The Wedding Game (19 page)

“What?”
Chastity's jaw dropped. She continued to stare at him until she realized her mouth was hanging open as if she'd lost her jaw muscles. She hastily snapped it closed.
“Women in particular,”
she said. “Of all the arrogant, prejudiced, unthinking comments. You talk of complacency and lazy thinking . . . ye gods.” She blew breath through her lips in vigorous and noisy disgust. “Physician, heal thyself.”

A tiny smile touched Douglas's mouth, tugged at the corners. Laughter danced in the charcoal eyes. “Mea culpa,” he said, throwing up his hands in a gesture of defeat. “If I'd known I'd be provoking a veritable Boadicea, I would have watched my words.”

“Watched them but not revised them,” she fired.

“I accept that there are exceptions to every rule,” he said solemnly, the gravity unfortunately belied by the continuing smile in both eyes and mouth. “How could I not when I find myself in the presence of one?”

Chastity tried to maintain her own position of dignified indignation but there was something about that smile that made it all but impossible. It was a very appreciative smile with just the hint of rueful acceptance in its depths. Willy-nilly, her own lips curved. “There is more than one exception to this particular rule,” she said. “You have, I believe, met my sisters.”

“Oh, yes.” He nodded. “Not that I had much in the way of conversation with either of them, but I'm sure they're very intelligent, analytical, deep-thinking women.”

Chastity folded her arms. “You've read
The Mayfair Lady.
What about the women who write that? Are they lazy-minded, complacent, prejudiced?”

“Probably not,” he conceded. “But some of the articles in there are designed to appeal to such women. You have to admit that.”

Chastity let that one pass. It was easier than reminding herself that she and her sisters had often expressed very similar sentiments to the doctor's about the Society ladies who formed the lion's share of their readership. “What about suffragists?” she challenged. “There's nothing complacent about them or their cause.”

“No,” he agreed.

“What do you think of the issue? Should women have the vote?” She was aware that there was an edge to her voice now, as if she was giving him her own test.

Douglas heard it and guessed that this was an issue very close to Miss Duncan's heart. It was also clear on which side of the fence she stood. “I'm not against it in principle,” he said carefully.

“But in practice you are.” She sat back with a little sigh that seemed to say,
I knew it all along.

“No, no, wait a minute.” He held up an imperative finger. “It's a very complicated question. Most of the women I know wouldn't want the vote and wouldn't know what to do with it. My mother and sisters consider themselves powerful enough in their own sphere, and indeed they are.”

“Their
own
sphere,” Chastity said. “That's precisely the usual argument. Women have their world and men have theirs and never the twain shall meet . . . and everyone is very clear which of the two is the more powerful and important,” she added, thinking she was beginning to sound as didactic as Constance. Ordinarily, she could see both sides of any issue, but for some reason Douglas Farrell caused her to suffer one-sided blindness.

“I think perhaps we should agree to disagree on this,” Douglas said. “I'm not against the idea itself, I would merely hesitate to put it into practice until the majority of women have acquired the education and the ability to think outside the domestic sphere to the larger issues that at the moment are men's province.” He had thought that was rather a diplomatic way of putting it—his companion, however, didn't think so.

“It's no wonder you don't find the idea of marriage appealing,” Chastity observed with disconcerting sweetness. “With such an outmoded and prejudiced view of women, how could you? And I venture to suggest that any woman who might come up to your exacting standards would probably find something unappealing in a man who holds such a generally low opinion of her sex.” She folded her arms again, as if punctuating the end of the conversation.

Douglas scratched the side of his nose. “I had hoped we were beginning a rather promising friendship,” he observed. “Am I too unregenerate and dislikable to qualify as a friend, Miss Duncan?”

“I don't dislike you,” Chastity protested. “It's just your opinions I dislike.”

“Oh, is that all,” he said, sounding relieved. “I'm sure I can change those.”

“If you changed them you wouldn't be the same person,” she pointed out unarguably as the carriage drew to a halt outside her house.

Douglas jumped down and punctiliously gave her his hand to alight. He paid the driver and then walked with her up the steps to her door.

