The Courtship (windham) Read online

  Noon approached, but it was early by Sir Jasper’s standards. Without paint and powder, his appearance improved somewhat, though late nights in the card room had left dark circles beneath his eyes. Regardless of his toilet, he was still inclined to have his conversations with the tops of Esther’s breasts.

  “Sir Jasper. If you’ll excuse me, Lady Zephora will not want her tea cooling. I’ll wish you good day.”

  He shifted, lazily, just enough to trap Esther two steps beneath the landing. The superior position clearly appealed to him, too, so Esther let him enjoy it for a moment while she dropped her gaze to the tea tray.

  He stepped aside, allowing her to pass, and then she realized why. With the tray in her hands, she faced a closed door on the far side of the landing. Her choices were to wait for Sir Jasper to open the door, to try to balance the tray on her hip and open the door herself, or to set the tray on the floor, open the door, and then pick the tray up.

  While Sir Jasper ogled her backside, of course.

  “A small dilemma,” Sir Jasper observed from much too close behind her. “You study the dilemma, while I study the opportunities it presents.”

  A male hand slid around Esther’s waist. She closed her eyes and discarded options: she could scream, which would result in her being compromised if anybody heard her; she could stomp on the blighted man’s foot, which would anger him and not solve the problem; she could dump hot tea on his falls, which was social suicide though a nice thought to contemplate; or she could endure this small detour into hell.

  A second hand joined the first, easing up over Esther’s ribs. “Instead of playing chambermaid to those ninnies in hair bows, you might consider more pleasant diversions with me, you know. I can be very considerate and quite discreet.”

  He could also manage a fair impression of ants crawling over Esther’s skin. While he brushed his thumbs over the tops of her breasts and pushed his hips against her backside—thank God for her bustle—Esther sighed breathily.

  “Lady Zephora has no patience, sir. To delay for even a moment will guarantee her enmity.”

  “I can placate Lady Zephora.” His breath, reeking of the previous night’s overindulgence, came hot against Esther’s neck.

  It was time to end this.

  “Lady Morrisette has asked me to join her as soon as I’ve seen to the young ladies. If you’d get the door, sir. Please.”

  Esther suffused the last word with pleading, but knew a moment’s real trepidation when Sir Jasper did not immediately do as she asked. He gave her breasts as much of a squeeze as her stomacher allowed, reached around her to lift the door latch, and stepped back.

  “A man’s protection would offer you a great deal more than this servile existence, Miss Himmelfarb.” He stroked his crotch twice, his gaze on Esther’s breasts. “A great deal more.”

  Gracious God. Esther did her best rendition of the flustered schoolgirl and ducked out of the stairway, kicking the door shut behind her with a shade too much force. Sir Jasper offered not marriage but ruin, and the cursed man no doubt honestly believed a few months of his favors were preferable to a respectable life with children.

  Esther set the tray down on a sideboard and paused to consider her appearance in the mirror above it. Flushed, pale, angry.

  Sir Jasper’s offer, not the first of its kind, was not preferable to decades of respectable marriage and motherhood—but was it preferable to decades of impoverished spinsterhood? To being shuffled around her siblings’ households as the poor relation? To growing old with her parents?

  “I behold a vision, though not, I think, a happy one.”

  Behind her in the mirror, an unpowdered Percival Windham, golden hair loose about his shoulders, was smiling perplexedly at her reflection.

  Now, he chanced upon her? Now, when she wanted to cock back her arm and slap any man she saw on general principles?

  She curtsied. “My lord. Good day.”

  “It is no such thing when you’re consigned to carrying trays for the harpies populating this house party.” He stepped a little closer and lowered his voice. “We’ve shared a moonlit posset, Miss Himmelfarb, though you seem determined to ignore the memory.”

  He was implying some question or other, while Esther wanted to… howl like a wolf, in part because they had shared a moonlit posset.

  “Forgive me, my lord. I do not relish Lady Zephora’s tongue lashing when I appear belatedly with her tea tray.”

