Merry Widows 02: Just One Of Those Flings Read online

  There was no sign of the little blond shepherdess, either.

  Curse it all, she had bolted. His Artemis did not have the courage of the huntress after all. She had fled rather than face him again. Damn and blast.

  His gaze swept the dance floor again and picked out two of the pretty young girls he'd noticed earlier. He really ought to stay and try to talk with them, even dance with them. But he had no taste for innocent flirtation after the passionate episode in the garden. All the glamour of elaborate costumes, the festive atmosphere, the gaiety—all of it was lost on Thayne. His mind was full of one thing only: Artemis. Who was she?

  He looked around at the room full of exposed bosoms and covered arms, and his mind was filled with images of her perfect arms and of his fingers and hands and lips upon them. No other arms enticed him. There was nothing more for him at this ball.

  He was making his way toward the stairs when he was stopped by "Queen Elizabeth."

  "You are leaving, sir?"

  "I am afraid so, Your Majesty. Though it has been a delightful evening, I have other commitments I must honor."

  "What a pity. You will miss the unveiling, at midnight, when masks are removed."

  "Disappointing, to be sure."

  "For us all," she said, and gave him a quizzical look. "I had most particularly hoped to see who lurked behind those exotic robes and turban."

  Most particularly? Had Artemis said something to her before she left? "Ah, but how much sweeter the mystery," he said, "if I make an exit now."

  She gave a disparaging huff. "I am plagued with early departures. How provoking. I must see to the rest of my guests. Good evening, sir."

  She swept past him in her heavy velvet skirts before he could probe her about Artemis, perhaps unearth a clue to her identity. Would Good Queen Bess have told him her name if he'd asked?

  But he would never have asked. Thayne would not jeopardize the privacy or reputation of Artemis. But damnation, he wished he knew who she was. There was nothing for it but to put her out of his mind, and consider tonight's rendezvous a onetime affair— a delightful interlude not to be repeated. It was certainly not the first time he'd enjoyed a woman's charms only once and never again. It was not even the first time the woman had been nameless.

  So, he would proceed as planned, making known his return to town, and setting about the business of finding a bride. Life would go on in the usual manner.

  He would try to forget her. But as he fingered the tiny golden arrow hidden in his patka, he rather suspected he was doomed to searching every ton event for a fair-haired huntress with a kissable mouth.

  That night Thayne dreamed of India. Outdoors in the evening. The trickle of a nearby water fountain. The breeze scented with night-blooming jasmine. The cry of peacocks from the mango trees. A woman's voice rose in plaintive song. The heartbreaking strains of a sarangi and the sweet, clear notes of a basuri flute. The seductive rhythms of a tabla drove the sinuous movements of a nautch dancer. Thayne watched her dance as he lounged against bright-colored silk bolsters beneath the ornamental canopy of a chattri. The colors, the music, the heady scents, wrapped around him like hookah smoke, drugging him. The dancer came nearer, the tiny bells on her ankles jingling, calling to him like a siren's song. He wanted her. His body was on fire for her. She came closer so that the silk of her trousers brushed against him. The elegant mudras of her hands captivated him. When his eyes were finally able to gaze upward, he found her face partially veiled. But one long strand of yellow hair flecked with gold escaped the veil, and large blue eyes gazed down at him. He reached out to her.

  Chapter 3

  "How extraordinary." Beatrice looked at the women gathered in Grace Marlowe's sitting room, each one of them nodding her head to confirm that what she was hearing was true. Apparently Lord Julian's house party at Ossing Park had not turned out quite as expected. Marianne Nesbitt had indeed taken a lover to her bed, but it had not been their host.

  In fact, she had not known who it was.

  Beatrice could hardly believe that two of the Merry Widows had had encounters with perfect strangers. Beatrice had not yet revealed her story, but she could not help thinking of it, of her unknown lover, as she listened to her friends tell what had happened at Ossing Park.

  The women had gathered for their regular meeting as trustees of the Benevolent Widows Fund, a charity organized by Grace to aid women who'd been left destitute when their husbands had been killed in the Peninsular War. Their most successful fund-raising efforts were the charity balls they sponsored during the Season. The balls had become very popular, and invitations were coveted, even though a sizable contribution was requested on acceptance. The balls were held every two weeks from April through the end of June, and so the trustees met frequently to ensure that all arrangements went smoothly.

  But lately, their meetings had taken on a decidedly different tone. Ever since Penelope, Lady Gosforth, had convinced them all to make a secret pact to find lovers, and they had dubbed themselves the Merry Widows.

  Marianne's story, it seemed, was not quite the same as Beatrice's after all. The youngest of the trustees, Marianne had been the first to fall into Penelope's plan. She had obviously wanted to pursue a lover, but had been rather shy and uncertain about how to go about it. They had all offered advice and counsel, and encouraged her to allow Lord Julian to win the day. But apparently something had gone awry. Marianne had thought Lord Julian was making love to her in the dark, but realized the next morning it could not have been he, as he had been injured the previous evening. She had fled the party after discovering that a stranger had tricked her and taken Lord Julian's place.

