Rules for Being a Mistress (22 page)

“Of course,” he said stiffly. “But have you considered hiring a private nurse?”

Cosima would have loved to hire a nurse to help her mother, but Lady Agatha did not like strangers looking at her raddled face. They made Lady Agatha feel freakish and ugly. But Cosima could not betray her mother by revealing these weaknesses to
him
. Instead, she shouted at Benedict, “I’m perfectly capable of looking after my own mother!”

“You are quite right,” he said coldly. “I was high-handed. Please excuse my interference. I was only trying to help.”

“I don’t need your help,” she said fiercely and showed him the door.

“I don’t suppose you are going to the cotillion tonight?” he said, lingering in the doorway.

“No, and I don’t want to,” she retorted.

“I shall be attending,” he said. “But I shall be home at eleven-thirty.”

“Good for you,” she replied coldly, slamming the door in his face.

She was late. It was well after midnight when he looked up from his book and said, “Good evening, Miss Cherry.”

She looked angry and flustered. “I almost didn’t come,” she said, flopping down on the sofa and pulling his boots off to expose her pretty white feet.

“I’m sorry,” he began. “The doctor came to me—”

She interrupted. “But then I thought: that’s between you and Miss Vaughn. It’s nothing to do with ourselves.”

“Quite,” he said, closing his book.

She looked at him expectantly. He must not have thought she was coming, for he was again in his nightshirt and dressing gown. He looked like some pagan prince drawn starkly in black and white. A heat warmer than brandy coursed through her veins as she thought of what he had done to her the night before. As angry as she had been with him for interfering with the doctor, she had come here because she wanted him to do it again.

“Would you like me to read to you?” she asked when he did not attack her immediately.

“No,” he said. He just sat in his chair and looked at her, kingly and remote. “I have been thinking about you all day, Miss Cherry,” he said finally.

Her breasts began to tingle. “You have?”

“This isn’t exactly how I pictured you, however,” he said dryly.

She frowned.

“When I am with a woman, I like her to look like a woman. I lent you those clothes so that you could slip past the constable, but, I think, while you are here, we must institute a sort of dress code. You left your clothes on the floor of my closet the other night. Go into the bedroom and put them on. If you are wearing drawers, remove them.”

“Who died and made you king?” she grumbled, but it was no good. She was tingling all over and they both knew it.

“Do as you’re told,” he said imperiously, “and I might be nice to you.”

“Brute,” she said. “That’s blackmail.”

“Fair play, madam,” he corrected her. “Off you go.”

She scooted to the door, her cheeks pink.

“I do hope my pianoforte is
fast
enough for you, Miss Vaughn,” Lady Serena said archly. Much struck by her ladyship’s wit, Lady Dalrymple and her daughter tittered appreciatively. Benedict, who had the honor of aiding Serena in fleecing her good friends, studied his cards and pretended not to hear.

At the next card table, Mr. Freddie Carteret whispered to Lady Matlock, “It would have to be
very fast
indeed to be fast enough for Miss Vaughn, from what I hear.”

Lady Rose glowered at him silently.

“What are trumps?” asked Roger Fitzwilliam, wondering why his hostess had placed him at a table with the only two women in the room whom he could not possibly marry.

Serena had not invited Mr. Fitzwilliam. He had arrived unexpectedly with his sister-in-law, spoiling Serena’s plan of having two card tables, with Miss Vaughn odd man out. To Serena’s annoyance, Lord Ludham had given up his seat to the clergyman. Lord Ludham was drooling over Miss Vaughn in the alcove where the pianoforte had been set up. And, despite all the speaking glances she had cast to Sir Benedict, the baronet had done nothing about it. Since their little tiff at the lecture on Wednesday, he seemed determined to be unhelpful.

Cosima answered her hostess’s comment seriously.

“I like the Broadwood, my lady,” she called back to Serena from the alcove. “But I like the Clementi better. It takes a lighter touch, and the tone is brighter, I’m thinking. The Broadwood is more of a man’s instrument. You have to pound it with all your might to get anywhere, and then it mumbles at you. The Clementi is nice and crisp.”

Mr. Roger Fitzwilliam turned pale. “Did she say it was a man’s instrument?” he gasped.

“She’s talking about the tone of the piano, Uncle,” Rose snapped.

“Try the prestissimo, Miss Vaughn,” Serena invited. “I got it especially for you.”

“I’ve been admiring it,” Cosima replied. It was difficult to concentrate on the music, however, with Lord Ludham breathing down her neck. She began to play the second movement of the concerto. The painful stops and starts as she wrestled with the unfamiliar composition were as difficult to listen to as Serena could have wished.

“Holy fly!” said Miss Vaughn, breaking off. “Who does this Beethoven fellow think he is? I’ll need a month of bed rest after this.”

