Midnight Pleasures Eloisa James Copyright © 2000 by Eloisa James ISBN: 0-440-23457-3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Afterword About the Author Preview of Enchanting Pleasures Midnight Pleasures is dedicated to the talented, generous, and supremely knowledgeable women of the Regency Loop. When I burst onto the Loop, full of nervous questions, they responded with bibliographies, facts, kindness, and support I would like to thank particularly those authors who took time away from their own work to read through one of my manuscripts: Mary Balogh, Karen E. Harbaugh, Emily Hendrickson, Nancy Mayer, and Eliza Shallcross. Chapter 1 London, December 1804 Brandenburg House Mayfair, London Lady Sophie York, the only daughter of the Marquis of Brandenburg, had refused to marry a baron who had asked on a balcony. She had refused two honorables, a handful of sirs, and a viscount, all of whom punctiliously requested that honor in her father's study. She had refused a marquess in the midst of a hunt, and plain Mr. Kissler at Ascot. Less fortunate young women could not fathom Sophie's motives. In two seasons, Sophie had rejected most of the ton's eligible bachelors. But after tonight there would be no more proposals, hurried, paced, inarticulate, or otherwise. After tonight the uncharitable would unite in agreement: The girl had held out for a man of high rank. Lady Sophie was affianced to an earl, and she would be a countess by next season. Sophie grimaced at her mirror, thinking of the avid faces and deep curtsies she would face at the Dewland ball that evening. Uncertainty quaked in her stomach, an unusual flutter of self-consciousness. Was this the correct gown in which to announce her engagement? It was constructed of pale silver, gossamer-thin silk. Perhaps the color would make her look washed-out in the ballroom, once she was surrounded by glittering plumage, the bare breasts and crimson cheeks of the female half of the beau monde. Silver was such a nunlike color. A glint of amusement lit Sophie's eyes. A nun would swoon at the very idea of wearing a bodice made in the French style, low-cut and caught just under the breasts with silver ribbons that wound around the bodice. And the skirt flowed narrowly past Sophie's curves, flirting wim the roundness of her hips. Just then the Marchioness of Brandenburg swept into the bedroom. "Are you ready, Sophie?" "Yes, Maman," Sophie said, throwing away the idea of changing her gown. They were already late to the Dewland ball. The marchioness's eyes narrowed as she looked over Sophie's apparel. Eloise herself was wearing a gown of mouse-colored- satin embroidered with flowers and fringed at the bottom. If it wasn't precisely hooped, it gave that impression. It resembled nothing so closely as the styles of twenty years ago, from the early years of Eloise's marriage. "That dress," Eloise said with asperity, "is a disgrace." "Yes, Maman.'' That was Sophie's usual response to her mother's sartorial comments. She gathered up her wrap and reticule, turning toward the door. Eloise hesitated, uncertainty crossing her face. Sophie looked at her in surprise. Her mother was French and seemed to view life as a battleground in which she was the only general with a standing army. It was uncommon to see her pause. "Tonight," said Eloise, "it will be announced that you have accepted the hand of the Earl of Slaslow in marriage." "Yes, Maman," Sophie agreed. There was a short pause. What could be the problem? Sophie wondered. Her mother was never short of words. "He may desire some token of your affections." "Yes, Maman." Sophie lowered her eyes so her mother wouldn't see her mischievous enjoyment. Poor Mama! She had been raised in a French convent and likely had come to the marriage bed exceedingly ill prepared. Given that Eloise had married an English marquis so obsessed by France and things French that he preferred the French spelling marquis to the English marquess, her daughter had been raised in a house thronged with French èmigrés. Her nanny was French, the servants were French, the cook (of course) was French. Eloise had no idea just how earthy discussions had become in the nursery, long before Sophie had even made her debut. The last thing Sophie needed was instruction on what men wanted from women. "You may allow him one kiss, perhaps two, at most," Eloise said heavily. "I am sure you understand the importance of this limitation, Sophie. I am thinking of you. Your reputation..." Now Sophie's eyes flashed and she looked directly at her mother, who was, however, gazing at a spot on the far wall. "You have insisted on wearing gowns that are little more than scraps of tissue. Your neglect of a corset must be obvious to all, and sometimes I have wondered if you are wearing a chemise. I have many times