  He came around to stand between Esther and her reflection, his lips pursed in study. “Hang Lady Zephora and the whole chorus. Something has you overset.”

  At that precise, benighted moment, Sir Jasper emerged from the stairway and sauntered along the corridor.

  He nodded at Lord Percival. “My lord.”

  “Sir Jasper.”

  Jasper paused and ran an insolent gaze over Esther while she stood silently by the sideboard. Bad enough to be ogled, but it hurt to endure such treatment where Lord Percival could see it. Esther did not know whom to hate for that hurting—Jasper, Lord Percival, or herself.

  Sir Jasper took himself off after a pointed look at the tea tray. Had she been alone, Esther might have ducked back into the maid’s stairway and had a good cry.

  Percival Windham turned an inscrutable gaze on her in the ensuing silence. “Esther Himmelfarb, was that weasel bothering you?”

  The question held such quiet ferocity, Esther wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. She nodded, because whatever else was true about Percival Windham, he hadn’t blamed her for Sir Jasper’s weaseling. “I should have known better than to use the maid’s stairs. He is a predictable nuisance.”

  “You will not blame yourself for his bad behavior. Come along.” Lord Percival picked up the tea tray like it weighed nothing and winged an elbow at Esther. “You look tired, my dear, but I know you aren’t lurking in gardens of a late hour.”

  Esther took his arm, recalling the muscles there only when she wrapped her fingers around them. “How could you know that?”

  “I’ve made the kitchen garden my private retreat, but I’ve also repaired there in hopes of continuing our previous conversation. One needs allies. Witness your encounter with Sir Weasel.”

  And because Percival Windham had dubbed himself Esther’s ally, she had his escort right to the door of Lady Zephora’s chambers. He even went so far as to take the tray into the sitting room, causing a flurry of billing and cooing among the ladies gathered there in morning attire.

  Esther took a window seat, watching while Lord Percival dodged invitations to walk, to ride out, to share a private archery lesson with this young lady, or a meal alfresco with that one. As she contemplated a duke’s son having to duck and leap his way through a series of morning greetings, it occurred to her that for him, there was risk lurking not just at the top of the maid’s stairs but on every hand.

  Which made the notion of him retreating to the kitchen garden, alone but for the moonlight, a very intriguing thought indeed.

  * * *

  “These things grow more tedious each year.” Lord Morrisette fastened his falls, missing a button on the left side. “The difficulty is the ladies make up the guest lists, and we gentlemen are left like orphaned pups, seeking any available titty, as it were.”

  Percival did not respond to his host’s observation. The ladies had withdrawn, leaving the gentleman to make use of the chamber pots and the decanters, in no particular order.

  “Any titty is better than no titty,” somebody observed from the opposite corner.

  A philosophical discussion ensued as to the ideal shape for the female breast: large, small, soft, firm—all had their enthusiasts.

  “The real quesh-tion.” Lord Morrisette blinked at his glass. “The more pertinent in-quire-ree is what shape ought the ideal female orifice follow? The assembled company will be pleased to know I’ve made a study on this.”

  Spoons were rapped against glasses amid a round of cheers and jeers.

  Percival hooked Tony
by one elbow. “Let’s get some air, shall we?”

  They left the room—ostensibly to smoke, to pass gas out of doors, or to chase housemaids—as a vote was proposed regarding the advantages of the inverted wine glass shape over the champagne flute.

  “I thought nothing could be as stupid as drunken soldiers far from home and in need of a sound swiving, but I must revise my opinions.” As they headed away from the sound of male laughter, Tony sounded impatient, an odd circumstance for him.

  “This is Kent,” Percival reminded him, steering him toward the stairs. “There is no greater concentration of the wealthy and aimless on the entire planet than in this county at this time of year.”

  “So you’re not enjoying all the married women, chaperones, ladies’ maids, and other offerings? I could swear Hector Bellamy was trying to entice me into bed the other night with a chambermaid thrown in as sop to convention.”

