The Virgin's Auction Read online

  At first he had been certain she would reappear.

  Then he thought she delayed to increase his ardour.

  Only after three days did start to look for her. His discreet enquiries turned up no clue.

  She had gone, and only then did his mood sour and blacken, to think of what he had lost.

  It confused him more than a little, to dwell so on a single encounter. It was not his habit to fall into infatuations. The wonders of women were manifold, and who could bear to restrict himself to only one?

  Not he. Not with his body or his mind.

  Still she absorbed him. Melissa. Melissa of the blue-grey eyes, dignified and composed; Melissa of the slender body, lush with girlish suppleness, high rounded breasts and pink nipples; Melissa tight and soft and deep to slide into, unbearably perfect.

  Two days ago Mrs Jennifer Hadlowe – hot-blooded Jenny with her sultry stare and strut – had given him that meaningful little nod and then dart of eyes to signal him that a certain small alcove, curtained and unobtrusive, appealed to her.

  She liked to couple in public, separated from the ton by only yards of fabric, and he had several times obliged her, ready to take on the challenge of satisfying them both in the strictest silence, without disarranging her clothing enough to give away their secret.

  But that night he had no taste for her abundant charms, raising two fingers to his lips to blow her a subtle kiss and shaking his head ‘no’, tiny movements only she would note.

  Why?

  For no earthly reason he could understand, only that the last woman to ride him was Melissa and he was not ready to replace her.

  Foolishness.

  For Melissa had gone, almost beyond doubt. He had racked his brains to think how he had failed to please her and had come up with nothing. He had been so careful, taking hours over the task, to softly woo her arousal. The passionate heat of her response showed the worth of his efforts.

  The blood on the sheets had made him glad to remember that gentleness, to have resisted his drive to take her hard.

  No, he had pleased her. Yet still she had flown and not returned.

  He frowned at the snifter of brandy on the side table, cupping it in his hand to warm it then taking a mouthful. The burn of it slid down his throat.

  It was too little time left to find her before leaving town tomorrow for the countryside, and at two in the morning he had abandoned his futile wandering from one high-class brothel to the next and come home, intending to sleep, only to end up here, sunk in a strange melancholy that confounded and exasperated him.

  Yes, insane, undeniably so, beyond the bounds of reality or good sense. He needed to forget that single encounter and move on, accepting it was never to be repeated.

  No woman should cause such an obsession, most certainly not after so short an interlude.

  But oh, such a woman.

  Such a woman.

  Melissa.

  He heard a faint stir in the hallway, then the front door shut with a muffled sound as if someone was attempting to be quiet. He wondered idly what a servant might be up to at this hour and then registered that the quick patter of footsteps over the marble was the sound of dancing slippers.

  “Stephanie Anne Carstairs,” he declared ominously in ringing accents.

  The footsteps halted, and then there was a pause before they came towards him much more slowly. At the last moment before they reached his study door he thought to pull one of the books on the nearby table onto his lap, open, to hide his embarrassing arousal, now diminished.

  A head with the most delicious collection of dark ringlets poked around the door. She gazed in at him, a rueful little moue on her pretty face.”

  “Oh come in,” he said in exasperation. “Now what have you to say for yourself, pest, getting in at this hour when we have a considerable journey to make tomorrow?”

  She stopped just inside the door and tilted her head to one side, thought for a moment and then ventured, “I love you?” batting her long lashes at him.

  He pressed his lips together and narrowed his eyes at her. Evidently deciding greater blandishments were required she padded quickly over the carpet and folded into a graceful puddle at his feet, putting one hand over the other and placing them on his knee, her chin on them, and looking up at him soulfully. “I love you very much.”

  He sighed, and tapped her on the nose with a forefinger. “Never kneel to a man, pest. It sets a bad precedent.”

  “Whatever do you mean?” she asked, all innocence, but the twinkle in her eye made him think uncomfortably she was not as ignorant as he might prefer.

  “I mean kneeling to men gives them the idea they are to rule over you, and since I have never known you to prefer a ruler-”

  “Decidedly not!”

  “Indeed, decidedly not, I recommend you not create the illusion of subservience. You may be misunderstood.”

  “Yes, James,” she said meekly, casting down her eyes.

  “So get up, pest.”

  “No James,” she said, still meekly, and he took hold of one of her curls and tugged on it.

  “Ow.”

  “Tell me what our aunt is thinking to keep you out so late. Surely she does not imagine it is wise to stay at a ball until four in the morning when we are departing tomorrow at nine.’

  “I may have let her forget we are leaving tomorrow, though we are certainly not going at nine.” She said it firmly, her heart-shaped little face turned up to him again, and he frowned at her.

  “Yes, we are. I have called for the horses at nine precisely.”

  “Then I shall take them to Mary Fullerton’s al fresco morning tea, for that is when I said she could expect me. I shan’t be ready to go with you until after noon at the very earliest.”

  “Stephanie-”

  “You can’t expect me to cry off now. I saw her not three hours ago and assured her most particularly I should be there.”

  “You are incorrigible,” he exclaimed, exasperated.

