Pleasure For Pleasure (34 page)

J
osie sank to the floor as if her knees were made of water. She'd known it, hadn't she? She knew Mayne loved Sylvie. He'd
told
her that he loved Sylvie, back when he first made love to her. He'd told her again, in so many words, when he offered marriage and said that love wasn't important.

But it was more cruel to see him kiss a letter from Sylvie. What had she done?
Oh, what had she done?

It wasn't just Mayne's feelings for Sylvie that she'd overlooked when she married Mayne under false pretenses. Apparently she'd underestimated Sylvie's feelings as well, because otherwise why would she write him?

Perhaps Sylvie was the sort of woman who fought with
her loved ones, who threw rings back at her fiancé, and didn't mean it. Now she thought of it, Frenchwomen were notorious for that sort of drama. Sylvie probably thought that Mayne would come around in the morning, ring in hand, and beg for her hand again.

And she, Josie, with her foolish notebook full of schemes about how to win a husband, and how to arrange a marriage: she'd overlooked the most important thing of all. That a husband who loves another, no matter how enthusiastic he is in bed, is a heartbreaking companion.

None of her quips and her cleverness mattered in the face of this. She could make Mayne laugh. She could make him pant in bed. But she could never supplant the sweetness of the love he felt for Sylvie.

She could no more imagine him kissing a letter that she wrote him than she could imagine him kissing a saddle. Which was probably about where she mattered in his life: as a lusty, buxom saddle that he could ride on at will.

Josie rose, but discovered that her knees were weak, and she had to cling to the curtain for support. Finally she straightened up feeling ragged and destitute, like an ancient beggar woman.

How could she have been so stupid as to think that she wanted a husband under any circumstances? Her heart was burning like a coal in her chest.

Outside of the room she was greeted by Cockburn, who informed her that his lordship wished to leave for London within the hour.

The letter. Sylvie must have summoned him.

She walked into her bedchamber and allowed her maid to change her into a traveling costume. Blood thudded in her ears. Her eye fell on the little crimson book in which she had so carefully written down the complicated and fascinating ways by which heroines of the Minerva Press found their husbands.

Useless. She had a husband, and none of those books told
how to make someone
fall in love
, or more important—fall
out
of love. For that she needed the drug Shakespeare talked about in
A Midsummer Night's Dream
. Love-in-idleness, it was called. The fairy dropped it in a gentleman's eyes, and he promptly fell out of love with Hermia.

How could Mayne truly love Sylvie? Truly? She was lovely, of course. But he thinks my body is lovely too, Josie thought. Sylvie didn't care for horses. And she didn't, really, care for
him
.

I do, Josie thought, with every drop of longing in her body. Oh, I do. I love my husband.

She was clutching the book so hard that her fingernails made marks in its leather cover.

There was a scratch at the door. “His lordship is ready to leave for London, my lady, whenever you're ready.”

Josie got up numbly. Tess would help. Annabel was presumably on her way back to Scotland with her husband and child, and Imogen was on her honeymoon, but Tess would help.

As she left the house, Mayne came toward her. “I received a note from Sylvie,” he said, smiling as if it was of little import. “She's leaving at five o'clock on the
Excelsior,
so I thought we might see her off.”

She almost choked. “Perhaps you might say farewell for both of us. I would like to be taken to Tess's house, if you please.”

He bowed. “Of course.”

“I have a terrible headache,” she told him.

He bowed again. “My condolences.”

She climbed into the carriage, snuggled into the corner and closed her eyes. She had all of two hours on the way to London to figure out what to do.

Since no King Oberon was likely to offer her a handy dose of
love-in-idleness,
she would have to come up with Mayne's cure by herself.

D
on't argue with me,” Josie snapped. “I know it's a complicated plan, but it's the only one that I can think of.”

Tess's eyes were wide. “Complicated? It's utterly
insane,
Josie!”

“It is not insane. In fact, it is well-designed.”

“You must be joking. Tell me you're joking.”

Josie's eyes narrowed. “If you won't help me, I'll simply hire those who will.”

Tess was shaking her head. “No. You can't do this!”

“Yes, I can.”

“No, you can't! You can't drug Mayne.”

