No Man's Mistress (21 page)

He was talking with the Reverend Prewitt and Miss Faith Merrywether when Viola touched his arm. He looked down and was somewhat surprised to see that her fingers had not burned a hole through the sleeve of his evening coat. He looked into her face, flushed from the exertions of dancing.

“My lord,” she said, “Mr. Claypole has had to take his mother home early. The heat has made her feel faint.”

“Mrs. Claypole does not have a strong constitution,” Miss Merrywether commented disapprovingly. “She is fortunate indeed to have such a doting son.”

But Viola Thornhill had not removed her eyes from Ferdinand's. “They were to escort me home,” she said. “But Mr. Claypole thought it wise not to take such a wide detour on his way to Crossings.”

“I would be delighted to call out my carriage for your convenience, Miss Thornhill,” the vicar assured her. “But I daresay his lordship will squeeze you into his.”

She looked mortified and smiled apologetically. “Will you?”

Ferdinand bowed. “It would be my pleasure, ma'am,” he said.

“Not just yet, though,” she said. “I would not drag you away early from the dancing. There is still one more set. I was to dance it with Mr. Claypole.”

“I would lead you out myself,” the Reverend Prewitt said with a hearty laugh, “if I had any breath and any legs left, but I confess I have neither. His lordship will see to it that you are not a wallflower, Miss Thornhill. Will you not, my lord?”

The color in her cheeks deepened. “Perhaps his lordship has another partner in mind,” she said.

But there was that glow of color in her face, and her eyes were still sparkling from an evening of dancing. Her hair, dressed in curls tonight rather than the usual coronet of braids, was still tidy, but a few wavy tendrils of hair teased her neck and temples. There was a slight sheen of perspiration on her cheeks and on her bosom above the neckline of her evening gown.

I have been waiting for a suitable partner, sir
. He could hear again the low, saucy words she had spoken to him when he had sought her out to dance about the maypole with him.
I have been waiting for'you
.

“I was prepared to be a wallflower myself,” he said, offering her his arm, “believing that your hand had already been engaged.”

She set her hand on his sleeve and he led her onto the floor to join the long lines that were forming for the Roger de Coverly.

The dance consumed all their energy and concentration. There was no chance to talk, even had they wished to. But she glowed and laughed with delight when it was
their turn to twirl between the lines and lead the procession around the outside to form an arch with their arms for everyone else to dance beneath. He could not take his eyes off her.

He was still more than halfway in love with her, he realized. How could he not be? What he should do on the way home was tell her to forget that outrageous wager. He should just marry her so that they could both remain at Pinewood. Forever after. Happily ever after.

But she had been Lilian Talbot. And the courtesan in her still survived—he had seen it for himself just two days ago.

He could not simply forget and pretend that she was Viola Thornhill as he had known her for the first week. She had deceived him.

A great heavy sadness seemed to lodge itself suddenly in the soles of his dancing shoes.

Fortunately, the music drew to an end within the next few minutes. Less fortunately, it was the final set. He was handing her into his carriage only minutes later. What did all the neighbors think of the situation at Pinewood? he wondered. He would not have to worry about it for much longer, though, would he?

Five more days.

Viola was beginning to hate herself. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that she was beginning to hate herself
again
. There had been two years of healing, but really, she had discovered in the past few days, the gaping wound of her self-loathing had only filmed over, not knitted into wholeness at all.

It was so easy to play a part, to send herself into deep hiding and become someone else. The trouble was that
this time the part she played and her real self were so similar to each other that sometimes she got them confused. She was wearing down his defenses by playing the part of Viola Thornhill. But
she was Viola Thornhill
.

Mr. Claypole really had decided to take his mother home early, but he had wanted to escort Viola home on their way. She had refused by lying. She had told him it was all arranged for her to return to Pinewood in Lord Ferdinand Dudley's carriage.

She had wanted to dance with Lord Ferdinand. She had wanted to remind him of the evening at the fête. But acting had got all jumbled up with reality. She had enjoyed herself immensely and been hopelessly miserable at the same time.

She sat silently beside him until the carriage wheels had rumbled over the bridge.

“Do you ever feel lonely?” she asked him softly.

“Lonely?” The question seemed to surprise him. “No, I don't think so. Alone, sometimes, but that is not the same thing as loneliness. Aloneness can actually be pleasant.”

“How?” she asked.

“One can read,” he said.

It had surprised her to realize that he did enjoy reading. It seemed out of character somehow. But then, so did the fact that he had graduated from Oxford with a double first in Latin and Greek.

“What if there are no books?” she asked.

“Then one thinks,” he said. “Actually, I have not done a great deal of that for many years. I have not been much alone either. I used to be when I lived at Acton. So was Tresham. It used to be like an unspoken conspiracy sometimes—he would go off to his favorite hill and I would go to mine. It was furtive. Dudley males admitted
only to being hellions, not to being thinkers, brooding on the mysteries of life and the universe.”

“Is that what you did?” she asked.

“Actually, yes.” He chuckled softly. “I used to read a great deal, though not openly when my father was at home. He did not approve of bookish sons. But the more I read, the more I realized how little I knew. I used to gaze out at the universe feeling all the frustration of my small-ness—especially the smallness of my brain. And then I would gaze at a blade of grass and tell myself that if only I could understand
that
, then perhaps I could penetrate the larger mysteries too.”

“Why have you not done that for many years?” she asked.

