Seduction in Regency Society: One Unashamed Night
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Drawing back against the shop window, she hoped that the overhanging roof might shelter her from his glance should he happen to look her way and her heartbeat was so violent she saw the material in the bodice of her gown rise up and down.
Goodness, would she faint? Already dizziness made her world spin and the maid at her side carrying an assortment of other parcels she had procured looked at her in alarm.
‘Are you quite well, ma’am?’
‘Certainly, Sarah.’ The quiver in her voice was unsettling.
‘There is a teahouse just a few shops on if you should care to sit down.’
Across the girl’s shoulder Taris Wellingham came closer, his face now easily visible and a top hat that was the height of fashion perched upon his head. The woman beside him was laughing as she urged her horses on and the ordinary folk on the street stopped what they did and watched.
Watched beauty and wealth and privilege. Watched people who had never needed to struggle or count their pennies or wonder where their next meal might come from. Watched a vibrant and beautiful woman handling a set of highly strung greys, which were probably worth their weight in gold, and a man who might let her do so, a smile of pride on his face as she deftly guided them through a busy city through way.
Bea felt an anger she rarely gave way to as Taris Wellingham’s eyes passed right across her own with no acknowledgement or recognition in them.
Just an ill-dressed stranger on a crowded London street watching for a second the passing of the very, very rich. And then dismissed.
Nothing left of breath and touch and the whispered delights shared in a barn outside Maldon. Nothing left of holding the centre of him within her, deep and safe, the snow outside erasing everything that could lead others to them, time skewered only by feelings and trust and the hard burn of an endless want.
Gone! Finished!
She turned her head away and marched into the first shop with an open door, the stocked shelves of a milliner’s wares blurring before her eyes as she pretended an exaggerated and determined interest in procuring a hat.
There was no sense in any of this, of course. Had Taris Wellingham not already told her that she should ignore him should she see him in London, that the tryst they had shared was nothing more to him than an interlude in one moment of need? The wedding ring on the third finger of her left hand glinted in the refracted light of a lamp set beside the counter.
Frankwell laughing from the place his soul had been consigned to. Not heaven, she hoped, the religious icon on the wall above the milliner making her start. Would her own actions outside Maldon banish her soul from any hope of an everlasting happiness? Given that she had in all of her twenty-eight years seldom experienced the emotion, the thought made her maudlin, the enticing promise of a better place after such sacrifice the one constant hope in her unending subservience in Ipswich.
Perhaps she was being punished for that very acquiescence, a woman who had been given a brain to think with and who had rarely used it. Was still not using it, was not taking the chances that were suddenly hers to seize, but was hiding away in the shadow of a fear that made everything seem dangerous.
‘Is there anything in particular you wish to look at, madam?’ the shopkeeper asked, as Bea still did not speak. The silence in the street registered in the back of her mind, any possibility of a further re-encounter diminishing with each passing second.
She made herself look at a hat she had admired on the nearest shelf, touching the soft fabric carefully. The bright green felt was a colour that she had seldom worn, Frankwell’s distaste of anything ’showy’ in the early years of her marriage mirrored across all of the last.
The very thought of her unquestioned obedience made her try it on, and for the first time ever in her life she actually liked the face of the woman reflected in the mirror. The colour matched her eyes and the tone of her skin, the sallowness of her often-favoured beige or brown lightened by the tint of green.
‘I think this colour suits you very well, madam, as would this one.’
A dark red hat replaced the green and the transformation was just as unbelievable.
‘I have always worn the shades of colour that are in this gown,’ she explained and the woman shook her head forcibly.
‘Those tones would not highlight the colour of your eyes, or enhance the cream in your skin.’
She hurried to lift down a creation in beige from a top shelf and brought it back.
‘See, madam. This is the colour you have preferred and you can see how little it favours you.’
Beatrice’s mouth fell open. Lord. Was it that easy to look more presentable? She could not believe it.
