Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Present Day
Grosvenor Square, London
Julian feigned his attention on the yellow-haired courtesan relaying a lengthy tale on a subject he could not recall because his mind was on the black-haired widow across the room in Anthony Philips’s London home, Lady Louisa Daniels.
He was being methodical about this.
He had accompanied Louisa Daniels to the theater three days prior and had met her a few years before, when she had been married to a dry old stick. She had no children, and she had told him tonight before dinner that she did not believe in love.
How they had fallen upon the subject was Anthony’s doing.
His friend lazily approaching and inquiring on Kitty’s health, the arse had then proceeded to announce to Lady Daniels that Julian was head over feet in love with his own wife.
He had thought Anthony had wrecked his chance.
Instead, Lady Daniels was a woman who relished a challenge.
A woman who did not believe in love was a rare thing. Julian had decided then he would have her this night. He had told her so. And she had challenged him to a wager: how long before he did. She had laid one hundred on midnight. He had countered with a half hour before.
Meeting Lady Daniels’s gaze across the room, his determination grew tenfold.
Her face was long, her forehead high, and her mouth small.
The shape of her lips lent a primness to her expression.
She couldn’t pout if she tried. Her eyes were a blue of no account, but the widow was, by current standards, quite lovely.
He needed to get on with his life. No matter his puritanical leanings in regard to fidelity, he needed this.
The entire journey to London he had replayed his last evening with Kitty.
He admitted to himself after the fact that it had been a last effort.
Despite everything he had said and done to her, to have Kitty and avoid the encumbrance of a mistress would be easier.
Fool that he was, when he had watched Kitty as she sat on the settee, he had thought he detected desire in her eyes.
And so he had sat next to her. She hadn’t moved a muscle.
He had offered her wine. She had declined.
He had asked her to join him in London, had actually lowered himself with that leading question, we could enjoy ourselves, couldn’t we?
His wife hadn’t the courtesy to even answer him.
Still, he had tried. He had laid his hand upon her thigh and had felt nothing, no response at all in her soft flesh.
He had waited out the silence, hoping she might say something. She had. She wanted a permanent residence. One I may entertain in. Host visitors. Spend holidays.
He had sought her pretty, kissable mouth with his eyes. He had slipped his palm up her thigh until he was at the juncture where he knew the warm, silken drug waited. She had jumped to her feet, spoke of budgets.
His wife was cold. Would she grow colder when she learned Sir Jeffrey was dead?
Julian stretched to his feet. In a quarter hour he would be a hundred pounds richer if he held the lady to her wager, and satisfied. He side-stepped Anthony and, swooping up a bottle, strode from the room.
He walked the balcony over the reception hall and turned in to a service corridor.
He passed a twitchy maid, and pushing through a door, he entered the unlit smoking room, thick with the sweet scent of tobacco.
Farther, he entered a reading room. He left open the door, and there he waited, inclined against the window casement and drinking from the bottle of smuggled Scotch whisky.
Nothing save purpose existed while he waited.
Not lust nor anticipation nor worry. Soon the second thoughts, the anger for what could have been, would be gone.
Like all things—hope, love, life itself—any misgivings for his infidelity would soon cease to exist. He was, as his father had foretold, no good.
What was the point of trying to prove otherwise?
He heard a woman’s heels click on wood, murmur on carpet, and Lady Louisa Daniels came into his line of sight.
She emerged from the shadows with an underhanded smile. “You hid well. You owe me a hundred guineas.”
“I almost retired to my bed,” he drawled, remembering how this went, how women liked a man who only halfway cared. Leaning back, he set the bottle to a parson’s table to free his hands.
“Perhaps I walked slower than need be,” she said. "To win.”
“Ah, you like it slow.” He yanked her into the room against the window, a cloud of lilac perfume striking him.
Her face burned with lust’s anticipation. In a second’s time, her voluminous skirts would be about her generous hips and her thighs open. He would be inside a willing woman who wasn’t Kitty.
She circled his neck in invitation and lifted her face. She was making it easy. So why did he lean down and… kiss her forehead?
“We should return to the party,” he said. “We will be missed.”
Her hooded eyes snapped open. “Missed?” She laughed. “You’re mistaken, you see. I am the one who plays hard to get.”
