“Good God, Diana,why?” Madeline exclaimed. “Whenever something really important is at issue, you just look mysterious and say that it is something youmustdo. We are supposed to be friends, yet I have no idea what is in your mind! You have intelligence. Why the devil can’t you use it?”
Diana’s voice was unsteady when she replied, “I’m sorry. I know this is hard for you, and I know that you are doing your best to save me from unnecessary grief.”
She stopped, trying to find some way to explain. Eventually she replied, choosing her words carefully. “It isn’t a matter of intelligence, you know. I can read the poets and philosophers and talk about them wittily, but that is just the mind.
“Underneath, I am all emotion and instinct, and they are what rule my life. I can no more understand why there are some things that I must do than I can explain why the wind blows. I knew that I must come to London and try the life of a demirep, and I know now that I must see more of Lord St. Aubyn. I’m sorry.” Her voice broke and she finished in a whisper, “I would be different if I could be.”
Madeline felt the younger woman’s unhappiness as sharply as if it was her own. She thought of Diana as the daughter she had always longed for, and knew the grief of all parents who wish to save their children from suffering.
Maddy sighed. Diana was vulnerable, but she was also strong, with her own deep wisdom. She had already survived grief and loss, and doubtless she could survive another unfortunate love affair. Most women had more than one broken heart in their past.
“I’m sorry, my dear, I’m trying to make you wise, when I failed so miserably at it myself. If you must, you must.” She smiled, remembering how the Viscount St. Aubyn had reacted to Diana. “Sometimes men like St. Aubyn have fire under the ice. If any woman can find it, it will be you.”
“Perhaps,” Diana said quietly. “We shall see.” Maddy was justified in her charge that she hid the inner workings of her mind. Diana had never been able to talk about what was deepest and closest to her heart. Only when the issue was resolved could she discuss it.
But some things could be shared. “After months of pondering, I think I now understand why I was so determined to pursue the life of a courtesan in the first place.”
Madeline shifted to a more comfortable position. “Yes?” she asked encouragingly.
“You yourself gave me the idea. When you spoke of the life, it sounded . . . free, in ways I have never known,” Diana said. “And . . . I didn’t want to live the rest of my life without a man. You know how limited the prospects were in Cleveden. In London, there are choices, both in men and way of life, and I found the idea exciting.” Her smile flashed mischievously. “I also liked what you said about sex and beauty giving a woman power. I found that most appealing.”
“So appealing that you are comfortable exposing your son to this life?”
“You know better than that, Maddy,” Diana retorted sharply. Her voice faltered. “That above all concerned me. Success as a courtesan would mean money for his future, perhaps influence if I meet powerful men. He is happier here in his school than he has ever been. With luck I can retire and return to respectability before he is old enough to realize what I am doing.”
She could hear the defensiveness in her voice, and she ducked her head to conceal tears. If it hadn’t been for Geoffrey, becoming a courtesan would not have been the agonizing decision that it was. Not a day went by when she didn’t worry about the possible long-term consequences to her son.
“I’m sorry, my dear,” Madeline said apologetically. “I shouldn’t have said that, but I can’t help worrying about how this will turn out for you and Geoffrey. Come what may, you know I’ll always be here to help you put the broken pieces together again.”
Diana subsided wearily into the corner of the sofa, suddenly exhausted by the night’s events. For better or for worse, forces had been set into motion that could not be recalled. She could only pray that her intuition was not leading her astray.
* * *
Leaving the carriage for his cousin, Gervase chose to walk back to his Curzon Street town house. London at night was not the safest of places, but veterans of the Mahratta Wars were not easily intimidated. As he walked through the cool night air, he wondered why he was reacting so strongly to a pretty face. Francis was right: it was time he took a new mistress.
A pity he could not be free of females entirely, but Gervase needed a regular woman in his life. While temperance in food and drink came naturally to him, his body’s other fierce, compelling desires could not be suppressed or ignored. Some men could live comfortably as monks; although the viscount envied them, he was unable to do the same. The deity who had given him so much in the way of worldly goods had also condemned him to a regrettable amount of sexual passion.
In India he had kept a slim native girl with dark almond-shaped eyes and an astonishing sexual repertory. Sananda spoke seldom, waited on him like a servant, and asked nothing for herself. The viscount had supported her and her entire family for years, and left them with enough money to buy two thriving shops. The girl had been properly grateful for his financial generosity, but if she had personal regrets about his departure, she concealed them well.
In many ways, keeping Sananda had been ideal, since she made none of the emotional demands an Englishwoman would. Here in London it would be easy to find a dissatisfied wife of his own class for an affair, but such women required time and effort for wooing, and wanted lying words of love that he had no desire to speak. Gervase disliked the lower grades of prostitutes, both for the possibility of disease and the bleak expression sometimes seen in their eyes, a resignation to pain that reminded him uncomfortably of the pathetic child he had married.
Rationally, he knew he should look for a mistress who was unfashionable and grateful for financial security. He was a fool to waste time on an exotic, expensive ladybird like Diana Lindsay. But as he remembered her sensual body and the flawless face with its deep, beckoning eyes, he acknowledged that one could overdo rationality. What was the point of wealth if he didn’t indulge in an occasional frivolous luxury? And he’d never seen a more attractive frivolity than Diana Lindsay.
St. Aubyn House was a dull but imposing pile, far too much space for a single man. Gervase let himself in with his own key. It had taken him months to convince his servants that he often preferred privacy. Eventually he prevailed. A lamp waited on a pier table in the vestibule, and he lifted it.
He was restless, not ready for bed, so he stepped into the drawing room. It was a masterpiece of lofty proportions and rich decoration, a room designed for giants or gods. A coffered and painted Italianate ceiling soared two stories above the giant Oriental carpet that had been custom woven to fit the space, and carved marble fireplaces stood at each end of the room. The graceful furniture had been designed by Robert Adam.
He crossed the drawing room to the book-lined study. This had been his father’s particular haunt, and when Gervase had returned from India, the faint scent of the late viscount’s pipe tobacco had still lingered. Yet there had been no sense of the man himself. It was not surprising, really; even in life, father and son had touched each other only in fleeting and formal ways.
On impulse, Gervase began silently prowling through the house he had inherited. The servants were in their own territory at this hour, and the endless halls and chambers were deserted as he paced their lengths. The high ceilings and hard floors reflected his quiet footsteps as hollow echoes.
The ballroom was immense and silent, unused since his mother had died fourteen years earlier. The main staircase curved to the ground floor in two wide, opposing arcs and was allegedly the grandest in London. His mother had looked magnificent sweeping down it, jewels sparkling in her golden hair and on her white shoulders.
Though Gervase owned this building and everything in it, he felt no sense of kinship or pride of possession. If this splendid mausoleum truly belonged to anyone, it was to the anonymous housemaids who polished the furniture and sanded the floors and kept it in this state of sterile perfection.
Even after two years, he felt like a stranger here. It had been depressing to return to this cold house under England’s damp skies. He suspected that Britain had acquired her colonies so her citizens could live in warmer climes and still be under the British flag.
On the five-month voyage home, Gervase had toyed with the thought of selling St. Aubyn House and seeking more modest accommodations, but had reluctantly decided against it. This house was part of the St. Aubyn inheritance and must be passed to Francis or his heirs when the time came. His cousin had a sunny, uncomplicated disposition. In time he would marry and have a family to warm these cold rooms.
