sylvia.”

“Then mind yourself, gel. No point in kissing a man you don’t want to marry. At least, not until you
are
married! And there’s my lecture for you.” Lady Sylvia gave her characteristic bark of laughter and strolled toward the door. “You have a caller, gel. Codswallop tells me that he’s put Lady Sophie, Duchess of Gisle, into the Yellow Drawing Room.” Her voice was a question.

“I met the duchess yesterday, in Madame Carême’s establishment,” Gabby said. She had her palms pressed against her hot cheeks.

“Well, stop looking so much like a guilty housemaid and let’s go meet the woman,” Lady Sylvia said. “I don’t know her myself, but I’ve admired her style. Now, there’s one that never minded a few kisses!”

Q
UILL STALKED INTO HIS CHAMBER
, conscious of a shaming sense of embarrassment. What was it about Gabrielle Jerningham that led him to behave like such an utter ass? Kissing his brother’s fiancée! You’d think he was jealous. Whereas in truth, he told himself, he felt relief rather than jealousy.

He pulled off his clothes and moved toward his dressing room, clad only in smalls. He’d had the room stripped to the walls a few years ago, and now it housed only Dr. Trankelstein’s equipment. With an irritated jerk, Quill grabbed one of the German doctor’s oddly shaped dumbbells and began raising it in the air. After a while he slowed into a comforting and familiar rhythm.

By an hour later, his skin glowed and his right leg was aching from exertion. Quill cast a look of dislike at the machine in the corner. It was a horselike contraption, also designed by Dr. Trankelstein. But whereas Quill quite enjoyed working with Trankelstein’s dumbbells, he loathed the time he spent on the chamber horse. The doctor’s idea that its rocking motion would inure Quill to the motion of a true horse had borne little fruit. But Quill’s punctilious nature would not allow him to ignore the machine completely.

With a sigh, he rubbed his hands with a towel and climbed onto the horse. No two ways about it: He felt like a child riding a toy. Large leg muscles bunched on his thighs as Quill forced the horse into a rocking clip that sent searing pain through his hip and then gave him a queasy feeling in his stomach. He’d found by painful trial and error that he could go no longer than five minutes on the horse without inducing a migraine.

Today he endured his five minutes with gritted teeth, stopping the moment he saw faint purple flashes at the corner of one eye. It wasn’t a day for experimentation, not while he was acting as Gabby’s host.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
Phoebe arrived on the doorstep at precisely the same moment as Lucien Boch. Gabby hurried into the drawing room to find them seated together as Lady Sylvia lazily watched from a nearby armchair.

“My new mama,” Phoebe was saying, “is a very important person. She decides what everyone in London wears.”

Lucien rose as Gabby entered the room. “I trust you are well, Miss Jerningham? You see that I have had the pleasure of renewing my acquaintance with Miss Phoebe.”

Gabby quickly bobbed a curtsy at the handsome Frenchman. “It’s splendid to meet you again, sir.” Then she turned to Phoebe. “How are you, dearest?”

“I am very well, thank you,” Phoebe replied, in her most grown-up fashion. Then she threw formality to the wind. “My new mama is very, very important! And Aunt Louise owns a teapot that might have a genie in it, and she swears—a lot! She said, ‘Zooks,’ and my mama told her that she had to hold her tongue in front of me. And then Aunt Louise said, ‘Zooks to that!’ And Mama got really mad.”

Gabby laughed. “Aren’t you a lucky girl?”

Phoebe nodded. She seemed to be shedding the unnatural formality her ayah had fostered. “Mama lowered my hem, you see?” She stuck out her little boot.

“Your mama lowered the hem by herself?”

“Oh, yes,” Phoebe said. “Our house isn’t full of servants, as yours is, Miss Gabby. There’s only Cook, and Sally, who does the cleaning, and Sherman. Sherman helps with the door, but he’s very, very old and often sleeps during the day. Mama says it’s more cozy with no strangers about, but we must all do our part, and this morning I carried my own dish into the kitchen after breakfast.” She paused to take a breath.

Lucien was listening with a great deal of amusement. “Mrs. Ewing sounds like a most intrepid woman,” he said. He twinkled at Gabby. “I only wonder how she became so very, very important—and how she determines what everyone in London wears!”

“She writes it down,” Phoebe said. “Mama writes and writes, and then people read what she wrote, and they daren’t wear anything that Mama didn’t say they might. She knows all about clothing,” she added. “I told her about the pin tucks, and she thought my new dress sounded lovely.”

Gabby looked a puzzled question over Phoebe’s head.

“Perhaps Mrs. Ewing writes for a fashion magazine,” Lady Sylvia put in. “There are several, you know. The most influential one is
La Belle Assemblée.”

