Pleasure For Pleasure (32 page)

“Truly vulgar,” he said slowly.

She slapped the red leather book. “And this isn't? Vulgar?” She couldn't read his eyes at all, but her blood was racing through her veins. “You know what I think the most vulgar thing of all is?”

“Do inform me.”

“That when you fell in love, you fell in love with such
angelic
women, to use Hellgate's words. Chaste. Nothing like yourself.”

“True.”

“It makes it worse, somehow.”

“Because they were so chaste that I shouldn't have touched their palms with my debauched kiss?” His voice sounded perfectly even but he was obviously angry.

“That's not it exactly,” she said. “It's that you liked bedding women enough that you—you had your hundred women. But when you decided to fall in love, you fell for women who weren't even interested in the act.”

“Chaste doesn't mean—”

“I don't know about Lady Godwin,” Josie cried recklessly, “but I do know about Sylvie. I
know
that she didn't feel desire
for you. All the women who did feel desire for you were only good enough for a week, and then you left them. You saved your emotion for the women who never wanted you at all.”

He just stared at her.

“You told me that about Lady Godwin. You said that she wanted her husband, not you.” She was beginning to feel bitterly ashamed; sweet wasn't a word she could ever apply to herself.

Mayne cleared his throat. “I suppose you could be right.”

“I am right,” Josie snapped. “I suppose you played the voluptuary's role because you enjoyed it.”

“One does.”

“According to Hellgate's
Memoirs,
all those women lusted after you. Why did you fall in love with a chaste angel figure? Why didn't you just marry one of those hurly-burly Jezebels?”

“I rather think I did,” he said silkily.

She looked away. If he didn't know that she wasn't akin to those married woman who played their debauched games with him…there was nothing more to be said. She couldn't think how to begin the conversation over, to stop what had started, to take back her own words.

“You're right,” he said suddenly. “I haven't had an
affaire
in two years because I came to the same conclusion you did. I threw away years of my life on tawdry little encounters with doxies, married or not. I'd even agree with Shakespeare about
the wasteland of shame,
or whatever that phrase was.”

She pressed her lips together. What sort of victory was this?

“But you oughtn't to make fun of my love for Sylvie, nor for Lady Godwin either,” he said. “Probably they were too chaste for the likes of me, but they showed me a way out of the dissipation. Desire is always there, after all. There's always another pair of beautiful eyes, or an alluring smile…”

He was talking more to himself than to her. Josie had a
metallic taste in her mouth that suggested she might lose the tea she just drank. One could only suppose it was her own future he was describing, married to a man who found the world full of alluring smiles and endless desire.

“But after I fell in love with Lady Godwin, I suddenly saw how stupid all that pleasure was. How pleasureless, in a way. And then it was the same with Sylvie.” That wasn't anger in his eyes; it was self-loathing.

“Don't you think you're exaggerating?”

“In what way?”

“Honestly, I don't think
pleasureless
is the right word to describe your experiences. Or for that matter, the experiences of your inamoratas.”

“What?”

She had to chase away that look in his eyes. “I don't think bedding you is pleasureless or stupid. I could easily become addicted to the practice. I can see why you spent twenty years doing it. The truth is that I would probably throw away my life doing exactly the same, were it only permitted for women.”

He threw up his head and stared at his young wife, startled. She looked unbearably young and desirable. “You don't understand,” he said slowly.

“For the kind of pleasure you've given me in the last week, Garret…I would do anything for that. Throw away my life, my reputation, anything you asked for. Partly, I got so angry because I am so jealous of all those other women.”

“You are?”

She nodded. “I want you to make love to
me
in secret chambers at the palace. And in the kitchen garden at a ball. And—”

“I never made love to anyone in a kitchen garden,” he snapped. “That was made up by the author.”

“Wherever. The truth is that I hate every one of those
hundred lovers you had. I covet every moment they spent with you.”

A harsh laugh came from his chest. “You were likely in your cradle when I made love for the first time.”

“I do have to take into account that it's a good thing all those women came before me, because I'm sure they taught you many things about pleasuring a woman.”

