Regency Society

Half an hour later Taris realised that indeed this room was a hot bed of liberalism and that at least on the subject of matrimonial property rights the opinion here was swayed very firmly towards the viewpoint of the hard-done-by bride. Finally he had had enough.

‘The presumptive legal unity of husband and wife can cut the other way too,’ he began when there was a second of space in the heated argument, and he felt the room take in a collective breath before turning its attention to him. The heavy censure made him smile. ‘With marriage a bride and groom become one person and the husband is held legally liable for any debts and civil wrongs his wife may have incurred.’

Beatrice leapt into the fray. ‘I hardly think that the virtual loss of a woman’s property on marrying can be compensated by the unlikely event that if she breaks a law her husband may take the blame for it.’

Taris was beginning to feel the flimsiness of his arguments, but pressed on regardless. ‘Female capriciousness is well documented and some might say that the art of marriage is nothing more than an economic transaction tied to the protection of the great estates.’

A murmur settled around the room, and he realised he had probably used the wrong word when describing the changeable character of women. Beatrice’s quick reply was well worded.

‘Others would argue that it is nothing more than a sham to allow men the right of power over something that was never theirs in the first place, Lord Wellingham.’

‘ Yet you do not take into account that economic manoeuvring favours a bride as well as a groom if the financial aspects are considered openly. The benefits of a well set-out investment can hardly be to the disadvantage of either party.’

‘Well set out for the husband, my lord. Should he wish to confine her against her will and administer any properties himself he is well within his rights to do so.’

‘Our world is not peopled with characters from Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa, Mrs Bassingstoke, and the “vile Lovelace” exists only in a story.’

Laughter resounded and Taris fought to hear Beatrice’s voice above it.

‘Any husband may “correct” his wife should he wish to do so and the tales of such cruelty are certainly not solely the preserve of popular fiction.’

There was a tone in her voice that was not simply academic, a tone that trembled beneath the tenets of truth and chased away any desire he might have had to keep such a disagreement going.

‘Touché,’ he returned with a smile as he leant back against the wall and took a sip of fine brandy. ‘I concede my case entirely.’

‘It’s not like you to give up a fight, Taris?’

Jack’s question a few seconds later held a warning within it that he did not like as the chatter around them grew more general.

‘You are beginning to sound just like my brother.’

‘And your week is beginning to ring with the dubious clanging of firsts, my friend.’

‘How so?’ Finishing his brandy, Taris knew exactly what was coming.

‘The first waltz, the first concession of an argument you could have won had you truly wanted to…’

‘You read too much into these actions.’

‘Do I, indeed? Your Mrs Bassingstoke is coming towards us, by the way, and she looks like a cat who just swallowed the cream. Perhaps your reasoning in playing the “honourably beaten” was sounder than I gave it credit for, after all.’

Taris shoved his glass into Jack’s hand. ‘Get me another drink, will you?’

‘I will do so only because I detect your desire to be alone with the clever widow,’ he returned, laughter imbued in his retort.

‘Lord Henshaw looks as though he is enjoying our soiree,’ Beatrice said less than a few seconds later. ‘I hope that you are too?’

‘The debate is all that I imagined it to be.’

Her answer was worried. ‘I think our discussions go better when the opinion for and against them is more evenly divided.’

He laughed. ‘You won the argument, Bea.’

‘But not well. I think you gave up on me for some reason.’

He felt her hand on his arm, the pounding awareness between them blotting out all other noise.

‘Could I speak to you alone? After this is over?’

‘Yes.’ She gave her promise easily and as the world and its noise and need cascaded again on to them she was claimed in speech by another before disappearing into the crowded room.

Taris Wellingham had spoken carefully and well in the debate, she thought. A man who was confident in his ability to woo a crowd and gracious in defeat.

He was nobody’s man save his own, the one concession to his limited sight an opened hand that lay on the wall behind. He always did that, always created an anchor to the environment around him. The fence at the park, the ledge of the window in the carriage, his foot against the edge of the ditch in the snow outside Maldon.

