The Best of Men (14 page)

“Two very sound reasons.” He stretched out and rested his head on his arm, surveying her. “What next? Should we go back?”

“No,” she whispered. “I want you to kiss me.”

“Are you sure?” he said, though he did not look particularly surprised.

“Yes.”

His mouth tasted of wine. She had not been kissed so before, attentively and without hurry. Slipping her dress down to bare her shoulders, he continued to kiss her, lower and lower, until she felt his tongue circle a nipple. She was trembling from the excitement and the danger. Then he stopped and asked again, “Are you still sure?”

“Yes, quite sure,” she said.

His hand shifted to beneath her skirts, then up to her knees, and parted her legs. She tensed at first, embarrassed; yet his fingers were provoking in her a most marvellous and unaccustomed sensation. She could not concentrate on anything else. Moments later, hot potent waves broke within her, and she opened her eyes, which she had not realised were closed.

“Did you like that?” he inquired, his hand still between her thighs, evidently at home there.

“Yes,” she admitted.

“Would you like more?”

“Yes,” she said, hungering for him, blocking from her mind every other thought.

He lifted her skirts, and in the next second, it seemed, he entered her smoothly, without any of Robert’s fumbling. She was liquid around him as he moved. He did not moan, as Robert did, or weigh her down, as his hands came to her buttocks, raising her up so that his groin massaged again that sensitive part of hers. He understood her body better
than she did herself, and he made love to her until she was weak, shaking in every limb. Then he propped himself up on one elbow and gave her an amicable smile, as if they had just enjoyed some decorous conversation, and she smiled back, thinking that had she been told an hour before that she would find herself blasted heavenwards, committing adultery with a man who was almost her cousin, she would not have believed it.

As they walked back to the Banqueting House, she felt the moisture trickling out of her, down to the tops of her stockings; and she was filled with a languid passion, clinging to his arm. “Do you have other mistresses?” she asked.

“I’d rather call you my friend,” he said. “We can be friends, can’t we?”

“I suppose,” she agreed, unsure of what he meant, teetering on the edge of disappointment.

“Come and see me, then.” He told her where he had rooms, in Southwark, and they parted outside the House, to which, she observed, he did not return. This both flattered and frightened her: he had attended the reception for only one purpose.

As she pushed through the crowd towards her companions, she felt that she must reek of sex and that her sin must somehow be written on her face. They were too intent on the celebrations to notice. She was able to say she had been ill, and wished to go home. That night she lay awake in bed next to Robert, and thought of Beaumont and the new pleasure he had awakened in her.

The next day, however, she was haunted by guilt and fear of discovery: what if he were to boast publicly of seducing her? He had, several times, given her the opportunity to resist him, and she had urged him on. She would have to make him swear on his honour as a gentleman to keep private an incident that must not be repeated. She sent her servant with a note requesting that she might visit briefly to discuss an urgent matter, and received a reply, in untidy writing, that she could
come the following afternoon if it suited. She told Robert that she was going on a charitable call, and he congratulated her on her benevolence.

Mr. Beaumont lived down an unsavoury street, in a house that he apparently shared with several other people, amongst them a bright young lady in a low-cut gown who curtseyed to Diana as they passed each other on the stairs. After she knocked on Mr. Beaumont’s door, she had to wait, and wondered if he was indeed in. Then it opened. He looked sleepy, dressed only in a rumpled shirt and breeches, and he was rubbing his eyes, but he beamed at her disarmingly and invited her in. After the opulence of his family home, she had not expected such impoverished quarters, barely furnished save for a bed and a mountain of books piled up beside it. The bed was unmade, and she nearly trod on some garments lying about on the floor.

“Mr. Beaumont,” she began. “I must –”

“A glass of wine?” he interrupted. “I think I have some left from last night, unless I drank it all.” As he hunted about, she felt so overwrought that she had to sit, on the bed, since there was no alternative place. At length, he brought her wine. “So,” he said, “what’s this urgent matter?”

“It is, that I – that
we
–” But she could not say what she had intended.

