THE EVENING at Lord Standen's townhouse was indeed quite different from anything Georgiana had expected. Most of the guests were male, and most were considerably older than either she or Ralph. Normally she felt quite unselfconscious in a crowd and could converse with the greatest of ease with whoever happened to be near her. On this occasion, she felt out of her depth. This was no frivolous social occasion.
Yet Ralph, she noticed with some interest, seemed immediately to be in his element. After some introductions had been made on their entry into the drawing room, he drew her into a group that was talking animatedly about something to do with taxes and land reform. She did try at first to follow what was being said, but her attention quickly wandered.
It was caught by a young lady on the other side of the room, almost the only person in the room, in fact, noticeably below the age of thirty, with the exception of her and Ralph, and the man on whose arm the girl's hand rested. He was a slightly built young man with a thin, ascetic face and a shock of unruly black curls, a marked contrast to the blond beauty of his companion. Georgiana had been introduced to both a mere few minutes before, but she could not remember their names.
She caught the eye of the young lady, who smiled and beckoned her. Georgiana removed her hand from Ralph's arm and crossed the room.
"Do join us, Lady Chartleigh," the girl said. Her beauty was quite flawless, Georgiana saw. "I daresay you are rather dismayed to find yourself in company with so many dry old sticks. I must not say that very loudly, of course, but Standen's parties are not strong on excitement."
"Oh," Georgiana said. "I had not realized I was looking so bored."
The girl dimpled. "I used to be terrified of him," she said, "Until Nigel told me that my own opinions are quite as valuable as anyone else's. I must say I still stand in some awe of all this superior intellect. These people all make me feel the merest peagoose. But sometimes the most intelligent people are not the most practical people. Is that not true, Nigel?"
The dark young man looked gravely at her. "Quite so, my love," he said. "But they are also the most powerful people and ultimately will be able to do far more than you or I to set right the inequalities of our social system."
"Lady Chartleigh," the girl said, "I can see that you look quite bewildered. And how foolish of me to forget that when one is introduced to twenty new faces in fewer minutes, one is unlikely to remember a single one of them afterward. This is my husband, Nigel Broome. He is Standen's brother, you know, though you would never guess from looking at them, would you? I am Sylvia Broome. Like you, we have been married only a few months."
Georgiana relaxed. Here was someone as ordinary as herself, a girl of her own age, surely. In fact, now that she looked more closely, she seemed to remember having seen Sylvia Broome before, probably at some of the social events of the spring. She smiled and began to talk.
It was a strange evening. No cards. No dancing. No music. No charades. Just conversation, and lots of it. But Georgiana had made friends with Sylvia and Nigel Broome by the end of it. They were a fascinating couple, she found. They were deeply devoted to each other although physically they seemed such a mismatch. Sylvia had a habit of prefacing much of what she said with "Nigel says… " And he never failed to listen with the whole of his attention to everything she said, no matter how seemingly frivolous.
What made them most fascinating to her, though, was the fact that they did not spend their days in fashionable idleness. Not for them the constant fight against boredom that she knew from her own life and which had often led her into all sorts of troublesome scrapes. Nigel ran a school for destitute boys in their own home. They had twenty enrolled, though actual numbers fluctuated quite alarmingly, they confided. It was their sole ambition to give the boys enough of an education to enable them to get positions as servants or perhaps even clerks.
"When you see the reality of the situation, you quickly lose your larger ambitions," Nigel Broome explained. "We have no dream of reforming the world. If we can be of small help to a mere handful of boys so that they have some future instead of none at all, we will feel that our venture has been a success. As Sylvia once said, the ocean is made up of little drops of water. Each little drop is as important as any other."
"But in your own home!" Georgiana said, turning to Sylvia. "How can you bear it?"
"The adjustment has certainly not been easy," the girl said, laughing. "I lived a retired and very pampered life in the country until my guardian brought me to London this year, you know. But Nigel says that being able to adapt to change is part of maturing, and Nigel is always there to calm me down when I am ready to say I can take no more. It is a challenging life, Lady Chartleigh. Looking back, I can hardly recognize the girl I was a mere few months ago-a timid, frivolous ninny-hammer of a girl."
