A Christmas Bride / A Christmas Beau (8 page)

He had to wait while she gave her instructions to the crooked-nosed servant, but then she looked back at him with inquiring eyes. They were not rhetorical questions she had asked.

He told her what she wished to know and answered the numerous other questions she asked—intelligent, probing questions. The coffee was brought and poured while he talked.

“How satisfying it must be,” she said at last, “to have a purpose in life, to know that one has accomplished something. Do you feel that you have vanquished life, Mr. Downes? That it has been worth living so far? That it is worth continuing with?”

Strange questions. He had not given much thought to any of them. The answers seemed, perhaps, self-evident.

“Life is a constant challenge,” he said. “But one never feels that one has accomplished all that can be done. One can never arrive. The journey is everything. How dull it would be finally to arrive and to have nothing else for which to aim.”

“Some people would call it heaven,” she said. “Not being on the journey at all, Mr. Downes, is hell. It surely is, is it not?”

“A self-imposed hell,” he said. “One that no one need encounter for any length of time. It is laziness never to reach beyond oneself for something more.”

“Or realism,” she said. “You must grant that, Mr. Downes. Or are you so grounded in the practicalities of a business life that you have not realized that life is ultimately not worth living at all? Realism—or despair.”

He had been enjoying their lively discussion. He had almost forgotten with whom he spoke—or at least he had almost forgotten that she was last night’s lover, to whom he had come this morning in some embarrassment. But he was jolted by her words. The smile on her lips, he noticed now, was tinged with bitterness. Was she talking theoretically? Or was she talking about herself?

She gave him no chance to answer. She took a sip from her cup and her expression lightened. “But you came to town for pleasure, too,” she said. “Tell me about that, Mr. Downes. For what sort of pleasure did you hope when you came here?” Her smile was once more pure mockery.

To his mortification Edgar felt himself flush. “My
sister and brother-in-law were to be here the same time as me,” he said. “They have insisted upon taking me about with them.”

“How old are you, Mr. Downes?” she asked.

She had a knack for throwing him off balance. He answered before he could consider not doing so. “I am six-and-thirty, ma’am,” he said.

“Ah, the same age as me,” she said. “But we will not compare birthdays. I was married at the age of nineteen, Mr. Downes, to a man of fifty-four. I was married to him for seven years. I have no wish to repeat the experience. I have earned my freedom. But it is an experience everyone should be required to have at least once in a lifetime. You have come to London in search of a wife?”

He stared at her, speechless. Did she really expect him to answer?

She laughed. “It is hardly even an educated guess,” she said. “Sir Webster Grainger and his lady were determinedly courting you last evening. They are in desperate search of a wealthy husband for poor Miss Grainger. I daresay you are very rich indeed. Are you?”

He ignored the question. “
Poor
Miss Grainger?” he said. He was feeling decidedly irritable again. How dare she probe into his personal life like this? Would she be doing so if he were a gentleman? “You believe she would be pitied if she married me, ma’am?”

“Very much so,” she said. “You are sixteen years her senior, sir. That may not seem a huge gap in age to you and me—we both know that you are vigorous and in your prime. But it would appear an enormous age difference to a very young lady, Mr. Downes. Especially one who has a prior attachment—but a quite ineligible one, of course.”

He frowned. Was she deliberately goading him? He could not quite believe he was having this conversation
with her. But was it true? Did Miss Grainger have an attachment to someone else?

“You need not look so stricken, Mr. Downes,” she said. “It is a common thing, you know. Young ladies of
ton
are merely commodities, you see. Sometimes people make the mistake of thinking that they are persons, but they are not. They are commodities their fathers may use to enhance or repair their fortunes. Unfortunately, young ladies have feelings and an alarming tendency to fall in love without sparing a single thought to the state of their fathers’ fortunes. They soon learn. That is one thing women are good at.”

This, he thought, was a bitter woman indeed. And doubtless an intelligent woman. Too intelligent for her own good, perhaps.

“Is that what happened to you?” he asked. “You loved another man?”

