Ten

Oh, Mary, soft in feature,

I’ve been at dear Vauxhall.

No paradise is sweeter,

Not that they Eden call.

Methought when first I entered,

Such splendors round me shown;

Into a world I entered,

Where rose another sun...

–Colin Clout, “Vauxhall Song”

So sang the tenor standing on the gilded clamshell stage, his mellow voice beautifully accompanied by fiddle and lute. The members of the Gaithright party could not but agree with Mr. Clout’s lyrical description of the fabled pleasure garden.

The expedition to Vauxhall Gardens had been planned by the Gaithrights as a belated birthday treat for Annis, who had turned twenty-three in April. Both she and Clare had been longing to tour Vauxhall, but Lady Camden had refused to take them, declaring that she had no desire to undertake a nocturnal ramble among the lower orders.

Mingling with the great unwashed held no terror for her young cousins. Not only would they be escorted by the Gaithrights, but it was arranged for Mr. Deverill to join them in this most romantic of locales, where every night, a thousand colored lamps shone forth, making the gardens the most elaborate display of artificial lighting in the entire world.

To pass through the turnstile into Vauxhall was to cross the frontier into a foreign and exotic land. Here were to be found formal avenues lined with wonderful and curious edifices: ziggurats and minarets, temples and triumphal arches, colonnades and pavilions.

Exotic forms of entertainment abounded. There were acrobats, mimes, clowns, sword swallowers, jugglers, prestidigitators, and Indian rope dancers. Wandering minstrels serenaded the patrons, country dances were performed on the various greenswards.

Major Gaithright had bespoken a private supper box for their party. After the famous Vauxhall chicken pies were eaten and a birthday toast drunk, Kitty suggested that perhaps Jamie would like to show Clare the gardens. The young couple agreed with alacrity and soon disappeared into the crowd.

Annis was a bit worried. “Oughtn’t they have a chaperone? Not that Jamie isn’t a perfect knight in shining armor, but what if they are seen? Will there not be unkind talk?”

Kitty dismissed these forebodings with a wave of her hand. “Don’t you realize it was no accident that I arranged our expedition for a Wednesday evening? Almack’s, my dear,” she explained in answer to Annis’s puzzled look. “Even if Clare and Jamie were to be seen, no one would speak of it. Who would want it known that they were not invited to Almack’s and had to fall back upon Vauxhall for an evening’s entertainment?”

Kitty’s green eyes gleamed like a cat over a cream dish. “Annis,” she purred, “you’ve no notion how diabolical I can be when I put my mind to it. So no more vaporings about your sister’s reputation. Although,” she added with less levity, “if Clare and Jamie keep on the way they are going, the major and I may have to take our roles as chaperones more seriously.”

“But who,” the major asked, gazing fondly at his elegant wife, “is going to chaperone us?”

“Not I,” laughed Annis, who knew that Major Gaithright often complained that he saw too little of his wife during the Season. “I am off to see the sights as I perceive you two wish to discuss the subject of chaperonage more thoroughly.”

The major frowned. “I’m not so certain you should go alone—” He broke off abruptly, rather in the manner of someone whose instep has been trodden upon.

“Don’t be silly, darling,” Kitty chided. “I’m persuaded that a walk around Vauxhall would be just the thing for Annis.”

Annis departed their presence in a state of mild wistfulness. She was finding it hard to be a fifth wheel in the company of two such fond couples as Clare and Jamie and Kitty and her major. And there was no escaping fond couples at Vauxhall. They were everywhere, laughing and flirting, billing and cooing, walking hand in hand. The sight of them made a strange melting melancholy steal over her. She found herself wishing that she had a gentleman to accompany her along the twinkling pathways.

Her mother had always warned her to be careful what she wished for because the devil might make her wish come true. Well, the devil was abroad in Vauxhall tonight, and he was about to make her wish for male company come true with a vengeance.

She was contemplating the famous statue of the blind poet Milton that graced the front promenade when she sensed someone standing improperly close behind her.

She turned, looked, gasped, and then observed in accents of loathing, “You!”

Annis sighed. “I suppose you intend to make a nuisance of yourself, as usual.”

A mad fancy seized her then, but since there was no more fitting place on the face of the earth to give into mad fancies, she surrendered to it without a fight. “Are you familiar with the gardens?”

He looked so insufferably pleased with himself that Annis felt obliged to issue a stern reminder. “Pray don’t think this signifies any change in my opinion of you. I still find you odious, despicable, arrogant, and abominable. However, when one goes about Vauxhall Gardens, low company is better than none at all.”

