Wickedly Ever After Read online

His warm blue eyes floated to Athena. “I’m afraid I must decline . . . unless Miss McAllister will pledge one of her dances to me.”

  Athena could hardly contain her joy. Marriage to Calvin was a dream come true. And more than that, she had ceased to be an object of ridicule, a spinster left upon a shelf . . . now she was desirable enough to become a countess. Countess Cavendish was right. When a lady behaves properly, all men take notice. “If a dance with one such as myself will persuade Lord Stockdale to grace us with his presence at the ball, then I am honored to agree to the proposition.”

  “Then we are all agreed,” she said. “Lord Stockdale, we shall look forward to seeing you at the ball.”

  Calvin held out his hand to Athena, and she placed hers in his. “I shall dance with no one but you.” Athena watched as his head descended over her hand, and she felt the warm press of his kiss on her gloved hand. She held her breath as his lips lingered on that spot, and she memorized the pleasurable sensation.

  His eyes lifted to hers, and she exhaled. His gaze held her captive, and his soft smile promised heavenly delights upon Wednesday. Too soon, he returned his attention to the duchess, and he placed a perfunctory kiss on her hand as well. “Ladies, adieu.” She watched him as he dissolved in the sea of people in the orchestra courtyard.

  “You were very gracious,” said the duchess. “I must say your comportment exceeded my expectations.”

  Nothing could erase the smile from her face. “Finally,” she breathed. “I’m becoming betrothed.”

  “Gold is made more valuable by its refining. And so it is with a woman. A sophisticate like Bretherton desires only the best in life . . . the best carriages, the stateliest homes, the loftiest friends . . . and the finest quality of female. The greater a prospect you present to the world, the more of a magnet you become to men like Bretherton.”

  Athena nodded slowly, absorbing the duchess’s words. Clearly, Athena had been far too ignorant to know what a man truly wanted. It was a strange game, this courtship ritual. If she hadn’t been so thrilled by the victory of snagging Calvin, she would have condemned all the pretense of it.

  Dinner was served, a cold repast of flavorless chicken, thinly sliced ham, and boiled potatoes. Though utterly insipid, the disappointing meal did nothing to tarnish her gilded happiness. She looked up from her plate, and spotted a face in the crowd she recognized.

  “Hester!” Athena called out from the box, waving a hand wildly.

  “Sit down!” admonished the duchess. “You’re making a spectacle of yourself!”

  “I’m sorry,” she replied, but was gleeful that Hester was approaching the box.

  Although Athena was drawn to Hester’s regal shyness and serene wisdom, she envied her everything else. Hester had a dark, ethereal beauty and a tall, slender figure, whereas Athena—did not. She was demure and polished, the consummate lady. Even if Hester’s family hadn’t been steeped in wealth, every landed nobleman and peer would still have offered for her. But Hester had fallen for a gentleman scholar and investor named Thomas Willett three years before and had become his wife.

  Hester’s mother, Mrs. Bermondsey, greeted the duchess. “Your Grace, may I present my daughter, the Baroness Willett?”

  The duchess held out her gloved hand. “How do you do, Lady Willett? Is your husband not with you?”

  Hester lowered her eyelids. “No, Your Grace. Regrettably, estate matters keep him from accompanying me tonight.”

  “I have not seen him at Almack’s for some time. How does he?”

  “He is in good health, Your Grace. His duties consume much of his time. I shall tell him you remembered him.”

  “Thank you. Tell me, Mrs. Bermondsey, how did you find Greece?”

  As the older ladies struck up a conversation, Athena leaned over and whispered to Hester. “I have delicious news to tell you!”

  “What is it?” she asked, her large doe eyes imbued with excitement.

  “Not here,” Athena said, craning her head behind her conspiratorially. She waited for a lull in the older ladies’ conversation. “Your Grace, would it meet with your approval if Hester and I were to take a turn about the gardens now?”

  The duchess straightened. “If Mrs. Bermondsey poses no objection, then neither do I.”

  The shadows deepened along the elegant planes of Mrs. Bermondsey’s face. “As long as you’re back for the lighting of the candles. And Hester, steer clear of the dark walks.”

