Chapter Eight

That afternoon, Nora paced in her first floor parlor, waiting for Lord Westfall to make an appearance. It was inconceivable that he wouldn’t come. After all, what man would decline an opportunity to spend time alone with La Nora?

“This one, most like,” she fretted to herself ruefully.

She had the feeling that he disapproved of her but that he was still weirdly fascinated by her. He reminded her of a field mouse who is charmed immobile by a snake’s glassy stare, terrified but unable to look away.

“Oh, Lud, that makes me the serpent,” she muttered.

“My lady? Is something amiss? Do you require anything?”

She’d forgotten that her butler, Mr. Whittles, was in the room. He was of medium height and build, pale-haired and of sallow complexion. The butler’s general appearance was that of a man crabbing sideways into his middle years and had been for as long as he’d been in Lord Albemarle’s employ. Benedick liked to joke that if Whittles stood naked before a beige wall and closed his eyes, he’d disappear entirely.

“No, Whittles,” Nora said. “After you bring up some tea, you may take the rest of the day.”

“Begging your pardon, my lady, but it’s not my half day off till Saturday.”

“Nevertheless, you will take the day.” She’d dismissed her lady’s maid and Cook at noon. Before that, the rest of the servants had been given orders not to return until tomorrow evening. She would have dispensed with Whittles sooner, too, but it was unheard of that she should answer her own door. “And don’t hurry back tomorrow. You know I never rise before noon, in any case.”

“Yes, my lady. Very good.”

“Oh, and Whittles, bring tea for two.”

“Ah!” Whittles laid a finger alongside his nose in the time-honored gesture of collusion. “His lordship is coming. Say no more.”

“I’m not expecting his lordship, though Lord Albemarle knows of my…friendship with the gentleman who’s coming to visit. However, I’d rather there was no confusion on the matter among the other servants, so let’s keep this between ourselves. I hope I can count on your discretion.”

“Of course, my lady.” His head bobbed a few times like a water bird feeding in the shallows before he glided toward the door. “I am yours to command.”

But Benedick’s to pay, she finished silently. Nothing would happen in her home that Lord Albemarle didn’t know about. She’d considered replacing Whittles, but he’d come with the house and had served Benedick for years. It didn’t seem fair to penalize the man for loyalty.

She just wished she could inspire some for herself.

Someone rapped the knocker on her front door.

“That will be Lord Westfall. He’s come to see the orchids,” she added, wishing she hadn’t. She owed Whittles no explanation. “But first show him up here, and we’ll have refreshments.”

“Right away, my lady.” The butler hurried to answer the door and then do her bidding over the matter of tea.

She didn’t know why she insisted on the formality of tea. Westfall was such an unconventional fellow, she might as well have worn a gardener’s smock and met him in the hothouse behind her town house. Instead, she’d taken great pains with her appearance. She wanted to show him that, though she was a courtesan, she could receive a caller like a lady.

Whatever had befallen her, whatever choices she’d made, she was still the daughter of an earl and knew how to behave like one when she wished.

She draped herself gracefully on the settee, carefully arranging the flowing panels of her morning gown. Then she opened the book of poetry that had been left on the side table, though she didn’t really attend to the words.

Nora felt his presence before she caught a glimpse of him from the corner of her eye. A ripple of feral pleasure coursed through her. He seemed to fill the parlor doorway, his broad shoulders nearly touching on both sides.

She changed her mind. There was nothing of a field mouse about this man.

He made a stiff bow, but he didn’t speak.

Nora looked up, aware that most men loved to catch a woman in this state. She was wearing half-dress, her hair unbound, her expression appropriately dewy-eyed and hopeful after supposedly letting Byron’s lush verses surge over her.

“Hullo, Westfall,” she said.

“Your book is upside down.”

“Oh!” She laid it aside as quickly as if it were a viper.

“But you looked lovely pretending to read it. I assume that was the point, so, well done.”