"You were never that, my love," her husband said gravely.
Ralph joined them partway through their conversation. He sat beside Georgiana and smiled at her. She felt a rush of warmth. How good it was to sit thus with one's husband, conversing with another equally young but very interesting couple. There was something very domesticated about the scene. And how horrified by the very notion she would have been only a couple of months before. Sylvia Broome was right. One did change very quickly after marriage-even after a very incomplete and unsatisfactory marriage.
"How does your brother react to your project?" Ralph asked Nigel Broome. "He seems very set on bringing about sweeping social changes in the country."
Nigel smiled. "I am afraid we do not always see eye to eye," he said. "It might seem surprising since we have very similar ideas. But my charge is always that my brother's head is in the clouds. Airy notions do not bring about the changes that are so desperately needed, or if they do, those changes come about so slowly that whole generations suffer in the meanwhile. He charges that my solution helps so few people that it is quite worthless. We keep the peace by agreeing to disagree."
Later, in the carriage on the way home, Ralph took Georgiana's hand, something he had not done for a while. "Are you very tired, my dear?" he asked.
Georgiana yawned. "Mmm," she said. She was resisting the urge to rest her head on his shoulder. As it was, she had allowed the motion of the carriage to tilt her sideways so that her shoulder was propped against his arm.
"I am glad the Broomes were there," he said. "I had not met them before, though Standen has spoken of his brother. He was betrothed to Sylvia Broome, you know."
"Who?" she asked.
"Standen," he said. "But something happened and she was forced to marry his brother."
"How strange," she said. "I would say she has made the wiser choice, though, even though Lord Standen is vastly more handsome than her husband."
He turned his head and smiled down at her. His cheek brushed against her hair for a moment. "Did you like them?" he asked. "I was afraid for a while that you would be dreadfully bored, Georgiana.”
"I would not have minded," she said gallantly. "You like that sort of gathering, do you not, Ralph? I think you must be very intelligent and have a very superior education. I must seem very dull to you. I have not read very much and I have never thought very deeply about any really important topic."
"Georgiana!" he said, turning toward her in the darkness of the carriage and squeezing her hand. "Do not belittle yourself. You have not had occasion, perhaps, to think a great deal on serious matters. But you have qualities of character that I find most enviable. You have the courage and the warmth to show to advantage in almost any situation."
"Oh," she said. "Ralph, when I talk to someone like Sylvia Broome, I think of how very useless my life has been. And I do admire her tremendously. But I do not believe I could live her kind of life. To have one's home invaded by boys from the street! I think I should become cross beyond all belief and be screeching at them like a barn owl before a day was out."
He laughed and drew her arm through his so that her shoulder rested comfortably against his arm again. "Then I must be careful never to suggest opening a school for boys in Middleton House," he said. He added quietly, "But I must find something to do, dear. I am not quite sure what. Will you mind?"
She shook her head and gave in to the temptation to rest her cheek against his shoulder. They rode home in companionable silence and climbed the stairs together to their rooms. Ralph stopped outside her door and looked down at her.
"I hope it has not been a dreadfully dull evening for you," he said.
How could she convey to him the fact that any activity this evening would have been a delight provided only she could see him and be in the same room as he?
"I have enjoyed it," she said. "I think I have learned something about your life, Ralph."
He smiled and brushed the fingers of one hand against her cheek. "You are a very sweet person, Georgiana," he said.
She felt herself become breathless. What stopped her from reaching out and putting her hands against his chest or around his neck? Or from taking his hand and opening the door of her bedchamber as she had the night before in a different house? And what prevented him from taking her in his arms? Or leaning across her and opening the door himself? What was it that was between them when there was no apparent reason for any barrier at all?
They looked into each other's eyes only long enough to know that there was no breaching that invisible wall yet. He bent his head and kissed her very softly on the lips.
"Good night, dear," he said.
"Good night, Ralph."
The formality of their words rang in Georgiana's ears as she stood on the other side of the door a few moments later, leaning back against it, the tears wet on her cheeks.
