Tarnished Amongst the Ton Page 20

  ‘That was properly,’ he said and sat up. ‘There are all kinds of ways to make love—think of a banquet, lots of dishes. Some great solid roasts, some sweet fluffy concoctions, some rather sinfully sweet, others dangerously spicy.’

  He was on his feet, investigating behind a screen. ‘Is there water in this ewer? Yes, rather dusty, very cold, but it will do. And a towel.’ There was the sound of splashing behind the screen. Phyllida sat up and pulled the coverlet over her bare toes.

  ‘Ashe, do you want to do it again?’ That had been wonderful beyond words and the relief of knowing that she could lie in a man’s arms, be intimate with him and enjoy the experience, was huge. But whatever Ashe said, sooner or later sex would involve the same act that had taken place in the tawdry room in the Wapping brothel, the act that had taken her virginity. The act she had been paid for by Harry Buck.

  Chapter Nineteen

  What she had done would brand Phyllida a whore. Any man would say so, she knew that. She had allowed Ashe to think she had been forced, when in fact she had taken money, removed her clothes, lain on that bed and had done nothing to resist. The fact that if she had not then she would have starved, that she needed the money to find her father, to make him come back, or give her enough money to get food and medicine for her mother, food and shelter for all of them, did not alter the fact of the transaction that had removed her claim to be a woman of honour.

  It made her angry, that double standard, but that was the way things were. And if she had to do it again, if someone’s life depended on it, if Gregory was in trouble and it was the only way to save him, then she would sell herself again without hesitation. Her screams, she had learned in the course of that one bitter night, would only fuel the excitement of the man taking her.

  ‘I only used half the water.’ Ashe emerged from behind the screen. ‘Do it again? I would like to very much, but not tonight. And the next time, then we will talk about what other dishes on the menu you would like to sample. You choose what we do, when we do it. The control is yours. There is no need to rush anything.’

  She shot him a look of gratitude as she passed him, then went to tidy herself. No wonder she loved him. His past had not, she guessed, been blameless—she recalled the amusement with which he had told her he was not a virgin—but he was a decent, honourable man and she was thinking about deceiving him about something he would believe touched on that honour.

  Phyllida wrestled with her conscience. She had not meant to make love when she had asked him here, only to confess that she was not a virgin. Ashe’s closeness, his response, had overset all her scruples, swept away everything but the desire to be in his arms.

  Now she knew how wrong, how weak, that had been. Ashe wanted to marry her out of honour. There were many reasons why she was the wrong bride for him and Ashe believed he knew them all and could make it work despite them. He admitted he was attracted to her. He even knew now that she was not a virgin. His parents and sister seemed to like her and were prepared to welcome her into their family. The benefits to her and to Gregory were too numerous to name.

  I love him and I had let myself dream I could marry him. Ashe and love and children. Ashe for as long as we lived.

  So, temptation murmured, do not tell him the truth. How would he be harmed by the secret?

  But shouldn’t a marriage be based on honesty and truth? Phyllida argued back as she fiddled with the ties on her skirt and trousers, reluctant to emerge until she had come to some conclusion. If she did not love him, she suspected it would be much easier—never mention her past. But she did love him and so she felt compelled to tell him. If he reacted badly—and what man wouldn’t?—she would have lost him for ever.

  But I should not be marrying him in any case, she reminded herself with bitter realism. Marriage is a dream, happiness with Ashe is a dream. Those children will never be born. Phyllida leaned back against the wall, her hand pressed to her mouth to stifle the sobs that seemed to come from nowhere.

  Oh, Ashe, my love. She should never have spoken of children, never have let him be so certain she would marry him. Now, even though he did not love her, she would hurt him, not just his pride, when she broke this off.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Ashe did not sound impatient.

  ‘Yes.’ She found her voice and managed to strike a light note. ‘I must admit to feeling a trifle bemused,’ Phyllida admitted. Ashe chuckled. He had made her dizzy with his lovemaking. Perhaps that was why it was so difficult to think clearly and logically, to resolve to end this here and now. They were going to make love again, she knew that. It was as inevitable as sunrise.

