Ravishing the Heiress (19 page)

“You don’t find his person appealing?” Mrs. Englewood sounded incredulous.

“He is very agreeable.”

“I mean, do you not think he is extraordinarily handsome?”

“He is handsome. But so are a number of his classmates and his new brother-in-law, the Duke of Lexington. If I fell in love with every toothsome fellow I came across, I’d be frequently and needlessly in love.”

“But he is also kind. Considerate. Willing to shoulder all burdens. Being married to him all these years, you’ve never wished that he would have eyes only for you?”

Millie forced herself to hold Isabelle Englewood’s eyes. “Not everyone is meant to fall in love. Lord Fitzhugh and I are good friends and nothing more.”

“Then, you will let him go?”

“I have never restricted the freedom of his movement, not once in our married life.”

“Even though the two of you will have six months of intimacy? That changes things, you know.”

“If that alone were enough to make people fall in love, all the wives in this country would be in love with their husbands—and vice versa.”

Mrs. Englewood set down her teacup and rose. She
walked to the open window and looked out to the street beyond. It was a quiet street, no hawkers, street musicians, or the constant hoof clacks of hansom cabs looking for custom. Fitz had clearly put a great deal of thought in the house he’d selected for her.

She turned around. “I am afraid, Lady Fitzhugh. I’ve been at the receiving end of life’s caprices and it’s not a kind place to be. But I have no choice, do I? I must trust that you are a woman of your word.”

Millie had not given her word to Mrs. Englewood. She had not yet conceded Fitz. Did a faithful wife of almost eight years not have some claims to her husband? She deserved a level playing field, at least.

“So he
was
there at my wedding…” whispered Mrs. Englewood, as if to herself. She blinked, her eyes brilliant with unshed tears. “I knew I sensed his presence.”

How foolish Millie was: There was no such thing as a level playing field. She would always be the usurper, the spoiler of dreams, the one who caused such grief on Mrs. Englewood’s part that to this day it was writ large in the very alignment of her features.

“You are the one he has loved all along,” she heard herself say. “There has never been anyone but you.”

H
elena gazed at the adorable ducklings a minute longer—Miss Evangeline South was a talented artist—before rising from her seat, her notes in hand. She opened the door of her office and handed the notes to her secretary.

“I need these typed, Miss Boyle.”

“Yes, miss.”

Susie was in her spot—Helena could swear the woman never needed to use the water closet. She retreated back into her office and shut the door.

She didn’t know why it should be so, after a day and a half with the ducklings and turtles and fish of Miss South’s pond, but her hands reached on their own toward the drawer into which she’d stuffed Hastings’s manuscript.

And when she had the manuscript before her, she did not begin from where she’d stopped, but opened to a random page.

Helena’s pulse accelerated. She’d read some erotica here and there. Always the stories seemed to be aimed at titillating male readers, with the female characters completely interchangeable, mere objects to be spanked and poked.

But this was different. The nameless bride of Larkspear was a person in her own right, neither afraid nor given to senseless worship of a man’s cock.

Helena turned the manuscript facedown. It made her uncomfortable, as if he’d pulled a fantasy out of the deepest recesses of her mind, a fantasy she never knew about until he’d set it down in writing. A fantasy about power,
her
power, and a man who pushed back without being fearful of it.

A knock came at her door. She hastily locked the manuscript away. “Come in.”

Susie poked in her head. “Miss, the ball is tonight. Lady Fitzhugh asked me to remind you to leave earlier than usual.”

Of course, the ball in honor of Venetia and the duke—with Hastings certain to be there.

“Yes, I will leave earlier,” she said. “Or Lady Fitzhugh will fret.”

T
he train bellowed. The platform fogged with steam from the engines. A fading swirl of it passed between Fitz and Isabelle.

Her children were already aboard with their governess. Through the windows they waved at him, excited at the prospect of visiting their cousins. He waved back.

“They like you,” she said.

“I like them. They are good children.” He changed his walking stick—the one with the blue porcelain handle—from one hand to the other. She’d admired it earlier; he did not tell her it had been a present from Millie. “You should probably board. Your train will leave any minute now.”

“I’m loath to leave you,” she said. “I wish I hadn’t agreed to this visit.”

“You will enjoy it—you haven’t seen your sister in years. Besides, you’ll only be gone a week.”

“A week is a long time. Everything can change.”

Any other day he’d have scoffed at her fear. But tonight something
would
change.

On the face of it, a roll in the hay ought not to matter. He’d sauntered through quite a few beds in his time. Sometimes he grew more fond of a woman, sometimes less. But the change was predicated upon their personal qualities, not because he slept with them.

He already respected and admired Millie. He’d like her even more tomorrow morning, but the fundamental nature
of their firmly established friendship should remain the same.

More or less.

“A week is only seven days,” he said.

He noticed he did not reassure Isabelle that nothing would change. Her lips tightened: She’d noticed, too.

The steam whistle blew, a sharp-pitched warning, followed by a deep rumble that rattled the tracks.

