Valentine

Chapter Twenty-six

Sylvester awoke while his wife was spearing bacon in the Belmont breakfast parlor. He lay for a few minutes savoring his bodily ease and the miraculous absence of pain. His mind still retained the ghastly memories of his agony, and the memories made the present sense of well-being even more precious.

"My lord." Henry, alert to the slightest hint of movement from the bed, drew back the bed curtains, an anxious smile on his lips.

"Good morning, Henry. What's the time?"

"Past nine o'clock, sir."

"Good God!" His mind flew to Theo. He saw her face, hovering over him, her smile, those pansy-blue eyes filled with compassion and something even deeper than that. It was that something that had soothed him, had stopped his protests at her presence during his torture. He could feel her hand on his brow, cool and soft.

He sat up on his pillows. "I'm not mistaken in believing that Lady Stoneridge was in here?"

"No, my lord."

"Why the devil did you let her in?"

Henry cleared his throat. "I didn't, sir. She came through the window."

"What?" He remembered she'd told him she'd flown through the window, but it had meant nothing to him at the time.

He swung out of bed and strode to the window, flinging it wide onto the noisy bustle of London town waking for business. He stepped out onto the balcony, looked across at Theo's, then looked down into the street. His scalp crawled as he imagined that perilous crossing.

The woman was incorrigible. Utterly, totally incorrigible. He returned inside, shivering at the chill wind blowing through his nightshirt. "Bath, Henry."

"Right away, my lord. And breakfast." Henry hurried to the door, then paused. "Oh, her ladyship asked me to give you this as soon as you awoke." He hastened back to the secretaire and handed the earl the folded paper.

"Thank you." Just what was she up to now? Sylvester ran a hand over his unshaven chin with a grimace. "Hurry with that hot water, man."

Henry left, and the earl opened the sheet. Theo's distinctive script jumped off the page at him:

Dearest Sylvester,

Henry assured me that you'll be quite well when you awake, or I wouldn't have left. I will be in Brook Street when you're able to come and find me. Your mama is still asleep, so I feel sure she won't need me for a couple of hours.

Love, Theo.

Two large impetuous-looking kisses followed the signature. He folded the letter again and placed it in a drawer in his secretaire, a slight smile curving his mouth. She had never called him "dearest" before. The whole tone of the note was different from her usual undecorative communications, and he knew Theo was incapable of dissembling her feelings. They spilled from her with the purity of the bubbling source of a mountain stream. He saw her eyes again as they'd been during those dreadful hours, and a spurt of joy shot into his veins.

Henry came in with a breakfast tray, followed by two footmen bearing a hip bath and jugs of hot water. Sylvester's nose twitched at the aroma of coffee, and he sat down hungrily to break his long fast while his bath was filled.

Theo was still going to have to go back to Stoneridge, he decided. Just until he'd sorted out Neil Gerard. Then, with the past securely behind him and no shameful revelations to fear, he would go to her and they would break new ground with this marriage.

That settled, he enjoyed a leisurely bath and shave and dressed in buckskins and top boots. Henry eased a coat of olive superfine over the powerful shoulders and handed him gloves and his hat.

Filled with the euphoric well-being that he knew as well as the hell that preceded it, Sylvester strolled down the stairs. There seemed to be no sign of his mother or his sister, he thought with guilty relief. With luck he'd be out of the house before they put in an appearance.

"Have my horse brought round, Foster."

"Yes, my lord."

"With all dispatch," he added, casting an involuntary glance over his shoulder at the stairs.

Foster bowed, that glimmer of unholy amusement in his eye again. "Certainly, my lord. And what should I tell her ladyship when she comes down?"

"Uh… uh… oh, that Lady Stoneridge and I had some very important business to conduct, but that we'll join them for nuncheon," Sylvester said.

"Quite so, my lord."

"So what do you think?" Theo made a slow turn in front of Edward.

Edward stared at this extraordinary vision. "It's shocking," he said slowly.

"Yes, isn't it?" Clarry agreed. "I couldn't believe it. Emily and I just sat there like dummies while Monsieur Charles snipped away and it all fell all over the floor, yards and yards of it."

"Oh, you exaggerate," Theo said. "There wasn't that much."

"There was," Emily said. "You've never cut it, not even an inch."

