The Fifth Kiss (3 page)

“Never, as far as I know. But this is as good a time to begin as any. Please, Jamie, don't be so sullen. I've never come to you this way before, have I?”

“No, you haven't. I must say
that
for you.” He looked at her with a sudden frown. “What sort of scrape have you got yourself into, Livie?”

“Not I. It's Clara I'm worried about.”

“
Clara?
I don't believe it! What's she done?”

“Nothing, you gudgeon. Clara would be the very
last
one of us to do anything amiss. It's
Strickland
who's put us in this coil.”

“Strickland, eh? Now what on earth—?” He leaned toward his sister in sudden irritation. “Have you shaken me up like this just to tell me that he's submitted another of his damnable Tory proposals to the Lords?”

“Good heavens, no! I wouldn't wake you for something as commonplace as that! This is much more … more personal.”

Jamie fell back against the pillow in surprise. “Personal? Now I
am
nonplussed. Speak up, girl. You have me quite agog.”

“I wish you will take this a bit seriously, Jamie. It may affect Clara's entire future! I saw Strickland last night … on the street … with a … a …
fancy piece
!”

If Olivia expected her news to shock her brother, she was doomed to disappointment. His face remained impassive. “Well?” he asked, as if expecting more.

“What do you mean, well?” she demanded.

“Well, what
else
?”

“Good lord, isn't that
enough
? He was
kissing
her … right there on the street!”

Jamie shrugged. “That
was
a bit of bad manners, I suppose, but I hardly see the matter as a family crisis. Is
that
what you woke me up to tell me?”

Olivia gaped at her brother in surprise. “Of course it is! Don't you think it's
shocking
?”

“Not at all.
All
the men in London have fancy pieces.”

“
Jamie
!” she cried, not believing.

“They
do
!” he insisted. “Perhaps not often, and some more often than others, but sooner or later all of them—”

“
Stop
it, Jamie!” Olivia put her hands to her ears in horror. “I think you're only saying these dreadful things to take a paltry revenge on me!”

He gave her a look of disgust. “Don't be such a little innocent. London is full of—as you call them—fancy pieces. Why would there be so many if men didn't patronize them?”

“B-But …
married
men … w-with little children … like Strickland?”

“Why not? Strickland is a prime candidate for a liaison. He's here in London, alone, for almost half the year. Where else is he to look for female companionship?”

“If he wants female companionship, he can jolly well go home to his wife!” Olivia snapped, her voice trembling.

“Well, don't fire up at
me. I
didn't have anything to do with it.”

Olivia glared at him. “Well, whatever the
other
men of London choose to do is of no concern to me. But Lord Strickland is our sister's husband, and I'm at my wit's end as to what to do about it.”

“
Do
about it? What
is
there to do about it?” Jamie asked flatly.

“Do you think I should tell her?”

“Tell
Clara
? Whatever for? Keep your nose out of it and your mouth shut. That's my advice.” With that, he slid down under the cover, turned on his side and shut his eyes. “Now, I hope you'll take yourself off and let me sleep without further disturbance.”

But Olivia hadn't moved. She sat staring abstractedly into the middle distance, her brow furrowed in puzzled anxiety. “Do you really think silence is best? That we should let our sister continue to play the fool, believing that her dear Miles is … above reproach?”

“Clara's no fool. She knows all about it,” Jamie answered, his voice muffled by the pillows.

Olivia jumped to her feet and stared at the lump under the bedclothes. “
Knows
about it? She
couldn't
!”

“She would if she had any sense.”

“Do you mean to say that she knows and meekly
accepts
it?” Olivia asked incredulously.

Jamie turned his head and opened his eyes with a patient sigh. “Yes, my little innocent. That's what
any
sensible wife would do. And so will
you
when your time comes.”

“Never!” she declared vehemently. “I would
never
permit myself to be … betrayed. I think all men are
dastardly
, and I shall never marry any of them!”

