Changing for another smelly dinner with the Earl
‘Where is my blue gown?’ Fliss didn’t own many outfits, but the blue watered silk was her best dress and she wanted to wear her own clothes for tonight’s ball, rather than any from the new wardrobe she had been gifted. Those bold clothes did not feel like hers. The day dresses were cut too close to hug her figure and the evening gowns, although stunning, were more daring than she felt comfortable with. Comfortable being the operative word, as she hadn’t felt anything close in over twenty-four hours and was desperate to restore some equilibrium to her own off-kilter biology. Thanks to Jake, and a very foolhardy kiss, her natural, primal, carnal urges were creating chaos within her body.
Even the new shift she was stood in wasn’t helping. The gossamer fabric was practically translucent and did little to cover her modesty, but as it was the only garment the young maid had brought to her after her bath, Fliss had had no choice other than to put it on while her hair was dressed. It did serve to make her supremely conscious of her needy body though. Each time the wispy fabric whispered against the tips of her breasts, a fresh wave of desire coursed through her which inevitably led to her reliving that splendid kiss over and over again. In her own clothes, Fliss would feel more like herself, or at least she hoped she would, rather than this shamelessly wanton stranger who currently occupied her skin.
If only she wasn’t so tempted. Sorely tempted. Not that she had any doubts about the unreliability of the man. Gracious, no. Fliss’s feet were still firmly on the ground despite the lure of those twinkling stars in his eyes. Jake Warriner was a bad bet if ever there was one. However, she was not looking for for ever. Not in her wildest dreams would she contemplate such nonsense with a man like him but... Surely there was no harm in a mild flirtation? A tiny romantic adventure with a man who her instincts told her was noble and trustworthy despite his shocking reputation. A man who called himself a disappointment, but seemed angry to be one. A man who had the uncanny knack of being in just the right place at just the right time, saving her from her uncle’s meddling or her own maudlin thoughts. That peculiar jolt of awareness she experienced whenever he was close by was as comforting as it was alarming. A man she was coming to suspect might be one she could truly depend on. All the time. Or at least her heart hoped he was. She was honest enough with herself to admit that. Perhaps it was fate that had decided Jake was destined to be Fliss’s knight in shining armour? Her lips tingled in anticipation at the prospect.
Fate! Destiny! Knights! What in heaven’s name was the matter with her to be so...so...ripe for the taking? She knew better than to kiss a rake. Or at least she had always believed she did. Until she had succumbed to one and now couldn’t get the dratted kiss out of her mind. ‘I need to wear my blue gown.’ As both a reminder of who she truly was and as armour.
Her maid’s eyes dropped guiltily to the floor. ‘I believe it has been sent to be laundered, miss. I have taken the liberty of laying out a gown already for this evening.’
Fliss had just seen it and heartily disapproved. The emerald-green taffeta was scandalously low at the front and significantly lower in the back. She would feel practically naked from the waist up in that thing, especially if Jake Warriner saw her in it. Already that man had taken enough liberties with her person—or at least he had in her fevered dreams where she had happily let him because that one kiss had apparently set her fevered body into a carnal frenzy. ‘If I remember correctly, Kitty, you said exactly the same thing the other night despite the fact it didn’t need cleaning in the first place. I fail to believe that the laundry takes so long in a household of this size.’
Fliss couldn’t leave a room without crashing into a giant footman. One in particular seemed to follow her everywhere. Uncle Crispin had more staff than one bachelor who usually lived alone could possibly need. He had ten maids that Fliss knew of and a veritable army of footmen and even with the addition of her aunts and herself as temporary guests, that was excessive. A cool draught made her newly wanton nipples harden further and she crossed her arms over them in case the maid saw. ‘Go and retrieve it, please.’ The blue silk would cover up most of her suddenly heavy, over-sensitive bosom.
The maid hesitated and then shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, miss, but his lordship has instructed that you must wear one of your new gowns tonight.’
