Lady Windermere's Lover (3 page)

At the same time, he needed to face the reason he’d fled England in a state of panic. For the sake of his family’s future, he would try to establish a cordial relationship with his wife.

L
ater that day, Damian dined at Grosvenor Square with Sir Richard Radcliffe. Though the Radcliffes entertained lavishly, it was an informal meal, with no other guests, spent catching up on London social gossip. Damian didn’t like keeping his new mission a secret from Radcliffe, who had been his mentor and confidant since he joined the diplomatic service. But Ryland had made it clear that the business was to be kept under the hatches.

Claiming pressure of work, Radcliffe asked Damian to escort his wife to the theater. Lady Belinda did not believe in arriving at the theater early. “They always start late. Besides, no one worth looking at ever arrives on time,” she said, and pressed another glass of brandy on him, giving him an excellent view of her bosom draped in red silk embroidered in gold. As he remembered well, Her Ladyship wasn’t bashful, either in private or in public. No one in the theater would miss that scarlet gown.

When they entered the Radcliffes’ box at Drury Lane, naturally in the best part of the house, Titania was waking up to find herself in love with an ass. Damian didn’t particularly like
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
. It disturbed him how the fate of humans was dependent on the whims of fairies, which seemed akin to the turn of the card or the fall of the dice. So he listened with half an ear to Lady Belinda’s commentary on the wardrobe choices of the audience and wished her husband had come with them.

Hard to believe that six years earlier, as a very junior diplomat, he’d had a massive tendre for the worldly hostess. She cultivated young followers from the better families, and her much older husband, ever occupied with the affairs of state, encouraged it. Damian sometimes wondered how much his advancement owed to the pleasure of his patron’s wife. Pleasure indeed. For a single month, once Lady Belinda had made it blatantly clear that her husband demanded only discretion, Damian had been her satisfied and ultimately exhausted bedmate. He’d been tossed aside for a newer, even younger candidate. A mission to Prussia beckoned, and frankly the Germans had been a bit of a relief after the exigencies of life as Lady Belinda’s lover.

A satin-gloved hand touched his knee, and stayed there. “I have heard, Damian,” she said, her voice a low purr, “that the Levant is home to many exotic practices.”

“I don’t know about that,” he said. “What seems exotic to us is normal to them. The game of Chowgan, for example, is no more or less thrilling than cricket is to us. It’s played on horseback with sticks to hit a ball. It’s very fine sport and demands a high degree of skill.”

“I’m always interested in sports that demand skill.” Her rich gardenia perfume tickled his nose as she leaned in to whisper. “Do the Persians not have seraglios, like the Turks?”

“Certainly. But male visitors, especially foreign ones, are not permitted to enter the zenanas. The women are well-guarded.”

“My poor Damian! Does that mean you have been
alone
for a full year?”

As a matter of fact it did. His bollocks roiled at the proximity of a woman who would, if he gave the sign, skip the play and put him through his paces for the rest of the night.

It was tempting. Very tempting.

Then he thought of his wife, who had been stranded in the country a full year. Though she hadn’t appealed to him in the past, long deprivation might make her desirable. With some regret he pretended to turn his attention to the stage.

Belinda hadn’t given up. “Gentlemen talk. Even if you lacked the opportunity to play exotic sports, I’m sure you learned the rules.”

“As a matter of fact I did play Chowgan.”

“Damian,” she said with an impatient edge. “I am not talking about games that are played on the back of a horse.”

It was stupid to encourage her, but he couldn’t resist. “I am astonished you never experienced that particular pleasure.”

She enjoyed that. “Will it surprise you to learn that I have tried? I thought to give new meaning to the rising trot but it proved impracticable.”

He crossed his legs, trying and failing to dislodge her hand. Instead it moved upward, warm against his satin-clad thigh. “Not even a horse can keep up with you, let alone a travel-weary man,” he said, hoping she would take the hint and accept that the delights of the evening would not extend beyond the thespian. As long as her hand didn’t travel any farther, she wouldn’t know that his cock hadn’t got the message about being too tired for action. Thank goodness the box was shadowy.