A small habit that would be unremarkable without the knowledge that she had of how little he could really see. She watched him now from the other side of the room, watched his ease in a setting that was eminently foreign to him. The signet ring on his little finger glinted in the light as he pushed his dark hair back, his eyes creasing at the corners when he smiled.

Taris Wellingham was a man who might trace his ancestry back through all the years of history and yet he had conceded the argument to her with grace. She wondered suddenly whether he had done so by choice, as there had been a tone in his words denoting empathy that she found disconcerting.

The quick flash of her husband ‘correcting’ yet another opinion came to mind and she pushed it back, all the laughter and discourse in this room as far from the big Ipswich house as she could ever be.

Lifting her glass of punch to her lips, she dragged her eyes away from the enigmatic and mercurial Lord Wellingham and wished the hour before everybody would leave away.

Everyone was gone. Almost everyone, she amended and looked again to see that Taris still sat on the blue sofa in her salon.

‘I could stay if you want…?’ Elspeth was uncertain as she gazed towards the room.

‘I am a twenty-eight-year-old widow, Elspeth, and sense is my middle name.’

‘Still, a man like that could—’

She did not let her finish. ‘Look at me, Elspeth. A man like that is here merely to speak to me and I am very happy to listen.’

‘You are not as plain as you might say, Beatrice, and sometimes when you argue a point so very cleverly every male in the room looks at you in the way of men who are wanting much more than just words.’

‘A sentiment I shall receive as a compliment. But you forget I have no wish to take any such flattery further.’

‘Very well, then. But I shall be back in the morning to make certain that…’

‘And I shall look forward to the company.’

Bea was pleased when her friend finally allowed her to shepherd her out; turning, she walked into the salon, shutting the door against the bustling of servants clearing away the last of the plates and the glasses in the dining room.

‘Thank you for allowing me to talk to you privately,’ he said and waited as she sat next to him.

‘If this is about my conversation with your sister…’

He raised his right hand and she came to a stop. ‘Did Mr Bassingstoke ever “correct” you, Beatrice?’

Her world spun in a receding dizzy arc as she clutched at the arm on her end of the sofa. Had he seen the movement? For the first time since knowing of his blindness she was glad of it.

‘All my arguments were purely theoretical, my lord,’ she returned, her voice sounding almost normal, ‘and I could easily take umbrage should you think a man might rule me like that.’

‘A lack of sight has some benefits, Mrs Bassingstoke. One of them is the ability to determine the cadence of untruth.’

She was silent.

‘At Maldon you limited our liaison to just one night. I would like to negotiate for another.’

‘One night…?’ Her voice was squeaky.

‘More if you are offering.’ His smile made his eyes dance and the glasses gave him a rakish appearance. His cane lay untouched against his thigh as if, for the moment, he was comfortable and relaxed. Still, he looked much too big for her small salon, a tiger readied to pounce, the amber in his irises predatory. She could not move, could not rise and say nay to any of it, could not remember the promise that she had made to herself of ‘never again’.

The clock on the mantel chimed the hour like a harbinger.

Ding…say yes!

Dong…say no!

Outside she could determine the muffled clatter of a carriage winding home in the lateness.

Ten o’clock. On a Wednesday. Already some lights in the street were out and the transport that had brought him to her door was departed. At his request?

Who indeed might know if she were again to say yes? And freedom was found not only in the choice of a good book and a night alone. Another few moments and the maids would be finished. Easy to dismiss them to their beds and then to go to hers. With him. The very idea of it made her heart beat faster.

‘I am not the kind of woman to depend on this sort of arrangement, my lord. The freedom I spoke of today is important to me.’

‘I am not looking to shackle you into something you might live to regret.’

At that small set-down she reddened. Of course he would not be interested in a more lasting relationship. Still, she could not quite let it lie.

‘Why are you here, then?’

‘Because I like you.’

