Sinful in Satin (11 page)

“I am told you have been back from France for almost a year,” Summerhays said.

“In England, yes. Rarely in London.”

“But you will be in London awhile now?”

“Awhile.”

Summerhays flashed the smile that made women swoon and men want to check their purse strings. “You must call and meet my wife, Audrianna. She has asked about you.”

Jonathan could not imagine why. His confusion must have showed, because Summerhays added, “She is best of friends with Lady Hawkeswell, who knows a bit about you. Rather more than I do these days, from the curiosity being expressed in my home.”

Summerhays waited for Jonathan to fill in holes and satisfy his own curiosity. Jonathan wondered just what Lady Hawkeswell had and had not said about her visit to Celia’s new house.

The silent impasse was interrupted by Castleford. “Ah, here is Hawkeswell, so we can get down to it. You and Summerhays can just save time and put your purses in my money box, Hawkeswell.”

The Earl of Hawkeswell hooted rudely in derision. “Albrighton, we can draw for partners if you want. It is unfair to force him on you, since you can ill afford the losses that will accrue due to his besotted intellect.”

“He appears sober enough. I will risk it.”

“Thank you,” Castleford said. He lowered his eyelids haughtily at Hawkeswell. “It is Tuesday, or have you forgotten?”

“Oooo, Tuesday,” Hawkeswell mocked, wide-eyed.

“Tuesday? Does it matter?” Jonathan asked.

Summerhays helped himself to some brandy offered by a servant, then took a seat at the card table. “Tristan here no longer drinks on Tuesdays. He gathers his faculties and concentrates on his duties then. The rest of the week . . .” He shrugged.

“Do not assume it will make a difference,” Hawkeswell said. “The other days pickle him enough that one day’s sobriety will hardly reverse matters. Expect bizarre play and huge losses. You really should demand we draw for partners.”

Castleford took the teasing with good enough humor. But then, the duke had always relished his reputation.

Jonathan took the chair across from his host. “As I remember, even half of his brain was better than most that are whole, so I will take my chances. It was good of you to plan this for a Tuesday, Castleford, so I am not ruined without a fighting chance at least.”

“Oh, he did not choose a Tuesday because of you,” Summerhays mused as he dealt the first hand. “He did it because of the whores.”

“Tuesday is the only day they are not about,” Hawkeswell explained while he examined his cards. “On any other day a visitor is bound to run into at least one bared bottom somewhere in this house, poised for fornication on the chance our friend should wander by. Since Summerhays and I are now married, we would have to decline if he invited us here of an evening any day but Tuesday.”

Castleford looked with resigned pity to his right at Summerhays, and to his left at Hawkeswell. Then he looked across the table at Jonathan.

“I have a most clever retort on the tip of my tongue, relating to wives and bare bottoms. Alas, I dare not speak it because—”

“Because it might get you called out,” Summerhays finished.

Castleford sighed, dramatically. “See? They have become so boring it is a wonder I can stand them. The truth is that I will only entertain their company on Tuesdays because then I am somewhat boring myself.” He smiled, a devil recognizing with delight the potential demon in another man. “You, however, are welcome to call whenever you like.”

Jonathan had not expected this old, vague friendship to rehabilitate itself at all, let alone so easily and thoroughly. He thought he could be excused for finding it all a little suspicious. From the glances Summerhays and Hawkeswell exchanged, they did as well.

“I am honored. I do not know what to say.”

“Your first bid will suffice. Make it a good one, so we can bury these two.”

“S
o, it is settled, then,”Marian announced. “I’llbe doing the cooking and care for the kitchen, and Bella here will clean and help you with your dressing and such.” She looked to Bella for agreement.

Celia did as well. Bella had not said much since they had descended into the cellar beneath a stationer’s shop. Bella’s attempts at creating a home there could not banish the dark and damp, and Bella herself could not stand against Marian’s demand that she pack whatever she wanted to keep and follow them out.

Tawny haired, and thin and wan in ways that spoke of lack of food, she had obeyed, expressing neither joy nor resentment. Mr. Albrighton, who had led the way down into that dungeon, showed her great kindness, taking the little sack she made of her garments and gently speaking reassurances, as if he suspected she needed them.

Now Bella sat on a stool near the fireplace, her expression one of ecstasy from its warmth. She had not contributed to the discussions of the household, but she nodded at Marian’s division of work.

“You and I should be going above soon,” Marian said to her. “There’s a good-size chamber that we can share, at the other end of the house from where that gentleman lives.”

Marian had been startled to learn Mr. Albrighton resided here. Not given to trusting any man much, Marian would probably take on another duty now, as chaperone.

“Before you retire, I would like to speak about a few house rules,” Celia said. “You may find them a bit odd, but my experience has been that they go far to ensuring peaceable coexistence among women. They were the rules by which we all lived with Daphne.”

Marian nodded agreement. “If they suited Mrs. Joyes, I expect they will suit us.”

“The first one is we do not pry into each other’s histories or lives. Not the past, and not the present. That means, Bella, if you never want to tell me about your family, or how you came to be alone, I will never ask it of you.”

Bella cocked her head, puzzled by this right to keep her own counsel.

“We will each contribute to the household as we can. You have both already agreed to that, in offering to help with its upkeep. And if we leave the house and intend to be gone more than the normal time, we will inform the others, so no one worries.”

“That sounds sensible,” Marian said, nodding away.

“As independent women, we must protect each other, and each learn to protect ourselves,” Celia said, explaining another important precept under which she had lived for five years with Daphne.

“No problem with that. I’m well practiced in defending myself, and Bella here once or twice. Ain’t that right, Bella?”

“Then we are all agreed on the basic rules,” Celia said. “There are a few others of less importance that I will explain later.”

