Steeplechase Read online

  And now the moment had come, the perfect excuse for dining en déshabillé. Davenham’s absence from her bed had, of course, forced Sarah to admit her maid to her secret arrangement, and now Finella—eyes gleaming with excitement—was holding up each bedgown and matching overgarment in turn, each so sheer it could scarce be named a dressing gown. Sarah groaned and shook her head. “I can’t—I simply can’t. How can anyone wear garments that conceal nothing? I should die, simply die, of mortification.”

  “But how can you not, my lady?” Finella’s sudden scowl was challenging. “How’s he ever going to you notice you else?”

  “That was part of the agreement,” Sarah declared stoutly. “He is not supposed to notice me.”

  “Then you’ll pardon me, my lady, if I wonder what we’re doing trotting all these garments out for inspection? Her ladyship will be right disappointed when you tell her they never left the drawer.”

  “We shall not tell her, of course,” Sarah retorted, scowling at the frothy array of nightwear piled high on the end of the bed.”

  “Begging your pardon, my lady, but do you truly wish to be ignored?”

  “I agreed to this devil’s bargain,” Sarah muttered.

  “There’s no one said you can’t give the devil’s tail a tweak or two, my lady.”

  Sarah choked, pressed her clasped hands over her mouth. Did she dare? Did she truly dare?

  But Harlan would see . . . everything. Perhaps she could wear two of the sheer linen dressing gowns at once. The ruffled pink one over the plainer white?

  She would look as broad as Mrs. Hooten-Sculthorpe!

  “Finella, you are teasing me. There has to be at least one dressing gown as opaque as Lord Davenham’s. They cannot all be transparent!”

  “Well, miss, there is one with enough embroidery to provide a bit of modesty.” The maid dug through the stack to the first dressing gown she had displayed and held it up. A lightweight linen the color of Sarah’s eyes, heavily embroidered in white silk.

  Sarah sighed. On first sight, the garment had been shocking. After the others, it was positively maidenly. “That one, then. Over whatever bedgown matches it.”

  “Oh, it’ll be grand, my lady! I’ll be peeking through a crack to catch his lordship’s face when he sees you.”

  Lady Davenham made a face, and began to peel back the layer upon layer of quilts that had kept her snug as a bug all afternoon.

  Chapter Seven

  Did actresses feel this way before entering upon the stage? Truthfully, Sarah thought she might be violently ill at any moment. Her stomach was rebelling, her hands shaking, her head afflicted by a whirl of dizziness. She couldn’t go through with it!

  She had cracked the door and was peering at her husband as he leaned against the mantle, idly watching a footman set the table. He had dressed and gone out earlier, but now here he was, back in his black satin dressing gown, looking for all the world like a pasha awaiting a string of dancing girls. As which she was all too suitably dressed. Sarah turned, bumping into Finella, who was hovering behind her. “My rose lustring at once!”

  “Right strange you’ll look dressed to the nines with his lordship in that slinky black robe of his.”

  Sarah rested her forehead against the door, a tear slipping out and dripping down her cheek. She had not cried this morning. Frozen and frightened half to death, she had not cried. But now . . .

  “Footman’s gone, my lady,” Finella hissed. “Left a fine lot of dishes under their covers. You must go now, or they’ll be cold.”

  “Finella . . . do women truly wear such garments before their husbands? I mean, do wives . . .?”

  “Did your very own mama not buy them for you?” the maid declared, arms akimbo.

  “I suppose so.”

  Giving her mistress no choice, Finella flung open the door.

  The maid got her wish. Lord Davenham’s face, when he saw his wife, was a wonder to behold. His arm jerked off the mantle. He went pale. He gaped. Then visibly taking himself in hand, he put on his practiced dandy smile and crossed the room to offer his lady his arm.

  At least, Sarah thought with gratitude, she would not be crossing between Davenham and the fire, with every inch of her silhouetted before him. In a moment, just a step or two, she would be seated behind the table, where a combination of ruffles and embroidery would hopefully act as an adequate disguise. But as they approached the dining table, set before the window with a view of Kings Road, the embankment, and the water beyond, Sarah realized the sinking sun would be as good as the fire. But Davenham was beside her, not behind. And surely he would be gentleman enough not to look.