"Well, I have now," Theo declared with undeniable truth. "I know it's a shock, Edward, but do you like it?" She stood on tiptoe to peer at her reflection in the mirror above the mantelpiece.

"It's very sophisticated," Edward pronounced after a minute. "And you don't look at all like yourself."

"But is that a good thing or a bad thing?" Theo demanded impatiently. "/ like it. What do you think, Jonathan?"

Clarissa's beloved looked up from his easel, cast an abstracted eye in Theo's direction, and announced, "Clarissa must never do such a thing."

Theo raised her eyebrows, wondering if that was an answer to her question. If it was, it wasn't particularly encouraging, although judging from Clarissa's delicate flush, she had found the proscription thoroughly pleasing.

"Theo, Stoneridge has just ridden up," Emily said from the window, where she'd been gazing down onto the street.

"Ah," her sister said, coming to stand beside her at the window. Sylvester swung off Zeus, tossing the reins to an urchin who'd run up to him as soon as he'd drawn rein.

"This is going to be interesting," Theo murmured, her heart jumping with pleasure as she looked down at him, anticipating the feel of him beside her. Sylvester stood for a minute on the pavement, tapping his whip into the palm of one hand, before he strode rapidly up the steps to the front door.

Theo turned to face the parlor door, a tiny smile on her lips.

The door opened and Sylvester entered the room. Whatever he'd been about to say died at birth. He stared in disbelief at his wife. "What the devil have you done, Theo?" he demanded, once he got his breath back.

"Do you like it?" She tilted her head on one side, imps of mischief dancing in her eyes that seemed even larger than usual.

"Come here!"

"Do you like it?" she repeated.

"I said come here!"

Everyone but Theo jumped, and Clarissa flinched at this bellowed command. Theo obeyed with some alacrity.

He caught her chin, turning it from side to side to examine her profile. Then he turned her round and examined the back view. "I ought to wring your scrawny little neck," he declared finally.

"But you like my neck," she said with an air of injured innocence, turning back to face him. "Don't you think it's a sophisticated cut?"

"Yes," he said reluctantly. "But I've lost my gypsy." Theo was transformed. The raven's-wing hair now clustered in soft curls around the small head, glossy ringlets falling over her ears and wisping over her forehead. It gave an elfin look to the gamine features and accentuated the size and depth of her eyes in the most startling way.

"Oh, Theo." Elinor's shocked voice came suddenly from the open door behind them.

"My sentiments exactly, ma'am," Stoneridge said dryly. "Why would you do such a thing, Theo?"

"I've been meaning to for days," she said. "It is my hair, Sylvester. Mine to do with as I please."

"Did you sell it?" asked Rosie, who'd come in with Elinor.

"Sell it?" Theo looked down at the child in surprise. "Good heavens, no. What do you mean?"

"I read in the Gazette how you can get a lot of money by selling your hair," Rosie informed her. "Particularly if it's unusual, like yours is… or was," she added bluntly. "They make wigs out of it for people who don't have enough of their own."

"I've never heard of such a thing," Theo said. She shrugged. "Well, I left mine on Monsieur Charles's floor."

"Then I expect he sold it himself," Rosie said. "And he'll get all the profit. I suppose you didn't think about it because you have plenty of money. I always seem to find myself short," she said in doleful afterthought.

"On which subject, Stoneridge…" She turned to her brother-in-law with an air of resolution. "I still owe you that three shillings for the spider book. Would you mind if I paid it in installments? I could pay one shilling this month."

Sylvester blinked, for a moment confused. Then he remembered. "It was a gift, Rosie."

"Oh, no," she said solemnly. "I most particularly remember that it was a loan. You said my IOU would be satisfactory."

Sylvester looked distinctly embarrassed at the implication that he would take three shillings from a little girl. He felt as he had done that summer afternoon when he'd eaten her apple tartlets. "My child, I was only funning. Of course it was a gift."

Rosie considered this, then said, "Well, thank you very much, Stoneridge. I didn't quite understand that at the time." She wandered out of the room.

"Not much else you could say, really?" Theo murmured to Sylvester. "She rather put you on the spot."

"Are you saying she brought up the subject in that fashion deliberately?"

