Vixen (14 page)

Sweet Jesus! What if she’d conceived a child? How
could he ever have permitted such a thing to happen? How could he ever have been so blind to the consequences of his drunken folly as to have taken not even the most elementary precaution against conception?

There were things that could be done to avert such a consequence. But they were methods practiced by harlots and the Society women of his past—those who dallied without affection, who deceived lovers and husbands without a qualm as they bolted down the barren paths in search of something that would give pleasure or purpose to their lives.

To provide Chloe with such a means would put her in the same category as those women … would ally her with his haunting, bitter past. But what choice did he have?

He drained his glass and refilled it. He’d taken her maidenhead—the act of a cur. Would he now, having satisfied his rutting urge, run off like a cur in an alley, leaving her to bear the fruits of that urge?

He mentally lashed himself, choosing the most despicable images his fevered brain could create, and when he’d done with it, he went to the stables for his horse.

Chloe was in the kitchen with Samuel, eating breakfast with a remarkable lack of appetite, when the library door opened. She sat up, all attention, a look of hope and expectancy in her eyes. But with the slamming of the side door, her shoulders slumped and the light died out of her eyes.

“Don’t mind ’im,” Samuel said gruffly. “When he gets these moods on ’im, there’s nowt anyone can do ’til it’s over.”

“But I don’t know what I’ve done wrong,” Chloe said, lethargically spearing a grilled mushroom. A light blush mantled her cheek. She could guess where the trouble lay, although not why, but she could hardly confide in
this bluff sailor with his gold hoop earrings and rough tongue.

“Leave well alone,” Samuel advised. “It’s best not to go near ’im when the mood’s on ’im.”

“But I don’t see why I should put up with it,” Chloe stated, pushing her plate from her. “It’s unjust that he should attack me without telling me why. It wasn’t my fault Dante got loose, and I don’t see how he could have expected me to ignore him when he was barking.”

Samuel shrugged as if the subject had ceased to interest him. Hugo was keeping his own counsel on the subject of last night, and Samuel wasn’t going to be drawn into anything. He’d keep an eye on the girl and a closed mouth, as he’d been instructed. “There’s a pig’s liver in the pantry for that cat of your’n.”

Chloe managed a smile of thanks and wandered out to the courtyard. She sat on the upturned rain barrel in the corner, lifting her face to the sun. Dante flopped down at her feet with a breathy sigh.

The sun was warm on her closed eyelids and a soft red glow soothed her eyes as Chloe tried to puzzle her way through her hurt confusion. She had enjoyed what had happened in the library with a pleasure uncomplicated by regret or guilt. She was well aware that society’s rules decreed that lovemaking should be confined to the conjugal bed, but in her experience, such rules had no meaning when applied to the reality of her life. This seemed just such an instance. She wasn’t injured in any way by what had happened, quite the opposite. She felt opened to the world for the first time, as if she had crossed the threshold that separated the dreary confines of her girlhood from the vibrant, exciting realm of adult experiences.

But what had Hugo found so disturbing about it? Even in her inexperience, it had been obvious that his bodily pleasure had matched her own. Knowing this
had augmented her own pleasure, released her from inhibition, allowed her to give herself without reserve or fear of embarrassment.

But he’d turned on her afterward with a bitterness that had tarnished the purity of her pleasure. Mortified, she had fled the library arid had lain awake, wondering why he should have unloosed such a flood of contempt. And this morning he had spoken to her with the harsh authority of the severest guardian …

Ah! Chloe’s eyes shot open as she began to see a path through the maze. Just because
she
didn’t feel guilty didn’t mean that Hugo didn’t. He was her guardian and he probably had some antiquated notion about the way guardians should behave toward their wards. He’d certainly become quite prune-faced at her suggestion that they dip into her fortune to benefit both of them. Perhaps he didn’t yet understand that Chloe had her own plans for her future and wasn’t inclined to sit passively while things happened to her. She had made last night happen much more than Hugo had.
She
was responsible. How absurd for him to blame himself.

Suddenly much more cheerful, Chloe slipped off the rain barrel and went to the stables to check on Rosinante. The nag looked as sorry as ever, notwithstanding warm bran mash and a bale of fresh hay.