  She met him glare for glare for a moment, then the expression melted away and she laid her cheek back on his knee.

  “Are you very angry with me?” she asked wistfully.

  “I . . . you . . .” he tilted his head back to look at the ceiling, lost in the flickering shadows above his head, and breathed out slowly through his nose. “No,” he finally told her, begrudging the word.

  She grinned at him, dimples appearing. “I thought you would not be,” she confided.

  “We will go to this morning tea together – I assume I am invited?”

  “Of course you are! You need not even ask. Mary will be in transports of delight to have you appear. Such a coup.”

  “Delightful,” said James, depressed by the prospect. “We shall go together, with your baggage loaded in the carriage, and continue straight on before noon,” he finished sternly.

  “But what of my morning gown? You cannot expect me to wear it on the road. It will get filthy with dust.”

  “Then wear your travelling gown to the morning tea.”

  “Why, I cannot do that, James darling-”

  Stephanie,” he warned her, eyebrows rising ominously.

  Her shoulders rose and fell in a little huff. “Yes, James,” she said, her jaw thrust forward so she almost pouted.

  “Otherwise I know how it will be. You will want to change gowns and it will take you hours to choose, and then more hours to pack your bag-”

  “Bags.”

  “Bags, and then it will be close on evening and we still in London. I promised George we would be with him by Tuesday-”

  “Oh he will not mind, and if we are staying in town tomorrow night there is a splendid masque-”

  “Stephanie.”

  “Well I do not see why we need to go at all, or why you cannot go by yourself. I should like of all things to stay.”

  “You will not be staying. You will have at least a week in the peace of the Cotswolds, maybe two, and if you continue to argue with me it will m
ost definitely be three! I don’t wish to hear another word about it. You are to be ready to depart at nine tomorrow morning, and we will not leave until your baggage is fully loaded, nor will we turn around for anything. If you are late you will only cut into your own time at your friend’s morning tea. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Perfectly. And I am not deaf, you know. You need not raise your voice at me.”

  “No. I apologise, my dear.”

  “I only feel sorry for Cranston, you know. Up so late tonight and then needing to wake again so early as to pack my bags-”

  “Do you mean to tell me you have bid your lady’s maid to stay up all these hours merely to wait for you?” he exclaimed, truly wroth now. “That is the outside of enough. That poor woman needs her sleep. Show some consideration. If you cannot treat your staff properly then I will take them away!”

  “Oh, no, no, she is probably asleep. I did not specifically ask her to stay up,” said Stephanie hurriedly. “I only meant she has probably chosen to stay up out of a sense of duty. She is very good like that.”

  “I hope not, or I shall need to have a word with her. You cannot be allowed to run the servants ragged over your whims.”

  “I did think that since it is her job-”

  “Darling, no. If you will keep such hours as these you must see to yourself when you arrive home, or tip her heavily.”

  “Some of my friends go home hours later than I and they don’t-”

  “We are not they, my dear. We are not so unkind.”

  “Oh. I had not thought of it as unkind.”

  “I know you had not. You are a good girl, with a good heart.”

  “I am not sure I have the funds about me for extra gifts to the staff . . .”

  “Have you outrun your allowance again? Do I need to increase it?”

  “Perhaps only a little.” She got to her feet, smoothing her hands over the exquisite material of her dress in an absentminded caress. “Everything is so dreadfully expensive in town.”

  “You must learn to economise, darling.”

  “But James, why?” she gurgled irrepressibly. “When we have so much?”

  “Only think of your children. If you run through it all what will they have to fritter away?”

  “Oh, I’m much too young to worry about children, James. Besides which, I can always marry for money, and then I’ll never run out.”

  “I wish you to marry for love, darling. I wish you to be happy.”

  “Don’t be so serious, James. I shall see you in the morning. I am so pleased you are going with me. How the others will sigh and swoon and fall about. Now don’t frown like that. You’ll give yourself wrinkles.”

  She skipped forward to lay a kiss between his eyebrows, and then was away with a pirouette over the carpet and a mocking curtsey at the door.

  Well, that had gone better than expected. He had supposed they would not leave until the middle of the afternoon. A small triumph, then, to be away with so little fuss and bother, and only a boring morning tea party full of simpering misses to attend as the price. And that only for the short interval between the time Stephanie was actually ready to depart, and noon, which he fondly supposed would be no time at all.

  Chapter Ten

  For a solid week it rained. It was the beginning of spring, sodden and squelchy. Everything turned to thick mud until she longed for the more civilised cobblestone streets of London. As Melissa sat sewing day after day in the clear light at her bedroom window, the weather outside reflected the weather inside her own heart.

  She put delicate rows of stitches in cotton and cambric, graduating to more demanding work as Miss Parsit assessed her ability and was well pleased. The coloured materials in her workbasket changed but this gray internal fugue did not lift.

  She put a brave face on it for Peter, chirruping brightly about the beautiful trees and verdant landscape, glowing with subtle greens as the increasing warmth brought blossom and bud to bare branches. A life lived in London did make this pretty village a paradise of vitality even in the drabness of early spring.