  "Who could have done such a thing?" Beatrice asked, astonished that any man would have such audacity. At least her own masked lover had not pretended to be someone else. He'd simply been a maharaja-garbed man who'd clearly desired her. Beatrice had not stopped thinking about that desire, and her own, for days, and was still conflicted about it.

  "As it happens," Marianne said, "I know who it was."

  The trustees listened in amazement as Marianne revealed that her secret lover had been her closest friend, Adam Cazenove. Wilhelmina, the Dowager Duchess of Hertford, was the only one who seemed unsurprised by the news, claiming she had always suspected Adam was in love with Marianne.

  The business of the Fund was cast aside as they spent the next half hour discussing Marianne's predicament. Each time Adam's lovemaking skills were mentioned, Beatrice felt her skin flush in reminiscence of her maharaja. She had to wonder if she would ever have considered going into the garden with him if the trustees had stuck to business and never become the Merry Widows. Their frank, and often racy, conversations had, she believed, primed her for seduction. She did not know if she should scold them for leading her astray, or thank them.

  The discussion of Marianne's dilemma ultimately descended into silliness and laughter and talk of laying in supplies of juniper juice for contraceptive purposes. Even Grace, the prim and prudish widow of the late, great Bishop Marlowe, became caught up in the merriment of the moment.

  Finally, Penelope turned to Beatrice, the movement causing her soft brown, fashionably cropped curls to bounce against her cheeks. "And what about you, Beatrice? What have you been up to while we were enjoying the interesting happenings at Ossing? I don't suppose you have found yourself a lover, have you?"

  Her eyes twinkled with mischief. Penelope was bound and determined that they should all take lovers, as she had done, for the sake of their health and happiness. She had a new lover, Eustace Tolliver, and had regaled her friends with the details of his prowess in the bedroom.

  Beatrice had given a great deal of thought as to whether or not she should confess to her garden encounter. She was still more than a little embarrassed about it. Yet at the same time, she was brimming with excitement over the pure boldness of it. In fact, it was that push-pull between mortification and delight that had finally convinced her to tell her friends what had happened. Perhaps t
hey would be able to help sort out her feelings.

  She took a deep breath and offered Penelope a halfhearted smile. "It is quite possible I have," she said.

  Penelope gave a little shriek. "I knew it!" She pounded the tea table so hard that every cup and saucer and bowl rattled precariously. Beatrice and Marianne grabbed their cups before they could topple, and Grace steadied the table with her hands. Penelope was oblivious to it all. "I told the others you were up to something," she said, her face wreathed in a dazzling smile.

  "I wasn't up to anything before you left," Beatrice said, "but something quite unexpected happened while you were gone."

  And so, with encouragement from all four ladies, and with constant pressing for details from Penelope, Beatrice told her tale.

  "I confess I have been torn apart by the whole affair," she said at last. "I have felt shame, delight, embarrassment, wonder. I haven't known whether I'm coming or going."

  "It is rather shocking," Grace said, quite as one would have expected.

  "I think it is frightfully exciting," Penelope said, with equal predictability. "I declare, it is more interesting even than Marianne's situation. But how extraordinary that you each found such pleasure in a stranger's arms. Perhaps there is something to be said for a bit of mystery. I wonder—"

  "Don't get any ideas, my girl," the duchess said. "I don't want to hear of you dashing off with every stranger who makes eyes at you."

  Penelope snorted. "No, I suppose Eustace would not like it."

  "No, he would not," Grace said. "He cares for you, in case you had not noticed."

  Penelope turned to her and beamed. "Do you think so?"

  "But you have no idea," Marianne said to Beatrice, getting back to the point at hand, "no idea at all, who he might have been?"

  "I am afraid not," Beatrice said. "Indoors, he was masked. And outdoors . . . well, it was very dark."

  "I know the feeling," Marianne murmured.

  "And up against a wall, no less," Penelope said, and heaved a little sigh. "How exceedingly daring of you."

  "Or exceedingly cheap and vulgar," Beatrice said, "like a doxy in a dark alley."

  "Do not be so hard on yourself," Wilhelmina said. "You are no doxy, and it does not sound as though he treated you like one."

  Beatrice felt her face flush at the duchess's words. Though Wilhelmina had ultimately married a duke, it was easy to forget that she had started out life as little better than a cheap doxy. She was quite open about her past, but Beatrice knew that she sometimes felt the differences between her and the other trustees very keenly.

  "You are right," Beatrice said. "It was not a slam-bang sort of affair. He took his time with me. He . . . he pleasured me. He did not treat me like a light-skirt. I have simply felt like one from time to time since that evening. I have never done anything like that before, and it is still unsettling to me."

  "You were emboldened by the darkness, I daresay," Marianne said in a wistful tone that hinted it had been just so in her own case.

