CHAPTER EIGHT
Fenton twitched the ribbons of his high-perch phaeton as he searched the throng of exquisitely attired promenaders. He was as restless and uncertain of his reward as he’d been when his horse had taken the lead at St Leger three years before—and won him a purse that had trebled the amount he’d lost the night before.
Gambling! His mother was happy that he’d got over the gambling mania that had ruled his life as a young buck, but not so happy at his choice of the one woman who might keep him interested enough in domesticity not to want to stray from the straight and narrow again. If only he knew his mother would not make his life living hell if he crossed her in choosing a wife she was dead set against. Though, truth to tell, his mother’s furious objections were only the start of Fenton’s concerns.
Despite his anticipation, he was in a quandary, unable to decide what to do though he knew what he wanted. He wanted Miss Brightwell to come to him with an unblemished reputation so the whole world—his mother included—could endorse her as his viscountess.
But Miss Brightwell’s nocturnal visit to Lord Slyther had rattled him. While it did not confirm that she was the man’s mistress, or that her reputation was besmirched, or that she had not been a virgin before she and Fenton had got so gloriously carried away, it posed all sorts of questions. Questions he needed answered before he was willing to proceed along the marriage path.
So, after despatching a note that he’d meet Miss Brightwell in Hyde Park at the fashionable hour, he’d come prepared for every contingency, including a ring in his coat pocket should he decide on the spur of the moment to throw caution to the wind and ask for Miss Brightwell’s hand in marriage. That was his preferred course of action, for he’d had enough of dalliance. His Continental Tour had whittled away the mystique of feminine enticements. With the looks, leisure and licence to do whatever he chose, he’d become, quite frankly, bored to tears—until five nights ago when Miss Fanny Brightwell…
At the mere thought of their passionate encounter his heart beat out the maddest, most creative tattoo before settling back into its steady routine. Discreetly, he put his hand to his breeches and took a deep breath. One way or another, he was going to have exclusive rights over the damnably delightful, enigmatic Miss Fanny Brightwell, or he and his prick would go mad. Their exquisite encounters had been far too cursory to satisfy a man who liked to spend hours bringing a woman to climax before following, himself, into explosive abandonment.
Fenton shaded his eyes and perused the crowd more closely while he tried to rein in his thoughts. Dreams of thrusting his Thomas into Miss Brightwell’s sweet little Madge were hardly conducive to acting the cool gentleman on such public view.
He glanced anxiously at his time piece. It was well and truly past five o’ clock and there was still no sign of her. Further ruminations took his anticipation down a notch. Lord Slyther had died several days previously. Could it be that Miss Brightwell was grieving…for her previous lover?
No, he strenuously would not countenance such a scenario. Miss Brightwell was in love with him. Fenton. His certainty that her enthusiastic reception of his overtures was pure and unfeigned was part of her charm. Miss Brightwell was direct. She was honest and unaffected.
Very different from the eligible maidens of his acquaintance.
Thoughtfully, he tapped his fingers upon his thigh. In one important way, she was sadly different, he reflected, recalling the unvirgin-like enthusiasm with which she had given herself to him. Lord, but he wanted to make her his wife. Though, regardless of what he ultimately settled for, right now he just wanted Miss Fanny Brightwell up here beside him.
He shifted like a schoolboy, unable to contain his restlessness. Three rounds in the ring with Gentleman Jackson the previous afternoon had not achieved the release of pent-up energy for which he’d hoped. Right now he felt like a large cat, coiled tight and ready to spring. Miss Brightwell was the only prey that would satisfy him.
But the niggling doubts persisted. Was she eligible for the role of his wife? Did she even expect to be?
And where was she?
Impatience grew as the minutes passed. It had been torture to wait this long—now he could not wait a moment longer. He burnt to hold her in his arms, to be alone with her and to crush his lips against hers. To feel her heated flesh, suckle her magnificent breasts, plunder the slickness of her desire…
“My apologies, Lord Fenton.”
