Regency Pleasures and Sins Part 1

Tallie, who had begun by using her idea as a defence against having to think about Nick and how miserable she felt, found herself drawn deep into Zenna’s plans and how they could be adapted to accommodate her ‘special students', as Zenna called them.

Dinner time found the pair of them still hunched over the dining table surrounded by sheets of paper, Zenna’s tablets long exhausted. Rough sketch plans of each floor with scribbled notes about alterations jostled with lists of everything from subjects to be taught to bed linen required.

They continued during the meal until Tallie spilled gravy on Zenna’s tabulated curriculum for the youngest girls.

‘Enough!’ she announced, mopping it up. ‘I am too tired to concentrate any more. In fact, if you will excuse me, Zenna, I will go direct to my bed. I declare I had no idea that education would be such an exhausting undertaking.’

Her friend, who had been prepared to carry on talking until she dropped if that helped keep the haunted look from Tallie’s eyes, nodded encouragingly. ‘What a good idea. I will just make sure the maids have locked up and then I will not be far behind you.’

Tallie fell asleep instantly, hardly stirring when Zenna slipped into the other side of the big bed they were sharing.

But her slumber was racked with nightmares and she tossed and turned, muttering under her breath until poor Zenna seriously considered taking a pillow and the counterpane and trying to sleep on the chaise longue in the front parlour.

In consequence, it was two heavy-eyed young ladies who regarded each other over a very late breakfast. ‘What were you dreaming about?’ Zenna demanded bluntly, draining her second helping of hot chocolate and reaching for the pot to refill her cup. ‘It was like sharing the bed with a basket of puppies.’

Tallie rubbed her aching brow and tried to recall. ‘I was in class and you were telling me to write on my slate “I will marry Lord Arndale” one thousand times. And when I refused you turned into him and he shouted at me that I was ruined and must go and stand in the corner and disobeying him was no way to learn ancient Greek. And I would not do that either so he took me in his arms and …’

‘Yes?’ Zenna’s chocolate cup tilted dangerously.

‘… said he would have to kiss me until I could do all my irregular verbs.’

‘I am sure I would never have learned mine if that was the penalty for disobedience,’ Zenna observed dispassionately.

‘Zenna!’

‘Well, he is extraordinarily attractive, and if you do not want him …’

‘I do want him! But not on his terms, so there is no use in teasing me—I am not refusing him on a whim.’

They both chased their sweet rolls around their plates in a desultory manner.

‘I suppose I should sort out those papers from yesterday,’ Zenna observed, making no move to do so.

‘Hmm. It is a nice day; perhaps we should look at the garden.’ Tallie too stayed sitting at the breakfast table.

Suddenly Zenna pushed back her chair and got to her feet. ‘I know what will blow the cobwebs away. Come along, up to the attics.’

‘That’s more likely to cover us in cobwebs,’ Tallie grumbled, but she submitted to being urged towards the back stairs and climbed up behind Zenna to the very top.

‘There!’ Zenna flung open the door to reveal light-filled, spacious rooms opening one after another. ‘There is a mansard roof,’ she explained, gesturing at the high ceilings and big windows. ‘It is unconventional, but I thought of having my rooms up here.

There is room for both of us, in fact—a bedroom each, two dressing-rooms and a big sitting-room.’

Tallie nodded, catching her enthusiasm.

‘But the space is not the best thing, just look at the view.’ Zenna flung open a window and, ducking slightly, stepped out onto the leads. Without thinking Tallie followed her, then clutched the window frame with a gasp.

Because of the design of the roof there was a flat walkway, perhaps five foot wide, running around the edge of the roof before it sloped up steeply to its flat top. The edge was bounded by a stone balustrade at about waist height and, even with her back to the window, Tallie could see the wide view across the rooftops of Putney to the sparkle of the river beyond.

Careless of the height, Zenna perched on the balustrade and called, ‘Come and see. It is quite safe, the stonework is sound.’ She glanced back over her shoulder, and saw Tallie’s face. ‘Oh, I am sorry, I had forgotten about your fear of heights.’

