Ralph grinned despite some feeling of discomfort. "I wouldn't know, Rog," he said. "I am your very much younger cousin, if you will remember. You plagued me with the fact throughout my growing years."
"Did I?" Roger asked. "But you were such a sweet innocent, little cousin. Are you still? Are you a very proper husband, Ralph, enjoying the little countess's favors just once a day, at a respectable hour of the night, with all the candles doused? How very dull! No wonder the poor lady is suffering fromennui."
"You are getting a little personal, Rog," Ralph said quietly. "I do not like to hear Georgiana spoken of in such a way."
"Oh, quite," his cousin agreed. "I meant no offense, you know. What I suspect, Ralph, my lad, is that you do not know how to enjoy yourself. I'll wager you have never kept a high flier. Am I right?"
"I think you know you are," Ralph said. "And I make no apology for the fact."
"Yes, yes," Roger said, waving energetically in the direction of a passing waiter and directing him to bring some claret to the reading room. "You always were high-principled. I remember your throwing yourself at me once, both fists flying, when you were the merest stripling, because I wouldn't release one of those village maidens of yours without first claiming a kiss. If you had had an ounce of wisdom, my lad, you would have known that the wench was panting for her kiss even more than I was."
"Well, I seem to remember getting much the worse of that encounter anyway," Ralph said with a grin. "A bloody nose, if I remember correctly. And Ginny Moore had her kiss."
"The point is, my young innocent," Roger said, "that one learns from such females. When I do marry, you see, I shall be able to enslave my bride with the pleasure I know how to give her. Women are fools when they frown on their men indulging in amorous adventures. We would be the clumsiest dolts if we did not, and quite incapable of offering them any compensation for the services they must render. And we must be the ones to offer the experience, my lad. The type of female we must marry knows precisely nothing."
"You are undoubtedly right, Rog," Ralph agreed amiably. "But it is a trifle late to try to convert me to your philosophy now, is it not?"
Roger swung his leg to the floor and leaned forward in his chair as the waiter entered with a tray and glasses. "Ah, the end to a long drought," he commented, drinking from his glass until he and Ralph were alone again. "I'm not so sure of that, my boy," he said. "You look blue-deviled, and the little countess looked positively out of sorts. She needs parties and theaters. You need a mistress."
Ralph laughed. "Would you not think it a little out of character, Rog?" he said. "Can you imagine me with a mistress?"
"Let me find you someone," Roger offered magnanimously. "It won't be difficult. There are always dozens of women in search of rich, titled protectors. And they would fall over themselves if he were also young and handsome. And you are turning out to be quite well-endowed in that last department, Ralph. Surprising, really. You used to be quite a puny lad. In a few years’ time, you will probably be putting us all in the shadow. What say you?"
"I say good day to you, I must be getting home," Ralph said with a laugh. He got to his feet and held out a hand to his cousin again.
"I have promised the little countess to try to sniff out some entertainments for her," Roger said. "I shall see that some invitations are sent your way, my lad. Even at this godforsaken time of year there are some similarly desperate people organizing parties. And you think of what I have said. It is time you started enjoying the life to which you were born, my serious young scholar. And what better way to begin than with a hot little affair, eh?"
He took the proffered hand, and Ralph left the room. Roger yawned, picked up his drink, and went in search of companionship.
Ralph took his wife to the theater that night. The outing had not been planned. His thoughts of the afternoon and his meeting with his cousin had combined to make him feel actively guilty about his neglect of her. And she reacted with almost pathetic eagerness when he suggested taking her out. He did not extend the invitation to anyone else, though he knew that his private box at the theater would comfortably hold a sizable party. He shut his mind to the possible disappointment his mother or Gloria might be feeling at being excluded.
They did not speak a great deal either during the carriage ride or at the theater. He watched her covertly. Was she unhappy? Roger's words suggested that she might be. She was quiet. Before his marriage and during the first few days afterward, he would have thought this quite characteristic of her. But during the days at Chartleigh he had become aware of a vitality in her and even a tendency to become talkative at times. Her face could be alight with animation and doubly beautiful. All of these facets of her character were absent now.