been embarrassed by your behavior, your flirtatiousness, if one can call it that. You have the chance of an excellent marriage here and I demand that you not ruin your prospects by encouraging the Earl of Slaslow to take liberties." Sophie could feel her heart beating angrily in her throat. "Are you implying that my behavior has been less than correct, Maman?" "I certainly would say so," her mother responded. "When I was your age, I would no more have dreamed of spending time alone with a man than I would of going to America. No man kissed me before your father. I knew my place and what was proper to my position. You, on the other hand, have shown no respect for the position to which you were born. You have consistently embarrassed your father and myself with your fast behavior." Despite herself, Sophie felt a curl of mortification in her stomach. "I have never done anything out of the proper, Maman," she protested. "Everyone wears these clothes, and manners are more liberal than they were when you were my age." "I take part of the responsibility, I have allowed your extravagant escapades to continue, and I have overlooked many of your lapses. But now you are to be a countess, and what may possibly be overlooked as youthful spirits in a girl can never be done so in a countess." "What lapses? I have never allowed a man to take liberties with my person!" "I know that chastity is an outmoded word, but it is not an outmoded concept," her mother rejoined sharply. "Your constant joking and flirting makes you seem more accomplished than you are. In fact, Sophie, you have precisely the manners of a top-flight courtesan!" For a moment Sophie stared at her mother in outrage, then consciously took a deep breath. "I have never done anything out of the proper, Maman," she repeated firmly. "How can you say that when Lady Prestlefield found you in the arms of Patrick Foakes, alone in a reception room?" her mother retorted. "When you chose to be indiscreet, improper, you were discovered by one of the most talkative women in all London. "It would have been one thing if you became engaged to Foakes. But to be found kissing in a corner! You embarrassed me profoundly, Sophie. So I will tell you again—I forbid you to allow the Earl of Slaslow more than the most token gesture of affection. Any more of these heated embraces and your reputation will be ruined forever. Moreover, Slaslow will be justified in calling it off if he suspects your rackety nature." "Maman!" "Your rackety nature," Eloise repeated. "Which," she added, "you inherited from your father. And he has encouraged you. From the moment he supported your study of all those languages, he fostered your unladylike nature. There is little behavior more unmaidenly than learning Latin." She raised her hand as Sophie began to reply. "Fortunately, that is over. When you are a countess you will be too busy running a large household to indulge yourself in such fruidess pursuits." Suddenly Eloise remembered her primary grievance. "Had you married Foakes, the gossip would have died, but naturally your reputation has suffered since you turned down his offer." She continued without pause. "No one believes he was able to bring himself to scratch!" The marchioness's tone was biting, and an ominous red flush had mounted up her neck. "I could not accept Patrick Foakes's proposal," Sophie objected. "He asked me only because Lady Prestlefield walked into the room. He is a rake whose kisses mean nothing." "I know little about meaningless kisses," Eloise commented magisterially. "It would be nice if my daughter had the same delicacy of person that I have maintained. And what does it matter if Foakes is a rake? A rake can make as good a husband as any other man. He has extensive holdings—what more do you want?" Sophie looked at the tips of her delicate slippers. It was hard to explain her aversion to rakes without making reference to her beloved papa, who made a practice of chasing every Frenchwoman who arrived in London. And given the turbulent situation in France, he had been very busy in the last seven years or so. "I would like to marry someone who will respect me," she said. "Respect you! You certainly don't try to achieve that goal in a very intelligent fashion," her mother said, with a sharp twist of her lips. "I'll warrant there's no gentleman in London who doesn't think of you as an approachable minx, if not worse. When I debuted, poetry was written in praise of my modesty, but I venture to say those verses would not apply to you. In fact," Eloise concluded bitterly, "sometimes I think that you are entirely your father's child—both of you destined to make me the laughingstock of London." Sophie took another deep breath, and this time tears began to prick the back of her eyelids. Eloise's expression softened. "I do