Season for Temptation

Chapter 30. In Which a Note Passes through Several Hands

James had lain awake into the early hours of the morning, savoring the feel of the bedclothes against his nude body, thinking of Julia and how she had so recently been here with him.

Julia. What changes the last day had brought. He could finally allow himself to love her, to long for her, to touch her. Good Lord, he wanted her even more now that they had been together and he knew what lovemaking with her was like. Would be like — for they would be doing that all the time once they were married, he would see to that. It had been amazing, transcendent; it was a pleasure he had never felt before, not with any other woman. He had grown hard just thinking of it, and wished mightily that she were in his bed so he could demonstrate to her just how greatly she affected him.

He’d gone to quite a bit of trouble the previous day to procure a special license, as soon as Xavier had left him. He was looking forward to bearing Julia off as soon as the clock struck a decent hour of the morning, making her his wife, traveling to Nicholls with her, and having a spirited repeat of their activities of the previous afternoon. Or more than one repeat, preferably.

Needless to say, he’d had trouble falling asleep in such a physical state.

His mind wasn’t entirely untroubled, either, which didn’t help a fellow drift off. He had been feeling uneasy about that whole conversation with Xavier. Of all the damned coils, to have that man, of all the men he knew in London, come by at such a time. Xavier, who missed nothing, and — if James remembered their schoolboy days rightly — withheld even less.

Xavier had come in off the street while James was still in that cursed dressing gown, drunk James’s best brandy while he waited for the viscount to dress decently, and smirked at his host when James rejoined him and tried to explain that there was nothing in it, simply a family visit related to his engagement.

That had been a mistake. It would have been better to say nothing at all and just fill the man with so much liquor that he was too stupefied to recall what he’d seen. Instead, at the mere mention of James’s engagement, Xavier’s clever features had perked up like a hound scenting the fox. He had plied James with questions that the viscount simply refused to answer, but it was too late. The young earl had already seen more than enough to draw his own conclusions.

By the time the sun rose in earnest, the viscount had only just drifted off into a troubled sleep. Unfortunately, he was soon awakened abruptly by a flood of sunshine.

He squinted, startled awake, and gasped at the sight of his mother standing in his bedchamber, one hand still gripping the curtains that she had just wrested open.

Good Lord, that was an unwelcome sight. She’d never before come to visit him at his lodgings, and now she had plowed her way past Delaney into his most private room.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded, still blinking in the sudden brightness of the room.

He drew the bedcovers up to his chin and tried, as his mother began to rant, to absorb the fact that she was standing in his bedchamber. Something must have happened. Something dreadful, judging from the fire in the dowager’s eyes.

She said something about “how sharper than a serpent’s tooth” as well; James distinctly heard that even through the clammy fog that clouded his brain once he saw what was in his mother’s hand. In the hand that wasn’t scrabbling at his curtains, she held a newspaper.

It was dreadful, all right.

James snatched the paper from his mother’s hands and read the item she jabbed at with a furious forefinger.

His whole body went cold, as if he’d been plunged into icy water. The words were there on the page in front of him, but he still could hardly believe this.

He’d expected Xavier to bandy the news about in his club. He had expected lewd ribbing from friends, and probably even anger from Julia’s family.

What he had not expected was that the news would be printed in the ton’s favorite scandal sheet for all to see, or that it would reach the eyes or ears of his mother before he was safely removed to the country with Julia as his bride.

Some might call that a cowardly hope, perhaps; James had preferred to think of it as sensible. His mother wasn’t going to change his mind no matter what she said to him, and he knew she was going to be livid whether she spoke to him or not. So, he reasoned, he might as well save his time — and hers — by sparing them both the annoyance of a confrontation.

Unfortunately — disastrously — none of it had worked out that way. Here it was, in the paper, for the whole ton to read and judge him. And to judge Julia. And here was his mother, ranting at him from the foot of his bed as if he were six years old and had rolled in horse shit.

She’d already said the bit about the serpent’s tooth more than once; did the woman have no other way to call him ungrateful than by relying on Shakespeare? She also called him a rake, a disgrace to his illustrious name, and unprincipled, vulgar, and ungentlemanly. This last string of epithets almost made him smile despite the seriousness of the situation; Lady Irving would probably be proud of her old crony’s vocabulary.

“Don’t you dare smile, young man,” Lady Matheson fumed, seeing his mouth curving. “You have dragged our name through the mud once again. Through filth, I say! Yes, filth is the word for this entire situation. At least Gloria’s debasement was Roseborough’s fault and not of her own choosing. Your engagement was bad enough, but I stood it, because your motives were honorable, and at least it was respectable — although barely so. Throwing yourself away on a baron’s daughter with a mediocre dowry!” She sneered.