‘It is very foolish of me,’ Tallie said firmly, making herself let go of the window frame and stand up. ‘The view is indeed lovely and I think the rooms would be delightful.’ Her stomach heaved, but she managed to fix a smile on her face, wondering what she could do to lure Zenna off the parapet and away from that dreadful drop.

In the event Zenna hopped off with as little concern as she would have shown getting up from a chair and leaned over, heedless of the effect on the elbows of her gown. ‘Oh, look, a carriage has drawn up. Now who can that be?’ She leaned further, oblivious of Tallie’s squeak of alarm. ‘Not Mrs Blackstock, for it is not a hackney carriage. I know—it must be Lady Whinstanley, she was most interested when I told her about my plans and she has a house somewhere near.’

‘You had better run down, then,’ Tallie managed to say. ‘It would never do to keep her waiting.’ To her immense relief Zenna straightened up and ducked back through the window.

As the sound of her footsteps diminished down the stairs Tallie began to back into the room, eyeing the balustrade warily as though it might leap at her and toss her over. Then something stopped her. Quite what it was she could not decide, but the sound of Nick’s voice calmly telling her she could step out onto that nightmare of a ledge at Mr Harland’s house mixed with the hasty apology that Zenna had made when she remembered her fears.

Nick had had to put himself at great risk by having to coax and support her along that ledge. Zenna was doubtless regretting her plan for converting this lovely space into rooms because she knew Tallie was scared of the height.

She made herself step out again, clinging to the window frame as she had before. At least she was certain this was a genuine fear and she was not indulging herself in order to draw attention, or have a man protect her. Here she was alone and as terrified as she had been at the studio. But if she could only manage to conquer the fear enough to stand out here and admire the view with Zenna, that would be something.

She held on to the window and looked up, studiously following a bird in flight until it began to swoop down. That was all right; she could look at the tree tops. She dropped her eyes further and her stomach lurched with them, but after perhaps five minutes carefully gazing at the distant prospect she felt able to let go of the window and walk up and down the wide ledge.

This was so successful that she even let her eyes stray to the parapet and its broad top. It was far wider than any stool she had ever sat upon. How proud of her Zenna would be if she could sit on that or even just lean against it. Her stomach lurched again.

Tallie closed her eyes and began to pace up and down, repeating out loud, ‘I will not give in, I will not.’ She put out a groping hand and found the parapet, edged towards it and, with her face screwed up into a scowl of grim determination, eyes still tight shut, started to hitch one hip up onto the broad top as she had seen Zenna do.

The voice shouting ‘No!’ hit her almost at the same moment as the arms that seized her, dragged her round and off the parapet.

She screamed, opened her eyes and saw her worst nightmare, the wide view spinning around her. She was falling, helpless …

With another shriek Tallie hit the steep slope of the Mansard roof, her breath crushed out of her by the body that pinned her there. Hands pressed her face to a broad chest, fingers laced desperately in her hair and a voice, a familiar voice sounding utterly unfamiliar, repeated words that made no sense at all.

Tallie stopped flailing and trying to find breath to scream and heard incredulously what Nick Stangate was gasping into her hair, against her face.

‘My love, my darling … no … I am sorry, I will not harass you any more, I promise, my love … only promise me you will never do anything like that again. Tallie, my heart, I will never come near you, if only you’ll promise me …’

She gave up trying to push him away and reached to fasten her hands in his hair, forcing his head back so she could gaze incredulously into Nick’s face. His eyes were wild, dark, his expression vulnerable as she had never seen it.

‘What did you call me?’ she managed to whisper.

‘My love.’ His voice was hoarse. ‘Tallie darling, I never meant to hound you until you would do something so desperate …’

‘You thought I was going to jump?’ Of course, that must have been what it looked like. ‘Oh, no Nick, I was just trying to sit on the ledge, like Zenna did. She was so disappointed that I might not want to share her rooms up here because of the height. I was only trying to conquer my fear.’

He slowly straightened his arms until he was standing with her trapped by them, her back against the near-vertical slope of the roof. He closed his eyes and Tallie saw the tension ebb out of him. ‘Of all the damn fool, witless ideas,’ he said, his voice shaking. Then he caught hold of himself and the grey gaze was furious on her face. ‘You could have been killed, you could have become dizzy, fallen. You were all by yourself up here. It was the most hen-witted …’

Tallie swallowed and enquired meekly, ‘Did you call me your love?’