For the next two days Georgiana was very restless. It seemed to her that the time would never come when Roger would again take her to Kensington and she would again don her disguise for her meeting with Ralph. She was all impatience. In the meantime she tried to interest herself in what was going on around her. She went shopping with Gloria for more bride clothes, visited Lady Beauchamp with her mother-in-law, visited her own parents on the occasion of her father's birthday, and wandered around Middleton House, examining each room with a critical eye and imagining how it would look with some changes.
She was only just beginning to digest the fact that this house was now hers, that she was its mistress. It was a magnificent house, but the furnishings were heavy and old-fashioned. Georgiana hated furniture loaded down with ornate carvings and gilt trimmings. She much preferred simple elegance. And reds predominated far too much in the house, she felt. She would like softer tones to make the rooms lighter and more airy. She would like to see all the family portraits arranged in the upper gallery, where there was light and space enough to show them to advantage. If she had her way, they would all be removed from the living rooms and replaced with landscapes.
She wondered what Ralph would say if she told him of her ideas. She certainly foresaw battles with his mother, who could not seem to accept the presence of Georgiana in what she still considered as her own home.
And Georgiana had a visitor. Dennis Vaughan called on the first afternoon and stayed for a whole hour. She heard someone else at the door while he was with her and was disappointed to discover that it was not Ralph. She would have liked her old friend to meet him. They would have nothing in common, of course. Dennis would appear quite trivial-minded beside Ralph. She even admitted to herself with a little twinge of surprise that she wanted Dennis to see that she had married someone above the ordinary touch. She recalled feeling just before her marriage that she would be ashamed for her friends to see the sort of man she had been forced into accepting.
It was Stanley who had come in. He came and talked with Dennis for a while before leaving the room again. Georgiana was starting to feel rather uneasy around Ralph's brother. He was always civil, but she had a feeling that he disliked her and disapproved of her. He could not possibly be more unlike Ralph. She put him from her mind.
She spent a pleasant evening with Ralph the day after the Standen party. The rest of the family had been invited out after dinner, and Georgiana followed her husband to the library.
"Do you mind if I sit in here to do my embroidery?" she asked. "I shall not disturb you."
"Of course not, Georgiana," he said. "I merely came to choose a book. I intended to join you in the drawing room."
"Would you not prefer to stay here?" she asked. "It is a much cozier room."
And they sat, one on each side of the fire, for an hour or more, she sewing, he reading, with scarcely a word passing between them. Just like an old married couple, Georgiana thought with deep content. So life should be at times. One could not forever be going out, searching for any activity that might alleviate boredom for a few hours.
She looked up under her eyebrows at him a few times. He was quite engrossed in his reading. She might have felt some resentment against his books, which could take him so completely away from her. But he looked very endearing, slouched down somewhat in his chair, one elbow propped on the armrest, his hand pushing at his hair, which was looking more disheveled than usual. His face held a slight frown of concentration.
Men must be very different from women, she concluded. He seemed utterly absorbed in his book, just as if he had never visited a certain house in Kensington two nights before and just as if he had made no plans to go there again the following night. Had it really meant so little to him? Was it perhaps just a light flirtation for him, something he would have indulged in even if their marriage was a normal one? She did not care to investigate that thought further. Or did the meetings mean something to him, but he had the ability to put them out of his mind? Could men compartmentalize their lives, love and all its associated emotions being but one compartment? That thought too was not an attractive one.
She could not think of anything else but their liaison. Two nights ago she had given herself to her husband for the first time. It was not an event to be forgotten in a moment or shrugged off as a thing of little importance. It had been such a very physical act, so much so that she could not be in the same room as Ralph now without feeling an ache of awareness of him. She could feel him now, his long leanness pressing down on her, his manhood a hard and welcome pain inside her. Just a glance at him now could set her heart to thumping and her womb to throbbing.
