Promise of Pleasure (5 page)

“No, just ribbons.”

“How about a tonic that makes you irresistible to him? You slip it into his soup or his brandy, and after he drinks it, he will kill to have you.”

Mary chuckled, humored by his aggressive selling. Unsuspecting females often acquired these sorts of fake medicinals—and swore by them—but she was a modern woman and unaffected by superstition or nonsense.

There was no cure for what ailed her.

“I’m not marrying Lord Redvers. I wouldn’t
want
to marry Lord Redvers. He would be absolutely wrong for me. So if you have no ribbons, I’ll be going.”

She might have left, but he clasped her wrist, turned over her hand, and studied her palm. He traced a finger over and over the center as if an imperative message was written there.

After a lengthy assessment, he sighed with dismay.

“What?” she asked, even though she hadn’t planned to encourage him. “What do you see?”

“You would like to marry someday, yes? But just not the fancy lord?”

“How did you guess?”

“It is what all women crave.”

He evaluated her, and it seemed that he could read her mind, that he comprehended how lonely she was.

“You have hopes for a certain man,” he said, “but he has never appreciated you. He has never valued you as he ought. Am I correct?”

Stunned by his perceptive abilities, she gaped, then nodded.

“Well ... yes.”

“
C’est scandaleux!
You’ve been waiting so long! You’ve been so patient!”

She nodded again, her discontentment bubbling up. “I suppose I have been.”

“I have what you need,” he claimed.

“You do?”

“Here.”

He opened a small box and retrieved a vial containing what appeared to be red wine. He placed it in her palm, carefully, as if it was priceless and fragile.

“What’s in it?”

“It is the Spinster’s Cure.”

“The what?”

“The Spinster’s Cure,” he repeated, as if it was a remedy with which everyone was familiar.

“You’re joking.”

She tried to give it back to him, but he wouldn’t take it.

“You laugh now,” he advised, “but you do not understand magic.”

“Not only do I not
understand
magic, I don’t believe in it.”

“You will,” he vowed. “If you drink this tonic while staring at the man you are destined to wed, you will have him as your husband. Within one month, he will be yours.”

“He will not.”

“He will!
Je garantie!
”

She peeked in the vial, shook it, sniffed it. “What? No eye of newt? No bat’s wing? It looks like wine to me. It doesn’t seem very mysterious.”

“Pah! I don’t need a witch’s brew to help you. This is an ancient recipe passed down from my grandmother—and all her grandmothers before her.”

Obviously, he’d seen Felicity and Redvers giving her money, and he was hoping to wheedle it out of her. But she wasn’t about to be gulled into parting with it for a worthless elixir.

“No, thank you. I don’t require any assistance in managing my personal affairs.”

He scrutinized her, then threw up his arms in disgust. “You think I cheat you! You think I try to steal your money with false healing! So ... you will have it for free.”

“Have what?”

“The cure! You will have the Spinster’s Cure for free. I can’t bear that you are so unhappy, so it is my gift to you.”

He pressed the vial into her hand and curled her fingers around it, as if sealing the deal.

“I don’t want it,” she insisted a final time.

“Yes, you do. Just remember: You must drink it while staring at your true love. While staring at him!
Il est tres important!
Do not forget!”

“I won‘t, I won’t,” she grouched, deciding it was pointless to argue.

“When it works, and you are blissfully wed, you will return and pay me double what I am owed.”

“I’ll be sure to,” she fibbed, intending that they would never cross paths again.

She hurried off, the tiny vial hot on her skin, and she thought about tossing it in the ditch, but for some reason, she didn’t.

She tucked it into her reticule to keep it safe and sound on the long walk home.

 

PHILLIP Dudley who—when he was running a scam—went by the alias Philippe Dubois, peered down the road, watching Miss Barnes scurry away.

He was a charlatan and confidence artist. His expertise was honing in on a mark’s weakest spot, on manipulating it, and he earned his living through deceit and chicanery.

“Did she say her surname was
Barnes
?” his pretty, sensible sister, Clarinda, asked as she climbed down from the wagon.

“Yes.” His French accent was suspiciously absent.

“Isn’t that the name of the top-lofty family over on the estate?”

“I believe so.”

“Is it wise to scam her then? She could bring a load of trouble down on us.”

“The rich are the only ones with money for frivolities.”

“Money!” she scolded. “I didn’t see any coins change hands, and I was spying on you the whole time. You have to stop giving away your concoctions. How are we to eat if everything is free?”

“Consider it an investment. She’ll reflect on what I told her, she’ll fret over it, then she’ll drink the tonic—after which it will fail to work, so she’ll come back for other remedies.”

“For which she’ll pay dearly?”

“Of course. We’ll be able to stay in the area for weeks—maybe months—on the cash she’ll fork over.”

“I don’t know, Phillip. She might be a Barnes, but she seemed impoverished to me. You saw her dress. She’s nearly a pauper.”

“But in affairs of the heart, finances don’t matter,” he sagely counseled. “She’s lonely and alone, and she’s desperate to be loved. She’ll try potions; she’ll try curses; she’ll try blessings, and I happen to have them all in ample supply.”

“The poor, gullible fool,” Clarinda grumbled.

“Isn’t she, though?”

“Who’d want a man that badly?”

“You’d be surprised.”

 

“WHERE are my ribbons?”

“What ribbons?”

“The ones I asked you to buy from that peddler,” Felicity said.

“Oh ... ah ... he didn’t have any.”

Mary glanced away. After her ludicrous discussion with the smug vendor, how could she be expected to recollect something as silly as hair ribbons?

“Why didn’t you get some at the milliner’s?”