‘Yes.’ The glare faded. ‘Tallie, my darling, never, never do anything like that to me again. You have taken years off my life—in fact, I will probably wake up tomorrow with white hair.’

‘Very distinguished,’ Tallie murmured, the growing bubble of happiness welling up inside her, threatening to burst and leave her speechless. ‘Did you mean it when you called me that?’

‘Of course I meant it.’ Nick touched a cautious finger to her cheek. ‘Your face is dirty. Did I hurt you just now?’

‘No, I do not think so. Nick, why did you not tell me? You made me all those arguments about why I had to marry you and never mentioned the one thing—the only thing—that matters to me.’

‘I had no idea that I loved you,’ he admitted, regarding her ruefully. ‘Not an inkling. I knew I desired you, but that seemed to blind me to what else I was feeling.’ He shook his head, apparently trying to explain things to himself as much as to Tallie. ‘I knew I worried about you and you infuriated me and puzzled me. I wanted to protect you and I wanted to make passionate love to you—and half the time I wanted to shake you. How was I to know I was in love with you? I have never been in love before.’

‘Neither have I.’

‘Then you do love me? After what I’ve done to you? Embarrassed you in the street, pried into your life, disapproved of your friends, kissed you in the most improper way, compromised you …’

‘… looked after me, saved my reputation, fought for me, made me laugh, made me want to behave in the most abandoned and outrageous manner?’

‘Then why would you not marry me when I asked you, you little wretch?’

Tallie regarded him in loving exasperation. ‘What, agree to marry a man who was lecturing me on how I was ruined and had to marry him? Marry a man whom I had just overheard telling his aunt all about his now useless plans to marry a well-connected nice young Society miss?’

‘Ah, I can see that would be a consideration.’ Nick regarded her steadily, all the amusement gone from his eyes. ‘It would have been a terrible mistake, that nice young Society miss. I would have been bored in a month. What I want—what I need—is a beautiful, scandalous, argumentative milliner.’

‘Is that a proposal, my lord?’

‘That is a proposal, Miss Grey. Will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’ Nick stepped back, leaving her free, as though he did not want to constrain her answer any more than her person.

Tallie dropped a neat curtsy. ‘Thank you, my lord. I accept with all my heart.’

The sensation that this must be a dream—an impossible, wonderful dream—was swept away as Nick swooped and caught her up in his arms, carried her through into the attic and, setting her on her feet, proceeded to kiss her with a thoroughness that even the most torrid dream could not conjure up. This was indeed real.

Tallie finally managed to free herself and hold him off with both hands hard on his chest. ‘Nick, tell me truly, will your family be very shocked at such a misalliance? Because if they will be I could not bear to be the cause of any coldness between you.’

‘My aunt loves you already, William adores you like a sister, my assorted great-aunts and great-uncles who have yet to meet you will congratulate me upon securing such a charming bride and my dear mama, who is nursing a collection of completely imaginary ailments in Bath, will dote upon you. And, besides, I have a clinching argument.’

Tallie regarded the twinkle in his eyes with some suspicion. ‘And what might that be?’

‘The economy of having a wife who can make her own hats. Why, I need give you but a fraction of the dress allowance I would otherwise have to.’

‘You beast!’ Tallie seized a cushion off the moth-eaten sofa, which comprised the furnishings of the attic room, and swung wildly at Nick with it. He retaliated with its companion and the space was instantly a snowstorm of dust and feathers. Almost unable to breath with giggles and sneezes Tallie landed a telling blow just as the door swung open to reveal Zenna, a look of horror on her face.

‘Oh, no!’ she wailed and promptly burst into tears. Tallie had never seen her with so much as a dampness in her eye; appalled, she dropped her cushion and ran to put her arms around her friend.

‘Zenna dearest, what is wrong?’

‘I thought … I thought I was doing the right thing letting Lord Arndale in,’ Zenna hiccupped miserably. ‘I thought he really loved you, and all the time he just wanted to ravish you and you had to beat him off …’

‘Ravish her …!’

