Pleasure For Pleasure (19 page)

M
ayne was conscious that he ought to be the happiest man on earth. Gigue had won her heart. Not only was he the richer by some thousands of pounds, but Rafe's entry had been soundly beaten. There's nothing like trouncing a dear friend to make one's joy complete.

What's more, he had his exquisite fiancée on his arm, and she was showing every sign of enjoying the Ascot. He glanced down at Sylvie. She was wearing a daring French coat of imperial satin in a lavender-blossom color. She had informed him of the particulars; in fact, he felt he knew her costume down to the color of its thread: the lilac color, bordered at the
waist, the brocade ribbon of a shaded jonquille color (whatever that was), the scalloping around the feet, and the
pièce de résistance
, an Indian turban cap with a white sarsenet parasol with Vandyke floss fringe.

It wasn't that he didn't appreciate the picture she made, tripping along in her Indian turban. She looked dainty, French, and charmingly
au courant
. Perhaps it was just that he wasn't a turban sort of man. Or it might be the way the French coat pressed Sylvie's front so that she looked (a thought never to be revealed) as flat as a plate in the front. There were moments when women's fashion was inexplicable from a man's point of view.

Josie's costume was altogether more simple. She was wearing a walking dress in a scarlet color, very simple, rather than trimmed and fringed and
au courant
. She'd taken off her bonnet, and was swinging it from the hand that wasn't tucked under his elbow. And she was paying no attention whatsoever to Sylvie's observations, but kept craning her neck to watch horses thunder by on the track.

She looked as fascinated by the racetrack as if she'd never seen a horse run before, whereas Sylvie showed little interest in the sport. It was probably just that Josie was practically still in the nursery, though you'd never know it now that she'd discarded that hideous corset. She presented an entirely delicious picture of curvy womanhood. No garment in the world could make Josie flat as a plate, not even that horrendous corset. In fact, Mayne had noticed that every man who passed them was ogling her greedily.

“Mayne!”

He turned and looked down at his fiancée, who was looking up at him inquiringly.

“Boots of scarlet cloth trimmed with velvet,” she said pointedly.

Mayne prided himself on quick recoveries. “Yes indeed,”
he said, with all the experience of years of talking to Griselda.

“But the gold and pearls—blended, you understand,” Sylvie said, wrinkling her nose. “Entirely overdone, don't you think?”

“Yes, indeed.” His attention wandered away again. Josie had stopped and was standing on tiptoe, watching as a group of horses thundered past them. “Look!” she cried, pulling his arm. “Unless I'm mistaken, one of Rafe's horses has won!”

Mayne peered over to the final line, and sure enough, it seemed that the winning horse was wearing Rafe's colors. He supposed he could allow Rafe a victory now and then.

“Divided on the forehead, like horns,” Sylvie said to him.

“Of course.” Surely they had seen enough? He was longing to return to the box where he could watch the races from a decent vantage point.

“Mayne!” Sylvie was laughing at him, he realized with a start. “You're not paying the slightest bit of attention, are you? I just observed that the Duchess of Piddlesworth was wearing a horn of pearls on her forehead and you agreed!”

“I do apologize,” Mayne said, although he felt rather irritated, to tell the truth. “Would you like to return to our box now? It is rather difficult to see the races from here.”

Sylvie would never do anything quite so graceless as to pout…but there were those who might call her expression a pout. “How tedious,” she said, frowning at him. “I would much prefer to continue to look for Countess Mitford. I promised her that I would tell her something of the French way of arranging a drawing room.”

Mayne felt a sudden, mad desire to get away from her. “Yes, let's look for Countess Mitford,” he said. “I'm sure she is waiting for you with bated breath.”

Sylvie's eyes narrowed slightly but she said nothing. She was, Mayne realized, far too well-mannered to engage in
something as undignified as brangling in a public arena. “I apologize,” he said, looking down at her again.

