Not Quite a Lady (The Dressmakers 4)

“It is a bribe, but she is not a soiled dove,” said Darius. “I cannot believe you of all people would use that hackneyed phrase. And talk of the pot calling the kettle black. I’ve lost count of your lovers.”

“I waited until I was a widow,” she said.

“What nonsense,” he said. “You did it after you’d been married, and Charlotte did it before. There isn’t a bit of difference, and you know it. Come, Grandmama, you must appear at my wedding.”

“Ah, well,” she said. “If my grandson says I must, I must. What say has a feeble old lady in such matters?”

Darius rolled his eyes.

She examined the fan. “This is one of Lady Margaret’s fans, I see. No one ever could match her for taste. She was exquisite, poor thing. I, too, was married young to a man twenty years my senior. But Hargate knew how to make a woman happy. Mind you do that, sir. Make your lady happy—or she’ll make you live to regret it.” She waved the fan at him, much in the way his father had waved his dismissal. “Go away now. I have letters to write, and I must decide what to wear to the wedding.”

On the nineteenth of July, at ten o’clock in the forenoon, Lady Charlotte Hayward and Darius Carsington were married by common license in the church at Lithby before an unusually large crowd of witnesses.

Mr. Badgely performed the ceremony. Mrs. Badgely was in attendance as well, after a hard battle with her moral principles.

She did not condone the practice of bearing children out of wedlock, naturally, and she was not at all sure that allowances ought to be made, even for one’s cousins.

The trouble was, she did not get to London often, especially now that her daughters were all wed and she had no good excuse and ought to have more important things to do than indulge in extravagant frivolity. Starved for fashion, she was desperate to study the latest modes the London ladies would wear, and she wanted to be able to drop the names of all the attendees. And so, in the end, like everybody else, she set her scruples aside in favor of enjoying a party that would be talked about for months afterward.

The festivities had been planned weeks earlier as part of the house party events. The Lithbys had only to make room for more guests.

Among other members of the Carsington family in attendance was the Dowager Lady Hargate’s great-granddaughter, Olivia Wingate-Carsington, age thirteen.

Following the solemnities, Pip took Olivia to meet the pig. He fell into the sty. She fished him out. They returned to Lithby Hall covered in muck and reeking. They received a sharp scolding from their great-grandmother, followed by baths and a change of clothes. After this, they adjourned to the schoolroom, where Olivia taught Pip card tricks and the thimble rig until her mother, Lady Rathbourne, came in and put a stop to it.

“But Mama, how can Pip know he’s being gulled unless he understands the cheat?” said Olivia, all wide-eyed innocence.

“You’ll be teaching him how to pawn his mother’s jewelry next,” said Lady Rathbourne. “You will desist at once, Olivia, or you will not be allowed to watch the fireworks.”

Her new husband stood behind Charlotte, his arms wrapped about her, his chin resting on her head while they watched the fireworks from a quiet corner of the garden.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he said.

“I’m not thinking,” she said. “I’m simply…happy.”

“It is quite a spectacle,” he said. “The sort of thing one would expect for, say, a son’s coming of age or a king’s coronation.”

“Or the marriage—at last—of an only daughter.”

“Or the marriage—at last—of that last troublesome younger son.”

“Papa and Lizzie do love to entertain,” she said. “They are like children when it comes to parties.”

“I think they are most unchildlike,” Darius said. “I suspect a family conspiracy. No one was in the least surprised when I announced that we were going to be wed. I cannot help wondering what brought my grandmother to Derbyshire. She hates the country.”

“Last year, they all wanted me to marry Lord Rathbourne,” she said.

“Ridiculous,” he said. “Anyone with a grain of sense could see you’d never suit. You are not half–shocking enough for him. Lady Rathbourne is a descendant of the Dreadful DeLuceys. Compared to them, you are a model of purity and virtue.”

“In any event, your brother thought me a great bore,” she said. “And so I reckon Papa and Lizzie decided to make do with you. They were desperate, after all.” She laughed.

“Of course they were desperate,” he said. “You are practically in your dotage. You are nearly at the end of your prime reproductive years—if you are not already past them.” He drew her more tightly to him. “Perhaps we’d better get started on the reproduction business without further loss of time.”

“We already started,” she said.

“I mean, in a methodical manner,” he said.

“Now?” she said. “Here?” The thought was not without its appeal. What a strumpet she was!

“Not here,” he said. “And not now, furtively and hurriedly, as we’ve done before. This time, we shall do it in a proper bed, in a proper way.”

“Methodically,” she said.

