Chapter 20
CHAPTER 20
“ I t seems a lifetime since we last saw one another, Baroness,” Frederick said with a smile, bowing over the hand of the trim blonde Spanish widow of an Austrian nobleman. “I’m calling to ask if I might tempt you to join me for a night at the opera this week.”
The woman raised handsome grey eyes to his, displaying curiosity rather than displeasure at his sudden appearance at her house this morning. Camila Cristina, Baroness von Fürstenberg, had been Frederick’s favored companion for the opera and theatre since she arrived in London two years ago, having equal enthusiasm for musical performance as the private physical engagements that generally completed their nights together.
“I don’t know, Duke Frederick,” she said, letting him hold her elegant bejeweled hand for a moment longer. “I may be busy this week. I have kept very busy since the morning I was summarily shooed out of Heartwick Hall in order to protect a young English lady’s modesty. I had hoped our games were merely interrupted rather than ended but the lack of word from you told another story.”
Frederick looked down and then me her gaze again with genuine regret. He had not intended any slight to this woman and only now realized how badly he must have behaved in her eyes. It was callous not to have at least have sent a note or called on her here in town before now.
“I will understand if you choose to amuse yourself elsewhere, Camila. I can only offer my apologies for not offering you any fuller account or compensation for that embarrassment at the time. As explanation rather than an excuse, I have been rather distracted lately.”
“Distracted by your innocent young English lady?” Camila suggested with amusement. “Oh, I can see how that would keep a man busy, although it does not seem your usual style. I heard that you even took her, or some very similar girl, to one of Lord Blackwell’s parties. Have your tastes really shifted as far as the seduction of virgins, Frederick? I thought you more sophisticated than that.”
Frederick flinched involuntarily, not liking to hear Annabelle associated with Lord Blackwell’s circle, even if it seemed the baroness did not know her identity. Still less did he like the implication that he had seduced her, although he supposed he had, in everything but the final and most important physical detail.
Or had Annabelle seduced him? When he recalled their night at the small campfire in Heartwick Hall’s grounds it sometimes seemed that strange idea might be partly true. Frederick had never intended to do half of what he had done with Annabelle but he could not say no to her.
“It does not matter really what distracted me, does it?” he offered with a shrug. “My actions towards you have been remiss regardless. What I would really like to know is whether there is any way I can make up my misbehavior in your eyes.”
The baroness looked Frederick’s handsome form up and down with interested eyes and glanced at the generous bouquet of yellow roses he had brought, her expression thoughtful. She rang the bell to summon refreshments.
“I don’t know quite what to say yet, Duke Frederick. Still, as I find myself at a loose end this morning, let us sit down and talk for a while…”
“Do you remember the night we saw The Magic Flute?” asked Camila with a warm smile. “It was a summer evening, but English summer and the rain seemed it would never end that month.”
They had quickly fallen back into easy conversation in their old manner, beginning with London’s present offer of theatricals and musical events and then reminiscing over those past.
“Yes, I remember,” laughed Frederick leaning back on the sofa where he was now sitting beside his sometime-lover and feeling a little more welcome than when he first arrived. “You told me that if the rain didn’t stop that night, you would return to your family in Spain, war or no war.”
“And you promised to distract me from the rain long enough to change my mind,” she reminisced. “You were good to your word that night, Duke Frederick. You changed my mind about both English rain and English men. I never now feel one without thinking about the appealing qualities of the other.”
“The whole ton ought to thank me for your continued presence then,” he grinned. “You’ve been quite a social star ever since. I heard the sought-after Earl of Graffing was particularly seeking your favor this season.”
Camila pulled a slight face and shook her head..
“Ah, Graffing is a good man, and a more than acceptable dancer, but he is too serious. He might frequent the opera and the ballroom with me this season after two years in mourning for his dead wife but he has young children for whom he needs a new mother. That is hardly my style. I prefer my old friends who understand me. Friends like you, Frederick.”
“Does someone’s style never change?” he found himself asking, realizing that he was interested in her insights given her ten year seniority in age.
“Yes, people do change sometimes,” Camila said with a sigh. “That is well and good if it comes naturally. But if it is forced on them by the world, or a loved one, it is no true change, but a prison of the soul.”