She stalked to the door in a fury, but before she grasped the doorknob a horrible thought occurred to her. Slowly she turned back to her brother. “Jamie, you don't mean to imply that
you
…? No, I won't ask.”

Jamie broke into a loud guffaw. “Do you want to know if
I
have a fancy piece?” he asked challengingly, lifting his head and grinning at her mockingly. “Well, now—”

“
No!
Don't tell me! I don't want to know … now or
ever
!” And she fled from the room, slamming the door behind her.

chapter three

Charles sat at the breakfast table with his two sisters, looking from one to the other with a brow wrinkled in puzzlement. Something was amiss, he knew, although not one word was said to indicate that anything at all was out of the way. Yes, it was quite true that Clara had decided to cut short her visit, but that decision did not surprise Charles; he'd suspected from the first that Clara wouldn't be able to stay away from her children for an entire fortnight. No, her
departure
couldn't be the problem. As a matter of fact, Clara looked completely serene and untroubled. It was
Olivia's
manner that had aroused his suspicions.

Like most men, Charles harbored the illusion that he was inscrutable. It would have irritated him beyond measure to know that his sisters could quite easily read his face. He would have been utterly dismayed if he'd realized that Olivia had refrained from seeking his advice merely because she'd feared that his thoughts (which were so clearly reflected in his expression) would reveal themselves to Clara.

If anyone had asked Charles, he would have said it was
Olivia
whose facial expressions were transparent. Her large, green-flecked brown eyes sent out distinct signals of light and shadow which revealed quite plainly to anyone who knew her just what she was thinking. In addition, her fair, almost translucent skin gave evidence of the slightest flush of emotion. Thus Charles, watching her from across the table, was very much aware that something was troubling her deeply.

Olivia, his “baby” sister, was Charles' pride and joy. He had taken a father's pleasure in her transformation from a chubby child to a lively, willowy, warm young woman—and a scholar's satisfaction in the development of her mind from a willful, precocious youngster's to a reasoning, free-thinking, well-read adult's. Their peculiar family situation had thrown the two of them together more than might have been the case in an ordinary brother-and-sister relationship, and they were in the habit of speaking to each other with frank and affectionate intimacy. If something was troubling her now, why hadn't she come to him?

It was obvious that she was disturbed about something. The color in her cheeks was high (an unmistakable sign of anger), her eyes were clouded (indicating confusion), her remarks abstracted (revealing that her mind was absorbed elsewhere) and her plate of eggs untouched (signifying that she was upset). But before Charles could discover any clue to the source of the trouble, Clara set down her teacup with an air of finality and rose to take her departure. Charles and Olivia immediately followed her.

Their exit from the breakfast room was a signal to the servants that the time of leave-taking had arrived. Immediately, a great bustle of activity commenced: the servants scurried about gathering up those bandboxes and packages that had not yet been loaded aboard the carriage; the outer door began to swing open and shut as the two footmen, the coachman and Clara's abigail rushed in and out, each one convinced that one of the others would be certain to leave something behind; and Clara turned from Olivia to Charles and back again, directing toward each of them a number of reminders, admonitions and appeals for an early visit to Langley Park. At last, the trio moved out the door and down the stone steps to the carriage.

They made an ill-assorted group as they stood at the bottom of the steps exchanging affectionate embraces in the wintry rain. A passing stranger would not have surmised that they were intimately related, so different did they appear in character and station. Clara, the eldest, looked every inch the wealthy country matron. She was dressed for travel, her motherly form well covered by a velvet pelisse and a large-brimmed bonnet which protected her from the elements as effectively as an umbrella. The bonnet also managed to emphasize the fact that she was the shortest in stature of the three. Charles looked tall only in comparison with his sisters. He stood only five-feet-seven in stockinged feet, but his slim figure and his hair (which was receding from his forehead in two points on either side of his head and was prematurely silvering at the temples) usually gave him a look of dignity and importance beyond his thirty years. Today, however, he hadn't bothered to put on a greatcoat or hat, so the shabbiness of his coat, the disarray that the wind and rain made of his hair and the hunch of his shoulders against the cold made him look more like an impoverished tutor than a gentleman of substance and respectability. Olivia, the youngest, was only a bit taller than her sister, but she would probably have been the one that a passing stranger would have noticed first. The elements had tousled her short, dark curls into wavy tendrils that blew about her face and whipped up the color in her cheeks to an even brighter red than had appeared at the table and, dressed as she was in only a morning robe, that imaginary stranger might very well have taken her for the very sort of woman who'd occupied her thoughts all morning—a beautiful courtesan.