"It's hard to tell with Rosie." Theo chuckled. "But she does like to have things explained exactly, and since you didn't say it was a gift, I'm sure she genuinely assumed it was a loan."

"Well, it wasn't," he said, aggrieved, and wondered how long it would take him to get the hang of these complicated Belmonts. Every time he thought he was almost there, one or the other of them did or said something unfathomable.

"Do you really dislike my hair, Mama?" Theo had turned to her mother, and there was genuine anxiety in the question.

"No, I believe it suits you," Elinor said slowly. "We'll get used to it. In a day or two I'm sure we'll forget what it used to be like."

Sylvester doubted that he would. That blue-black river had been the focus of some of his most richly sensual pleasures. But Elinor was right – it did suit Theo.

"Clarissa, please don't move your head," Jonathan said suddenly from his corner, where he stood with his back to the wall, jealously guarding the canvas on the easel.

Clarissa murmured an apology and tried to sit still. "Couldn't I see it, Jonathan?"

"Yes, let us see it," Emily begged. "We're all dying of curiosity, and we've been so good and haven't so much as peeked when you're not here."

"An artist always keeps his canvases private until they're finished," Jonathan said, frowning. "It's customary."

"Oh, break custom, just this once." Theo crossed the room. "We know it must be wonderful. Do let us see?"

The young man flushed and laid down his brush and palette, saying hesitantly, "Well, if you really wish to -"

"We do." Theo smiled encouragingly. "Won't you turn it around?"

With an air of resolution Jonathan turned the easel to face the room. There was a moment of silence.

"Why, that's charming, Mr. Lacey," Elinor said faintly.

Sylvester felt Theo quivering with suppressed laughter and clasped the back of her neck firmly. His own countenance was severely schooled to an appropriate gravity.

Clarissa examined the portrait. "It's… it's very pretty, Jonathan. Does it really look like me?"

"Of course," Theo said stoutly, responding to the cue given by the warm, hard fingers on her neck. "It looks just like you would look if you were a nymph in a Roman pavilion. Jonathan has the curve of your mouth exactly right, and the color of your hair."

"But why would you paint her in those funny pieces of material floating all over the place when she's wearing a perfectly pretty gown?" asked Rosie, who'd returned as vaguely as she'd left. "And if you're painting her in the parlor, why is she sitting by that fountain?"

"It's the artistic vision, Rosie," Clarissa said in vigorous championship of her knight "Artists paint what they see."

"Well, you must have very strange eyes, Mr. Lacey," Rosie observed, taking an apple from a fruit bowl on the table and scrunching into it "Even worse than mine."

"Don't comment on things you don't understand," Emily said, coming to the support of her sister and the now beleaguered-looking artist "It's very beautiful, Jonathan, and I know you'll have a host of commissions when people see it What do you think, Stoneridge?"

"Undoubtedly," the earl agreed smoothly, increasing the pressure of his fingers as Theo quivered again. "It's a most accomplished piece of work, Mr. Lacey. Don't you agree, Edward?"

"Oh, uh, certainly," Edward said hastily, trying very hard not to look at Theo.

"Why, thank you." Jonathan looked gratified at these endorsements from those who surely knew better than an impertinent child.

"Oh, I forgot to say that Dennis says nuncheon is ready. There are cheese tarts," Rosie announced through a mouthful of apple.

"Oh, good," Theo said. "I haven't had cheese tarts in ages."

"I hate to disappoint you," Sylvester said. "But we have some obligations at Curzon Street."

"Oh, yes, for a glorious minute I'd forgotten," Theo said with a groan. "We must go, Mama."

"Of course, dear," Elinor said promptly. "Do you accompany us to the Vanbrughs' rout party tonight. I'm certain Lady Gilbraith and Mary would be most welcome to join us."

Theo looked up at her husband. Sylvester smiled. "It's a longstanding engagement, my love, of course you must go. I'm certain my mother won't wish to accompany you; she doesn't go about in Society much these days, and Mary is clearly in no fit condition to be gallivanting. I'm sure they'll both be glad of a quiet evening."

"Or you could entertain them?" Theo suggested.

"Unfortunately, I'm engaged elsewhere," he responded without the blink of an eye.