“Women talk when they are disappointed.” There was no question in his mind that the remark was a veiled threat. Not a direct one. Talking about his bedroom prowess, or lack of the same, wouldn’t accomplish anything, but Lady Belinda held a good deal of influence in the circles where his future ambitions lay and was ruthless about getting what she wanted. She had the power to make life difficult for him and needed to be placated.

“I have something you will enjoy, once all my luggage arrives. Certain miniature paintings that I cannot display in my wife’s drawing room.” He kept his eyes on the stage, but a sharp intake of breath told him he’d intrigued the sensual magpie.

“And shall you demonstrate the poses?”

“Alas,” he said with what he hoped was a note of finality, “I leave for Oxfordshire in a day or so.”

“You should wait for my Christmas dinner party. A week or two won’t make much difference.”

“My wife may beg to differ. I have not seen Lady Windermere in over a year.”

“Is that so?” Now her voice held a note of amusement. “In that case I will importune you no more. I look forward to seeing the paintings.”

She removed her hand from his thigh and they sat side by side with perfect decorum, pretending to watch the play. If there was a single member of the audience less interested in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
than he, it was Lady Belinda.

“Isn’t that Denford?” she asked, as a chorus of fairies in flimsy costumes cavorted on the stage. “Perhaps you haven’t heard, but the infamous Julian Fortescue has turned respectable. Or rather he inherited a dukedom, which had the same effect without him having to go to the trouble of changing his habits.”

His stomach clenched. He’d ignored Julian for the best part of seven years and he fervently wished he could continue to do so. But he had a mission. “Where? Has he changed his style of dress since being raised to the purple?”

“Opposite side, third box in from the stage.”

It was about as far across the expanse of the theater as was possible, but the tall, lean figure in black leaped instantly to the eye. Once he’d known Julian as well as anyone in the world and he could still pick him out of a crowd without the least difficulty. The years of disappointment and enmity slipped away and he felt the joy of seeing his best friend after a long absence. But only for a moment; then the old bitterness flooded his organs. Though he wished he could continue to pretend that Julian Fortescue didn’t exist, he had to reopen relations with the Duke of Denford. Duty demanded it.

“Still in black,” he said. “Has he cut his hair?”

“He believes he is Samson.”

“You are probably better acquainted with him than I. Now.” There was a hint of a question in his statement. If Julian—Denford—was one of Belinda’s lovers, wouldn’t Grenville have given her the task of persuading him to sell the paintings? She never made a secret of her
affaires
, and Sir Richard’s complacency, even complicity, was well-known.

“We are on nodding terms, that is all.” The pique in her voice told him that she wouldn’t mind playing Delilah, and he concluded that Julian had rejected her advances.

There was one other occupant of the box, a blond woman in blue, too far away to identify. He had the impression of a fashionable beauty, but her general mien struck no chord. It was unlikely that Damian knew her. She raised a lorgnette and looked around and he fancied they came under her scrutiny. Then she turned back to Denford, his black head contrasting with her fair one. Denford appeared engrossed by his companion and Damian couldn’t blame him. Even at this distance he could tell that she was exquisite. He wondered if her face matched her air of elegance.

“Perhaps I should go and congratulate him on his elevation,” Damian said, pondering the advantage of making initial contact in a public place He had no illusions about the difficulty of the task he’d been set. The last time he and Julian had spoken—ironically about a very different collection of pictures—had seemed to preclude their ever being on cordial terms again.

“I’m sure he won’t mind being interrupted.”

“Who is the lady?”

“I don’t know. I don’t keep count of Denford’s conquests.” The edge of malice in Belinda’s voice aroused warning prickles at the back of his neck. She was lying and she was up to no good.

The blond woman was probably married; Julian would hardly be escorting a young and single lady, and the female in question was clearly no Cyprian. Even at this distance she exuded an air of breeding and delicacy, though the latter quality was deceptive if she openly deceived her husband with a man of Julian’s ilk. Intruding on them without knowing her identity seemed potentially awkward. Suppose her husband was a friend of his? Reestablishing relations with Julian was going to be tricky enough without adding an unknown woman into the equation.

“The curtain is falling. You should go now.” Lady Belinda nodded to someone in another box and waved him toward the exit. “I can spare you for quarter of an hour.”

