Lady Windermere's Lover (8 page)

Yet how could he have known her? Close up, the features were the same, but in every other way she had changed. She might have appalling taste in art and furniture, but she had made the best of her own appearance. Gone were the stiff curls and overfussy gowns, to be replaced by a coiffure and wardrobe that wouldn’t disgrace the beauties of any court in Europe. The careless cluster of curls suited her heart-shaped face, and she had learned to clothe her short, curvaceous figure in a way that made any man worth his salt wish to take her to bed. The fact that another man had done so became a matter for regret as well as anger.

He wanted her. Much more than the superficial attraction he’d felt for Lady Belinda that night at the theater, which had been based purely on the strain of celibacy. He wanted his wife. He wanted to rumple the golden locks, explore the texture of her skin, and taste those perfect lips. He wanted to take her upstairs and discover if she looked even better unclothed.

The impulse needed to be controlled. There were too many reasons it could not happen.

At the other end of the table, Denford murmured a private aside to her and she responded with a coquettish nod, a suggestive pout of her kissable red mouth, to the former’s amusement.

He also needed to control his temper. A new irritation had entered the ocean of bad blood that lay between himself and Denford: jealousy.

Now Denford was telling a story, gossip about people he didn’t know, making him feel an outsider in his own house. She threw back her head and laughed at the denouement, displaying a throat whose purity and elegance twisted Damian’s heart.

He summoned the serene surface he’d developed during years of public service and smiled.

C
ynthia was enjoying herself. She wasn’t accustomed to entertaining much, except in the most casual way. This odd little gathering was the closest she’d come to a formal dinner party. Having a husband to act as host and assist in managing awkward moments was a comfort to her. She wondered if he approved of her own contributions. In the old days at Beaulieu he made no secret of his doubts that she was capable of presiding over his household as a worthy hostess. But tonight she thought she was doing quite well. He hadn’t gone so far as to smile at her, but he had offered to take her to the Royal Academy. When, as happened quite often, she sensed his steady gaze on her, she felt tight in her own skin, an alarming but not disagreeable sensation. She also worried that she had something caught in her teeth.

Julian was going on about something, probably being his usual witty self, but she scarcely listened. Through the forest of candles glowing over the linen, silver, and crystal of her carefully chosen table setting, her attention was drawn to Windermere.
Damian
. How absurd that Julian called him by his Christian name and she did not. She remembered the first time she saw him and how handsome he had seemed. If anything, he was more beautiful now. His Persian tan made his gray eyes bluer. She imagined tracing the straight, firm eyebrows that added character to his face, and exploring the dimple in his chin.

With her tongue.

Good God, where had that come from?

Then he smiled at something Julian said, and she realized for the first time that he also had dimples in his cheeks, barely perceptible, when he was amused.

She’d like to amuse him, she realized. She’d like to say or do something that would reveal those delicious indentations of flesh, which she’d then taste . . .

She should not be sitting at her dinner table thinking such things. It wasn’t decent. And even if it was, he didn’t deserve such attentions. Nothing had changed, even though she wished it had.

Perhaps it would. Perhaps she could forgive the past and forge a new relationship with Damian that would involve dimples. They were married, after all, and there wasn’t anything either could do about it.

A gasp of horror interrupted her thoughts. It came from her left, from George Lewis. No doubt Julian had said something outrageous and shocked her husband’s cousin. What had they been talking about? Oh yes, the iniquities of Mr. Pitt’s ministry. Not that Julian cared a bit. It amused him to pick an argument, and poor Mr. Lewis was a Tory member of Parliament.

“Don’t take any notice of Denford, cousin,” she said. “He likes to shock.”

Cousin George recovered his poise and his natural pomposity. “I confess, Your Grace, to some surprise that you continue in your trade of buying and selling pictures since you inherited high rank. Like my revered cousin the late earl, I see a nobleman’s interest in art as suitably restricted to the glorification of his house and family.”