She smiled. “He is married now with five children,” she said. “He was kind enough to offer me the position of mistress after I was widowed. I declined. I will be no man’s mistress.” Her eyes mocked and challenged him.

He got to his feet. “I have taken too much of your time, ma’am,” he said. “I thank you for the coffee. I—”

“If you are going to apologize again for your discourtesy in bedding me without saying ‘please,’ Mr. Downes,” she said, “I beg you to desist. I should then feel obliged to apologize for seducing you and that would be tiresome since I do not feel sorry. But you need not fear that I will do it again. I never seduce the same man twice. It is a rule I have. Besides, in my experience no man is worth a second seduction.”

“Ah,” he said, suddenly more amused than angry, “you will have the last word after all, will you? It was a magnificent set-down.”

“I thought so, too,” she said. “You are a superior lover, Mr. Downes. Take it from someone who has had
some experience of lovers. But I do not want a lover, even a very good one. Especially perhaps a very good one.”

He despised himself for the satisfaction her words gave him.

“I would prefer a friend,” she said.

“A friend?” He looked at her.

“Life can be tedious,” she said, “for a widow who chooses not to burden her relatives with the demand for a home and who chooses not to burden herself with another husband. You are an interesting man. You have more to talk of than health and the weather and horses. Many men have no knowledge of anything beyond their horses and their guns and their hunting. Do you kill, Mr. Downes?”

“I have never been involved in gentlemanly sports,” he said.

She smiled. “Then you will never be properly accepted in my world, sir,” she said. “Let us be friends. Shall we be? You will alleviate my tedium and I will ease you into my world. Do you enjoy wandering around galleries, admiring the paintings? Or around the British Museum, absorbing history?”

“I am, I believe, a tolerably well-educated man, ma’am,” he said.

She looked at him measuringly. “You are not perfect after all, are you?” she said. “You are sensitive about your origins. I did not imply that you are a clod, sir. But you do not know London well?”

“Not well,” he admitted.

“Take me somewhere tomorrow,” she said. “I shall decide where between now and then. Let me have someone intelligent with whom to share my observations.”

He was tempted. How was he to say no? He must say no.

“You are afraid of ruining your matrimonial chances,”
she said, reading his hesitation aright. “How provincial, Mr. Downes. And how bourgeois. In my world it is no matter for raised eyebrows if a gentleman escorts a lady about who is not his wife or his betrothed or his intended, even when there is such another person in existence. And no one is scandalized when a woman allows a man to escort her who is not her husband or her father or her brother—even when she is married. In my world it is considered somewhat bad
ton
to be seen exclusively in the company of one’s spouse.”

“I daresay, then,” he said, “that my sister is bad
ton
. And Lord Francis Kneller, too.”

“Oh, those two.” She waved a dismissive hand as she got to her feet. “I do believe they still fancy themselves in love, sir, though they have been married forever. There are other such oddities in the beau monde, but they are in the minority, I do assure you.”

“You were right,” he said. “I came to London in search of a bride. I promised my father that I would make my choice by Christmas. I rather think I should concentrate upon that task.”

“My offer of friendship is rejected, then?” she said. “My
plea
for friendship? How very lowering. You are no gentleman, sir.”

“No,” he said with slow clarity, “I am not, ma’am. In my world a man does not cultivate a friendship with one woman while courting another.”

“Especially with a woman whom he has bedded,” she said.

“Yes,” he agreed. “Especially with such a woman.”

Her smile this time was one of pure contempt. “And you were right a minute or two ago, Mr. Downes,” she said. “You have stayed overlong. I tire of your bourgeois mentality. I would not find your friendship as satisfying as I found your lovemaking. And I do not desire lovemaking. I use men for my pleasure occasionally, but
only very occasionally. And never the same man twice. Men are necessary for certain functions, sir, but essentially they are a bore.”

Her words, her looks, her manner were all meant to insult. He knew that and felt insulted. At the same time he sensed that he had hurt her somehow. She had asked for his friendship and he had refused. He had refused because he would not be seduced again and knew beyond a doubt that any friendship with Lady Stapleton would inevitably lead eventually back to bed. She must surely know it, too.

