Like No Other Lover (15 page)

After dinner, Jonathan persuaded Argosy to go with him to the Pig & Thistle to participate in an ongoing dart tournament that Jonathan intended to win. Argosy cast one brief but gratifyingly longing look over his shoulder at Cynthia, who reassured him with a smile but silently made no promises to him, as of course Lord Milthorpe and Mr. Goodkind were present and would remain so all night.

Lady Middlebough wanted to retire early. “The third floor is always my favorite floor in a home,” she said. “And my room is
four
doors down from the stairs, and four is my favorite number.”

Cynthia once again stared at Lady Middlebough, puzzled. She thought her own favorite number must be twenty-thousand.

As in pounds.

“Where are the family rooms, Violet?” Lady Middlebough wanted to know.

Violet looked baffled, too, but manners made her answer politely. “We’re on the third floor, too. But in a different wing. Well, Jonathan and I are. Miles is on the second floor. He has the only family rooms on that floor.”

“Must be lonely to be the only one on the second floor.”

And with that Lady Middlebough went up to bed.

“Perhaps in a few minutes,” was all Miles said. “We’ve ants and lepidoptera to discuss.” And he’d deftly steered Georgina to a striped settee, where they now sat talking in low voices. A very respectable distance of settee remained between them.

“Oh, Mr. Redmond! How interesting!” Georgina said softly and predictably moments later.

Cynthia supposed he was as methodical and dutiful in his wooing as he was in all things. Was this all ceremony? The walking and talking with Georgina? How would he know when Georgina was
won
? Or had the decision to mate already been made, and all of this was formality?

She was thinking in terms of insects again.

The cards were dealt, and a halfhearted game of whist began, while Cynthia tried and failed not to listen to the conversation taking place on the settee. She stared over her cards at Georgina and her perfectly round coil of pale blond hair and she felt something devilish welling up.

“Oh, Mr.
Redmond
,” she mimicked under her breath. “How very interesting!”

Lady Windermere looked up, surprised. “I beg your pardon, Miss Brightly?”

“Have you noticed—” Cynthia stopped.
Be good
, she told herself sternly.
You’ll cause a disaster if you can’t
be good.
Everything, your future, hinges on decorum, and wise choices and not
toying
with people.

She shifted restlessly in her chair. But Lady Windermere had asked her a question. And it wouldn’t be polite to ignore her, would it?

“Have you noticed…” In for a penny, in for a pound, she decided. “Well, have you noticed that Lady Georgina says”—she adopted a breathy tone—“‘Oh, Mr. Redmond. How very
interesting!
’ rather a good deal?”

“Does she?” This came from Mr. Goodkind with bright interest. He’d reached the point in his visit where anything said by Miss Brightly was interesting. And since Goodkind had taken the marble penis in the hat, everyone was more inclined to behave more charitably toward him. “Listen,” Cynthia said, her voice a hush, her eyes downcast.

They all dutifully harked in breathless silence as though waiting for a rare birdcall.

In the low murmur of conversation—Miles Redmond’s earnest voice provided the bass notes, a melodic rise and fall of enthusiasm—she heard the word “lepidoptera” and then a chuckle. Perhaps he’d told a butterfly joke.

Cynthia waved her hand like a conductor as on obliging cue Lady Georgina responded in treble:

“Oh, Mr. Redmond. How very
interesting
.”

Chuckles rustled about the table, a sound much like the sound of shuffling cards. Hands of cards went up over mouths to stifle them.

“You’re very observant, Miss Brightly,” congratulated Mr. Goodkind.

Lord Milthorpe bristled, as he’d missed the opportunity to say something flattering to Cynthia. He settled for agreeing with Mr. Goodkind. “Yes! Very observant, Miss Brightly.”

Violet glanced at Cynthia and surreptitiously rolled her eyes.

Men battling for her attention, a naughty idea on the boil: Cynthia was feeling decidedly more herself.

The card players were all now furtively watching Miles Redmond and Lady Georgina over their neglected hands of cards. Miles Redmond’s low voice again assumed the cadences of lecturing enthusiasm. He made a sort of crawling gesture in the air with two of his fingers. Then he made a flapping motion with his other hand. He seemed happy.