“What would you expect me to do?” Julian replied. “What would you do if you suddenly became Earl of Windermere?”

“I certainly don’t expect it. I have no doubt my new cousin will soon present her lord with a pledge of her affection. I have never thought to inherit Cousin Damian’s estate.”

“But if you did. If Windermere fell under a hackney carriage tomorrow, what would you do?”

“I would continue to do my duty to my family and the nation in the House of Lords instead of the Commons.”

“And I continue to do what I have always done, which is to buy and sell pictures.”

“Will you not take your seat in the Lords?”

“I don’t think you would like what I would get up to there,” Julian said with a bark of a laugh.

“Tell me what you hope to accomplish next year, cousin,” Cynthia said hastily.

“I wouldn’t wish to bore you, my lady, with the details, but one of the first bills likely to come up is a renewal of the Spitalfields Act.”

“What is that?”

“It sets the wages of silk weavers in Spitalfields, east of London.”

“I know where Spitalfields is,” Cynthia replied.
Only too well
.

“The factory owners oppose it. It lays them open to competition from mills in other parts of the country that are able to pay lower wages.”

“And you, Mr. Lewis? How do you intend to vote?”

“There are arguments on both sides.” He looked over at Windermere. “Do you have an opinion, cousin? I must be guided by the head of the family, in whose gift my parliamentary seat lies.”

“I promised your uncle I would use my influence against the renewal of the act.” Damian nodded to her, as though she would be pleased. “He sees the law as likely to raise the price of silk. Now that we are at war with France, the competition from imported materials is unimportant. We need to strengthen the industry in London.”

George nodded approvingly. “Very wise, Windermere. Do you know that certain factions of the Whigs are trying to get the wage protections extended to women workers? Can you imagine anything so absurd?”

“Why absurd?” Cynthia asked.

“Surely it is obvious? Women do not have to support wives and families. They don’t need to make as much money. Not, of course, that the law would set the wages for women weavers as high as that of the men. No one is suggesting it should go that far.”

“Women sometimes have to look after their families too.”

“If so they are no better than they should be. A decent woman has a husband.”

Although Cynthia could have named half a dozen women whose circumstances contradicted George’s claim, she didn’t like to argue with a guest—or her husband—at the dinner table. “If this law is not a good thing, how did it come to be passed?” she asked instead.

“Fear, Lady Windermere. Fear and intimidation. The various Spitalfields Acts were passed under threat of riots, and the silk weavers were rewarded for disorderly conduct.”

Cynthia thought of the squalid streets around her uncle’s factory; the dirty, crowded houses; the poverty and desperation of the people. The need for work in which even a small improvement in wages made the difference between starvation and a life that anyone at this table—or any servant in her house—would find insupportably mean. “I cannot find it in my heart to blame men or women for trying to better themselves.”

Windermere broke into the conversation. “When they do so at the expense of good order, the result is the kind of horror I saw in France during the worst of the Revolution. I would hate to see blood running in the streets of London.”

Julian threw back his head and laughed. “Bravo, Damian! Ten years ago I would never have thought to hear such a speech from an admirer of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Your father would be proud.”

Damian’s features twisted into an expression Cynthia had never seen and could not read. Disgust, perhaps, or cynicism, or some blend of the two overlaid by a veil of sorrow. She wished she knew what it meant.

Chapter 7

“A
re Mr. and Mrs. Lewis good whist players?” Denford jerked his head at the table where Damian’s cousins had settled down to play a rubber against Cynthia and Bream.

“Fair enough,” Damian replied.

“It doesn’t matter. They’ll win. Oliver always trumps his partner’s aces. Since you arranged the game, you should be ready to pay your wife’s debts.”

He bit back a query about his wife’s skill. He had no clue how well she played cards, while Julian, no doubt, was well aware. The thought infuriated him, and he had only himself to blame for his ignorance. If he had stayed in England, he would know about Cynthia’s whist skills and a lot of other things too. And Julian would never have had the chance to seduce her. Yet she had been so different then . . . or perhaps not. He hadn’t taken the trouble to find out.