But she smiled at him. “I was just thinking that you are akin to my father.” She wrinkled her nose. “He is, you understand, quite obsessed with the fate of his dogs. Are they well, are they strong, do they need a constitutional dose of barleywater?”

“Barleywater?”

She nodded. “The poor animals dare not show a yellow eye or he puts them on a special diet of steamed broccoli and barleywater.”

Mayne shuddered. “I fail to see any connection between myself and your father.” Josie had let go of his arm and was standing just beside the fence, watching as another heat of horses made their first sweep around the turn.

“Josie!” Sylvie cried. “Do back up. You'll become quite dusty.”

But Josie didn't hear her. She was clapping as a slender chestnut broke from the pack and swept forward, her little ears cocked far back. Even from here Mayne recognized the stride of a winner.

“Who is she?” Josie called back to him.

He shook his head. “Palmont's colors—”

A gentleman moved next to Josie and was eagerly talking to her, and then they watched, shoulder-to-shoulder, as the horses swept about again. A tall, gaunt gelding was gaining on the inside…gaining…gaining.

“No, no!” Josie screamed wildly.

Sylvie made a small sound of disapproval. “Who is that
man
whom Josephine is standing beside?”

“Lord Tallboys,” Mayne said. Tallboys was watching Josie more closely than the horse. But she was completely swept into the excitement of the race, her cheeks pink, gloved hands gripping the railing tightly. “Rafe introduced him to Josie at the Mucklowe ball.”

“Is he respectable?”

Mayne frowned down at her. “Do you think that I would allow Josie to be in his presence were he not? He's a good man with an excellent estate.”

“Unmarried?” Sylvie asked in a hushed voice. And then: “Excellent!”

Just then the brown horse seemed to gather herself and stretch her neck, and before the crowd could even take a breath she swept past the winner's post. Josie was screaming and waving her discarded bonnet; Tallboys gave a roar of approval. Then Tallboys was dancing Josie around in an exuberant circle.

Sylvie laughed, watching them. “I think little Josephine just made a conquest.”

“Indeed,” Mayne said, watching how Josie's curls were flying as Tallboys swept her around. She was laughing and laughing. Tallboys was a bit young for her. Couldn't be more than four-and-twenty.

Which was just the right age.

Sylvie moved forward and Tallboys instantly came to a halt and gave a boyish bow. “You must forgive me,” he said, “I'm afraid that Miss Essex and I were overcome by the exuberance of the occasion.”

Sylvie dimpled at him and Mayne watched, expecting him to get an eager glint in his eye on hearing Sylvie's charming accent. “An enchanting show of enthusiasm,” she was saying. “Perhaps you had made a feather on the race, hmmm?”

“Took a flutter,” Mayne corrected her. “Tallboys, your servant.”

Tallboys didn't seem to have understood Sylvie. He had turned back directly to Josie and had pulled out his race book. “You see,” he said, “her name is Firebrand. It's a good name, isn't it, Miss Essex?”

“I think she was too delicate to be a firebrand,” Josie said.
“Did you see how she flicked her ears after she slowed down? As if she knew she had won and was laughing.”

“She certainly knew she won; a good horse always does.”

“Some of my father's horses became quite dejected when they lost.” And then they were off, talking of Josie's father's stables.

Sylvie turned back to Mayne. “I think Lord Tallboys has found a new passion in life,” she whispered. “He will give Skevington some stiff competition.”

“Do you think so?” Mayne felt as crotchety as a man of sixty. “He's quite young.”

“They can play together, like two kittens.”

To Mayne's mind, the way Tallboys was looking at Josie had nothing to do with kittens. “We must return to the box now,” he said, pointedly not issuing Tallboys an invitation.

Tallboys was an inane fool, though he'd never noticed it before. It was a wonder that Josie had laughed at his pitiful comments. She sounded as delighted as if she were talking to Prinny himself.

It was irritating to find oneself behaving like as much as a fool as Tallboys. He'd never liked it in others, and he was too honest not to notice the same stupidity in himself. The truth of it is, Mayne told himself, that you are engaged and yet you don't
feel
quite engaged. He always thought that engagements were a matter of stolen kisses and sudden meetings of eyes.