not wish to be snappish, but I worry for you, Sophie. You will have an excellent husband in the Earl of Slaslow. Please do not place your engagement at risk." Sophie's anger drained away, followed by a wash of guilty sympathy. Her mother endured a great deal of mortification due to her husband's flagrandy public love of Frenchwomen, and now Sophie had thoughtlessly added to the gossip. "I never meant to cause you embarrassment, Maman" she said quietly. "I was caught by surprise when Lady Presdefield found me with Patrick Foakes." "Had you not been alone with a man, no one could have surprised you," her mother pointed out, with irrefutable logic. "A reputation is not a trifling thing. I never thought to hear my daughter called a light-skirt—but that, Sophie, is what is being said about you." With that, Eloise turned and walked from the room, closing the door behind her. Tears welled in Sophie's eyes. It was not unusual for her mother to descend on a member of the household like an avenging Fury out of a Greek play, although generally Sophie was able to ignore her embittered comments. But tonight Eloise had struck a nerve. Sophie knew that she skirted the edge of propriety: Her gowns were the most daring in London and her manner was seductive. Sophie had heard those dreary odes composed for her mother many times: "Thus from a thousand virgins, heav'nly fair,/One sees the Diana of the sex, whose hair—" Eloise's hair was the same reddish-gold color as hers, but Eloise's lay sleekly along her head, the line of her chignon never disturbed by a curl or a streamer. Sophie's hair curled, and it rebelliously escaped from ribbons and pins. What's more, Sophie had cut off all her hair before any other woman in London had thought of imitating the French fashion, and now that every young miss cropped her curls, she had chosen to grow hers again. What her mother didn't understand was how impossibly difficult it had been to turn down Patrick Foakes's offer of marriage. She stared at herself blindly in the mirror for a moment, then sank onto the bed as she remembered the Cumberland ball last month. The glory of it when Patrick made it clear that he was stalking her. The twisting excitement in her stomach when she glanced up from the intricacies of a cotillion, and caught his glance. Even thinking of the lazy greeting in those eyes, the way his right eyebrow flew up in silent acknowledgment, the utterly masculine arrogance of his glance made her stomach jump. Her heart beat fast the entire evening, and excitement tingled in her limbs and weakened her knees. By ten o'clock Patrick Foakes had exerted such a pull over her that she was living for those moments when he would suddenly appear at her elbow or when she would turn in the swirl of a dance and catch a glimpse of silver-streaked black hair on the other side of the room. At supper, in the midst of a chattering crowd huddled around a small round table, her heart leaped every time his leg or arm accidentally brushed hers, sending a drugging velvet excitement down her legs. They danced together once; they danced together twice. To dance together a third time would be akin to announcing an engagement. Sophie didn't dare speak during their second dance, a Maltese Bransle that kept parting them and then suddenly jolting them back together. She was afraid that Patrick would guess the spinning tenderness that shivered down her body every time the figure brought them back together. When he silently took her arm and led her out of the ballroom as if to fetch a glass of syllabub, but instead turned into a quiet room full of spindly tables and frothy chairs, she followed with no objection. Patrick propped himself against a biscuit-colored wall and looked down at her teasingly, and Sophie's only excuse was that the emotional stimulation of the last hours had gone to her head. She impishly grinned back, behaving precisely like the wanton her mama believed her to be. And when Patrick pulled her into his arms, the moment had the lightness of inevitability. But the purely carnal, fevered urgency of that kiss was a shock. Sophie had been kissed before, so many times that her mother would faint if she even suspected, but this kiss was not the adoring, gentle compliment that she was used to. This kiss began as an exploration and flared into summer lightning, began as a simple meeting of lips and ended with burning touches and whispered moans. Patrick broke off the kiss with a surprised curse and then instantly bent his head again, his hands walking a fiery line down her back to the curve of her bottom. It was unfair to say they were kissing when Lady Sarah Prestlefield walked, or rather tiptoed, into the salon, Sophie thought bitterly. They had kissed, and kissed, but at that moment they were merely standing very close