‘I have a sister who is just beginning as a modiste in London, madam. If you should wish to consult her for your gowns I am sure she would be very obliging. She is both reasonable and skilled.’
Sarah’s head nodded up and down beside her, a wide smile on her face.
Perhaps it was time for a change. A time to look at the things she had always enjoyed in her life and to try to incorporate them in the next part of it.
Books. Ideas. Discussions.
These were the things she had longed for most in the silent big house in Ipswich. When she had tried to speak to Frankwell about her own desires, his set opinions had always overridden her own and his anger had made her wary about disagreeing.
But now? Now that she had the money, time and inclination to follow her own dreams, the colour of a hat that actually suited her took on an importance that even yesterday would have been ridiculous. But here in the aftermath of a galling indifference the worm of something else turned inside her.
Freedom might be possible.
Freedom to do exactly as she pleased and to live her life in a way that would suit her, with no regard to others’ opinions.
The thought was heady and thrilling, a mandate to be only as she determined was right for her.
‘I will take both hats, please,’ she said, pulling out a purse that was filled with money, ‘and I should very much like to meet your sister.’
Taris placed his hand across the reins, feeling the pressure.
‘Ease up a little on the right, Lucy, for there is a slight pull.’
He knew in the breeze on his face the moment his sister re-aligned the horses and felt a tug of pride.
‘You have been practising while I have been away?’
Laughter greeted his question. ‘If that is your way of telling me I have improved, brother, then so be it.’
‘You have improved.’ The words came readily and he felt his sister lay her hand across his own.
‘From you that means a lot. All my life I have been in the shadow of my big brothers and it is good to finally cast one of my own. I appreciate the loan of your team in my quest to master this horsemanship, by the way, and if there is ever anything that you would like in return…’
He shook his head. ‘Become the Original you are destined to be, Lucinda, and that will be payment enough.’
‘Whomever you finally marry will be a lucky lady, Taris, because you have never allowed yourself to define others in the way the ton demands. With you I always feel that I could be…anything.’
The wind took his laughter and threw it across the street and in the corner of his vision he could just make out the forms of people watching them.
Women by the looks with their gowns and hats, and the sound of bells pealing out across the afternoon.
Two ‘clock. By five he would be on the road south, leaving the traffic and the noise of London behind him. He closed his eyes briefly and imagined the promise of Beaconsmeade and the warm comfort of his home.
He would take his own carriage for the ride down, however, for his recent poor experience with the public transport system allayed the delight he so often felt in mixing with the ordinary folk.
A gentler vision of well-rounded breasts and long dark curls made his fingers clasp with more fervour on to the silver head of his cane. Beatrice-Maude Bassingstoke!
They had both agreed to the limitation of just one night and he had heard the sound of relief in her voice when he had not demanded different. Perhaps the state of widowhood was more promising than that of Holy Matrimony with its sanctions and its rules. As a man he saw the strictures that a woman was placed under when she married and if she had any land at all…?
No, he could not now search for Bea or betray such a trust. He had no earthly reason for doing so and she did not seem the type of woman who might welcome a dalliance. Besides, a wife was the very last thing he needed with his receding sight and his blurring vision.
Whomever you finally marry will be a lucky lady…
‘Your horses are attracting a lot of attention, Taris. Why, nearly everyone is watching their excellence.’
‘Well, Lucy, one more round and then home; I have much to do before I depart for Kent.’
‘Ash asked you to stay longer.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Or won’t.’
Both of them laughed as they careered around the corner and into the pathways of Hyde Park.
Chapter Four
Beatrice tucked her hair behind her ears and surveyed her downstairs salon, bedecked with books on each available surface. Her weekly book discussions were becoming…fashionable, attended by people from every walk of life, a crush that was the talk of the town.