Josie waved her hand. “It's the mildest drug in the world. We give it to horses just to calm them, and Peterkin gave it to the stable boys all the time when they had to have a tooth pulled. It will simply make him sleepy and malleable.”

“You're talking about your
husband,
” Tess said, half horrified and half laughing. “How can you possibly plan something like this?”

“It's necessary,” Josie said stubbornly. “He really thinks he's in love with her, Tess.”

“Yes, but he'll come to realize—”

“No, he won't. I didn't think about it clearly until I saw him kiss her letter. I can't live with him, knowing that he loves someone else. I can't.”

“I don't believe he does love Sylvie,” Tess said, much more seriously.

“Neither do I.”

“Well, then—”

“He
thinks
he loves her.”

Tess gave a helpless little laugh. “I just don't see how—”

“Sylvie is sailing to Belgium. That's at least two nights on board ship, perhaps more.” She leaned forward. “Neither of us have been aboard ship, but you know what Mr. Tuckfield told us about his trip around the Horn of Africa with his wife.”

“He said that he almost threw her overboard three times,” Tess said. “But Josie, Mr. Tuckfield is a Scottish horse breeder.”

“When Mayne is on board ship with Sylvie, he'll discover that he's not in love with her. He won't throw her overboard—”

“I should hope not!” Tess interjected.

“But he'll stop kissing her letters and thinking about her.”

“You don't know that he thinks about her.”

“I don't know that he doesn't.”

“Ridiculous!” Tess cried.

“Oh? How would you feel if you thought that Lucius was thinking about someone else when he made love to you?” Josie met her sister's eye. “If he looked thoughtful, and you didn't know whether he was remembering a woman he lost? If he murmured something while he was kissing you, and it sounded like a woman's name to you?”

Tess frowned.

“It will poison us. It already is, a little bit. I can feel it.”

“You are so dramatic. I honestly think you've read too many novels, Josie. You never would have come up with this crazy scheme if you hadn't read all those books.”

“I have always thought a plan of action is the best way to tackle problems.”

“That's true enough,” Tess said reluctantly. “But I don't see why this plan has to be so complicated. And involve drugging Mayne!”

“It is actually quite simple. I shall give Mayne a drink that will make him cheerful and sleepy, and then I will send him to the wharfs.”

“You will
send
him? Like a parcel?”

Josie thought for a second. “I'll inform the footmen that Mayne wishes to board the
Excelsior
. That's the name of Sylvie's ship.”

“I don't see why you have to drug him.”

“He won't get on the ship otherwise.”

“True.”

“You see,” Josie said. “This will
work,
Tess. And I don't need your help in the least, so you needn't worry about it.”

“You do need my help,” Tess said. “
Your
footmen are Mayne's footmen, may I remind you. They are not going to drag their sleepy, drugged master onto a ship and leave him there.”

Josie frowned.

There was a moment's silence and then Tess said reluctantly: “But my footmen will do it.”

“
Will
you?”

“I don't approve!”

“Of course not. But will you? Tess”—and there were tears glimmering in her eyes now—“I can't live knowing that he loves Sylvie. Whether he loves her or not, I mean. I can't bear the idea that he thinks he loves her.”

Tess gave her a hug.

 

Griselda was waiting for her brother in her sitting room. “You came!” she cried, jumping to her feet.

He walked in, looking as elegant and unconcerned as ever. Which had to mean that no one else had the chance to inform him before she did. The words started tumbling out: Darlington…Hellgate…the
Memoirs
…

Mayne dropped into a seat before the fire and sat there frowning. He looked outraged. Griselda's heart dropped into her slippers. He was going to threaten Darlington. Challenge him to a duel. Perhaps kill him.

“You can't!” she squeaked.

“Can't what?”

“Call him out.”

“Why the devil would I do that?”

She stared at him. “Aren't you outraged? You look—”

“Something's wrong with Josie,” he snapped. “So you're telling me that Darlington wrote Hellgate's
Memoirs
. And you've been having an
affaire
with him. The same Darlington who called my wife a Scottish sausage?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

There was a moment of silence. “I was thinking of killing him for that,” he said slowly.

“You mustn't.”

“I suppose not. Could you have possibly chosen a more likable fellow to bed?”

