Chapter 13 #2
She colored. She knew she did. She could feel the blush spreading from her face to her bosom.
“Oh, Cath, how sweet. I’ve made you pink.”
They had finally reached the top of the stairs. Catherine wrenched her arm away and pushed past Siddons to grasp the banister with her left hand.
“I am perfectly capable of descending the stairs on my own.”
Siddons held his hands up. “As you wish, Mrs. Lovelock.”
She started down. One, two, three, four, five, six stairs. She had difficulty putting enough weight on the banister because of her short stature, but the additional discomfort was preferable to leaning on Roger.
He followed, just a step behind her. “I must thank you. The view is quite a bit better from here.”
She stopped and turned. He stood on the step above her, looking down at her bosom. How glad she was that she had held the daring blue silk in reserve.
“It is of interest to me how unwanted attentions can be so perilous,” Catherine began, gratified her voice sounded cool and detached.
Siddons moved down two steps so he was a step below her and put his arm around her waist.
“You are in peril of being ravished, you mean? Or you are in peril of surrendering to your desire?” His hand slid from her waist to a buttock and squeezed.
“Or she is in peril of taking a tumble down these steps, what?” A lazy laugh from James, coming down the stairs behind them.
Siddons hastily removed his hand from Catherine’s bottom as James somehow got between Catherine and the banister and took hold of her left arm.
With her body between these two men, these two troublesome men, Catherine could feel how each affected her.
How her body was repelled by Roger and drawn to James.
Even now, when James was at his most foppish and almost certainly foxed, she only wanted to press herself to him, feel his arms around her.
And, yes, kiss him again as she had in the alley last night. Kiss his mouth and more.
“Upsidaisy. Now a step down. Brilliant. And another one? No, don’t put your full weight on the foot, just lean more on me here. And what did the doctor say, Mrs. Lovelock?”
Doctor? “I have seen no doctor, Lord Daventry, but I assure you it is just a sprain. It’s my weak ankle, you see.”
James frowned, and, for a moment, he seemed sincere. “There isn’t a single weak thing about you, Mrs. Lovelock.”
She took another step down, and the fop returned, chortling.
“Splendid, what? And then another step down. Isn’t she doing splendidly, Mr. Siddons? A word or two of advice, sir—for an ankle, an arm under an arm is of far more assistance than a hand on an arse.”
Catherine did not turn to look at Siddons, but she heard him grunt as he passed them, storming down the stairs, his tailcoat flapping.
“Oooh, temper, temper. Mr. Siddons seems the explosive type, doesn’t he? All that rage cannot be good for one.”
Catherine took another step down. “He is a man who does not like to be thwarted.”
“It seems to me he is exactly the kind of man who does like it. Nothing like a little thwarting to get the blood going, eh?”
Yes, James was right. How aroused Roger used to become when she raged at him. How he had desired the provocation and then desired her body afterwards. And how resistance had only inflamed him further.
And what of her own violence last night? How she had struck James. And how surprised and chastened he had been.
She looked at James, but he was looking down at the stairs and watching her feet. Catherine cleared her throat.
“Mr. Siddons is constitutionally less capable of dealing with frustration than other men.”
“You have frustrated him, then?”
“Once upon a time.”
James smirked. “You know what they say? The shorter the fuse . . . the shorter the fuse.”
She had to stop this. Catherine pulled her arm away and turned on the tread to face him.
“I don’t know what your game is, Lord Daventry, but if you think your lewd remarks are a pleasant escape from Mr. Siddons’ lewd remarks, you are mistaken. And if you think I need rescuing from a man I know perfectly well how to manage, you are mistaken there, as well.”
James chuckled. “It seems to me the lady needs frequent rescuing. On the streets of London last night and in the fields of Kent earlier today. And now on the stairs of Ffoulkes Manor.”
Catherine drew herself up. “And I would remind you that at Madame Beauchamp’s,” James whipped his head around, scanning the staircase and the great hall, seemingly worried someone might hear, “a fortnight ago, you were the one in need of rescuing. And the only rescue I needed last night was from my loss of sense. Because, as I was about to say to Mr. Siddons before you interrupted, the peril of unwanted attentions is that it makes the unwanted one look a fool.”
Catherine walked down three steps and turned. “And, since you mentioned it, I’ll have you know that the fuse?” James raised his eyebrows. Catherine gave her best leer. “Is not that short.”
She walked down the rest of the stairs on her own. She could not stomp, as she wished to do, but she hoped she at least did not limp too pitifully.
James grinned until Catherine disappeared into the drawing room, but his grin faded as a despairing confusion swept over him.
What had she meant? Was he the fool, or was she?
Did she know how much he thought of her?
And in such a yearning, hopeless way? Or could she be the fool who thought her feelings were unreciprocated?
Could he hope for that? Could she want him?
That kiss she had given him in the alleyway. That unprecedented and remarkable kiss.
And who was this Mr. Roger Siddons to place his hands on her? Catherine knew him; she had said so. And her remark about Mr. Siddons’ fuse and its length—no, no, no, he could not think on that. It implied an intimacy between the two that James could not bear to consider in this moment.
But the effrontery of the contemptible man!
Then he remembered how he had put his own hands in that exact same place on Catherine’s body last night but under her dress.
How he had taken an advantage and pressed it, even as he had pressed his cock against her.
James was every bit as disgusting as Siddons.
He had lost control. He had only barely pulled himself back in time.
He had been a debauched marquess, ready to take his pleasure where he wanted. He must heed Mr. Bulverton’s warning.
And why had the doctor not come? True, Catherine could walk, but the pain might be more than she conveyed. She needed an examination by a physician. Had he or had he not told the butler Rowley to fetch a doctor?
The Swintons came down the stairs, and James made himself smile and converse about the weather and the next day’s shooting and tonight’s cards. All three of them descended the rest of the stairs together and went into the drawing room.
The butler stood at a table to the side, pouring small glasses of Madeira for a footman to offer. James went to him directly and spoke in a low voice, not wishing to embarrass the butler or his host.
“Rowley, why did no doctor come to attend on Mrs. Lovelock?”
Rowley looked nervous. “One could not be found.”
James was astonished. Could not someone have gone to the next town, not two more miles up the road? A doctor could surely have been found there. Could not the blacksmith at the village been prevailed upon to come, at the very least?
Rowley stammered. No, Lord Daventry. It was most unfortunate. Certainly, yes, tomorrow someone might be sent to find another doctor in the next town. But perhaps the lady might be recovered by then? Just as my lord wishes.
James suddenly realized he had been quite stern with Rowley, so he winked and staggered a bit and took a glass of Madeira and joined the other guests.
He observed Isabella laughing at a remark made by the Marquis DuBois de Laval, throwing her dark head back and exposing her long throat, drawing admiring glances from all the men present, including Sir Francis.
How really well she cleaned up. Not that she had been dirty, but in a proper dress and her hair done correctly, she very much looked a lady.
An elegant lady from the Continent. No one would ever guess either of her professions or that she had been born and raised in East London.
James could learn a thing or two from Isabella about subterfuge.