How she loved London, loved its rush and bustle and the way the fabric of life here was so entwined with good debate and politics and culture. No one expected things of her or corrected her. If she wished to spend an evening reading in bed she could. If she wished to go out to a play she could. London with its diversity of intellectual pursuits set her free in a way that she had never been before and she relished such liberty.
Her clothes were nothing at all like the ones she would have worn three months ago either, those shabby country garments that spoke of a life tempered by ill health and routine long gone, and the highly coloured velvets she had replaced them with as unusual as they were practical.
Unconventional.
Original.
Incomparable.
Words that were increasingly being used to describe her in the local papers and broadsheets.
She liked the sound of them, the very choice such description engendered. No expectation or cloying pragmatic sensibleness that had been the hallmark of her years with Frankwell.
She did not think of him now as the man who had hurt her, the image of an angry bully replaced by the child who had lingered longer. Hopeful and dependent.
When he had died she had laid him in his coffin with an armful of Michaelmas daisies because they had been his favourite and the church had rung with the sounds of children’s songs, the same tunes that he himself had sung in his final moments of life on this earth.
Sorrow had been leached though here in London, her life filling with new friends and new experiences. How fortunate she had been to have the Hardy sisters as neighbours, for within a week of arriving here their wide group of acquaintances had become her friends as well, their social standing making her own acceptance into society seamless. When they had taken her under their wing and encouraged her dream of having such a forum in her own salon she could barely believe the speed with which the whole idea had taken shape. Sometimes when she looked in the mirror and saw the way she smiled she could not remember the sombre woman who had fled Ipswich in a snowstorm.
Breathing out, she tried to stop the name that would come to her mind next. No, she would not think of him, of that night, of the way that he had left without even once glancing back; when her friend Elspeth Hardy came into the room with another pile of papers in her hands, Bea was glad of the interruption.
‘We have nowhere at all to put those, Elspeth. Perhaps if you could take them back upstairs we may discuss the contents next week.’
‘But they talk of the habit of wife selling, a topic that has been raised before—I wondered if they might add to the discussion?’
Bea screwed up her nose. ‘I have read many accounts of such a practice, and have become increasingly of the view that the intention of these bargains is a way in which a woman can move on with her life, both parties having agreed to the proceedings.’
‘ You are not against them? I cannot believe it of you!’
Beatrice laughed. ‘Often the purchaser is a lover. Would you not countenance such a path, given the impossibly difficult and expensive alternative of filing for a separation through church or court?’
‘I do not know. Perhaps you might be right…’
‘We will think about it later, for tonight I have prepared a talk on the ills of piracy and the human cost to such a vocation.’
‘Piracy! A topic that should appeal to the growing number of men now attending! Have you not noticed that, Bea? Over the last month we have had an almost equal composition of the sexes, which is…encouraging to say the least.’
Beatrice nodded and sought out the trays to set. The new financial independence that she had inherited on the death of her husband was sometimes bemusing and she still liked to do as much around the home as she had when her situation had been less flush.
Tonight, though, she felt nervous for some reason, her heartbeat heightened and her hands clumsy. When she dropped a cup it shattered on the parquet floor and as she bent to pick up the shards of china one cut deep into her forefinger.
The blood welled immediately, running down her palm and threatening the sleeve of her gown. Snatching at the muslin cover used for the cakes, she was thrown back into that darkened carriage outside Maldon when Taris Wellingham had offered her the square of material wrapped around the fruitcake as a scarf. At the time she had barely thought about it…but now? Other things began to pile into recollection. The way he used his hands and the scar that marred his forehead. No small accident that. An injury collected when he was a soldier, perhaps, or a little later…
‘Shall I find a bandage, Bea, or is that stopping?’ Elspeth’s sister Molly had come to join them.
‘No, it is all right, thank you.’ She gingerly took the fabric away and was relieved when the skin looked knitted and clean. The fear in her very bones did not diminish, however, and when the clock in the hallway struck seven o’clock she jumped visibly. Two days ago, as she had walked along the street to the bank, a man had jostled her quite forcibly, the pile of papers she held in her hands scattering around her. He had stayed long enough to peruse the contents and then had disappeared, neither helping her nor apologising.