  Tony clearly did not find this amusing—neither did Percival. “You’re handsome, blond, and almost as tall as I am,” Percival replied, then directed Tony toward the kitchens. “I know a place where we won’t be disturbed, accosted, or propositioned.”

  “As long as it’s not Canada.”

  They emerged into the moonlit kitchen garden, only to spy Esther Himmelfarb seated on the bench against the wall.

  She rose immediately and bobbed a curtsy. “My lords, I’ll bid you good night.”

  Before Percival could signal Tony to take himself off, before he could detain the lady with anything approaching a witticism, she hared away amid a cloud of fragrance and maidenly shyness.

  “Pretty girl,” Tony remarked, settling onto the bench. “She grows on one. Gladys said we ought to keep a lookout for her.”

  Percy took the place beside him, though he couldn’t help cursing himself for bringing Tony along to this destination at this hour. “When did the fair Gladys pass along that sentiment?”

  “We correspond, discreetly of course.”

  One tended to underestimate Anthony Windham. Tony offended no one, he invited confidences, and—perhaps his greatest attribute—he was also capable of keeping them.

  “What would you think of acquiring Esther Himmelfarb as a sister-in-law?”

  Tony was silent a long time, which was better than had he burst out laughing.

  “Her Grace would make her life hell,” he said eventually. “His Grace would accept her.”

  An accurate assessment, as far as it went. “And you?”

  Another protracted silence broken by the serenades of crickets, who knew nothing of titles and sang for their true loves every night.

  “She’d do, Perce. You aren’t the frivolous younger son you were five years ago. Canada sorted you out, or something did. Miss Esther would follow the drum, did you ask it, and Her Grace would have to choose her battles with that one.”

  “No, she would not.”

  Tony’s observation and Percival’s own reply brought some order to the chaos of a man contemplating—seriously contemplating—holy matrimony for the first time. Percival sat forward on the bench, his elbows braced on his knees.

  “At first, I merely thought myself smitten with Miss Himmelfarb’s good looks and self-possession. She’s so irreproachably Teutonic about the chin, you know. Stirs a man’s instincts, that chin.”

  Tony maintained a politic silence, so Percy continued to work out his logic with words. “Esther Himmelfarb is lovely, but she’s also canny, and she’s resourceful. These are qualities to admire, qualities a lady with a title needs if she’s to manage well.”

  And now it was time for an officer to gather his courage and confide in his little brother. “She said Starkweather had been judged by a court higher than the military, and I must not argue with its decision.”

  “You told her about him?”

  Percy nodded. The crickets sang, the scent of rosemary wafted on the breeze, and what had been a hunch in Percy’s mind, an instinct, solidified into an objective. “I came upon her after Layton had been pestering her on the stairs, and Tony, I had all I could do not to flatten the man right then and there.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  Insightful question. “Because until my ring is on her finger, such behavior would redound to Esther’s discredit… I’m also not sure she’d accept me.”

  “And that,” Tony said slowly, “is why she would make an excellent Duchess of Moreland, should the day ever come.”

  “Precisely. I must woo Esther, and I’m not entirely sure how to go about it.” The admission lay between them, a puzzling anomaly in their long history of late-night conversations wherein Percival typically parsed Tony’s confusions and blind turns.

  “Bit of a puzzle,” Tony said, “when a gal don’t flirt, carry on, or cast any lures. You could try kissing her.”

  “I expect Jasper Layton has made the same attempt, and likely others have as well.” She slept with a chair wedged under her door latch, considered all food and drink suspect, and trusted none of the ladies to guard her back, for God’s sake. A frontal assault was not going to win the lady’s heart.

  “Sometimes answers come if we’re patient,” Tony said. “I’m waiting for Gladys to turn twenty-one.”

  “How much longer?”

  “Another bloody year, and her mama is making noises about an excellent match in the offing. Makes it difficult to twiddle one’s thumbs here in Kent when one’s love is twiddling hers back in Town.”

  “So you write letters and twiddle and swill Morrisette’s brandy.”

