Chapter 10
Ten
James made his way to Madame Flora’s and reported the cryptic conversation he had overheard at Madame Beauchamp’s to Mr. Bulverton. Mr. Bulverton scratched underneath his wig and said, “Yes.”
He said no more than that, and his reticence frustrated James. But Mr. Bulverton also did not reprimand James for risking exposure by creeping into the modiste’s shop. Did that mean James had Mr. Bulverton’s implied permission to expand the scope of his investigations?
James decided it did.
But he didn’t think it relevant to report Catherine’s presence at the modiste’s shop.
If Mr. Bulverton was going to hold out on James, James could hold back information, too.
And somehow that time—those few minutes with Catherine as a half-naked and fearless goddess—seemed far too intimate to share with anyone.
She gazed up at him through her golden curls and shrugged her loose chemise off a milky-white shoulder so one breast was almost entirely exposed.
Only the nipple was still hidden. With just a small tug on the silk, the whole breast would pop into view and he would be able to cup and kiss and suckle that breast to his heart’s content.
And he knew that breast now. He had seen it.
He reached out and teased a finger along the top of the chemise.
“My lord?”
James blinked his eyes several times and rolled over. He was in his bed in his London rooms with late-morning light coming through a window. There was no chemise, no breast, no shoulder, no head of golden hair.
The goddess had infiltrated his dreams, and she was a distraction he damn well didn’t need.
“My lord, your parents are departing the town house at noon, and you asked that I wake you at eleven.”
Enfield didn’t sound happy. He was likely vexed James had only slept for a few hours. He often said young men, especially his lordship, needed more sleep. Enfield clattered the breakfast things noisily to convey even more clearly his displeasure.
James sat up on the edge of the bed. He felt remarkably well. Of course, it would have looked like Lord Daventry had tippled heavily last night at the club, as usual. He had appeared as drunk as a lord. And why not? He was a lord. But he had been as sober as a judge.
And he had finally obtained an invitation from Sir Francis Ffoulkes to join his house party.
Having noted how much Sir Francis loved to win at cards, James had managed to lose dozens of pounds to him.
Then he had hinted he would love to indulge in some real high-stakes card games, but sadly the club had limits on bets among their members.
But at a house party? Why, he had been known to lose a hundred pounds at a time on private wagers.
And he loved Kent. Wasn’t that where Ffoulkes Manor was situated? Kent was so . . . bracing.
James even made a point of reining in his lewd jokes.
Sir Francis wouldn’t want the mysterious Miss CC, the future Lady Ffoulkes, exposed to the kind of bawdy stories James usually shared at the club.
He dug deep and invented a whole line of puerile donkey jokes, including the gem, “Where do you find a donkey with no legs? Answer: Right where you left him.”
Sir Francis loved the donkey jokes. He laughed and laughed, and James realized he must have chosen a donkey as his subject because Sir Francis’ laughter sounded like the braying of an ass.
Finally, the invitation came.
“There’s some very good shooting, you know, and the ladies do like to go see the seaside, but I think there could be nothing more diverting than some cards in the evening. What do you think, Lord Daventry?”
Lord Daventry thought it all sounded absolutely ripping, without a doubt. He would love to join the house party, what?
He had done it all on his own. He had not told Bulverton.
He had not asked permission. He had his own priorities now.
He needed to get away from London, from where he might cross paths with Catherine Lovelock.
And he needed to dig in and do something.
Otherwise, why was he wasting his life in pretense?
There must be some reason Bulverton was always so interested in Ffoulkes.
And it might have to do with DuBois. Some connection to the French Embassy.
And DuBois was involved in something rotten.
Maids were being paid to steal letters. And something about a widower.
Sir Francis was a widower. He was rich, but did he have a brother worth twenty million francs?
Let Bulverton keep mum. James was going to uncover whatever secrets there were, all on his own.
After some quick grooming by Enfield, James made a rather undignified dash up Bond Street to see his parents off on their journey back to Middlewich.
Three carriages, all sporting the duchy’s coat of arms, waited in front of the town house. Two were for luggage and his father’s valet and his mother’s lady’s maid. His parents waited in the front hall, dressed for the journey.
“Late,” his father pronounced and blew his nose as James came through the door.
James kissed his mother on the cheek. “I’ll see you at Christmas, Mother.” The duchess allowed the kiss but turned from him without a word and went out the door.
“I expect to see some amendment of purpose when next we meet, James,” the duke said. “Or you might get a feel of my riding crop. I am not too old to thrash you.”
James bowed. “Yes, Your Grace.”
His father leaned heavily on his valet as he went down the front steps. He needed the valet and two footmen to assist him into the carriage. The duke was unlikely ever to wield a riding crop again.
James stood outside on the top step, and he tried to look penitent rather than pitying. His father did not want his pity. He wanted his fear.