“Let me give you back your scarf,” Chastity said, pulling the long muffler out of her coat.

“Allow me.” He took it from her and unwound it from around her neck. They were standing necessarily very close together on the top step and she could feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek. “So,” he said, holding both ends while it still lay around her neck. “Friends, Miss Duncan?”

“Yes, of course,” she said.

He leaned into her and touched the corner of her mouth with his. It was the kiss of a friend, of the kind she had exchanged with many men, but then something happened. He pulled on the ends of the scarf, drawing her closer to him, and his mouth was fully on hers. Her eyes had closed and against all reason and logic she returned the pressure of his lips, lifting her hands to his shoulders, holding him. They drew apart together, almost jumped apart in the same instant, and stood looking at each other in stunned silence.

Chastity put her gloved hand to her mouth as she stared at him. He gave her a rather rueful smile. “A seal of friendship,” he said, but without much conviction.

Chastity took the way out offered. “Yes,” she said. “Friendship. Of course.” She lifted the scarf over her head and held it out to him. “Christmas,” she said. “We didn't talk about Christmas.”

“No,” he agreed.

Chastity spoke rapidly and with as little expression as possible. “We're all, at least my sisters and I, taking the four o'clock train from Waterloo on Christmas Eve. If that's convenient, you could travel with us. Unless you prefer to come down on Christmas Day, but I doubt you'll find any trains running.”

“I should be delighted to accompany you and your sisters on Christmas Eve,” he said with a bow of his head.

“And what about a valet?”

That made him laugh, breaking the awkward tension. “Chastity, my dear girl, after what we've been discussing, how could you possibly imagine I'd have a valet?”

“I have learned, Douglas, that you are not always what you seem,” she said with a lofty air that she couldn't possibly maintain. She shook her head with a slight laugh, feeling for her key in her pocket. “No, of course I didn't expect you to be bringing a servant, but I had to ask.”

“I can't imagine why,” he said, taking the door key from her and inserting it in the lock. The door swung open.

“Thank you,” she said. The air crackled between them and she slid past him in the doorway. He reached out and lightly stroked the curve of her cheek with the back of his hand, a fleeting touch that was nevertheless deeply intimate.

“Until later, Chastity,” he said, handing her the door key as Jenkins materialized from the shadows of the hall.

“Thank you for the pie,” Chastity said, thinking how silly that sounded. She stepped farther into the hall and closed the door firmly behind her.

Douglas walked to Harley Street in something of a daze. He couldn't decide what had just happened. Since Marianne he had avoided any kind of attraction to a woman of his own social circle, and he hadn't found it much of a deprivation. Once bitten, twice shy was a good motto, he reflected as he walked up the staircase to his suite on the second floor. Once he'd started his forays into the miserable slums of Edinburgh, all his emotional and physical energies had been devoted to the desperate souls in need of everything he had to give. He had kept a mistress, a pleasant undemanding courtesan who was happy to have her rent paid and a reasonable stipend in exchange for satisfying his sexual needs, but she was no more interested in emotional entanglements than he, and had moved without complaint to a substitute protector when Douglas left Edinburgh.

He had left that city only when he'd established a thriving clinic staffed by men and women he'd trained himself and funded to a large extent with his own personal trust. Then, in search of fresh fields to conquer, he'd come to London. But the trust fund could only support one clinic, so Harley Street and a rich wife it had to be. There was no room in his life for anything other than a straightforward marriage of convenience, an arrangement where courtesy and consideration prevailed, but where romantic love and all its snares and pitfalls had no place. Dalliance with the Honorable Chastity Duncan was most definitely not in the cards. It would interfere with the primary goal.

The door to his office suite stood open and he frowned in surprise. He hadn't yet acquired a receptionist and he was a half hour early for his appointment. He stepped inside, called, “Hello?”

“Oh,
Dottore, Dottore.
” Laura Della Luca emerged from the inner office into the waiting room, her arms filled with swaths of material. “I was just trying out a few ideas. The caretaker let me in when I told him I was working with you on refurbishment.”