  He stepped forward, pulled out her chair, and simply stood there, his hand raised in the signal to halt, his eyes roaming from her fall of curls down her scarcely covered body to her embroidered bedslippers worn over bare feet. She might as well be naked!

  “My dear,” he said with evident sincerity, “you make me realize how much is to be said for the appeal of the young. I had not thought it, but there can now be no doubt. You are quite the loveliest sight I have ever seen. There is little that can compete with the freshness of youth and innocence.”

  “Gammon!” Sarah sat with a snap, challenging her husband to move with alacrity to shove the chair into the table, a maneuver he managed with no sign of undue haste. “You must have been to Ireland recently, my lord, and kissed the Blarney Stone.” She unfolded her napkin and spread it over her lap. Ah . . . that was better. She felt less exposed.

  Lord Davenham ladled Cressy soup into their bowls before taking his seat across from his wife. Sarah was surprisingly appealing when flustered . . . and wearing practically nothing. It was rather a shame garments intended for a noble bride or a high-class courtesan only made her appear a child playing dress-up in her mama’s clothes. A strikingly lovely child. But thoughts of the years to come when they both might actually be ready for marriage were enough to make Harlan glad he, too, had a large linen napkin in his lap. Devil a bit, if a man had to be leg-shackled, it seemed he had chosen well.

  But the time for settling down was not yet. When they returned to London, Lord and Lady Davenham would go their own ways, each ignoring—with great delicacy—the activities of the other.

  Wait just a moment! That was not at all what he had in mind when he offered marriage in name only to Lady Sarah Ainsworth. He would go his own way. She would be invisible.

  Harlan glanced down at his empty bowl, jumped up to replace the soup with oysters in batter. Avoiding his wife’s eyes, he murmured, “My apologies for the poor service, but I thought you would prefer to dine alone, considering the state of our undress.”

  “Indeed, my lord.” A strangled whisper.

  She’d noticed. Harlan sat down and recovered his lap. Well, damme, how else was a man to feel when gazing at a nearly naked woman?

  “You wished to know about the deer,” he offered in the brisk tones of a drowning man searching desperately for a conversational straw. “It seems the local hunt keeps two deer to pursue on alternate weeks. There is no kill, so why the buck was so terrified, I cannot say. Perhaps the dogs got closer today, or the poor beast was simply tired of running over half Sussex each fortnight. In any event, today he decided to swim for it . . . and kept on going, so the local Coast Guard was called out to rescue him. ’Tis said the poor beast was so tired he could not stand when brought aboard, but he has been safely returned to his pen—”

  “He must be retired!” Sarah cried. “I can assure you the poor thing was frightened quite out of its wits. He must never be used so again.”

  The aquamarine eyes, the color of a fine trout stream running through a sun-dappled woods, were huge. Pleading, anxious. Harlan felt something which could not possibly have been his heart go thump. Must be the oysters. “Sarah . . . the deer belongs to the local hunt. There is nothing I can do about it . . .” Lord Davenham groaned, ran a hand through his straight dark hair. “Oh, very well, I will see what I can find out. But I warn y
ou,” he added in sterner tones, “I shall probably have to provide another buck for the hunt, as well as providing in perpetuity for the beast that might have torn you to shreds, for it has been in captivity so long it is highly doubtful it can be returned to the forest.”

  His wife frowned at him. “But you have a great deal of money, do you not, even without your Aunt Berrisford’s legacy?”

  One good thing—he no longer had to worry about standing up.

  In silence, Lord Davenham served chicken with tarragon, sherried mushrooms, and spinach with croutons. As he returned to his chair, now restored to his customary suavity, he said, “Rescuing the animal that nearly killed you will scarcely put a dent in my purse, my dear, but why you would wish to do so is quite beyond me.”

  “What choice did the poor beast have?” Sarah cried. “Would you like to be hunted by a pack of hounds each fortnight? The poor animal must spend all the days between hunts quaking for the next time he must go out. ‘Tis cruel, my lord, perfectly cruel.”