“Mama’s writing is read by everyone in London,” Phoebe reported. “She tells them how they should behave, as well as what they should wear.”

“Quite likely
La Belle Assemblée,”
Lady Sylvia commented. “Does yer mother attend many social events?”

“I don’t think she does,” Phoebe replied.

Just then Codswallop pushed open the parlor doors. “Miss Jerningham, you have a caller. Colonel Warren Hastings, English Secretary to the Governor-General of India.” Codswallop’s voice almost shook with excitement. “I have ushered him into the library.”

“Oh, fudge,” Gabby said, somewhat to Lucien’s surprise. “Codswallop, is Mr. Dewland in?”

“I regret to say that Mr. Dewland is not at home.”

“You could put this Hastings off,” Lady Sylvia drawled. “No reason why you should see an army fellow without the head of the household present.”

Quill hadn’t come to breakfast, even though Gabby had lingered. She sighed. “Mr. Boch, I do apologize, but I suspect that I should not keep Colonel Hastings waiting.”

But Lucien was already standing. “Please do not give it a second thought. I have several calls to make this morning. But I wonder if I might have the pleasure of accompanying Miss Phoebe to her house?”

“Would you? That would be absolutely splendid,” Gabby exclaimed.

Lucien gave his twinkling, intimate smile. “I admit…I am curious about the important Mrs. Ewing and shall look forward to meeting her.”

Lady Sylvia looked at Phoebe, who had skipped over to say good-bye to her favorite tiger table. “No mystery there,” she said in a lowered voice. “Phoebe’s new mama is Emily Thorpe, as was. From the Herefordshire Thorpes. There was a disgrace, some sort of rumpus, and Thorpe threw both his daughters out. Now I think of it, it wasn’t the eldest gel that got in trouble, it was the younger, Louise. Never seen them myself, but I know the elder turned into a Mrs. Ewing, some five or six years back. Didn’t know she was writing for fashion rags though.”

There was something odd about Lady Sylvia’s comment that Emily Thorpe had “turned into a Mrs. Ewing,” but Gabby didn’t have time to question her. At any rate, it wasn’t a proper conversation with Phoebe in the room.

Lucien apparently agreed with her, as he bowed before Lady Sylvia with a great deal of elegant flare and said nothing to her account of Thorpe family history.

While saying good-bye, Phoebe leaned close to Gabby’s ear and whispered shrilly, “You haven’t forgotten about the secret visit that we are going to make, have you, Miss Gabby?”

“It’s not polite to whisper among company,” Gabby said, squeezing her hand. “But no, of course, I haven’t forgotten. I shall send a note to Mrs. Ewing and ask to borrow you for an afternoon next week, shall I?”

When they were alone, Gabby turned to Lady Sylvia. “Will you accompany me to the library, Lady Sylvia?”

“First you’d better tell me what this is all about.”

“Quite likely Colonel Hastings has come to pay his respects,” Gabby suggested. “My father is quite influential.”

“Fiddlesticks! None of the India men would bother to pay respects to a mere female, particularly over here in England. What does he want from you?” Lady Sylvia looked as stubborn as one of her hairy little terriers.

Gabby gave in. “I suspect that he will ask me the whereabouts of Tukoji Holkar’s heir. Holkar is one of the chiefs in the Marathas region.”

“Marathas? Marathas? Where in God’s name is that?” But she didn’t give Gabby time to answer. “What you’re saying is that some sort of heathen prince has gone missing,” Lady Sylvia said. “An Indian prince.”

Gabby nodded. “The boy’s name is Kasi Rao.”

“Why on earth would Hastings suspect that you might know his whereabouts?”

“Kasi was raised as my brother,” Gabby said. “He is my father’s nephew by his first marriage. And he grew up in our household. Since he is now almost eleven, and given that his father is ill, he would probably assume the throne of the Holkars, except—”

“Except that he’s disappeared,” Lady Sylvia finished. “And your father had something to do with it, no doubt. God knows, from what I remember of your father, he’s eccentric enough to be kidnapping princes right and left.”

“I know nothing about it,” Gabby said, praying for an even tone to her voice.

Lady Sylvia snorted. “Save yer rhetoric for the colonel.” She lapsed into silence and raised her hand when Gabby started to speak. “Just a minute, gel. It’s foolish for us to talk to this colonel alone. He’s likely to bully you. We should wait until Dewland returns and let him deal with it.”

“But if I refused to say anything, the colonel would have to give up and leave.”

“Absurd!” Lady Sylvia snapped. “We can’t just walk in there, two unaccompanied females. He’ll try to intimidate you into telling the truth. Not that any male could do better than a female when it comes to deception. Just ask my husband, Lionel, about that. Of course, given that he’s dead, you can’t ask him, God rest his soul.”