together, and Patrick was rubbing his finger across the curve of her lower lip. She was looking at his face in a rather bewildered way, conscious that her cultivated urbanity, her sophisticated manner of dalliance, had entirely deserted her and that in fact she couldn't think of anything clever to say. "Merde!" Sophie whispered, shaking off the memory. She could hear her father's distant bellowing from the antechamber of the Brandenburg house, undoubtedly shouting for her to hurry. She knew exactly why he was in such a rush. Her father had started a new flirtation with a young French widow, Mrs. Dalinda Beaumaris, and probably had an assignation at the ball. The thought steeled her resolve. It didn't matter that she had been sobbing every night for a month since rejecting Patrick Foakes's hand. The important thing was that she was right to reject him. Remember the shadow of relief that crossed his eyes when she disengaged her hands in the library the next morning and politely said no, she told herself fiercely. Remember that. She was not going to have her heart broken by a libertine, the way her mama had. She was not going to turn into a bitter old woman, watching her husband circle the floor with Dalindas and Lucindas. She might not be able to stop her future husband from chasing other women, but she could certainly control the extent to which she cared about the matter. "I am not a fool," Sophie said to herself, not for the first time. Hearing a scratch on her door, she stood up. "Enter!" "His lordship would be very pleased to greet you in the antechamber," said Philippe, one of the footmen. Sophie had no illusions about the wording of the actual message. Her father had bawled to Carroll, "Get that chit down here!" and Philippe had been dispatched by a nod of the buder's head. Carroll's pordy demeanor and his French sense of dignity precluded delivering messages of diis sort. She smiled. "Please inform my father that I will join him directly." As Philippe backed out the door, Sophie picked up her fan from the dressing table. She paused again in front of the mirror. What looked back at her was an image that had set fire to gentlemen's hearts all over London, had inspired some twenty-two proposals of marriage and numerous intoxicated compliments. She was small in size, only coming up to Patrick's shoulder, Sophie thought absently. And her wispy silver dress emphasized every curve, especially those of her breasts. Tlie fabric stiffened above its high waist, making it look as if she might fall out of the inch of material. Sophie shivered. Lately she couldn't even look at herself in the mirror without thinking about the melting softness of her breasts pressing against Patrick's muscled chest. It was time to go. She grabbed her wrap and left the room. Chapter 2 In the afternoon before the Dewland ball, there was an unprecedented gathering of young gentlemen in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, presided over by the minister himself, Lord Breksby. Breksby was growing old, but at the same time he was growing more and more comfortable with the power he wielded. Thus, although he welcomed his visitors from a somewhat bent-over posture, and his white hair flew eccentrically off to the right, rather than staying neatly tied back as it ought to have, there was nothing humorous about him. Lord Breksby had been England's Secretary for Foreign Affairs for some seven years. He saw the civiliaed world as a puppet theater in which he controlled many strings (never mind Pitt, as he had often told his wife, the man can't make up his mind). One of Breksby's greatest assets, to William Pitt and the English government in general, was his skill at creative manipulation. "One must make use of the tools at hand," he rather pompously told his wife over a dessert of orange jelly. Lady Breksby sighed in agreement and thought longingly of a small cottage in the country, next to her sister, where she could grow roses. "England has underutilized its nobility," he told her yet again. "Of course, it is true that aristocratic rakes tend toward dissipation—look at the degenerate nobles who thronged around Charles II." Lady Breksby thought about the new kind of rose that had been named after Princess Charlotte. Could it be trained to climb a wall? she wondered. She quite fancied a southern wall, covered with climbing roses. Lord Breksby thought about the libertine rakes of the old days. Rochester was probably the worst, writing all that naughty poetry about prostitutes. Must have been getting up to Lord knows what. A regular hellion, he was. Boredom, that was Rochester's problem. "Still, that was the past," Breksby said meditatively, spooning up the last of the orange jelly. "Our rakes now are useful chaps, if you approach 'em the right way. They've got