Page 18 of When the Marquess Needed Me (The Rake Chronicles #4)
Chapter Sixteen
W hen the first light dawned outside of his window, Leith dressed quickly and left his bedchamber. Swiftly, he made his way to the drawing room.
And was stunned to find there a slender, freckled girl, trying to shut a small trunk.
It was Beatrice’s maid. Sally.
When he entered, she looked up at him.
“Oh, my lord,” she said, “I am sorry—it is only—the trunk won’t close—and—well—we are leaving—”
“No, you are not,” he snapped. “Where is Miss Salisbury?”
“She is dressing,” the girl said nervously. “We are going to call on Lord Montaigne.”
Monty , Leith thought. He had forgotten his best friend in all of this.
He almost had to laugh.
Two days ago, his biggest problem had been that Monty thought him depraved and without proper feeling. His other big problem had been that, if he slept with Beatrice, Monty might be furious.
Now, these problems had become infinitely more complicated.
Monty would know that he had gone against his word if Beatrice told him of her grievances, but that was now an issue that paled in comparison to losing the woman herself.
Not that he relished the prospect of Monty knowing that he had broken his word—or hearing Beatrice’s description of his style of lovemaking.
He felt fresh mortification at the prospect of Monty hearing the language Beatrice had used last night. Or John. Or Trem.
“Sally,” he began. “Could you fetch your mistress? I very much need to speak with her.”
“I am right here.”
He turned.
There she was, looking fresh and pristine, like she had slept soundly, in a beautiful new Warburton day dress of light blue. He wanted to fall to his knees and kiss her hem.
Christ.
What was happening to him?
“Bea, he has asked us to stay,” said the girl.
Bea , he thought, that seemed rather informal for a maid to her lady.
Not that he understood about such things.
“Well, we cannot.”
“Please, Beatrice,” he found himself saying. As he did so, he realized that he had never called her by her Christian name before.
She started.
“Will you breakfast with me?”
Beatrice gave him a thorough, searching look. Those dark eyes, which only two days ago he had considered shrewd, were locked on him. He sensed that she was making a series of infinite calculations, calculations that he wouldn’t understand the half of.
“Fine,” she said finally. “But I am not agreeing to stay.”
Sally bobbed and scurried away to Beatrice’s room.
“Don’t go far,” Beatrice called out to her.
“Thank you,” he said, when she was gone.
She gave him a withering look and headed for the breakfast room.
He followed.
The servants had laid out the usual assortments of coffee, tea, toast, butter, and currant jam. They even had brought a bunch of spring cherries in a bowl. And the chocolate was steaming in a pot.
She sat down and poured the chocolate, immediately taking a sip.
“Ah, I was right,” he said. “You seemed like the type who would like chocolate.”
“Yes, indeed,” she said, bringing the chocolate down from the table, clearly not liking having played into his hands. She began spreading jam on a piece of toast.
He sat down across from her and kept his eyes on her, willing her to look up.
He wanted to speak to her, to make it better between them, but he wasn’t sure how.
Finally, she did. When she saw him looking at her, she sighed.
“Please just answer me one question. Why did you agree to this arrangement when you knew your own proclivities?”
“I did not think I was so abnormal as you seem to think I am.”
“Lord Leith—”
“Please,” he said, suddenly seized by a feeling that he did not recognize. “Call me Thomas.”
Only his mother called him that. He had never particularly liked the name. But for some reason, suddenly, he couldn’t stand the sound of her using his title.
Which was very odd, since he usually enjoyed the sound of his title in the mouths of others.
“You want me to call you Thomas ?”
“That’s my name. My real name.”
She looked uncertain. “Well, I will try.”
“And I will call you Beatrice. I think we are past formalities.”
She leveled him with a look. She dropped her toast.
“I suppose you’re right.” She looked pensive. “Do you really think that is how aristocratic gentlemen bed their mistresses?”
For a moment, Leith had to consider his response. He saw no reason why he shouldn’t be honest.
“Honestly, I am not sure. I knew my friends preferred other acts, but they are notorious. There was a time when they were really seen as scandalous. Their antics truly upset people, especially Monty—even though, well…”
“What?”
“Well, with Monty, it turned out to be more complicated. He was the worst of us, by far, according to everyone. The scandal sheets were full of his drunkenness and debauching of servant girls. And we thought, accounting for some exaggeration on the part of the scandal sheets, that it was all true.”