“I—” Griselda swallowed back her tears. “I like him a great deal. And he will never say anything as cruel again. He's terribly sorry about the anguish he caused Josie.”

“Given his abominable prose, I hate to think about the intimacies he's whispered to you in private.”

“Darlington is not an abominable writer! You—You—”

Mayne's laugh was that of an infuriating older brother. “Piffle, given his inability to put together an articulate sentence. I would have thought better of you.”

Griselda swallowed hard. “Would you stop funning and
think
for a moment, you ass!” She never swore. In fact, she could hardly believe it when she heard the word fly out of her mouth.

“Think about what?” Mayne said, a little quieter. “Obviously you're planning on marrying him.”

“What if he's merely doing it to turn me into a book?”
Griselda shrieked at him. “Have you thought of that?”

There was a moment of silence. “Then I would kill him,” Mayne said.

Griselda met her brother's eyes.

He came over to her and put a hand on her cheek. “Just because he can't write doesn't mean that he's suicidal, Griselda. I assume that he is proposing marriage?”

She nodded jerkily.

“Yet another reason he might live to walk the aisle,” he said, turning around and scooping up his gloves.

“Don't you—don't you care that he wrote that book?” she choked.

“In a word: no. I thought the
Memoirs
was remarkably foolish. I do care that he wants to marry you, but I think by far the more interesting point is that
you
wish to marry him. You do, don't you?”

She smiled at him, through a veil of tears. “I think so.”

“I know so.” He dropped a kiss on her nose. “He doesn't deserve that. I'll tell him myself, once I get things worked out with Josie.”

“Oh—” Griselda said.

But he was gone.

I
t was all much easier than Josie would have thought. Mayne came to fetch her at Tess's house and she handed him a cup of tea, mentioning that Tess would return in a moment.

He started to tell her something about Darlington and Hellgate—could it be that Darlington wrote the
Memoirs
? But Josie couldn't keep her attention on the subject because he was drinking the tea.

And then…before she even drew a breath, he was asleep, leaning into the corner of his chair, his eyelashes shadowing his cheeks. She couldn't help it: she knelt in front of him and brushed his face with her fingers. “Because
I love you,” she whispered to him. “It's only because I love you so much.”

He sighed and smiled. After she had a molar pulled, she woke up with just that delicious sense of having had a happy dream.

Then she pulled herself upright, went out and carefully closed the door behind her. Tess was waiting for her. “Do you have the letter?”

“I need to write it,” Josie said, fighting back her tears.

“Are you
certain
?”

“Of course I am! It's just that he looked so defenseless, lying there. He didn't even know that I'd drugged him.”

Tess shook her head. “I think it's a foolish scheme. But write your letter.” She pushed her toward the writing desk.

Josie sat down with a piece of fresh foolscap. It would be no good to make the letter flowery. That wasn't like her. Of course, she couldn't tell him the truth either.

She was crying so hard that she left the letter where it was and collapsed onto the bed.

“Don't worry, darling,” Tess said, helping her to stand up and then wrapping a cloak around her. “I'm going to take
you back to your house while Lucius takes care of everything else.”

“You
told
Lucius?”

“Of course I told Lucius,” Tess said, looking surprised. “How could I get Mayne out to the wharf? Lucius is just the right person. You know he's very good at getting things done correctly, Josie.”

“I didn't want anyone to know,” she said, wiping away her tears with the sheet. “I didn't want
anyone
to know!”

“Lucius is necessary for your scheme,” Tess said soothingly. “Up with you.”

When they walked down the stairs, the door to the sitting room was still closed. “He will only stay asleep for four hours at the most,” Josie said, suddenly anxious. “He has to be at the docks by five o'clock when the tide turns. What if the
Excelsior
leaves without him?”

“It won't,” Tess said. “You know that Lucius never makes mistakes.”

Josie thought about that as they trundled along the London streets. It was true that Lucius Felton was just the sort of man who was never late. Probably the tide would wait for him, if for no one else.

“What did he say?” she asked.

“Who?”

“Lucius! What did he think of my scheme?”

“He thought it was utter poppycock,” Tess said. She saw Josie's mouth open and held up her hand. “Until I reminded him that I myself was originally engaged to Mayne. And what if I were holding out a hopeless passion for Mayne?” She smiled to herself. “He didn't seem to like that idea.”