money. They're not elected. And they've got class, m'dear. Invaluable when dealing with foreigners." Even though his own title was only honorary, he found it served him well. Lord Breksby privately thought that the day might come when England would have to rely on class more heavily than on its navy. "Take this Selim III, for example." Lady Breksby looked up politely and nodded. "He's ruling the Ottoman Empire at the moment, m'dear." Now that she thought about it, the Princess Charlotte rose probably had too heavy a head to be a good climber. The best climbing roses had smaller heads ... like that lovely pink specimen that Mrs. Barnett had growing up her front gate, back in the old village. But how could she find out what that rose was called? "The man is dazzled by Napoleon, even though Napoleon invaded Egypt a mere six years ago. Thinks Napoleon is God, so I hear. Recognized him as emperor. And now Selim is planning to exchange the title of sultan for emperor! His father must be turning in his grave." Breksby considered whether to have more orange jelly. Better not. His waistcoats were already a trifle strained. He returned to the subject at hand. "It's up to us to dazzle old Selim in return. Otherwise he'll go hand in hand with Napoleon, the silly turnip, and declare war on England, no doubt about it. And how are we going to dazzle Selim?" He looked triumphantly at Lady Breksby, but after thirty years of marriage she knew a rhetorical question as well as the next person, and simply looked past him, trying to picture Mrs. Barnett's roses more precisely. Did they have just a tinge of crimson inside? "We send over a prime piece of nobility. We dazzle 'em with some of our homegrown near-royalty, that's what." Lady Breksby nodded dutifully. "That sounds wonderful, my dear," she said. The result of this conversation, the fruit of the orange jelly, so to speak, was twofold. Lord Breksby sent out a series of beautifully inscribed notes that were carried around London by one of the king's messengers, and Lady Breksby wrote a long letter to her sister, who still lived in the small village of Hogglesdon where they had grown up, asking her to please walk by Mrs. Barnett's house and request the name of her roses. As it happened, Lord Breksby enjoyed the fruit of his idea rather more quickly than did Lady Breksby. Mrs. Barnett turned out (disappointingly) to have died, and her daughter couldn't say what the roses were named. But the king's messenger returned to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs triumphant, having found all five noblemen residing in their London town houses and available to meet Lord Breksby at his convenience. Alexander Foakes, the Earl of Sheffield and Downes, was the first to arrive at the ministry. Breksby looked up quickly as the elder Foakes twin was announced. Then he got up, holding his hand out affably. Sheffield was a prime exemplar of his, Breksby's genius, to his mind. He'd sent Sheffield off to Italy a year or so ago on an entirely successful, and very delicate, mission. "Good afternoon, my lord," he said. "How are your lovely wife and daughters?" "My family is very well," Alex replied, sitting down. "Why did you summon me, Lord Breksby?" He fixed his black eyes on the foreign secretary. Breksby smiled genially. He was too old to be overset by an impetuous young man. Instead he sat back and templed his fingers. "I would rather wait until my small party is assembled," he remarked. "But I hasten to tell you, my lord, that I did not ask you here to request that you undertake an assignment on behalf of the English government. No indeed. We hesitate to interfere in a man's private life, once that man has children." Alex rose a sardonic eyebrow. "Except when the government decides to press its citizens into the army." He was referring to the practice of sweeping up men and shipping them off to war, willy-nilly. "Ah," Breksby responded gently, "but we never press our nobility into service. We rely on the goodness of their hearts and their wish to aid their country." Alex almost snorted, but restrained himself. Breksby was a wily old Machiavel whom it wouldn't be prudent to antagonize. "Your presence here is not exactly superfluous, however," Breksby continued. "I have a proposition for your brother." "He may be interested," Alex said, knowing well that Patrick would jump at the chance to travel. He had been back in England for only a year or so, and in Alex's opinion, Patrick was nearly mad with boredom. Not to mention irritable as a cat ever since Sophie York had rejected his marriage proposal. "So I thought, so I thought," Breksby murmured. "Where do you plan to send him?" "I was hoping that he would agree to travel to the Ottoman Empire during the coming summer. We hear that Selim III intends to crown himself