Chapter One #3
‘No, but they are old friends who were very kind to me when I first arrived in London. Their father was Lord McAllistair but he died at least ten years ago, and though the townhouse that they reside in is tithed to a male cousin the man has not yet come forward with his hope to claim it.’
She stopped as she saw him smile.
‘I am talking too much? I try not to but when I am nervous I do so without even realising.’
‘Are you nervous?’
‘I am, for I know that we are a dull and drab group and one you could hardly be thrilled to have ensconced so unexpectedly in your splendid residence overnight.’
‘You seem to have heard a lot about me.’
‘Most of it is hearsay, I do assure you, though once, years and years ago, I did walk close to you at the Merryweather ball in Mayfair.’
He’d been dressed almost entirely in black and as she had passed him in the smaller salon off the main one he had caught her eye.
At the time she had felt as if she had been seared in hot water, her skin reddening and her heart pounding, for it was not often anyone truly noticed her, and especially not someone like the beautiful Phillip Moreland.
She remembered scrambling back to her husband and taking his arm, an intimacy she very rarely displayed but Moreland had unsettled her with his smile and made her realise all the things she might have missed out on if she had only waited for a husband with more to offer her than Lionel had.
Tonight she knew her place though, her advancing age and simple looks holding an anchor to a reality that was so much easier.
‘I seldom liked Society events,’ he said. ‘In fact I came down to London in the last years only occasionally before I left England for America.’ He looked at her and carried on. ‘My wife was sick.’
‘I had heard that and I am sorry for it.’
‘She died two and a half years ago in Richmond, Virginia, cradled in the arms of her mother.’
‘That sounds peaceful.’
‘It wasn’t.’
The clock in the corner marked the seconds of silence.
Further away outside Willa could hear a barn owl screeching.
For prey. A field mouse perhaps or a vole.
Inside the voluminous kitchen of Elmsworth the fire in the stove crackled, flames throwing shadows against the wall.
The Earl looked as if he regretted all the truths he had given her and so she tried to find a new angle to their conversation.
‘Are you of the persuasion, my lord, that people who are dead can look down upon us from the afterlife and see what we are up to?’
‘I most certainly am not.’
She liked his reply because it was real and faintly shocked. When he did not speak again, she did.
‘You were lucky to find a wife who suited you so entirely and I am sure she must have felt that way, too. If my late husband were to observe me from his place in the afterworld he would no doubt be most displeased.’
‘And why would that be, Mrs St Claire?’
‘Because rules and manners and absurdly strict social mores are things I no longer care to adhere to.’
‘You are a rebel?’
‘No, I think that word holds too much anger. I would describe myself as wishing to simply be happy, which in itself is a much gentler life choice.’
‘And are you? Simply happy?’
She looked at him closely, seeing the chips of blue in his eyes smudged by silver. ‘Yes, I think I am.’
A bolt of heat raced through Phillip, a feeling so unfamiliar he momentarily felt dizzy.
Her eyes were not just gold. There was copper there, too, and traces of hazel, and under the boldness sat a question. The question of possibility? Phillip could not believe she might mean it as such as he sought to diffuse his shock.
‘Happiness is a much undervalued commodity, I think.’ And he meant what he said, though the words in this context seemed at best trite.
‘You say that as if perhaps you have known too much sorrow.’
‘There are varying degrees of sadness, Mrs St Claire. A husband who was so unsuitable must have left you with at least some sense of melancholy.’
She nodded, the thickness of her dark hair coming forward. ‘It did, indeed, but it was an experience that made me decide after Lionel was gone not to waste the chances presented to me for the rest of my years.’
‘Chances?’ The blood pounded in his head.
‘I take delight in life where I find it and without apology.’ Her glance was direct and candid.
‘You are most brave, Mrs St Claire, and I admire you for it. Do you take these chances often?’
She smiled then but did not answer. The folds of fabric in her gown seemed loosened, whether by accident or design he could not tell, but the pale glow of the skin at her neck was beguiling.
He moved his left hand to his thigh and felt the grip of it. There was a dimple in the middle of her chin and her lips were full and shapely. Once, years ago, when first they had married, Gretel had made an effort to look interested in the act of sexual attraction, but after a little while…
Comparisons were unhelpful and unfair. He didn’t quite know what to say in return but couldn’t leave it, either.
