Undesirable Liaison (22 page)

The lash of conscience
at her lack of moral fibre was a more stinging reproach than she
had for Jerome as the instigator. After all her vaunted pride, to
fall like a ripe plum!
She
would not follow in her mother’s
footsteps. Thus had she foolishly determined. Yet in a matter of
days…

Her sister’s return
with the required beverage came as a welcome relief. Florence drank
it with real enjoyment, savouring the hot sweet liquid as it slid
down her throat. It had a soothing effect, and although she settled
onto her pillows with a mind yet roaming the fate that had
overtaken her, within a short time after setting down the dish, she
drifted into merciful sleep.

***

His favourite spot in
the library failed to quiet Jerome’s heightened sense of calamity.
Added to which, he found himself aggrieved, a feeling he could not
subdue, try as he might. Without wishing to minimise his share of
responsibility, he thought it disgraceful of Florence to mislead
him.

Would he have dreamed
of behaving as he had done had he been aware of her maiden state?
No, he would not. Recalling how she had run from him the night he
first kissed her, he told himself at least then she had behaved
with the modesty due to her station. But she had run because he was
foxed. When he confronted her in this very room, she ought to have
slapped him as she once did. Instead, she had shown she understood
his need—and shared it, by God!

Her reactions to his
lovemaking were far from those to be expected of a girl untutored
in the art. It was unjust to think he could suspect her true
condition.

No, was not he unjust?
It had been her first time, even though he had not known it. He
should have taken her with more care. He must have bruised her.
Indeed, had she not said so? At the same moment that she had
revealed herself a maid, she had spoken of it, he was certain.

Remorse gripped him.
Bad enough to have done the deed, in the circumstances. To have
done it without regard to her maidenhood was conduct unworthy of a
gentleman. Ashamed, Jerome vowed to make it up to her. Yet, next
instant, he was revelling in the memory of Florence’s passionate
response.

Homer’s Odyssey lay
open on his lap, ignored. Throwing it aside, he rose up and flung
out of the embrasure, instead pacing the library. He felt caged and
impotent. What was to be done? He had woken wanting her again. Had
he not known how it would be?

Just so had he yearned
for Letty, day after day, until he had driven himself demented.
Letty had withheld herself with one excuse after another. Until at
last she had sought her amours in the arms of another, and left her
legitimate husband for a life of exile and immorality. This time,
Jerome must be the one to make an end.

He had promised
Florence it was not over, but in the cold light of day, he knew it
could not go on. One did not make a mistress of an innocent female.
The deed was done, but the fault need not be compounded. Had she
been other than his mother’s companion, there would have been no
remedy but in marriage. As it was…

The thought died. Why,
there was the remedy, staring him in the face. He was free, was he
not? What better way to keep her available to him than to make her
his wife? Always provided her background was not wholly
unsuitable.

Like a douche of cold
water, the certainty struck him. There was a flaw in her past. An
impediment, which must inevitably put this solution out of count.
He felt it—as if he already knew. He did know. In the urgency of
passion, it had slipped away, but he had it now. Belinda was the
key.

The urge to know became
paramount. Best to know the exact nature of the impediment, before
he was driven to commit to a course of action that must have
serious repercussions. He had done it once. Not again. This time he
would not be gulled.

He was heading for the
door on the thought, determined to find Florence, forgetful of
every precept of caution. If there was an underlying current of
exhilaration at the notion of being with her, Jerome refused to
acknowledge it.

***

Drawn by unseasonable
sunshine pouring through her window, Florence was walking in the
walled garden. Waking in the early afternoon, she had discovered a
note from Belinda by her bedside. Her sister, showing unprecedented
solicitude and common sense, had left her to have her sleep out,
saying a maid was instructed to bring refreshment suitable to an
invalid as soon as Flo rang the bell. Bel further undertook to keep
the dowager amused all day, so her elder sister might rest at her
ease.

The invalidish meal was
in fact brought by the housekeeper in person, Mrs Brumby averring
she preferred to trust her own judgement about the sort of food
required under the circumstances rather than that of an
inexperienced fifteen year old.

