She tried to do it, but quickly grew flustered. When she fumbled and looked at her hands, he tsked and made her raise her chin again.
“I can’t,” she said. “I suppose I’m a failure before I’ve even begun.”
“Do you want to give up?”
She blinked at him through tears. “Would you have left Lady Priscilla in Oxfordshire if you had married her?”
Her question, so abrupt, so heartfelt, made him wish he had a pistol at hand to take his own life, or at least injure himself badly enough that he needn’t answer. He thought for a long moment, then told her the truth. “I wouldn’t have married her until after my father died.”
“He’s going to die for sure?” she asked in a trembling voice.
“Yes, he’s very ill. He rants and raves and goes into convulsions. He must be constantly minded, lest he wander about and come to danger.”
“Like my sleepwalking?”
“It’s nothing at all like your sleepwalking.” Minette shied back at his sharp tone. He brushed away her tears, despising himself a little more again. He knew she didn’t mean to be a ninny. She understood so little, and she was so innocent that August loathed to explain. “My father’s heart and mind have been ravaged by this...disease.”
“What disease?”
Did Minette know about the French pox and how one acquired it? Did he wish her to? “It’s a disease gentlemen get if they consort with the wrong sort of women,” he explained. “That’s really all I’d like to say. It’s nothing to concern you, and nothing you can catch by being around him. They’ve tried to treat it with various remedies but it’s only gotten worse.”
“Oh.”
“For my mother’s and father’s privacy, I don’t want anyone to know. Although I suppose your aunt will spread the tale now, or at least awaken speculation.”
“I’m sorry,” Minette said, wringing her hands. “I’m so sorry about all of this, about angering you and bringing my aunt here, and disturbing your peace. I suppose I deserved that paddling today, although I wish you hadn’t brought that horrid block of wood to London. If I had my wish, you’d fling it into a fire, a very hot, very consuming fire so it would be instantly incinerated, but I imagine that’s not going to happen.”
“No.” He gave her a warning look. “No one is going to fling it into a fire.”
She held his gaze longer than he expected, before she blushed and looked away. “I don’t want to give up.”
“What?”
“The pianoforte.” She looked at the music and determinedly set about to play again. August felt slightly muddled, the way he often felt around her, with her flighty conversation and changes of subject. He also felt a strange enjoyment at her playing, although she missed half the notes or more. Or perhaps he felt enjoyment in her company this bleak night, when he was not at all sure of his thoughts or his yearnings. He slid closer to her, and put an arm around her so he might cover both her hands with his.
“Close your eyes and feel the music,” he said.
“I can’t close my eyes and read the notes.”
“I’ll do the notes, you feel the tempo and melody of the minuet. Relax your fingers. There, that’s good.”
This exercise brought them in close contact. Perhaps too close. He could smell the sweetness of her hair, and feel the tickle of it against his cheek. Her fingers were so small, so warm. He’d written this minuet, just as he’d written the music he was playing when she came in. He wrote so much music, none of it especially meaningful, but he thought he’d always remember the feel of her fingers and the scent of her hair when he played this piece.
“Oh, that’s much better,” she said with a nod. “It’s easier when you help me play the notes.”
“Music isn’t supposed to be easy. You have to learn and practice. You must have a hunger to get better, even if it means hard work. Perhaps the reason you’re a ‘disaster’ at everything is because you don’t try hard enough.”
Her hands lost a little of their energy beneath his. Why was he scolding her, for God’s sake? Minette was Minette. He couldn’t change her capricious ways now. They were a great part of her charm.
What were
his
charms? He couldn’t imagine anything in his taciturn nature that might attract a blithe spirit like Minette. What was it about him that had ensnared her affections so many years ago?
“Try on your own now,” he prompted, once he’d finished guiding her through a particularly complex passage.
He could see the effort in her tense fingers, and the set of her shoulders. She wanted to please him. She loved him, and he couldn’t imagine why, except that she’d gotten it into her head that it was true. He didn’t dare ask
why do you love me
, because she’d answer with some long-winded nonsense about sun-tinged clouds, and rainbows, and frolicking squirrels.