  Hester nodded obediently as arm in arm, she and Athena disappeared into the flowered groves.

  “My goodness, Athena,” cried Hester. “Have you lost weight?”

  “No,” she replied, her hand resting on her midriff. “It’s this bloody armor I’ve got on. But I’ve never been happier to wear such a torturous article. You’ll never believe what happened tonight!” Excitedly, Athena recounted all that had happened earlier with Calvin Bretherton, weaving each succulent sensation into the telling.

  “Oh, Athena. How absolutely wonderful! I’m so jealous of you I could scream.”

  “Don’t be silly. You’re already married! It is I who am jealous of you!”

  Hester shrugged apologetically. “I’m just happy that it’s finally happening to you. Gosh, whoever thought you’d become a countess? What a picture you two would make!”

  Athena smiled, and imagined herself with Calvin in a wedding portrait. She saw herself seated in a chair in a garden, much like this one, with him standing behind her, his head held high. It would be a self-portrait, she decided, because she wanted to paint him herself. He would emerge from her canvas perfectly handsome, while she—well, she’d paint herself a few pounds lighter. The colors would be vivid and spectacular, and the faces would be softened to enhance the romantic effect. Tomorrow she’d practice. It was no problem trying to paint Calvin from memory. She was certain she’d be able to capture that peculiar turn of his mouth, the slant of his jaw, the fall of his hair. The only thing that might give her trouble would be his eyes . . .

  They walked until the orchestral music grew faint. Dusk had fallen, and the path grew dim.

  “It’s getting dark,” Hester noted. “Shouldn’t they be lighting the lamps soon?”

  It was a spectacle that Athena had looked forward to seeing. Thousands of lights throughout the garden were somehow connected by common fuses, and just before nightfall, servants would stand at strategic points in the garden and simultaneously light all the torches, as if by magic bringing the entire place to light with just a single spark. It was a fantastic display that by all accounts seemed to beggar description, so Athena was keen to see it for herself. “It shouldn’t be long now. Come along, I want to see more of the gardens before I have to return to the confinement of the supper box.”

  They meandered along the garden paths, but Hester stopped dead when they reached a garden arch. “We can’t go in there.”

  Athena turned to face her. “Why not?”

  “Because that’s the entrance to Lover’s Walk.”

  The bower where paramours went to make secret love. A gleeful smile spread across Athena’s face. “I’ve heard about this place. Let’s go inside.”

  “No! Mother said I wasn’t to go in there.”

  “Don’t be such a wet goose. We’ll only take a quick peek round.”

  “Someone will see us. I don’t want my husband to learn I’ve been in there.”

  “I can hardly see my hand in front of my face. Who will recognize us? Come along, I know you want to see what’s happening inside.” A gentle tug was all it took, and Athena and Hester were swallowed into the overgrown copse.

  If it was dim outside, it was positively dark inside. They tiptoed through the neglected trees, and pushed away the long clinging branches of some sort of bush. The air was thick and close, and the canopy of leaves muted all sounds. Except one.

  “What’s that?” whispered Hester, panic rising in her voice.

  Athena paused as she listened to it. “It sounds like an animal in pain.” C
uriosity prodded her forward.

  Hester didn’t move. “Animal? What sort of animal?”

  Ignoring her, Athena advanced slowly, her footsteps dampened by the brown and yellow leaves littering the path. The sound became clearer the closer she got. It was no animal making that sound. It was a woman.

  The path opened up onto a small clearing, but Athena remained behind one of the bushes. From this point, Athena could make out some movement in the clearing. Through the darkness, Athena saw the wide figure of a man, made more evident by the lightness of his cravat. Beneath him came the soft moaning sound, a whimper of pain-pleasure that riveted Athena’s attention. Once her eyes formed the figures, it became clear that she was observing a woman bent over a garden bench, while a man knelt behind her. Back and forth his hips drove, the woman’s gasps and moans hanging in the muted enclosure.