“Hurry,” he said, leaning forward to kiss her on her cheek. “Or your children will be in Aberdeen without you.”

She gripped his hand. “Think of me.”

“I will.”

She turned toward the train, then turned back again. “You once told me that no matter what happened, you’d always, always love me. Is that still the case?”

“Of course,” he said, perhaps a little too fast.

“I’ll hold on to that, then.”

“I’ll be here waiting, when you come back.”

She threw her arms about him. “I love you. I will love you till my last breath.”

The Bench

1890

M
illie knocked on the door of her husband’s study and pushed it open. “You wish to see me, sir?”

“Yes. Come in, please.”

She took her usual chair across the table from his, but he was not in his chair. Instead, he was before the mantel, a poker in hand, prodding at the coals in the grate. Something in the set of his jaw alarmed her.

“What’s the matter?”

He shrugged.

“Tell me.”

He dropped the poker into its holder. “I opened a letter from Gerry Pelham just now. He informs me he has become the proud uncle of a baby niece.”

Gerry Pelham, Isabelle Pelham’s brother. It had been little more than a year since Miss Pelham became
Mrs. Englewood—and now she had a child. A familiar pain gnawed at Millie’s chest—Fitz had been once again reminded of what he’d lost.

He sat down in his chair. “I’m sorry. I was surprised by the news, that’s all.”

Ambushed by the news, more like it. “Would you prefer that I came another time?”

“No, I’m glad you are here. Help me take my mind off it.”

He used to want to be away from her when he had such news from his beloved. The pain in Millie’s heart was now mixed with a slow, bittersweet pleasure. “Anything,” she said.

He opened a dossier on the desk. “Your father advertised very little. He believed that the quality of Cresswell & Graves products spoke for themselves. When we first began to expand into bottled beverages, my instinct was to advertise, but Mr. Hawkes felt otherwise. He was more concerned with wooing the retailers to stock these new products. Once the products were in view, he believed they’d fly off the shelves.

“I gave him one quarter to prove himself right. When he did not, and our new beverages collected dust in shops, I commissioned an advertising campaign. Since women are responsible for the majority of the household expenditures on food and drink, I thought I’d ask your opinion on these placards.”

She was immensely flattered—and almost as nervous. “I’d be honored to help, if I can.”

He passed the drawings to her. She spread them before her. The designs were black and white. “Are these the finished designs?”

“Yes.”

She hesitated. “You know I have no particular artistic eye.”

He smiled slightly. “In other words, you don’t find them appealing?”

“Not particularly,” she said slowly. She’d hoped to tell him otherwise.

“Don’t look so apologetic. If I thought you’d say yes to everything I wouldn’t ask your opinion. Now tell me why you don’t find them appealing.”

Encouraged, she said, “Well, raspberry soda water, orange soda water, and strawberry lemonade are pretty and vibrant in person. A black-and-white placard does not convey their attractiveness. And the image of a bottle surrounded by words extolling its virtues is too matter-of-fact, almost as if we are selling a tonic when we are doing nothing of the sort.”

“What would you do, then?”

“We want young people to take these bottled drinks on picnics and to the seaside on holidays, don’t we?” she said tentatively. “Then, why not let us suggest that in the advertising itself? Young ladies sitting under the shade of a tree, a nice spread of a picnic, raising our bottles in toast. Or young ladies at the beach, blue sky, blue sea, everyone in white dresses, holding our bottles.”

He jotted down a several lines of notes. “All right. I’ll recommission the artworks.”

“On my words alone?”

He looked up. “Of everyone involved with Cresswell & Graves, you are the one I trust the most. And if I’ve learned anything since we married, it’s that you have good instincts. So yes, Lady Fitzhugh, on your words alone.”

She scarcely knew what to do. It was difficult to remain seated, yet a lady simply couldn’t leap wildly about the room, even if her husband had just told her that yes, indeed, she was his closest advisor.

She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Thank you. Do you need me to look at anything else?”

H
er ideas were exactly right. Introduced the next spring, the advertising placards, with their lush, striking contrasts of colors and idyllic images, were so wildly popular that they were stolen wherever they were put up. Fitz, encouraged, sent shopkeepers posters to display inside their stores and ordered tens of thousands of handbills to be passed out by sandwich-board men. The bottled beverages sold and sold.

Fitz, not one to let such excellence go unremarked, bought a set of jeweled hairpins for his wife. He’d taken both of his sisters with him to the jeweler’s, but he’d known, the moment he’d seen the amethyst-and-diamond pins, that they were what he wanted. They reminded him of the lavender at Henley Park, an apt symbol for his wife—handsome, adaptable, and endlessly beneficial.

The first time he saw his gift on Lady Fitzhugh was on the occasional of Lady Knightbridge’s ball.

He attended very few balls. For one thing, his presence was beside the point. The function of a ball was to put into proximity young men and women who might someday forge matrimonial alliances. He, a married man, would waste the young ladies’ time. Also, a man at a ball was expected to dance, as there were always ladies in want of
a partner. And he didn’t exactly fancy dancing as the night was long.