The wicked pucker of her mouth and the gleam in her lively, blue eyes made him want to gather her up, whisk her to somewhere secluded and thrust his engorged member into her willing body in an even more thrilling rendition of the other night. Trying to temper his schoolboy’s grin into something more sophisticated, he extended his hand and pulled her, then her sister, up beside him.
“If you are feeling a little cramped, Miss Antoinette”—he sent the young girl a meaningful look—“Miss Conyngham over there was asking after you. She thought you’d make a pleasant addition to their party.” He indicated a knot of people in the middle distance.
“And leave my sister alone with you, who are so concerned about the proprieties?” Antoinette’s smile was pert.
“It is because I am so vigilant about the proprieties that you escaped the censure that would have been occasioned by Mr Bramley’s appalling conduct the other night and we are all able to make the most of this beautiful afternoon.” Fenton sent her a cloying smile, which she greeted coolly before availing herself of his assistance in getting down from the carriage.
“As you remind us, we are in your debt, Lord Fenton.” Miss Brightwell’s eyes flashed a wicked subtext, though her expression was demure as she resettled herself after her sister had departed.
Raw desire made Fenton reach for her hand. For a moment they were silent as they both stared at it, resting upon her knee. The knowledge of how smooth and shapely that knee was starved him of the air he needed for rational thought. The memory of her impassioned writhing beneath him fuelled his desperation. God, he wanted her.
“It is I who am in yours,” he ground out, and heard the hoarseness of his voice. He touched her cheek, gently contouring her high cheekbone with his forefinger before tracing the Cupid’s bow of her shapely mouth. “You are exquisite.”
Her barely suppressed tremble fed his need, for he could see how impossible she found it to disguise that her longing matched his own. It filled him with a sense of power he’d never felt before. Agonised soul-searching had led to the greatest quandary of his entire, lust-filled life, but now he realised the only way to end his torment was to have her…now.
Reaching down, he retrieved a cigar-shaped velvet box from the wicker basket at his feet. He handed it to her, nearly deafened by the pounding of his heart as he waited for her response. What would she say? Would she be delighted by his generosity or disappointed when she realised he’d learnt too much?
Fenton took a deep breath, his brain briefly disengaging from the more earthly desires of the moment to enjoy the pleasure on her beautiful face as she fingered his gift.
He murmured, “Because I can’t stop thinking of them, I bought you something to match your eyes.”
Relieved at her obvious delight as she held the delicate sapphire necklace up to the light, he imagined her wearing it—naked. He’d kiss her from the toes upwards, while his gift encircled her graceful neck and the gems in her ears glinted in the candlelight. He felt himself harden until he had to clamp his teeth against the pain, cursing the fact that the public location of their assignation meant he must keep up appearances—and keep his hands to himself.
“And this?” she asked, her look enquiring as she held up a little key on a black velvet ribbon.
His excited determination to savour her charms before the afternoon was over was only now tempered by the possibility that he might have been too peremptory. Yet surely, he justified to himself as the nagging kernel of doubt doubled and doubled again, she must have been expecting such an offer if she was already in the habit of bargaining her body for similar tokens of esteem from men like Lords Slyther and Bickling?
He clasped her hand in both of his. “A place where we may meet, my love.” Doubt vanished as visions of their future trysts made his vision blur. He was so hungry for her it took every ounce of willpower not to pounce upon her right there and then. Feverishly, he anticipated whisking her off to her newly acquired charming little bower so he could make love to her all afternoon. The way she had looked at him just now indicated she wanted him just as much. Yes—for the moment he would have her as his mistress. But, perhaps, if they were discreet and her liaison with Lord Slyther was successfully hushed up, who knew but he might even succeed in persuading his mother to overlook her ineligibility enough to sanction marriage?
An unconventional approach, but perhaps the only way forward.
Seeing the troubled look in her eyes as she continued to look from the key to his face, and wanting to reassure her—and himself—he touched her cheek once more.
She did not look happy. She bit her lip and the doubt and concern that it had taken days to exorcise scorched him like a furious furnace.
In the face of her hardening silence, he hurried on. “I understand that your need for discretion, Fanny—if I may call you that—is greater than mine. Certainly, until your younger sister is fired off.”