Her charitable calls became regular. She could never stay with Beaumont much above an hour or two, yet as she got to know him, she came to like him more and more, and not just for the physical gratification he gave her, with seemingly boundless energy and inventiveness. He had a remarkably cheerful disposition, taking everything as a joke, and she discovered that he held outrageous opinions about politics, religion, the relation between the sexes, and the world in general. He was also strangely sensitive to her moods, asking questions that Robert would never put to her.

Although unconcerned with many social niceties, he paid great heed to personal cleanliness. She noticed that his sheets were always
fresh and as sweet-smelling as he, and this was, indirectly, the cause of their sole argument. Once, arriving early, she heard female laughter as she climbed the stairs to his room. The door stood open, and so she looked in. A woman was with him, comely though flashily dressed, presumably a laundress since she was holding his bundled-up sheets.

“You
are
keeping me busy these days,” she was saying. “You naughty boy, don’t you ever get tired?” He did not answer, but pulled her to him, the sheets crushed between their bodies, and kissed her full on the mouth. He had not observed Diana, though the laundress did as she turned to go. “Good day, madam,” she said pertly, and to him, “I believe I shall be seeing you again very soon, my dear.”

Diana was aghast. “Are you – are you
familiar
with her?” she cried to him, once they were alone. “Do you make love with her?”

“I wouldn’t call it that. But yes, now and again. I don’t see that you have any right to object,” he added, with a disparaging laugh. “After all, you sleep with your husband every night.”

“Would you have me leave him?” she asked, almost wishing Beaumont to say yes.

“Of course not. You must know me by now. If I’m making you unhappy, you should stop coming here.”

“No,” she said quickly. She did not question him again, nor did she see him with another woman.

Their affair lasted for almost a year. Then one day Robert received a letter, which he opened over breakfast. “They will get him married at last,” he announced, when he had finished reading.

“Who’s to be married?” she asked.

“Lord Beaumont’s eldest son. Poor girl, he will lead her a dance. Though heaven knows, if I were a woman I’d marry him myself, to become mistress of that estate.”

When she next saw Beaumont, he told her he did not want to talk about it, and his insouciance lulled her into believing that nothing
would change between them. That afternoon, he got her tipsy, removed every stitch of her clothing with the proficiency of a well-trained maidservant, and sent her into such ecstasy that she thought she would die. The following week, she went to his lodgings and found an empty room, not even a book in sight. The bright lady downstairs said that the contents of his chamber had been sold to pay off rent that he owed; he had disappeared a few days earlier and no one knew where he had gone. Diana collapsed at the news. At home she waited, hoping he might have sent some message that had perhaps been delayed. But none came. A fortnight later, nausea rose in her stomach, her breasts grew tender, and she knew that she was pregnant. The consequences of her folly now appalled her: what if the child was Beaumont’s? Those distinctive looks that had so seduced her could be her very undoing. Tormented by the prospect of giving birth to a dark infant with telltale green eyes, she allowed her health to suffer; and whether luckily or unluckily, she miscarried in her second month.

“Beaumont, did I mention to you a certain lady who has stolen my heart? A Mrs. Sterne?”

“I don’t believe you did,” said Laurence, as Charles Danvers filled his cup. At first he had found Danvers’ company a relief after his awkward encounter with Diana, but now he felt restless: it must be nine or ten o’clock, time for him to visit Seward.

“Well,” Danvers said, with the air of settling into his story, “I asked Mistress Savage, her best friend, to arrange a tryst for us yesterday in the meadows. It was laid out when we arrived – cushions on the grass, wine, and sweetmeats – perfection. Then Mistress Savage and her maidservant gave some excuse to depart, leaving Mrs. Sterne to my tender wooing. I had to promise that I would get a chamber for us tomorrow.”

“And where was Mr. Sterne, during all this?”

“Oh, he’s an elderly fellow, you see, and keeps to his bed most of the day. But what can he expect, if he marries a woman young enough to be his granddaughter. And in his state of health he is, alas –” Danvers held up his hand and let it flop at the wrist.

“How unfortunate for him. Does she know that you’re married, too?”

“No, and I am not about to tell her. I seem to remember you and I had a few such adventures with the fair sex while we were in the Dutch service together, and you never objected to my being married.”