“Well, I have read it, you know.” In fact, it was one of her favorites. Fugitive Pieces was Lord Byron’s first privately published collection of poems, some of which were vehemently disapproved of by his lordship’s boyhood preacher. Byron had been quietly trying to buy back all the copies that had been sold, but Nora would never part with hers.

Westfall stared at the cover for a moment and began reciting:

“‘Ye rhymers, whose bosoms with phantasy glow,

Whose pastoral passions are made for the grove;

From what blest inspiration your sonnets would flow,

Could you ever have tasted the first kiss of love!’”

That very stanza had just flitted through her mind. It was uncanny and reminded her of their kiss at the opera enough to set her insides a-jitter. “Oh, you know your Byron.”

“Not really,” he said, “but it appears you do.”

She rose hastily. “Where are my manners? Please have a seat.”

Nora had chosen to meet him in the parlor located on the first floor toward the back of the house instead of in the more formal one in front. Here the chairs were overstuffed and comfortable instead of ostentatious and gilded. She’d surrounded herself with things she loved, not things meant to impress others. Rather than housing gewgaws and gizzwickies, the shelves along one wall held books whose spines showed wear. Instead of a fashionable Turkish rug, the hardwoods were bare and gleaming so the parquet’s design was shown to best advantage. While she wouldn’t throw rocks at a Gainsborough landscape, the walls in this room were graced with a simple framed set of pressed flowers.

Westfall ignored her invitation to sit. The flowers caught his eye, and he wandered over to inspect them.

“You collected these yourself,” he said. It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes, when I was a girl in Surrey.” What a very intuitive man he was. “They grow wild there.”

“Solanum dulcamara,” he said before the specimen with a five petal blossom whose purplish blue color had faded slightly over time.

“It’s also known as bittersweet. The crofters on my father’s land consider it a weed, but I think it’s lovely all the same.”

“It is.”

“I have another name for them.” She didn’t know why she told him that. She’d never confided the notion to anyone. It was a silly little thing from her childhood, certainly not full of the wit and charm for which she was known, but “in for a penny, in for a pound.” “I call them God’s flowers.”

“Because they’re the ones no one else wants,” he said as if he was finishing her thought.

“Exactly.” She’d pitied the poor unloved plants when she was a child. Now that she was grown, she knew what it was to be the one no one wanted. Even after Lewis had died, her father had refused to see her. She’d defied him, and he’d never forgiven her for it. She was the weed in his garden. The earl had plucked her out with ruthlessness, root and all.

Whittles bustled back in with the tea tray and made a great show of setting things up on the low table before her. Lord Westfall sat, quite properly, in the Sheridan chair opposite her. Nora was relieved when he did. It was a mistake to meet him in this room. If he continued to prowl around the space, poking into her special things, what else might he learn about her that she wasn’t quite willing to share?

“I’ll pour out myself,” she said to her butler. “That will be all, Mr. Whittles.”

Her butler eyed Lord Westfall for a moment, and then scraped a bow to her. “Very good, my lady.” He was too well trained to sneak another glance at her guest as he made his exit.

“How do you take your tea, Westfall?”

“I’d like it if you would call me Pierce.”

She blinked in surprise. He seemed such a buttoned-up, formal sort of fellow. “Of course,” she said. Even though he’d told her his Christian name at the opera, he hadn’t invited her to use it. “I’m honored you would count me among your intimate friends.”

“I have no friends, intimate or otherwise,” he said matter-of-factly. “No one but Vesta LaMotte calls me Pierce.”

She bristled a bit. “And since she and I are similarly employed you thought—”

“No, it’s not that.” He lifted a hand to forestall her indignation. “I never asked Vesta to use my name. She simply does it. I have no idea why. But I’d like to hear you say it. If you would.”

“Very well…Pierce,” she said, slightly mollified. She was, it must be admitted, a fancy whore, but she was quick to guard her dignity. No one else would. “You may call me Nora.”