Her limpid love-hungry look, which had fuelled his actions earlier, had evaporated. Dismay spawned in his entrails. When he leaned towards her, she shrank back. Her next words were like a blow to the solar plexus, knocking all the expectation from him.
“It appears, sir, I acted more rashly than I believed at the time.” Her tone was crisp. Replacing the jewels and the little key in their box, she carefully handed back his gift. “My apologies for leading you astray.”
Her expression was distant, imperious, as she bade him help her down. “Please, Fanny, I’m sorry if I—”
The look she sent him made it clear he had no choice but to acquiesce, surrounded as they were by the crowds promenading in Rotten Row.
Unsure of what to say, he watched her leave, realising only now that he wanted her at any price—despite her loss of virtue, the other men and his mother’s strictures. Her expression was stony with hurt pride, her beautiful blue eyes as cold as flint as she gazed up at him after he’d set her down.
How could he have misread the situation so badly? This was not a woman who had been expecting a carte blanche.
Nor, he acknowledged painfully, was she a woman who deserved one.
~ * ~
Blinking furiously to hold back her tears, Fanny stepped into the mêlée, searching for some other party she might join so as not to bring attention to her unchaperoned state.
The sun was blinding, her head pounding, every whit of self-confidence and esteem reduced to nothing. She’d made the greatest miscalculation of her life—now she would pay with it. It was not an overstatement. Everything she held dear—position, prestige, respectability, not to mention Lord Fenton’s respect—had been reduced to cinders by her one foolish moment of unbridled passion.
“Miss Brightwell! Alone, for goodness sake? Where is your sister?”
The reedy voice that floated down from a dashing purple curricle emblazoned with the arms of the Earl of Quamby belonged to the Earl himself. Startlingly attired in a suit of red and gold, his strawberry blonde curls topped by a matching, low-crowned beaver, which he doffed in greeting, the Earl sounded as censorious as her mother.
“Separated in the crowd,” Fanny mumbled, shading the face she raised to him so he wouldn’t see her tears. She was glad of the fashionable floral profusion beneath the brim of her bonnet that helped to hide her distress.
Trembling, she felt as if she were in the grip of a palsy that threatened the integrity of her seams—as if she might burst apart, spilling her insubstantial stuffing like a roughly used rag doll. Yes, she had been roughly used—but she had no one but herself to blame. She wanted to block her ears to the sound of society’s heedless gaiety, which competed with the rumble of carriages and the chirping of birds. It seemed they were all mocking her.
“My dear Miss Brightwell, something has happened to upset you.” With a complicated manoeuvring of sticks and props, Lord Quamby inched his way to the edge of his vehicle and held out his hand. “Come up beside me and tell me your troubles as we drive. I assure you, it is better to be seen alone with me than to be remarked upon, on the promenade, unaccompanied and in tears.”
“It no longer matters what I do, since I’ve no reputation left to speak of,” Fanny whispered brokenly as she settled beside him, wishing she could bury her face in her hands but knowing she was currently being observed by everyone within sight. “I soon won’t, at any rate.”
“Good Lord, has my lovely, canny Fanny followed trouble where she ought not?” Lord Quamby chuckled as he gave her knee a squeeze. Not at all a respectable gesture in public but one that made Fanny feel better, nevertheless. It bridged the great divide in sensation between her mother’s cold, brief embraces when Fanny had looked like snaring a title, and the molten reaction of her body to Lord Fenton’s hot, fiery kisses and bold sensual exploration.
Blushing at the memory of those passionate interludes, Fanny glanced up to find the Earl’s sharp, blue eyes upon her. The expectation that she explain herself was clear.
So she did, giving voice to every thought and feeling that had dictated her actions the other night. The unlikely friendship that had grown up between herself and the Earl since the afternoon she and Antoinette had rescued him from footpads on Hampstead Heath was more real and sustaining than any she had developed with the numerous acquaintances she’d made during her two years in London.