Over the course of the evening, the low company exerted himself to be charming. He did not bring up their unfortunate mutual history, and he was on his best behavior as he conducted her to the various attractions. They promenaded pacifically side-by-side as opposed to their usual method of locomotion, which consisted of Ryder dragging her in one direction while she strove to escape in the other.

The evening flew by until Annis realized with a shock that it was time to return to the Gaithrights’ supper box. Without Ryder, of course. The sight of him would ruin Clare and Jamie’s evening, and it might lead Kitty the matchmaker to believe she had a tendre for the man, when nothing could be further from the truth.

The problem was that Ryder would undoubtedly insist on escorting her back to her party. This, she could not allow. No, like Cinderella, she would have to take sudden leave of her surprisingly charming but not at all trustworthy prince.

And here was the perfect place to do it: The Druid’s Walk. Oh, yes. She must surely walk the Druid’s Walk in Vauxhall.

Smiling secretly to herself, she sank down upon one of the benches by the entrance, doing her best to act like a poor female done in by too much walking.

“I would be ever so grateful for some lemonade,” she said appealingly. So naturally, he went trotting off in search of the nearest lemonade counter.

Once he was out of sight, she stepped through the entrance to the Druid’s Walk. It was darker than she expected, though the illumination from the garden did penetrate faintly through the elm branches overhead. Tall boxwoods lined the path among the elm trunks. At intervals, the boxwoods formed into arbors, most of which were occupied by couples locked in fond embraces.

There were crosswalks among the trees and greenery, but they seemed to lead only to dead ends. It was at this point that she noticed a pair of shiny Hessians protruding from under a shrub.

She gasped in shock. Had someone taken ill and collapsed? Peering closer into the dimness, she noticed that the boots were accompanied by a pair of kid slippers. Then she noticed that the owners of the footwear were wrapped together tighter than a bundle of laundry.

With a murmured apology, she hastily continued onward. She knew the Vauxhall walks were places of assignation. But really! This was too much!

More anxious than ever to find her way out, she tried to retrace her steps to the entrance. But every turn brought her upon more fond couples, more improper embracing, more goings-on (and more comings-off). Finally, she turned a corner of the maze and collided with a stout gentleman whose plump cheeks were pinked by astonishingly high shirt points.

Relieved to have finally found someone who was not amatorially engaged, she inquired, “Would you be kind enough to direct me to the exit?”

But the gentleman did not give her directions. Instead, he seized her by the shoulders and attempted to plant a kiss upon her lips.

Annis did not descend into panic. She could tell her molester was quite foxed on Arrack punch, and her marriage had provided her with a great deal of experience in repulsing the attentions of stout drunken gentlemen.

She closed her eyes, moaned dramatically, and went limp to the gratifying effect that her drink-addled admirer let her slip through his hands like a too-heavy sack. Befuddled, he knelt for a closer look at the lady upon whom his embrace had had such a devastating effect.

At this less than propitious moment, Ryder came upon the scene to behold Annis crumpled upon the greensward, fallen in the gallant defense of her honor, her assailant kneeling over her with fell intent.

Cautiously opening one eye, Annis saw Ryder jerk the unfortunate inebriate to his feet with his left hand and hit him squarely in the jaw with his right.

As the man sank in his tracks, she scrambled to her feet to face her rescuer, who was all chivalrous concern. “Good God, Annis! Are you hurt? Did you faint?”

“Certainly not!” she advised him crisply. “It was all a sham. In another few minutes, the fellow would have lost interest and gone on his way. There was no need for you to maul him about like that, I assure you.” She glanced down at her crumpled skirts. “Oh dear, I hope I haven’t gotten grass stain on this dress. It’s practically impossible to get out, you know.”

It was at this point that she realized her rescuer was laboring under a strong sense of ill-usage to judge from his black-browed frown. “Why, you ungrateful little chit,” he snarled. “I’ll show you mauling about.”

He pulled her against him, his arm iron across her back. He turned her face up to his, his big hand rough against her chin. His kiss was fierce and open-mouthed and hot with hunger for her as if he had been driven past all endurance by his desire for her. Her waltz-weakened defenses crumbled instantly before the onslaught. She melted against him, sinking into his embrace with a little whimpering sigh, her mouth opening to his probing tongue, her own unadmitted hunger mirroring his.

