The Courtship

“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.”