‘Do be quiet, Nick, can you not see that Zenna is upset? We were having a pillow fight, Zenna darling, that is all. He does love me, we are going to get married.’

‘Truly?’

‘Truly.’ Tallie regarded her friend’s pink-faced embarrassment severely as she scrabbled in her pocket for her handkerchief. ‘But what were you about letting Nick in? You promised me that you would not.’

‘I asked him if he would send his daughters to my school,’ Zenna stated, blowing her nose defiantly. ‘And he said of course he would—so that makes him a prospective parent. And you agreed I might let those in.’

‘We would, would we not, my darling?’ Nick enquired.

‘Would what?’ Tallie was too amazed at Zenna’s duplicity to follow his question.

‘Send our daughters here.’

‘Our daughters? Oh!’ Tallie gazed at Nick, the blush spreading up her face. ‘You would like daughters?’

‘Two daughters and two sons seems a reasonable sort of number to me, but naturally it is something I feel we should discuss at considerable length.’

‘Excuse me,’ Zenna said with some firmness, her schoolmistress expression back on her face, the effect only marred by a very pink nose. ‘I should point out that this is a most improper conversation and that we should go downstairs, Talitha. I am sure his lordship will have many things to arrange and will be calling upon you on your return to London tomorrow. I will accompany you.’

Nick gave way with grace in the face of such a formidable front. His bow on the dusty threshold was a model of deportment and his face serious as he said, ‘You are entirely correct, Miss Scott. Miss Grey, I will call tomorrow afternoon if you will permit.’

He then spoiled the effect, much to Tallie’s delight, by seizing her by the shoulders and kissing her lingeringly on the lips. ‘Darling Tallie, I adore you.’ And he was gone.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The new Lady Arndale sat up nervously against the pile of lace-trimmed pillows in her big bed. Her bed, her suite of rooms, her house. Heronsholt, hazy in the evening light, a mass of grey stone and warm red tiles, the impression of a classical frontage and a hint of more chaotic wings behind.

But Nick had given her little opportunity to study the house nestling in its woods overlooking a sweeping Hertfordshire valley. He had ushered her past a confusing number of bowing and curtsying servants, delivered her into the hands of the beaming housekeeper and announced that dinner was required within the hour.

When she had joined him in the dining room there was a full contingent of footmen and an impressive butler to face. Tallie sent a look of pure panic down the length of polished mahogany to where Nick was getting to his feet and met his eyes. They were steady, confident, approving. Her chin went up and she returned the look with a smile that was suddenly calm. Her footmen, her butler—and she was not going to be intimidated by any of them.

Nick was at her side, holding her chair and she smiled up at him. ‘Thank you, my lord.’

‘Thank you, my lady,’ he whispered back. ‘Tomorrow we will have three leaves taken out of the table and will dine in comfort.’

But tonight he wanted her to impress the servants, she could tell. He had told her all their names on the journey from London, a dreamlike journey after the equally dreamlike wedding ceremony and the wedding breakfast organised on a lavish scale by Lady Parry. Flashes of memory came back to her: Millie looking radiant as she sang at her first private engagement, Mrs Blackstock in earnest discussion with Mr Dover as she explained the problems of finding reliable servants for three lodging-houses and Zenna shamelessly cornering Society ladies and lecturing them on the advantages of an education for girls at her select new seminary.

Nick had dealt with her obvious inexperience of managing a large household and her nervousness about the staff not by referring to it, but simply by giving her the information she would need.

‘Thank you, Partridge,’ she had said firmly, turning to the waiting butler. ‘You may serve now.’

But coping with the servants was one thing—that merely needed acting and a show of self-confidence until she acquired the real thing. Of all her new acquisitions, there was one that could not be dealt with in such a way. Her new husband.

Tallie swallowed, pulling the sheets up to her chin before she realised what she was doing and turned them down again. He has kissed you countless times, she chided herself. You have been in bed with him, for goodness’ sake. He has seen you naked. You have seen him, if it comes to that. Why so shy now?

