Page 29 of A Most Improper Duchess
‘You must beg my forgiveness,’ she said.
‘And what is the price of your forgiveness?’ He stood before her, all tall confidence and ruffled edges, caressed by the golden light.
‘I want my kiss. The one that you stole at les Jardins du Luxembourg.’
‘You stole from me first,’ he countered, mocking, then launched himself onto the bed beside her with a low growl. With a bubble of explicit joy, Vivianne shrieked with laughter as he clambered over her, kissing, nipping and caressing. ‘Where can I return this most expensive kiss? Here?’ He nuzzled into her neck. ‘Or here?’ Moving lower, he trailed his lips across her chest. ‘Or perhaps, much lower?’
Anticipation spread as Arley shuffled himself down the bed as he pushed her skirts up. With a slightly rough desperation, he brushed a crooked finger between her legs. ‘Will you still shave for me even though you no longer dance?’
‘Pardon?’ Her sharp tone cut the air. She pushed her skirts down. ‘I cannot dance?’
‘You can dance. Just not ballet. Not forever. Just until things settle.’ Arley rolled onto his back. ‘It’s not my choice. But reputation means so much in this city. It’s for the company. If our competitors learned you were a dancer, they might leverage it against us. They could suggest we would not provide therighttype of enlightenment. And that would hurt us.’
‘But you don’t need the company or the money. You said as much.’
‘I don’t. But Iris, my neighbour… It was her idea. The last year has been a trial for her. This business was her dream. If she lost this, she’d be heart broken.’
Arley spoke with such care and quiet admiration. How could she refuse his request to help a friend, when she herself had had so few of them, but relied on them so completely?
‘I cannot stay here, can I?’ she said.
Arley took up her hand and pressed it to his lips. ‘I’ve asked a neighbour if you can stay with her. She’s a little moralistic, but that will help. She’s only across the road, so you’ll still be close. It’s not forever. It’s just for a few weeks. Then, we’ll be married, and things will go back to how they were before.’
The cold flush of reality filled her stomach. She’d known her life here would be different. They’d talked marriage, family, a little cottage, but somewhere inside she had never quite pulled together the thread that she would no longer dance. She knew the English were uptight—it was why so many of them came to Paris, to indulge in the freedom.
Vivianne pushed a curl from his forehead. ‘I will do this for you, and your friend,mon amour. Soon, things will go back to how they were, yes?’
Vivianne slid to the edge of the bed. Arley caught her by the waist. ‘You don’t have to go immediately,’ he cooed in her ear. He dropped to the floor, knelt at her feet, folded back her skirts and eased her knees apart. ‘I cannot let you leave until I return your kiss.’
‘Disgraceful.’ Vivianne forced the word out between pursed lips, drawing on all her experience of the stage to keep from smiling. ‘And then what happened?’
‘It’s really not polite to discuss in front of a future duchess,’ Lady Tatton said. ‘But rumour has it, she dropped her handkerchief on purpose. Thoroughly scandalous.’
The Society for the Promotion of Civic Morality and the Adherence to Proper Values met in the front sitting rooms of Mrs Crofts home every Friday, and as fiancé to the society’s patron, Vivianne was a particularly honoured guest this morning.
I didn’t mean to agree. And it was so long ago, I don’t know how to back out. But it’s finally useful. It will help with your reputation.
She wouldn’t mind if they actually discussed scandalous gossip. But they seemed obsessed with minor trivialities and lapses of protocol. They would likely dissolve into vapours if they came to Paris.
Arley would hear how tedious this was. He would pay for making her suffer so.
‘Item number 17: larrikins in the park.’ Mrs Crofts wore black. Black beads on her day dress, black combs in her hair, black net gloves and a black jet buckle at her waist, as if she were a fresh widow unexpectedly plunged into mourning. But at Number 5, there was no hint of a Mr Crofts, living or deceased, anywhere. No picture on the mantle, no remembrance locket around Mrs Crofts neck, no painting of a man that looked like he may have been a match to the matron. The only hint that someone had actually made her aMrsat one time in her past was a thin gold band on her left hand that showed between the triangles of her gloves.
Mrs Crofts spoke with a forced formality. She stood central to the room, before the empty hearth, and tapped her glasses to the meeting agenda. ‘It has come to my attention…’
Vivianne leaned closer to her new acquaintance. She seemed too young to be captured in such a place. She should be out, dancing, walking in the sunshine, or laughing with her friends. ‘Do you enjoy these meetings?’
The woman looked to her hands clasped in her lap. ‘Not particularly. I only joined because His Grace was patron. My mother thought I might get the chance to meet him. Impress him. But he never comes. And now, I suppose it wouldn’t matter if he started attending. First Lord Dalton, and now Duke Osborne. I don’t suppose there will be any young men mother will approve of left soon.’
‘Is that why you come? To find a husband?’
The young lady frowned. ‘What else would I do during the season?’
Lady Tatton was maybe a few years younger than Vivianne, but the gap between them could have been decades. She had always wondered about the women that the men left behind when they came to the city of light. Hated them for their security, and their gullibility. She hadn’t expected to find them so bereft, and just as powerless as agrisette.
A knock at the door interrupted Mrs Crofts’ monologue. The butler addressed Vivianne from the door.
Dieu merci. Arley had come to save her. She made her apologies as she left, trying to ignore the wistful looks of the women who’s slightly envious gaze followed her.