How could he sit there reading, oblivious of her very presence, when she could not wait for tomorrow night, when it would all happen again? Tomorrow she would not be frightened or unsure of herself. She would be able to enjoy every moment. And she hoped it would last longer. So much waiting for a mere few minutes of delight! Of course, she thought suddenly, Ralph did not know that it was she with whom he had lain. But how could he not know? How could he not feel now that it must be she?
Ralph, she thought, stitching away sedately at her embroidery, when I married you I hoped that I would be able to tolerate you. After a few days of marriage I thought that perhaps I might be able to develop an affection for you. Now I think I might be in a fair way of falling in love with you. She glanced up at him again, startled by her own thoughts. He was looking at her.
"I am very dull company, am I not, dear?" he said. "Would you like to come to the music room and play for me?"
She smiled across at him and shook her head. "No, No, carry on reading," she said. "I know that is what you like to do, Ralph. I think perhaps I will choose a book too. The only trouble is that I am not a reader and do not know where to start. What would you recommend?"
He put down his own book and got to his feet. He held out a hand to take one of hers. "Let us see," he said. "Poetry? Perhaps you would enjoy Thomson's Seasons." He took a slim leather-bound volume from a shelf and handed it to her. "Or a novel? Richardson's Pamela is quite readable, though you might find that the sentiment is somewhat objectionable. It is a very long book, too."
"Oh, dear," Georgiana said when he set three volumes in her hands. "This is all one book? Let me try the poetry, Ralph. Is it easy to understand?"
"Shall we read it together?" he suggested. "Perhaps if we put our heads together, we can interpret any lines that are a little difficult."
"You are very tactful," she said. "What you really mean is that you will be able to explain the meaning to me.”
"You belittle yourself, Georgiana," he said gently, and he pulled up a chair alongside hers while she folded up her work and put it away in its basket.
When she was in her own room later, Georgiana marveled at the fact that she too had forgotten all about Kensington in the hour they had spent together with the book. Ralph was a born teacher. They had both talked about the poetry, but she knew that her own insights had been drawn from her with skilled questions. She had never dreamed that reading could be such an absorbing activity. And she had not thought in the last few days that her intense awareness of her husband could be anything but sexual. For an hour she had been totally captivated by his intelligent and active mind. She had been borne upward by it, beyond herself.
She had been actively disappointed when Ralph's mother and sister arrived home and came into the library to share some tidbits of gossip they had heard during the evening visit. The spell was broken. She was again herself. He was again Ralph, the husband from whom she was estranged, if that was the right word. She supposed that two people must at one time have been close if they could be estranged. They were again the couple whose marriage had never made a proper start. Still the couple who said good night at a respectable hour and retired to their very separate chambers.
She started to long for the following night again.
Ralph handed his caped greatcoat and beaver hat to the porter when he reached the house in Kensington. He resolutely put from his mind thoughts of Georgiana and the very happy turn their relationship had taken in the past two days. They were in a fair way to becoming friends, he felt. But they were far from being lovers still. He would not think of her for the next hour. He had waited with impatience for three days for this moment. He was going to enjoy it.
She was waiting in the dimly lit sitting room as she had been before. She rose to her feet when he entered as she had then. It was almost like going back in time. He crossed the room to take her gloved hand. It was almost like going back in time. He crossed the room to take her gloved hand. It was quite impossible to see her face beneath the heavy black veil. But he did not wish to do so. He would be repelled to see the hennaed hair and the features of a stranger. He raised her hand to his lips.
"I do not like to think of you alone on the streets coming here and leaving," he said. "Will you change your mind about taking up residence here for a while, Miss Shaw? It can be easily arranged, you know."
She shook her head. "No," she said in that whisper she had used on the other occasion.
It must be that she had other lovers, he thought, and pushed the thought from his mind. He was not sure yet if he wished to set her up as his mistress, under his sole protection. But he thought not. For him this was to be a very temporary interlude.
"Shall we go into the other room?" he asked.
This time he found his way to the bed with rather more ease than he had the last time. He did not think he had ever been in a room from which even the faintest glimmer of light had been so ruthlessly excluded. He undressed and climbed into the bed.