“A bullet’d be the kindest thing, I reckon,” Billy opined, shaking his head.

“Maybe,” Chloe said. “If he doesn’t improve in a few days, I’ll ask Sir Hugo to put him out of his misery.” She ran her hand over the painfully thin rib cage, and her mouth tightened. “I know whom I’d like to put a bullet through!” Then she looked up at Billy, asking casually, “By the way, do you know where Sir Hugo went?”

Billy shook his head. “Just wanted ’is ’orse saddling.”

“Did he say how long he’d be?”

Again Billy shook his hand. “Nah. No reason why ’e should. None o’ my business.”

“I suppose not.” Chloe left the stable deep in thought. It seemed it was up to her to put matters right. She must simply reassure Hugo and persuade him that they had done nothing wrong. In fact, maybe the best way to do that would be to make it happen again.

She gave a little skip on the mired cobblestones at the thought. She suspected that there was much more to the business of lovemaking than last night had vouchsafed, and the prospect of further experiments sent little prickles of anticipation coursing up her spine.

In her bedroom she examined the gowns from Madame Letty hanging in the armoire. It hadn’t occurred to her to dress in anything but the brown serge that morning—it had been a rather brown serge kind of morning—but sunlight seemed to be running in her veins again as she planned her campaign, and the crisp, dainty muslins looked most appealing … not as dramatic as peacock-blue taffeta, of course. But there was no point dwelling on battles already lost.

She tossed aside the brown serge and slipped the sprigged muslin with the cornflower-blue ribbons over her head, twisting to fasten the hooks at the back before tying the sash. There was no mirror in the room, but she remembered seeing a swing mirror on a dressing table in one of the other bedrooms. She went off to find it in a dark and gloomy chamber smelling of mice, where the dust lay thick on the oak floor and faded velvet curtains blocked the light from the mullioned windows.

She pulled back the curtains to let in the light. She tried to lift the mirror from the dressing table, intending to carry it back to her own room, but it was far too heavy with its mahogany frame. So she had to examine herself in parts, standing on a low stool to see herself from the waist down.

The clumsy half boots that went with brown serge looked ridiculous with the pale filmy muslin, but there’d been no time yesterday to visit a shoemaker. Chloe kicked off her shoes, pulled off her stockings, and wriggled her toes in the mirror. The barefoot effect was rather alluring, she decided, like a milkmaid or shepherdess. It was to be hoped her guardian found pastoral images enticing.

She peered at her face in the dust-coated mirror, licking her finger and stroking her eyebrows into a tidy curve, experimenting with her hair, drawing it first into a knot on top of her head, then pulling it away from her face, held at the nape of her neck. In the end she decided it looked more pastoral tumbling unconfined over her shoulders and went back to her own room to brush it until the guinea-gold radiance rippled and shone.

Falstaff watched with his head cocked and one beady eye fixed on the rhythmic sweep of the brush, maintaining a soft stream of obscenities throughout. Beatrice abandoned her sleeping litter for a few moments and stretched herself in the sunlight on the windowsill, warming her flanks. Dante looked expectant, his feathery tail thumping the floor periodically.

“I wonder what you’ll all think of London,” Chloe remarked absently, threading a cornflower-blue ribbon through her hair. “We won’t be able to go until you’ve weaned the kittens, Beatrice.” A feline ear pricked. Dante sighed heavily and flopped to the floor, clearly deciding that nothing noteworthy was about to happen. “But then, I expect it’ll take that long to persuade Sir Hugo to agree and to make all the necessary arrangements,” she mused, sitting on the window seat, careful not to crease her dress.

It was an hour before the lone horseman appeared on the driveway. Chloe sprang to her feet, closed the door firmly on a disconsolate Dante, and ran to the head of
the stairs, from where she looked down into the great hall.

Hugo strode up the steps and into the house, his face set, lines of fatigue etched deep around his mouth and eyes. His red-rimmed eyes were lightless, like dull green stones in a face drawn beneath the sun’s bronzing.

He threw his crop onto the table and ran his hands through his hair, massaging his temples with his thumbs in a gesture that Chloe was beginning to find familiar. It spoke of such utter weariness that she longed to comfort him, to find some way to bring him peace. What must it be like never to sleep?