The bleakness was out of his eyes. “So what you're saying is that there was a good side to all my debauchery.”

“Am I thinking too much of myself?” she asked, sinking back onto the bed.

He followed her, of course. “A woman has to look out for her own pleasure.”

“A thought I've had many a time,” she said with satisfaction.

“You're making a mistake, though,” he said. “There's a difference between the kind of pleasure you and I share and that—”

But she was tired of this conversation. It made her heart stop when she saw that look of self-hatred in his eyes. So she covered his mouth with her hand and told him, quite severely, that men should always obey their wives without the slightest objection. She didn't take her hand away until she was quite certain he understood what she was saying.

And then she lay back against the pillows and told the Earl of Mayne precisely what it was that he should do.

He seemed to understand all right, because he said in a jaded tone, “I'm sure I've seen this bedchamber before. It's time for me to flit on to another bed.”

Josie smiled at him and then put one finger under the little sleeve of her afternoon gown. It was a pale lemony yellow, with a glorious strip of lace running just under the breasts. She played with the little scrap of fabric as if it were too tight. “I might let you go tomorrow,” she said.

His eyes were getting that wild look again, so she snuggled
even farther back against the pillows, which meant that the delicate yellow fabric strained over her breasts. She didn't need to look down to know that her nipples were framed against the fabric. She could feel them longing for his touch.

“No lady can hold a rake for long.” But his voice didn't sound convinced.

She felt as if someone should be caressing her breasts, and he wasn't, so she did it herself. She could hear his breathing. “But I'm no lady,” she told him. “Not an angel.”

“No,” he breathed.

“Not a chaste scrap of the cloud either.”

For a moment he was distracted and frowned at her.

“As Hellgate describes his dearest love,” she clarified.

“I can't see a cloud in this room,” he promised.

“In fact, I'm a bit of a reprobate,” she said, coming up on her knees. “A strumpet.”

A strumpet would take her own pleasure, and Josie was enjoying that. In fact, her own hand felt almost as good as Mayne's—

But maybe he saw that thought in her eyes, because a second later he pushed her hand away, and then…

T
hurman had never seen his father looking like this. He looked…
old
. Tired. Even desperate. Thurman felt like curling his lip, but he didn't. He bowed and offered his father a cup of tea. “An unexpected pleasure.”

Henry Thurman sat down heavily and waved Cooper out of the room. Then he braced his hands on his knees in that way Thurman always hated, because it just wasn't something a gentleman did. His father still had a smell of the printing press around him, for all his grandfather was the one who started the enterprise.

“There's no way to put this easily,” he said.

Thurman sat down opposite him. He had just been about to go for a drive in Hyde Park, and he wanted nothing more
than to lope out of the room and leave this perspiring, heavy man behind.

“We're ruined.”

“What?”

“Ruined. I borrowed some money, and thought it would come through in the percents…” The story tumbled out. One name kept drumming through the flood of miserable language from his parent. Felton. Felton. Felton.

“Who is Felton?” Thurman finally demanded.

His father broke off and blinked at him. “Lucius Felton. Runs most of London, on the financial side anyway. He closed the loan…” And he was off again.

Thurman had the gist of it. Lucius Felton had ruined his family. Lucius Felton was responsible for the loss of the house in Kent—for that was what his father was saying now—and the loss of his allowance, obviously, and the loss of his racing curricle.

Lucius Felton.

The man responsible for giving the Sausage her dowry.

The man married to the Sausage's sister.

He'd never felt sicker in his life, just sitting there and watching his father's red face as he said that his mother's jointure was secure, of course, and so they would be retiring into the village where she grew up because there was a small house. One of his brothers was entering the Church.

“Mr. Felton,” his father said, and the words filtered through the haze in Thurman's brain, “has been kind enough to buy your youngest brother a commission in the army.”

He stopped.

Thurman just waited. Surely there was more. Surely Felton had told him? Had told his family what he had done?

But Felton hadn't, because his father was looking at him with a horrible expression of pain and pity and despair. “I'm the saddest about you,” he said. “Your mother and I will be happy in the village. You know we like a simple life. But
you…I shouldn't have played ducks and drakes with your inheritance, son.”