It appeared to be a monologue.

How
very
like a man.

Lady Georgina’s face was a moonbeam of rapt attention. Her body angled toward Miles, as though being pulled into his orbit by the superior force of his intellect, and her lips were parted as though she breathlessly awaited each of his words and enjoyed each one more than the next. They moved a little, too, helping him form his words with the force of her fascination.

Cynthia wondered if Lady Georgina was actually listening to him or whether she was watching—as it was so tempting to do—the light move in the depths of his eyes when he talked, or the shape of his mouth, which was rather mesmerizing, but perhaps that was only because she knew how his mouth tasted, and felt, and—

She jerked her head toward her cards.

Violet seemed a bit skeptical of Cynthia’s assertion, and a little disappointed. She leaned toward Cynthia. “Surely she doesn’t say it all that oft—”

“Oh, Mr. Redmond,” Lady Georgina breathed. “How very
interesting
.”

The card players gasped and then laughed quietly in collective astonishment. Cynthia shushed them over her own laughs.

Miles Redmond and Lady Georgina turned in their direction a little bit, smiling at the mirth. Then returned to their conversation. Or rather, to their roles as monologist and audience.

Cynthia felt a twinge of guilt. But
honestly,
even if Lady Georgina
was
genuinely smitten with Miles Redmond, was this any reason to behave like a parrot?

Georgina had tilted her head now to look into Miles Redmond’s face. Parrots do that, too, Cynthia thought. When they’re curious about something. They have eyes on either side of their head, and not in the front, so they had to tilt their heads in order to see.

See? Never let it be said that I am not knowledgeable about nature.

“Very well. But it can’t be as often as you say…can it?” Violet was a stickler for specificity, it seemed. Perhaps it was a Redmond trait.

“I’ve an idea,” Cynthia said slowly. She had only heard Violet peripherally, because her mind was at work on a plan.
No, no, no
. Her conscience was a little scolding schoolmaster, stomping its feet. Still, she knew that Violet could be persuaded to mischief. She succumbed to a very unworthy impulse to muss the Redmond perfection.

“Here is my idea. Every time Lady Georgina says…” Cynthia lowered her voice. “…well, what she
says
…we shall all take a drink.”

Delighted and appalled silence greeted this suggestion.

“Of tea?” This was from Violet, who, though familiar with myriad kinds of misbehavior, was new to this particular brand of it.

“Good heavens, no, you featherbrain.” Lady Windermere turned on Violet with wide-eyed censure, worried that the rules of the game would become corrupted. “Of
sherry
.”

“Pre
cise
ly,” Cynthia agreed happily. “And if the sherry runs dry, we shall ask for champagne.”

This was optimistically said, as she hadn’t the faintest idea whether the Redmonds would countenance opening up champagne for guests outside the occasion of a ball, but she had all the faith in the world in Violet Redmond’s ability to persuade her father’s staff to do anything.

“Perhaps you would be so kind as to expand the rules to allow the gentlemen to imbibe port or brandy instead,” Mr. Goodkind suggested shrewdly, as he was a businessman, and believed every deal could benefit from refinement.

He received a nod of approbation from Milthorpe and a smile of encouragement from Cynthia.

“Done,” she said crisply, as though they were indeed engaged in a negotiation, easily accepting the role of rulemaker.

“Who wins the game?” Violet asked.

“The last person upright,” Lady Windermere said with relish.

They all looked with pity upon Violet, who they assumed wouldn’t make it beyond the first two or three
Oh, Mr. Redmonds!

“Now—everyone review your glasses. We don’t want to miss an opportunity. Quickly now,” Cynthia commanded quietly.

Glasses were raised into the light, liquor volumes assessed. Violet clapped her hands, and a blue-and-gold liveried footman appeared in the room with breathtaking instantaneousness and rectified inequalities with splashes from a cut crystal decanter.

Everything had begun to sparkle: eyes, sherry in glasses, moods, smiles.

“Very well, then. Let the games begin. Shall we play another hand?” Cynthia said sweetly, reaching for the deck.