“It is a poor musician, Miss Vaughn,” said Serena, “who blames the composer.”

“I think it’s your pianoforte, Serena,” said Lord Ludham.

“I’m very lazy, I’m afraid,” said Miss Vaughn. “I don’t like to work this hard. The Clementi, now, is light as a feather. Playing it is all but effortless.”

Lord Ludham and Miss Vaughn began to speak intimately, and Serena could no longer follow the conversation. Felix, Serena noted with exasperation, did not seem to notice that Miss Vaughn was wearing last year’s model in a very unattractive shade of green.

“Your cousin has made another conquest,” Lady Dalrymple trilled at Sir Benedict. “Have you heard the rumor about her and Kellynch? I, for one, don’t believe it.”

Benedict’s lip curled. “Could your ladyship mean the rumor you started? I am glad you do not believe your own malicious falsehoods.”

Lady Dalrymple blinked her kohl-blackened eyelids rapidly. “You are in love with her, I see. Naturally, you defend her.”

“You are nonsensical,” said Benedict. “I am too old for such foolishness, I assure you.”

“They say there’s no fool like an old fool,” Lady Dalrymple said maliciously. “You men all fall like ninepins for a pretty face! When I think of how she used poor Freddie’s finer feelings against him—! But he is much better off where he is now.”

At the moment, her youngest son seemed to be lodged in the bosom of Lady Matlock.

“Theirs will be a long and happy marriage,” the proud mama predicted. “For she is rich and he is handsome.”

“Lord Matlock might object to the marriage,” Benedict said dryly, as Freddie Carteret fawned over Lady Matlock at the next table.

“Object to the marriage!” Lady Dalrymple cried indignantly. “No, indeed. After her disgraceful behavior in London, Lady Rose is lucky to get anyone.”

“Oh, I see,” said Benedict. “It is the
daughter
who is to be the bride.”

Lady Dalrymple giggled. “Oh, Sir Benedict! What a rattle you are!
Lady Rose
is the bride. Whom did you think I meant? Of course,” she confided, leaning closer in a blatant attempt to look at the gentleman’s cards, “there is a great deal left to be done. Old Matlock will insist on a marriage settlement.” She sighed heavily. “Who knows how many fine romances have been destroyed by these greedy lawyers?”

“My trick, I think,” said Lady Serena, sweeping up the cards.

“Lord Ludham! Do come and advise poor Millicent, or we shall all be ruined!”

“It is not my fault we are losing, Mama!” Millicent said indignantly.

“Do you
want
him to spend all evening with Miss Vaughn?” Lady Dalrymple hissed back. “You must use your head, Millie!”

Lord Ludham pleaded that he had no skill at whist. He had no skill at music either, as Serena dryly observed, but that did not keep him from advising Miss Vaughn.

“If
I
were advising Miss Vaughn,” Miss Carteret said viciously, “I would tell her to cut her hair.” Her own mousy locks had been artfully clipped into a fringe that circled her entire head, leaving a towering topknot of looping braids in the middle.

“And if I were advising her,” said Lady Dalrymple, “I would tell her to stay away from libertines like the Duke of Kellynch. Dear Serena, did I tell you that, while we were obliged to put up at Castle Argent, His Grace visited Miss Vaughn quite five times? He even sent her grapes and nectarines from his succession houses. Nectarines!”

“If poor Miss Vaughn has caught the eyes of James Kellynch, then she is a lost woman indeed.” Serena clucked her tongue sadly. “But, perhaps, things are different amongst the Irish savages, and we must not judge them by our English standards of conduct.”

“Is it any wonder she is so vain,” Millicent sniffed, “when great men make such fools of themselves for her. His Grace, and now poor Lord Ludham.”

“And even our Sir Benedict is not immune to her charms,” said Lady Dalrymple. “Poor Sir Benedict. She will never look at you when she has an earl on her hook.”

It was empty, offhand malice. Benedict was determined not to show that Lady Dalrymple had drawn blood.

“I think we must acquit her of vanity, Miss Carteret,” said Serena. “If she were vain, she would take more care of her appearance. One would think she doesn’t even own a mirror!”

Benedict flinched at this well-deserved criticism. Miss Vaughn’s dress was a green disaster. Her hair, as usual, was slipping its pins. It irritated him that she had not spent a farthing of the thousand pounds he had given her on herself.

“Are we playing cards, ladies?” he growled.

The ladies ignored him.

“She has no taste,” Millicent said, preening. Her own gown was so embellished with embroidered ribbons, braid, swags, buttons, and rosettes that one could barely discern that there was a gown of puce satin underneath it all. She had taken to wearing the new busk as well and, forced apart by this odd device, her breasts jutted to the east and to the west, respectively.

