The Peculiar Pink Toes of Lady Flora Read online

  Thus Plumm was sent away and Flora never knew what he really wanted.

  Could it be true that, after all this time, the solicitor still tried to facilitate a match between them?

  She poured them both another glass of wine from the half empty decanter and took one to him. "It is good of you to come here and help me, in spite of everything. To let me stay here, after the way I once behaved."

  "You were young." He gave another little smile as he took the glass she offered. "We both were." He paused, his eyes studying her, glistening in the light of the fire. "You were the first person ever to offer me good advice. The first who dared say 'no' to me. As you can imagine, it stung."

  "Yes. I was extremely full of myself, wasn't I?"

  After a moment he leaned forward and clicked his glass gently to hers. "Friends now then?"

  "Oh." She swallowed. "Yes. Friends. Of course. I...I am glad." What more could she expect? She had lost her chance and with a man like him there was no second. In their current situation this was the best he could offer her. It ought to be enough.

  But his kiss had started something inside Flora— or awoken it. She did not like this feeling of wretched confusion.

  He seemed so calm, sitting there with his wine, the complete opposite to what she felt inside. Persey must be wrong; she must have misread him completely.

  "How long can you stay?" she managed finally. "I suppose you have many more important matters to tend now you are returned to England."

  "I should see my son, but he remains at school until the end of term. I thought I might," he paused, watching her above the rim of his wine glass, "invite him here to Darnley for Christmas. I would like to have a proper Yuletide, the way ordinary folk do it. I've always been alone for the season. I'd like it to be different this year."

  It amused her the way he referred to "ordinary folk". But then he had been raised in a strange, rarified environment, quite distant from the reality faced by nine tenths of the population. One had to make allowances.

  "That would be splendid, Fred."

  "You would not mind having my son here?"

  Flora laughed lightly. "It is your house, your grace. I am merely a tenant."

  His eyes darkened. "You are not merely anything, madam. Not to me."

  Was she still drawn on his map then, as he once told her she was? "I shall look forward to meeting your son," she said carefully, trying not to read more into it. Not to see things that weren't there, simply because she wanted them to be.

  "Nicholas needs somebody like you to give him honest advice, as you once gave me. I ask you to be a friend to him. I know I can trust you, as I can trust very few souls in this world."

  It was the highest compliment anybody had ever paid Flora, and it silenced her for a moment. She lowered her seat to the edge of a chair, her heart drumming so fast, shaking the lace trim of her bodice. It was a tremendous responsibility to bear his trust, not to disappoint.

  "Nicholas is important to me," he added, his voice low and steady. "And I fear I have neglected him. I mean to make up for that now, before it is too late. Moments pass rapidly in this life. I do not want to waste any more of them than I have already."

  She nodded slowly.

  "He has been abandoned by his mother, as you know," he continued, setting down his glass, "but he needs some feminine influence in his life, especially now. I lacked that myself as a young man, and I suffered for it. Well, you witnessed my clumsiness in dealing with women. Romance..." he winced, "and all that dreadful business. I had nobody to advise me on that score."

  Startled, Flora still held her tongue. He was opening up to her, proving now how much he trusted her, that it was not just something he said to flatter.

  "That is why I tried to bring the duchess back, before too much damage was done. But she has hidden herself well away and makes it clear that she wants nothing of this life. I am sorry for Nicholas, but I see now that he is perhaps better off without her if she is so disinterested."

  "He is very fortunate to have you."

  "Will you be his friend? Teach him how to enjoy life, how to play games and laugh once in a while? How not to make a menace of himself with females?"

  "Of course!" She would have laughed, but he remained somber. Studying his expression thoughtfully, she added, "But in the eyes of most, including your mother, I am not exactly a paragon of righteousness. I would not want your son to be tainted by association with me. You must have heard the gossip. I can only imagine what they will say when it is discovered that you're here with me."

  "Yes, well, that was always your mistake."

  "What was?"

  "To think I cared about any of that." He suddenly reached for her fingers where they rested on her lap. "Would I have asked you once to marry me, if I cared about gossip?"

  "But—"

  "I don't care what anybody says about me, Lady Flora. I care what they say and think about you."

  She managed a startled, "Oh."

  "I'm the bloody Duke of Malgrave and if I approve of you, that's all that matters. They shouldn't question it. I'll see to it that they don't. I can have you invited to court if you want to go. I can have you accepted anywhere. Welcomed anywhere. Let's see what they have to say then."

  She feigned a sigh, her free hand clasped to her bosom. "It must be terrible to have all that power."

  He grinned slowly. "One lives with the burdens, one might as well take advantage of the benefits too."

  Flora reclaimed her hand, pretending she needed it to adjust a curl of rain-dampened hair that had fallen to her shoulder. "You're not nearly as grumpy and dull as I thought you were."

  "Another of your mistakes and misconceptions. Hellfire, so many of them! I wonder you can get out of bed without hurting yourself or breaking something."

  "Was that a joke, your grace?"

  "An observation."

  "But I do get some things right. You said I once gave you excellent advice."

  "Good advice," he corrected. "Not excellent."