“What fun the old cats will have in sending you to Coventry, my dear.” That his voice was matter of fact, even amused, was no surprise or disappointment to Fanny. It was a comfort that Lord Quamby, despite his theatrical temperament, never tried to dress up the truth. “That is, if you do become Lord Fenton’s mistress.” His right eye twitched as he gazed at her through his lorgnette. “Can’t make the fellow out, I must say. Rake’s Honour and all that, and you a respectable young lady. Even feel a trifle guilty myself, since I was so reassuring about the young man seemingly five minutes before he tumbled you in my Arbour of Love.” He sighed. “Fact remains, m’dear, you were a foolish girl…and the consequences can’t be foretold for some while yet,” he added with a pointed look at her belly.
As if she hadn’t thought of that.
“Come now, child, it’s not the end of the world—though a bruised heart in youth always seems like it.” He smiled kindly and tapped his chest. “This old heart has been on fire and doused with cold water more often than I care to remember.”
Resting his hand on her arm, he gazed at the passing throng. Many cast them decidedly curious looks. To be taken up so publicly by an earl—even if only for an afternoon ride— might not ease her bruised heart but, after her humiliation at the hands of her dashing and ultimately devastatingly disappointing viscount, it bolstered her courage. Courage she would need, for to be cast from society’s embrace would be a bitter pill and one she’d not willingly have swallowed had she considered more deeply the consequences of her actions. She knew she had no one but herself to blame. She knew also that no matter how generously Lord Fenton clothed and housed his new mistress, or showered her family with largesse, Fanny’s mother would never forgive her.
Never.
“You still think of your lost love?” Fanny asked, trying to be kind, for she did so like him—but it was hard to find sympathy for another when her own heart was breaking.
“It will be twenty years ago on Friday since my beloved Richard fell into the arms of his Banquo.” He sighed.
“Oh,” said Fanny, blinking. “I didn’t…”
“Of course you didn’t,” he chuckled. “You’re an innocent, despite your worldly air. A worldly innocent with so much to learn. You mistook your Lord Fenton’s desire for love. And now Miss Fanny Brightwell is furious at making such a fatal, obvious mistake.” He shrugged. “But perhaps it was love on his part, for even love can be compromised when the future weighs in. I’ve no doubt Lord Fenton would have happily made you his wife were it not for the objection of his odious mama. The heir to three estates in the north must marry well—not some dowerless nobody, regardless of her charms.”
Fanny rubbed at the stain her tears had made on her York tan gloves and sniffed. “Mama has always been so ambitious for us. Mr Bramley was right when he said I’d be lucky to catch a wealthy tradesman.”
“My nephew is jealous.”
Fanny shrugged as she twisted her fingers in her lap, for that was true enough. “When Lord Fenton took an interest, I”—her voice trembled—“took a foolish gamble. Mama will die of shame, yet I truly thought that when I returned home following this afternoon’s ride she’d think me the cleverest and dearest of daughters.”
Lord Quamby sighed. “Meanwhile, perhaps Fenton is kicking himself for serving you so badly, never expecting he’d lose you. I’ve always thought it strange how far we’ll compromise our own happiness to please our mothers.” He looked wistful. “My blond Adonis wanted a more public declaration of our love, which of course might have sent us both to the gallows and certainly killed off my poor mama. Now I realise she would sooner have killed me. She’s sustained herself these past three score years and ten in the fond hope I’ll do my duty yet.”
He gave Fanny an assessing look. It grew even more speculative as he traced the figured gold silk of his red pantaloons with an effete hand. “Miss Brightwell,” he said in quite a different tone. His bright eyes twinkled like a blackbird’s, his full, pert little mouth turning up as if it held a wicked surprise. Taking one of her hands between his, he said in his thin, wheezing voice, “Your predicament has just inspired a plan which I believe will see our mothers twitter their joy from the tree tops.” The pressure on her hand increased, as if he could barely contain his excitement. “Certainly, if it comes to fruition, Ladies Brightwell and Fenton and the Dowager Duchess Quamby will be celebrating the joyful and entirely satisfactory unions of their respective offspring at their next little witches’ coven.”
Fanny narrowed her eyes, hope taking root as he began to explain.