‘Has he now?’ The very idea was preposterous after yesterday—unless her uncle desperately wanted a tongue lashing. He was certainly due one. ‘I’m afraid his lordship has no say in my attire. In fact, now that I consider it, I think I would prefer to wear something warmer tonight.’ Something that didn’t make her feel bold and attractive and ripe. Something which might encourage her dashing rake to lose interest and the wanton peaks under the scandalous chemise to flatten.
Her dashing rake! Gracious. This was getting dangerously out of hand.
If her blue silk was missing, then Fliss would jolly well turn up for dinner and the subsequent ball in one of her plain day dresses. A very warm one over layer upon layer of sensible underthings. Actions had been speaking louder than words for days now, so much so she was beginning to enjoy watching her uncle’s mouth set into a disapproving line.
It was the only communication they seemed to share which he listened to, but at least he noticed her, which had to account for something. Yesterday he had been furious when she had returned home, somewhat flushed thanks to her indiscretion, but still buoyed from her rebellion. They had exchanged words. His had been angry, hers had been matter of fact.
‘I am my own mistress, Uncle Crispin, and I shall do as I please with or without your permission. If that causes you a problem, I am happy to curtail my visit here.’
When he stormed off, Fliss knew she had won. She had refused to tell him where she had gone and who she had been with. She wouldn’t make Jake take the blame when the decision to leave Rotten Row had been hers and hers alone. That, and a tiny part of her, a part wholly ruled by her reckless biology, didn’t want to alert her uncle to any potential chance liaisons in deserted alcoves in the future. Or tonight as Jake had suggested...
And she was doing it again! Thinking of Jake when she was supposed to be cleansing him and her momentary lapse in judgement from her mind. It was just a kiss, for pity’s sake, and certainly not her first. Hardly something to get so worked up about. She would brush it off just as she had his flirting. Just as she had brushed off countless similar overtures from gentlemen in the past. A meaningless kiss meant nothing, after all. Although if she was brutally honest with herself, which of course she always was, this one felt entirely different. Worryingly different. All-consuming and gloriously different. The exact opposite of meaningless.
Why was that?
‘What about the pink gown, miss?’ The flustered maid’s face matched it in colour as she dragged another wholly inappropriate dress out of the wardrobe. ‘I think Madame Devy has excelled herself with this one. I love the ruffles around the neckline.’
So did Fliss. ‘If only the ruffles hid more from lecherous, old eyes, then perhaps I might consider it.’ Appreciative, twinkling blue ones, for instance, she didn’t mind at all. Which was a great part of the problem. Being friends with Jake Warriner and being attracted to the scoundrel was a totally different, and entirely unsatisfactory, kettle of fish. Jake the Rake Warriner was too much like all the men who had waylaid all the wayward girls at the convent. The sort of man Sister Ursuline had been tempted by. The sort of man who had seduced her normally sensible mother and doomed her to a lifetime of marital disappointment. Jake was a charmer and a philanderer, entirely not the sort of man she would ever allow herself to become romantically involved with. She had more sense than all those wayward girls. More sense than her mother and certainly far more than Sister Ursuline had ever had in her youth. She would continue to learn by example, not from personal experience. She had to fight this unwelcome and visceral attraction for the sake of her own sanity, as falling for a rake, even a noble, and entertaining one, could never end well.
Fliss stalked over to the wardrobe and began to rifle through it for a suitable garment to inform Uncle Crispin he had no authority over her appearance any more than he could control her movements.
Not one of her dresses was there.
‘Where are my clothes, Kitty? The ones I brought with me from Cumbria.’
‘I can’t say that I know, miss.’ The young girl couldn’t meet her eye, a sure sign she did know. ‘Perhaps they are all being laundered?’
‘My uncle has had them removed, hasn’t he?’ His petty revenge for her rebellion yesterday. Another way to assert his dominance over her when all else thus far had failed. How typical he would use the contents of her wardrobe! His annoyance at the simple ensemble she had worn to Rotten Row had been evident in his expression from the outset and he had once again made a huge fuss about her insistence on wearing her spectacles. Spectacles she’d had the foresight to wear to read in the bath this evening, else they would probably have been sent to the laundry as well.