“I don't know.” But he had obviously thought more deeply about her question before he spoke again. “I have been too busy being busy, perhaps. Or perhaps I realized when I was at university that I could never know everything and so gave up the attempt to know anything. Perhaps I have been in the wrong place. London is not conducive to thought—or wisdom.”

The interior of the carriage became a little lighter as it moved clear of the trees. The conversation had not taken the course she had expected. More and more she was realizing that Lord Ferdinand Dudley was not at all the man she had taken him for when he first arrived at Pinewood. She wished she did not like him. Liking him was making things very difficult for her.

“What about you?” he asked. “Are you ever lonely?”

“No, of course not,” she said. Why were people so reluctant to admit to loneliness? she wondered. It was almost as if it were something shameful.

“That was a hasty answer,” he said. “Too hasty.”

“Loneliness can be a balm to the soul,” she said,
“especially when one considers some of the alternatives. There are far worse afflictions than loneliness.”

“Are there?” In the faint light she could see that his face was turned toward her.

“The worst thing about loneliness,” she said, “is that it brings one face-to-face with oneself. That can also be the best thing about it, depending upon one's character. If one is strong, self-knowledge can be the best knowledge one can ever acquire.”

“Are you strong?” His voice was soft.

She had thought she was. She really had thought so.

“Yes,” she said.

“What have you learned about yourself?”

“That I am a survivor,” she said.

The carriage rocked to a halt on its comfortable springs, and the door opened almost immediately. Lord Ferdinand's groom set down the steps.

Mr. Jarvey had waited up and took her cloak and Lord Ferdinand's cloak and hat when they stepped into the hall. He disappeared with the garments.

“Come into the library for a nightcap?” Lord Ferdinand asked her.

She could probably accomplish her goal tonight if she set her mind to it. They would share a drink and more conversation, and then he would escort her upstairs. She would pause outside his room and thank him for bringing her home. She would sway toward him so that he would be kissing her before he even had a chance to realize his danger. It would all be over within an hour after that. Tomorrow he would be gone. Pinewood would be hers.

She felt the soreness of unshed tears in her throat and chest and shook her head.

“I am tired,” she said. “Thank you for bringing me home. Good night.”

She did
not
sway toward him. Neither did she offer her hand. But there it was in his, and he was raising it to his lips, and his eyes were regarding her over the top of it, a faint smile softening their darkness.

“Thank you for the dance,” he said. “But it is the maypole dance for which I will always remember you.”

She fled, not even pausing to take a candle from the hall table. Had she done that deliberately? Caused him to kiss her hand and look at her like that and speak so softly about always remembering her? It was what she had set out to do. It was
exactly
what she had hoped to accomplish. But she had not really done it, had she? She had simply been herself.

Or had she been the Viola Thornhill who intended to throw him off guard sufficiently that he would not realize that when he bedded her he would be losing his wager to Lilian Talbot?

She no longer knew who was herself and who was the courtesan. She no longer knew whether she wanted to win that wager or not. She dreaded—
dreaded—
being in bed with him, feeling him coming inside her while she coaxed him to a pleasure so prolonged and so intense that he would never after feel cheated. How could Viola Thornhill hide deeply enough in the persona of Lilian Talbot to allow it to happen?

Viola Thornhill—the real Viola—wanted to join herself with him in love. It was something she had never experienced and could not really imagine experiencing. For the physical joining of man and woman was an ugly, demeaning act. But dreams were not quite dead after all, she was finding. And her dreams wove themselves about his person in a way that had nothing to do with any wager.

What she should do, Viola thought as she fled along
the upper corridor in the darkness, was go back down to the library and announce to him that their wager was off, that she would leave Pinewood tomorrow. But she kept going until she was inside her room, the closed door firmly and safely between her and temptation.

F
or the next two days Viola went about her daily round of activities with her usual energy and cheerful smile, but her mind and emotions were in turmoil. Perhaps, she thought sometimes, she should go away to somewhere other than London and seek employment. But Hannah and her family would have to fend for themselves, then. Why should she have to bear all the responsibility? But the thought of relinquishing her family to their own resources consumed her with guilt.

She could win Pinewood with her wager, and life would be back to normal again. But she could not bear the thought of seducing Lord Ferdinand—it nauseated her and filled her with self-loathing. He was a decent man.

But remaining at Pinewood was not just about money. It was her
home
, her legacy. She simply could not face leaving it.

On the third morning after the assembly, with two more days to go before she must either win her wager or
leave Pinewood, matters were severely complicated by the arrival of another letter from Claire. It was lying on the desk in the library when Viola returned from a morning walk along the avenue. She snatched it up eagerly and took it with her to the box garden. She sat on the bench that surrounded the fountain, after checking to see that the seat was dry. It had rained all the day before, though the sun was shining again today.

Everyone was well, Claire reported. She was working every day for their uncle. She liked serving in the coffee room best, where she met and talked with travelers and a few local people who came there regularly. One gentleman in particular had begun to come quite often. He was extremely pleasant and always thanked her for her kind service and gave her a generous tip. She had not recognized him at first, not having seen him for many years, but Mama and Uncle Wesley had.

Viola clutched the single sheet of paper with both hands and suddenly felt her heart beat faster. She sensed what was coming even before her eyes confirmed her premonition.

“He is Mr. Kirby,” Claire had written, “the gentleman who used to frequent the inn when you worked here and then was obliging enough to recommend you for a governess's position with his friends. Mama and Uncle Wesley are delighted to see him again.”