“It sounds miserable. And very unlike you, Sylvie.”

“Precisely. At any rate, I do have something of a dislike of being around people who are despondent in the way of my father.”

“Mayne does not like dogs, as far as I know,” Griselda hastened to say.

“No, but—”

“He will cheer up. He merely needs to settle down a bit. Once you are married, it will be different.”

“Perhaps I should allow him to set a wedding date,” Sylvie murmured. She looked rather unconvinced.

Griselda had a flash of panic. She couldn’t watch her darling brother’s heart be broken twice. “Certainly you must. I expect Mayne is dejected because he hasn’t anything to look forward to. Once you have a family, of course everything will be different.”

They crossed into the Ascot grounds and the carriage slowed sharply. Everywhere, carriages were pulling up and young girls in fluttering dresses and flirty little bonnets were clambering out. They looked like moving peonies, all heading toward the racetrack. Even in the carriage, Griselda could hear the muffled roar from the track.

“Shall we have to walk a great way?” Sylvie asked.

“Oh no,” Griselda said. “We’ll be dropped directly at our box.”

Sylvie smiled.

Griselda sat back, feeling a qualm of true anxiety. Sylvie wasn’t entirely happy. What would Mayne do if he were jilted, for the second time, by a woman whom he loved so tenderly? It made her feel ill just to think about it.

21

From The Earl of Hellgate, Chapter the Seventeenth

I name her, Dear Reader, after one of Shakespeare’s fairies, for she was as elusive and sweet to me as one of those sprites. You will loathe me for the truth of it…but when I beheld her gentle countenance, I burned with the desire to possess her. And yet marry her I could not…she was married to a worthy burgher. I tremble as I write the words:The bonds of matrimony did not stop me.

L ucius Felton’s box at Ascot was, without doubt, the most luxurious on the grounds. The King’s box was a rather simple structure, lined in red velvet, and boasting chairs that were uncomfortably thronelike. But Felton had decided to take a box at Ascot only after he married, and he had a particular fondness for enclosed racing boxes. Since there wasn’t one to be had at Ascot, he bribed the manager of the racetrack a fabulous amount—some said it was enough to run the entire operation for the next year—and built himself an elegant little box, with a roof to keep off the sun and rain. It was open along the track, naturally, but it extended far enough back so that there were a few little rooms off it, necessary to a lady’s comfort when her husband (like Mr. Felton) was a devout enthusiast of the track.

There was, Josie discovered with extreme pleasure, a small retiring room for ladies, boasting a chaise longue. “Tess does have a lovely life,” she said, sighing at the beauty of it all. The retiring room was an oasis of calm luxury, papered in silk the color of a spring beech leaf. When she walked in, Sylvie was already there, carefully turning her pink lips to a more intense peony color.“Your Tess is indeed a very lucky woman,” Sylvie agreed. “I am sorry that I did not see Mr. Felton before she did.”

Josie smiled at Sylvie’s frank assessment. “You might not have liked him.”

“I would like anyone with his resources. And may I say that I am glad to be out of the marriage market before you appeared?” she remarked, looking Josie up and down. “Now that you have shed those strange undergarments, you are a rival.”

Josie burst into laughter. “No one can say that you aren’t generous, Sylvie.”

“I speak a truth,” she said, with her little French shrug. “I am of course slimmer than you, and I think that my nose is a trifle smaller, but I have not that air of”—she waved her hands—“séduisant, that you have.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t speak French,” Josie said, rubbing a little bit of lip color on her lips as well.

“It means you look like a good bedfellow,” Sylvie said baldly. And at Josie’s giggle, “Did I say it wrongly? I work hard at this English, but it is difficult.”

“I am sure that you look like an entrancing bedfellow yourself, Sylvie!”

“Oh no,” she said. “I don’t because I won’t be. I’m not very interested in that sort of thing. But luckily for me, there are men who feel as I do.”

“Mayne?” Josie said, suddenly horrified by the turn in the conversation.

“Precisely.” Sylvie put down her lip color, picked up a small enameled box and began powdering her nose.

“Are you sure,” Josie said hesitantly, “that is, Mayne is not known for…”

“Oh, I know that his reputation is of the worst,” Sylvie said, waving her hands again. “But men do not look for the same thing in their wives that they desire in a casual companion. Unless I am very mistaken, my fiancé would be taken aback by an expression of carnal interest on my part. And since I feel no such interest, we are well matched.”

Josie bit her lip. Sylvie saw her face and smiled kindly.

“You must not color people with your brush,” she said. “Does that make sense?” And at Josie’s shake of the head, “Ah well. What I mean is that Mayne falls in love only with the women who are unattainable. It is a common type of man. In fact, from something Griselda told me, he has been in love only once before, and the lady in question was happily married.” She closed her powder box, clearly considering her opinion on the subject final.

Sylvie tripped out of the room, and Josie sat staring at the mirror, her heart wrenched by the idea that Mayne could only fall in love with women who were unattainable. Surely after they married, Sylvie would grow more—more carnally interested, to use her own word.

Or she wouldn’t, Josie thought, picturing Sylvie’s cool little profile. Given that Sylvie was engaged to Mayne, and yet uninterested in him…what could change her mind?

22

From The Earl of Hellgate,

Chapter the Seventeenth

I assure you that she came to no harm from our frolicking. I persuaded her, Dear Reader, that my blemished soul could be healed only by her ministrations, and she, lovely Peasblossom, adored sprite, believed me. She soothed my soul…and other parts of my anatomy, in my carriage. One afternoon that I shall never forget I met her in the ruins of a lovely chapel, and there amongst the wildflowers and fallen stones, we…

The Ascot

I f Darlington was supposed to be looking for a spouse, he certainly wasn’t going about it in a very productive way, to Griselda’s mind. Instead, he was hanging around their party and seizing every opportunity to say scandalous things to her. This made life interesting, but, of course, virtue suggested that she send him away.

“You must go off somewhere else,” she scolded him. They were all walking toward the royal enclosure, because Griselda had heard that the new Duchess of Clarence had arrived. Somehow they had drawn slightly ahead of Mayne, who had Sylvie and Josie on either arm.“I shan’t,” he said into her ear. “I can’t.”

“You should be finding a young lady to court,” she said. There was something in his eyes that made her feel groggy and quite unlike her capable self. Hadn’t she decided to find a spouse for herself as well?