Wife Errant (6 page)

“What do you mean, Revel?”

As this revealed his own scarlet past, he ignored the question. “Or we could just take a spin into the countryside.”

“I don’t understand. Why would anyone go to the Crescent Gardens so late at night? They could not see the flowers.”

“They could smell them.”

“They go there to
cuddle!”
she exclaimed. “That is what you meant!”

“
‘Cuddle’
is one word for it, I suppose.”

“I’m surprised your team did not head in that direction from habit.”

“There is more than one place to take a wayward lady. I prefer a discreet inn in the country,”
he said airily.

“I prefer the Crescent Gardens. Let us go there at once.”

He snapped to attention.
“What?”

“To see if Lord James’s carriage is there, stoopid! I hope you didn’t think I planned to let you have your way with me.”

“I don’t want to have my way with you! This is fine gratitude for all my efforts to help you.”

“I have been wondering about that. I cannot quite trust disinterested help from you, for your mama always says you are the most selfish beast in nature.”

“What possible good can I hope to gain from helping you?”
he demanded hotly.

“I think you want to get Esmée back by making her jealous, since Papa stole her from you, and it amuses you to use me to do it.”

“Who says I want her back?”

“I haven’t heard you have taken up with anyone else.”

“Perhaps my amorous career is on hiatus.”

“Hiatus? What is that?”

“Pardon me. The word has three syllables,”
he said through thin lips.

“How very rude you are! I know lots of words with three syllables.”

“Of course you do. There is cowcumber, and nip-farthing.”

“Don’t forget reprobate!”
she added, with a bold smile.

“Add ingratitude to your list, milady.”

“That is four syllables. I count, too, you see. Oh, look, Revel!”
She grabbed his arm. “That is Lord James’s carriage, is it not? And it’s only eleven-thirty. He is bringing her home pretty early. We’ll wait till Mama goes in. I want her to have a few minutes to worry about me. Say half an hour. We shall just park here in the shadows.”

“I cannot leave my nags standing in this cold for half an hour!”

“Why do gentlemen invariably put the welfare of their cattle before that of ladies?”
she snipped.

Undeterred, Revel pulled the check string and directed John Groom to trot the nags along the Upper Bristol Road a few miles, then return, but they waited to see Lord James escort Mrs. Marchant to her front door.

“We should have waited to see if she invited him inside,”
Tess complained as the carriage rolled away.

“We’ll see if his rig is still there when we return.”

“What, leave his nags standing in the cold for half an hour? Impossible!”

“I should think you would be a little more conciliating, Tess. I am going a mile out of my way to help you.”

“I do hope it brings Esmée round your thumb, Revel. Fancy her preferring Papa to you. Some ladies do like a little maturity in their flirts, of course.”

“Are you implying I am immature?”

“A gentleman of one and thirty who has had a series of mistresses, but is afraid to settle down, must be considered immature,”
she pointed out blandly. “I feel Esmée must agree with me.”

“I turned Esmée off two weeks ago.”

“Why? What is wrong with her? I must warn Papa. Is she very expensive?”

“On the contrary. She refused to take anything. Money, jewelry ...”

“Surely that is all to the good,”
she said in confusion.

“No, it is not all to the good. When a lady refuses payment, it means she expects something else for her trouble. To wit, a wedding ring.”

“Oh, dear! Poor Papa! I must warn him.”

Revel was annoyed with Tess. He felt he was doing her a tremendous favor, and all he was getting for his trouble was complaints and insults. Eventually he would no doubt star as the wrongdoer in the affair when she was kind enough to jilt him. He must be mad. He was beginning to have serious doubts about this undertaking. He might shift the job off on to Evans. Yet that did not quite please him, either.

The lights were still burning at Bartlett Street when the carriage returned. Lord James’s carriage was nowhere in sight.

“He has either left, or he is having his groom drive the nags around,”
Revel said.

“Since the window curtains are open, we can peek in the saloon window and see if he is there,”
Tess suggested. “I shall also be interested to see if they are kissing.”

“I refuse to play the Peeping Tom!”

“Don’t be so missish, Revel.”