He had seemed angry, though she could not truly catch sight of his face to determine if she had met him before. Perhaps the outwardly Bohemian nature of her lifestyle had galvanised him into a reaction that was rooted in fear. Fear that, should women start to think, they might displace men who were less astute in the work-force and in society. Her roots in business probably added to the equation, as the Bassingstoke fortune had been wrought from the hard sweat of rolling iron for the ever-burgeoning railway.
The whole thing was probably harmless, but added to the accident in the coach she was beginning to feel…watched.
Beatrice shook her head hard. It was half an hour before the first men and women would be arriving and she still had much to do. All this ruminating on a perceived menace would neither get the room organised nor help her ridiculous case of the jitters. Smiling at Elspeth and Molly, she resolved to put her worries aside, and, plumping the cushions in the room, she dusted off the seats of the chairs and sofas.
The downstairs salon was full to bursting and the discussions were under way when a new arrival made Beatrice stop in mid-sentence, for the woman who had run into the open arms of Taris Wellingham in the barn was here.
Emerald Wellingham?
A wave of embarrassment washed away any sense of the argument she was trying to forward. Why would she come? What possible reason would bring her here, for surely she had understood her brother-in-law’s wish for distance as he had left the barn so quickly after the carriage accident? The Duchess of Carisbrook was a beautiful woman, her countenance in this room even more arresting, if that was at all possible, than it had been in a snow-filled night.
‘As I was saying…’ Bea could barely remember the thread of her prose. Would the woman tell others here of her escapade, bringing up the scandal of her night alone in the company of an unmarried man for all to judge? Lord, if any of it should be known, her presence would hardly be countenanced in polite company, an ageing widow who had crossed a boundary that brooked no return.
Ruin!
And that was only with the knowledge of half of it. Taris Wellingham’s hands in places no one had ever touched before, the waves of pure delight that had run across her body, melding it into rapture.
Tearing herself back to the topic under discussion, she finished off her speech. ‘…and so I reiterate again that many of these so-called pirates were refugees from the gaols of the world or deserters from the rigours of harsh naval discipline.’
‘So you do not think some were just natural-born leaders who chose a life of crime by instinct, piracy being an attractive proposition when measured against what might have otherwise been available to them at home?’
Emerald Wellingham asked the question of her and there was a burst of discussion around the room as Bea tried to answer it.
‘There are some who would agree with you. Some who might even say that piracy was an honourable, if not a noble, profession.’
A man interjected. ‘These people were murderers who committed untold acts of barbarity on the open seas. They are not to be excused.’
‘Priests and magistrates and merchants in the West Indies excused them all the time, sir. Money sometimes has a louder voice than morality.’
Emerald Wellingham again! Beatrice felt swayed by her argument.
‘Indeed.’ She sought for the words that might not alienate a group of folk who were by and large titled and wealthy. ‘If one was from the West Indies, the availability of goods sacked by the pirates might have been considered a godsend.’
‘You speak of heresy.’ The same man as before spoke and his face had reddened.
‘And of conjecture,’ Beatrice added with a smile. ‘For such stories are often that of fable and myth and it could take one a lifetime to truly know the extent in which they were entangled.’
She hoped such a platitude might console the man’s anger and was relieved when it seemed to, and Elspeth’s announcement of a light supper was timed well.
As all those present moved through into the dining room, Beatrice tidied her notes and when she looked up Emerald Wellington stood beside her.
‘For a woman of strong views you are remarkably diplomatic.’
‘Perhaps because a heart attack of a patron at one of my soirees may not be conducive to their continuation.’
‘And it is important to you that they do…continue?’ Emerald’s green eyes slanted bright against the lamplight. Was this a threat? Had she come for a reason? Laughter surprised Bea.