“No, you shouldn't have,” Thurman said sharply. “How could you get yourself into the hands of someone like Felton?”

“I didn't know…he was always most kind, but then…” In five minutes Thurman saw it all. In the last week, Felton had bought up all of his father's outstanding loans. He had taken over the printing press. He had kindly “spared” his mother's jointure, and given them, as an act of charity, the money to buy his brother a commission.

“So there's only you,” his father said.

“Me?” Thurman replied, still not quite following.

“There's no money, lad. This house—” He glanced around. “Well, the rent is paid for the next week. You'd best tell your man to leave immediately. And what are you to do then, Eliot? Have you an idea of a profession, lad? You must have learned a great deal off at those schools of yours.”

Thurman was silent.

“I'm trying not to worry about you,” his father said. “Not you, with all your friends from Rugby. They'll help you out of this tight spot. Get you a position somewhere. Perhaps you could be a secretary to a great man. You were always clever with a pen.”

Thurman could barely make his lips move. “Out,” he said.

“Well, now—”

“Out! You've taken my inheritance and destroyed my life. The only good thing about this is that I won't ever have to listen to the foolish ravings of an imbecilic old man like yourself any longer! We were never of the same stock,
never!
”

Henry Thurman rose slowly. “You'll always have a home with us, Eliot. We know you've grown above us. But you'll always be able to come home.”

“Never,” Thurman spat. “Never.”

Henry Thurman stumbled out of the house, feeling as sick
as a man could. Of course, he had ruined young Eliot's life. Eliot was raised to be the hope of the family, the young gentleman who was going to move into the aristocracy. He was friends with all those lords. Surely he'd fall on his feet. His fine friends would help him. That Darlington, for instance, whom Eliot always talked of.

Inside the house, Thurman was bellowing at Cooper. “The card,” he said hoarsely. “The card!”

Cooper had listened at the door just long enough, and then ducked into the back to wrap the silver in a cloth. He knew where the card in question was. “I'll look for it, sir,” he said, heading to the back of the house so he could wrap up the silver teapot and a pair of candlesticks he'd always fancied.

After a reasonable period of time, when he had everything he wanted crated and tied in two large boxes, he brought Thurman the card.

Just as he expected, Thurman glanced at the inscription,
HARRY GRONE
,
THE TATLER
, and banged out of the house. That gave Cooper more than enough time to whistle for a hackney, load up the two crates, and hop into the carriage.

He left the front door swinging open, just in case anyone cared to enter.

As it happened, two gentlemen did choose to enter. They strolled into Thurman's sitting room and glanced around at the furnishings.

One of them, the Earl of Ardmore, stripped off his coat.

The other, Lucius Felton, flipped through the meager invitations ranged on the mantelpiece. Then he walked to the window and drew back the curtain just a trifle.

They had to wait until evening.

Thurman did Grone's little errand, sweeping into a printing press that was all sixes and sevens as the news was out that it had a new owner. He bullied his way into the files and left.

But Thurman hadn't gone home directly with the bag of sovereigns Grone handed over. He'd taken it to the Convent,
and bought everyone round after round of drink. He couldn't stop thinking that by tomorrow the news would be everywhere. By tomorrow it was all over.

But for one last, golden evening he could still be a rising young gentleman, an heir with plenty of the ready. He threw a sovereign on the counter as the tapsters curled their lips in a semblance of smiles. He threw a sovereign in the air when a barmaid perched on his knees. He pretended Darlington and Wisley and the rest were with him…even though they weren't.

When he finally staggered home, the remnants of Grone's bag in his pocket, he was no longer worrying about the day to come. He'd deal with that tomorrow.

He fell out of the hackney, giving the driver a sovereign when he asked for eight pence. The curtains in his sitting room twitched, though he didn't notice.

He banged through the front door and just stood there, sodden with beer and gin, shaky and drunk. He threw back his head like a wolf howling at the moon. “Cooper!” he bellowed. “Cooper!”

Cooper didn't come, but the door to the sitting room slowly swung open, so Thurman lurched through that door.