Hidden Paradise

chapter SIXTEEN



Lou

After the drawing lesson—which to her surprise she’d quite enjoyed, and not just from seeing Rob’s erection, poor kid, he’d looked so embarrassed—there was lunch and then dance practice. The men had divided the morning under cover in the riding arena, shooting period guns or playing billiards inside, with a head start on the alcohol consumption for the day. Mac was at dance practice for once, saying little.

Lou was tempted to quote to him from Pride and Prejudice (“It is your turn to say something now, Mr. Darcy”) but the time for good-natured teasing had passed.

“Eye contact, Mrs. Connolly!” Becky the dancing mistress bellowed, and Lou locked eyes with Mac as they joined hands and circled, shoulders close together. His gaze didn’t falter, but she could read nothing in those dark eyes. Fine. She didn’t want to. She hoped her gaze was equally impenetrable.

“And back to your original partner!” Becky gave Lou a friendly shove in the right direction.

Lou returned to Alan, who belched beer fumes in her direction and apologized, red-faced. It was an authentic touch, she told him, and he smiled in relief. She wished now she hadn’t seen him and Cathy make love—she felt guilty that she had such intimate knowledge of them. Mac’s fault.

The next move put her next to Sarah. “What’s his dick like?” she hissed at Lou.

“Whose?”

“Rob’s.”

“I really didn’t notice,” she lied. “Sorry.”

“Ben wants a threesome with him.”

“He does?” She couldn’t help glancing at Ben, who was holding Mac’s hand and looking almost animated.

“He’d be great. He’s used to being told what to do—” Becky advanced on them and they scurried to find the correct place in the dance.

Rob was on duty, in charge of refreshments for the dancers, glasses of lemonade and cakes, standing still at the side of the room. He had a gift for stillness, Lou thought, or maybe it was his training as a footman. Students of his age she’d taught were all restless energy, unable to keep knees or hands still. He’d proved a good model, too, and she was glad she was the only one of the women who’d noticed his errant erection. Peter had noticed it, too, his hands clenching, before he abruptly left the room almost in midsentence. Poor Peter.

She knew how he felt. A sudden gust of desire had swept through her, too, leaving her breathless. His blend of innocence and sweetness was suddenly erotic, straightforward and uncomplicated. Maybe this was what she wanted, what she needed.

The violinist ended his variations on the dance tune with a flourish of his bow, and the dancers bowed and curtsied before crowding around the refreshments table.

Lou took a glass of lemonade and moved over to the window. Outside, rosebushes and trees sparkled with moisture, but the rain had stopped. She drained her glass, and as she did so a footman approached with a silver tray with a note on it.

If it was from Mac, she would decline it, but the handwriting was Viv’s, summoning her to a fitting for her ball gown that afternoon. She thanked and tipped the footman with one of the coins in her reticule. He looked down her cleavage as he bowed and she noticed how Rob glared at him.

“Do you need an umbrella, ma’am?” Rob asked.

“How did you know I was going outside?”

“The way you looked out the window. And after you read the note you looked out again.”

What a combination, good looks and empathy, and according to Peter, loyalty to his family. Some girl would be lucky to have him. She smiled at him and left to change into her half boots for the walk to the lodge.

She left the house by the front door, taking a moment to gaze at the scenery—the varied and vivid greens of trees and the heavy nod of roses soaked with moisture and spangled with raindrops. She descended the steps and walked along the driveway. Although there was a pleasant, winding footpath that would take her through the trees, she knew how wet she’d get on that route.

From the opened windows of the lodge came a hum of conversation against a backdrop of opera, Viv’s music choice of the day. She recognized Mac’s voice and was surprised by a sudden homicidal urge at the thought of walking in on him in some sort of sexual situation. But there was no need for bloodshed, to her relief. He sat in his shirtsleeves at a small desk, working on a laptop, while Viv prowled around a dress form, pins in her mouth. Di Brooks, the lady’s maid, sat nearby, hemming a garment.

“Welcome back to the twenty-first century,” Viv said. “Mac, go upstairs. I need Lou to try on this gown.”

“Sure.” Mac gathered up his laptop and a small reporter’s notebook and headed upstairs.

“It’s nice to see him get down to some work,” Viv commented, “although our boy seems rather subdued today.” She gave Lou a curious glance.

Di laid her sewing aside and stood to help Lou remove her gown.

“Is that mine?” Lou gazed at the deep red gown on the dress form. “I love the color, but it doesn’t seem to have a bodice.”

“I thought you were woman enough for a bit of titty reveal,” Viv said. “You’ll have an over gown but you’ll have to pull your shift down like this—” She was tugging as she spoke. “Di can help on the night of. And the gown comes with its own petticoat.”

Lou looked down at herself, at her breasts pushed up onto a shelf, nipples visible.