At sight and sound of
her, Flo was instantly smitten with the notion that one of the
servants had seen Jerome entering or leaving her chamber. Why else
should Mrs Brumby concern herself with the needs of a mere
companion? There was nothing in the housekeeper’s conversation,
however, to support it, and Florence was forced to acknowledge her
guilty conscience to be at the root of her suspicion.

‘I know just how it is,
my dear,’ said Mrs Brumby, setting the tray across Flo’s knees. ‘I
used to suffer dreadfully myself, and nothing would do for me but a
touch of laudanum. If you are in need of a dose, you have only to
say the word.’

What, and dull her
unquiet mind at a moment when she had desperate need of her
wits?

‘No, I thank you, Mrs
Brumby. I am a trifle weak still, but that is all.’

‘You’d best remain
where you are for today. I always found myself easier by the second
day.’ She began removing covers from the dishes on the tray.
‘There’s a light broth, with a trifle of chicken breast and a
couple of new-baked whigs. I’ll send up a maid with a dish of tea
later.’

Flo thanked her, and
began upon the broth without much appetite. It quickened as she
ate, and she remembered she had eaten little at dinner on the
previous evening. Despite the qualms about her future, she made a
good meal, and felt a deal better for it. Her aches had lessened
with her long sleep, and the food put heart into her. By the time
she had drunk the tea brought up a half hour later, she felt more
capable of grappling with the dreadful consequences of her
downfall.

Impossible, however, to
keep her mind upon solving the problem when the very bed in which
she lay was productive of distracting memories. She got up at last
and dressed herself in her plain brown linsey-woolsey, resolving to
slip away into the gardens where the fresh air might aid
concentration.

A few turns up and down
the rows of hedging helped to ease the general stiffness in her
limbs, but brought little in the way of solutions. There was only
one, but Florence shied away from it every time it floated into her
mind. It sat there, like an ugly toad waiting patiently for a
passing insect, ready to flick out a lightning tongue and seize
Flo’s attention.

Abstracted, she left
the hedging and wandered down the lane running alongside the wall.
Ending at a gate, she went through and followed the path a little
way. Spying a wood off to one side, Flo headed towards it,
unconsciously seeking solitude and an illusion of peace. It was
chillier beneath the trees and she hugged her shawl about her,
glancing round at the air of wilderness deliberately created. There
were wildflowers in patches of grasses, and the trees were
naturally placed. But the undergrowth was clearly kept down, the
grass regularly scythed either side a well-worn path, and a couple
of fallen logs had been hewn into convenient seats.

Florence sank into one
of these with relief, realising how tired she was. Small wonder,
when her sleep had been poor even before the descent upon her of a
lustful Lord Langriville!

The word haunted her.
Was she equally guilty of satisfying only lust? Mama would have her
believe it. If so, she must count herself the lightskirt she had
denied she was. How tempting to dream it as something more! Mama
had been right to warn her, for she was in serious danger of
manufacturing a sop for her conscience. How easy to fancy herself
in love with him! She would not do it.

But the alternative was
the toad that bade her shake the dust of Bedfont Place from her
heels, and without delay. It was, Flo reasoned, the only course to
pursue. To think herself deprived thereby could but confirm her in
the epithets she loathed—whore, strumpet, courtesan.

Names that had dogged
her all her life. Names to mark a sisterhood to which she had sworn
never to belong. All for nothing now. She had joined them as surely
as if she had been meant for the life all along, the false pride
betrayed that had sustained her until now.

The mental lash threw
hollows into her chest and stomach and her breath hurt her as she
drew it into her lungs. She wanted to wail and weep, but a
deep-seated core of fury at herself would not permit this
indulgence. Cruelly honest, Flo felt it not the laxity of her
morals that truly tormented her, but the necessity to leave
him.

‘You look as if all the
devils of hell are after you.’

Florence jumped
violently, flicking a wild glance round. A few yards away, Jerome
stood watching her. His face was pale against the raven locks,
which were loosely tied and looping into his cheeks. A gaunt look
characterised him, dipping a blue shade under the deep setting of
his eyes. Flo’s heart lurched, and she became aware of her racing
pulses. She uttered the first thing that came into her head.