“It appears she is vain enough to aspire to become a countess,” said Lady Dalrymple, pausing to cram a cream puff into her greedy wet mouth. “Poor Ludham! After all he endured with that opera girl! But at least Pamela was English! My dear Serena, how will you bear the humiliation of presenting your
Irish
cousin to the Queen? And Lady Ludham will outrank you, too!” she added gleefully.

“I am not worried about Felix in the least,” Serena said coldly.

“Oh, Miss Vaughn, do play us one of your
Irish
songs,” Lady Dalrymple called to the musician. “Serena has not yet had the pleasure of hearing you sing.”

“Yes, do sing, Miss Vaughn,” cried Lady Matlock. “Something authentic.”

Cosima ran her fingers over the keys and, after a few moments, chose a completely inappropriate song to sing.

“Wherever I’m going, and all the day long,

At home and abroad or alone in a throng,

I find that my passion’s so lively and strong,

That your name when I’m silent still runs in my song.

“Since the first time I saw you, I take no repose.

I sleep all the day to forget half my woes;

So strong is the flame in my bosom that glows,

By St. Patrick, I fear it will burn through my clothes!

“By my soul, I’m afraid I shall die in my grave

Unless you comply and poor Phelim save;

Then grant the petition your lover doth crave,

Who never was free till you made him your slave.”

She had been quite correct in saying that her voice was not big enough to fill a concert hall, but it was a fine, creamy contralto, and it filled the drawing-room. The lyrics, however, were a little too coarse for the drawing-room. To the refined English ears of her audience, it sounded quite bawdy. Benedict was furious. She must have known dozens of perfectly lovely Irish songs, but, perversely, she had chosen this one.

“That’s not Thomas Moore,” said Lady Serena, shocked.

Cosima laughed. “It is not. ’Tis a bold song, perhaps, but I like it. I first heard it sung in
The Brave Irishman
by Mr. Sheridan in the Smock Alley Theater in Dublin. Of course, it’s meant to be sung by a man.”

Lady Matlock’s voice suddenly rose from the next table. “I wish you had a harp, Serena. I long to hear Miss Vaughn play the harp. There’s something so
authentic
about an Irish girl playing an Irish harp, don’t you agree, Mr. Carteret?”

“Oh, Miss Vaughn doesn’t play the harp,” Millicent sniffed. “We were with her in Ireland three months. She played the piano every day—very badly, too! But she never played the harp. I don’t recall even
seeing
a harp in the music room.”

“Maybe it was hiding from you,” said Miss Vaughn, laughing.

“Music room?” Serena inquired. “But I thought you lived in a farmhouse with battlements, Miss Vaughn?”

“’Tis a farmhouse with battlements
and
a music room.”

“That is how it is in these Irish houses,” Lady Matlock said knowledgeably. “The Irish are such a happy, carefree race. There is singing and dancing from the humblest to the highest. Give us a song in Irish, Miss Vaughn! Nothing from the playhouse. Something
really
authentic.”

Cosima was startled. “You want me to sing to you in the Irish language, my lady?”

“You
do
know your own language, I trust,” Lady Matlock said severely.

“I’m afraid only peasants in the Irish countryside speak Irish these days, Lady Matlock,” said Benedict. “It is no longer taught in schools.”

“In the Penal Days,” said Miss Vaughn, “there were people burned alive by the English only for the crime of speaking Irish. Sure Cromwell thought we were criticizing his funny haircut! I’ll sing to you in Irish, Lady Matlock.”

She played a plaintive, bittersweet melody on the Broadwood. She sang, her soft voice lingering in the air like perfume.

“How strange,” Serena murmured. “How primitive and pagan!”

“Is it a rebel song, Miss Vaughn?” asked Lady Rose.

“It’s a hymn,” said Cosima, laughing. “We sing it in chapel.”

Mr. Fitzwilliam was scandalized. “In Irish? I had no idea the Church of Ireland was in such disarray. I shall write a letter to the Archbishop of Dublin at once,” he added importantly.

“Miss Vaughn,” Lady Dalrymple sniffed, “is a Papist, Mr. Fitzwilliam.”

Mr. Fitzwilliam wrinkled his nose as if he had encountered a very bad smell. “Good heavens,” he said. “I had no idea.”

“There’s a Catholic chapel in Bath, on Orchard Street,” said Lord Ludham. “Did you know that, Miss Vaughn?”

“I did, yes,” Cosima said mildly.

“I came upon it by mistake. Used to be a theater, you know, before the new one was built in Beaufort Square.”

“That I
didn’t
know,” said Miss Vaughn.

“I paid my shilling at the door and went in, expecting quite a
different
performance!”