‘It was a rule you agreed to, when we married,’ he said.
As she remembered it, she had agreed to nothing. She had told him specifically of her plan to break any and all rules when she chose. ‘But that one makes no sense,’ she said. ‘And it hurts me when you go to that place without taking me along.’ That was more truth than she’d planned to reveal.
Her honesty did not seem to affect him in the slightest. He rolled her off him and on to the soft grass that had been their bed. Then he gave her a quick peck upon the cheek before standing and doing up his breeches. ‘I will be back on Thursday morning. The time will pass so quickly you will hardly know I’m gone.’ Then he left her, walking in the direction of the stables, probably to prepare his horse for the ride to London. She could hear him whistling a few bars of the song she’d been trying unsuccessfully to teach the bird. It was some consolation to think that one of them had learned it. Would that Frederick was so easy to educate in the things that really mattered.
She rose and shook the grass from her skirts, calling for the dog before walking with him back to the house. By the time she arrived, she had a plan to teach her husband the benefits of shared entertainments.
He would not like it, of course. At least, not at first. If there was truly nothing to fear from Vitium et Virtus and her husband’s continued fascination with it, then there was no reason she could not go as well. He would see her there and scold her. Most likely, he would become so angry that he would kiss her. Then they would go to the places there that other couples went when they wished to be alone, and he would forgive her everything.
But he would not just leave her behind, as Father had when he’d married Marietta. They belonged to each other now, just as the Bishop said at the wedding. They belonged together.
And if she should find that he only went to the club to escape her and to sample pleasures in private and fulfil desires that he did not wish to admit he had?
She did not want to think about it. She had seen him there twice. He had not been behaving any more improperly than he had when people could see him.
It was a shame, really. If one could not let down one’s guard when all around them were doing so, what was the point of going to such a place? To cause him to make even a small misstep would be a service. If it was possible to commit a sin when one was with one’s own wife. She was not sure.
She went into the house and up the stairs, with Sargent loping at her side, until she arrived at her bedroom where her maid was waiting. ‘There is to be a ball at Vitium et Virtus and I need a costume.’
‘Oh, no, ma’am.’ Polly was still smarting from their last adventure and the risks she had taken.
George gave her a frustrated frown. ‘Do not be so silly. I am going with my husband. If he owns the club, I will be perfectly safe there.’
‘I suppose,’ Polly said. ‘But you do not mean to look like a fallen woman again, I hope.’
‘I am not fallen,’ George said with a proud smile. ‘At least not in a way that society frowns upon. I am married now. And thus, I am allowed some latitude in my dress, am I not?’
Her maid had no argument against something that was so perfectly true.
George threw the doors of the wardrobe open wide. ‘It should not be necessary to buy a costume, I think. Perhaps something old can be re-trimmed.’ She pulled out a blue-green gown, the colour of the sea on a summer day. ‘This one. Pull off the sleeves, cut the hem until it looks like seaweed. Take the pearls from another gown and scatter them across the bodice. And make me a mask as well.’ She held it up against herself, swaying to admire the movement of the skirt. ‘I shall let down my hair and be a mermaid.’
And she would not bother with the nonsense of attracting other men to dally with. In no time at all, she would catch the only man she cared for, lure him to the rooms upstairs she had heard about, and bind him so tightly to her that he would never leave her again.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
His wife was a bad influence on him.
Fred smiled. Not a terrible influence, perhaps. But he was definitely different from the way he had been the last time he’d been to Vitium et Virtus. Tonight, he was enjoying himself.
The dance floor was packed with devils, angels, sheiks and harem girls, and any number of mythological figures in costumes chosen for their ease of removal. By midnight, there would be couples kissing in dark corners, embracing in alcoves, and leading each other up the stairs to the bedrooms. While it would be a lie to pretend that the whole world was in love, it most certainly seemed to be in lust.
For a change, he knew how it felt. He was simultaneously satisfied and wanting, content and restless. Once the music had slowed and the chatter of the crowd faded to intimate whispers, it would be safe to slip away, reclaim his horse, and ride home.
He grinned. His friends had been right. Georgiana Knight was the most amazing thing that had ever happened to him. He had not noticed how cold and unhappy he had become until she had come along to change him. Her scattershot manners were infuriating, of course. But try as he might, he could not stay angry with her for long.
He would be arriving close to dawn, when the first rays of sun shone through his lover’s bed curtains, and he would waken her with a kiss. Her blue eyes would open wide with surprise, before putting her arms around his neck and dragging him back down into the pillows with her.
She had been angry at him today as well. But when he’d gone to say goodbye she had given him the sweetest of kisses and wished him a safe journey, their argument of the afternoon totally forgotten. She had not announced that she loved him as yet, but her actions spoke louder than words.
For his part, momentous declaration should probably be spoken with some ceremony and not tossed over his shoulder on his way out the door. He doubted he was capable of poetry. He had given her jewellery. And he had not just given her flowers, today he’d made love with her in them. When he closed his eyes, he could still smell crushed grass and buttercups.
There ought to be something more than just words to convey the depth of his feelings. As he crossed towards the office, he glanced around him at the swirling dancers and swayed along with them to the beat of the music. Perhaps that was what he needed. She liked to dance. He would hire musicians and they would spend the evening waltzing in each other’s arms.
As they had in the past, masked women reached out their arms to him. And as he had done before, he disengaged himself and moved on. But tonight, he laughed along with them as he did so. While he was not precisely aroused by their advances, they did not leave him unmoved. Watching the abandon of the dancers made him even more eager for the night to be over, so that he might go home and work off the excess energy coursing through him.
Instead of simply walking away, he turned back to watch, just for a moment. And, as was true for everyone else in the room, his eyes were drawn to a woman in the centre of the crowd, dancing alone. Her gown was the green of a swell in the Mediterranean, the skirt tight through the hips and flaring out in a wave of ruffles and shredded ends, except in the places it was slit to reveal a bit of bare leg. Her bodice was a mass of pearls and spangles, giving the illusion that her breasts were bare under a spray of sea foam. It was accentuated by her long blonde hair, down except for a few small braids that held bits of coral and shell. Her face was hidden by a mask, covered with even more spangles, as smooth and bright as the scales on a fish.
Perhaps she had seen him stare, or perhaps she only sensed it. But she turned, looked at him with a tip of her head, and beckoned.