She sat speechless, for such a simple and uncomplicated reason negated all the more tangled arguments that spun around in her head.

He liked her? No expectation for anything different, no change or carefulness involved in maintaining a facade that might keep him happy? The admission was suddenly as freeing as the way he had conceded his argument on property rights, his lack of malice so unlike her dead husband that it had made her almost dizzy with the contrast.

And now an offer of more, and nobody else’s business save her own.

A clever man and a private man. A man who kept the world at bay so very easily.

Could she enjoy him without fear of all the other ties that drained a relationship in its never-ending complications? Simply be? Simply step into his arms and be?

‘I would not expect promises.’

The smile he gave her back melted her heart.

‘Of course I did not mean that you were even suggesting anything like that—’ She clamped her lips together to stop the babble further.

‘Bea?’

‘Yes?’

‘Be quiet.’

She began to laugh. ‘It is just that I should not wish you to think I was easy.’

‘Lord.’ His expletive was vexed as he removed his glasses and laid them down on the small table next to the sofa and when his hand reached out towards her the ring he wore on his finger glinted in the light, a soldier’s insignia engraved in gold.

‘Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man…’ The small ditty turned in her mind. What else had he been? When his thumb traced a line from her wrist to her elbow she took in a breath and leaned back, the warmth from the fire on her face and the heat from his touch lighting a fervour more intemperate even than the naked flame.

‘It cannot be here,’ she whispered as his touch skimmed across the bodice of her gown.

‘Then where?’

‘Upstairs. If you give me time to give the servants their leave to retire.’

His fingers stilled and pulled back.

‘It should just take me a moment.’ But he did not answer as she stood and scurried from the room.

After dismissing the staff for the night, Bea stopped in front of the mirror above the mantel in the dining room and met her reflection.

Fervent. Excited. Basked in promise.

‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘Do not hope…’

The thin line between her eyes reappeared and although her dimples were attractive there was much more on her face that was not.

‘Just enjoy,’ she said more softly before taking a breath and opening again the door to the blue salon.

Chapter Nine

Her chamber smelt of flowers and of lemon soap. The floorboards beneath his feet were slippery with polish and the rugs covering them thick. His hand reached out to the bed that he could just make out in front of him, a large square of light grey with some sort of pattern on the eiderdown.

More flowers, he decided as his thumb skimmed the outline.

Suddenly he felt nervous, his lack of sight here in an unknown room more worrying than he had thought it would be. He was careful to lift his feet when he stepped around the chest at the foot of the bed.

‘The fire has just been stoked. It should be warmer soon.’ Bea sounded almost as nervous.

‘Do you have any wine?’ he asked as he sat down on the bed, the mattress squashing under his weight.

‘Not in my room,’ she replied. ‘I could go downstairs and get it…’

He stopped her merely by catching at her arm and pulling her on to his knee.

Better, he thought, his body beginning to rise with the promise of it all. Much better, he amended, as the warm softness of breast came against him.

He had locked the door as he had followed her through and when the bells of London pealed the hour of eleven he was glad.

Hours lay before them. Hours and hours and hours. He had never before made love with a woman who knew the limitations of his sight and the relief was all-encompassing. No need to demand the candles be snuffed out or the worry of what might happen should he fumble or lose his way.

Here and now he could just be, just run his finger along the side of her face and feel her breath, her heart, the beat fast and then faster as his thumb skimmed the line of her throat, satin-soft-smooth and slender.

‘Not as cold as last time,’ he whispered as a log fell into place in the growing fire.

‘And a lot more comfortable,’ she returned, his touch determining the deep indents in her cheeks as she smiled.

Outside the wind was louder and the first spits of rain hurled themselves against the glass and for a moment he felt like a green boy, wanting her but not quite knowing how to begin, the hardness of his need pushing between them.

‘I should take my hair down,’ she said, the words halfway between a question and a statement and he felt her arms rise to do it.

