Chapter 18
Eighteen
The Marchioness of Painswick was more than vexed to find James’ bedchamber empty. A nightshirt lay across the bed, but there was no Lord Daventry to service her as was her due.
She took off her dressing gown and slipped into the bed. She would wait, but damn the useless rogue. She fretted. She cursed. The longer she lay there, the angrier she became.
Finally, she got out of bed and put her dressing gown back on. She thought she knew where the shiftless James was hiding. She was going to find him and give him a piece of her mind, hell hath no fury, et cetera.
Shivering, she searched the drawing rooms downstairs but did not find him drunkenly asleep in a chair as she had expected.
Of course. That little doxy. She would take great pleasure in bursting in on the pair of them coupling and castigating them both. She had heard from her husband that James favored the minx. And the whore had the audacity to come here?
She flung open Mademoiselle DuMornay’s door. The room was dark.
“’Oo’s there?”
An East London accent. A scared, sleepy female voice. The marchioness stumbled forward and felt the bed blindly. A lone woman here, one who batted her hands away.
She had another idea.
But the busty, presumably lusty, redheaded Mrs. Swinton was not in her room. How strange. Perhaps she slept with her husband. Deviants, the pair of them.
Bang!
James and Catherine both sat bolt upright.
Bang!
The door to Catherine’s room was being forced open against the chair propped under the door handle.
Catherine had a moment to observe that the top of the chair was a delicate piece of carved wood and ill-suited to acting as a blockade before it splintered and the door flew open, knocking the chair out of the way.
“You!” screeched the marchioness, beet-red despite the cold.
James sprang off the bed and spoke in a low voice, “My lady, hush and come away with me now.”
“No!” Lady Painswick screamed. She pointed at Catherine. “You . . . actress!”
Isabella DuMornay, wrapped in an embroidered dressing gown, appeared in the doorway next to the marchioness. She put her hands on the marchioness’ arms to restrain her, but the incensed woman threw her off, cursing.
Other doors on the corridor were opening. In a matter of minutes, the Swintons, the Marquess of Painswick, and too many servants to count were gathered outside Catherine’s door.
There was no hushing this up. It did not matter that James was fully dressed, except his boots. It was more than unseemly. It was a scandal.
“I am surprised. I was going to say horrified, but that is far too strong a word. Disturbed, perhaps. Yes, that’s it. Disturbed.”
Sir Francis was closeted with a hastily dressed Catherine in his study.
“I hope I have always conveyed my respect for you, Mrs. Lovelock. Despite your origins, your years on the stage, you have always seemed a perfect lady. When others said actresses were no better than whores, I defended you. In fact . . . well, perhaps I had better not say.”
Catherine bit back her anger. “I know how these events appear. But I assure you nothing improper occurred between me and Lord Daventry in my bedchamber. In fact, it was one of your other guests who came into my room last night, uninvited, to importune me. Lord Daventry was only there to assist me in removing the scoundrel.”
“And this scoundrel was?”
“Mr. Siddons.”
“Ah, yes, Roger. You were his mistress before your marriage, were you not? It seems hard to believe you would reject him now when you had spent so much time in his bed previously.”
The very same reasoning used by men, judges, juries when they declared a husband could never rape his wife. Catherine had given her permission once-upon-a-time and that meant she had given her permission, forever.
“Like many others—indeed, like many men—I was a fool when I was young. I wasted myself on someone undeserving. But because I am a woman, there is some conception that I cannot learn from my mistakes, as if I am the proverbial dog that returns to his vomit. Mr. Siddons may well be vomit, but I am no dog.”
“Bitch!” Roger Siddons stood from a wing chair, where he had been hidden from her sight. She was pleased to see he held his bandaged finger at an awkward angle.
She turned back to Sir Francis. “My apologies. Apparently, Mr. Siddons thinks I am a dog. I was not aware we were not alone.”
“Mr. Siddons is the one who brought me the news that you and Lord Daventry had been found in your bed together.”
“I am sure he was delighted to deliver that message.”
Behind Ffoulkes’ back, Siddons made a vulgar gesture for rutting. “You’ll get yours, Cath.” Catherine felt the bile rise in her throat.
Sir Francis clucked his tongue. “I think you had better leave, Roger. You’ve done your part.”
Siddons slammed out of the study.
“Now, my dear.” Sir Francis put a hand under her chin and lifted it, just as if she were a naughty child. “I see you are quite repentant.”
Catherine did not feel repentant.
Sir Francis went on, “Of course, Lord Daventry’s reputation is well known, so I am sure you are not wholly to blame. At first, I thought I should send you away. But if you promise to mend your ways, perhaps we might remain friends.”
“Friends, Sir Francis?” Catherine felt an overwhelming, suffocating panic. He was going to abandon her.
She would be alone.
She would not be able to govern herself.
She would run mad and destroy her daughters’ lives.
Deep breath. Control the quaver in your voice. “I thought we might be more than that.”
“Certainly. I don’t think it’s a secret I have long looked on you with admiration. In fact, as you know, I had hoped to make you my wife.”
“And now?”
“I still hope for that.” He leaned down and kissed her briefly, a mere pressing of his lips to hers.
She felt empty, and that pleased her. Better to feel nothing than to go up in flames. And the emptiness somehow gave her the strength to make a request.
“I have a condition to our marriage.”
“What is that, dearest?”
“You will buy that painting from Mr. Siddons and destroy it immediately.”
A hesitation. “Certainly, certainly, I will see it done.” He frowned. “But we should marry quickly. I do not want this scandal to spread too broadly before . . . well, no matter. We will pack and make for Gretna Green straight away.”
“Gretna Green? There is no need for that,” Catherine protested. “Clearly, we are both of age.”
“Yes, but the banns, we can’t wait for the banns. Three weeks. Even an ordinary license requires seven days. And, as you know, a baronet cannot usually get a special license.”
“You’ve thought this through, I see,” she said slowly.
“Well, we must hush up your impropriety with our marriage. If we marry, people will think there is nothing to the scandal, otherwise I would not have married you. You see?”
Catherine did not see, but in her exhausted state, sensing an impending cataclysm of some kind within herself, she would allow herself to be swept away by the sudden force of Sir Francis’ wishes.
After all, she had come to this house intending to agree to the marriage.
And she did not want a scandal. A scandal would hurt her darling Arabella, who had not yet made a match.
She did not want her daughter punished because James had slept at the foot of Catherine’s bed like a guard dog.
Punished because her mother had a past that would not bear investigation. Punished because her mother was wicked.
Catherine had been controlling so much, for so long. It was time to cede everything. She was near drowning. Let her be towed along by the protection of Sir Francis, out of the maelstrom her supposed lust demon had left in its wake.
She would get Wright to pack some of her things. She would go to Scotland with Sir Francis and be married. She would be rid of both the loathsome painting and that equally loathsome time in her life.
Forever.