  "The worst part, though," Beatrice said, "is that I was so determined he not see me and recognize me, or I him, that I bolted. It seemed the right thing to do at the time, but instead I have been driving myself mad every time I see a dark-haired, dark-eyed man of the same build, wondering if he was my maharaja. I can barely look a man in the eye for fear I will somehow recognize him."

  "And what if you do?" the duchess asked. Wilhelmina was older and wiser than the rest of them, and she'd had a great deal of experience with men. Ever since their Merry Widows' pact, Wilhelmina's rather scandalous past and her knowledge of men and love affairs had become a useful resource. She was also the kindest and most generous of women. "Will you bolt again?" she asked.

  "I don't know," Beatrice said. "I suppose it depends on how he reacts if he recognizes me. What will I see in his eyes? Mockery? Scorn?"

  "I doubt that," Wilhelmina said. "He asked your name. That means he wanted to see you again."

  "Yes, he said as much as I ran away."

  "Silly woman," Penelope said. "What on earth made you run away from such a man?"

  "Because she was shocked at what she'd done," Grace said, and they all turned to look at her. "Well, weren't you? I certainly would have been."

  "I am sure you would," Penelope said, "and we would all have been equally shocked, I assure you."

  "Grace is right," Beatrice said. "That is why I ran away. But I admit that for one tiny moment, I almost turned back. Even then, I was torn and confused. After all, I'd never done anything remotely disgraceful in all my life. I'd never been with any man other than Somerfield. I frightened myself, you see, and so I ran."

  "The question is, will you continue to run if you see him again?" Wilhelmina asked.

  Four anxious pairs of eyes turned to Beatrice. She wished she could oblige them with a firm answer. "I don't know. I truly do not know. I suppose a lot depends on who he is. He could be someone's husband, God forbid."

  "What did he say to you?" the duchess asked. "Was there any hint about family or background?"

  "Let me think. I asked if we had met before and he was quite sure we had not. Or so he said. And my costume and mask were not that much of a disguise, so it cannot have been a matter of simply not recognizing me."

  "Assuming he was telling the truth," Penelope said, "then he must be new to London. Everyone knows you, Beatrice. He is either some undesirable sort from a different level of society, or he has lived a life somewhere outside of London."

  "A country gentleman?" Wilhelmina asked.

  "A soldier?" Penelope asked.

  "I don't think so," Beatrice said. "Unless he was a general. He had a very confident, almost arrogant bearing."

  "What about his costume?" Grace asked. "Was it truly Indian? Could he have just come from India?"

  "He's a nabob!" Penelope exclaimed, clapping her hands together in glee. "Beatrice, you've found yourself a rich nabob. What fun!"

  Beatrice laughed. "Don't be silly, Pen. His was not the only maharaja costume at the ball. I'm sure he must have got his from a theatrical company or some such place. Besides, would a nabob have somehow procured an invitation to the Wallingford ball? Mary suggested he might have used someone else's invitation to gain admittance, but then he'd have to have ton connections, would he not?"

  "If he's rich enough," Marianne said, "he could find acceptance fairly easily, I should think. And a lot of men have made a great deal of money in India, some of them from very good families. He need not have been a struggling clerk who made a fortune in diamonds. He may be a gentleman."

  "And if he's not," Penelope said with a shrug, "what does it matter?"

  "You are all getting carried away," Beatrice said. "I don't think the costume had any special significance."

  "And it does matter," Grace said. "If he is not an honorable gentleman, he might resort to gossip if he ever learns your identity. Whether he is a nabob, a duke, or a laborer, we must hope that he is to be trusted."

  "As a matter of fact," Beatrice said, "I have been a bit concerned about that. Besides worrying that every man I see might be him, I also have feared that he truly did recognize me and that now every man I see knows what I did with him. I so hope he is not one of those unscrupulous men who flaunts his conquests to the world."

  "Like Lord Rochdale," Grace said, and gave a little shudder.

  "Exactly. I would hate to endure what poor Serena Underwood went through. Rochdale's open acknowledgment of their affair, and then his public rejection of her, was worse than cruel."

  "I think it best that we assume your maharaja did not know your identity, but that if he did, he is a trustworthy, honorable gentleman," Marianne said. "Unless and until we learn otherwise."

  "And if he is," Penelope said, "and if you run him to earth again, by God you must keep him this time. Don't bolt like a green girl. Meet him as a woman, as a lover, and steal every moment you can. That is what our pact is all about—finding pleasure in a man's arms again, just beca
use we want to."

  "But with discretion," Grace said. "You must always be discreet and take care for your reputation."

  "Of course, Grace. You must not worry that I will do anything to embarrass the Fund." Assuming she hadn't done so already, and that the fellow hadn't begun smearing her name in the betting books. "Besides, if I ever discover who he is, I haven't yet decided what I will do. It may come about that I do nothing."

  Then again, if her body kept singing its sensuous tune every time the stranger was mentioned, she might indeed have to do something.

  "You are still determined to track her down?" Jeremy Burnett was ensconced comfortably in a large wing chair in Thayne's sitting room at Doncaster House, his lanky limbs sprawled in every direction.