  She teased him about the muck he wore home with him from their neighbours’ gardens. He looked the part of a peasant indeed. He brooded around the place and avoided her as much as he could. She was sympathetic and exasperated in turns. Of course he missed their more leisurely town life and the routines they had always known; that was only natural. But his stance about the nobility of their actions never failed to make her impatient and short with him.

  He should count his blessings, as she tried to. There was no Father here to search either of them out for a drunken beating, no struggle to keep up appearances of gentility as furnishings slowly drained from the house, servants were let go and the money to buy cloth for new clothes was whittled away to virtually nothing.

  Perhaps he did not feel the advantages of those lacks so keenly as she did, given she had always striven to shield him. The dull, daily terror of it, that awful grind, the downwards spiral were all gone. And that was good; so very, extraordinarily good.

  Of course he did not know about the other part either: their lucky escape from the stews of London. For that escape she gave thanks every day, keeping Mr Tell and Hetty in her prayers and trying to shut out that other handsome face which intruded where it was not wanted.

  Nor did he know to be grateful for her noble sacrifice on his behalf. She had to keep reminding herself of his ignorance, every time his long-suffering sullenness grated her raw spirit.

  And that was really the crux of it. There was no reward in being a martyr when one had to live every day with the pain of one’s loss, and the boy-man who had benefitted most directly (again that certain attractive face arose in her mind’s eye and was quashed, for he did not enter this equation in any way!) was oblivious to his good fortune.

  A little gratitude would not go amiss.

  A whole shovelful of gratitude would be even more fitting.

  The posies made her situation no better.

  To her horror she had gained two male admirers in the village. They halted her for conversations if they saw her, cornering her in the village’s small shops and stumbling over themselves to say something clever or witty.

  It was the very last thing she wanted or needed, when she had her dreadful secret and could never consider marriage. Each time they forced themselves on her notice she was reminded of what she had lost until she wanted to scream at them to leave her alone, for God’s sake, she was damaged goods.

  She glared resentfully at the latest offering, thoughtfully placed on the windowsill by their hostess.

  “That one’s from Alfred Stone, who’s an apprentice at the bakery. He’s a sweet enough lad. You’ll find no harm in him. But I don’t know as you’ll find much of interest in him either,” she said in her soft, worn-out voice. She was a faded woman of advanced years, dressed in the muted lavender of half-mourning. Her hair was dressed simply, pulled back from a face which was narrow and colourless.

  “Not like Curtis Clivey perhaps,” she went on, nodding towards the bouquet gifted to Melissa the previous day, which she had just moved from the windowsill to the mantelpiece over the fireplace. The widow had an egalitarian soul. Each potential lover deserved his time in the sun.

  “But then Curtis is known for setting the hearts of the local maidens aflutter. Such a handsome boy, that one. But then handsome is as handsome does, I always say.” She dusted the mantel a little with a handkerchief she had whisked out of her sleeve. “So lovely to have you working away up here, and know I have the company in the house. I can see as you’re busy so I’ll leave you to your stitchery.”

  The faded woman, wreathed as always in her gentle wistfulness – a shadow of old sorrow – gave her soft smile and drifted out the doorway, leaving Melissa alone with her importunate flowers.

  She would pitch them out into the garden if that would not mean explaining herself to the widow.

  So she gritted her teeth and sewed, and sewed some more, and thought too
much. And sewed. Until her fingertips were tender from the drag of fabric, and she longed for fresh air and a chance to roam the fields the way she had roamed the streets of London.

  Today, finally, the rain had eased and then stopped. The sky was still overcast but there was a hint of blue at the horizon and a slight breeze through the trees. She was hardly adept at reading the weather, but logic would suggest the clouds might blow away. Even if they stayed overhead she might not get drenched if she went out now.

  In the city she had always taken Hetty for propriety’s sake. Probably no one would notice or care if she went alone. Just for a little walk

  And by God, she was not going to sit here another second, virtuously labouring for her pennies when there was a chance to get out and just . . . just . . .

  She pitched her armload of fabric onto her bed, snatched up her cap and Spencer and whisked down the stairs. Fingers tangled in the ribbons under her chin she called out in the hallway: “I’m just going to take the air, Mrs Bristow.”

  “What’s that, dear?” came the querulous response from the drawing room. But she did not stop, sweeping out the front door and past the few cottages to the end of the street, where garden plots quickly became fields for cows and sheep. She hurried, fists clenched, jogging a step for every three she walked, with frustration beating up hard through her chest.

  She just needed a walk. That was all; to clear her head. Three weeks of sitting still would drive anyone crazy. Not that she was crazy. But in a state of heightened emotion: Yes. And lonely. That too, with no one to talk to, no one to understand. Having to stay pleasant, polite, submissive; to keep her head down. She was a working woman. She would be a spinster in a corner of her brother’s house for the rest of her life, so she must become used to this . . . pent up crowded in hemmed about . . . Gah!

  She climbed a stile by the road, crossed the field and let herself through a gate, closing it carefully after her. Goodness, but there was a vast difference between a walk in a London park, and a walk through the countryside.