When she finished and looked up at him, he said, “You did that very well,” and her smile blinded him. Her eyes... How had he never noticed the seductive shape of her eyes, and their deep blue color? He didn’t know her anymore, which unsettled him greatly with all the other change upending his life. He shuffled the music around to have something to do, something to look at besides her adoring gaze. “If you continue to practice, you shall make excellent progress,” he said. “But tonight you ought to go to bed. It’s very late.”
He rose and took her hand, and guided her up from the bench. She clutched the front of her dressing gown and looked toward the stairs. “I’m not sure I can find my room.”
“I’ll walk you there.”
He went ahead of her, setting a brisk pace. He wished he could have handed her off to a footman. When they arrived, he made a little bow and stood staunchly on the hallway side of the threshold. “I hope you pass a restful night.”
She looked at the floor, then met his gaze, blushing pink. “Are you going to come to my room tonight? Perhaps a bit later?”
“I think you had better get some sleep. You’ve only just arrived and it’s been a long day.”
She’d still have the marks on her bottom from when he’d spanked her. He couldn’t deal with that, not least of all because it might arouse him, and then what? Would he make love to her like a husband did a wife? Or like a lofty lord made love to a whore, or a servant girl named Mary?
“Will you come to my room some day?” she asked in a quiet voice. “Because I wouldn’t mind.”
“Yes, some day,” he said, “but not tonight.” He forced a smile, pecked her on the cheek, and retreated to his study for a much-needed drink.
Within a week, Minette had much improved at playing the minuet. However, she’d had absolutely no success in tempting her husband to her bed. It tormented her that he refused to consummate their marriage. Well, she supposed it had already been consummated, but not in the proper way, that is to say, after they were legally married, with full comprehension of who the other person was. It seemed a terrible, careless omission, something that ought to be done without delay, but her husband politely declined to do it, because he hadn’t wanted to marry her, or thought her too much like a sister.
She hated to think he purposely avoided her, but on a typical day she only saw August at dinner and piano lessons, both of which were often cut short due to some crisis with his father. As for other company, August’s mother made it clear with scornful glances and freezing conversation that she would have preferred Priscilla as a daughter-in-law. Sometimes Minette wished she’d obeyed her husband and stayed at Barrymore Park. By the second week, she had started sleepwalking again, drifting down the stairs and wandering the halls as if trying to find her way back to Oxfordshire in her sleep.
Perhaps the reason you’re a “disaster” at everything is because you don’t try hard enough.
August’s words resounded in her head each time he turned away from her, each time Lady Barrymore frowned at her, each time Minette crawled into her cold bed alone. She would not give up on her marriage, not ever, not until the day she died. If she must fight for her husband’s affections, she resolved to fight with every weapon at hand, and try anything, even lowering and risky schemes, and so here she was on Garrett Street on an unseasonably cold morning, creeping down the alley from the milliner’s shop she’d just pretended to enter after convincing her maid she must stay in the coach.
In her years-long effort to collect tidbits of information about August, she had learned that he often visited a woman named Dirty Esmeralda, who resided in a rose-colored house on Garrett Street. Minette didn’t remember at what age she had first learned about August and Dirty Esmeralda. She had been young enough, in her covert eavesdropping, to believe the woman’s name was related to a lack of baths.
Now that Minette was older, she understood the nature of his visits with Esmeralda. The “quality” side of her wanted nothing to do with such a low person, but some other, more desperate side understood that this Dirty Esmeralda would know precisely what August liked in bed. What might tempt him and make him crazed with desire, crazed enough to overcome this silly view of her as his sister. She pulled her great, obscuring cloak and hood around her face and mounted the back stairs of Esmeralda’s respectably tidy domicile. Thank goodness there was only one rose-colored house on Garrett Street. Minette knocked as hard as she could, trying to shore up her waning courage.
The door opened. A sagging, wrinkled woman squinted out, looking her over from head to toe. “What do yer want? This ain’t an hour for callers.”
Oh my. Dirty Esmeralda was nothing like she’d expected. She tried to picture her husband...and this woman...
“Who is it, Antha?” came a strident and slightly accented voice.
“Some fine lady.” The old woman turned back to Minette with a scowl. “If you come to ask Esme to leave off with your husband, you’d best take it up with him yourself.”