If Nick had not been so restrained and proper for the four interminable weeks before their wedding, she might not have felt so nervous. But he had acted with the most scrupulous propriety, which unnerved her to the point where she almost convinced herself he was regretting the entire thing and was not in love with her after all. Then she would catch his gaze, see the passion burning in his eyes, hear the tenderness in his voice and she no longer doubted him.

A board creaked outside the door to her dressing-room. It opened onto a tiny lobby and then into his suite. Tallie swallowed, folded her hands over the crumpled wreck of the sheet edge and attempted to look calm. There was a scratch on the panels and the door opened to reveal her husband clad in a splendid dressing-gown of heavy crimson silk, his feet disconcertingly bare.

‘You look very small in that big bed,’ he observed, leaning one shoulder against the doorframe. ‘Is it comfortable?’

Tallie’s voice vanished into a squeak. She coughed and tried again. ‘Very, thank you.’ Why did he not come in?

‘I wondered if perhaps you were very tired and would prefer it if I stayed in my room tonight.’

For a moment a ripple of relief ran through her. She would not have to face the horrible possibility that she might not please him tonight. Tomorrow she would be rested, not so tense. A good night’s sleep would surely banish this quivering, feverish feeling that had been spreading through her limbs ever since she had placed her hand in his at the altar.

She opened her mouth to agree and heard herself say, ‘Oh, no, Nick, no. I am not so very tired.’ Before she could correct herself he was at the bedside, flipping back the covers to reveal her modestly clad in the long nightgown of fine cambric that she had nervously chosen to wear. With one hasty, appalled glance she had rejected the dozen or so outrageous pieces of nonsense that Lady Parry had encouraged her to buy and which her new maid had spread out for her choice.

‘Very restrained,’ Nick observed. ‘How does it come off?’

‘Er … over my head.’

‘And are you very fond of this garment?’ His long fingers were toying with the chaste satin ribbon which gathered the neckline.

‘No. Why?’

In answer Nick simply took the neck edges in both hands and ripped the nightgown firmly from top to toe, leaving Tallie naked. Before her hands could grasp the edges again he bent down, scooped her up and strode back towards the door. ‘I have been having the most improper thoughts about doing this since the first moment I saw you in Harland’s studio.’

‘You have?’ Tallie gasped, wrapping her arms around his neck as they swept through both dressing-rooms and into the master bedroom.

‘Hmm.’ Nick’s voice was a throaty growl of anticipation that sent an answering echo through her. ‘And your hair …’ He set her on her feet, tugged at the ribbon that was tying her hair back and swept the freed mass out over her shoulders with both hands. ‘And that scent of jasmine has been haunting me.’ He buried his face in her hair and Tallie found herself pressed against the warm sensual silk. It slid across her naked skin. She shivered and instantly Nick cupped her face in his hands and looked intently down at her.

‘Are you cold? No? Then are you frightened?’

‘Um, a little bit,’ Tallie admitted. Nick seemed so big, so dominant, so possessive.

‘Did Aunt Kate say anything to you?’

‘Only that it would be all right and you were much too experienced to make a mull of it.’

‘Oh, did she?’ Nick said indignantly. ‘And did you find that reassuring?’

‘Not very.’

‘Then let me assure you, Tallie, that I am not experienced in bedding virgins and I intend this to be the first and last time I do so. So we are going to have to muddle through this together and try not to make a mull of it jointly.’ She suppressed a little snort of amusement and he smiled. ‘That is better. Now, then, where were we?’

Fortunately that appeared to be a rhetorical question, for Tallie very much doubted that she could come up with a coherent answer. She burrowed closer against him as though to cover her nakedness with his robe and found that her fingers—quite of their own volition—were untying the knot of the sash. The edges fell apart and she was against Nick’s body.

Tallie froze, absorbing sensations, recalling how it had felt when she had woken in his bed and was held in his arms. This was different. For a moment she was puzzled, then realised that, standing, she was pressed against Nick in a slightly different way. She could rest her head on his shoulder, which meant she could let her lips graze against the side of his neck where the pulse beat so hard. The strangely exciting friction of his chest hair against her softness was the same; she wriggled and caught her breath at the way his breath caught in turn.

And like this, tight against him, there was no mistaking the extent to which she had aroused him.

‘Tallie,’ Nick murmured against her hair.