Chapter 2
It was only when treating himself to a meal at the chophouse he favored — when his purse was flush — that Edward recalled the missive in his pocket. He set aside the mutton chop he was trying to enjoy, took a swig of porter, and broke the seal on the letter.
The wax bore the Chevaliermont crest, a great swirling thing no doubt enhanced endlessly since the time of the Conquest. Inside, on fine paper folded intricately, was a note bearing the handwriting of Lady Philadelphia. Well, these days, she was the Duchess of Chevaliermont.
Edward’s head ached. Why must everyone he knew change names?
Even his own had changed upon his brother Horatio’s death.
Sometimes, when Edward wound the small clock in his office, he was tempted to turn the key the wrong way to see if he could put everything back in its correct place.
He’d tried once, on a particularly desperate day, but after a few turns, the gears crunched and he had to give up the experiment.
He unfolded the letter.
I am at home on Wednesdays. -P
He turned the paper over, but there was nothing written on the reverse. The missive wasn’t even addressed to him; Phily must have trusted Lady Millicent to do her bidding exactly as instructed and not lose the message among her hay and lemon drops.
And she expected him to do her bidding, too, if that brief order was any indication.
Edward dug into the mashed turnips with uncharacteristic anger.
Damn her, he thought, recalling her modest smiles when he’d courted her as a debutante.
Why, he’d once ridden to Highgate Hill to gather wild roses and bluebells for her when she claimed to dislike hothouse flowers.
Meanwhile, she’d been a hothouse flower in bloom herself when he’d stumbled upon her and the duke at their engagement ball within his mother’s conservatory.
He set the letter aside, resolving to leave it at the chophouse with the gristle on his mutton.
***
Two Wednesdays later, Edward, attired in his best afternoon clothes, made his way to the Chevaliermont townhouse on Grosvenor Square.
It was nearly five o’clock, a suitable time for a man to call. At the front door, he handed his hat and gloves over reluctantly, wishing he could keep the dear things with him in case he wished to flee without waiting for their return. Lessons had been learned.
A gaggle of ladies exited the drawing room, comporting themselves with dignity and grace until they spotted Edward. Curtsies mixed with giggles and whispers as they made their way out.
Whatever were they on about?
Edward drifted to the doorway of the drawing room. A nervous little maid was cleaning tea things while Phily regarded herself in a small looking glass.
From what he could see, she looked as she always had.
Her hair might have been twisted into a more elaborate style that suited a married lady, her gown a different color than the virginal white she had always worn in her youth, but in terms of the essentials, she was the same as ever.
Still the handsomest woman of his acquaintance.
“Lord Edward!” she cried, shoving the looking glass between cushions on the divan where she received worshippers. “Do come in.”
She’d spotted him, damn and blast. Until that moment, he hadn’t been sure about paying the call. But the decision was made for him now, so off he went to see what had inspired her to summon him.
When he approached, Phily paused in her motions, as if struck by a realization. “But you’re not Lord Edward anymore, are you?” she asked, her voice trained to perfection. “Lord Netherwallop, my apologies.”
Edward bowed his head, cringing inwardly at that ridiculous courtesy title yet again.
“My condolences on the death of your brother. I wish I could have attended his funeral, but I fear I was encumbered with another confinement,” she said. “Take a seat and let me pour you some tea.”
After consuming half of his cup and with the polite allotment of time for a call nearly over, Edward realized Phily had no intention of telling him why he’d been summoned.
“Your Grace, if I may be so bold—”
“Yes, do be so bold as to come see this fine hunting scene,” she said, rising gracefully and moving towards a painting.
Edward regarded it from across the room. It seemed ordinary enough — why would she be summoning him to look at a painting like any of one hundred others?
“Do you still enjoy a hunt, Lord Ed—Netherwallop?”
Did he enjoy a hunt now that he wasn’t racing beside the greatest horsewoman of the day, was what she was asking. He wondered if Tencendor would fold for Phily as he did Lady Millicent or if he’d recognize her for the fox she was.
“I find my schedule does not allow for diversions such as hunts,” he said, joining her. Why pretend he was the same as ever when everyone in London knew of Dick Stone, the celebrated stud? He was on his way out, in any event.
“What does your schedule allow?” she asked lowly from his side.
Edward looked down at her and attempted to recall whether he’d felt anything for her beyond the beauty of her face and figure. To be sure, she’d wounded his pride when she bent and spread for the duke, but it wasn’t a severing of anything deeper.