  “‘Tis the way of the world, child.”

  His wife’s face crumpled. She shut her eyes very tight, biting her lip. “I swore I would scream, but I find I am too tired. You will excuse me, my lord.” She pushed back her chair and rose to her feet, sweeping her sheer dressing gown more tightly about her shoulders.

  Harlan jumped up so fast he nearly tilted over his chair. “Sarah, I am most dreadfully sorry. Stay! I will save your deer, I promise. There’s a fine pudding and ratafia biscuits,” he added on a softer, coaxing note.

  “If I do not,” his wife declared, her lower lip edging out in a decided pout, “I suppose I will be proving you are right to call me child.”

  Not a statement to which a gentlemen could make a reply. Harlan strode round to his wife’s side of the table and held her chair. “Please,” he said quite simply. “I would enjoy your company.”

  Sarah sat, working her way stoically through the remainder of the meal. Davenham was most horribly correct when he called her a child. How could he look on her as a wife if, when he looked at her, all he saw was a child?

  When he looked at her . . .

  How had he known she and a deer were on a collision course? After delivering her to the bathing machines, Davenham and Mr. Chumley had walked off down Kings Road. It had taken forever for the ladies to undress, don their bathing clothes, find their way down the ladder into the water. How was it Harlan had been close enough to come running when disaster struck?

  Sarah finished the last ratafia biscuit, swallowed carefully, and asked, “How could you know the deer nearly swam over me? I was back in the bathing machine when you arrived.”

  “All the hullaballoo, don’t you know? Dogs, hunting horns, the shouting.”

  “I thought you said you were to play cards.”

  “We—ah—took a stroll instead. We were on our way back when all the commotion began.”

  “You are a man of such address, Davenham, yet you are close to stuttering. When my brothers do that, they are attempting to hide guilt.”

  Harlan put a hand over his mouth, eyeing his wife above his knuckles. Chagrin . . . then a tiny twinkle rose in the depths of the blue. He reached for his wine glass, took a hearty sip. “And I called you a child,” he sighed, his lips on the twitch. “Very well, I confess, my dear. Mumsford had a spyglass, and we watched the entire episode from the promontory. I, of course, was watching you and witnessed the closeness of your encounter with the buck. I was horrifi—”

  “You spied on us! That is despicable, Davenham. How could you do such a thing?” Silly, of course, to think anything else. Wasn’t that exactly the kind of boyish foolery men got up to? “Poor Esmerelda and the other ladies as well. For shame, Davenham. For shame!”

  Yet he had come flying to her rescue and seen all of them, garments plastered to their figures, from very much closer. He had cared.

  He had done what any gentleman would. What Mr. Chumley had done as well.

  But he had done it. Dandy Davenham had not stood by and allowed the women to struggle on their own. He had even sacrificed his jacket to her comfort. For a man who was never seen with a hair out of place, it could even be said he was a hero.

  “Speaking of Miss Twitchell,” her husband said, “that is a connection I cannot like. It is fortunate we will be returning to London shortly and you need never see that family of encroaching mushrooms again.”

  Sarah shot to her feet, drew a deep breath, and launched into the kind of heated argument she was accustomed to having with the two younger of her three brothers—the opinions of Wycliffe, the heir, of course, being inviolate. The upshot of the evening was that Lord and Lady Davenham agreed to cut short their wedding trip to Brighton, their excuse that after Sarah’s near disaster she wished to be close to her mama.

  Which would certainly be the most outrageous lie she had yet told, but sharing a suite at the Old Ship with Davenham a moment longer was not to borne. In fact, it was possible there would not be a townhouse in London large enough to contain two people of such diverse opinions.

  By eleven the next morning Lord and Lady Davenham were en route to London . . . but not before Sarah had sent off a letter to her new best friend, Miss Esmerelda Twitchell.

  Chapter Eight

  Lord Davenham had every intention of leaving the initial phase of the hunt for a townhouse to his wife and the estate agent, aided by the sage advice of the mothers, his own as well as Sarah’s. He would once again immerse himself in the company of friends, the satisfyingly male atmosphere of White’s, the gaming clubs, coffee houses, Gentleman Jackson’s, Manton’s Shooting Gallery . . . and Amaryllis LeFay. Ah, the sheer joy of being back in the elegant milieu of the great city.