‘I couldn’t say, miss.’
The maid looked close to tears, but they both knew all her clothes had been in there this morning. Neatly organised according to the occasion. Gone were her favourite walking boots, the heavy wool pelisse she wore when climbing the Cumbrian hills, her favourite long-sleeved day dresses and sensible, soft slippers. The plain, navy outfit she had worn to Rotten Row and foolishly kissed Jake in. In their stead were an array of more new gowns stitched by the sought-after Madame Devy—because all the very best ladies in Mayfair wore Devy—but Fliss wouldn’t any more on principle.
Uncle Crispin must have paid the modiste handsomely to have sewn an entire new wardrobe in less than ten days, but while the gowns were intended to turn heads Fliss had no desire to be the body stuffed inside them. Not when that body appeared to turn Jake’s head as much as his turned hers. And certainly not when they made an old lecher like Redditch drool—her uncle’s only reason for insisting she wear them in the first place!
As the anger bubbled, she rummaged beneath the rows of strange new shoes, heeled boots and the rainbow of satin slippers dyed to match the fashionable and revealing gowns and huffed out a sigh of relief when she found the sturdy wooden box. At least that was still there.
Regardless, she still checked the precious contents inside. Her mother’s few items of paste jewellery had been spared the cull, worthless to most but priceless to Fliss. As had her embroidered handkerchief, made by her mother’s hand as a present for her only daughter in the final months of her life, and the small bundle of letters tied in a pink ribbon were exactly as she had left them. The last things Fliss owned which connected her to her past. But the purse containing her money was gone. It wasn’t a great deal of money, enough to buy her passage back to Cumbria and to cover emergencies, but having none made her financially dependent on her uncle and conveniently trapped here until he deemed otherwise.
The rage was instantaneous. ‘Did he steal my money as well, Kitty?’
‘I don’t know, miss.’ The girl was already backing away towards the door, her eyes wide and guilty.
‘Kitty!’
The maid bolted and Fliss went to go after her, but then remembered she was wearing nought but a see-through shift and there was bound to be a footman hovering close by. There was always a footman hovering close by. If her uncle seriously thought she would take this outrage lying down, he was vastly mistaken and his actions could go to hell. Tonight, they would be sharing more words. The final words ever to be uttered on the subject, or so help her God.
She snatched the green dress off the bed and hastily stepped into it. Like a woman possessed she wrestled with the difficult laces down the back and tugged up the scandalous neckline as far as she could before stuffing her feet into the matching jewelled slippers, grabbing her spectacles in her clenched fist and stomping out of the room.
It made no difference that she had dispensed with the need to truss herself into a corset or that she had neglected to put on stockings. The clothes would not be on long enough to matter once she had put dear Uncle Crispin firmly in his place, then she would leave this godforsaken town, with its dictatorial relatives and tempting rascals, and never come back. She had tried to be part of the family. However, as far as her dear, matchmaking and aloof uncle was concerned, Fliss did all the trying. His sole mission was apparently to see her decorated like a mannequin for the lascivious entertainment of an old man.
‘Where is he?’
The burly footman stood like a sentry in the hallway was startled by her venomous tone and nervously gestured towards the dining room. She slammed open the door without knocking. At least twenty faces stared back at her curiously. Patently there were more guests than merely Redditch tonight. Another unwelcome surprise in a day full of them.
‘There you are, Felicity.’ He smiled genially to the rest of the predominately male table. ‘Didn’t I tell you all that my niece was a beauty?’
At least six of the men ogled her shamelessly. One of them was the Earl of Redditch. ‘She is a beauty, indeed. May I be the first to ask you for a dance at Almack’s this evening, Miss Felicity?’ His eyes dropped to her unrestrained bosom and feasted. She should have put on the corset. Her bare breasts felt exposed under the thin material of the gown and above the low bodice. She clamped her arms over them and patently ignored the request.