“But that’s not your given name, is it?” He leaned forward. “You were christened Honora.”

“How do you know that?

“I am an associate of the Duke of Camden. He has means of acquiring information throughout England that I can’t even begin to fathom.”

So he’d used his association with the duke to learn more about her. It made her uneasy. No one’s past would bear much scrutiny. Certainly, not hers, but Benedick would be pleased. It meant Westfall was on very good terms with His Grace and that made him much more valuable as an asset.

“No one has called me Honora in years,” she said.

“Then Honora will not mind if I take the name out of mothballs and give it a bit of practice. Will she?”

He said the strangest things, but she rather liked them. She smiled her assent.

“How do you take your tea?” she repeated.

“I didn’t come here for tea, Honora.”

“Oh.” She stopped in mid-pour. “Yes, of course, the orchids. Come.”

She was a little disappointed that she wouldn’t be allowed to show off her skills with a teapot. There was something genteel, yet sensual, about preparing a perfect cup. Benedick loved to watch her stir in the lumps and add just the right amount of milk.

“Ambrosia,” he’d say. “Just the way I like it.”

But she reasoned that a good hostess falls in with the wishes of her guest so she abandoned plans to coax more information from Westfall over her brew. She might call him Pierce, but she’d continue to think of him as Westfall. It was safer.

Allowing him close would give him the power to hurt her.

She rose and guided him back down the elegant stairs to the ground level of her home. Then they swept through the beautifully appointed salon that, like her front parlor, was designed to over-awe visitors with the taste and wealth of her patron. There was nothing of her in either of those rooms. They were all Benedick.

Without the quiet bustle of servants, the empty house seemed to breathe with them. The swish of her kid-soles on the floor was the sound of its soft inhalations, Westfall’s noisier footfalls its loud exhale. He held the back door for her, and they stepped into her small garden.

The kitchen squatted to one side, detached from the house so as not to be a fire hazard, and the hothouse sat opposite it, across the small garden. Beyond a tall wall at the rear of the property, a stable housed her horse and provided a place for Benedick to park his equipage when he visited. A grassy patch ornamented by a pattering fountain and a granite bench was located between these three structures. It was a place where the lady of the house could take her leisure while servants worked around her on all sides.

But now all her servants were gone. She didn’t know why it was important to her not to be under their watchful eyes. It was not that they weren’t paid well enough to be discreet. Benedick wouldn’t care that she had invited this man here. He’d told her she was free to pursue Lord Westfall. He’d even encouraged it since he believed it might lead to a closer association with His Grace, the Duke of Camden.

But part of her didn’t want this visit to be about Benedick’s schemes. There was something about Lord Westfall—Pierce, she corrected, reasoning that perhaps she could think of him as that so long as she didn’t become maudlin about what it might mean that he wanted her to use his given name.

She didn’t know what it was that drew her to him. His madness placed him on the furthest edge of her experience and so few things were. Perhaps that was why she’d arranged for this meeting to take place away from prying eyes. She sensed he’d be more comfortable with fewer people around, though why this should be, she couldn’t say.

Her insides fluttered as she entered the hothouse with him dogging her steps. A tart, fresh smell tickled her nostrils.

“Oranges,” Pierce said.

“Yes. I have the cleverest gardener. He manages to trick a couple of small trees into growing and bearing year-round. The smell is heavenly, isn’t it?”

“I prefer a mix of mint, lavender, and apple myself but yes, the scent of oranges is very nice.”

She allowed herself a small smile. He’d almost given her a compliment. While most of the ton was dousing itself in heavy floral or musky scents, that unusual trio—mint, lavender, and apple—were the high notes in a fragrance her perfumer compounded specifically for her use. The process had cost Benedick the earth, but he always claimed it money well spent.

“You’ll never be able to sneak up on me, my dear,” he had joked. “I shall always catch a whiff of you first.”

Pierce looked around the hothouse at the plethora of exotic plants. “Lord Albemarle is very generous.”