“Oh.” The caretaker would have to whistle for his Christmas bonus, Douglas thought with justifiable irritation. He didn't want this woman, or indeed anyone, wandering in and out of his private apartments as if she had every right to do so. But in all fairness he could well imagine how she'd swept over any possible objections of the caretaker like a Covent Garden street sweeper dealing with the market detritus.

“I thought this would be particularly suitable for the waiting room,
Dottore,
” Laura burbled on, quite oblivious of his silence and the lack of greeting. She held up a swatch of flowered chintz. “Just imagine it on the chairs. I have been looking at chairs and I found at a lovely little shop in Kensington some wonderful deep armchairs that would work very well with this material. We would have it made up with skirts to hide the legs . . . legs are so vulgar on chairs, don't you think?”

“Rather necessary, I would have thought,” Douglas said aridly.

“Oh, yes, necessary, of course.” She waved this little objection aside. “But we don't have to sully our eyes with necessities, do we,
Dottore
?” She shook her finger at him. “Now, I thought this would be really pretty on the windows, looped back, of course, with matching ties and a frilled pelmet.” She produced another swatch of chintz that looked identical to the previous one.

Douglas peered at it. “Isn't it the same?”

“No, no . . . men have not the eye,” she said. “See, the pattern is different and the colors are different. This has a gold background, this a blue one.”

“Ah.” Douglas nodded, thinking of the Park Lane mansion. Gold and blue were the predominant themes there too, but at least there they didn't make the place seem like a country tearoom.

“And over the windows beneath we shall have this lovely filmy lace curtain.” Laura triumphantly held up a piece of white lace. “Just picture it,
Dottore.
Just picture it.” She hurried to one of the long stately windows and held the lace with one hand and the chintz with the other. “So sweetly pretty.”

“Yes,” Douglas said faintly.
Sweetly pretty.
Dear God, sweetly pretty in the waiting room of a serious practitioner. He'd be the laughingstock of the medical profession.

“And little gilt tables,” she rushed on. “I found just the ones. At each chair, I thought. For convenience, you understand.” She flung her arms wide. “With flower paintings adorning the walls we shall have an atmosphere of soft prettiness that will welcome the weary and the sick.”

More like some old lady's boudoir,
Douglas thought. But he didn't wish to be
rude . . . it wouldn't do much to advance his suit. If he smiled, nodded, and procrastinated, the whole business would eventually die a natural death.

“And just wait until you see what I have planned for your office,” Laura said, gesturing as she went before him into the office. “Here we will have the same lace at the windows to keep out the sun, but gold tapestry curtains with red tassels and a crimson leather top to your desk. Chairs in the same crimson leather, I believe. And a carpet, oh, most definitely. A carpet of multihues, reds and blues and golds. Yes, yes, it will be perfect.” She nodded firmly. “Just picture it,
Dottore
.”

Douglas did, and shuddered. He would be conducting physical examinations in a room resembling a bordello. He cleared his throat, preparing to find a delicate way to steer her clear of this vision, but she swept on regardless.

“I think Italian paintings on the walls . . . they are always the best. Italian art, there is nothing like it. No reproductions, of course, so I will have to look carefully for you. It will be expensive but you won't mind that.”

Douglas cleared his throat again. “My funds are not unlimited, signorina.”

Laura waved a hand in dismissal. “Oh, I will bargain for you. We Italians are so good at negotiating prices. Don't you worry about a thing,
Dottore.
I will arrange everything just so.”

“It's most kind of you, Miss Della Luca . . . Laura . . . to go to all this trouble, but I'm afraid . . .” He glanced at his watch. “I am expecting a patient in ten minutes and I must make some preparations.”

“Oh, yes, of course. The busy doctor. I wouldn't intrude for the world.” She walked back to the waiting room, gathering up her swatches that littered surfaces everywhere. “But you can't expect to build up a practice properly without the right accoutrements,
Dottore.
Can you imagine the King's physician in such shabby surroundings? Oh, dear me, no.” She gave another of her little trilling laughs.

“The King's physician?” he queried blankly, wondering where this could possibly have come from.