“I completely forgot. I’m sorry.”

Mary looked around the parlor. She was seated on a sofa with Victoria and Cassandra, waiting for the butler to announce supper. Redvers was present, as were his guests, Mrs. Bainbridge and Mr. Adair.

Mary had tried to refuse the invitation to dine, but Victoria had insisted, claiming Redvers had requested it, which made the event all the more wretched.

Why would he care if she attended? Why torment her?

With the group attired in their finery, she was conspicuously out of place. She had two dresses—a brown one and a gray one—with the brown being the newer of the two, so she’d worn it to the meal, but she couldn’t bear to appear so frumpy. Especially in front of Mrs. Bainbridge, who constantly smirked at Mary’s plain clothes.

Since Mary hadn’t purchased Felicity’s ribbons, Felicity would pitch a fit, and Mary hated to have Redvers witness it.

She loathed him yet she was fascinated by him, and she wanted to strut over to Felicity, to stare into her arrogant face and say:
He may be about to propose to you, but would you like to know what he did with me out in the woods yesterday afternoon?

“Where is my money?” Felicity snapped. “Or are you intending to keep it?”

“Don’t be absurd,” Mary retorted. “Why would I keep your money?”

“Go get it! This instant!”

Blazing with humiliation, Mary stood and left, her head held high. Over in the corner, she thought Redvers might have flashed her a sympathetic glance, but she was sure it was her imagination.

She trudged up to her room and sat on the bed. Tears flooded her eyes.

She was so unhappy! How much longer could she continue on like this? Why couldn’t she alter her plight? She’d always tried to be a good, kind person. Where was her reward? Was there no justice in the world?

She opened her reticule, and as she did, she noticed the vial of Spinster’s Cure. She clasped it in her palm, running her thumb over the smooth glass.

Why not?
a voice whispered.
Why not try it?

How could it hurt? Her life was so dreary. Even the tiniest beneficial effect would be better than none.

Clutching the vial, she took Felicity’s coin, as well as the one Redvers had given her and stormed back to the parlor.

For once, her civility and reserve had vanished. She was spitting mad, and she felt as if she might do any wild thing.

She went straight to Felicity and flung the coin into her lap.

“What . . . ?” Felicity sputtered. “How dare you!”

“Mary!” Victoria scolded.

“Here’s your precious money,” Mary seethed. “I hope you choke on it.”

“Mary!” Victoria repeated more loudly. “Where are your manners?”

Mary whirled on Redvers, tossing his coin in the same discourteous fashion.

“Here’s yours, too,” she said. “Why don’t you use it to embarrass some other poor, unfortunate girl?”

There was a stunned silence. Mouths dropped in shock. Mrs. Bainbridge snickered.

“We’ve finally pushed her over the edge,” Cassandra mumbled. “I always suspected we might.”

Mary spun and marched out, unaware of what an imperious, aggrieved spectacle she presented.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Victoria huffed.

“I’m not hungry,” Mary replied without slowing, “and even if I was, I wouldn’t eat with any of you!”

After two decades of misery, it was the only truly rude behavior she’d ever exhibited toward Victoria, and all in all, she was quite satisfied with herself. On the morrow, she’d have to grovel and apologize, but for now, she was unfettered and unconstrained.

She kept on down the hall, then out to the terrace at the rear of the house. Harold was lumbering down the garden path, eager to arrive in time for supper.

She plopped down on a bench, watching him come, letting him get closer and closer. When she could make out the striped pattern on his vest, she tugged the cork from the vial and raised it to her lips.

Harold waved to her, and she glared at him—hard—then poured the liquid into her mouth. She’d started to swallow, when suddenly, a shadow fell over her.

Harold was blocked from view.

“Hello, Miss Barnes,” Lord Redvers said. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Redvers?” she wailed, coughing and sputtering, trying to
un
swallow the elixir, which was impossible.

He was directly in front of her, his wide shoulders taking up her entire line of sight. She lunged from side to side, desperate to peer around him, but she couldn’t see Harold anywhere.

There was only Redvers, and no one else.

CASSANDRA Barnes Stewart shuffled her deck of cards, the noise sounding inordinately loud in the quiet room.

It was very late, everyone abed, yet she sat at a table in the parlor all alone, the light of a single candle keeping her company. She was too wide awake to sleep, and she leaned back in her chair and gulped an unladylike swig of brandy, savoring the burn as it slid to her belly.

She smirked, disgusted by how much she’d changed from the innocent child she’d been.

Once, she’d been as proper and fussy as Felicity. Once, she’d been sixteen and had stupidly supposed that events would turn out exactly as her mother had planned. Cassandra had swallowed Victoria’s folderol about husbands and status and making the right marriage.

That is, until Cassandra’s wedding night. Leave it to Victoria to send a bride to her marital bed to naively suffer the consequences.

Cassandra’s spouse had been cruel and sadistic, but he’d had the good grace to die after two years of despair.

He’d also crassly wasted Cassandra’s dowry, so she was twenty-two and penniless and living with her mother again. Her plight was little better than Mary’s, whom she’d frequently scorned for no crime other than being impoverished.

Cassandra and Felicity had never been close, but she couldn’t stand to observe as Redvers sniffed around Felicity, and before the ceremony, Cassandra would have a private chat with her sister. Felicity deserved to know what was coming, though she wouldn’t believe the truth. What girl would?

Footsteps traipsed down the hall, a sign that her solitude was about to be interrupted. When Redvers’s friend, Paxton Adair, strode through the door, she frowned.

What was he doing awake? She had to socialize with him during the day. Must he inflict himself on her in the dark of night, too?