  ‘Ashe, what is the time?’ She made herself come out from behind the screen. It was hard to meet his eyes, although she felt warm and safe with him. Her guilty conscience, she supposed.

  ‘Three. Time to go home. Here is your jacket.’ He held it out to her, then stopped and touched one finger to the top of her left breast. ‘What is that? A birthmark? I meant to ask when you took off your jacket, but I became… distracted.’

  ‘Yes.’ Phyllida squinted down to where his finger traced the coffee-brown mark the size of a strawberry. ‘Luckily it is towards the side so, if I am careful, the bodice of a gown covers it.’

  ‘But why would you want to hide it?’ Ashe helped her into the jacket. ‘It is a perfect heart. Charming.’

  ‘It is a blemish.’

  ‘Nonsense. It looks fascinating on your white skin, tantalising. Promise me you will not cover it up any more.’ He bent and kissed it, then pulled her sides of the jacket together and began to do up the tiny buttons.

  ‘Very well.’ It would not be a problem, not with her evening and half-dress gowns and if Ashe liked it she was too flattered to resist. She would only need to remove some of the trim or turn under the edge of the bodice. There were a few days left before she had to end this. In day gowns, with their higher necklines, it would never show in any case.

  ‘Ashe, stop that or we will never get back!’ He laughed and ceased tickling between the button holes.

  ‘Come along then. Before you tempt me unbearably.’

  Phyllida was sitting sewing with Sara the next afternoon when Gregory called. Lady Eldonstone had insisted that she sit down and rest after a morning supervising the despatch of crates to the auction house and it had seemed a good time to alter the neckline of some of her evening gowns so that the heart-shaped birthmark could be seen.

  The lack of logic in doing something that could only inflame Ashe’s enthusiasm for lovemaking, and entangle her even more in the deception she was caught in, did not escape her. It was as though she was two people: one sensible, honest Phyllida who should be cold-bloodedly planning the break with Ashe for his own good, the other a dizzy girl in love who could not think beyond the next moment in his arms.

  Sara rang for refreshments and Gregory sat down, all long legs, tight pantaloons and gleaming Hessians. ‘You are the picture of a perfect London gentleman,’ Phyllida teased him. ‘So neat and tidy and respectable-looking. And such a smart new crop!’

  He grinned at her good-naturedly. ‘Harriet likes it. Which brings me to why I am here. You and I have been invited to a family dinner party tomorrow evening, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Afraid? But I thought you got on very well with Harriet’s family.’

  ‘I do, but a long-lost uncle has appeared back in town. He’s Mrs Millington’s brother and a bit of a black sheep, apparently. He’s been safely off in Jamaica working as a land agent or some such thing and I suspect they all hoped he’d stay there. Anyway, we’ve been invited to dilute the family tensions a bit, I suspect. There’s a couple of cousins and a great-aunt coming as well.’

  ‘It will be very awkward if he decides to stay, won’t it? Or perhaps he has reformed,’ Sara remarked. ‘Would you care to pour yourself a glass of sherry or Madeira, Lord Fransham?’

  ‘Thanks, I will. Millington was all for showing him the door, apparently, but Mrs M. wants to give him another chance, hence
the dinner party.’ Gregory went to the decanters while Sara poured tea.

  ‘I will have to ask Lady Eldonstone if it would be convenient. She may have plans for the evening,’ Phyllida said. It sounded an awkward situation, but if she could help the Millingtons, she would. Everything was back on course for the wedding and she felt nothing but gratitude to them for their tolerance.

  ‘We aren’t doing anything tomorrow night,’ Sara said. ‘I know because Papa is going to a lecture at the Royal Society and Mama said this morning that it would be good to have an evening at home recovering from all our gadding about.’

  Phyllida asked her hostess’s leave and, when her brother had gone, went back to removing the lace from the neckline of her dark-green dinner gown. That would do nicely for the Millingtons’ dinner. It was a little formal, perhaps, but formality was sometimes a help in sticky social situations.

