Chapter 5 #2
The sound penetrated the warm fog of his brain and called him back to his surroundings. The Green Park was far from deserted, and a public embrace was unforgivably, perhaps catastrophically, stupid. It would undo all the work he’d done thus far to make Society accept her.
He drew back. He took his hands away. Then he took himself a pace away, to leave a proper space between them.
He was furious with himself.
“Don’t do that,” he said.
“Why not?” she said.
He stared at her. “Why not? Why not?”
She brought her index finger to her lips and touched the place where he’d kissed her. “A little caress, a little teasing.” She studied his face. Then she laughed.
“It isn’t funny,” he said.
“That’s what you say because you can’t see the expression on your face.”
Expression? He didn’t wear expressions. “Zoe.”
“Did you not like it?” she said. “I did. I never kissed or touched any man but Karim, and that was like caressing furniture—soft furniture,” she said with a laugh.
“Zoe, you can’t talk like that.”
“Oh, I know,” she said. “My sisters tell me. You cannot say this, Zoe. You cannot say that. But you aren’t my sisters. You’re a man of the world.”
“I’m a man,” he said, “and I am not at all accustomed to resisting temptation. If you wish to have a proper launch into Society and be sought after and marry well, you had better not tempt me.” A thought struck him. “Ye gods, Zoe, do you even know how to say no?”
She shook her head. “Not in the way you mean. Not to caresses and kissing. All I ever learned in that way was yes.”
“Oh, my God.” If he had been any other man, the kind given to emotional displays, he would have flung his hat on the ground and commenced tearing his hair out.
It was at this moment, finally, that the Duke of Marchmont fully grasped the enormity of the task he’d undertaken.
He could pave her way into Society, but she’d be undermining him at every turn, all innocently. Or perhaps mischievously. This was Zoe, after all.
But Zoe was the daughter of the man who’d stood in place of a father to him. In any event, Marchmont had said he would do it, and he never broke his word.
“Very well,” he said. “I can deal with this.”
Nothing could be simpler.
The words hung in his mind, mocking him.
He looked about him. Nobody who mattered seemed to be about. Perhaps they hadn’t been observed. The intimacy had lasted not a minute, after all.
He said, calmly, oh so calmly, “I attended the Princess Elizabeth’s wedding last night. The Prince Regent wasn’t there—he was ill. But the Duke of York—that is his brother—”
“I know,” she said. “I had to memorize all of them.”
“Good,” he said. “The Duke of York promised to speak to the Regent and see that you received an invitation. He said the royal family were deeply affected by the story in the Delphian. The Duke of York thinks it likely that you’ll be invited to the Drawing Room being held to celebrate the Prince Regent’s birthday. ”
“On the twenty-third of this month,” she said. “This is not his birthday. But his birthday is in August, my sisters told me, and the Season ends in June and everybody goes to the country. No one would be in London to celebrate it then.”
Her sisters were the most irksome of women. Still, they’d saved him a good deal of tiresome explanation.
“Exactly,” he said. “It isn’t like ordinary presentations. You won’t be stuck among all the schoolroom misses.”
She nodded. “Then it won’t be so obvious how old I am.”
“Yes, there’ll be many other antiques attending.”
She smiled. “Good, because I have no idea how to appear young and na?ve. It’s only a little more than a fortnight from today, and I have more than enough to learn as it is without having to learn how to act innocent.”
“Can you contrive not to do anything outrageous or scandalous before then?” he said without much hope.
“If I do not become too bored,” she said. “I’m becoming a little bored now.” She turned and started back.
He wondered if his hearing was failing. Bored? With him? No one was bored with him. Women never walked away from him. On the contrary, they did everything possible to prolong conversations.
He told himself she was merely being provoking. Bored, indeed. He should have kissed her until she fainted. That would teach her.
Oh, yes. And so much for his promise to make her respectable.
He went after her. “You can’t continue wandering about London on your own.”
“I am not on my own. My maid is with me.”
“A maid is insufficient, and she should not have let you bolt in the first place,” he said, though he doubted whether a cavalry could have stopped Zoe.
“I made her do it,” she said. “My sisters were coming to the house. They come every day and tell me how to talk and how to walk and how to sit and pour tea and what to say and what not to say.”
He felt a twinge of something that could have been the conscience with which he was only distantly acquainted. On the other hand, it could have been fear—far more reasonable in the circumstances.