Theo grinned. "How surprising." She turned to Edward. "Edward, you could come for me. You wouldn't mind, would you?" She smiled at him, and he had little difficulty reading the imperative message in her eyes. Theo wanted more than his escort. Instinct told him to make some excuse, but the habits of long friendship and the knowledge that someone needed to know what she was up to had him agreeing.

"I'll come for you at nine."

Theo nodded her thanks, and Sylvester ushered her out of the house. Instructing Billy to walk Zeus back to Curzon Street, he handed Theo into her curricle and took the reins himself.

Only then did Theo give in to her laughter. "Of all the absurd fantasies," she declared. "Jonathan's made Clarry look like some simpering dryad on a chocolate box. It's the most ghastly piece of stylized pretension. He'll never make a living out of portrait painting, so we'll have to do something for them."

"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure about that," Sylvester said. "Those romantic backgrounds and classical allusions are becoming very fashionable. It wouldn't surprise me if young Mr. Lacey didn't find himself all the rage in a month or two."

"You're not serious?" Theo stared at him in mock horror. "People will pay for that rubbish?"

"Most certainly. I wonder how he'd choose to depict you," he mused with a wicked gleam in his eye. "Some wood sprite, I'd lay odds. All dark curls and mystery, with a hart or some such pretty woodland creature in the background."

"Over my dead body," Theo exclaimed, revolted. "I was toying with the idea of suggesting you commission a portrait of me, just to start him off, you understand, but not even for Clarry would I let him come within a mile of me with a paintbrush."

"Has he proposed to Clarissa, yet?"

"No, but he's spoken most sensibly to Mama," Theo said in accents remarkably like those of the Honorable Mrs. Lacey. "He explained how he didn't feel able to make a formal offer for Clarry until he'd sold one painting. Then he'd feel his career was really taking off." She pulled a face. "But that's never going to happen, so Clarry will have to do the proposing herself."

"Somehow I don't see Clarissa taking such a thing into her own hands," Sylvester said. "Rosie, perhaps. You, certainly. But Emily and Clarissa…?" He shook his head. "Definitely not."

"Now, that's where you're mistaken," Theo asserted. "Clarry's found her knight, and it'll be snowing in hell before she lets him slip away from her."

Sylvester contemplated this in the light of what he knew of the Belmonts and was forced to conclude that, unlikely though it seemed, Theo was probably right.

They turned onto Curzon Street, and Sylvester was suddenly silent. Theo glanced at his face. His mouth was grave, his eyes cool and serious.

She waited uneasily, but Sylvester didn't say anything until he drew rein outside the house.

"Look up at the house, Theo."

Startled, she looked at the redbrick double-fronted facade of the elegant mansion. It looked no different from always.

"Look up" he emphasized. "There are two balconied windows up there."

Theo raised her eyes and looked at her unorthodox route to her husband's bedside. From the ground it looked utterly terrifying, even more so than when she'd been negotiating it. She cast him a rueful grimace.

"Do you have any ideas as to what we should do about you?" he inquired with mild curiosity. "I confess I've run out of inspiration."

"It looks a lot worse from down here," she said. "But I needed to get to you. I didn't really think about anything. I just needed to come to you, and so I did."

"Yes, you did." Sylvester agreed with this simple truth. Suddenly there was a warm light in the gray eyes bent upon her upturned countenance. "So you did, gypsy." He placed his hand against the curve of her cheek. "And you brought me much comfort."

Theo didn't answer, but she nestled her cheek into his cupped palm.

"That said," he continued, flicking the tip of her nose with his forefinger, "I can't help feeling I'd be failing you and neglecting my marital duty if I didn't express some legitimate husbandly wrath."

"No," Theo agreed. "Shall we agree that you have done so, and I've taken it to heart?"

"Incorrigible," he said, sighing. "Utterly incorrigible."

They must have been seen from the house, because the bootboy came running down the steps. "Shall I take the curricle to the mews, m'lord?"

Sylvester regarded the lad, who didn't look more than ten, with a surprised frown. "Can you manage them?"

"Oh, yes, m'lord. I can, can't I, Lady Theo?"

"Yes, you need have no fear, Sylvester. Timmy's dad's the head groom at the vicarage in Lulworth, but his mother wanted him to be an inside servant, so he's languishing among the boots instead of with the horses. Which is where he'd rather be, isn't that so, Timmy?" She smiled at the lad as she jumped to the pavement.