‘Let me.’ His fingers ran over the silken thickness and found the hidden pins. One by one he removed them and she sat perfectly still as, clip by clip, her hair began to fall, undone and tousled, until there were no strands left up.

Beatrice sat and waited, her body coiled into tight expectation. When this was finished what would be next? Each clip marked time, loosening promise, bringing the moment nearer when his fingers might reach for other parts. With the candles still burning on the bedside table everything was so…very visible. She wished she had thought to snuff them out, to leave only the fire-glow, so kind to the many faults beneath her clothes.

And when the last of her hair fell between them his fingers traced the shape of her nose and her brow and the angled line of her cheeks.

A picture. He was forming a picture.

‘I am not beautiful.’ Better to say it before he thought it.

He only laughed and brought her hand to his own face. ‘Close your eyes and feel me,’ he said, and she did so, the shape of his nose strong, his cheek marred by the scar, his chin rough from the lateness of the day where he had not shaved since the morning.

No picture but parts. Warm. Real. For a second she knew just exactly what it was he felt and was wondrous. Opening her eyes, she saw his amber glance waver.

‘Kiss me,’ she said, wanting the sense of control that she had never felt with Frankwell. Her tongue ran across her lips and she pushed against him.

The dam of restraint broke completely and his mouth came down, seeking, breathing, hot and needy. She felt his hands on the side of her face and on her neck and the heat of him was like a magnet, like a centre, like a place she could not get enough of, her own tongue dancing against his, seeking an entrance, tasting and challenging, the ache in her belly a fiery red.

She could not breathe without him, she could not exist alone, her hands threading through his hair and feeling another scar bigger than the one on his face, longer, more dangerous.

Cradling her hand, she brushed the heaviness of her breasts against his fingers.

‘God,’ he said and then repeated it. ‘You are a witch, Beatrice-Maude. I swear that you are. One kiss and I am a youth again starved of any finesse and restraint.’

‘I do not wish for restraint,’ she returned, the result of her words showing as a flush on his cheeks. For suddenly she just did not. This was not love but lust, and the full rein of such an emotion should not be pegged in by time or convention. Putting her hands against both sides of his shirt, she ripped it open. Just ripped it, exposing the bronzed and defined muscular chest of a man who was beyond beautiful.

Hers again! She was not careful as her fingers found his nipple and her mouth followed.

All the control that he had perfected across three years of anger broke free. This was nothing to do with what he could see or could not see. This was only about feeling and taking and the shirt that hung in tatters on his shoulders felt like a flag of freedom, a banner to release him from a heavy burden.

He could not believe how he felt, the meticulous detail of hiding his sightlessness so all-encompassing that it left little room for any other emotion. Until now. Until this minute. The shock of her teeth upon his nipple sending passion through every pore of his body.

More!

He bundled her hair in his fist and kept her there tasting until he could bear it no longer; with a quick movement he gathered her in his arms and laid her back on the bed, holding his hand against her as she went to move.

‘My turn now.’

He could almost imagine he saw the smile upon her face.

She was pleased when he leant over to snuff the bedside candle, and pleased too as his fingers unbuttoned her bodice, exposing the lawn and the lace of her chemise. Unpeeled, she thought, as the cold air gave her goose-bumps, enhanced by the thought of what might come next and her whole insides tightening with delight.

He had not removed his tattered shirt, but the lacings on his trousers were gone, as were the boots he had worn. She felt almost fully dressed in contrast. The difference made her writhe.

‘Hurry.’ The word was out even as she thought it and she saw the quick flash of white teeth as he drew the yellow silk of her dress down over her body. Only lawn and lace kept her from him now, and she knew he knew it too as his breathing quickened.

His hand lifted her petticoat and bundled it into a wad, before dealing with her drawers. Easily disposed of, the flimsy silk removed without exertion.

Only her now, and his hands against her thighs.

When she went to move he kept her still.

‘Please?’ Soft. Honest. No force within it.

