My Lady's Pleasure (20 page)

Miss Mumford wouldn’t have been more surprised if Alexandra had kicked her. The girl had never stood up to her in that way! She was so taken aback that she forgot just what it was that she wouldn’t allow.

But Alexandra wasn’t finished. “I am nineteen years old, and I believe I have proven myself to be a young lady of good judgment and modest demeanor.” Had she been able to stand, she would have drawn herself up to her full height. As it was, she sat up straighter in her chair and looked Miss Mumford dead in the eye. “I made the decision to wear these clothes, and I believe that decision to be consistent with modest demeanor. I am sorry to find that you disagree, but I am old enough to rely on my own judgment, and I will no longer disregard it in favor of yours.”

Miss Mumford opened her mouth to object, but no words came out. The girl’s assertion of independence struck her dumb.

“What I ask from you right now,” Alexandra continued, “is simply to be left alone. I need a bath, I need to ice my ankle, and I need to think.” She watched as her companion’s expression changed from outrage to bewilderment, and her manner softened.

“I will see you at dinner, and I know we will be friends again.”

Miss Mumford said not a word, but turned and left the girl alone to her bath, her ice, and her thoughts.

Her thoughts ran in Freddy’s direction, but not to the exclusion of all else. She was an innocent girl—naive, even—but it hadn’t escaped her that Alphonse Gerard’s attentions had also been very particular. She knew herself to be an attractive woman, and what she felt at being, as she supposed, the object of two men’s affections wasn’t surprise, exactly, but more a satisfaction at the novelty and a fresh curiosity about how it all would play out.

As the possibilities ran through her mind, there was a gentle knock at the door. “It’s just me, Alexandra,” said Lady Georgiana’s voice through the door.

Alexandra bade her come in, and she sailed through the door with a monstrously large bouquet of the finest flowers Penfield had to offer.

“I heard you were hurt,” she said from behind the flowers, “and I of course had to come see you and bring you these.” She put the vase on the dressing table.

“My injury is minor,” said Alexandra. “It certainly doesn’t merit such a beautiful arrangement of flowers.” She looked at the magnificent bouquet admiringly.

“Ah!” Georgiana said. “You must know that, when it comes to flowers and young ladies, merit is not part of the equation. We simply accept them as our due. Now,” she went on, taking a seat next to the bed where Alexandra was lying with her injured ankle raised, “tell me what happened.”

She did, from beginning to end. She told her friend about how Freddy held her, and what she felt. She told her about Miss Mumford, and her disapproval. She even told her about Gerry and his attentions. She emptied her heart to Lady Georgiana, who heard it all with attention, sympathy, and consideration.

“My goodness,” she finally said. “You have certainly had an eventful few days. And I am very sorry for the part my trousers played in your drama.”

“Your trousers played the part I assigned them, and you—and they—are blameless,” Miss Niven said. “And I am not sorry at all, for it was time for me to break the schoolroom bond that Miss Mumford thought gave her license to bully me.”

This was a Miss Niven quite a bit different from the Miss Niven who had arrived at Penfield just a few days earlier. Georgiana marveled at the change, but also worried that her friend’s newfound assertiveness might drive her to do something ill considered.

“Mightn’t you want Miss Mumford’s advice on those other questions, the ones involving Freddy and Gerry?” Georgiana ventured cautiously. “She and I certainly differ in our opinions, but you might benefit from hearing all sides, and I think she has your best interests at heart.”

“I think she does, and I don’t intend to cut her out altogether. I simply want us to be friends, and not child and nursemaid.”

Given Miss Niven’s spirits, which seemed almost rebellious, Georgiana thought she should refrain from offering any advice that might inflame them further. Instead, she excused herself, saying she must dress for dinner.

“As must I,” said Alexandra, “and I find that, on the one day I need her assistance in dressing, I have rendered it impossible for Miss Mumford to help me.” She laughed. “I suppose I must do my best.”

“Nonsense. I will send Hortense to you. I have not injured my ankle, and can dress without her.”