  He did not enjoy celibacy.

  But about half-way back to town, Harlan began to have visions of the types of residence the ladies might select for his perusal. The Marchioness of Rotherwick and the Countess of Marchmont would have expectations of grandeur, the two society matrons easily overruling the wishes of poor little Sally.

  Poor Sally indeed. That saucy little piece, who seemed quite determined to argue with him over each and every word he spoke, would likely take great pleasure in making certain that every site presented for his inspection was three times the size of his household needs as well as the size of his purse. Confound it! He was going to have to give up his much-anticipated pleasures and do the thing himself.

  But damned if he’d give up Ryl. Man couldn’t look at townhouses at night, now could he? He could sink into Ryl and forget his wife’s pugnacious stance over her vulgar Cit friend. No matter that the Twitchell chit had come to Sarah’s rescue before he could, she was beyond shabby genteel—an encroaching nobody. Escaping her clutching claws was well worth cutting their wedding journey short.

  Even if his wife was no longer speaking to him.

  Think Ryl, the luscious Amaryllis LeFay. Forget defiant little girls with eyes that sparkled like the sun-dappled sea.

  And going off to his “club” at night—his excuse for a visit to Ryl—was as likely to happen at Marchmont House under his parents’ watchful eye as the Prince Regent dancing naked down the streets of Piccadilly. He could almost hear his mama’s stentorian tone: “Davenham, you left your bride of less than a fortnight alone?”

  He could find a house in a day. Surely.

  But the Season was in full cry in London, everybody who was anybody—or attempting to appear an anybody—filled every residence in Mayfair, even spilling over into the less salubrious fringes of the territory inhabited by the haut monde. The few houses available for lease were too shabby, too dark, ill-situated, or too large (this last complaint uttered by an anguished Lord Davenham). Only when a wealthy Cit found he must leave town earlier than planned and, being a frugal man, was wishful of leasing his townhouse, did Lord Davenham and his bride find a home. The awkward week they spent at Marchmont House, enacting their own little drama of newly married bliss for the benefit of Davenham’s parents, when in actuali
ty they exchanged barely a sentence when not in the presence of the earl and his countess, was something each most sincerely desired to forget.

  Freedom! Lord Davenham chortled to himself as their carriage pulled up in front of the house on Margaret Street, not far from Cavendish Square.

  Freedom! Lady Davenham allowed her husband to hand her down from the coach, then simply stood and stared at their new home. It was a simple row house with no park, no elegant porte cochère, boasting nothing more than a fine black wrought iron railing around the area steps which led down to the partly underground service level of the house and a wrought-iron arch over the short pavement that led to the three front steps. But it was all hers. Here she, Sally Davenham, was mistress.

  The thought should have been terrifying. Truthfully, she could hardly wait. Head up, shoulders backs, Lady Davenham took her husband’s arm and walked toward the butler, now waiting at the top of the steps with the front door flung wide open.

  Sarah, ever mindful of her arrangement with Davenham, anticipated his dashing off to his club directly after his first dinner in their new home. She had not, however, anticipated the arrival of her mama and her sister the very next morning when she had just survived her first encounter with her housekeeper, Mrs. Hughes. And survived it quite well, Sarah thought smugly, her satisfaction short-lived as Mrs. Hughes’s husband, their new butler, announced Lady Rotherwick and Lady Amelia Ainsworth.

  Oh, no, no, no! Could not her mother have waited until she’d had time to arrange her new household to suit her? Yet here was the marchioness and, worse yet, Amalie, when the house on Margaret Street looked every inch the jumped-up Cit residence it was. Sarah clenched her fists at her side before putting on her best smile and dropping into a respectful curtsy for her mama, which soon turned into a fierce hug. “Do not, I pray you, look too closely, mama. The gilt and scarlet velvet will quite dazzle your eyes. But it is well kept, the servants competent and amenable. It will do until Davenham and I may find something more suitable.”