Gabby couldn’t think what in the world she could say in response, so she remained silent.

“We’d better act caper-witted,” Lady Sylvia announced. “I’ll have the dogs brought in; they’ll help. I’ll play a dithering old maid.” She wheeled around and barked, “You, Codswallop!”

Codswallop visibly jumped. “Yes, my lady?”

“Have my dogs brought in, and then you may escort us to the library.”

Codswallop opened his mouth—and thought better of it. “I’ll summon the animals immediately.”

Lady Sylvia snorted as he left. “There’s something a little shifty about that fellow. He didn’t like the idea of fetching my little sweeties. Probably worrying about the library rug.

“All right, gel, do you think you can pretend to be a regular goose? Men, especially those as have a military title, think women are jinglebrained anyhow. It should go over well.”

Gabby nodded. “Colonel Hastings isn’t exactly in the army,” she noted. “The East India Company maintains its own militia.”

Lady Sylvia shrugged. “He’s got some sort of rank. They have to have a shrunken head to fit into those tunics, you know. It goes with the uniform.”

The dogs danced into the room, hysterically yelping their pleasure at being released from Dessie’s stern care. Lady Sylvia grabbed two and Gabby bent to pick up the third, but recoiled when it snapped at her finger.

“Ignore the little demon,” Lady Sylvia advised. “She’ll follow us. Now—on with it, Codswallop!”

Colonel Hastings turned out not to be wearing a uniform. He was a barrel-shaped man, going rather bald. To Gabby’s mind, his face resembled a black-and-white etching without enough detail: his nose seemed bulbous and undefined, his chin wobbled into two or three chins and then melted into his high collar, and his hair didn’t appear until his forehead had sloped backward for a more than generous time.

Even as Colonel Hastings bustled toward the two ladies, it was abundantly clear that he considered himself to be engaging in child care. Lady Sylvia threw Gabby a quick, triumphant look.

“Miss Jerningham, it is indeed a pleasure to meet you.” He bowed rather creakily.

Lady Sylvia fluttered toward Colonel Hastings, simpering. “Oh, la, sir. I can hardly bring myself to say so, but I must admit, in the absence of a male family member, I could never allow sweet Miss Jerningham to be unchaperoned, not that it would be of concern in the presence of such a majestic military gentleman as yourself….” Her voice trailed away and she swept into a low curtsy, so low that Gabby was momentarily afraid she might not be able to straighten up.

Colonel Hastings bowed self-importantly. “I am enchanted—enchanted!—to meet you, Miss…Miss …”

Lady Sylvia shook her fan so quickly that a minor gale disturbed Hastings’ remaining few hairs. “My name is Lady Sylvia Breaknettle. Forgive me, Colonel Hastings, but the shock of finding myself in the presence of one of England’s bravest, finest men!” Her fan trembled with emotion. “I merely look at you and I see our brave, brave men, penetrating the wilds of the wildest continents, bravely living without the comforts of civilization!”

“Now, that is true,” Colonel Hastings said, grunting a trifle as he straightened from another deep bow. “You wouldn’t credit how hard it is to obtain a decent cup of tea over there. They grow the stuff, and yet it is impossible to teach the natives how to brew it.” He turned toward Gabby. “Miss Jerningham, you must be very happy to have arrived in the land of civilization. India is no place for gentle ladies such as yourself.”

Lady Sylvia took one look at Gabby’s stiff back and fluttered forward again. “I vow she has told me that a hundred times! The land of savages, that’s what we call it in this house! Lawks, sir, we must be seated. And I shall send our indefatigable Codswallop for a cup of tea, shall I?”

Gabby felt it was her turn to contribute. “I feel certain that we can provide you with properly brewed tea, sir. For such an intrepid soldier as yourself,
nothing
is too much!”

Colonel Hastings turned a bit red under the impact of Gabby’s worshipful gaze and allowed as how he wouldn’t mind a cup of tea.

Once they were seated, he leaned forward. “Miss Jerningham, I know already that I am on a fool’s errand, but I serve a higher master.” He paused.

Gabby barely restrained a smile. Hastings sounded just like her father when he fell into what she thought of as missionary rhetoric. Her father always talked of a higher master when he was driving a particularly hard bargain.

“My master is the governor-general of India himself, Richard Colley Wellesley, earl of Mornington.”

“Oh, my,” Gabby gasped admiringly. “I have never had the pleasure of meeting the governor-general, but…but …” She faltered. Her father would have thrown himself across the portal before allowing the militaristic Wellesley to enter his house.