James had been frightened of his father for most of his childhood. His brother William had always been the one to stand up to the duke and his rages. And the duke had loved William for it.
For his part, James had worshiped William.
His brother had been better than James at everything—riding, dancing, sport of any kind.
He taught James to box and to swim. Of course, William was seven years older than James, and it was only natural he should surpass his younger brother, but James did not realize that, at the time.
He only knew William was the epitome of English manhood.
His brother would one day be the Duke of Middlewich, and there could be no one more deserving of that noble title.
James had known even then that he was a disappointment to his parents, but he wasn’t sure why. He thought all boys got whipped by their fathers for trifles. All boys except perfect ones like William and his friend Thomas, the future Earl Drake.
The Battle of Trafalgar was a decisive moment in James’ young life. Lord Nelson and those stirring words: England expects that every man would do his duty. Every man, including a fifteen-year-old James.
He became consumed by the idea of joining the Royal Navy, the empire’s glorious fleet. He knew he must sign on to a boat. Become a midshipman. Rise up the ranks. Captain his own ship so he might too, one day, protect this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
Armed with his plan of how he might cover himself in glory, James approached his father in his private study. Innocent and optimistic, he fully expected the duke to buy him a commission.
But it was not to be. His father looked up from his newspaper and thundered, “The navy? Are you mad? With William as ill as he is?”
William had been abed ever since his valet Enfield had brought him back to Middlewich from London. James had only seen William for a moment when he was carried out of the carriage, mumbling incoherently. Large suppurating sores and ulcers had covered his face.
An illness brought on by too much dissolution, his frightened mother whispered to James. His father summoned doctors from London. They brought with them vials of quicksilver for application to the skin and for William to inhale. Ostensibly, to cure him of this pox. Or to kill him with the cure.
Caught up in his own plans, James foolishly hadn’t realized the situation was so dire. And he had failed to see that his own future hung in the balance.
If William died, James would no longer be a second son.
He would immediately become Marquess of Daventry and heir to the dukedom and would be kept out of harm’s way.
No navy for him. No heroism or fighting in skirmishes or evading capture.
Instead, he would marry a woman chosen by his parents.
He would lie with her to make more Dukes of Middlewich.
He would wait for his father to die so he might take his seat in the House of Lords.
He would be sentenced to a life of endless ho-hummery.
He went to the chapel inside the castle, knelt, and prayed for William’s recovery. He loved William and wanted him to live, but he also knew he was making a largely selfish prayer.
“Please God, don’t let William die. I’ll take all my thrashings from Father, I won’t snivel, but please don’t let William die.”
William died a fortnight later.
The day after James’ parents left London for Middlewich, Her Majesty Queen Charlotte, consort of King George III, mother of the Prince Regent, died at Kew Palace with her son by her side. It was unlikely her husband, ill with insanity, was conscious of her demise.
James hoped the locket he had retrieved from the Marchioness of Painswick had given the queen some measure of comfort in her last days.
Inside the locket had been a miniature painting of a blond youth and some engraved Germanic script.
James did not read German, but he suspected the locket had been a treasure from the queen’s girlhood.
Perhaps a gift from a sweetheart whom she had been forced to abandon when she left her home country to marry England’s king at the age of seventeen.
What had become of that blond boy in the miniature? He might still live, now stooped and gray and wizened. And if he did, would he mourn the queen’s passing? She might have lived in his heart for all these years. Or he might have found his own happiness, long ago.
Out of respect for the death of the queen, Sir Francis delayed his house party for a week.
Catherine was incensed by the news. She needed to flee London. She must be away from any place where she might see James.
And she felt it was imperative she not accept Sir Francis’ proposal until she saw his house, the place where she would eventually be mistress.
How he was in his own home, that was the tell of a man.
And, surely, on his own land and in his own house, he would be more himself.
And she would be more comfortable with him.
She would feel the safety and peace she longed for.
Whatever it was that was nagging at her, keeping her from accepting him, would be wiped away.
She desperately wanted the question of her marriage to Sir Francis Ffoulkes settled once and for all. She was so ill at ease. More than ill at ease. She was wild. She stalked around the rooms of her house like a feral animal, consumed by . . . what?
Ravening, heart-ripping desire of the kind she had vowed never to allow again.
And she was lonely. So very lonely.
She took up a pen and wrote long letters to all three of her daughters, saving the complicated and often baffling Harry for last.
I hope your first months of marriage have provided that which you wished for when you entered this union.
Your letters are full of the theory of natural numbers—which you know I cannot understand—but have little mention of your husband, although I am glad to hear you have a marvelous physician in Dr. Alasdair Andrews.
But does the earl treat you well beyond engaging this doctor to attend on you?
You know I had strong reservations when you decided to marry Thomas Drake, and I still do.
Please write and assure me that you have found matrimony to your liking.
Catherine thought of adding to the letter, Because it is a state I am considering re-entering, but she did not.