If she were not actively unhappy at the moment, there was a strong possibility that she would be soon. She could not be happy with the state of their marriage. He knew that women did not crave sexual activity as men did, but even so, she must wish for a normal marriage. She would wish for a child eventually.
Yet he was terribly afraid to make theirs a normal marriage. He mentally cursed himself now that he had not gone to her on the second night of their marriage and asserted his rights. Even if he had caused her pain, it would have passed. He knew that a woman felt real pain only when she was still virgin. The same held true now, of course. He could go to her tonight, and by tomorrow the pain would be gone forever.
But it becomes so much more difficult to do something positive when one has once procrastinated. He could not just go to Georgiana’s bed. If only he did not love her so much! He watched her as her attention was on the stage. She was so small and slender. And so very dear. He wanted to protect her from all the pain and unhappiness that life might throw her way. How could he be the one to hurt her?
Unbidden, his conversation with Roger came back to his mind. If he were to take his cousin at his word and take a mistress, he could learn not only how to give pleasure to a woman but also how to make love without the clumsiness that his present inexperience made inevitable. It was a mad thought, of course. How could he deliberately be unfaithful to the wife he loved and to the principles by which he had always lived? He blanked the memories from his mind.
Georgiana, for her part, was also covertly observing her husband. Why had he suddenly decided to bring her out? It had been a pleasant surprise. And she despised herself for feeling so. It said little for the state of her life that she could be grateful to a poor-spirited boy like Ralph for an outing. Yet the truth was that she was feeling annoyingly pleased to be seen with him. He really did look almost splendid in his dark blue satin evening clothes. His valet had done fascinating things with his neckcloth.
He was not happy, though. He was always quiet, of course. That was nothing to signify. But his laughter-filled eyes and upward-curving mouth seemed to have been left behind at Chartleigh. Oh dear, it was all her fault. She had wrought this change in such a little time. And the plan that had struck her like a lightning bolt that afternoon recurred to her mind. It might work. Something had to work. And yet for some stupid reason she could not do the obvious thing and just talk the matter out with Ralph.
Roger Beauchamp was handsome enough. In fact, he was quite devastatingly handsome: tall, slim, dark, self-possessed. He was older, too, undoubtedly a real man. She could even remember that for one moment on the occasion when she and Ben on their way out of the bushes had met him and a young lady on their way in, she had wished that they might all change partners. He would undoubtedly know all there was to know about kissing, she had felt sure then.
He was a man framed by heaven for the express purpose of making other men tear their hair in jealousy. That much was perfectly obvious. What woman could look at Lord Beauchamp without even the smallest thrill of admiration? She was going to flirt with him, that’s what she was going to do. Just a little, of course. She was not going to arouse any major scandal. But she was going to drive poor Ralph wild with jealousy. She was going to make him angry, furious at her. So angry that he would...Georgiana felt a lurch of excitement somewhere low down in her anatomy.
She chattered in quite animated fashion about the play during the carriage ride home and was somewhat cheered to find her hand in her husband’s for the second half of the journey. She had certainly not put it there. She even noticed with some gratification when they entered Middleton House that the smile was back in his eyes.
But miracles do not happen in a flash, she discovered a few minutes later, as she entered her lonely bedchamber, the imprint of a gentle kiss on the back of the hand that he held against her cheek.
Chapter 9
Lord Timothy Boothby and his lady were giving an evening party in honor of their five-and-twentieth wedding anniversary. They did not dignify the occasion by the title of "ball" because there were so few families in town to attend it. They were able to send out only one hundred and twenty invitations. Nevertheless, their ballroom was to be thrown open to their guests, and an orchestra hired to play background music if no one seemed inclined to dance, and a variety of country dances, quadrilles, and waltzes if anyone did.
Three of the invitations found their way to Middleton House, one for the Earl and Countess of Chartleigh, another for the dowager countess and her daughter, Lady Gloria Middleton, and the third for Lord Stanley Middleton. Georgiana danced around the morning room with delight when she opened hers. She could see the hand of Lord Beauchamp in this happy turn of events. She was even more gratified later in the day to find that her parents and Vera had also received invitations.
