Pleasure for Pleasure

Page 16

A butler was holding the door open, and Mayne swept her up and into the house without a word. “Ribble, we’ll have champagne in the turret. Veuve Clicquot-Ponsardin, old and cold, if you please.”
“The lamps aren’t lit, my lord,” said the butler.
“Not a problem, Ribble. I’ll see to it.”
Josie was struggling out of her pelisse. Mayne scowled at her again and then snatched it from her shoulders, handing it to a footman.
“Do you have a turret? How lovely!” she said, trying to avoid questions about why she was so awkward.
“Would you like something to eat?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“I’m feeling peckish, so you’ll forgive me for eating something, I trust. I’m afraid that Rafe made a mistake by asking Fortnam and Mason to cater his wedding ball. Did you see the sandwiches stamped with huge H’s for Holbrook?”
Josie shook her head again. She never allowed herself to eat in public, thinking it would simply fuel the talk about her waistline.
“Stamped in liver paste,” Mayne said, taking her arm and heading up the stairs. “Looked as terrible as they tasted. Bring us something delicious for a light supper, Ribble, if you would.”
They walked up the stairs, past the main floor and through a small door. Mayne pulled a tinderbox from a small shelf, and so Josie saw the room in the flickering light of a small flame. The ceiling was domed and painted deep blue with faded gold stars. The walls were paneled, and painted with curious winding vines on which grew an occasional rose. The only furniture in the room was a small chaise longue, two cozy chairs, and a tea table. High on the walls there were small windows, eight of them for each of the eight sides. Moonlight filtered down into the room in a lazy kind of way that made the vines on the wall look charmingly mysterious.
“Oh, this is lovely!” Josie said, clasping her hands. “It’s utterly magical.”
Mayne was lighting one of the Argand lamps attached to the wall. “You’ve discovered its secret,” he said, laughter running through his voice.
“It must be the only turret outside the Tower in the whole of London,” Josie said. “How on earth did it survive the great fire?”
“Oh, this house isn’t that old,” Mayne said. “My grandfather had a daughter whom he loved very much, by the name of Cecily. Aunt Cecily was born early, before she should have been. Apparently she was lame from birth and had weak lungs as well. She loved nothing more than to read books. She fancied herself a princess, you see, and this was the perfect chamber from which to be kissed into wakefulness.”
“She was absolutely right. Was she wakened?”
“Unfortunately, Cecily died before I was born.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“There were no other children in the family for years, until finally my father arrived. He loved her more, he said, than his own mother, because he spent hours and hours of his boyhood here, listening to her tales of knights, dragons, and fanciful monsters. You see, she had some of her stories painted on the walls.”
He held up a lamp, and sure enough when Josie looked closely at the twining vines, a small unicorn with a curious smile was dancing up the vine, and hanging insouciantly from one hand was a small boy. “My father,” Mayne said, touching the little imp. Josie recognized that mop of wild hair and the aristocratic nose, even in a youthful version.
Josie longed to ask when his father died, but didn’t dare.
“He died some ten years ago,” Mayne told her.
“Oh dear,” she said, taking his arm.
“He told me many of Cecily’s stories,” he said. “And Griselda remembers even more than I do.”
He put the lamp down rather abruptly on the small table. “Are you able to sit down in that contraption you’re wearing?”
Josie felt a flood of pink coming up her neck. “Yes, of course,” she said, striving for a casual tone. But she could hardly mention the word corset in front of him.
“Is it a corset?” he asked.
“That’s none of your business!” she snapped, sitting on the edge of her seat. She couldn’t sit back; the corset was let in with clever little grommets around her bottom so that she had just enough space to sit elegantly, as long as she kept her legs close together.
Mayne threw himself into the chair opposite her. He was all broad shoulders and strong legs, and he looked utterly comfortable. “How can you stand that?” he asked with some curiosity. Before she could answer, there was a scratch at the door and he shouted, “Enter!”
Josie bit her tongue as footmen brought in champagne and a tray of food. In fact, she waited until she had a glass of cool, apple-bitter champagne in her hand to give her courage, and then she said, with just the right air of sophistication, “Ladies never discuss their undergarments with gentlemen, Mayne.”
“But you and I are friends.”
“We are not friends!”
“Yes, we are.” He was grinning at her, and there was something in his eyes that was very hard to resist. “I assure you that you are the only lady of my acquaintance ever to ask me to take part in a farce like that you arranged in Scotland. You must be a friend, because I’d be afraid to make you my enemy.”
“You mean when Annabel’s horse bucked?”
He threw back his head and laughed. “Annabel’s horse didn’t just buck, you little witch! You put something under that poor nag’s saddle to make it dance in the air.”
“It was in a good cause,” Josie protested, feeling a smile curl her lips. “I merely thought that if Ardmore was scared for Annabel’s life, he might realize that he was in love with her.”
“He had realized that all on his own,” Mayne said. “A man comes to that sort of insight slowly, believe me.”
Josie felt the champagne slide down her throat. It was reckless, delicious, sitting here in a gorgeous little jewel-box of a room with one of the most desired men in London for company. It made her feel sophisticated. As if she, Josephine Essex, weren’t the least desirable debutante on the market. She pushed the thought away and drank more champagne. “How did you realize you were in love with Sylvie?” she asked boldly.
His face changed the moment she said Sylvie’s name. Naturally, she felt a fierce pang of envy; who wouldn’t? To tame a man of Mayne’s reputation, and to tame him so thoroughly that his eyes almost changed color when one’s name was mentioned…what a feat.
“I walked into a ball in Terence Square,” he said. “I had no intention of going, to be truthful. Lucius was out of town, and Rafe was rusticating in the country. I had just returned from our trip to Scotland—and if my sister lost her breakfast one more time in my company, I had vowed to disown the family and flee to Moscovy. At any rate, I came straight to London, and of course there were a hundred invitations. I’d lived so long in those benighted rags that Rafe calls clothes that I felt like being splendid. Do you know what I mean?”
Josie shook her head. For her, going to a ball was an agonizingly tedious process of strapping and lacing and wiggling into clothes that felt too small. Being worried that she would sweat in them, that she would have to bend over, that she wouldn’t be able to survive without a trip to the privy.