“I wouldn’t dream of leaving you alone.” If Lady Belinda pursued her own mischievous agenda, he refused to be manipulated “Also, I might be
de trop
over there. Who knows what Denford may be getting up to in that box.”

She smiled sweetly and changed her tack. “Some women have all the luck,” she purred, and put her hand back on his knee.

He inched away and calculated how much more of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
he had to endure.

Chapter 3

T
hrough the incompetent machinations of Puck, the four lovers were in a tangle and Titania was in love with an ass. Cynthia shifted in her seat and let her attention wander to the crowd in the pit.

“Not enjoying the play?” Denford asked.

“How did you know?”

“I notice everything about you, Cynthia.”

“I had never seen
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
acted,” she said quickly, “only read it. It’s very different on the stage.”

Despite making great strides in worldliness, she couldn’t help being a little shocked at the skimpy costumes, suggestive posturing, and outright kissing that was featured in the production. Lysander and Hermia had kissed on the lips early in the play and Titania was doing the same to Bottom now, positively devouring him beneath his ass’s head. Cynthia kept telling herself that it was only clever acting and they weren’t really behaving with such wantonness in public.

She stole a sideways glance and encountered Julian’s intense blue gaze. She lowered her eyes to his mouth and recalled the only time that she had been kissed like that, lasciviously, mouth-on-mouth, like the players on the stage.

The momentous occasion had been in a dark corner of her garden on a chill autumn night a few weeks earlier. It should have been her husband—such intimate caresses were the right of spouses—but Windermere had never kissed her thus. This man, the Duke of Denford, had introduced her to the delight. She felt guilty for kissing another man and resented that the man she’d married had not seen to the business himself. Her classmates at the Birmingham Academy for Young Ladies—ignorant girls like herself—had talked about love and marriage and kissing. The three went together, all with the same man.

“In what way do you find the play different?”

“The actors have revealed new aspects of the characters. I had not previously perceived that Lysander and Demetrius are in competition with each other. First they must both love Hermia and then, when one turns to Helena the other must follow.”

“You don’t give much credit to the intervention of the fairies.”

“I believe magic merely reinforces their own inclinations, which is that of former best friends turned rivals.”

“My dear Cynthia,” Julian said with a deep laugh. “You have grown into a woman of subtlety.”

“I hope so,” she said, not without pride. “I came to the capital a naïve provincial. I had no idea how to convey my thoughts except in the most straightforward manner. Since I quickly learned that simplicity is not appreciated in London, I could not convey them at all.”

“You know you may always speak frankly to me because I am incapable of taking offense. You can tell me what you really mean about the rivals in this play.” Julian was far too clever. And while he wasn’t always straightforward, he was never afraid to be frank. “Is that what you think?” he continued. “That I want you only because you are married to my former friend?”

“The notion has crossed my mind.”

“If you believe that your only value to me is as Damian’s bride, then you don’t know your own worth and he is a bigger fool than I thought for leaving you alone so long, and letting you think you mean nothing to him.”

I know I mean nothing to him
. She was too proud to say it aloud. Instead she soothed her vanity by defending her neglectful spouse. “He was called abroad and did his duty, for which I respect him.” Her hand convulsed on the gilt handle of her lorgnette.

“And of course he fulfills his duty to you by frequent letters, attentive to your needs.”

To that there was no answer.

Long fingers enveloped her clenched fist. “If you will let me,” he whispered, “you will find me neglectful in nothing.”

He chose his words well. Neglected was precisely how she had felt for so long, long before she met Windermere. Her husband had merely raised hopes that finally she would have someone to call her own, and dashed them. She ignored a shiver of yearning, withdrew from Julian’s touch, and raised the glasses to her nose. Her throat was tight. “Not now.”

“Why not now? Admit that you are tempted. Why else did you come out with me tonight?”