These inflammatory words blew away James’s lingering sense of shock. A trickle of anger began to fill him instead, slowly but mountingly. How dare she barge into his home and insult him and his decisions? She had no right, and he opened his mouth to tell her so — but her ladyship was hardly finished with her tirade.

“Then you splash our name in the papers as if we were the vulgarest sort of cit, with no idea what was due to the sensibility of gently bred persons. And for what? A quick tumble with the daughter of nobody knows who? To slake your lusts with some upstart who hopes to entrap you into marriage! Was it worth it? Because you’ve disgraced us all. You are even worse than Roseborough. You disgust me,” she spat. “There are whores for that sort of thing.”

Her words stung, as much as if she had raked her nails across his face. And just as if she had struck him a physical blow, he felt almost overcome with anger, hearing her insult not only Julia but the nature of his feelings for her. This was going much too far. The woman might have given him life, but he wasn’t going to stand this, even from her.

James took a few breaths to keep himself from exploding at the viscountess, coiled up his rage into a small, icy ball, and let it burn his throat into hoarseness as he spoke.

“Get out of my bedchamber at once, or I’ll remove you by physical force, regardless of my state of undress,” he began in a quiet, dangerous voice.

“I will receive you properly, as a guest in my home, in the drawing room in fifteen minutes. At that time I will speak to you about Miss Herington, my future wife, in civil and logical terms. If you are at all insulting to me or to her, you will leave. And, I might add, you will also leave Matheson House, which I currently allow you to occupy as a courtesy, and you may draw on your jointure to find yourself other lodging. Is that absolutely clear?”

Truth be told, he hated the drafty, dark family town house, and he’d never live there himself. But he was certainly of a mood to boot his mother out of it if she abused Julia one more time. He seldom flexed the power that his title gave him, but he would do so now, and she knew it. Lady Matheson had been rooted to the Hanover Square house since the early days of her marriage, and as he stared at her white-angry face with his own hard eyes, he knew he’d struck home with his threat.

She narrowed her eyes at him until they were livid slits. Green gaze to green gaze, heated to icy, mother and son stared at each other for several long seconds. Then, without a word, Lady Matheson spun on her heel and marched out of his bedchamber and down the stairs.

James relaxed a bit as soon as his unwelcome visitor left the room, and he blew out a breath he hadn’t even noticed he was holding. Quickly, fired with the energy of righteous annoyance, he dressed, washed his face, and finger-combed his hair into a semblance of order. Without the help of his valet, however, he took a bit longer than he’d thought. Oh, well; it wouldn’t kill his mother to wait twenty minutes rather than fifteen. Especially because he wanted to take one more look at that newspaper her ladyship had left behind.

Yes, it was as bad as he’d thought. He shuddered. He supposed he couldn’t blame his mother for her anger; the shock she’d felt upon reading it must have been terrible. But that did not excuse her insults.

He made his way downstairs, drawing a breath to steel himself before entering the drawing room. The viscountess had probably gotten even angrier while she waited for him, and she was sure to have another tirade ready as soon as he appeared. He pushed the door open, prepared for another confrontation, and ready to make good on his every threat.

But to his surprise, his mother was sitting demurely on a sofa, her lady’s maid flipping through a bound volume as if preparing to read to her.

James was instantly suspicious. Why on earth would she be so calm all of a sudden?

Before he could even say a word, Lady Matheson noticed his arrival. “My dear boy,” she said, rising in greeting. “Do come join me.”

Her voice, if not precisely warm, was at least no less cool than her usual formal tones. She stepped forward to take hold of his hands and guide him to a seat next to her. As she clasped James’s hand, he felt that hers held a note, which she attempted to thrust aside. “Perhaps some coffee, if you haven’t had yours yet? It is rather early in the day, isn’t it? I am sure it will do you good.”

James ignored this overture. “What have you got in your hand?”

“This? Oh, it’s nothing,” she replied, a small smile playing over her face. “Just a little billet that arrived for you while you were upstairs.”

Wordlessly, James held out his hand for it, and the viscountess sighed and placed the letter into his grasp.

“The seal’s broken,” he said, again suspicious. He scanned his mother’s face as she blew out a dismissive breath and told him it had come that way. “It’s probably a mere nothing,” she said, her expression disinterested. “The messenger must have dropped it, that’s all.”

But it wasn’t a mere nothing. It bore Lady Irving’s seal; he could tell that even though the wax had been split, and the message the paper bore was short. Short, but momentous.

My Lord:

You have dishonored my nieces, and you have dishonored me. I assume you know to what I refer. We leave for the country at once. Please make no attempt to see, write, or speak to us.

Estella Irving

James felt as if he had been physically struck. As if a horse had kicked him in the head. As if his heart had been torn from his very body. What was this?

How could Lady Irving react in this way? Hadn’t Julia let her know that he had proposed marriage? Didn’t Lady Irving want him to marry Julia?