‘Might I have a word, Uncle?’ Her tone was brittle, but her glare was granite. ‘In private.’
‘Not at the moment, Felicity. Dinner is about to be served and our guests have waited long enough for you to finish your toilette.’ He turned to the handsome blond man at his right. A man she had seen a number of times in her uncle’s circle, but whose name she hadn’t bothered remembering. ‘Young ladies and their vanity. Felicity always likes to look her best. A splendid attribute in a woman, I think you’ll agree. Who doesn’t enjoy a tempting morsel at dinner, Flint?’ He winked and a couple of the men laughed.
‘I’m afraid I must insist, Uncle.’
His eyes locked with hers with such cold intensity that for a moment she wavered. He suddenly scared her, but her pride wouldn’t allow him to see it. He stood, tossed his napkin down and apologised to his guests. ‘We shall only be a moment. In the meantime, enjoy the first course.’ The well-trained servants snapped to attention, serving the soup as her uncle stalked past her with such speed he caused a small gust of wind as he headed towards his study.
Once Fliss was inside he closed the door. ‘You have caused a scene.’
‘You have stolen my clothes and my money.’
‘I have bought you new clothes. More suitable ones. I will not have the ton gossiping about my niece’s woeful attire. It reflects badly on me. Most young ladies would be grateful at the generosity.’
‘I am grateful.’ Hard to say with her teeth grinding. ‘You have been most generous.’ With his money, at least. ‘However, that does not give you the right to take my things or dictate how I must dress, any more than it gives you the right to dictate my every movement. Your overbearingness is spoiling my visit. I should like the items back immediately.’
‘Impossible, I’m afraid. When I saw the sorry state of those garments, I had them donated to the poor.’
How dare he! Her outrage returned and served to dim her new fearlessness. ‘They were not yours to donate.’
He shrugged unapologetically. ‘What is done cannot be undone. Thankfully you have an extensive collection of ridiculously expensive new gowns to make up for the loss, so I feel no guilt. The new clothes are yours to do what you want with. I shall not dictate which you wear as all of them are appropriate for a woman of your status.’
‘Status! I have no care for status. Where is my money?’
‘I know nothing about that.’ He was lying. Nothing about his expression hinted at it, but Fliss felt it deep in her soul. Uncle Crispin was a man with a casual relationship with the truth. A consummate and compulsive liar. Another thing she had no evidence of, but felt inside.
‘How convenient. You had my bedchamber stripped of every stitch of clothing and every shoe I own in petty revenge for yesterday, yet you have no knowledge of the coins hidden in the same wardrobe?’
His pale grey eyes pinned hers and Fliss wanted to shudder. Cruel. That was the first adjective which came to her and once that thought took root, she wondered why she had not seen it before. He was more than merely cold. Cruel, callous and calculated. If eyes were indeed the windows of the soul, then his soul was tainted. He was not a nice man and neither was he one to mess with. She knew that with the same certainty she now knew accepting his invitation to stay had been a big mistake.
‘I have no need of a paltry few coins, Felicity, and I resent the implication. One of the servants must have taken them. Your maid, perhaps? I shall have her dismissed.’
‘Kitty didn’t take my money. You did. What I want to know is why you took it.’
He exhaled as if greatly put upon. ‘Have I not provided for your every need, Felicity? Do you doubt that I will continue to indulge you? Tell me what you need and I shall buy it for you.’
‘I do not want your money. I want my money. And as soon as I get it, I am going home.’
‘A tad melodramatic for a petty theft, don’t you think?’
‘Not when the thief is family. I’ve put up with your dictatorial and stand-offish manner, put up with your flagrant attempts at matchmaking and the way you have used my good nature to dominate my time and force me to follow your agenda, but this time you have gone too far. You have no jurisdiction over me, Uncle Crispin. None. I am not beholden to you, or anyone, for anything. Yet here, I am bullied into dressing how you want, attending the entertainments you deem fitting and degraded again in front of your cronies.’
‘Degraded? My, you have you mother’s flair for the dramatic, Felicity.’
