Had Wethering said anything? Or was he truly the perfect butler and would keep silent? Or perhaps it was one of the other staff. That was an unsettling thought. Was she going to receive a far-from-subtle request for payment to keep it quiet?
Aunt Caroline was not going to be happy if she did find out about that explosion of desire. She might start pressuring Verity to accept Will. Could she persuade her that the only thing they had in common was the experience of an uncomfortable night on a storm-lashed island, the pleasure of five kisses, mutual and inconvenient desire and an occasional, very occasional, shared flicker of humour?
But the pleasure of those kisses, of his caresses, the warmth of those moments when their eyes met and his mouth twitched in acknowledgement of a joke that only they knew... So many awkward parts of her body were tingling, her mind was all over the place...
‘Corsets,’ Aunt Caroline said, making her jump. ‘They must be our next priority. Your gowns will not hang well if you do not have stays made to flatter the latest fashions.’
‘I had forgotten about corsets. They will take some time to make which will delay my dress fittings, I suppose.’
Linton produced a faint smirk, as though young ladies from the country could not be expected to understand about such vital things. ‘We are going to Mrs Clark in St James’s Street, Miss Wingate. She has them partly made so they can be adjusted to fit very quickly.’
‘Although why on earth she has to set up shop in a street full of gentlemen’s clubs and outfitters, I do not know,’ Aunt Caroline grumbled as they drew up outside Number Fifty-Six. ‘Put down your veil, dear. One would not wish to be stared at by idlers and pavement-saunterers as we go in.’
Verity would quite like to have stared herself. St James’s Street was not somewhere a young lady would normally go, although Pall Mall, Piccadilly and, of course, King Street where Almack’s was were all entirely acceptable if one had a footman in attendance. But St James’s Street was the focus of the clubs, their windows a perfect vantage point for bucks and rakes to ogle any female foolish enough to pass by. She wondered which clubs Will belonged to.
There was no space for the carriage to pull up immediately outside the shop so they had to walk up the road a little. Verity dawdled after her aunt with Linton making small flapping motions with her hands as though to shoo a flock of chickens safely past a fox’s den.
‘Is that Brooks’s club down there?’ And what a very elegant pair of gentlemen who had just come down the steps and turned up the hill towards them. Glossy tall hats, tight, biscuit-coloured pantaloons, Hessian boots with silver tassels.
The shorter of the two dropped a glove. A pity he had no chin, poor chap, Verity thought as she reached the threshold of the shop and gave one last glance to her left. His companion, dark and tall, swung his cane idly as he waited for him to catch up. Then he turned and Verity shot into the shop so fast that she collided with Aunt Caroline.
‘I am sorry, Aunt.’
Linton shut the door behind them. ‘Are you all right, Miss Wingate?’
‘Yes, quite—thank you. I tripped on the mat. I do hope I didn’t hurt you, Aunt?’ She glanced around, but the window, which held nothing other than a length of draped satin and flowers in a vase, was backed by heavy gauze curtains. She could see only vague shapes passing by and anyone outside could not see in at all.
‘Not in the slightest, dear. Ah, Mrs Clark. I have brought my niece, Miss Wingate, to you to be fitted. She will be acquiring an entire new wardrobe.’
Verity smiled and submitted to being borne off and undressed and measured and laced and all the while could think of nothing but the tall, dark man who had walked out of the club.
Thomas Harrington. The Reverend Thomas Harrington. Now Vicar of St Wulfram’s, but once, when she had been very innocent, very romantic, her lover.
‘Oh, I am sorry, Miss Wingate. Did I prick you?’
‘No, not at all. It was my fault. I moved.’
Thomas. So handsome, so earnest, so very attentive, both to her and to Papa. Apparently modest, but clearly intelligent, he was the second, favoured, son of a country baronet, well bred but not well connected in ecclesiastical circles or in society. He had to work hard to secure advancement, he explained, not that he was ambitious for himself, of course. What he wanted was to do good, to find a parish where, by self-sacrifice and spiritual leadership, he could effect change for the bet
ter.
Verity had never been quite certain how he had done it, but little by little Thomas became a regular visitor to the Bishop’s household, helping Papa with references for his studies, copying out sermons in his fine, clear hand, squiring her about to modest, unexceptional social events. Mutely gazing into her eyes with an intensity and a humble worship that was intoxicating.
She fell for him so hard she had felt stunned. She had certainly lost all her critical faculties, she told herself bitterly afterwards. But that moonlit evening, with the nightingales pouring their heart-aching magic into the soft air, she had let him make love to her in the summer house. There had been kisses before—shy, tentative ones, like those he had pressed on her in Aunt Caroline’s drawing room—but this had been something else altogether.
Verity had not enjoyed it very much. It had hurt and had been hurried and sticky and, frankly, embarrassing. Looking back now, she realised that Will’s kisses had excited her more than the totality of Thomas’s lovemaking. But Thomas had been so apologetic, so frank about how he had been carried away by passion. It would be so much better when they were married, he promised. He would go and ask for her hand immediately.
But Papa had said only a few days before that he did not want her to marry until she had a London Season and an opportunity to look around her a little. So she had begged Thomas to wait for a week or so while she brought Papa round to the idea that she might have already fallen in love. It would not do to hurry things and turn him against Thomas, but, given time, what could his objection be to such a promising curate?
Thank heavens she had waited. The good angel who looked after innocent young ladies might have slept through her seduction, but she had certainly been alert two evenings later when Verity had strayed down to the river’s edge at Lady Heskith’s party. Thomas had not been there when she arrived and the rooms were overheated and the music too loud, so she had strolled out on to the lawns down the path to the seat beside the weeping willow where she could dream about married life.
No sooner had she sat down than she realised from the fragrant drifting smoke that two men on the far side of the tree were taking advantage of the garden to smoke cheroots. She stood and began to tiptoe away when one spoke. Thomas.
‘It’s a triumph, old chap. She’s as sheltered as a nun and besotted with me. With the Bishop as a father-in-law I’ll be set for life—a rich, fashionable, parish and then, who knows where I’ll finish up. And she’s not bad-looking. With a bit of practice she’ll be quite good in bed, too. But if not, well... What matter, eh?’
What Verity should have done, of course—being a well brought-up young lady—was to take herself off, nurse her broken heart in silence and send the swine a note next morning informing him in dignified terms that she had no desire to see him ever again.
What she did—and it still gave her a warm glow of satisfaction to recall it—was duck under the overhanging branches, march up to the pair of them and push her startled lover into the water.