  She thought about kissing him suddenly. Let him quibble about the quality of that, she mused. Then, as if he'd read her mind, he raised a hand to his mouth and the finger laid across his lips seemed meant to discourage the idea. Yes, be sensible.

  "Is it not strange," she said, plucking a thought out of the air— anything to stop thinking of his mouth and his kisses— "that in the future people will want to be gossiped about. They will pay good coin and hire people to put them in the newspaper."

  "Why, in god's name, would they want that?"

  "Because without the attention they'll feel as if they don't exist."

  Frowning, he shook his head. "Then I am very glad that I shall not see far into the future."

  A pinch of sadness took her breath away for a moment, but she smiled through it. Do not think of kissing him. Do not make a fool of yourself. You're not seventeen anymore. Have some restraint, woman. "Shall you not ask me how I know so much about the future? Most people do."

  "I assume it is just another of those games you like to play."

  Yes, it was another game. She did not know where her ideas came from and that was the safest explanation.

  "I hope, now that you are no longer playing your game as Massimo the Magnificent, and have returned all your parts to the Duke of Malgrave's body— upright and proper— you will not try to kiss me again. Like before. Without my permission." Damn and blast. Why did she go and say that? She was not supposed to be thinking about kissing him. Had she not just had that stern talk with herself?

  He said nothing, merely looked at her through narrowed eyes, the finger still pressed across his lips, as if he was lost in deep thought.

  "Even dukes," she added saucily, "cannot get away with that behavior. Not in the Republic of Flora."

  "For a woman averse to rules and boundaries that curb her own liberty, you are remarkably dictatorial as the leader of this republic."

  "Somebody has to be in charge." She smiled. "And this time it's
me."

  She got up, deciding it was safest then to retreat, before she did something foolish.

  "I shall bid you good evening, your grace. Since you no longer need play the role of a hired hand, why not take the guest bed above? Tomorrow, if you desire it, I can move my things from the main bedchamber. It is, after all, yours by right."

  "Mine by right?" He looked up, eyes full of slow-glowing, sultry sparks. "I think not, madam. I prefer to earn my place in that bed." Now his gaze dropped to his thigh as he brushed a hand over it and let his fingers tap out a slow, sultry rhythm. "With your permission, of course."

  She squeezed her own hands together. "As you wish."

  Only later, remembering their conversation in a steadier frame of mind, did she wonder exactly what she had given him permission to do.

  * * * *

  Although rather galling that she had seen through his deception so quickly, it was a relief not to keep up the act. He had discovered that he quite liked being himself after all. However much fun it was to be Massimo for a while, he was an exhausting fellow to be around.

  The next morning he shaved his beard and, with Grey's help, trimmed his hair, tying it back in a small, respectable tail.

  "Naturally, the Greys must now be told your true identity," Flora insisted. "They will wonder what happened to the outrageous accent. Besides, this is your house and they are, strictly speaking, your staff, not mine."

  But he did not want to change the way she'd been managing the place, so he made it clear to the steward and his wife that Lady Flora was still giving the commands.

  "Oh, aye!" The old man gave a conspiratory wink. "Woman is still givin' the orders."

  "Indeed she is," Maxim replied steadily. "She is still the mistress here."

  "Aye, the mistress."

  He straightened his shoulders, cleared his throat and said, "Lady Flora and I are old friends, and that is all there is to it. Should you hear speculation to the contrary when you attend the market in Holsham, I expect you to put an end to it at once."

  "Of course, your grace," Martha Grey exclaimed, bobbing a curtsey between every other word so that she looked like a little bird pecking at seeds. "It is good to have you home, your grace. I meant to say...to have you here at Darnley. Where you have never visited. We are honored, your grace. Your grandmama would be so happy to know you came here at last, for she did love this place and oft spoke of—"

  "That's enough, woman," her husband growled. "Don't make an exhibit o' yerself by nattering on."

  "But I were only–"

  "I said that's enough out o' you."

  "Please, madam," Maxim intervened. "Do tell me about my grandmother. I have few memories of her and would like to know more." He held out his arm for the cook and she, after a sheepish glance at her husband, took it. "Thank you, Grey. You may go about your business in the stables. I believe Lady Flora has need of you there." Then he walked out into the herb garden with Martha and she told him about her early days at Darnley, when she was first hired by his grandmother as a kitchen maid. Through the old lady's slowly emboldened chatter, Maxim was able to create a picture, in his mind, of how the place once was, with a full complement of staff, a complete roof and well-tended fields.

  "She often said she wished you would come to visit, sir. But of course you were no more than a little lad then and could not choose where you went or what you did. She used to say that she could see you content here one day. Isn't that strange, sir, that she would see such a thing and it come to pass?"

  Maxim knew that he should have been brought here to visit, but his mother did not like to travel so far into the country and there was little affection lost between her and his widowed grandmother. They were two complete opposites. As for his father, the fifth duke spent whatever time he had to spare for his son, preparing the little boy for future obligations. A visit to his grandmother— an oddity who had turned her back on society and talked to plants— was not considered a worthwhile enterprise for the Malgrave heir.