He did not want a thirty-six-year-old mistress.
Rationally
he did not want her. Irrationally, of course, he wanted her very much indeed. He was a rational being. He chose to want a wife who was below the age of thirty, a wife who would give him children for his contentment, a son for Mobley Abbey.

“I am sorry,” he said.

“Get out, Mr. Downes,” she said. “I shall be from home if you call again, as I would have been today if I had had any sense. But I daresay you will not call again.”

“No,” he said, “I will not call again, ma’am.”

She turned away from him and crossed the room to the window. She stood looking out of it while he let himself out of the room, as she had looked from the window of her bedchamber the night before.

She was a strange woman, he thought as he left the house and made his way along the street, thankful for the chilliness of the air. Confident, independent, unconventional, she appeared to be a woman who made happiness and her own gratification her business. Other women must envy her her freedom and her wealth and her beauty. Yet there was a deep-seated bitterness in her that suggested anything but happiness.

She must have had a bad marriage, he thought, one
that had soured her and made her believe that all men were as her husband had been.

He had, it seemed, been one of a long string of lovers, all of whom had been used and never reused. It was a lowering and a distasteful thought. She made no secret of her promiscuity. She even seemed proud of it. His brief involvement with her was an experience he would not easily forget. It was an experience he was very glad was in the past. He was relieved that he had found the strength to reject her offer of friendship—he had certainly been tempted.

She was not a pleasant woman. A beautiful temptress of a woman, but not a pleasant one. He did not like her.

And yet he found himself regretting that he would not see her again, or if he did, that he must view her from afar. She could have been an interesting and an intelligent friend if there had never been anything else between them.

H
ELENA SUMMONED HER AUNT FROM THE COUNTRY
and felt guilty when she arrived for having encouraged her to leave just a few weeks before. She was uncomfortably aware that her aunt was not a person who deserved to be used.

“How very thoughtful you are, Helena, my dear,” Mrs. Cross said as she stood in the hallway, surrounded by her rather meager baggage. “You know that I find life with Clarence and his family trying, and you have invited me back here, where I am always happy. Have you been enjoying yourself?”

“When do I not?” Helena said, hugging her and linking her arm through her aunt’s to draw her toward the stairs. “Hobbes will have your bags attended to. Come to the drawing room and drink some tea. There is a fire there.”

She let her aunt talk about her journey, about her stay in the country, about the snippets of news and gossip she had learned there. Sometimes, she thought, it felt good to have a companion, someone who was family, someone who loved one unconditionally. Often it was annoying, confining. But sometimes it felt good. Today it felt good.

“But here I am going on and on about myself,” her
aunt said eventually. “What about you, Helena? Are you looking pale, or is it my imagination?”

“The wind has not stopped blowing and the sun has not once peeped through the clouds for days,” Helena said. “I have stayed indoors. I
feel
pale.” She smiled. “Now that you are here, I shall go out again. We will go shopping tomorrow morning. I noticed when you arrived that there was a hole in the palm of your glove. I daresay there were no shops of note in the village close to Clarence’s where you might have bought new ones. I am glad of it. Now I have an excuse to buy them for you as a gift. I was still in Switzerland at the time of your birthday, was I not?”

“Oh, Helena.” Her aunt was flustered. “You do not need to be buying me presents. I wore those old gloves because they are comfortable and no one would see them in the carriage.”

Helena smiled. Mrs. Letitia Cross was a widow, like herself. But Mr. Cross had not left her with an independence. Her meager stipend barely enabled her to keep herself decently clothed. She had to rely on various relatives to house her and feed her and convey her from place to place.

“I need gloves, too,” Helena said, “and perhaps a muff. I need a warm cloak and warm dresses for a British winter. Ugh! It seems to be upon us already. Why can no one seem to build up the fires decently in this house?” She got up and jerked on the bell pull.

“But Helena, my dear.” Her aunt laughed. “It is a magnificent fire. One would need a quizzing glass to be able to detect the fires in Clarence’s hearths, I do declare. Though I must not complain. They were kind to me. The children and the governess were not allowed fires in their bedchambers either.”