‘How did you find
me?’

‘It was not difficult.
I was with my mother when Belinda told her you were abed and
indisposed, but the maid I sent for to enquire after your present
health said you had gone down to the gardens. I followed in time to
glimpse you heading in the direction of the Wild Wood. And here you
are.’

He fell silent, the
ridiculous exposition echoing in his head. What, was he reduced to
babbling like a moonstruck youth? She said nothing and Jerome eyed
her with a growing feeling of uncertainty. To see her wrestling
with the desperate plight into which he had put her set him at a
distance. A part of him urged words of comfort to his tongue, but a
deeper impulse inflicted an unknown wound.

To his pride? Was she,
like Letty, repulsed by what had happened? Like Letty, it came to
him, she meant to leave him. A corrosion in his chest threw him
into speech.

‘I have not come to
trouble you with unwanted attentions.’ She flinched, and he
softened in gentleness. ‘Was it an excuse, or were you truly ill
today? If so, I must have hurt you, Florence.’

Her glance flickered up
at him, and he crossed the intervening space between them, dropping
down to sit beside her on the makeshift bench. She drew away a
little, and he suppressed a rise of irritation.

‘You have no need to
fear me.’

‘It is not you I
fear.’

Jerome heard the tremor
on her breath. He reached towards her hand, but she pulled it away
from his side, thrusting both out of sight, away from him.

‘Don’t touch me!’

The tone was stronger,
but his ears were quick to detect the note of panic. A thudding
began in his chest, prelude to a familiar swell of indignation and
protest. Just so had Letty driven him into rebellion. Aware of his
rising choler, he rose and shifted away, afraid to remain close
enough to pour upon Florence the anguish attributable to the wounds
inflicted by his dead wife.

He found himself by a
sturdy beech, and turning, leaned back to support his weight
against the trunk. Even from here, her distress was almost
tangible. Guilt swamped him and he closed his eyes a moment. Her
image played at his eyelids, olive skin glowing against a brownish
tone of whatever unspeakable garment she was wearing.

Why had he come here?
The torment of her presence was ten times worse than he had been
suffering in the privacy of his library. He tried to recapture the
intensity of feeling that had driven him thence, and remembered not
the questions but the wishful notion that could have solved his
dilemma. It was out before he could stop his tongue.

‘You will have to marry
me.’

Flo’s glance swung to
meet his. For an instant, she experienced a feeling of intense joy.
But it crumbled rapidly, destroyed by the inescapable barriers
rising up in her mind. Her response was swift.

‘I cannot.’

‘I knew it!’ Irritation
in his tone. ‘Why can you not? It has to do with Belinda, has it
not?’

Her eyes flew back as
her heart plummeted. How could he know? Common sense tapped on the
walls. He could not know. He was guessing. She leaped to Bel’s
defence.

‘It is not Belinda’s
fault. I mean, it has nothing to do with—it is not that. Not that
alone.’

‘What then?’ His voice
was harsh. ‘What is this flaw, Florence? What makes you ineligible?
Is there some dark episode in that secret history you are
determined to conceal.’

Her throat tightened.
‘Yes, there is.’

‘Tell me, for the love
of God!’ He thrust away from the tree and came closer, dark eyes
smouldering. ‘I have to find a way to right the wrong. If we cannot
marry, I must provide for you in some other fashion.’

She looked up, a blaze
at her eyes. ‘A forgotten cottage somewhere out of sight, perhaps,
where people may see you come and go, and point me out to strangers
as your mistress?’

Jerome’s fierce look
abated. ‘Why do you say it with such venom?’

Flo leaped up, hurling
the words. ‘Because it was my mother’s fate. Because I lived it
with her, day after day, and saw for myself how broken she became
with the ignominy heaped upon her by our neighbours. Now do you
understand? My mother sold her honour to provide a home for me, and
though I swore I would die before I followed in her footsteps, here
I am. Here I am, Jerome—your mistress, your whore, your
strumpet!’