‘Do you think that such risk is always a wise thing?’
She laughed. ‘One never knows until one tries it, I suppose.’
He heard the siren’s voice in her answer even as desire ran through him but he was not a man who could let sense go so entirely.
‘Just before my wife died she asked me to be faithful to her memory.’
‘Forever?’
‘Yes. I think that was the gist of it.’
‘What a horrible request.’
He began to laugh and thought as he did so that the sound felt rusty. ‘You are not a believer, then, in the concept of eternal love, Mrs St Claire?’
She shook her head. ‘Oh, on the contrary, my lord, should there be in this world a man who would suit me eternally I would relish it. But I think it highly unlikely.’
‘How so?’
‘Because I am not looking for such permanency. My friends would tell you I shy away from any commitment whatsoever and it is a truth, but after living with a man who was unsuitable in every way possible one becomes careful.’
‘Careful to never choose again?’
‘Careful to make sure that the choices are my own.’ She frowned. ‘I am amazed I am speaking of this, given that you might be a man who likes to gossip.’
‘How little you know of me,’ he returned and looked her in the eye. ‘The Elmsworth name has always been on the sharp edge of scandal and it makes one cautious in any conversation. For years I never went near the city because of rumours that were loudly stated.’
‘The stories about your family?’
‘It seems you have heard them.’
‘I should imagine if I’d listened to the gossip about my marriage it would have been equally damning.’
‘But you didn’t listen?’
‘I didn’t.’
Phillip was thrown off centre, spiralling to a place he hadn’t found himself in before. He had been so long out of Society he felt…discomforted.
When he failed to speak her left hand moved to cup her chin as she leaned forward. There was no ring on her fourth finger, which was both telling and appropriate. He almost wished he might strip his own off just for now, but such an action seemed disloyal.
Gretel. Her face was faded and blurred in the heat of a different need. He felt like another man, a freer one, a man who might step outside duty and memory for one moment and live.
‘What do your friends call you, Mrs St Claire?’
‘Willa.’
Her hand bumped across his on the table as she resettled herself at the kitchen bench, though she was careful to move it away.
Touch was a beguiling thing, he thought next.
It had been two and a half years since he had felt another’s skin against his own and Wilhelmina St Claire was warm.
Gretel’s fingers had always been cold, some affliction of circulation she had had since childhood.
His own shook slightly and he swore under his breath as he tried to still them.
‘Which hand do you write with, my lord?’
Another unexpected question? He could barely keep up.
‘My right.’
‘Then I shall read your left one. Cup it slightly like this near the candle. Good.’ He felt her glance upon him.
‘This is your head line and it tells me that you mull over things for a long time.’ Her finger hovered above his palm. ‘Your heart line has a cross on it.’ She stopped.
‘Which means?’
‘You have experienced a deep and personal betrayal…’
He jerked back abruptly before she could say more but she only smiled, holding out her own left hand.
‘Mine is the same but with even more crosses. Lionel is one of those, to be sure, and my parents are probably another, but these ones… I don’t know about their meaning and perhaps I never will. The truth is these things are only a pathway to what we don’t want to be.’
The light of the candle on her face made her skin glow.
‘You are saying, then, that the lines of the body have their own stories?’ Even as he phrased this question he wondered where it had come from. He had always been so rational and practical but he felt as if he had been transported inside the Garden of Eden and to the beginning of the world.
She did not do what he expected. She did not adhere to rules. She was nothing like Gretel. Worry thundered in his head and he swallowed.
‘It has been a long time since…’ He could not finish, could not put into words exactly what he was thinking as he touched the gold ring encircling his fourth finger.
Such actions left him vulnerable, for Willa St Claire would be able to see the effect she had on him and it was right that she should.
He had never strayed, not once in all the years of his marriage, not even after Gretel was gone.
He had never had a mistress or used the services of a courtesan while he had been married to her either here in England or in the Americas, and so it had been a long time since such physical closeness had been his.
‘I have never been disloyal even to the memory of my wife.’
His words were honest, for this rush of lust was an unquiet thing.
‘She was lucky, then.’