Of course, he'd done all the business of stolen kisses in the past, and he didn't want a wife who was as light-skirted as the women he'd slept with. He had to make up his mind. Either he wanted to exchange kisses with his fiancée or he didn't.

Josie was trailing along behind Sylvie and Mayne, who seemed to be in a rather irritable mood, when suddenly a voice in her ear said, “Miss Essex?”

And when she turned in that direction, there was a portly
young man smiling down at her as if he knew her very well.

She knew his face but she couldn't place it, so she said, “Good afternoon, sir.”

“We met at a ball last week. I'm Mr. Eliot Thurman. May I take your arm?” he asked.

Mayne was continuing without her, so she did take his arm. And then before she knew it, they had wandered off in quite a different direction than Tess's box, toward the tents where they were serving refreshments.

She went along rather listlessly. After all, did it matter? Mayne was in love with his passionless fiancée, to whom Josie was beginning to take quite a dislike. Griselda had left with Darlington, and if Josie thought that there should be limits to how close one grows to the enemy, well, Griselda had not asked her.

If only Annabel had come to Ascot! But Annabel didn't want to bring Samuel into these crowds; Imogen was on her wedding trip; Tess was in Northumberland with her husband…Josie sighed. Then she roused herself. She might as well try to be polite.

“Do you have a horse entered in a race, Mr. Thurman?” she asked.

“No, I have not,” he answered. “My mother says that a gentleman must have an occupation. I'm a little too lazy for something as strenuous as smoking tobacco, so I devote myself to betting.” And he broke into a great peal of laughter: “Haw, haw, haw!”

Josie felt as if she must have missed something. “Your mother thought you ought to smoke tobacco…as an occupation?”

“It's a jest,” he said to her with a shading of disapproval in his voice.

Last time she heard it, jests were supposed to be funny. Or at least make sense.

They had walked quite beyond the tents, into the formal gardens that ringed the stables and the racetrack. “I suppose we should return,” she said, stooping to examine the primroses. But someone had made a mistake and planted evening primroses and most of them were shut up against the sun.

But Mr. Thurman paused and made an odd little noise with his throat. Josie looked at him. He did it again. Suddenly Josie had the alarmed thought that he might be having a fit of some kind. People who had that sort of sodden red color high in their cheeks were prone to seizures of the heart, or so she'd heard. She frowned at him. Surely she knew that face, and in some unpleasant context too—

A second later she realized that Thurman was having an attack of a different kind, as he pulled her into his arms and pressed his lips to hers. They were surprisingly cool and rather flabby. For a moment Josie was frozen in surprise, but then he forced a plump tongue between her lips and she began struggling to get loose.

He was surprisingly strong. Before she realized it, he had backed her under the overhanging roof of the stable. Josie felt as if she were watching from the outside: watching another girl—some other girl, not herself—struggle against the man who had her pinned against the wall. He was rolling his tongue in her mouth so that she was almost choking. Suddenly she felt her dress catch on a spur in the boards behind her and rip. She started struggling, kicking him over and over in the shins, but she was wearing slippers, and he had his feet planted solidly. She tried to kick higher, but her dress was narrow and confined her movement. She managed to wrench sideways, away from him.

He pulled back for a moment and said, “You're a feisty one.” His voice was thick, as if he were drunk. Josie filled her lungs to scream but he clamped his mouth over hers again and she almost suffocated. And then she realized to
her horror that the rip in her gown was widening. If she didn't get away it might fall clean off her body.

If she didn't—

So she did.

She raised her leg in one quick and smooth motion and planted her knee squarely in the groin that had been rubbing itself all over her dress. His hands loosed her arms instantly and she staggered to the side, hearing her dress rip on the rough boards again so that she could feel air on her back.

He staggered back, bent over, his voice coming in a high wheezy rasp. “You damned—damned—”