He took a deep breath and tucked his feelings away. He had a job to do.

“Will you join me?” he asked. “Brandy?”

They settled in a pair of chairs next to a malachite table as far from the cardplayers as the length of the drawing room allowed. Once Damian had known Julian’s expressions as well as his own, could distinguish the true emotions that sometimes cut through the wall of cynical worldliness. He hoped he still could and would be able to tell whether Julian lied about the Falleron collection.

Julian accepted a glass, breathed deep, and tasted. “A fine cognac,” he said. He didn’t need to mention that they had discovered the joys of French wines together in the cafes of Paris. Damian felt sure that they were sharing the same memory. But when his former friend raised his eyes from contemplation of the golden brown spirits, his expression was cold and mocking.

“Why am I here, Windermere?” he asked. No more false bonhomie and Christian names. “What do you want? If I remember correctly, the last time we spoke at any length was some six years ago when you took a great deal of pleasure in informing me that Lord Maddox wasn’t going to sell his pictures to me as previously agreed.”

“Maddox wasn’t the first collector to change his mind.”

“Thanks to your father.”

“It was thanks to my father that you even met Maddox. The fact that your sale didn’t go through had nothing to do with us.”

Denford dignified this excuse with no more than a curl of his lip. This final episode in the decline and fall of their friendship was the major sticking point in Damian’s current mission. The irony that he was supposed to persuade Julian to sell a collection of pictures had laid heavily on his mind and—a little—on his conscience. He knew what a setback the failure of the Maddox purchase had dealt Julian’s fledgling career.

“I’d raised the money and you knew how hard that was for me,” Denford said. “Control of such a prime group of Masters would have established my reputation and let me open my own gallery to rival Bridges. Instead I had years more of begging and contriving.”

“And now you are a duke. Being in trade is bad enough but at least buying and selling pictures is an acceptable occupation for a gentleman. Good God! You should be grateful now you never opened a shop.”

“The title is empty since I have come into precious little of the fortune as yet. A lot of nonsense about what gentlemen should or should not do troubles me not a whit. I’ve never given a damn what anyone thinks of me or of what I do.”

Damian nursed his brandy and eyed his opponent with an air of calm that he hoped equaled Julian’s. The anger and bitterness into which their friendship had dissolved lingered under the surface, but neither let it show. He had this sudden urge to grab the Duke of Denford by the throat and strangle him with his affected black neckcloth until those blue eyes betrayed . . . something.

So he didn’t give a damn? Well, he should. Julian
should
care about what he’d done to Damian seven years ago. He
should
care about what he was doing to him now. He had no business seducing another man’s wife in retaliation for what was the merest pinprick compared to the blow Damian had suffered. He was going to pay Julian back, once he’d concluded his current, infuriating mission.

“I shouldn’t have gloated over the Maddox business,” he said, managing not to choke. “I’m sorry for it now. But there was a lot of bad blood between us.”

“Blood that you were the first to spill.”

Although he disputed that assessment, Damian let it pass. “Water under the bridge.”

“By all means let it flow away. Then perhaps you can tell me what you want.”

“The Falleron collection. Do you know where it is? I don’t expect you to consider the importance of the Alt-Brandenburg alliance, but there’s a fortune in this for you. The Foreign Office is prepared to sweeten the prince’s offer with monies from the secret funds.”

Julian’s scorn would have cut through glass. “Prince Heinrich is a tasteless oaf. I wouldn’t sell masterpieces to such a boor.”

“I didn’t know you were acquainted with him.”

“I attended a reception at his palace in ’97. He was surrounded by blowsy mistresses and smelly dogs to whom he spared what scraps of food from the table he did not consume himself. The very idea of his laying fat, lustful fingers on the exquisite flesh of a Raphael Madonna is enough to turn my stomach.”

“Do you expect me to believe you care whom you sell to, as long as the price is right?”