“You were both very lucky,” Josie said, knowing that her voice was surly.

“True.”

They didn't speak again until they were inside the house, Mayne's house. “You need a bath,” Tess said, ringing the
bell. “You need a bath, and supper in your room, and then bed. You are exhausted. Why, Josie, your face looks all thin and drawn.”

Josie thought about it. Sure enough, she hadn't been eating much in the last few days, and nothing at all today. Tess pushed her before the glass. “Look at yourself!”

Josie touched her cheeks. There were hollows there. Almost like cheekbones.

“You look awful,” her sister told her.

And suddenly, as if the mirror had cracked before her, Josie saw what she meant. Those weren't tempting hollows in her cheeks, but the signs of weariness. She didn't look beautiful, she just looked oddly gaunt. She sighed. Apparently her face was not the sort that would look good slim.

By now Mayne must be on the boat, discovering that she'd given him up. Turned him over to Sylvie. Set him free.

The thought made her nauseous, so she listlessly climbed into the bathtub.

“I'm going home now,” Tess said, popping her head in sometime later. “I've ordered you a light supper in your room.”

“Thank you,” Josie said.

“I'll be over first thing in the morning,” Tess said, blew her a kiss and was gone.

But Josie didn't want to eat in her room. When she climbed out of the bath, she put on Mayne's robe, the sleek silk one he lent her after she threw away her corset, that very first night when he rescued her at the ball. Then she spoke briefly to Ribble and climbed the stairs to Cecily's turret.

There it was, as shadowy and sweet and magical as it had been the first night Mayne brought her there. The unicorn danced along his vine, and the little boy who looked like Mayne swung by one hand.

Josie crumpled into the big chair from which she'd watched Mayne prance around in her dress, but she didn't cry.
She knew, with a bone-deep certainty, that she was right. He didn't love Sylvie, for all he thought he did. Up here, in the turret room, she even dared to whisper the truth of it.

“He loves me,”
she whispered. Who was she telling? His Aunt Cecily's spirit, perhaps. “He does. He loves me.”

Ribble came up with a glass of wine and some supper. Josie had brought only one thing to the room with her: the Earl of Hellgate's
Memoirs
. She sat there in the guttering light from the lamps, rereading the long passionate adventures of a man she loved more than life itself. The wine was deep red, and felt as magical as the walls. Reading the book made it almost as if
she
had been all those women Mayne loved…

And yet, did he love them?

He said that he never laughed in bed with them. The stories seemed thin and anxious now, full of desire but also tedium. She paused at the story of Hippolyta and how she bound Hellgate to the wall of the garden house. Mayne said he threw down the book when he reached that chapter, said that he had never engaged in such an activity.

But Josie could quite see tying Mayne to the bed. In fact—she smiled and drank another sip of wine—once he returned from his little voyage that was just what she would do.

He might be a little angry at first.

But once he got over it…

There was a noise at the door, and Josie didn't even look up, just turned the page. Now Hellgate would discard his Amazon mistress as if she were no more important than a cast-off slipper, and turn to—

She looked up.

There in the shadows of the door was—Mayne. Drops of water were streaming from his shoulders, from his hair. His eyes were rimmed by dark circles.

“Joooosie,” he said hoarsely. “They dropped me from the
rowboat…I was bound and couldn't swim…I had to come say farewell to you…”

Josie didn't say anything. The air went dark and thick around her, as if there was no air in a world without her husband. She couldn't speak. She couldn't breathe.

She fainted.

Mayne walked into the room and looked down at his wife, shaking himself like a dog after a good rain. She was out like a snuffed candle. He picked up her glass of wine and took an appreciative draught. She was drinking the Château Margaux 1775 that his father laid down. Very nice.

Then he sat down on the footstool before her chair and looked at her.

Too many novels, that was the truth.

“Josie!” he said. And then: “Josie!” She didn't stir, so he ran a hand along her cheek. She was so beautiful that his heart turned over, and yet he schooled himself to be firm.

“Josephine, you wake up now,” he told her.

So she did. Her eyes opened and she stared at him. “Garret?” she asked.

“Ghost of,” he said promptly.