“Don’t mock the methodical approach until you’ve tried it,” he said. “Let’s go home, Charlotte.”

My home, she thought, as the bridegroom carried her over the threshold she’d crossed so many times before.

She’d even had a hand in making a home of Lady Margaret’s neglected house. Not that the work was finished. Far from it. A great deal remained to be done.

Still, while one might have to dodge scaffolding and ladders elsewhere, Lizzie had made sure the master bedroom was completed before the wedding.

The newlyweds could spend the night there without worrying about pieces of the ceiling falling on their heads, she assured them.

Tonight they had the luxury of complete privacy. The servants were all at the Lithby estate, along with most of the village. Pip was staying one last night with his grandparents, becoming acquainted with his new families. When last Charlotte saw him, Pip was with the Dowager Lady Hargate and his cousin Olivia, learning to play whist.

Within, Beechwood House was quiet but for their footsteps and the odd sounds old houses make. Outside, the noise of the fireworks had died away, leaving the insects and night birds to their summer concert.

Though only the candle Darius had carried up from the ground floor lit the room, Charlotte could see that Lizzie had performed her usual magic. The big room was simply but beautifully decorated, comfortable, and clean.

“This is a good house,” Charlotte said. “Lady Margaret was unhappy here, but the house was here long before she came, and I think it wants to be a happy house.” She turned to her husband. “You have made me so happy. Have I told you?”

“Yes, I believe you have,” he said. He unwrapped his neckcloth and threw it onto a chair. “I’m going to make you happier. Grandmother says I must, or there will be the devil to pay.”

Charlotte moved nearer to him. She brought her hand up to his cheek. He turned his head to kiss her palm.

Then he took her hand and led her to the bed. It was large and ornate, and probably dated to the time of the Stuarts. He lifted her up as though she weighed nothing at all and tossed her onto the middle of the mattress. She laughed.

“I’ve imagined doing that,” he said, “from the time you were explaining stoved feathers to me. In the library at Lithby Hall.”

“I had a feeling you weren’t really attending,” she said.

“I was.” He took off his coat. It was snug, deceptively simple, exquisitely tailored. She watched the play of his muscles under his formfitting attire as he worked his way out of the coat, lithe as a cat. His waistcoat came next.

She lay where he’d thrown her, her head resting on the pillows while she drank in the strong, beautiful torso his shirt so thinly veiled. They’d made love yet she’d never seen him—well, not more tha

n the crucial part of him. This was a true wedding night, she thought, a night to discover each other.

How lucky she was! Everyone made mistakes, sometimes terrible ones. Not everyone got a second chance.

He knelt on the bed and crawled toward her. He straddled her. “I hung on your every word that night,” he said, “all the while wishing I was hanging on your lips.” He bent and his mouth hovered over hers, a mere breath away. “Like a bee drawn to a flower.” He kissed her lightly, as though her lips were the most delicate of flower petals.

“I remember,” she said. “You stood improperly close.”

“I almost kissed you.” He brushed his lips over hers.

“I almost kissed you back,” she said, doing the same to him.

He kissed her deeply, so tenderly. She answered in the same way, giving with all her heart all the love he’d reawakened in her. She gave and felt it returned to her, in the taste of him and the sweetness of the kiss. She felt it in a surge of warmth and happiness and a strange peace she hadn’t known since her girlhood, along with a girlish excitement she thought she’d outgrown.

“I want to see you,” he said. “All of you.”

“Yes,” she said. “I want to see you, too.”

He lifted his head, smiling. “Where to begin unwrapping this wondrous gift?”

“Wherever you like,” she said. “I place myself entirely in your hands.” She looked at his hands, so large and deft. Those hands, oh, those hands.

He studied her for a long moment in that intent way of his. Then he bent and cupped her face and kissed her. He slid his hands down over her naked shoulders, making her shiver. He found the fastenings of her bodice and loosened it. He brushed his mouth over the skin he’d exposed. “Women’s clothes,” he murmured. “Complicated mechanisms.”

But he had no trouble ascertaining how her gown functioned. He easily located the drawstrings and hooks. Then, while she giggled, he drew the gown up, and she lifted herself enough so that he could pull it over her head. She saw amusement in his candlelit face as he threw the gown aside.

In a moment he was serious again, studying her underthings with the same absolute concentration he might apply to a chemical experiment. She watched him, aware of her blood taking fire merely at his looking at her. Then his hands moved over her, caressing her through layers of fine fabric, as though what touched her was dear to him, too. And she was dear to him, yes. She had no doubt of that. She saw it in his face and heard it in his low voice.