“You disappoint me, Damian. You used not to be so coarse.”

That rankled. He had been in the habit for so long of thinking of Julian as a heartless, mercenary creature who acted only in his own interest. And while he still believed it, he also remembered Julian’s genuine passion for great works of art. Somehow he felt his actions now—his attempt to manipulate Denford to his will—had a grubbiness about them.

But it wasn’t just his own future in the government that was at stake. It was the good of the nation.

“So you admit that you have the collection?”

“I admit nothing.”

And yet he had referred to a Raphael Madonna, and the Marquis de Falleron had possessed a famous one. It didn’t prove that Denford owned the collection, but Damian was beginning to be convinced that he did. He felt the pricking under the skin that told him he was on the right scent.

He settled back in his chair, sipped his brandy, and smiled faintly. “I remember your excitement that evening at the Hôtel Falleron. You’re the expert, but I believe it is unusual for a collection of that size and importance to vanish. Did you ever hear rumors of what became of them?”

“Rumors are cheap.”

He surveyed Julian through narrowed eyes. The duke was preternaturally still, his face set in stone like a medieval saint. “You were in Paris when the Terror began. I believe the marquis and his family were early victims of Madame Guillotine.”

Had Damian not been looking he wouldn’t have spotted the infinitesimal twitch at the side of the twisted mouth, the momentary cloud in the clear blue eyes. “I left soon afterward and never knew what happened.”

Soon after what? His wording seemed odd. Before Damian could press, Julian struck back. “I left France and returned to ‘perfidious Albion.’ You went into the right profession, Windermere.”

Damian didn’t make the mistake of not taking the insult personally. French diplomats had long accused their British counterparts of being “perfidious” in their promises. Julian was referring to what he’d always claimed was Damian’s betrayal.

“What some call perfidy, others regard as looking after the interests of the country.”

Denford smiled unpleasantly. “Patriotism? On that topic I agree with Dr. Johnson. When you rejected art for the grubby contrivances of government, you fell among scoundrels.”

“Really? I thought I was doing the opposite. Let’s not talk about old rivalries, however.” He’d gathered useful information and would like to probe for more.

“Not old ones, no.” Julian glanced over at Cynthia, who was laughing at some idiocy of Bream’s and looked carefree and lovely. “Cynthia looks ravishing tonight.”

The demands of diplomacy, perfidious or otherwise, were tossed aside. Sometimes plain speaking was called for. “Leave my wife out of this. Leave her alone.” His jaw clenched.

“As you have?” Julian jeered.

“I am home now.”

“For how long? Will you take her with you next time you are called away on an urgent diplomatic mission?” He managed to make service to the nation sound self-serving and seedy, rather like a visit to a brothel.

“That’s none of your affair. You should not have involved an innocent like Cynthia in our old quarrel.”

“You believe I am using her for my own ends?”

“Why else would you be chasing after her?” He carefully kept from letting out that he knew the pursuit had been successful.

“You have a poor opinion of your own bride.”

Again Damian felt shabby. And stupid. For it was rapidly bearing in on him that his lady was no longer the dull little provincial he’d married, if she ever had been. Could Julian actually be in love with her?

A well-bred but distinct commotion arose at the card table.

“Upon my soul,” Cousin George said. “I do believe you revoked, sir.” Apparently, Bream, not content with trumping his partner’s winners, had done the same to his opponent’s when he had no right. “You trumped my king of hearts when you still had a small heart in your hand.”

“Really,” Bream said vaguely. “I thought hearts were trumps.”

“Even if they were, you still have to follow suit.”

“I always forget.”

Cynthia put down her cards and stood up. “Let me ring for the tea tray. Will you tally the score, Cousin George? Setting aside the last hand when Oliver made the mistake, I believe you are a handy winner. We were quite outplayed. Dear Cousin Louisa, you must be parched.”

The contretemps cleaned up and brushed aside, she walked over to the bellpull, a few feet from Damian’s chair.

