Page 45 of A Rogue's Downfall
The lady seemed suddenly to remember who she was and where she was. She smiled graciously abouther and set about soothing her guests and temptingthem with all the edible delights spread out beforethem and assuring them that the wine would bebrought and served in no time at all.
“Oh, I say,” Mr. Ware said ineffectually to Mrs. Peabody’s regal back. “Oh, I say.” He looked helplessly and apologetically at Patricia.
But Patricia was stunned, hardly even aware yet of the stinging of her cheek. She had been called a slutand she had had her face slapped—in public. Everyone had been watching and listening. Everyone!
She turned suddenly and began to run. She did not know where she was going or what she was going todo when she arrived there. She knew only that shehad to get away, that she had to hide. Instinct tookher in the direction of the trees. But even when shewas among them, panic did not leave her. She turned north, away from the house, and ran recklessly amongclosely packed trees and hanging branches, heedlessof slashing twigs and threatening roots. She could hearsomeone sobbing and did not even realize that itwas herself.
And then she remembered the other folly, the little ruined tower down by the river, with the circular stoneseat inside. She could collapse onto that. She couldhide there for a while. For longer than a while. Forever. She could never go back to the house.
She had stopped running. She approached the folly from behind with quiet, weary steps and rounded thecircular wall to the opening and the seat.
Mr. Bancroft was sitting on it, a lady with him. Patricia could not even see who she was until he raised his head, startled, from kissing her. Mrs. Hunter. Herdress was off her shoulder on the left side and downto her waist. He had his hand cupped about hernaked breast.
Panic hit again. Patricia went fleeing away with a moan, crashing through trees once more until herbreath gave out and a stitch in her side had her clutching it. Her cheek was hot and throbbing. She set herforehead against the trunk of a tree and closed hereyes. When the pain in her side had dulled, shewrapped her arms about the tree and sagged against it.
He was getting bored. Three weeks was too long a time to spend at one country home in company withthe same twenty or so people. He would be thoroughlyglad when the remaining week was at an end and hecould get back to normal life.
And what was normal life? He would follow thefashionable crowd to Brighton for a month or two, he supposed. There was always plenty happening there,plenty of congenial male company and wild wagerswith which to fill his days, plenty of bored and beddable females to add excitement to his nights.
And then where? A duty visit to his mother and his uncle? Yes, he supposed so. He loved his motherdearly. It was just that her reproachful glances andaccusing silences made him uncomfortable at times.She always gave the impression that she was waitingpatiently for the day when he would have finallysowed the last of his wild oats and that she was perhaps giving up hope that he would ever be finishedwith them.
And then where? Bath? London?
He was getting bored, he thought in some alarm. Bored not just with the present reality but with thegeneral condition of his life.
He had been conducting a heated affair with Lady Myron for more than a week. She was everything hecould possibly ask for. She had a body that couldarouse him at a glance, and she made that body andall the sexual skills she had acquired over the yearsfully available for his pleasure all night and everynight. She had an energy to match his own and waseager to learn new skills from him and to teach himthose few he had never before encountered. She madeno demands beyond the moment.
But he was bored. And puzzled. After a week he was tired of such a desirable lover? Why? He couldnot think of anything wrong with her beyond the factthat they had nothing in common except a zestful enjoyment of a good tumble between the sheets. Herconversation—on the few occasions when theytalked—was all of horses and hounds and hunting. Hehad no particular interest in such country pursuits. Butthat could not matter, surely. A woman’s body andher sexual prowess were all that mattered—and LadyMyron passed muster on both counts.
But he found himself eyeing Mrs. Hunter appreciatively during the days and wondering how she compensated herself for the fact that Mr. Hunter, not present at the Holly House gathering, was a septuagenarian, and by all accounts a frail one at that. Hebegan to suspect that somehow she did it and that shewould be only too willing to do so with him beforethe party broke up.
And so she maneuvered it and he maneuvered it that they spend some time alone together on the afternoon of the picnic, both Lady Myron and Mr. Crawford, Mrs. Hunter’s escort, having been shedsomewhere along the way. And they discovered theconvenience of the little folly by the river and sat inside it by mutual but unspoken consent.
The lady did not waste time on conversation or other preliminaries, he was delighted to find. Sheturned her face to his and kissed him. And when hehad fully accepted the invitation and got his armsabout her, she reached up a hand and drew down herdress to expose one breast many minutes before hewould have got around to doing it for himself.
He was, he realized with pleased certainty, about to feast upon the full delights of the woman in the middleof the afternoon on a hard stone bench. And he wasbeing given the distinct impression that she wasravenous.
Interesting!
It was at that moment and just as he had got his hand on the woman’s breast and was listening to herthroaty murmur of appreciation that he knew someone else was there. Lady Myron, he thought as helifted his head, and he had a momentary vision of thetwo woman going for each other’s hair with clawedfingernails—or else both going forhishair.
But it was Patricia Mangan. She stood there only for a moment before she moaned and disappeared,but he had the instant impression of a torn dress anda bonnetless head with hair pulled loose from its confining pins, and of a wild, unhappy face, one side ofit red and swollen.
“Good Lord!” he said, relinquishing his hold on Mrs. Hunter’s breast and jumping to his feet. He couldhear the loud crashings of a panicked retreat.
“It is just that strange drab little creature who hangs about Mrs. Peabody,” Mrs. Hunter said crossly. “Shemust be playing truant. It would have served her rightif she had seen more. She will not dare return. Come!”
When he turned his head to look down at her, she was smiling invitingly up at him from beneath loweredeyelids and pushing down the other side of her dress.
Strangely, he thought afterward, he did not hesitate, even though the feast was being laid out before hiseyes and was ready for instant devouring.
“Something has happened to her,” he said. “I had better go and find her. Can you make your own wayback to the picnic site?”
“What?” The lady sounded incredulous and looked magnificent bared to the waist.
“I shall see you back there,” he said and strode away. And another strange thing, he thought later,was that his mind did not linger on the abandonedfeast for even a single moment.
He could think only of the fact that his little bird seemed to have broken a wing and that he had to findher. Fortunately, she was doing nothing to hide thesounds of her progress through the dense forest oftrees.
