But that was not the whole of it. There was something more than the physical between them. Why was it that one of his favorite times during their hour together was the spell between their lovemaking when they would merely lie together, their arms wrapped around each other? Why was he always so reluctant to leave her even when his body was thoroughly satiated?
He knew the reason. He was in love with her. No, not exactly. Not in love with her. In love with Georgiana. He was still repelled when he forced himself to recall with whom he was so frequently intimate. Once he even went to the opera, alone, just to remind himself of how she looked. He was appalled. His box was quite close to the stage. He was even more aware than on the previous occasion of the heaviness of the paint on her face and the artificiality of her hair color. He had gazed at her, quite unable to associate the unseen yet very familiar body of his mistress with this vulgar-looking creature on the stage.
She caught his eye at one point and smiled at him. No. Leered. There was a coquetry in her look that repelled him. He left the theater almost immediately and never went back again.
He found that he did not put her face to the body of his mistress. It became his fantasy that it was Georgiana he held. It was her with whom he made love. Sometimes he deliberately slowed down his own impulses so that he might give her pleasure. He would play with her with his hands and his mouth until he knew she was ready for his entry. And then he would move in her, denying his own climax until he knew by some instinct that she was ready for hers. And he would release into her at the very moment when he knew she would shudder against him and give that smothered cry he was becoming used to.
Why would he do so for a woman who was merely earning her living thus? It was in her interests to have the business over with as quickly as possible. He did it for Georgiana, dreaming that it was she to whom he was giving a pleasure that he knew was often denied women. He refused to puzzle over the surprising fact that he was obviously giving pleasure to a practiced courtesan.
He could have been happy if, like many men of his class, he had seen no wrong with having a wife and keeping a mistress both at the same time. But when he was alone, away from the pull that both women exerted on his heart, he did see wrong in what he was doing. What he had done had never been right, but at least at first it had been a purely business arrangement with a very definite motive on his part.
Now it was a lot more than that. The girl still rendered him a service. He still paid her well on each occasion. But there was a relationship between them for all that they did not exchange a dozen words during their encounters. In a strange way, he loved her. And the longer he had her, the more he grew familiar with her body, the more they slipped into happy routine, the harder it became to give her up.
Yet he loved his wife more deeply with each passing day. Quite passionately. He wanted her desperately. And he despised himself for making love to her through the body of another woman. Ralph's self esteem was not growing any greater despite the vast improvements in almost all other areas of his life.
On the whole, he was not a happy man at the end of the seven weeks, when everything changed.
Chapter 15
Leaving Middleton House for a few hours late at night in order to go to Kensington and back again had become a matter of some routine for Georgiana. Her maid helped her don the heavy black dress and a dark cloak. The veils, she had not put on until she arrived at her destination. The same maid then checked to see that the back stairs were deserted and let her out through a side entrance. The door was left unbolted so that she could return again without disturbing anyone.
Roger's plain carriage always waited around a nearby corner to take her to Kensington and to return her at a prearranged hour. Roger had accompanied her on the first two occasions, but he no longer did so. As he had explained, he could think of rather more entertaining ways to spend his evenings than in conveying his cousin's wife to clandestine meetings with her husband.
"And quite frankly, my dear Georgie," he had added, "the sight of your flushed face when you return reminds me painfully of all that I am missing on my own account."
Georgiana had never come even close to being caught. Eventually she abandoned some of the caution that had always set her heart to thumping at first. She did not even have her head covered by the hood of her cloak the night she saw Stanley. She was hurrying along the pavement on her way to the carriage. He was walking toward her on the other side of the street.
She immediately felt panic. She hastily raised her hood, lowered her head, and hurried on. She did not think he had seen her. Certainly he did not hail her or cross the street. She breathed a sigh of relief when the postilion handed her into the carriage, and she was on her way. But she remembered the near-disaster. The next time she was far more cautious, though on that occasion the street seemed deserted. She thought no more about the matter.
Two evenings later there was a ball at Viscount Roth's mansion on Charles Street. It was an occasion Georgiana much looked forward to. Entertainments on a grand scale were still fairly rare. She dressed with particular care in a pale green velvet gown that had just been delivered from the modiste's. Its design was very simple, but she thought that it showed her figure to advantage. She wore Ralph's pearls with it.
The ballroom was surprisingly crowded. It seemed that everyone who was anyone had been invited. Georgiana's card began to fill with flattering rapidity. Ralph claimed the first set and the supper dance. Roger, Dennis, Stanley, other acquaintances: all signed her card. She was rather surprised at Stanley. She felt he did not like her. And besides, he rarely danced. He felt it to be a rather juvenile activity, she guessed, and cultivated a mature image by playing cards and playing rather deep, she had heard.
She thoroughly enjoyed the first part of the evening. The set with Ralph was too soon over, but she had the supper dance to look forward to. And she could see from her card that it was a waltz. Dennis Vaughan amused her with the story of his latest escapade, in which he and a friend had put frogs into the carriage of Lady Sharp, who had boasted at a dinner party that she was a strong-minded female and never had the hysterics or the vapors.
"We watched from the bushes at the end of the evening," he said, "and she had both. It was vastly entertaining. "
"I wish I could have seen it," Georgiana said. "I know the lady and she certainly lacks sympathy for other people's weaknesses. 'Hard-minded female' would have been a more apt description, I believe."
Lord Beauchamp was in high good humor and soon had her dimpling and protesting against his teasing. What could have been happening to his dear Lady Chartleigh, he wondered, that she was looking so satisfied with herself and so starry-eyed these days? If he were her husband, he would consider the matter worth investigating.
Stanley had written his name next to a waltz. He knew the steps, Georgiana discovered, though he danced without flair. She resigned herself to a dull half-hour, wishing that she were dancing with some of the more accomplished partners around them.
"I am onto your game, you know, Georgiana," Stanley said quietly, close to her ear.
"What?" she said.
"I am onto your game," he repeated. "I know what you are up to."
She drew her head back and looked into his face, startled.
"Did you think I had not recognized you?" he asked. "That was a fond hope. The street was deserted except for the two of us. Of course I saw you."
"When?" she asked, looking mystified. She knew immediately that it was a stupid reaction.
His eyes were cold as he looked back at her. "The night you were on your way to an assignation with my cousin," he said very distinctly.
"With your cousin!" she said. "You mean Roger? How absurd, Stanley. Of course I was doing no such thing."