emperor, a la Monsieur Napoleon, and we would like an English presence at the so-called coronation. Given the inadvisability of sending any of the royal dukes"—with a mere waggle of the eyebrows, Breksby expressed his opinion of die fondly foolish and often drunk sons of King George—"I fancy that your brodier would make a magnificent ambassador from England." Alex nodded. Patrick would undoubtedly return with a valuable cargo of exports in his ship. It seemed a reasonable exchange. "Now, the reason I asked you to attend this little meeting," Breksby said, "is due to the question of nobility." "Nobility?" Alex looked at him blankly. "Precisely, precisely. Granted, your brother will represent England in a resplendent fashion. His personal finances allow him to dress appropriately, and the English government will, of course, send a cosdy gift along widi our ambassador. We are contemplating a scepter ringed with rubies—very similar to the scepter used by King Edward II. I believe we shall have to add more rubies to this version, as Selim is very vulgar indeed, and he particularly values that gem. "But the real question is: What will Selim think of Patrick Foakes? Given the delicate relations between our two countries, that is an important point." "Patrick appears to have met with the approval of the leaders of Albania and India," Alex observed. "In fact, I believe that Ali Pasha begged him to take a place in his cabinet, and you know Albania is overrun with Turks. I shouldn't think that Selim will present a problem." "You miss my point, dear sir. Selim is fascinated by titles: Emperor Selim!" Breksby snorted. Alex, who had been staring meditatively at Breksby's oak desk, raised his head and looked the foreign secretary straight in the face. "You mean to give Patrick a title." It was a statement, not a question. Then a smile spread across his face. "How splendid." "There will, of course, be difficulties." Lord Breksby implied that these were a matter of little consequence to him. "I think they can be overcome." Alex smiled. "He can have half of my estates and that half of my title." Alexander Foakes was the Earl of Sheffield and Downes, meaning that he ruled (nominally speaking) over two portions of English land. "My dear sir!" Breksby was shocked by that suggestion. "We could never do such a thing. Breaking up a hereditary title: oh no, no, no. However..." A cunning look passed over his face. "We could petition to liberate one of your other titles." Alex nodded thoughtfully. He was in fact not only the Earl of Sheffield and Downes. He was also Viscount Spencer. "I was thinking of the Scottish title," Breksby said. For a moment Alex was at sea. "Scottish title?" "When your great-grandmother married your greatgrandfather, her father's title—Duke of Gisle—lapsed, since she was an only child." "Oh, of course." Alex knew of his Scottish great-grandmother but had never given a second thought to her father's lapsed title. "I'd like to petition to have that title resurrected," Breksby said briskly. "I think I can present a reasonable case, given the importance of winning Selim III over to the English cause. If Selim is not sufficiently impressed by our ambassador, I would guess that the Turkish empires will declare war on England in the near future, following the lead of our dear Napoleon, naturally. I expect that the fact that you and your brother are twins will also please the Parliament. Patrick Foakes is, after all, only the lesser brother with regard to a moment or two." Alex nodded. Given that Breksby never presented an idea until he was convinced it would be successful, Alex thought that Patrick would be declared the Duke of Gisle within a few months. "I'm not sure—" he said, but the door opened. Lord Breksby's servant announced, "Mr. Patrick Foakes; the Earl of Slaslow; Lord Reginald Petersham; Mr. Peter Dewland." Lord Breksby immediately took charge. "Gentlemen, I asked you to visit me today because you each own a clipper ship." "Goodness me," Braddon Chatwin, the Earl of Slaslow, said confusedly. "I don't think so, sir. Unless my man of business has bought one behind my back." Lord Breksby gave him a hard look. Apparently the reports he had received about Slaslow's mental capabilities were not exaggerated. "You won this clipper while playing ecarte with—" He paused for a moment and raised his glasses to read a piece of a paper on his desk. "Oh yes, while playing ecarte with a Mr. Sheridan Jameson. A merchant, I believe." "Oh, right you are," Braddon replied, considerably relieved. "It was that night you and I stopped at an inn, on our way to Ascot, Petersham. Do you remember that?" Petersham nodded. "Remember you were throwin' the dice long after I went to bed," he confirmed. "And I won a boat," Braddon said cheerfully. "I remember it all now."