She lay back again and waited as his fingers found what it was they sought and when her head arched her body followed, sweat beading the channel between her breasts as she reached for the stars and the sky and the place in her life where all was good and true and right.

‘Now.’ Just now. Just this time. Again. The squeezing knots of lushness washed across her, the languid ache of perfection echoing in her very bones.

Taris had never met a woman before who was so responsive, so quick to delight, so unheedful of her nakedness and pleasure.

Already she turned to him seeking, and his erection grew against the satin skin of her stomach, the bedclothes kicked away on to the floor and only firelight between them. He could see the flicker of the flames against greyness and feel the heat of passion marking the contact of her hand against his bottom. Her tongue lathed his neck, joining whispered pleadings for more.

No hesitation in it. No demand for protection or heed for safety. Just him and his seed filling her, the ease of their coupling natural and right, the rhythm of his thrusts finding a home he had never had, taken and given, deeper before spiralling up and up, his breath fast and her hips rocking and the feel of her teeth as he climaxed, her muscles milking his hardness until he collapsed against the mattress, struggling to find a breath.

Laughing. His laughter against the silence of night and the carefulness of years and the unexpected paradise of her body.

‘Beatrice?’ He whispered her name when he could and she whispered his back, two people caught in the question of flesh and the elation of freedom and the bone-deep rightness of what had just happened between them.

‘Bea-all-and-end-all.’

And then they slept.

She could not believe that he was gone when she woke up. Could not believe that he had crept through her house without awakening her as he let himself out. How had he got home? How had he been able to negotiate a distance that he had no knowledge of? But the first rays of dawn were just touching the eastern sky and the space beside her was empty.

‘Lord help me,’ she whispered, the thought of her wanton abandon sending shivers of uncertainty through her this morning. Throughout all the years with Frankwell she had lain like a wooden doll on a marriage bed that had been the antithesis of what had happened last night.

‘Lord, please help me,’ she repeated again. Would he think her a whore? Was that why he had left? Would he think her a woman who was promiscuous and easy, a lady who would cross the boundaries without a single thought for consequences?

Consequences? Did two nights of loving mean she was now Taris Wellingham’s mistress? His woman to use when fancy struck him? A lady kept for pleasure in his bedroom?

‘No.’ She shook her head, though a darker thought lingered. Could she refuse him should he come back? She was becoming exactly the woman she had sworn she never would be again. A woman with no say over the dominion of her own body. Last time in hate and this time in lust.

Which was better?

Frankwell at least had placed a ring on her finger and the law condoned a husband’s needs in whatever form that they should take.

But now, here, in the morning light with a bed that was rumpled and musky, Beatrice felt both sullied and stupid.

A woman who would preach the doctrine of independence and then ignore every single tenet of it? She pulled the sheet around her nakedness and sat, the sight of her clothes strewn around her bed making her sigh.

Abandonment had its repercussions.

Her head fell against her hands and she wept both for the woman she had lost and for the man that she had found. And then she slept again.

Taris counted the steps between Bea’s bedroom and the stairs and then counted the number of stairs to the front door.

Perfectly easy, he thought, as his hand had found the handle and he let himself out.

Jack was waiting on the front step just as they had arranged.

‘It’s a dangerous game you play, my friend.’

‘How so?’

‘Mrs Bassingstoke is a woman of some reputation. One word of this gets out and she will be ruined.’

He was quiet.

‘There are houses in Covent Garden with girls whose names would not be so destroyed…’

‘Enough, Jack. Where’s the carriage?’

‘Around the corner. I didn’t wish to risk anybody seeing it.’

‘Thank you.’

‘If Asher learns of any of this he will have your head on the block.’

‘My brother’s newly formed morality is no concern of mine.’

‘You hold the Wellingham name, Taris. It is simply that he tries to protect it and for a man who has rutted his way until the early hours of the morning you’re surprisingly taciturn.’

‘Leave it, aye?’

They walked the rest of the way in silence.