  Ashe was rather less obliging about her plans than the marchioness. ‘I had hoped to spend the evening with you in Jermyn Street,’ he murmured in her ear later.

  ‘I wish we were,’ Phyllida whispered back under cover of a singularly dreary piano sonata. Lady Eldonstone had insisted on attending a musicale that evening. ‘I will miss you.’

  At seven o’clock the next evening Phyllida emerged from the Eldonstones’ carriage outside the Millingtons’ house.

  She mentally squared her shoulders for a fraught dinner party and wished Ashe was with her. Gregory was concerned for Harriet and she suspected that she would have to spend the time making vacuous small talk to the other relatives, all bristling with disapproval over the return of Mr Phillip Wilmott.

  ‘Oh, do wait a moment, ma’am, that cloak isn’t quite fastened.’ The maid Lady Eldonstone had lent her was poised in the carriage doorway just as a dark figure strode out of the shadows into the pool of light cast by the door lantern. ‘Here, take care, you!’

  The man barged into Phyllida, pushing her back against the carriage. A footpad, so brazen, to attack right on a Mayfair doorstep? Too shocked to feel fear, she grasped her reticule, ready to strike out at him. The cloak slithered off her shoulders to the ground.

  For a moment she thought him a stranger, then, as the light caught his face, she knew him. Harry Buck.

  ‘’Ello, darling,’ he said on a coarse chuckle. ‘Thought there was something familiar about you.’ She flinched as his eyes went from her face to her bosom exposed by the plain, low neckline of her newly altered gown. ‘I remember that. Thought I couldn’t be wrong.’ Her hand flew to the birthmark, but it was too late, he had seen it.

  The maid was screaming for help, the front door flew open as the driver swung down from the box seat, whip in hand. Buck vanished, as abruptly as he had come.

  If the carriage door had not been under her hand, she would have fallen, for all the strength seemed to have vanished from her legs. It was her worst nightmare made real. Harry Buck, the man who had bought her virginity, had recognised her, tracked her down.

  And then, just as she thought she would faint, the butler was hurrying down the steps. ‘Miss Hurst! Are you all right?

  Phyllida forced herself to stand straight and think. ‘Yes. He must have been drunk. Most unpleasant, but no harm done. Please do not alarm Mrs Millington by saying anything.’

  Somehow she reached the house, was announced, greeted. Somehow she managed to get to a sofa and sit before her legs gave way. Apparently her horror and fear were not imprinted on her face, for no one paid her any heed, other than to introduce her to the dubious relative, Mr Wilmott. She kept her face rigidly expressionless and inclined her head, hoping Mrs Millington would simply think her shy in the presence of an acknowledged black sheep.

  Mrs Millington had abandoned all correct form for her table setting, apparently anxious to separate the young ladies from her brother. Phyllida found herself making conversation on one side to an elderly cousin who turned out to be a stockbroker and on the other to Mr Millington. She must have made some sense in what she was saying, and apparently she ate and drank in a normal manner, for no one asked her if she was all right.

  On sheer will-power she got through the endless meal and back to the drawing room. Gregory, in a brave attempt to support his future in-laws, engaged Wilmott in conversation. Phyllida felt fainter and fainter until eventually she could not stand it any longer. She got up and went to Gregory’s side. ‘Gregory, I am sorry, but I think I must go back now.’

  ‘Yes, of course. I’ll just say goodnight to Harriet.’

  She turned on her heel and almost fled to Mrs Millington. ‘I am so sorry, ma’am, but I have such a headache. Would you think me very rude if Gregory took me home? I am sorry to drag him away, but—’

  ‘My dear, I will send for your carriage at once.’ Fussed over, wrapped up, Phyllida drove back through the darkened streets, shaking with horror.

  Ashe was crossing the hallway as she came in, a book in his hand. He grinned at her. ‘Good evening. Was it as sticky an evening as your brother feared?’

  ‘Worse.’ She looked at him standing there. The man she loved, her lover. The man who still intended to marry her because she had been too weak to end this when she should have done. ‘Ashe, I must speak with you.’

  ‘Of course.’ He opened the door of the library for her. ‘There is no one else at home. What is wrong?’