“Missish”
was the last charge Revel ever expected to hear hurled at his head. He had been castigated before for flying too high, driving too fast, gambling too deep, and other conduct becoming a bachelor about town, but “missish”! This was really the outside of enough.

Tess was already opening her door and dismounting. Revel climbed out the other door and followed her toward the house. The window was rather high. Even on tiptoe, Revel could not see in, and Tess’s head was six inches below the frame.

“I’ll have to lift you up,”
he said.

“You’d never get me off the ground. I weigh nine stone.”

Annoyed at yet another slur on his manhood, Revel put his hands around her waist and lifted her off the ground. She grabbed on to the window ledge and peered through the curtains. Vision was misty through the layers of chiffon, but she could see her mama, bathed in light from the lamp. She was idly flipping through a magazine. “Lord James is not there,”
she said, and Revel let her slide to the ground.

Her body brushed intimately against his as he lowered her. She was acutely aware of his arms pressing her waist, and the shadowed eyes regarding her. With both feet on the ground, she looked up and said in a breathless voice, “I am down now. You can let me go, Revel. I’ll go right in now.”

“Not without my mark on you,”
he said softly, and tightened his hold until she was crushed against his chest.

She mistrusted that glitter in his eyes. “What do you mean?”
she demanded, frowning at him.

“I mean—this,”
he said. His head descended, his lips touched hers and clung. Caught by surprise, Tess let him get away with it. It was a new experience for her to be kissed by such a dasher and she savored it objectively. It was rather nice.

There was some excitement in feeling a man so close, with his skin actually pressing on hers, but she felt none of that swooning that her friends spoke of. Neither did she feel the least frightened. It was not until Revel’s lips firmed and the pressure increased that the giddiness invaded her head. She put both hands on his chest and pushed him away.

“You promised you wouldn’t!”
she accused.

“Now who is being missish?”
he taunted.

“I take leave to tell you, Revel, I
am
a miss. There is nothing wrong in
my
being missish.”

“I only promised not to kiss you behind bushes, Tess.”
He laughed. “Your mama is no flat. She can tell the difference between a lady who has been arguing like a shrew and one who has been cuddling.”
He noticed, however, that Tess still resembled the former.

“Do I look wanton?”
she asked.

“Like a debauched seraphim.”

“Angels have blond hair, Revel. Everyone knows that.”

“I stand corrected,”
he said, with unsteady lips. “I should have said a debauched schoolmarm.”

They began walking to the front door. “It is odd you should say that. I have often wanted to be a schoolmarm.”

“And not an actress? Your imagination is sadly deficient, Tess.”

“The hurly-burly of the chaise longue has no allure for me.”

“I never denigrate a thing until I have tried it,”
he said mischievously.

They reached the door and stopped. Revel lifted his fingers and rubbed them hard on her lips. “As you object to reality, we'll create the illusion of riotous flirtation by other means. Now go, while your lips are still red.”

Tess ran her hands through her coiffure to tousle it while Revel watched, bemused. Odd how those few touches of the wanton improved Tess’s appearance. They removed her air of awful propriety.

“She’ll never believe I was with you. She will think it was some flat,”
she said.

“I’ll go in and make our mutual apologies.”

“She can be very snarky when she is in one of her moods. Let me handle her.”

“I shall call on you tomorrow to verify your story then.”

“Mr. Evans is coming tomorrow, but you come, too. It will increase his interest if he sees such a swell as you in the saloon.”

Revel just shook his head in confusion. These artless speeches told him that in some impersonal way, Tess realized he
was
a prime
parti,
but it didn’t impress her. She was just using him, and she took every care to let him know it. It was a sad comedown for him. He reached the doorknob, twisted it, and said, “The
door’s locked. Do you have a key with you?”

"No, I never take a key. I don’t
have
one.”
He lightly tapped the knocker. “Run along now, Revel.”

His gentlemanly instincts rebelled at this, or perhaps it was at her dismissive “Run along.”
He was still there when the door opened and Mrs. Marchant glared out.

“I hope you have a very good excuse for coming home at such an hour—”
Mrs. Marchant’s glaring eyes espied Lord Revel and she stopped in mid-speech.

He immediately stepped forward, wearing a smile that had been charming ladies into forgiveness for a decade. “Mrs. Marchant, pray do not scold Tess. The fault is entirely mine.”