“That is very good of you.” Alexandra reached her hand out to press Georgiana’s. “Thank you.”

Georgiana was as good as her word, and in a few minutes Hortense knocked at the door. In the maid’s capable hands, Alexandra was dressed and ready for dinner with ten minutes to spare. A servant had dropped off a cane, thoughtfully sent by Lady Loughlin, and Alexandra limped downstairs.

Most of the guests were assembled, and she was fussed over no end. Lady Loughlin ensconced her in the most comfortable chair in the drawing room, and brought her the choicest tidbits from the table. Freddy, who had returned from the Glück dairy just in time for dinner, never left her side, and entertained her with stories of the trouble that he and his older brother had gotten into when they were boys. Lady Georgiana, who had known Freddy in his callow youth, sat by and laughingly interjected whenever he strayed too far from what she knew to be the truth.

But Alexandra kept looking about her for the people who weren’t there. She wanted to make things right with Miss Mumford, and that lady’s absence boded ill for a swift reconciliation. She also wanted to see Gerry, whose boisterous good spirits were always welcome.

When the meal was almost over, Alexandra was gratified to see Miss Mumford, as unobtrusively as possible, take a seat on the outskirts of the little group that had surrounded her. Immediately, she extended her hand. “Dear Miss Mumford,” she said, “please come join us. Freddy has been telling us the most extraordinary stories, and you really must hear.”

Miss Mumford was glad to be welcomed by her charge, but she had decidedly mixed feelings about what had passed between them earlier that day. She did recognize that Miss Niven was a grown woman, and knew that her own manner toward her hadn’t adjusted as it should. But she also had personal pride, and faith in her own good judgment, and she couldn’t have that judgment scorned without feeling it as an affront.

What resolved the issue in her mind was the prudence, if not the absolute necessity, of making sure her employment continued. The work was light, the pay was good, and she was willing to swallow the indignity and make it up with Alexandra. And so she smiled and moved in to join the group.

Gerry, however, never appeared.

Almost every one of the Loughlins’ assembled guests had been busy that day, and their collective fatigue broke up the party earlier than usual. Georgiana helped Alexandra up to her room, and left her with a promise that Hortense would come and help the injured lady get to bed. As she walked back to her own room, she saw Bruce Barnes coming from the other direction.

She found that his mere appearance quickened her pulse. “Good evening, Mr. Barnes,” she said with a smile.

He returned her smile. “I thought we had settled the little matter of Christian names.”

“And so we have. Let me start again. Good evening, Bruce.”

“Good evening, Georgiana. As it is a fine evening, and still early, I thought you might like to come out for a walk. We’ve electrified some of the paths, and the grounds are quite a sight at night.”

Georgiana was flushed with the pleasure of the evening, with the expectation of an interlude with Barnes, and not a little with wine. “Let me get my bonnet,” she said, and went into her room.

Barnes waited in the hall as Georgiana prepared herself to go out and gave instructions to her maid. “I won’t be out long,” she told Hortense, “and if it’s possible to get some warm milk when I return, that would be lovely.” Hortense said she thought such a thing could be managed, and out her lady went.

When they got out-of-doors, Barnes led them in the direction of the lake where Gerry had taken her and her friend punting just that morning. “That’s the longest path with lighting, and there’s more lighting around the lake. It’s quite beautiful,” he explained.

They walked in silence. At first, Georgiana felt the need to fill it with conversation, but it didn’t seem appropriate to talk about the usual things one talked about when filling silence. The weather, the party, the house—all seemed quite beside the point. So she contented herself with the quiet, and soon began to feel Barnes’s physical being as a more substantial filler of the void than any conversation could have been.

They reached the little lake, and it was as beautiful as Barnes had promised. Small electric lights had been strung around the entire circumference. They shed an eerie light on the trees lining the bank, and their reflection dotted the surface of the water.

Georgiana stopped to look, and Barnes stood behind her, his hands resting lightly on her shoulders. “It’s quite breathtaking,” she said, turning to address him. “I’m not at all used to electric light. We’ve only just begun to install it at Eastley.”

