Pleasure for Pleasure

Page 85

“In a word: no. I thought the Memoirs was remarkably foolish. I do care that he wants to marry you, but I think by far the more interesting point is that you wish to marry him. You do, don’t you?”
She smiled at him, through a veil of tears. “I think so.”
“I know so.” He dropped a kiss on her nose. “He doesn’t deserve that. I’ll tell him myself, once I get things worked out with Josie.”
“Oh—” Griselda said.
But he was gone.
45
From Hellgate’s Memoirs,
Chapter the Twenty-eighth
I knew she loved me when her eyes filled with tears. She loved me…She loves me. Dear Reader, know this: there is nothing like that sweet emotion to change a man’s life, nay his entire character. She is Mine, she is Mine.Dear Reader, rejoice. I am remade.
I t was all much easier than Josie would have thought. Mayne came to fetch her at Tess’s house and she handed him a cup of tea, mentioning that Tess would return in a moment.
He started to tell her something about Darlington and Hellgate—could it be that Darlington wrote the Memoirs? But Josie couldn’t keep her attention on the subject because he was drinking the tea.And then…before she even drew a breath, he was asleep, leaning into the corner of his chair, his eyelashes shadowing his cheeks. She couldn’t help it: she knelt in front of him and brushed his face with her fingers. “Because I love you,” she whispered to him. “It’s only because I love you so much.”
He sighed and smiled. After she had a molar pulled, she woke up with just that delicious sense of having had a happy dream.
Then she pulled herself upright, went out and carefully closed the door behind her. Tess was waiting for her. “Do you have the letter?”
“I need to write it,” Josie said, fighting back her tears.
“Are you certain?”
“Of course I am! It’s just that he looked so defenseless, lying there. He didn’t even know that I’d drugged him.”
Tess shook her head. “I think it’s a foolish scheme. But write your letter.” She pushed her toward the writing desk.
Josie sat down with a piece of fresh foolscap. It would be no good to make the letter flowery. That wasn’t like her. Of course, she couldn’t tell him the truth either.
Dear Garret,
I know you will be surprised to find yourself on board ship. What I didn’t understand when I married you is that love is the most important thing—not marriage, but love. You love Sylvie, so you ought to be with Sylvie. Even if she won’t accept your hand in marriage, it is a terrible thing to be separated from the person you love, and I can’t bear the idea that I am responsible for it.
Josie
She was crying so hard that she left the letter where it was and collapsed onto the bed.“Don’t worry, darling,” Tess said, helping her to stand up and then wrapping a cloak around her. “I’m going to take you back to your house while Lucius takes care of everything else.”
“You told Lucius?”
“Of course I told Lucius,” Tess said, looking surprised. “How could I get Mayne out to the wharf? Lucius is just the right person. You know he’s very good at getting things done correctly, Josie.”
“I didn’t want anyone to know,” she said, wiping away her tears with the sheet. “I didn’t want anyone to know!”
“Lucius is necessary for your scheme,” Tess said soothingly. “Up with you.”
When they walked down the stairs, the door to the sitting room was still closed. “He will only stay asleep for four hours at the most,” Josie said, suddenly anxious. “He has to be at the docks by five o’clock when the tide turns. What if the Excelsior leaves without him?”
“It won’t,” Tess said. “You know that Lucius never makes mistakes.”
Josie thought about that as they trundled along the London streets. It was true that Lucius Felton was just the sort of man who was never late. Probably the tide would wait for him, if for no one else.
“What did he say?” she asked.
“Who?”
“Lucius! What did he think of my scheme?”
“He thought it was utter poppycock,” Tess said. She saw Josie’s mouth open and held up her hand. “Until I reminded him that I myself was originally engaged to Mayne. And what if I were holding out a hopeless passion for Mayne?” She smiled to herself. “He didn’t seem to like that idea.”
“You were both very lucky,” Josie said, knowing that her voice was surly.
“True.”
They didn’t speak again until they were inside the house, Mayne’s house. “You need a bath,” Tess said, ringing the bell. “You need a bath, and supper in your room, and then bed. You are exhausted. Why, Josie, your face looks all thin and drawn.”
Josie thought about it. Sure enough, she hadn’t been eating much in the last few days, and nothing at all today. Tess pushed her before the glass. “Look at yourself!”
Josie touched her cheeks. There were hollows there. Almost like cheekbones.
“You look awful,” her sister told her.
And suddenly, as if the mirror had cracked before her, Josie saw what she meant. Those weren’t tempting hollows in her cheeks, but the signs of weariness. She didn’t look beautiful, she just looked oddly gaunt. She sighed. Apparently her face was not the sort that would look good slim.
By now Mayne must be on the boat, discovering that she’d given him up. Turned him over to Sylvie. Set him free.
The thought made her nauseous, so she listlessly climbed into the bathtub.
“I’m going home now,” Tess said, popping her head in sometime later. “I’ve ordered you a light supper in your room.”
“Thank you,” Josie said.
“I’ll be over first thing in the morning,” Tess said, blew her a kiss and was gone.
But Josie didn’t want to eat in her room. When she climbed out of the bath, she put on Mayne’s robe, the sleek silk one he lent her after she threw away her corset, that very first night when he rescued her at the ball. Then she spoke briefly to Ribble and climbed the stairs to Cecily’s turret.
There it was, as shadowy and sweet and magical as it had been the first night Mayne brought her there. The unicorn danced along his vine, and the little boy who looked like Mayne swung by one hand.
Josie crumpled into the big chair from which she’d watched Mayne prance around in her dress, but she didn’t cry. She knew, with a bone-deep certainty, that she was right. He didn’t love Sylvie, for all he thought he did. Up here, in the turret room, she even dared to whisper the truth of it.
“He loves me,” she whispered. Who was she telling? His Aunt Cecily’s spirit, perhaps. “He does. He loves me.”
Ribble came up with a glass of wine and some supper. Josie had brought only one thing to the room with her: the Earl of Hellgate’s Memoirs. She sat there in the guttering light from the lamps, rereading the long passionate adventures of a man she loved more than life itself. The wine was deep red, and felt as magical as the walls. Reading the book made it almost as if she had been all those women Mayne loved…
And yet, did he love them?
He said that he never laughed in bed with them. The stories seemed thin and anxious now, full of desire but also tedium. She paused at the story of Hippolyta and how she bound Hellgate to the wall of the garden house. Mayne said he threw down the book when he reached that chapter, said that he had never engaged in such an activity.