The dame’s angry scowl softened to girlish delight. “Lord Revel! Do come in for a glass of wine. My manners are gone begging. I’m sure there is some perfectly innocent explanation for this.”

They were ushered into the saloon. “Revel called and took me to the Lower Rooms,”
Tess explained.

“So Crimshaw told me, dear, but the Lower Rooms close at eleven o’clock,”
she said, casting a steely glance at her daughter. “It has just rung twelve.”

“The evening was so fine we felt like a spin. I do hope you were not too worried, Mrs. Marchant,”
Revel said in a drawling voice, as though a midnight spin in winter were a common occurrence.

“Of course, but where did you go at such an hour?”

“A few miles out past the Lower Commons. We hardly left town,”
he assured her. Any other mother would have combed his hair with a footstool. He began to appreciate the size of the job he had undertaken in trying to bring this hussy to a sense of her duties.

“Get Revel a glass of wine, Tess. Where are your manners?”

Tess poured three glasses of wine and passed them. Mrs. Marchant’s mind was not deep, but it was quick. She soon latched on to the idea that Tess had caught Revel’s interest. It took her a moment to assimilate such an unlikely thing, but what else could it mean? Lady Revel or someone had told Revel it was time to settle down. He had chosen a wife who would be content to stay at Revel Hall while he trotted off to London and Brighton, and had settled on Tess. Mrs. Marchant could hardly believe her daughter’s great fortune.

She looked to Tess in wonderment. It was then that she noticed Tess’s mussed hair, and the unaccustomed rosiness of her lips. If she didn’t know better, she would think the girl had been kissing. Surely it
was
marriage Revel had in mind? If it was not, he would soon learn a gentleman did not dally with a Marchant without paying the price.

It was her role as chaperone to let him know Tess was not a plaything. “I was worried,”
she confided to Revel, with that air of the lady who is accustomed to admiration. “Tess is such an innocent babe! She would let herself be imposed on by a gentleman. Since it is you, dear Revel, naturally I forgive you
this time,”
she said playfully. "One knows your attentions are honorable.”

He read the lady’s mind to a T. “I promise you Tess was in no way compromised. I regret if I caused you a moment’s fear.”

“In future, it will be best if you can bring Tess straight home from any little outing. You cannot imagine my palpitations when I came home and found her gone. I have been sitting here for hours, worrying my fingers to the bone.”

Tess and Revel exchanged a laughing look at this blatant lie. “You are too kind, Mrs. Marchant. I shall bear your wishes in mind, if Tess and I ever go out again.”

Tess bit back a small smile. Revel was performing marvelously. He knew her wish to worry Mama, and was not putting himself forward as a serious suitor. He finished his wine, rose, and took his leave.

Mrs. Marchant’s smiles left with him. It was an angry, calculating face that turned to confront Tess. “Widgeon!”
she exclaimed angrily. “I had some hope the family had ordered him to settle down, but it is no such thing. He is merely bored to flinders, and has settled on you to pass the time. You’ll never get
that
one to the altar, miss, so don’t cast your reputation to the wind for his sake.”

“We only went for a little drive, Mama.”

“It is twelve o’clock, Tess.”

“But you said twelve o’clock is early.”

“It is not early for a young girl. I find it exceedingly odd a little drive should put such a color in your lips. I was not born yesterday, Tess. I am shocked at your behavior. If Revel were serious, he would have taken Dulcie to the Lower Rooms with you. You should have thought of that yourself. I am surprised he hit on you, for in the usual way, he never tampers with girls from good families.”

“I wonder if he thinks our family is not quite the thing, now that you and Papa are getting divorced,”
Tess suggested slyly.

“What has that to do with anything?”

“You said Dulcie cannot be presented if you are divorced, so obviously it
does
make a difference, Mama.”

Mrs. Marchant flinched at this touch of the serpent’s tooth. She was worldly enough to realize the danger to her daughters in the pending divorce. “In any case, I let Revel know he is not to carry on in this way in future. If he comes sniffing around again, we will assume he is serious. I mean that he plans to marry you,”
she added, to make her meaning perfectly clear. “And if he does not, then you must not see him.”