Hugo glanced up suddenly to where she was standing stock-still at the head of the stairs. “Come down to the library,” he said in a flat voice.

Chloe’s optimistic assurance faltered at his tone. She hesitated, one bare foot raised to take the first stair.

“Now!”

She gasped and ran down the stairs as if there were a whip at her back, but he’d already turned toward the door leading to the kitchen.

“Wait in the library,” he instructed her curtly, and went through the door.

Chloe obeyed slowly, all her earlier confidence evaporated. He hadn’t seemed to look at her properly, let alone notice her appearance. She stood in the library door, looking around the room where so much had happened. It seemed as gloomy and unfriendly now as it had the first time she’d entered it in search of Lawyer Scranton’s letter.

Her feet led her to the couch, and she gazed at the rumpled cushions, at the rusty smudge on the shabby velvet. She’d been bleeding a little when she’d reached her own room, but in the shock of Hugo’s violent rejection on the heels of euphoria she’d paid no attention beyond a superficial mopping up before crawling into
bed. She bent to touch the dark mark of her body, trying to reconnect with the joyous moment that had created it.

At this moment Hugo walked into the library, a glass in his hand. His stomach plummeted with renewed self-condemnation.

Chloe whirled toward him, her eyes wide with anxiety. “I was only … I was only …” she stammered, trying to find the words for what she had been thinking.

“I want you to drink this,” he said, brushing the stammered attempt aside, refusing to see what lay in her eyes. He held out the glass.

Chloe took it and looked at the cloudy liquid it contained, her nose wrinkling at the powerful aromatic fumes. “What is it?”

“Drink it,” he said.

“But … but what is it?” She gazed up at him in bewilderment. “Why won’t you tell me?”

“It will ensure that there are no consequences from last night,” he stated, his voice cool and even. “Drink it.”

“What consequences? I don’t understand.” Her soft mouth quivered in a tentative smile of appeal, the blue eyes turning as purple as the heather on a Scottish moor. “Please, Hugo.” Her hand drifted toward his arm, and he jerked away as if from a burning brand.

“Naive little fool!” he exclaimed. “I cannot believe you don’t know what I’m talking about.” He swung away from her to the brandy bottle and glass—ever-ready succor. He gulped down a shot and felt the warmth settling in his belly. The tremor in his hands steadied. He drew a deep breath and turned back to face her.

“A child. That is the consequence. You may have conceived a child. What’s in that glass will ensure that it doesn’t happen.”

“Oh.” Her expression became grave. “I should have thought. I didn’t mean to be such a simpleton.” She
spoke clearly and distantly. Then she tilted the contents of the glass down her throat, closed her eyes against the unpleasant taste, and swallowed. “Does it work?”

“Yes, it works.” He walked to the window.

His first time in the crypt, he’d learned about the potion. The woman had asked him for it in the dank drear light of dawn, when the hallucinatory euphoria of the night was fading and the spirit felt cold and dark. He hadn’t known what she’d been talking about, and she’d laughed at his naivete, a harsh and unkind laughter that had lacerated his youthful dignity. She’d called to Stephen and laughed with him at her young lover’s inexperience. But Stephen had not taunted him. He’d been sympathetic and understanding and had taken the youthful initiate to the cupboard where all the strange substances were kept. He’d explained how to mix the contraceptive herbs and a few days later took him to the charcoal burner’s hut in the forest where the herbalist plied her trade.

Hugo had listened as Stephen and the old woman discussed what new supplies were needed. He watched as Stephen paid in gold for the leather pouches and the alabaster jars. And the next time the cupboard needed replenishing, Hugo ran the errand himself.

The herbalist still lived in the charcoal burner’s hut. She’d recognized Hugo, even after fourteen years, and to his eyes she hadn’t changed much, maybe a few more lines on the wizened face, and the gray-white hair was thinner and more unkempt. But her eyes were as sharp and her price as high.

Chloe put down the empty glass and stepped toward Hugo as he stood staring out of the window. She took a deep breath, then reached up and touched his face over his shoulder. “Hugo, I—” But she got no further.

He swung around, slapping her hand away with a violence that made her cry out. “Don’t touch me!” he
snapped. “Don’t
ever
touch me again, do you understand?”