“That’s not why I’m here,” said Minette. A statuesque woman appeared behind the crone. She was stunningly beautiful, with wide brown eyes and copious amounts of wavy black hair.
“Why are you here then?” She was in a pale pink dressing gown, with a cup of tea. “This is my resting time, you know.”
“Are you Dirty Esmeralda?” Minette asked.
“I might be. It depends on who’s asking.”
“Oh.” Now that she was face to face with this doe-eyed, enchanting creature, she completely lost her nerve. If this was what August preferred, she had no chance at winning his attentions. “You’ll think I’m silly,” she blurted out. “I’ve only come to ask your advice on how to... Well, this is terribly humiliating, but my husband and I have been married for three weeks now and he hasn’t... Well.” Minette looked around. “Perhaps I ought not to have come. I’m sure you are in great need of...of rest.”
She turned to leave, but the voluptuous woman stopped her with a hand upon her arm. “It’s cold as blazes today. Come inside a little while, and have some tea.”
The old woman shuffled off, and Esmeralda led her into a cozy sitting room with deep pink velvet-paneled walls and a roaring fireplace. She offered her a seat on a luxuriously embroidered divan, and perched upon the chair opposite. Antha took Minette’s cloak and brought her some tea as she stared about the parlor in wonder. These ladies of the night lived rather like royalty. A white ball of fur jumped in Minette’s lap and rubbed a cold nose against her chin. After a closer investigation—and a sneeze—Minette identified the creature as feline.
“I’ve never seen a cat like this before,” she said, putting down her tea to stroke its long, wispy fur.
“I got it as a gift, from a place called Persia. Shoo her away if she bothers you, but I’ll tell you she doesn’t often sit in people’s laps. She must like you.”
“I like cats.” Minette scratched it behind the ears. “Unfortunately, they make me sneeze.”
“Go on then, Salome,” she said to the cat, lifting her from Minette’s lap. “Go to the kitchen and ask Antha for some cream.”
Minette sniffled and brushed the cat fur from her fingers. “I don’t have much time, so I suppose I must be very bold and wade right into matters. I need a favor. A great, desperate, very important favor, which I will do my best to repay if I ever have the chance. Oh, I ought to have said my name is Minette.”
“You can call me Esme.” The woman watched her in a rather amused way. “You’ve recently married Lord Augustine, haven’t you?”
“Yes.” A flush rose in Minette’s cheeks. “And I know you know him. Please, I’m not angry. Well, I’m rather sad, and I want to cry and tear out my hair when I think of him in your arms, but that isn’t your fault, so let there be no tension between us. I’m entirely aware that...gentlemen will... Well... To return to the topic... Oh, this is a wretched thing to admit, but Lord Augustine finds me wholly unappealing. In fact, I would go beyond that, and confess that I repel him.”
Esme’s brows drew together in a dark line. “I’m sure that’s not true. He married you, didn’t he?”
“There’s an entire story behind that, and I haven’t time to tell it. Just believe me when I say he doesn’t feel attracted to me in the least. We grew up in a very close way, like brother and sister. Now that I’m his wife, he feels...incestuous about the whole thing.”
“Oh. That’s unfortunate.” Esme’s sharp eyes studied her. What did she see? The blonde curls, the blue eyes, the pretty, ladylike features? What Minette would have given to possess Esme’s bold coloring and sensual bearing, if it would make August feel passionately toward her.
“What am I to do?” Minette cried. “I love him to madness. I adore him, I always have. I want us to have a true marriage, with closeness and romance and babies, and passion and affection. I want him to kiss me because he can’t bear not to, and give me those smoldering looks that gentlemen give the ladies they love. I want him to be content and happy in our marriage. You see, I’ve cared for him forever, for years and years. And so I thought, perhaps, if you would not consider it too much a betrayal of his confidence, that you might tell me the things you do with him that make him want to be with you. Because then, perhaps, I can try to do them and capture his attention in the area of...bedroom matters.”
Somewhere over the course of this outpouring, Esme had propped her chin on her hand. “Bedroom matters. Hmm. Are you a virgin then?”