  Blood suffused Athena’s face. It was utterly wicked to be witnessing such a thing, but she was unable to turn away. Though the figures were shadowy, Athena’s own imagination supplied what she couldn’t see. She envisioned the bodies colliding with one another, the heat from the one’s intense pleasure infusing the other. The muffled sounds they made painted their own picture of what she was watching. Her own body grew warm from the thrill of being part of this stolen moment.

  The man hissed something at the woman, but Athena could not make it out. His grunting grew louder and his rocking more exaggerated, and the woman’s moans became gasps. Wide-eyed and breathless, Athena watched as their passion mounted.

  A sound from outside the bower penetrated the silence inside. It sounded like champagne corks popping one right after another. Athena thought it was the beginning of the fireworks display, but the sound was rapidly coming closer. She turned around, and from behind the leaves, she could see the interconnected torches flaming to light through the garden like a snake of fire. The snake ignited behind her, and for the first time, the two lovers were cast into light.

  The woman, surprised by the light, looked up from the bench.

  Athena gasped. Lady Ponsonby!

  Her ignominious position was made more shocking by the folds of her indigo skirt draped over her waist. Behind her, buried to the hilt inside her, was a man in a tan coat.

  “Stop!” cried Lady Ponsonby, looking at the bush where Athena was hiding. “There’s someone there!”

  The man lifted his gaze in Athena’s direction. And Athena blanched.

  His features were contorted into a mask of lust. It was not an expression she recognized. But, oh, it was a face she knew well. Those were the eyes she had so lovingly gazed into, the hair she had longed to touch, the mouth she had craved for her own.

  Calvin.

  The monument to happiness she had built in her mind began to fracture and collapse. As she looked into that face, the face of the man who had pledged his troth to her barely an hour ago, huge pieces of debris began to rain down upon her. Only one thought filled her head.

  Run.

  Her knees buckled, and she scrambled to right herself. Light from the torches illuminated the serpentine path, but it blurred as tears pooled in her eyes. By the time she had made it out to the open air, she was sobbing.

  Hester gasped as Athena fell into her arms. “What’s the matter? Athena, what did you see?”

  The image was scorched into her mind. She could describe it in a thousand nauseating details. But she didn’t want to. She wanted to bury it forever.

  “Get me away from here,” she breathed. “Please.”

  She let Hester guide her down a new path. The over-tight corset made Athena gasp for air, and she stumbled toward a garden bench facing a fountain. Athena collapsed in Hester’s arms, uncontrolled sobs racking her body.

  Everything in her was screaming for help. It seemed an eternity before Athena could breathe deeply enough to form a sentence. She wiped her moist, puffy face on her wet gloves and haltingly described what she had seen.

  “Oh, Athena,” Hester said, rubbing her friend’s back. “I don’t know what to say.”

  Athena shook her head. “I thought he loved me. I thought he loved me. I feel such a fool.” In the trees, a choir of nightingales warbled, but to Athena they sounded like sirens calling men to their doom. “Why did he go off with that . . . that . . . horrible woman? Why did he desert me for her?”

  Athena was drowning in a sea of betrayal. She felt an utter fool for thinking she was worth matrimony. She had no wealth, no title, no prospects, and the blush of youth was gone—and no corset was going to change any of those realities. What pride to think she could capture the heart and admiration of a man like Calvin. She wanted to hate him, but instead she hated herself.

  “Athena, what happened hasn’t changed his proposal of marriage. He’ll still marry you.”

  “I don’t want to marry him!” she exclaimed, too loud for discretion. “He’s just proven the measure of his love for me. Do you honestly expect me to shackle myself to a man who’s going to leap from my bed into that of another? To sit at home waiting for him to return to me still reeking from the likes of that Ponsonby woman?”

  Hester’s gentle hand stroked Athena’s shoulder. “I know you’re upset, but think about what you’re saying. Calvin Bretherton is an earl, and he’s a very good catch for any woman. Your comfort and that of your grandfather would be established for life. You mustn’t pass that up.”

  “Hester, you sound just like the Duchess of Twillingham. What about marrying for love? What about living in mutual adoration? What about marrying a man who intends to honor you with his body and sacrifice for your happiness? Isn’t that more important?”