‘You remind me of myself, Mrs Bassingstoke. Myself a few years ago when the past held me immobile.’
‘I do not know what it is you speak of. Now if you will excuse me…’
‘My brother-in-law mentions you often. I think it was your bravery that impressed him the most.’
Anger made Bea feel slightly faint. Certainly his inspiration was not gained from her beauty or her easy giving of love.
‘I wondered if you would perhaps come and take tea with me. Tomorrow at half past two.’ Emerald Wellingham placed her card on the top of the papers and waited.
‘Thank you.’ Beatrice had no possible reason to be rude and she had always prided herself on her good manners.
‘Then you will come?’
For a moment the hard edges in her green eyes slipped and supplication was paramount. Still Bea could not quite say yes.
‘It would just be the two of us…?’ she began, for if it should be the whole of the Wellingham family she would not chance it.
‘It would.’ Quickly answered as though the Duchess had thought such a question might be voiced.
‘Then I would like that.’
The other bowed her head. ‘Until tomorrow, then.’
‘You will not stay for supper?’
‘I think not. My opinions on piracy could never meld with those of the others here and I would not wish to make a…nuisance of myself. However, I look forward to some privacy together.’
A small nod of her head and she was gone, the gown she wore bright against the more sombre shades of the others present and her gilded curls catching corn and gold and red.
A beautiful woman and a puzzle! Yet as Beatrice stacked the papers beneath her arms she had the strangest of feelings that they could one day be the very best of friends.
‘I saw Beatrice-Maude Bassingstoke today, Ashe. She runs weekly discussions on current topics with the Hardy sisters and is not a woman inclined to just parrot the opinions of the day.’
‘What sort of a woman is she, then?’ Her husband’s fingers traced a line down her arm, as he pulled off his clothes and joined her in bed.
‘An interesting one. I can well see why Taris was rather taken by her. She is unexpectedly…fascinating.’
‘High praise coming from a woman who seldom enjoys “society”.’
Laughing, Emerald wound her fingers through his. ‘Has your brother said anything else about that night to you? It’s just that I do not think it was quite as innocent as he might insist it was.’
‘I doubt Taris would be pleased to have you question him, Emmie. Certainly he has shied well away from the topic with me.’
‘Mrs Bassingstoke blushed bright red when I mentioned your brother and this from a woman who had just stood in front of a roomful of strangers espousing theories that excused those guilty of piracy as needy and forgotten members of the communities they had been hounded out of.’
‘A fairly radical point of view, then.’
‘Exactly!’
‘Every woman Taris meets finds him attractive. Perhaps your answer lies in that.’
‘And they last but a moment when he realises that beauty is so…transient and he is too clever to be long amused with a siren who has little to say.’
‘You speak as though the combination of beauty and brains is impossible, yet I have achieved it in you.’
She threw the pillow behind her at him and he caught it, a look in his eyes that told her discussing anything would soon come to an end.
‘Beatrice-Maude Bassingstoke has a quiet comeliness that is apparent when you talk to her. She is possibly the cleverest woman I have ever had the pleasure to encounter, but there is also something hidden about her…’
‘Which you should well recognize, given all the secrets you kept buried from me.’
‘I invited her here tomorrow, for afternoon tea.’
‘God!’ He sat up. ‘Taris will be back from Beaconsmeade about then!’
Emerald merely smiled.
‘If this backfires on you, I won’t be pulled into being the cavalry…’ Tweaking a long golden curl, he pulled her down across him. ‘But enough of subterfuge. Show me lust and passion, my beautiful pirate.’
When she started to laugh he simply removed the sheet and placed his hand in a place that took away mirth.
‘Love me, Emerald,’ he whispered.
‘I do.’ Two little words that fell into the heart of everything!
Chapter Five
Taris arrived back in London in the early afternoon and he was worried. A report on the carriage accident had come to him a few weeks back and it was not as simple as he may have thought it.