As his wicked voice stroked her like a sable brush, she determinedly surveyed the faces and figures in the boxes opposite. There were a few she knew, but very few. Despite her rank, she was not of the
ton
. The niece of a Birmingham merchant, abandoned by her brand-new husband, had no entrée to the more rarefied households of Mayfair. If her only recourse had been to the faintly disreputable company of Caro Townsend and her set, including Julian Fortescue, it was Windermere’s fault. Through the lorgnette she saw the Countess of Ashfield, a pillar of London society with the eyesight of an eagle, glaring back at her. Another box was filled with drunken bucks; luckily they were on the bottom tier or the occupants of the pit below would be in dire danger of being hit by flying glasses and vomit. The next box was also a trifle crowded: The owner had decided to cram his wife and six young ladies into the narrow space. By contrast, the very elegant lady next door had but a single gentleman in attendance.

She inhaled so hard her chest hurt. She would recognize that gentleman from a mile’s distance, with or without the benefit of magnifying lenses.

She didn’t know him as well as she knew the man at her side, but on the other hand, unlike Julian, he had shared her bed. He was her lawfully wedded husband. Back in London after more than a year’s absence, he had not sought the company of his wife. Instead he was tête-à-tête in a box at Drury Lane with another woman.

Every muscle rigid, she lowered the lorgnette to her lap with exaggerated care.

“What is it?” Julian asked.

“Who is the lady in red in the box closest to the pit door?”

“Lady Belinda Radcliffe, wife of the undersecretary for foreign affairs. Windermere has known her for a long time, through her husband.” She heard pity in his voice and felt his hand on her shoulder, like comfort, not seduction.

“Did you know Windermere was back in London?”

“I heard a rumor. But when you agreed to come out with me tonight I thought I must be wrong.”

Cynthia blinked hard and didn’t trust herself to speak through thickening tears. Instead she tilted her head to press her cheek against Julian’s hand. Across the theater she saw Windermere’s gaze linger on them for a few seconds, then he turned back to the beautiful Lady Belinda.

If she were honest with herself, she had hoped he would see her, or at least hear a report that she hadn’t been waiting at home like a meek Quaker for her spouse’s return. When imagining his reaction to seeing her transformed into a fashionable lady—and escorted by a duke, this particular duke—she hadn’t expected indifference. Expectations confounded again, she thought wryly through her distress.

“I heard that rumor too,” she managed finally. “But I didn’t know Windermere was already in town. I assumed he had been delayed.”

If Denford expressed sympathy now, she would leave. She would ask the theater servants to find her a hackney and go home alone. Her sense of humiliation was too great to be borne in sight of another. Gradually her heightened breathing abated. “So he is merely escorting the wife of a senior colleague, then. Very polite of him.”

“I’m sure that’s the reason,” Julian said. She’d almost recovered her equilibrium when he delivered the final blow. “It is common knowledge that Windermere’s affair with Lady Belinda was over years ago.”

Common knowledge to all except the stupid lowborn wife he’d married for her uncle’s money. Foolishly, she couldn’t keep her eyes off them. She saw her husband take the satin hand of his former mistress and raise it to his lips. Not so former would be her guess. The letter from the Foreign Office had told her he’d reach London two days ago. Perhaps he had. But those two days—and nights—had not been spent at Windermere House.

Julian’s supple fingers massaged the tense muscles of her neck, out of sight of the casual observer. The sensation of flesh on flesh sent tingles of sensation down her back and up between her legs.

Damian, Earl of Windermere, might have come home this night and satisfied the desire that pooled in her most private place, but he preferred a former mistress in red satin. And when, after all, had he ever satisfied her desires?

She wanted satisfaction. Even more, she craved intimacy and human connection.

“I don’t want to see the rest of the play, Julian. Take me home.”

E
ven if he changed his mind, Damian had no chance to tackle Denford at the theater. The duke and his blond beauty left before the last act. Damian accompanied Lady Belinda home. Declining offers of refreshment—liquid or carnal—and the use of her carriage, he opted to walk back to his hotel in St. James’s. It was a crisp, clear night without the pervasive damp that chilled one to the bone in a London winter. He could almost see the stars, or at least could imagine they were there. London always seemed both domestic and exotic to him. As a child, the occasional visit to the capital with his mother and sister had been exciting. Then, when they weren’t gallivanting around continental Europe, Julian, Robert, Marcus, and he would raise hell and shock the straitlaced out of their stays. After he determined to become a responsible citizen and serve the public, he’d chosen diplomacy, and once more spent much of his time abroad.