  Hester shrugged uncertainly. “Mother says that the greatest joys a lady can hope for are to be married and to become a mother. As long as a man treats us with all the respect due those stations in life, he has fulfilled his duty. You can’t expect men to be chaste to only one woman. They aren’t made that way. That’s why they have mistresses.”

  Athena was too worldly not to recognize the truth of those words. But now that they applied to her, she refused to accept them. “Why must I content myself with only half of a man’s ardor?”

  “I don’t know. Some women—the lucky ones—get to be wives. The rest must content themselves with being whores. It is the way of things.”

  Athena looked out at the gardens. The lights had made every tree, path, and structure glitter as if they were made of stars. It was spectacular, it was exquisite . . . but it was not real. The true beauty of the gardens was masked by a brilliant if deceptive conceit.

  Compromise. She tasted the word as if it were a slice of a strange fruit on her tongue. Can it be true that half a marriage was better than none? Didn’t most women make concessions to matrimony out of a need for protection and provision? Didn’t even queens marry not out of love but out of duty, to men they barely knew because it enlarged their dominions? Did she really think she was better than they?

  Athena bolted out of the garden seat, swiped her last tear from her face, and stormed back in the direction of the courtyard. “It shan’t be my way. I’m through playing the lady. If the prize for all this playacting is nothing more than a beautiful wedding followed by a cold marriage bed, then I don’t want any part in it. To think I changed myself all over for that, that . . . pile of pig vomit. As if all a man wants is someone prim and proper. That’s the biggest load of cow pats I’ve ever been told. Just ask Lady Ponsonby.”

  “Where are you going?” Hester called after her, racing to keep up.

  “Home. To make myself a cozy fire courtesy of Countess Cavendish’s Feminine Excellence, or Every Young Woman’s Guide to Ladylike Comportment.”

  FOUR

  “So the little French boy runs home shouting, ‘Mama, Mama, Papa’s on the roof and he’s threatening to jump!’ And she says, ‘Tell your father I put horns on him, not wings.’ ”

  The admiral laughed heartily at his own joke. Marshall Hawkesworth chuckled, too, making the gold epaulettes on his shoulders ri
pple.

  As smoke from the admiral’s cigar swirled between them, Marshall was flooded with memories of the England he had left behind before he shipped out to sea. Roasted duck, good port, cigars—these were all remembered flavors of home. Some things had changed—the face in the shaving mirror was weathered from his many months at sea, his blond hair had grown lighter from exposure to the sun, and he was all hard lines from the many battles he’d fought. Other things were the same—namely, that joke.

  The admiral wiped his laughter-moistened eyes. “How’s the port, my boy?”

  Marshall set his empty glass on the table. “First-rate. It’s a damn sight better than the swill we drink on board. That stuff is tastier than hemlock, but with much the same effect.”

  “Then have some more,” he said, filling Marshall’s glass with the ruby-colored liquid. “Wait, wait,” the admiral said as his large frame sank back into the chair. “Here’s another one. A little French boy comes home from school and tells his mother he has been given a part in the school play. ‘Wonderful,’ says the mother. ‘What part is it?’ The boy says, ‘I get to play the part of the French war hero!’ The mother frowns and says, ‘Go back and tell your professor you want to play a real part, not a fictional character.’ ” The admiral’s jowls shook with merriment. “The Gaul of some people, eh?”

  Marshall cracked another smile.

  The admiral stopped laughing. “Sorry, old chap, I was just trying to cheer you up.”

  “With all due respect, sir, I don’t need cheering up. I need answers. Why have you ordered my ship back to port? We were on our way to rendezvous with the St. George when I got your orders to return to England. Quite frankly, I’m concerned for the safety of our sister ship and all her hands.”

  “They’re quite well, my boy. I sent the Triumph in your stead. I’ve already had reports that they captured two French vessels carrying ammunition and supplies and sank a third.”

  “But why pull me away from the operation?” Marshall followed the admiral’s gaze to the black armband halfway up Marshall’s sleeve. “It’s not because of my father, is it, sir?”