She lightly laid a hand on Frederick’s thigh and looked him in the eye.
“Have you changed, Frederick? Is that what you’re trying to tell me? Or did you come here hoping that I would tell you that you are still the same man?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted, letting her hand lay there on his upper leg and sensing the warmth of her fingers through the fabric of his trousers.
“You don’t know? You have never been a man who does not know who he is or what he wants. I find it hard to believe.”
With the second question Camila’s other hand caressed his jaw experimentally.
“I can’t think,” Frederick told her. “I don’t really want to think any more, only to feel. I want to wash the world away in sensuality and be myself once more.”
What he said was true. The memory of Annabelle at the campfire had consumed him night and day this week, making it impossible to enjoy eating, sleeping or normal social activities. Frederick felt almost possessed by the lust that had animated him, the ecstasy he had experienced and the pain that had come after. They ran through his head in a continuous and unstoppable cycle.
Part of him knew he had really come here today looking for an exorcism at the hands of a beautiful, knowing woman. Yet another part of him did not want to admit this, insisting that his dalliance with Annabelle was merely that – no more to either of them in the grand scheme of their lives than a dance, a play or a shared meal.
“And do you think that will work?” Camila put to him, her face so close now that he could feel her breath on his cheek and smell her gardenia perfume.
Frederick looked at her silently for a long moment, undeniably affected by her touch and proximity, his manhood already twitching eagerly, but also stilled by some more powerful sensation even than that. He had the strong sense that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“No, I don’t think it will work,” he said and closed his eyes, frowning. “God, I’m so sorry, Camila.”
“Don’t be,” she said quite crisply, withdrawing her hands and taking up her teacup instead. “Delia had already told me that you were quite different and I see that now for myself.”
“What do you mean? What did Lady Gordney say?” Frederick asked in bewilderment with the unexpected news that two of his lovers had been discussing him in such terms.
“I mean that the old Frederick would have locked the door and had me on my back on this sofa within five minutes of entering the room. Delia only said something along the same lines about your latest meeting with her. Your attention is somewhere else, Frederick. Neither of us would hold that against you, but do not insult us by denying it.”
Stunned and confused, Frederick rose and gave a polite bow.
“I can only thank you for your honesty and patience with me, Camila. I will not waste any more of your time.”
“Frederick,” she called out, jumping up after him and catching his arm before he reached the drawing room door.
“Be kind to yourself, Frederick,” she said unexpectedly. “Change can be a painful and difficult thing, chosen or not.”
He did not entirely understand what she meant but thanked her again and left.
Heartwick Hall seemed dull and quiet when he returned from his failed liaison, absent of life and interest. Absent of Annabelle…
With few words, Witmore took Frederick’s hat and coat and directed him to the silver tray of post on the hallway sideboard.
“Thank you. I shall be taking luncheon here after all, Witmore,” Frederick told the butler. “Do tell the kitchen I am not very hungry. Soup and bread will suffice today.”
There were only two items in today’s mail, one a letter in his stepmother’s hand which he broke open and read immediately in the hallway only for the news that nothing had changed at Walden Towers.
The second item Frederick picked up and carried with him through to his study. It was an invitation card to a garden party the following week – a garden party at Colborne House to celebrate the engagement of Lady Annabelle Elkins to Oswald Quince, the Earl of Darrington.
With a pang, he recognized that the card was written in Annabelle’s own hand and traced her writing of his name with a finger. Why did this hurt so much? He sighed heavily and reflected that he should not really attend. Seeing Annabelle on Lord Darrington’s arm would be hard to endure and any signs of affection between them impossible, even if they came only from Quince’s side.
Annabelle might be naive enough to believe that her future husband sought marriage in name only, but Frederick could not imagine any red-blooded man not wishing to claim Annabelle for his own on their wedding night.
He should let her go now and content himself with his memory of Annabelle by the campfire, even if it had somehow ruined him for the company of other women. No one else’s skin gleamed such irresistible invitation in the moonlight, no one else’s breasts were of such perfectly heavy weight in his hands, and no one else made such sounds of eager surprise at his touch.
Sitting down at his desk, Frederick dropped his head into his hands and closed his eyes, an act which only intensified the images rather than banishing them. Still, he remained in that posture until the gong sounded for luncheon.