“My sister owns a small, quite select brothel in Belfast, Antrim County, Ireland. She’s quite happy, or so she says in letters. It’s called the Ladybird,” he added.
“The Ladybird!”
“I’m sorry I reacted so badly when you labeled my guests ladybirds. They are, of course.”
Harriet stayed quite still for a moment as the truth of Jem’s life became clear to her. “How could you not include them?” she said fiercely. “I didn’t understand. You are a wonderful man, do you know that? I’m proud of you.”
His mouth twisted. “What’s there to be proud of?”
“You have never turned away a woman who reminded you of your sister, did you?”
He swallowed. “No.”
“Is your father alive?”
“Wouldn’t it be nice to say that he died of parental guilt?” The twist to his mouth made Harriet’s throat burn. “He died four years ago, after drinking too much and deciding to prove that he could walk along the top of the stone fence that surrounded his kitchen garden in Bath. He couldn’t.”
She kissed him again.
“But I realized after you left that I created Fonthill for him…It was he who told me, my whole childhood, that a house full of loose women, a brothel, is a man’s paradise.”
“You created the house, but you never took advantage of that aspect of it,” Harriet said slowly.
“I don’t feel comfortable taking advantage of women who must trade their favors for their next meal.”
Harriet put her head back down on his chest and listened to the steady beat of his heart. “We can still help women in distress,” she said. “In every way possible. Just perhaps not in our very house.”
“After you left, I realized that Fonthill had virtually become a brothel. I have a brothel. I who never willingly entered a brothel, not since my father forced me into my first one at age thirteen.”
“Fonthill is not a brothel,” Harriet said.
“Close enough.” His voice was bleak.
“Not,” she said firmly, sitting up so she could look in his eyes. “Your sister runs a brothel. You do not. You had a wonderful, exuberant house party to which you invited all sorts of people, from scientists to singers. And if some of them found friendships under your roof, you never profited from that. They did.”
He was silent.
“The Game was not dependent on female entertainment,” she said gently.
“I’m a damned poor bargain, Harriet,” he said. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
She couldn’t even speak: her heart was too full. “You are—” she swallowed “—mine. At the heart I’m a tedious country widow.”
He rolled over so fast that her words disappeared into his lips. “You are my Harriet, the most intelligent, funny, wise soul I have ever met. And, though it hardly matters, the one person who has ever driven me utterly mad with lust for your beauty.”
She couldn’t help smiling up at him. “Do you want a similar catalogue?”
He shook his head. “I don’t care about any of that, if you think—” But he couldn’t put it in words.
“You are everything to me,” she whispered, tears in her eyes. “I love every bit of you, from the wrinkles by your eyes, to your crazed architectural plans, to your generosity and your sweetness. You are a wonderful father, who never dishonored your own father by disowning his idea of paradise—and yet you kept Eugenia warm and safe and loved. You welcome every woman with your sister’s background, and yet you never took advantage of them. How could I not love you, Jem?”
She was crying now, and he was kissing her. But he had something to say too, so he made her stop crying and listen to him.
“Benjamin was a fool, Harriet. A fool. I’ve never met another woman with your joy, your beauty, and your sensuality. But what I love most is your deep-down sense of fairness, the clear judgment that allows you to see people as they are, whether they are criminals or fools like myself, Villiers or Nell…”
There didn’t really seem to be much else to be said.
So they talked with their hands. And their lips.
And finally, with the greatest gift of all. With their bodies.
Epilogue
E ugenia Strange’s arm was starting to tire. Her little brother was much heavier than he looked. He was lolling back in her arm now, looking as if he were about to fall into his nap and yet he never seemed to actually do it. It was awfully frustrating.
Sure enough, the moment she stopped walking he opened his eyes and smiled gummily at her. Colin had his mother’s velvety brown eyes. Since he was wearing a little blue shirt, they had a tinge of violet.
“All the ladies are going to be in love with you,” she told him.
He sighed and closed his eyes. “You’re right,” Eugenia said. “It is a bit tiresome, all this adoration.” For example, she happened to know that right now there were eight gentlemen in the drawing room. Povy kept popping his head into the nursery and holding up his fingers silently to give her the new count.
But she hadn’t met a single man in London who could entice her away from Colin. “Why won’t you nap?” she sang to him. “Oh, why won’t you nap?”
The door opened and she turned, thinking that it would be Povy, perhaps holding up all his fingers. But it was her papa.
He looked tired but happy, bone happy. Eugenia had the feeling that her darling, adored stepmother must have made the most of the hour since they disappeared after luncheon. Not that she noticed where they were going, of course.
“You never napped either,” her papa remarked, stolling into the room. “You were an awful infant.”
Eugenia snorted. “And how would you know, Lord Strange? Since you spent my childhood racketing around a house full of gorgeous courtesans and mongrelly men?”
“Mongrelly men?” he said. “Here, let me have that baby.” Colin had stuck his head up and was making cooing, gurgling noises at the sound of his father’s voice.
“I was just getting him to sleep,” Eugenia complained, handing him over.
“You look very fine to be in the nursery,” her father said, looking her up and down. “New gown? And not to be indelicate, my daughter, but you are wearing something under it, aren’t you?”
Eugenia turned up her nose. “This is Madame Carême’s very finest new creation, Papa, and I’ll thank you not to insult it. Or ask questions that don’t concern you.” But she smiled down at her gorgeous morning gown. It was made of the finest silk taffeta. It fell straight from her breasts and then frothed into an enchanting little ruffle at the bottom.
“Well, go on then,” her papa said. “All those gentlemen downstairs aren’t here to see me, you know.”
“They might be,” Eugenia said, checking her reflection in the nursery mirror.
Her father snorted.
“They would love to snuggle up to the newest marquis in London,” she said.
But her father wasn’t listening to her. He was humming to Colin, and rocking his arms in a way that Eugenia almost felt she could remember in her bones. She went over to him and put her head on his shoulder. “I love you, Papa.”