“Something amiss?” Lady Matheson asked in a syrupy voice, and the world righted itself in a moment as soon as she spoke. Of course her anger had vanished by the time he’d come into the room. Somehow, she’d written this note, and she was pleased with herself.

That had to be the answer. This couldn’t possibly be from the Grosvenor Square house. Lady Irving couldn’t think this; she couldn’t want him to stay away from Julia.

“This is a fraud,” he said flatly, thrusting the note back at his mother. “This isn’t from Lady Irving at all. You wrote this.”

“But, dear boy,” she replied with a shake of the head, glancing at the paper James had handed her, “that’s not my handwriting. Surely you know your own mother’s hand? And besides, where on earth would I have gotten that dear creature’s seal from?”

As she quickly read the contents of the brief letter, that small, tight smile quivered onto her face again. “Oh, dear. How very unfortunate.”

She crumpled the missive and dropped it on the floor. “Well, least said, soonest mended, wouldn’t you say? If you’ll take my counsel, you’ll simply let them leave, and that will be that. The whole affair will soon be nothing more than the mildest of unpleasant memories, to be forgotten entirely in the joy of a suitable match.”

“You’re mad,” James said. “I don’t care what the letter says. I’m not letting them leave without a word of explanation.”

He retrieved the note from the floor, smoothed the paper, and read it again. He still couldn’t believe it. Was this really from Lady Irving? Was she so insulted as to wish to cut ties completely?

No; it couldn’t be true. Something strange was going on here. “I’m going to marry Miss Herington,” he insisted.

“You can hardly do so if she is unwilling, which she apparently is,” his mother replied in a sugary, soothing voice, her eyes steely and exultant.

James had had about enough of this. He had no idea what was really going on, or who had written that letter, or what Julia really wanted — but he was desperate to find out.

Which meant that it was well past time for his mother to leave.

“Allow me to show you out,” he said, rising and attempting to pull his mother to her feet after him. “You can’t possibly wish to say anything more to insult me or my intended bride. I don’t believe you truly wish to hunt for rented lodgings, do you?”

As his mother stood unwillingly, he thought he saw a tiny shadow of. . was that fear in her eyes? He felt a flash of remorse; he really wasn’t cut out for this whole threatening-women-with-homelessness business. And after all, the woman was his mother, and it really wasn’t her handwriting. Maybe she had done nothing worse than unseal and read his mail.

Still, he was more than ready to leave, and he certainly wasn’t going to allow her to stay behind to wreak havoc in his house at her leisure. More gently this time, he tugged — well, call it guided—her arm toward the door.

Just then, Delaney entered with a tray of coffee. “Is her ladyship leaving?” he asked ingenuously.

“Yes,” James barked. “We’re both going out, almost at once.”

His mother looked surprised, though she quickly covered it, and then reseated herself as swiftly as he’d ever seen her move.

“No, indeed I am not, dear.” She turned wide, innocent eyes to him — an expression he thought sat ill on her shrewd face. “Surely you wouldn’t deny your own mother a cup of coffee? After coming all this way to see you, in chill weather?”

“I didn’t ask you to come,” he replied ungraciously, folding his arms.

Her wide-eyed expression vanished at once, replaced by a look of annoyance. “Very well, so it was an unsolicited visit. Is there any reason why I can’t visit my son?”

“Can’t. Shouldn’t. Haven’t. There are hundreds of reasons,” he answered, eyebrows lifted in a hurry-up expression.

“Well,” her ladyship said primly, serving herself some coffee, “be that as it may, I intend to fortify myself with a hot beverage before venturing back outside.”

James turned away from her. “Be my guest,” he said. “I’m leaving.” He didn’t want to wait any longer; he would just have to trust that Delaney could keep an eye on his mother during his absence.

“James,” the viscountess said, and this was a new voice. It was soft and beseeching; it held traces of the affection she must have once felt for him. It was a mother’s voice, not a noblewoman’s voice. He hadn’t heard that voice for a long time. “James, my dear boy. Please. . stay with me.”

He turned to face her, and her expression was pleading. “Just one cup. Drink one cup with me, and then I’ll go. And then you can do whatever you want, and marry whomever you wish, and I won’t say another word against it.”

This earnest mood was surprise enough, and James was struck by the novelty of it. She seemed sincere. Had he really hurt her feelings? If so, that would be the first time since his childhood that he’d managed to reach her heart in any way. He only felt sorry that it had to be for this reason, at this time of all times.

Hers was an offer worth considering. It would be well worth a few minutes of his time to win her promise to stop hassling him and hold her peace about his choice of a bride.

“Just one cup?” he said doubtfully.

“One will be plenty,” the viscountess replied with a small smile, giving her son’s hand a squeeze as he sat down across from her.

“Just one,” he agreed with a sigh, and poured out a cup of his own. One cup, and then he would go to Julia. Surely these very few minutes wouldn’t make a difference?