It was as if he knew Benedick had crossed her mind. “He gets value for his coin.”

“Of that, I have no doubt.”

Why had she said that? It wasn’t as if Benedick had ever taken her to his bed. Her value to him was measured in other ways, but she couldn’t betray him by telling Westfall what those were. Let him think what he would.

A smile played about his lips, as if something had struck him funny.

“Do you mind letting me in on the joke?” she said, wishing now that she hadn’t invited him. This was a mistake. She wasn’t ready to be with someone like this. It had been too long since she’d been with a man, let alone someone as decidedly odd as Lord Westfall.

“There is no joke. I was just thinking about orchids. People think they are parasites, you know, but they really aren’t.” He stooped and, from beside a begonia, he plucked a cankerwort up by its long root. “Most orchids actually don’t take anything from their hosts except a place to live and grow.”

“I didn’t know that.” By those lights, she supposed she was Benedick’s orchid—a frilly spot of color on his arm, a mark of manhood for him and a source of envy among the bucks and dandies of the ton. She asked only her keeping in return—a place to live and grow.

Lord Westfall didn’t meet her gaze often, but when he did, she looked away, feeling the heat of his eyes on her. There was something feral behind his cool gray irises. Was that madness flickering there?

Despite his tightly controlled demeanor, even though the Duke of Camden had vouched for him, Pierce Langdon seemed a dangerous, unpredictable man. She didn’t want to admit it, even to herself, but that raw edge excited her.

“Of course, there is a possibility that the orchid will eventually harm its host,” he warned.

She remembered that she considered herself the orchid in her relationship with Benedick. Perhaps she and Pierce were both dangerous. “How?”

“By virtue of its placement. The orchid can weaken the host if its roots become too invasive.”

No danger of that with Benedick. She wasn’t the clingy sort. She’d never harm him. He was too important to her. How would she support Emilia without him?

“Who is Emilia?” he asked suddenly.

“How do you—oh, of course, the Duke of Camden. He must have dozens of Bow Street Runners at his beck and call.” So His Grace had discovered her secret. Lord knew, her father had never cared enough to try. The weight of the burden grew the longer she carried it by herself. She still wasn’t sure having Westfall here wasn’t a mistake, but when she looked into his eyes, no madness leaped in them. She decided to trust him.

“Emilia is my daughter.”

He nodded with no hint of shock. “I thought so.”

“My husband died in France before I could tell him I was going to bear his child. And since I had defied my father to marry, I decided not to return home.”

“You mean you couldn’t return home,” he said simply and without pity. His words smacked more of understanding than sympathy. “I, too, know what it is to be pushed away by family.”

So he did. At least her father hadn’t had her committed to Bedlam. “Not to put too fine a point on it, but no, I was not welcome at home.”

“And your family still doesn’t know about the child.” Again his remarks that should have been questions sounded more as if he were simply rehearsing facts he already knew.

“Why should I tell them? Once Emilia is old enough, they would probably only blame her for my shortcomings. After all, she is the walking, breathing evidence of my disobedience. I would never put her in that position.” Nora wandered along the narrow path between the raised benches covered with potted specimens. “At any rate, she is safe and well-tended where she is.”

“And kept as far away from you as you can bear.”

Tears pressed the backs of her eyes. What was it about this man? Every time she was with him, he either caught her crying or moved her to weep.

“Emilia doesn’t need to be tainted by having a mother who…” she began.

“Who loves her more than anything?”

She was going to say, “Having a mother who is a whore,” but Pierce had reached inside her chest and pulled out the real reason Nora kept her daughter at a distance. She was a pariah. She couldn’t bear to taint her child with her sordid reputation. “How do you know so much?”

“I know very little really,” he said, his voice husky. “But I want to know more.”

“Well, the orchids are over there on the north wall and—”

“Honora, I didn’t come for tea. I didn’t come for orchids.”

“You didn’t?”

He shook his head. “I came for you.”