“I still have not the slightest objection,” Laurence said, laughing, and Danvers joined in.

“Thank Christ for that. I heard you were dealing cards in some fancy house in The Hague last winter, but judging by your colour, you must have been in some warmer clime more recently.”

“I had to get away from the cold.”

“Or from a rope,” Danvers joked. “Such a bother that I must leave Oxford soon,” he continued, with a sigh. “It was going so swimmingly with Mrs. Sterne. But Wilmot has orders for us to ride north.”

“You never know, she might follow you.”

“By God, you’re right. Women can do the rashest things when they’re smitten. But they can also be damned tricky. Isabella Savage, for example. Not that I’d be interested in her, despite her attractions. She’s up her to neck in politics, with her friend Lord Digby. Too sharp-witted by far.”

“A terrible disadvantage in a woman,” Laurence remarked, though Danvers did not pick up the irony. “In this case, however, she seems to be using her wits to your benefit.”

“Yes, she is, though I’d wager she has her own motives for doing so. Beaumont,” Danvers went on, “are you going to ride with Wilmot? He swears there’ll be rich pickings off those bastards in Parliament once we’ve thrashed their arses in the field. Think of the sport we could have together. You’ve got to join us.”

“We’ll see,” Laurence said, bored with the same old question.

Danvers cocked his head to one side and squinted at him. “I suppose you’ve no need to fret about money, now that you’re home. It must have been different for you over there – you must have done a lot of things just to get by. As a matter of fact, I even heard that you were a mole for the Germans.”

“Who said that?”

“I can’t reveal my sources,” Danvers replied smugly. “I also heard a rumour that you were playing on both sides of the game. Not that I’d give it any credit.”

Laurence yawned and stood up. “Thanks for a most enjoyable evening.”

“Stay,” Danvers said. “If you run off now, you’ll make me think my sources were correct.” Laurence ignored him, counting out some coins. “I might find a use for your talents. Aren’t you curious to know who I’m working for?”

“Will this be enough?” Laurence inquired, of the money.

Danvers eyed it appreciatively. “More than enough. Most generous of you. My turn next.”

“It’s never your turn,” Laurence said, smiling. “Your pockets are always empty. Good night, man.”

He felt glad to breathe clean night air after the fug of the Blue Boar’s taproom. How quickly his past had caught up with him, he thought, as he walked over to Merton. Yet Danvers deserved his thanks for all that careless talk: better to know what was being said than not.

Once at the College, Laurence passed through the front quadrangle and beneath the Fitzjames Arch into the newer quadrangle, built just a few years before his birth, to house the Fellows. He could recall as a youth sitting out late there, his breeches getting damp with dew, making ambitious plans for his own future that usually involved faraway places and exotic women. And now, miles from Spain and from Juana,
he found himself where he had been on the day before he left England: paying a call on Seward.

He was encouraged to see light glimmer from Seward’s windows. “Who’s there?” came a thin, quavering voice, as he knocked at the door.

“It’s me, Seward, open up,” he said, smelling the familiar odour of cat’s urine, acrid as gunpowder.

The door swung wide to reveal a large striped tom with tail erect and fluffed up, hissing at him. Then Seward came forward, dressed in his faded black cap and gown, and shoved the beast aside with his foot so that Laurence could cross the threshold. “By all the saints, my dear fellow!” cried Seward, embracing him, and then holding him back. “Let me have a look at you, Beaumont. A little sharpened about the edges, aren’t you. And you’ve some new muscles.” He squeezed Laurence’s arm with his bony fingers. “Very impressive!”

Laurence examined him, in return; he was as gaunt and desiccated as ever, the skin stretched tight over his craggy features, yet he appeared unchanged, as if preserved from the ravages of time by some mysterious alchemical process.

“Where were you all these years, my boy?”

“In the Low Countries, fighting, for most of them.”

“When I last saw your father, he said he’d given you up for dead. I told him not to despair, that I knew you were still amongst the living. But I’m afraid it was scant comfort to him,” Seward said, severely, ushering Laurence in and shutting the door. “I cannot believe you spent so long in the army. You’d be egregiously unfit for it.”