Rain was still being flung sideways by the wind at the windows, only now it was dark, and Miles, as pleasant as he often found speaking nonstop about common blues and Formicidae, or his first look at Reverend William Gould’s fascinating
Accounts of English Ants
, was growing restless. He’d given this particular speech in numerous forms before to the Royal Society.

She was a woman. He wanted to
flirt
.

She
was
flirting in a way. With those attentive eyes, and her soft mouth, and the neckline cut to ensure admiration of everything it contained, and he was dutifully and discreetly admiring it. And he supposed innuendos could be made from a discussion of the mating habits if he was so inclined. He was not inclined.

He was
bored
.

He found his mind drifting to the third floor, fourth door from the left. Poor Lady Middlebough. He was reducing her to something approaching obviousness.

He would reduce her to quivering pleasure tonight, he decided firmly.

And he was steadfastly avoiding Cynthia Brightly, because that way lay danger and confusion. But because when she was near, he tended to do the opposite of whatever he intended to do, he of course looked up to see what she was doing.

And when he did, he saw a footman hurrying by.

There was nothing at all unusual about this. Footmen were everywhere in the Redmond house, part of the silent bewigged battalion that kept it passionately clean and smoothly running, along with all the maids.

But as Miles watched this particular footman, he was struck by a peculiar sense of déjà vu.

He officially gave up attempting to listen to Lady Georgina and simply watched.

The footman bore a tray of crystal decanters toward the table in the corner where Cynthia Brightly glowed in pink-faced, burnished splendor, in a champagne-colored satin dress ribboned beneath her breasts in bronze. Other people of course sat round the table, too, including his sister—all of whom were also peculiarly pink-faced.

The footman poured for them—brandy and sherry—and hurried out again.

As he passed, Miles noticed that the servant was a bit pink in the face, too—from exertion. His forehead was a mirror of perspiration. He even huffed a little.

“Don’t you think so, Mr. Redmond?” Lady Georgina was saying. “Whereas the ants we have here in Sussex are—”

“Georgina, how many times has the footman passed by in the last hour or so?”

“I…goodness, I haven’t noticed. Your conversation has been so very interesting.”

Like a group of gophers popping up out of holes, every head at the card table pivoted alertly in unison.

“Does that count?” Miles heard someone hiss. It sounded like Mr. Goodkind.

Some sort of earnest sotto voce conference took place among the card players. Their heads were so close together Miles could only see the tops of them. It became heated at one point—a hand waved out from the circle, adamantly.

And then everyone sat back, lifted their glasses in unison and took sips.

Cards were taken up again, a set of glances sent his way, then dropped immediately when they intercepted his steady gaze. He saw the quivering smiles hidden by the lowered faces.

“Lady Georgina. My apologies. Will you excuse me for one moment?” he said grimly.

“Cert—”

Miles was already up and striding away from her toward the game table.

A pair of gas lamps lit the card players—his father loved the modern conveniences, and he was always the first to employ them, and had the money to do it. And thus he was able to ascertain that his sister’s eyes were downright glassy.

Everyone turned up faces of cautious greeting.

“Oh,
Milesh
!” Violet cried affectionately. They might have been reunited after eons apart. “I’m sho glad you’re here! Where doesh Papa…” She paused and frowned. Then she leaned forward and pulled Lady Windermere very familiarly toward her. “What do you think I meant to ashk Milesh?” she whispered.

“Champagne,” Lady Windermere prodded on an equally loud whisper.

“Oh!” She beamed. “Milesh, where doesh papa keep the…champagne?”

He’d never before seen Violet in her cups, and though part of him—the sibling part of him, the part that Jonathan, who no doubt at this very moment was in his cups at the Pig & Thistle, would have exploited with no compunction—thought it was very, very funny, the other part of him was incensed. He was responsible for her well-being, and she was far better bred than this; she ought to have known better, and he knew, he
knew,
who had encouraged this.

“Why do you ask, Violet?” His voice remained level.

Cynthia Brightly was steadfastly
not
looking at him. She was studying her cards as though they held the secret to her salvation, and biting one side of her lower lip in a vain attempt to keep it from curling up into a smile.

Violet was beckoning him closer with such great waving curls of her hand of cards that everyone could see them. Goodkind and Milthorpe leaned over to have a look.