She was already there, naked as before, but warm this time. Excitingly warm. He propped himself on one elbow and clasped her shoulder, pushing against it until she turned over onto her back. And he began to explore her body, unafraid tonight, savoring every move, postponing the moment when he would mount her body and give himself up to the demands of his physical need.
Her shoulders and arms were very delicate and slender. Her full, firm breasts were a surprise in contrast. So very feminine. He touched them lightly at first and then with greater boldness, molding them in his hands, touching the tips with wonder as he felt them harden against his thumbs. He lowered his head hesitantly and kissed one hardened nipple. He took it into his mouth and sucked gently. The girl pushed up against him and made a low sound in her throat.
His hands slid lower as his mouth moved to the other breast, spanning her tiny waist, pushing down on her flaring hips, tracing the outside of her legs and then her inner thighs. Her flesh was even warmer than his hand. She was burning him. His hand nudged at her thighs with some urgency and she opened for him. He buried his face between her breasts and felt her with his hand. His fingers explored her, caressed her, gloried in the heat of her.
And then her fingers were tight in his hair, the upper part of her body arched toward him, and he was rising to meet her, toppling her to the bed again, bringing himself down on top of her nakedness and pushing up urgently into the soft heat beyond where his fingers had reached.
His arms went around her slight little body and he buried his face against her soft curls as he thrust and thrust into her, heedless of gentleness, heedless of the moans that escaped her, heedless of everything except the elemental need to reach that moment of glory when all the tensions of his desire would be released into the woman's body that he possessed.
She was shaking slightly beneath him when he came to his senses again. He did not know how long he had been lying thus. Had he been sleeping? He rolled off her, but kept his arms around her and brought her with him. He held her close against him and pulled the blankets up around her shoulders. She was still trembling.
“Did I hurt you?" he asked. "I am sorry. I forgot to be gentle.”
“No," she whispered, "you did not hurt me."
And what an absurd thing to have said, he thought. This girl had doubtless been subjected to indignities that he could not even dream of. It was not in her power to object to the treatment she received in a man's bed. She was paid to be compliant.
Ralph felt a twinge of distaste for what he was doing. This was a person he held in his arms, a woman doubtless with dreams and hopes and feelings. He tried to put a face to the physical presence he could feel. But he could not. He could not associate the pretty and rather vulgar little dancer of the opera house with the soft and still slightly trembling body that cuddled against him.
She was Georgiana's size. Just thus Georgiana would feel, if she could ever overcome her fear of him sufficiently to cling to him so trustingly. He closed his eyes and laid his cheek against the soft curls of the dancer and imagined that they were dark, glossy curls instead of garish red ones. It would be so easy to fantasize, to imagine that it was his wife with whom he had just made love.
The girl had stopped trembling. She had relaxed against him. Her breathing had become deep and even. She was sleeping, Ralph realized in surprise. Somehow he had not expected a paid whore to sleep after such an encounter. He would have expected her to be eager to be gone, her work done for another night. Perhaps she was really tired? What must it be like to be forced to work on after a night of dancing in order to earn enough money to make a living?
He was glad she was sleeping. He did not feel like leaving yet. He did not want to lose contact with her and know that several more days must pass before he could hold her again. He remembered the way she had offered herself to him with something like urgency just before he entered her. He remembered the sounds she had made as he moved in her. Did she feel she mint he an actress in bed as well as on the stage? She surely could not have been feeling the eagerness her actions had suggested.
He was so inexperienced, Ralph thought ruefully. Not that he was really sorry. He did not think he would crave contact with the muslin company once this particular liaison was at an end. If only his marriage to Georgiana could be set right, he would be perfectly content to explore the world of sexual delights with her and to learn further pleasures with her.
The girl woke suddenly with a start and Ralph hugged her to him, knowing that however disappointed she might be, and however unfair to her he was being, he must have her again before he left. He rolled with her on the bed and was relieved to find that she accepted this new duty without objection or hesitation.
He took her quickly and deeply, his eyes tightly closed, seeing and feeling his wife beneath him. And she lay submissively beneath him, this girl, perhaps living out her own fantasies.