  Yes, his grandmother would approve of Lady Flora and her bare feet. Perhaps that was why his mother disliked her so much, he mused.

  "It is good of you, your grace, to come here and help that lady when you must have so many other troubles weighing upon you."

  "My dear Mistress Grey, I have no troubles that cannot be undone by one of your splendid pies. Had I known such a treasure was hidden away in this kitchen I would have poached you away long since to work at Castle Malgrave."

  "Oh, but I like it here, sir. Begging your pardon, sir, but I'm not made for grand places like that. And Lady Flora says you have a very fine French chef at the castle. She said you once sent her lemon cakes."

  So she was still talking about that. He laughed. "Mistress Grey, I can assure you that your skills are just as accomplished, if not more so, than that French chef. You, after all, have no staff under you and a much less well-equipped kitchen. The feasts you turn out with your own two hands would make him slink away in despair."

  Later, as he walked with Flora through the orchard, she said, "I hear you made a conquest of Martha's heart today."

  "I did?"

  "To hear her talk of you, one would think you something betwixt Hercules and Apollo come down from the clouds to save us all."

  He laughed. "You did say I was to keep her happy, because you take your food seriously."

  "Well, I am glad you are kind to her. She's a good lady."

  "Why on earth did she marry that man? Ordinary folk do not have arranged marriages; Plumm assures me they do things differently. So why marry him if she is free to choose?"

  "Ordinary folk. There it is again."

  "Yes. Other people."

  She made an odd face. "Those not born into the upper echelons of society, you mean. The non-nobility. The minions. The great unwashed."

  "I know nothing of their bathing habits," he replied, trying to understand her tone.

  "We're all the same species, Fred."

  But of that he was doubtful. He'd seen the way Grey itched his buttocks on fence poles, despite the risk of splinters, and heard the old curmudgeon burping out his prayers on the privy.

  With a sigh she explained, "Sometimes women are tricked by the man they marry. When first they meet— in the first flush of the acquaintance— a man can make it seem as if he is the hero in her story, but time and familiarity removes the mask and then she sees that what she once thought was a shiny, sweet, ripe apple, is actually rotten, full of bruises and maggots. By then it's too late."

  "The same can happen to a man."

  "I suppose so," she agreed with a shrug. "It can also happen in an arranged marriage of the aristocracy. It is not only a misfortune reserved for ordinary folk."

  He sniffed. "At least you and I would never have been so fooled with each other. We both knew more about the maggots than the shiny parts."

  She burst out laughing. "True. We could only have been pleasantly surprised over time."

  And then, because it was sad more than it was amusing, they both fell silent and tried to think of other things to talk about. But there were none and the silence stretched on, growing heavy.

  Suddenly she spoke again.

  "I almost wish we were butterflies and lived but three summer days," she said. "Three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain." Then, when she found him quizzical, she smiled. "That's John Keats."

  "Who?"

  "A poet."

  "Never heard of him."

  Her smile faltered. "Oh. Really?"

  "Certain."

  "Perhaps you don't know much poetry. I could have sworn that was his name."

  "I know plenty of it, madam, but I have never heard of a John Keats. Are you sure he's not just an old lover of yours?" He paused. "Like Ned Godfrey?"

  "Who?"

  "Just a name I heard once."

  "A poet?"

  "No. Unless he had aspirations," he muttered grimly.

  Sl
owly her smile returned, but it was tempered now, guarded. "Forget poetry then."

  "Please let's. It's not like you to be lost for your own words."

  She turned to face him and took his hand in hers, gripping it tightly. "It doesn't follow necessarily that we would have been happy, even if we had the past twenty years together. We were both two very different people then. It is experience that has changed us, and if it had been different to what it was..." she shrugged, "well, then. Who knows what might have become of us. I cannot regret the past now. And, indeed, if every bad thing that happened has put me here now, then I am grateful for it. I would live it all again, just to have this moment now, with you." She faltered and then finished in a rush. "As friends, of course. Good friends."

  She had barely got the words out, when he gripped her chin and held her fast, lowering his lips to hers in the same breathless moment. He did not kiss; he plundered, determined to take all and leave nothing.

  He would have gone on kissing her, despite the rain and the biting cold wind, but then she pulled back a little, her hands pressed flat to his chest. "What are we doing here, Fred?" Her eyes were wide, searching, inquisitive.

  He slid his arms around her waist, pulling her close again, keeping her warm. "Raising grapevines. Making wine."

  "As friends?"

  "As very, very good friends."

  "Then I feel it incumbent upon me to advise you, Fred, for your own good, that friends, in the Republic of Flora, do not kiss that way."

  "How do they kiss?"

  "Very lightly to the cheek. Or to the hand."

  "But you are a lady who likes to break the rules, cross the boundaries, chance the forbidden." He could feel every breath she took, every sigh, as he tightened his arms around her.

  "Not with a married man," she whispered.

  She was right, of course, to remind him.

  Time to do something about that.

  "Come inside, before it rains," he said. "Martha has made supper. And cake, so I hear."

  He knew how to distract her. For a while, at least.