  “You’ll expect me to keep an eye out for Miss Himmelfarb, too.”

  The image of Jasper Layton eyeing the lady with undisguised lust rose in Percival’s mind. “I’ll keep an eye out for her as well, and as for the wooing part, maybe something inspired will come to me.”

  * * *

  Percival Windham was the most aggravating specimen of an aggravating gender ever to attend an aggravating house party.

  Why would he have brought Lord Tony to the kitchen garden, when he’d all but invited Esther to tryst with him there? Perhaps tryst was stretching it a bit—stretching it a lot—but a brother was a brother, and Lord Tony hadn’t shown any signs of departing the garden.

  Esther had had two more days to observe Lord Percival, though from a distance. Ever since she’d appeared in Zephora Needham’s sitting room on Lord Percival’s arm, a silent conspiracy had arisen among the eligible young ladies. They might plunge daggers into one another’s backs in their attempts to win Lord Percy’s notice, but they were united in their determination to keep Esther from his lordship’s company.

  “And when you’re done replacing the flowers in the front hallway and the green parlor, then you can check on the bouquets in the library, conservatory, music room, and upstairs corridors.” Lady Morrisette smiled broadly and folded beringed fingers on the blotter of her escritoire. “I do hope you’re enjoying yourself, my dear. These little tasks taken from my shoulders are such a help, and your mama was most insistent that I add you to the guest list.”

  Like blazes. Mama had consented to send Esther only because Michael had already been invited and Lady Pott’s maid was nominally available to tend to Esther’s clothing.

  “The company is wonderful, my lady, and I have always enjoyed working with flowers.”

  Particularly when it would mean Esther had a sharp pair of shears in her hand. Sir Jasper was proving persistent, and the house party had two more weeks yet to run. She curtsied and collected a footman to accompany her to the conservatory, only to encounter Michael lounging on a bench under the potted palms.

  “Michael, are you hiding?”

  He got to his feet and aimed a pointed look at the footman.

  “If you’d start on the roses?” Esther asked, passing the fellow the shears. He bowed and withdrew, though first he perused Michael in a manner not quite respectful.

  “I am enjoying a moment of solitude. I’ve never met such a pack of females for dancing and hiking and promenading unt
il all hours.”

  Esther regarded her cousin with a female relation’s pitiless scrutiny. “You’re up until all hours playing cards, Michael. The young ladies have complained to this effect. And you’re losing.”

  He sank back down on the bench. “You can’t know that. A gentleman expects a few losses when he’s wagering socially.”

  That he would admit that much was not good. Esther took the place beside him. “If you socialized more and wagered less, I would not have such cause to worry.”

  “I always come right sooner or later, Esther.” He assayed a smile that would not have fooled their nearly blind grandmamma. “Are you enjoying yourself?”

  She could lambaste him, she could lecture him, or she could accept the olive branch he was holding out. “I have found some interesting poetry in the Morrisette library, and Quimbey is a wonderfully down-to-earth fellow.”

  “Also a confirmed bachelor.”

  “One more thing to like about him. Promise me you won’t play too deeply, Michael. You cannot afford the losses, and I cannot afford the scandal.”

  “We are not widely known as cousins by this august assemblage, so cease carping, Esther Louise.” He rose and extended a hand to her. “I’ve seen Lord Tony Windham on your arm from time to time. Any chance you could reel him in?”

  Like a carp? “He’s friendly, nothing more.” And he’d appeared more than once when Jasper Layton had come sidling about, a coincidence Esther was not going to examine too closely.

  “You could try being friendly, Cousin.”

  This went beyond bad advice to something approaching interfamilial treason. Esther propped her fists on her hips and glared at her cousin. “As far as these people are concerned, I have no dowry, my come out was two years ago, and I’m too tall. Do you know what friendliness would merit me in this company?”

  Michael’s handsome features shuttered as Esther’s meaning sank in.

  A banging of the conservatory door spared Esther whatever protest Michael would have made.