‘Yes! Degraded. In front of Redditch, and those other men just now, you reduced me from person to a piece of...of...’ Was meat too extreme? ‘Visual entertainment.’
He didn’t bother looking affronted, his features remaining impassive and cold. ‘I am a man of business, Felicity. I do what is necessary to expand that business successfully. Hence I host dinners, flatter and fawn over my guests and, from time to time, I see no harm in providing them with—what did you call it? Visual entertainment. A pretty face, some mild flirting and the tantalising promise of more can help facilitate that. I fail to see why it offends you so.’
Where to start?
‘For twenty-five years we have been estranged—and that is of your making, Uncle, not mine. I wrote to you for years and every letter went unanswered. What gives you the right to feel as if you can have any say in my life now?’
‘I am trying to make amends, Felicity. The new clothes are surely evidence of my desire to atone for all the years I couldn’t provide for you as I had promised your mother I would.’
Once again he was using her mother to justify his actions. ‘I don’t believe you. This house, all this opulence, these are things you have enjoyed for a goodly few years. Yet in all that time you failed to make any contact at all. Now, suddenly, we are family because it suits your ends and you use my mother’s apparent words to bend me to your will. But you don’t care about my mother’s last wishes. Admit it, you dragged me here for Redditch, didn’t you?’ His flat stare confirmed she had hit the nail on the head. ‘You did! You brought me here to be paraded in front of that old lecher...’
‘Is your tantrum done?’ He made to walk away and she pulled on his arm.
‘My tantrum? You are attempting to use me to further your business. I am your only niece, yet I am to be bartered for a few barges. Have you no heart? No shame? If my mother was alive...’
Uncle Crispin turned to her, his face an ugly mask of pure malice. ‘Your mother was a fool. With her beauty, she could have had any man she chose. She could have married sensibly and hauled our family out of debt in the process. Instead she shamed herself with a penniless scoundrel and wasted her God-given gifts on a wastrel with no thought for me. I couldn’t give a damn about what she might think of me now!’ Hearing her beloved mother so shockingly maligned stunned Fliss into silence. While she had known the half-siblings were not close, she had never realised her mother’s brother had resented her. Hated her even, if his hideous expression was to be believed. ‘While I was delighted to learn you were the spitting image of your mother, I had hoped that you might have more sense than her. I had certainly hoped that your years in that convent would have made you less headstrong and difficult. Can you not see the Earl of Redditch is a very wealthy man? As his wife you could have all your heart desires.’
‘You are mad if you believe I would ever agree to his proposal. I’m going back to Cumbria in the morning!’
His hands lunged out and he grabbed her firmly by her upper arms, his ghostly pale eyes narrowed. ‘You will not jeopardise my relationship with the Earl. Our business negotiations are at a critical stage.’
‘They have nothing to do with me.’
‘Yes, they have.’ He shook her as she tried to free herself from his vice-like grip. ‘I promised him a stunning virgin. A woman he could proudly parade around on his arm and salivate over in the bedroom. A malleable, pliable woman, not a rebellious shrew! He wants you, or at least the illusion of you that I have created, and you will stay here until our business is concluded and continue to drive the old fool mad with lust.’
Clearly he’d gone insane. Fliss finally managed to jerk herself free by planting her hands in the centre of his chest and pushing with all her might. ‘Over my dead body!’
Her uncle stalked to the door and grasped the handle, but before he opened it he turned back. Those flat grey eyes hardened. ‘If you want the money to buy your passage to freedom, then you will earn it by being pleasant to the Earl. The quicker you comply and reel the old fool in, the quicker you can head back to whence you came.’ He neatened his coat and his expression became bland again, devoid of any discernible emotion. It was chilling to watch. ‘You are excused dinner, but you will waltz with Redditch tonight. The carriage will leave at precisely nine o’clock.’
Her mouth fell open, but Fliss struggled for exactly the right words to convey her utter incredulity and disgust. Before the right words came, Uncle Crispin strode out the door and slammed it behind him.