  ‘I cannot marry you.’ As soon as she said it she knew she was right and she should have refused from the first. Now Buck had recognised her she knew she dare not marry and try to keep this a secret from Ashe.

  She could not tell him what she had done, could not bear to see his expression change, the liking and the desire ebb away to be replaced by revulsion when he discovered she had not been the victim of some predatory man but had deliberately sold herself. Made herself a whore. She had heard him speak of those Haymarket whores, knew what he, what any man, would think of a woman who did what she had done.

  She would have to do what she had always planned once Gregory was settled: leave London altogether and retire to the Dower House.

  Ashe became very still as he stood in front of the cold grate. Then he put down the book he had been holding. ‘Why not? Is it because of what you told me the other night? Or what happened between us?’

  ‘No,’ she lied. ‘I was wrong to accept your plan to rescue me from the scandal. I only agreed thinking I would refuse in the end, but I allowed myself to become… more involved than I intended. I can see there is no need for you to protect me any more. The gossip has died down, no one will be the slightest bit surprised if your interest in me wanes. We are completely unsuited to each other and it is foolish to condemn ourselves to a lifetime of an indifferent marriage.’

  ‘Unsuited and indifferent. I see. I had not realised I could be so wrong in my perceptions of either my own feelings or of yours.’ He looked as though he was listening to a dry political speech, his face a mask of concentration with no emotion to be seen. ‘So making love with me was a way of overcoming your fears?’

  ‘The bad memories. Yes,’ she agreed. If he believed she was simply using him, then he would be less inclined to fight, more convinced that he must not marry her.

  ‘I am happy to have been of use.’ He raised his eyes to her face and she saw with a shock just how angry he was. Angry, rigidly controlled and dangerous because of it. If she had been a man and had made him this furious he would have struck her, she realised, but she felt no fear, just total misery. Ashe would not hurt her even though he thought she had used him, used his body, in a calculated attempt to deal with her nightmares.

  ‘I will go home first thing in the morning,’ she said, striving for a control to match his. ‘I will explain to Lady Eldonstone that I realised we would not suit. She can only be relieved.’

  ‘She will be disappointed to have been mistaken in you,’ he said. ‘As I am.’

  ‘I did warn you, right from the start, that I am unsuitable for you.’ Best to make certain, to sever the fragile bond that had grown betwe
en them out of desire and liking and what she knew, on her part, to be love. But Ashe did not love her, thank God. He would not fight for her beyond all reason.

  ‘But you had to be noble about it, had to do the honourable thing, even if that overrode your duty to your family,’ she added with the intention of throwing oil on the flames.

  It worked. Ashe stalked forwards as she retreated before him, until she was backed up against the door with nowhere to go. ‘Attempting to do the honourable thing is part and parcel of my duty to my family, to my name,’ he ground out. ‘And I had thought that I had found a woman worthy of that name, one who would stand by me and my family and fight to bring it, and the lands, back to where they should be. I was wrong.’

  He stood back and Phyllida turned before he would see the tears or read in her eyes that her heart was breaking. She left the room without a word and climbed the stairs to her bedchamber. Some foolish part of her was straining to hear the door open behind her, Ashe’s voice calling her back. But, of course, it did not happen.

  It was quite extraordinary, how much a breaking heart hurt, Phyllida thought as she stood passive while the maid unpinned her hair and removed her gown. Mama, loving foolishly and too well, had died of a broken heart. Her daughter was not going to have even that release, she was going to have to live with the wounds for the rest of her life.

  Chapter Twenty

  Lady Eldonstone was kind and regretful and exceedingly courteous when Phyllida made her difficult confession that she did not think she and Ashe were suited and that it would be best if they did not meet again. Phyllida was certain that beneath the tranquil poise the older woman was concealing considerable anger that her son was being spurned by someone who had every reason to be grateful to him.

  She took herself off before breakfast, back to Great Ryder Street and the news that Gregory was staying with the Millingtons for a few days, presumably to bolster the family while they decided what to do about the return of their prodigal relative.