"Oh, yes, ma'am," Timmy said with a heartfelt sigh. "But it'd break me mam's heart. Leastways, that's what me dad says."

"Of course, she wouldn't need to know what you do in London," Theo said thoughtfully. "What do you think, sir?"

"I think young Timmy should take himself to the stables and ask Don to put him to work," Sylvester pronounced, resigned to a role of simple reinforcement when it came to Theo's household decisions and dispositions.

"But what of Mr. Foster, sir?" The lad's eyes grew wide with the prospect of a dream fulfilled.

"I'm sure he can find another bootboy." He ushered Theo up the steps as Timmy, crowing with delight, led the horses away.

"A messenger brought you a letter, Lady Theo." Foster's jaw dropped at her ladyship's altered appearance.

"Oh, thank you, Foster." Theo smiled at him as she took the wafer-sealed paper.

"You'll forgive the personal comment, but…" Foster indicated her coiffure. "Most pleasing, Lady Theo."

"Thank you, Foster." She patted his arm. "You always do know the right thing to say."

His elderly face flushed with pleasure. "Get along with you, now, Lady Theo… Oh, Lady Gilbraith and Miss Gilbraith have gone to the physician on Harley Street. They took the barouche."

"Oh, that's wonderful." Theo's jubilant eyes flew to her husband's face. "I mean, I'm sure the physician will be able to help Miss Gilbraith's sniffles and her ladyship's liver… or whatever is troubling her." Her voice faded as she was about to find herself in realms of gross indelicacy.

"In that case we'll take nuncheon abovestairs in the little parlor," Stoneridge said into the moment of silence.

"Certainly, my lord. I'll see to it at once." Foster took himself off to the back regions with his usual stately tread.

"What if they return while we're… otherwise occupied?" Theo looked over her shoulder at Sylvester, her eyes now mischievous. Nuncheon in the little parlor could mean only one thing.

"Get upstairs," he ordered, pushing her ahead of him with a hand on her bottom. "Who's the letter from?"

"I don't know yet. I'll open it later." She skipped up the stairs, wondering if the message was from Neil Gerard. The handwriting was definitely masculine and unfamiliar. She hoped it was confirmation of their arrangement to drive tomorrow. If so, Sylvester mustn't know about it.

"I'll join you in a minute," Sylvester said, turning aside to his own chamber.

Theo hesitated, her hand on her own doorknob. "You're not still going to insist I go back to Stoneridge, are you?"

He regarded her thoughtfully for a minute before saying, "Can you give me your word of honor that you'll go nowhere and do nothing without my knowledge?"

Sylvester waited, then said quietly, "You have your answer, Theo." He stretched out a hand and tugged one of the ringlets clustering around her ears. "Don't look so disconsolate, love. You've been complaining about the boredom in London ever since we got here. I'll join you shortly, I promise."

She still had a few days to prove her point She shrugged, and with relief he took her silence as acceptance.

He ran his fingers upward through the curls, flicking them around her face, saying teasingly, "I'm beginning to get used to this. In fact, it's quite an appealing little gypsy, one way or another." Catching her chin, he kissed her. "Why don't you go and put on a wrapper… make life easy for me for once?"

Playfully she nibbled his bottom lip. "But surely one appreciates what's hard-won much more than what comes easily."

"I wouldn't know," he said. "So far nothing's come easily where you're concerned, so I have no basis for comparison."

"Unjust!" Her tongue darted into the corner of his mouth.

He put her from him and turned back to his door. "Five minutes, and I'll expect to find you prepared to smooth my path."

Theo grinned and whisked herself into her own bedroom, imagining how best to fulfill such a demand. Unbuttoning her jacket with one hand, she broke the wafer on the letter and unfolded the sheet. It was from Gerard, who would do himself the honor of calling upon her at ten the following morning, in the hopes that she would drive with him to Hampton Court if the weather was clement. Until then he was her obedient servant.

Theo refolded the letter and slipped it into a pigeonhole in her secretaire. Gerard couldn't have chosen a better venue for her purposes.