The pleasant streets of Mayfair held no particular memories, good or bad. He had no intention of going as far south as Pall Mall, site of the great disaster that changed his life. On a whim he prolonged his walk by an eastward diversion to Hanover Square, the site of his family’s London abode.

Reaching the square, he detected light through the drawn curtains of the square brick mansion. Intending to leave for the country almost immediately, he hadn’t thought it worth opening the house. With his new, and most unwelcome mission, he supposed he’d have to bring his wife back from Beaulieu and occupy Windermere House.

During his absences abroad, the house was let for the season, bringing in a handsome income, but it was odd that there should be tenants in occupation during December. He walked around the square and found the knocker on the door; someone was in residence. Before he could dwell on the possible awkwardness of intruding on strangers late at night, he rapped sharply.

A couple of minutes later his butler admitted him.

“Good evening, my lord,” Ellis said, betraying not an iota of shock. “We expected you two days ago. I trust you had a pleasant journey.”

“Very good, thank you, Ellis. Who told you I would be in London?”

“Her Ladyship, of course. She only arrived this morning but she wrote and warned us to be ready for you.”

“Her Ladyship is here?” The woman was supposed to have stayed in the country and waited for him to return. Looking past Ellis, he noticed changes in the hall. The paint had been freshened, which was an improvement; a large Chinese urn occupied one corner, which was not. Ugly as it was, it paled in comparison to a ghastly Dutch still-life painting featuring a variety of dead birds.

“Has Lady Windermere spent much time in London during my absence?”

“She has been in residence most of the year.”

With trepidation he remembered that he’d given her carte blanche to refurbish Beaulieu Manor. If this was an example of her taste, he shuddered to think what she might have done to his mother’s house.

“Where is she?”

“When she came in, she retired to the small parlor. She said she wished to read in peace and would ring when she was ready to go upstairs. She asked not to be disturbed.”

“I don’t suppose she meant me.”

“Certainly not, my lord. Her Ladyship will be very happy to see you at last.” A subtle reprimand colored the butler’s final words. “Do you need anything? I see that your luggage has been delayed.”

“Nothing for now, Ellis. That will be all.” He didn’t need a witness to a reunion whose course he could no longer predict. He’d anticipated his bride grateful for his arrival in the wilds of Oxfordshire. By moving to London without permission, she demonstrated an unpleasing independence. He passed out of the hall, behind the double staircase to the short passage leading to the rear ground floor rooms.

The small parlor was empty. He tried the library next door and found it dark and unheated. He returned to the parlor, where the fire glowed, though it looked as though no one had tended it for an hour or two. A leather-bound novel lay open on a table next to the chaise longue. The curtains over the French windows were open a crack and the door into the garden was unlocked. Apparently, like him, his wife, had felt the need for fresh air. Detecting no light outside, he stepped out.

“My lady?” No response. The garden was of a fair size for London, but it didn’t take long to see that it was empty, unless she was crouching behind the shrubbery. His boots were almost silent on the frosted lawn and he could hear nothing but the occasional rumble of wheels in the street beyond. Back inside he looked out one last time and saw a bobbing light coming from the left side. Acting on instinct, he slipped hastily into the dark library. A pair of shadowy figures, one a woman, appeared against the garden wall. They spoke for a short time, then exchanged a tender embrace. The man faded back into the wall and the woman headed for the house. As she hurried up the path, the lantern illuminated his wife’s long-forgotten features. She was prettier than he remembered, and her hairstyle had improved, her blond hair now dressed in a fashionable tangle of curls. Her blue evening gown was modish and in excellent taste. Something about her appearance nagged a memory, and not a distant one. As she neared the house she tossed a look over her shoulder. The other man had disappeared.

Though he hadn’t spent much time in the garden in recent years, he remembered an iron gate in the wall, leading to the adjacent garden of . . . Denford House.

Idiot that he was to have forgotten. Julian and he used to joke about their family mansions being next door to each other. But Julian had never set foot in his. From a distant and despised branch of the Fortescue family, he hadn’t been welcome at the family headquarters. Now he must own the place.