When finally, reluctantly, he released her, she stared up at him with a glazed expression. Oh, this was terrible magic indeed. Her knees trembled, and she was struck by the awful realization that all her struggles and strivings and vows and resolutions had just been undone by one kiss from her enemy’s lips. And what was worst of all, she didn’t want him to stop with just one kiss.

He knew it too. He smiled down at her as she panted and trembled before him. “Faint if you like,” he advised her silkily. “I shan’t go on my way.”

He leaned toward her, obviously intent on knocking her poor battered existence off its foundations yet again. Every instinct of self-defense rose up within her, and as if from a long way off, she clenched her fist and smote his lordship full upon the jaw.

It was a poor imitation of the blow that had felled the evening’s previous victim of fisticuffs, but it did come as a very great surprise to Ryder. He staggered back a step and then had the further misfortune to stumble and fall backward over the sprawled form of his previous opponent.

Annis stood frozen with shock, staring down at her handiwork. Then she realized it would be unwise to linger.

She bolted away at the fastest speed she could achieve. How she got out of the Druid’s Walk she could never recall. She suspected it was by making an exit through the shrubbery where one had not heretofore existed. Somehow she managed to stumble into the garden proper, where she heard her name being called.

“Where have you been?” Clare demanded. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you. Were you lost?”

Annis nodded dazedly. Yes, I was lost, lost in his arms. But only for a little while, and now I am back.

She was hardly aware of her surroundings during the ride back to Camden House. She felt as if she had been through a great battle. And she was under no illusion as to who had won the Battle of Vauxhall Gardens. It was not her, even though she had managed to knock Ryder onto his baronial rump.

But she had also shown her weakness for him, swooning in his embrace, welcoming his kisses. Her face burned hot whenever she thought of it, while her witch’s blood ran cold. Her witchery had fallen before Ryder’s lusty male magic.

He repaired to Gentleman Jackson’s Palace of Pugilism on Bond Street. The proprietor, John “Gentleman” Jackson, ex-champion of England, greeted him with some surprise, for it was not his lordship’s regular day to come in and practice his manly art.

“Sparring partner,” bit out Ryder in a tone that boded no good for whoever undertook the task.

Gentleman Jackson received this request with trepidation. He had to be careful who he tossed into the ring with Ryder, a big man and a punishing boxer. Owing to the earliness of the hour, the only other persons on the premises were two spindly looking (compared to Ryder) young sons of country squires, skipping about the ring with puppyish abandon.

Ryder saw them, too, and showed his teeth in an unpleasant grin. “See if they’ll oblige me. Possibly they’ll learn something.”

The two young gentlemen, on their first trip to London, were touchingly flattered by his lordship’s distinguished attention and insanely game to oblige him in the matter of sparring partners.

Ryder stripped (impressively when compared to his two opponents) and tied on the mufflers.

Jackson summoned his boxing scribe to record an account of the match, which ran thusly:

ROUND 1. Ryder and First Opponent greet each other with some mild cross-and-jostle-work, ending when Ryder suddenly puts two dexterous hits through First Opponent’s guard. First Opponent comes up bleeding from the left ogle but, pluck to the backbone, tries to pay back with interest what he has received. First Opponent is disappointed. Ryder, still flush and hardy, meets him with a dreadful stomacher and sends him to his knees.

ROUND 2. First Opponent comes to the mark, uncertain on his pins. Ryder displays a signal specimen of the boxer’s art in the manner that he delivers a blow to First Opponent’s victualing office. First Opponent evinces distress. Ryder lands a flush hit upon First Opponent’s Knowledge Box. First Opponent topples as if kicked by a horse and offers no further sport. Match ended. Match to Ryder.

ROUND 1. Despite the flooring of First Opponent, the Second Opponent comes to the ring with manly pugnacity painted on his mug. The combatants spar smartly, taking each other’s measure. First Opponent’s ivory box is visited by Ryder’s left mauley.

ROUND 2. Unfortunately for the Second Opponent, there is a magnetic attraction between Ryder’s right and Second Opponent’s frontispiece that keeps the claret continually streaming. Second Opponent retreats, followed by Ryder, who measures Second Opponent’s right peeper for a suit of mourning.

ROUND 3. Second Opponent becomes intemperate and runs upon his adversary. Ryder avoids him, changes front, fibs Second Opponent senseless, and catches him as he topples. Match ended. Match to Ryder.

It was this woman, this damned woman. He had to settle with her or he’d have no peace. She had struck his pride a hard blow in County Devon. She had struck his manhood a harder blow at Vauxhall Gardens. But he would get her under him and strike her deeper.