Throwing off the rest of her clothes, she slipped into a filmy wrapper of apple-green muslin edged with lace. Sitting before her dresser mirror, she brushed her hair, enjoying the novelty of her bared neck and the lightness of her head. Her sisters had given her a small vial of perfume on her wedding morning. She rarely used it because she was always in such a hurry to get dressed that such niceties tended to be forgotten, but now seemed like an appropriate occasion. Sylvester wanted her dressed for seduction, so that was what he should have.

She put a few drops behind her ears, at her throat, and on her wrists. Then, with a little smile, she applied the delicate fragrance behind her knees and on the inside of her thighs. Where else did Sylvester like to play? Her navel, the dimpled hollows in the small of her back, the high, arched insteps of her long, narrow feet.

Deciding she must smell like a whorehouse, she cast one last glance at her reflection before leaving the room and speeding barefoot down the corridor to the small parlor overlooking the rear garden, where they spent time when they wished to be private from the household.

Sylvester was already there, pouring wine into two glasses. "No cheese tarts, I'm afraid," he said as she came in. "But there's -" The words died on his lips. Slowly, he set the glasses back on the table, his eyes narrowed as he examined her.

Dark curls clouded around her face, softening her features in a way the plain, uncompromising plaits had never done; her cheeks were aglow, her eyes banked fires at midnight; the wrapper clung to every sinuous line of her body, the narrow girdle accentuating her waist and the slight flare of her hips. London and winter weather had done away with the tanned complexion, leaving her skin the color and texture of clotted cream.

"I really have lost my gypsy," he murmured. "But just look what I have in her place."

"What?" she said, stepping toward him.

"A most beautiful woman," he replied simply. "A wayward and unruly wife, but a most beautiful woman."

"Oh, don't scold," Theo protested, coming into his arms.

"It was a statement of fact, not a scolding," he said, smiling, running his hands down her body, feeling the warmth of her skin beneath the delicate material, the ripple of muscle in her back as she reached against him.

"Take it off, Theo." There was a husky rasp to his voice, and he took a step backward from her.

Her eyes fixed on his face, she unfastened the robe and let it slip to the floor.

His eyes ran slowly down her body, devouring every inch of skin, the firm, jutting breasts, the dark nipples, growing hard and erect under his scrutiny, the flat belly, the cluster of dark curls at the apex of her long creamy thighs. Then he made a little circular motion with his forefinger, and she turned obediently. He gazed at the straight, narrow back, the pointed shoulder blades, the curve of her buttocks, the backs of her thighs, and the softness behind her knees.

He knew every inch of her body, and yet each time it was as if it were uncharted territory.

"Let's eat," he said into the silence, where lust quivered so thick one could almost touch it.

"Eat?" Theo spun round, astonishment and a touch of indignation in her eyes. "Now?"

"Now." He handed her a glass of wine, his own eyes filled with sensual amusement. "No," he said when she bent to pick up the discarded wrapper. "Stay just as you are. I want to enjoy you with my eyes for a while."

"I'm to eat naked?"

"Just so." He pulled out a chair for her. "You'll not be cold by the fire." He bent to kiss the nape of her neck as she sat down, and Theo shuddered with pleasure and anticipation.

This was something they had never done before. It felt most peculiar to sit naked in the room while he was fully clothed. Peculiar but most arousing. The fire lapped against her right thigh, and the embroidered seat of the chair was slightly scratchy under her bottom and thighs. She gave a little experimental wriggle.

Sylvester sipped his wine, watching her. "Open your thighs a little," he instructed softly.

Theo's eyes widened and her tongue touched her lips. She shifted again on the seat and bit her lip suddenly. "How can I eat?"

"You'll manage." He took another sip of wine and deliberately carved a slice from the breast of a cold chicken, placing it on her plate. "Pickled mushrooms?"

Theo nodded silently and he passed her the dish. She took a spoonful, her breasts brushing against the edge of the table as she leaned forward. Her nipples burned, and she sat back with a little gasp. "I can't do this, Sylvester."

"Yes, you can." He began to eat, watching her as he did so. "Tell me what you feel."

Theo took a mouthful of chicken, then gave up. This game had chased away all vestige of ordinary appetite. She leaned back in her chair, her breasts lifting on her rib cage. "Everything?" Her voice was low, her eyes a swirling riot of arousal.

"Everything."