Marian stood. “I’ll be fixing baths for us down in the kitchen now. Best to wash the past off, so we can start fresh in the morning.”

“Yes, that would be good,” Bella said. It was her first contribution to the conversation. Celia hoped it showed Bella had overcome her fear.

Bella started to follow Marian to the door, but faltered in her steps. She scurried back, took Celia’s hand in her own two, and raised the little pile to her lips.

Her eyes closed hard while she pressed a kiss on the hand she held. Then she was gone, hurrying to catch up with Marian.

 

 

N
oise from the kitchen below eventually gave way to giggles and footsteps on the back stairs. In the library, Celia set down her book and listened to Marian and Bella trod up to the attic passage and the room they would share.

There were other chambers up there, besides theirs and Mr. Albrighton’s. One was used for storage. Celia had spied into it while she showed Marian the choices. She had needed to use her key to enter, and in the dark noticed only that it held an old trunk.

Tomorrow or the next day she would go up there, finally, and see what her mother had left in this retreat. Here, perhaps, there might be a clue about her father’s name.

It had been a full day and a long night, and Celia knew that she should go to bed herself. Mr. Albrighton had not returned, but he would ensure the doors were secure when he did, if he returned at all.

The day’s events made her too restless for sleep. The house, all but empty these last days, now felt crowded with the new spirits inhabiting it. Lifting her cloak from its peg, she bundled herself well, and left the house to take a quiet turn in the night garden before retiring.

She strolled down to the shrubbery, and the fallow bed stretching in front of it. Verity had probably taken one look at it and known exactly what to add to it in spring. Verity had found a true calling while living at The Rarest Blooms, first learning all she could from Daphne, then turning to books and journals and experimenting herself. Her earl permitted this avocation’s continuance now, and Lady Hawkeswell’s correspondence with horticulture experts all over England was always answered.

Verity had been too kind to mention that this entire garden showed neglect. Mama’s brief stays did not facilitate regular upkeep, no doubt. There would be a lot of work to do here this spring.

She mused about that, and the improvements she would make. Her thoughts turned to Mama herself after a few minutes. She pictured the other house, and the afternoon salons that Mama liked to hold in the French manner, and the dinner parties at which she would have Celia sing.

The men who attended were all of good blood and high incomes, whether they had titles or not. She should have remembered that. Of course Jonathan must have had one or the other as well, if he had been included.

She tried to ignore how the thought of that made her oddly sad again. It was silly to react thus. She barely knew him. Yet the intimacy evoked by sharing this house now seemed ruined. The excitement would never be as care-free again. There were rules in the world he visited when he left this house. A man in his situation would probably calculate every act and smile with those rules in mind.

She forced her thoughts back to her mother’s parties. Men came and went from those assemblies, but some reappeared again and again. She tried now to see their faces in her mind, and wondered if some had been coming for years. Was it possible that her father had not only been in Mama’s past? Had she perhaps even met him at one of those parties?

She picked through the memories while she strolled back to the house. As she approached the garden door, a shadow shifted to its right, where a garden bench stood. Drawing near, she saw Mr. Albrighton sitting there, his eyes dark pools in the half-moon’s light.

“It is too cold to sit in a dark garden,” she said after greeting him.

“It is too cold to walk in one after midnight,” he said.

“Have you just returned?” She gazed up the house, to the attics. “They are probably asleep now, if you feared the noise they would make in their excitement this first night.”

“I have been here awhile. You walked right past me when you came out. You were so absorbed in your thoughts, I decided not to disturb you.”

She sat beside him on the bench and bundled her cloak around her. “Not so absorbed. I often took night strolls where I lived before. The gardens were much bigger there because it was in the country, but not far from London at all. We grew flowers and plants for sale. My dear friend Daphne owns the property, but we all helped her as we could.”

“Is that where you have been since you left your mother’s home?”

She nodded. “Then Verity joined us the last two years. And Audrianna—Lord Sebastian Summerhays’s wife now—was with us for a spell too, before she married. That is how I know such fine ladies, in case you were wondering what an earl’s wife was doing visiting me.”

She found herself telling him about Daphne’s greenhouses and gardens, and the odd family they had all created in that house.

“And now you have all left,” he said. “Two to marriage, and you to—?”

She laughed at the inflection and question. “You did not even raise an eyebrow today as I collected Marian and her friend. Yet you must wonder what I am about. I all but invited the worst speculation that first night. Do not worry, Mr. Albrighton. You will not be living above a brothel.”

“I did not worry about that.”

Which was not to say he had not thought it might happen. “I am joining Daphne in partnership. That is what those shelves are for—plants.” She described her plan. He listened closely. She could see his eyes as he paid attention.

He was very easy to talk to. It all just poured out, her plans for the house and the partnership, and her desire to forge a life for herself. “I joined Daphne when I was still quite young. I am no longer, and it was time to go. I think she understands that, even if she wishes I had stayed.”

“It was good of her to take you in. She probably saw that you were a lovely child, but a child all the same, and needed her help.”

“Is that what you thought of me back then? That I was a child?”

“Yes. A very innocent, beautiful child. Too much a child for what your mother planned.”

“At seventeen I was already older than some young women in that profession. It is considered a good age for marriage too.”

“Some of the girls who become wives or mistresses at seventeen are too childish as well. Others not. It is not a matter of age.”

Her face burned. She knew why he was saying this. “You remember me crying that day. My disappointment is why you think I was too childish.”

She had bumped into him as she ran from Anthony. Mr. Albrighton had come to take his leave of Mama, because he was going away again. Blinded by her tears, she had careened right into him as she fled.

He caught her before she fell from the collision. He had sat her on the stairs, and asked why she cried. She had told him, this stranger who had an odd way of inspiring confidences. It had just poured out while he absorbed it with his fathomless eyes.