“You had no scruple having a best friend who took advantage of women in his employ?”
“I didn’t see it that way,” Leith attempted to explain. “If the girls had been unwilling, that would have been another thing… But they always, to hear him tell it, sought him out. It hardly matters, however, because, as it turns out, he was lying to everyone. He was still in love with Olivia. And he hadn’t bedded a single woman since she left London! Thirteen years and not one woman. It’s too horrible to contemplate.”
“My God,” Beatrice said, and he could see her pale a little. “He knew Olivia before? Long ago?”
Leith shifted in his seat. He didn’t want to tell Beatrice the whole story now. Not when she already thought so ill of him. He wasn’t sure why he was talking about Monty and Olivia in the first place. Somehow, he felt it was relevant, but he couldn’t say why.
“Yes. She was a servant in his house. That began all the rumors. They were young and fell in love but then she left. And didn’t come back to London for thirteen years. He didn’t bed anyone else the entire time. And we had no idea.”
“Why did she leave?”
Leith shrugged, not able to meet her eye. “Some misunderstanding.”
“I see,” Beatrice said. “So, you are telling me that you have no real idea what goes on in the bedchambers of your friends, never mind other men?”
He wouldn’t have been able to articulate it like that, but he supposed that was why he was talking about Monty.
“Yes,” he said. “And, to me, bedding a woman in that way seemed so natural.”
“Leit—Thomas,” she said, correcting herself, raising her chocolate cup to her mouth, “I am not calling you strange. I should not have suggested it. I was merely surprised. There is nothing wrong, in and of itself, with your proclivities. It is just not what I expected—and not, ultimately, what most men of your sphere will want from their courtesans.”
Now, when he thought of it, he could see that she was right. He had never considered it too closely before, thinking that every man must be different. He hadn’t wanted to think too much of it, he supposed. He didn’t like to think of himself as an aberration or examine his desires too closely.
“And I do not blame you. Thank you for asking me to breakfast with you,” she said, her eyes on her saucer, her fingers tracing the rim. “I do not want to leave on bad terms. But I do not think it wise to continue our arrangement.”
He felt his chest constrict at her words.
“I will pay you double. To stay.”
“ One thousand pounds? You will pay me one thousand pounds to stay?”
He wasn’t even sure if he could afford it. Well, of course, he could afford it, but it was doubtlessly unwise. Usually, he was as careful in money matters as he was when it came to women. Certainly, it was more than he had ever paid a mistress. But he couldn’t bear the thought of her leaving now.
“Yes.”
“Thomas…” He loved the sound of his name, his real name, in her mouth. “I am not sure that would make sense, I—”
“Please,” he said, aware that he was near begging. “I will pay you double and we can do…the things you spoke of. The different ways of bedding.”
She looked up at him. “You want me to teach you?”
Is that what he wanted? He wouldn’t have put it that way. Truthfully, doing what she described with any other woman sounded as appealing as it always had. But with her…the thought had him stirring already.
He couldn’t have her walk away. Not after last night.
And not to mention Monty’s reaction when he heard what had happened…
“Yes,” he said, because, in a way, it was true. He wanted to learn how to be with her in the manner that she would like. He had been possessed by the unfamiliar urge to please a woman. “Please, stay.”
She looked down into her cup. She seemed to pause forever.
He reflected back to their conversation last night. He had told her that he had yet to meet a woman who inspired him to change his life in the slightest. Or, rather, when she had said those words about her own feelings for her lovers, he had felt like they originated from within his own soul. What irony that now, for the first time, he found himself willing to change for a woman.
“Fine. Very well,” she said. “If you will pay me double. And we will—we will do other things. Than what we did last night.”
He exhaled. Relief coursed through him, a dam of panic breaking.
“Thank you.” He was finally able to take a sip of his coffee and he did so. “What would you like to do today?”
Their eyes met again over the table. She gave him a little smile and, without saying it, he knew what she was thinking.
But she took mercy on him.
“I want to go to Vauxhall.”
He nodded vigorously. He hated Vauxhall.
Absolutely abhorred it.
It was his nightmare.
And he could deliver it.
“Absolutely,” he found himself saying. “Whatever you wish.”