Zoe let loose in London. Zoe, on her own. Zoe, who didn’t know how to say no.
He said quite, quite calmly, “You complained about being cooped up in the house. You’ve been cooped up in that filthy hackney.
What you need is a drive in my new curricle.
” He leant toward her and sniffed. She still smelled too deliciously like a sunny garden.
He made himself draw away, before scent and sight and sound could lead him to another gross error of judgment.
“You badly need an airing,” he said. “I think you’ve contracted mildew.”
She walked on a few steps, then paused and looked everywhere but at him. “I know what a curricle is. An open carriage. Two horses, Papa said. It is dashing. And it goes fast.”
Marchmont discerned the gleam in her eye. She was not as indifferent as she pretended.
“I shall take you for a drive in my curricle,” he said. “We’ll air you out, then we’ll drive to the best dressmaker in London, and you may order as many frocks as you like.”
He certainly didn’t care how much they cost. He couldn’t have them billed to him, because word would get out and everyone would assume that Miss Lexham was his mistress.
Still, he’d settle finances with her father.
Whatever Zoe’s wardrobe cost, the price would never approach repaying what Marchmont owed his former guardian.
She continued down the hill. “I have sat in a carriage for long enough. The seats are hard and my bottom hurts.”
“You said you were bored,” he said. “You complained about your frock being unfashionable.”
“Did I?” She gave a dismissive wave, a precise replica of Aunt Sophronia’s. “I don’t remember.”
“Zoe Octavia,” he said.
She looked up at him, rolled her eyes, and looked away.
“You are as annoying as you ever were,” he said.
“So are you,” she said.
“I may be annoying, but I’m the one with the dashing curricle.”
After a moment she said, “Does it go very fast?”
“There’s only one way you’ll find out,” he said.
“Oh, very well, if you’re going to be a pest about it.” She let out a sigh. She tucked her arm in his.
The touch sent a wave of pleasure coursing through him.
Gad, she was dangerous, he thought.
Still, he was a man of the world and a man of his word. He could deal with it. At the moment only one thing mattered: He was in charge of her, and while he was in charge, he could keep her out of trouble.
Marchmont House
A short time later
The porter, eyes wide, saw the pair crossing St. James’s Square, a female servant trailing after them.
He summoned a footman and whispered in his ear.
The footman hurried from the entrance hall and fairly flew through the green baize door and down the stairs into the servants’ hall, where he found Harrison, the house steward, reviewing accounts with the housekeeper, Mrs. Dunstan.
In appearance, Harrison was everything a duke’s chief of staff ought to be.
He was tall enough to look down upon all the other servants and most of the house’s visitors.
His long nose enhanced the effect. His black eyes resembled a raven’s: a little too sharp and too bright.
The grey streaking his dark hair lent further dignity and probity to his appearance.
“Olney says His Grace is coming,” the footman said.
Harrison did not look up from the bill of provisions in his hand. He frowned, though, and the footman trembled at that frown.
As well he should. There was nothing out of the way in the Duke of Marchmont’s approaching his own home, even on foot. It was certainly not a matter requiring the attention of the man in charge of running the duke’s vast household.
The footman added hastily, “A female with him.”
Still Harrison’s gaze did not leave the column of notes and very large figures. “What sort of female?” he said.
“Lady,” the footman said. “Got a maid with her. Not one of His Grace’s aunts or cousins. Olney thinks she’s the one from the newspapers. Looks like the etching he saw.”
At this Harrison did look up. He exchanged glances with Mrs. Dunstan, whose lips pursed. “The Harem Girl,” he said.
Being servants, they were all aware of recent events. They knew their master had taken the Harem Girl under his wing. They knew about the thousand-pound wager with Adderwood. They knew about all of their master’s wagers. They knew all of his business.
The Harem Girl business was appalling. However, the nobility did have its whims, and working for the Duke of Marchmont was more lucrative than working for any other peer in all of Great Britain.
Nonetheless, Harrison could not be happy about the master’s bringing to the house a social anomaly.
A harem girl, as any servant would know, stood on a social par with ballet dancers, actresses, and courtesans: marginally higher in rank than a prostitute.
On the other hand, Miss Lexham’s father’s barony was one of the most ancient in England.
It was older, by a century or two, than His Grace’s dukedom, which was the kingdom’s third oldest.