“Has my lord been entertaining you, Julian?” She gave Denford a sideways glance that Damian interpreted as coy.

“Windermere and I have discovered a surprising amount to talk about after all these years.”

“It’s odd that I am better acquainted with you than with my husband. And you know
him
better than I do.”

“How piquant that I should be what you two have in common. I shall have to bring you together.”

“We can share you.”

Damian was unable to believe what he was hearing. He had of course heard of such “sharing” arrangements, but he’d never fancied the idea himself. Even when he and Julian had been close, they’d never pursued that particular vice. As far as he knew, a certain Venetian courtesan was the only woman they had both bedded, but certainly not at the same time.

Except she wasn’t the only one. There was Cynthia too, his faithless wife. Disguising his shock, he stared at her through narrowed eyes. She smiled at him, apparently without guile, then turned to Denford. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought her mouth widened a little when she regarded her lover. And yet he could swear there was nothing lascivious in either look. He was having a hard time imagining this angelic, golden woman in sweaty congress with even one man, let alone two at once.

Julian on the other hand looked amused. “I don’t think I would like you to share me with anyone,” he said. “I’d rather have you to myself.”

Cynthia blushed, the color making her appear prettier than ever. “That was a goosish thing for me to say. I only meant that I am glad . . .” She trailed off, flustered. “I am glad to see you mending your past differences.” She turned to Damian. “You must know, my lord, that without Denford and other friends I would have been uncommonly lonely during your absence.”

He flinched at the reproach in her clear blue eyes. “I am sorry for that, my lady. I heeded the call of duty. My work will always be important to me, but I see that it is time for me to tend to my domestic affairs as well as foreign ones.”

He had the urge to toss Denford out of the house forever, and turn his efforts to mending fences with his wife. He had no hesitation now about where to apportion blame for her straying. She was an innocent lamb in the jaws of a wolf.

C
ynthia enjoyed the bedtime ritual of brushing her hair because she remembered her mama doing it for her. Even after she married and acquired the services of a personal maid, she continued to do it herself. Not in a melancholy way; her childhood had been a happy one. She preferred to dwell on past happiness rather than its premature loss.

Tonight the probable arrival of her husband drove away memories of life in the curate’s cottage. She prepared for the event by twisting her hair into a severe plait and donning her sturdiest winter nightgown, a voluminous flannel garment suitable for unheated bedchambers. She climbed into her side of the bed feeling overly warm.

Windermere, displaying further evidence of a flamboyant taste in nightwear that didn’t match his sober daytime attire, was resplendent in crimson velvet with gold frogging. She forbore from comment, even when he discarded the robe to reveal—thank heavens—a shirt reaching almost to his knees. Undistracted by more interesting parts of his anatomy, she allowed herself to note that he had shapely calves and ankles and long, elegant feet lightly dusted with dark hair. The room suddenly seemed stifling.

“I’m sorry about your mattress, my lord,” she said, pushing aside a couple of blankets. “The man was unable to come in and restuff it today. The housekeeper tells me that she needs more notice. She apologizes for not being aware of your stuffing preferences. The mattress on the master bed was, she says, stuffed according to the common taste.”

“I have uncommon tastes, I fear. I prefer a looser stuffing. No matter. When the—er—mattress stuffer can get here is time enough. I am quite comfortable in your bed.”

“Are you sure my stuffing isn’t too tight for you?”

“Thank you, but I found it quite comfortable, at least on the right side of the bed. If I find the other side isn’t loose enough I shall ask you to switch places with me again.” He climbed into bed.

Not sure why the whole conversation seemed vaguely indecent, Cynthia glanced sideways to find him looking disgustingly at ease and shockingly handsome. If the marriage had turned out the way she’d naïvely hoped, what would they be doing now?
That
, she supposed, but was that all? Would not a husband and wife on good terms, who had just entertained guests, discuss the evening?
That
with Windermere had been disappointing, but a conversation appealed.