His hands planted lightly on her shoulders as he stepped back.
Her arms held tight to his neck. “Oh, you poor man. Marriage has put you to pasture, hasn’t it? You wish to be seduced. Fall in love. Have you ever?”
“Ever,” he murmured.
“Never?” It wasn’t what he said or meant, but he didn’t clarify. “You know what you are, Mr. St. Clair? You’re a romantic.”
“I had no idea.”
“When do you return to this wife whom Anthony claims you love? How absurd! I imagine she’s a feather-headed saint. A man always seeks a wife opposite of himself, and you have the look of one buried in staid convenience. But I will show you life is not so hopeless. A man like you—”
“I depart Thursday next,” he said. “And a man must always defend his wife. Mrs. St. Clair is neither feather-headed nor convenient.”
“Is that so? Hmmm. She is conniving then? And tiresome? I would name her a shrew, but then I do try to avoid insult.”
“You are all courtesy,” he said.
“And lucky for you, I am here. You’ll be in my bed by Saturday and utterly relieved of your troubles by Monday.
Why the frown, brooding husband? Has misery wrapped itself around you like a blanket?
Are you so very safe and secure in it? I am here now, darling.
You may let it go. When did you last have fun?
We will have it. Loads of it. In bed. Wherever you wish. ”
He pulled her arms from his neck and offered his escort. “Let’s have some fun then, shall we?”
Tonight it would not happen.
They returned to the party. Julian had lost a hundred pounds and a huge chunk of masculine esteem. But what he had lost had somehow been made up by the gain of general self-respect. He vowed to try again later.
Louisa Daniels forced upon Julian hours upon hours in the society he had been born into.
People puffed up with their own self-importance and noble breeding.
She dragged him to balls, dinners, the theater and opera, and card parties.
At the tables, Louisa admonished his wagers as timid, and she was right.
His bets were as stingy as an elderly aunt relying on family charity.
But what would Kitty say if he lost their money on wagering?
He imagined her disappointment, her eyes stripping him down.
He watched Louisa pass her time in a frenzy of inconsequence and the promise of uninhibited sex anywhere. Julian declined her offers at every turn and had extended his visit by four days just to test himself further.
Each night ended the same, alone, with a plethora of excuses to remain out of Louisa’s bed that ranged from the ordinary to the bizarre.
He had business to conduct. He was tired.
He was drunk. He had promised to meet Anthony at Arthur's.
He spilled claret on his silver waistcoat, he really had to return home to have it cleaned.
And the most desperate excuse given at Carlisle House, when he was completely sober, his clothing unsoiled, Anthony in attendance, and no business but the present pleasures: his dog was ill.
Anthony folded his arms and grinned.
Louisa leaned over her midnight supper. “You have a dog?”
He was going to after this, he thought. “Are you surprised?”
“I’ve never seen it. Nor have you spoken of a dog before.” She arched a perfectly plucked eyebrow. “What’s its name?”
“Er…” Julian glanced right to a table of men, recognizing an MP from his brother’s inner circle. “Oliver.”
“Oliver?” Her eyes narrowed. “I should like to see this dog.”
“I have,” Anthony quipped.
Louisa twisted in her seat. “Well I—”
“Got to go.” Julian stood. “Seven o’clock at Almack’s tomorrow. I’ll see you there.”
Out on Soho Square, Julian realized he still held his napkin and threw it to the cobbled street. As luck would have it, a rough-coated, flea-bitten terrier bounded from the shadows at the Old White Horse Cellar in Piccadilly.
Julian peered at the night sky. “Thank you.” He then clucked at the unkempt cur. “What do you say, Oliver? Care for a temporary home?”
Oliver followed him home, wolfed down a plate of meats and cheeses, and howled through a bath where Julian discovered the newly christened Oliver was a female.
The next day, Louisa, accompanied by a smirking Anthony, insisted on calling at three to see this Oliver, who had by that hour moved all her possessions into Julian’s bedroom, a mouse, a shoe of unknown origin, and the housekeeper’s wig.
Louisa cringed at Oliver scratching at her petticoat. “You do have a dog!”
Julian rescued Oliver from Louisa’s ill-aimed kick. “Do you think I would lie?”
And thus Julian was stuck with a dog.