She grabbed his hand. Looked at him for one moment, at his damp hair (thanks to a quickly administered glass of water), and then lunged out of her chair and shook him. “How could you? How could you do such a thing to me? I thought you were dead!”

He would have defended himself more, but he was laughing too hard.

“You—You—I'll make a ghost of you,” his little wife shrieked.

Finally he managed to stop her from beating him around the shoulders and caught her hands in his. “You deserved it, Josie,” he said, fighting back another great swell of laughter.

But there were tears in her eyes, and the laughter died in his throat. For a moment he saw everything in her eyes: a
love that would last their entire lives, a vulnerability that would never go away, and, where he was concerned, a deep selflessness that made her the most wonderful, funny, intelligent woman he knew.

Then her eyebrows snapped together. “Bastard!” she snapped.

“You deserved it.”

“I never should have trusted Tess. Never.”

“Woke up to find Felton chortling at me,” Mayne admitted. “Mind you, he did hand over that letter you left for me.”

“Oh.”

“Damned if I'm not surrounded by terrible writers,” he said. “First Darlington—and that bounder looks to be becoming my brother-in-law—and now my own wife. ‘Love is more important than marriage.' Purple prose! Fluff and feathers! It could have been written by Hellgate himself.”

“I'm sorry that my writing wasn't up to your standards,” Josie said with dignity.

“Not only did you write me a fluffy letter, but you drugged me and tried to get rid of me,” he said remorselessly.

“I didn't!” She struggled against his hands. “I never wanted to get rid of you.”

“You wanted me thrown onto a boat with a Frenchwoman whom I hardly know.”

“It was Sylvie! If you remember, you were going to marry Sylvie!”

“God yes, it was Sylvie! How could you think that I would want to spend several days trapped aboard ship with Sylvie?”

“Because—Because—”

But it was time to stop the foolishness, so he sat down and pulled her straight into his lap, looked her in the eye and said, “You'll never get rid of me, Josephine.”

“Never?” she whispered.

“Not by drugging me, nor sending me to sea either.”

“I didn't want to.”

But he wanted to hear it, so he waited.

“I love you,” she said. “I love you too much to keep you away from Sylvie.”

His smile came straight from his heart. “We can leave Sylvie out of this, though how you came to think I loved her—”

“Because you told me so repeatedly? Because you were going to marry her? Because you kissed her letter?”

“I never kissed any letter of hers!”

“You did, you—”

“If you loved me,” he said, cutting through the piffle, “how could you let me go?”

“That's why. I had to give you to her, if that's what you wanted.”

He cupped his hands in her face. “I will
never
let you go, Josephine, my wife. Not if you fall in love with Hellgate himself.”

She was laughing and crying at the same time. “But, Garret, I
am
in love with Hellgate, didn't you know?” She pushed her fingers into his damp curls.

Then he was kissing her, fiercely, as if he could drink her in and make her his. Except she was already his.

“I never knew what love was,” he said, feeling the words piling up inside him. “I thought I was in love with Sylvie…how could you not have known what an ass I was to even imagine such a thing?”

“Well…” she said. And kissed him.

“I gather you wanted me on that boat precisely because you knew better?”

“I thought,” Josie explained, “that you might be in love with me, and you just hadn't realized it yet.”

“Oh, I realized it.” He kissed her, hard.

“You didn't say—”

“I would have. You are my countess, and the only woman I have ever loved. In the whole of my misbegotten, Hellraking life.”

Her laughing eyes were a little teary, so he worked his hands into that dressing gown of hers. It was a damned useful garment, the way the tie gave at the waist, and then it fell open to show him a feast of creamy flesh and beautiful breasts.

He couldn't stop kissing her, though. He'd stray onto her breast, and have her crying with the pleasure of it, but then he had to kiss her mouth again. And again.

“I'm not the same around you,” he told her at some point. “I'm never bored, Josie. I'm not—I'm not myself.”

“Yes, you are,” she said, as bossy as ever. “Could I possibly suggest that you go back to what you were doing?” Because his hand had stilled with the need to tell her, to make her understand.

“You're not listening,” he whispered, even as he caressed her again, watching her eyes close and an enchanting little pant come from her lips. She was all sweet plump welcome, but he still wanted to say it.