“The Loughlins enjoy being first, I think,” Barnes said. “And, seeing this, I can’t say I blame them.” He moved his hands down her back, and clasped her around the waist. “But I have something else in store for you,” he whispered in her ear.

“Do you indeed?” she murmured, her eyes closing as she breathed in his nearness.

He took her by the hand and led her around to a grove of trees on one side of the lake. In the middle of the grove, almost completely obscured by the foliage, was a little shed. “You know what’s in there?” he asked her.

She shook her head, not having the foggiest notion.

“The pump.”

“The pump?” She was bewildered. Why was this man showing her the pump?

“We use it to circulate the water and aerate the lake,” he explained. “Otherwise, it would have algae, and no one would want to swim in it.”

“I am exceedingly glad to know it. And so you are a hydrologist as well as being a landscape designer?” She still had no idea what the point of all this was.

He laughed, and she saw that he was doing this deliberately. She donned her best little pout and put her hands on her hips. “Could you please tell me why I’m here, looking at a shed that contains a pump that aerates a lake and prevents algae so people can swim?”

“It’s the swimming part,” he said, and began to unbutton his shirt. “But not just the swimming part. Come in and you’ll see.”

With that, he stripped and dived into the water.

She hesitated, but only for a moment. She wore more clothes than Barnes, and it took her longer to get out of them, but within a very few minutes she dived in beside him.

The water was cool, but it refreshed rather than chilled. It had been a long time since she’d swum in a lake, and she relished the feeling of the water moving along her skin as she paddled out to where Barnes was standing in chest-high water.

What was chest-high for him was shoulder-high for her, and the buoyancy of her body under the water meant that her feet just skimmed the pebbly bottom. Until, that is, Barnes picked her up by the waist and brought her face level with his. She wrapped her legs around his middle and her arms around his neck, and they stood there together, saying nothing, enjoying the sensation of water and skin and cool evening air.

Georgiana leaned back so everything but her face was in the water, her legs still wrapped around Barnes. She swished her head back and forth, feeling the resistance of the water in her hair, and feeling also her connection to—and desire for—this man.

Barnes watched her and smiled. He reached out and caressed her breasts, which were floating almost independently of her body, their erect nipples poking up through the surface of the water. He ran his fingers down her ribs like strings of a harp, pausing at each one as though he were checking to see that they were all there.

Georgiana closed her eyes. She felt a slow, easy building of excitement, counterbalanced by the relaxing influence of the water, which now felt quite warm to her.

Barnes leaned over, put his hands behind her back, and gently lifted her up to him. “There’s something I want to show you,” he said.

“I hope it isn’t a pump,” she answered playfully.

He only smiled enigmatically and started walking toward the shore, a little off to the left of where they had dived into the water. Although they were walking toward the land, the water wasn’t getting any shallower, and soon they were just a few feet from shore, but still in water that reached Barnes’s abdomen.

He reached around his back and unhooked her feet, took her by the waist, and turned her around so her back was up against him, and they were both standing on the bottom, facing shore. He took her right hand in his. “Feel this,” he said, and stretched her arm out under the water.

At first, she didn’t feel anything, and wondered what he could possibly be talking about. But he moved her hand a little farther down under the water and then she felt it—a powerful, directed stream of water cutting through the still lake. She curled her fingers into it and felt the water rushing between them and swirling into her cupped palm.

“It’s the pump,” Barnes whispered. “And I think you’re going to enjoy it.”

She turned her head and looked at him curiously. What
was
it with him and his bloody pump? And then she saw his meaningful look, illuminated by the electric lights, and it began to dawn on her. She was glad the lights weren’t any brighter, though, because she felt her face coloring as she realized how slow she’d been to take his meaning.

Barnes leaned over and reached his hands down to her thighs. He separated her legs, just a little, and stroked her inner thighs. The slippery sensation of it sent a chill up through Georgiana’s body, and she gave a pleasurable shudder. Then she felt his fingers work their way up and up, until they reached the seat of pleasure where her legs met.