“Consider me a cit now,” he said, hoping to make light of his immensely lowered status. “I might as well work in a bank. Thus, my schedule is rather regimented.”
“Oh, you handle deposits, do you?” she asked, her lips pursed as if she knew exactly how provocative her words were.
“I certainly make them,” he said, staring down the front of her bodice. She was a far sight more interesting now than when she’d been a simpering miss!
“Well, I am in need of a deposit myself, you see,” she said, her eyes connecting with his. “I’ve played too deep.”
Edward came closer but held himself back from fitting a hand at her trim waist.
There was a commotion, likely callers, at the entrance, and Edward moved a respectful distance away. He also tried to recall what he liked to eat for dinner when dining alone. He’d usually pick up meat pies, but they weren’t the same since Tobias ran off.
In a flurry of movement, Phily felt at the painted panel in front of them and pushed him into a corridor revealed when the thing popped open.
“Upstairs, third door on the right. I’ll be up to dress for dinner after concluding this call,” she said, snapping the panel shut behind him.
Edward looked about the dark passageway and groaned. He’d been trying to exit this house and only ended up further ensconced in Phily’s web!
Not to mention a cobweb, he thought, batting it away. At least he could be fairly certain that she wasn’t sending gentlemen to her private chambers regularly, else the path might be less dusty.
At the third door, Edward listened before entering, then eased himself inside.
It was a boudoir worthy of Madame Pompadour herself.
A freestanding deep bath stood in front of windows.
Phily bathed while surveying her domain, Grosvenor Square.
How fitting. A collection of chaises longues decorated the room, as if she needed a variety of surfaces on which to drape her lovely body; using the same one each day might prove grim.
Pillows, feathers, beads, gold leaf, and looking glasses abounded, making the room feel more like a storehouse of treasure than a place to dress.
Edward touched the silver-backed brushes on Phily’s dressing table and turned a comb this way and that.
The room was so exuberantly feminine, an intoxicating bower of fragrance and flowers no doubt snipped from the duchess’s own garden.
He sniffed a bottle of scent and found that it didn’t repulse him. She had good taste.
“See anything you like?”
Edward turned to discover that Phily had entered the room. She’d come from the hallway, unencumbered by spiderwebs.
“I was just admiring your boudoir,” he replied.
“If the gossip is correct, you’re invited to plenty of inner sanctums,” she said, sinking onto one of those plush fainting couches.
Phily knew just how to array herself for optimal effect. Her body collapsed as though she were without bones, and the pose displayed every curve to her advantage.
“Why am I here, Phily?” He hoped to dispel any confusion and make his way towards his boarding house before night firmly buttoned itself to the streets and made walking increasingly unwise.
If he had to dance attendance on the duchess and pay for a hack home to his lonely lodgings, he would burn all future summonses on sight.
Phily sighed. “It’s most vexing, Edward, you just don’t know.”
No, he didn’t — because she wasn’t telling him. He moved towards the door to the hallway.
“Oh, if you must go, don’t use that one. I wouldn’t want my staff to get the wrong idea. About us,” she said.
Edward groaned. And what would her dear husband think?
Now, there was the minor issue of the duke having done roughly the same thing to him, but going through the motions of a duel — with no intention of firing; it was 1820, after all — seemed a bother.
He didn’t even own or have access to dueling pistols these days!
And the breeding business depended on everything being aboveboard with husbands.
He fucked for pay, after all, and wifely allowances depleted by gambling weren’t sufficient to keep Tencendor in shoes and the finest clover.
“I wouldn’t want the duke to think anything untoward,” continued Phily, her hand full of hems. “He’s a most possessive sort of man.”
She shimmied her skirts to her thighs, with a sliver of skin showing above her stockings.
“He’s already upset with me for playing so deep at the tables. I don’t know what he’d do if he were to discover you in my rooms,” she said.
She was a minx and almost certainly playing him, but when she revealed the apex of her legs and then spread them to show her cunny — for the first time in his life — he could only chuckle and let himself be trapped.
“What do you want, Phily?” he asked. “I haven’t got money to pay off your debts. And taking my cock will not change that.”
“It’s just that Monty is such a tyrant, you know.”
No, he absolutely did not. He didn’t attend gossip, and if he did, all the talkers said the duke adored his young wife and granted her every wish.
“What’s this about me being a tyrant, my love?”
Damn and blast. It seemed the Duke of Chevaliermont was at home. And had discovered him in the duchess’s chamber while she had her dress about her waist.