Appearances notwithstanding, the three
were
related, and they faced each other fondly as they said the final goodbyes. “Bestow a kiss on the lazy Jamie for me, and say goodbye to Papa,” Clara ordered as she was helped aboard the carriage. Then the coach set off down the drive and turned into the street. Clara waved at them lovingly all the while, and it was not until the carriage disappeared from view that Charles and Olivia turned to go inside.

They ran up the steps quickly and shut the door behind them, glad to take shelter at last from the chilling drizzle. Charles, noting with relief that the servants had all gone about their business, faced his sister with firm decision. “All right, now, Livie,” he accosted her, putting his hands on his hips, “let's have it. What's troubling you?”

Olivia, who'd been about to make for the stairway (wishing for the opportunity to indulge in some solitary reflection in her bedroom), turned to her brother in surprise. “Whatever do you mean, Charles?”

“Something's been on your mind this morning. Now, don't try to deny it, my dear. I can read it in your face. Are you going to tell me what it is, or do you intend to sentence me to spend the day inventing all sorts of imaginary and troublesome explanations which will leave me overwrought, distressed and too distracted to work?”

Olivia cast him a rueful glance. “No, of course I don't,” she said, taking his arm and walking with him to the downstairs sitting room which he had long ago taken over as his private study. “I intended to tell you about it anyway, sooner or later.”

The room was smaller than their father's study and not nearly as cheerful. Sir Octavius' study had been appropriately and lovingly decorated by his late wife. It was full of her bright touches—sheer draperies which let in the light, colorful floral paintings on the walls, floral chintz upholstery on the chairs, ample bookshelves, a wide fireplace framed with exquisite tiles from Holland and a goodly number of silver candelabra to brighten the work area. But the small sitting room which Charles had adopted for his own had not had the benefit of his mother's delicate touch. The panelled walls and narrow windows made the room gloomily dark, the wall decorations consisted of a pair of dingy portraits of once-famous racehorses, the inadequate bookshelves were crammed to overflowing, and the stacks of books and papers which could not be fitted into them were piled on the tables, the chairs, the windowsills and every other available surface, including the floor. In the midst of all this untidiness—so large that it dominated the room and singular in its meticulous neatness—stood Charles' desk. It was a source of constant amusement to Olivia, for the desk was an island of tranquility in a sea of chaos. Charles' explanation was simple: he could not write amid disorder. When his desk became crowded, he simply piled everything which was not in immediate use into one huge stack and placed the stack on the floor. When Olivia would point out to him that this method of organization could not continue to serve his purposes indefinitely, Charles would respond with a careless promise to “sort through everything one of these days.”

Charles closed his door and picked his way through the disorder to the fireplace, where he rummaged through the items on the mantel for his pipe and tobacco. Olivia, meanwhile, brushed the raindrops from her shoulders, removed the books from the seat of the room's one upholstered armchair, placed them on the floor and sat down. Charles crossed to his desk and sat down behind it. After a moment of silence, during which he puffed at his pipe vehemently until he'd ignited the tobacco satisfactorily, he glanced across the room at his sister. She was sitting tensely in her chair, her eyes lowered to the fingers clenched in her lap and her lips pursed thoughtfully. She seemed, for the first time in her life, to be almost afraid to speak. “Well, aren't you going to say anything?” he prodded anxiously.