“Regency girls really didn’t care if a bit of nipple showed,” Viv said. “Your areolas are quite light because you’re fair skinned, but if you want to be really naughty you can rouge them. So your dance partners will have to look quite hard. So to speak,” she added with a dirty cackle.

The petticoat was followed by more tugging of shift and petticoat and stays, and then a slither of satin as the gown was dropped over her head. Di tied the two laces at the back.

As she adjusted the drawstring at the bodice, Mac simultaneously knocked at the door at the bottom of the stairs and entered the room.

“Sorry, I forgot my— Shit, Lou, what are you wearing?”

Lou hastily crossed her arms over her chest. Don’t think you’ll sneak a peek, mister.

“Bugger off,” Viv said, throwing a length of fabric around Lou’s shoulders.

The door banged behind Mac as he retreated.

“I’m going to have to leave you topless for a bit,” Viv said. “Let me just check the hem. Turn, please. Looks okay. Wait, let me adjust here. And here. Good. Now the overdress, which creates the train. You’ll have to practice walking in it so you don’t tread on it.”

The overdress, of dark red gauze embroidered with black and gold, wrapped around her like a shawl, held in place with a paste clasp under her breasts, creating a plunge that emphasized her cleavage and breasts.

“Oh, wow!” Lou stared at her reflection. “That’s amazing. Absolutely gorgeous.”

“I thought you’d like it,” Viv said. “And if you did want to chicken out—which I know you won’t—we’ll provide an inset you can pin inside the gown. We’ll make you up a headdress, quite simple.” She nodded at a tangle of overdress fabric and gold cord on the worktable. “They’ll be bursting out of their pants, Lou.”

“Oh. Good. I guess.”

“Yes, we have some nice military men coming from the local reenactment society if Mac lets them get near you.”

“I don’t think he’ll care one way or the other,” Lou said.

“Really?” Viv tilted her head to one side like a gossipy bird. “He’s such a sensitive soul, isn’t he?”

“He is?” Lou said in disbelief. Mac, a sensitive soul?

“Oh, yes, he was on Skype with his daughter earlier. So sweet. Which reminds me, would you like to check your email now you’re two centuries ahead? We’ll get you changed and you can make yourself at home, have a cup of tea and a gossip if you like.” She moved to plug in her electric kettle. “Of course, the problem with Mac is that he needs a really big story to get his career going, but he has to do all these journalistic fluff pieces to pay the bills. Di, let’s get the gown off and make Lou decent and then we can have a cuppa.”

Back in her everyday cotton gown again, Lou scrolled through her emails. Nothing important—she typed up quick, affectionate responses to her sisters and a noncommittal but friendly progress report to her dissertation advisor. And then a subject line caught her eye and made her gasp in shock: We have an offer, asking price.

* * *

SHE FOUND HERSELF WANDERING IN the woods, her gown darkened a foot deep with moisture that had seeped into it, bewildered, with only the barest of memories of what she’d done after reading the email. She’d turned down the tea, which was a shame because now she was thirsty, and she’d probably stained her gown and Viv would be furious—she stopped to untangle her skirts from a spray of bramble. She should figure out how to get back to the house, which shouldn’t be that complicated, but she had no idea where she was.

She sniffed the air. Someone was burning wood nearby, so she wandered between the trees toward the scent, expecting to come upon one of the grounds staff. Sure enough, a small cottage with an overgrown garden and a decayed gate hanging from a moss-covered stone post lay ahead, a thread of smoke emerging from the chimney.

“Hello?” she called. A flagstone path, overgrown with moss and grass, led to the front door, which stood ajar. She pushed it open. The smell of smoke was much stronger here, billowing out into the room. A footman knelt in front of the fireplace, poking a stick up the flue. “Rob?”

“What?” He turned and scrambled to his feet, removing earplugs. An iPod was lodged in his coat pocket. “Christ, you gave me a scare, ma’am.”

“Sorry.” She looked around at the one room of the cottage, windows shrouded in cobwebs and a huge black range surrounded by tiles. “What is this place?”

“It’s the groundsman’s cottage. I came to have a look at it, see if the chimney was okay.” He squatted and poked at the flue again and gave a grunt of satisfaction as a mess of twigs and debris fell into the grate. “I’m hoping my dad will get a job at Paradise and he can live here with my brother.”

“Oh. I see.” To her, it didn’t look at all suitable for a small child to live in. “Won’t he need a bathroom?”

“There’s one through the door there. The water isn’t on yet.”

She took a quick look through the doorway and saw an ancient rusty toilet with a ceiling-mounted tank and chain, and a claw-footed bathtub.

“It could be really nice once it’s cleaned and fixed up,” he said.

“So when does he start?”

He looked away and mumbled, “He only just applied. And I’m not sure he’ll get it.” He straightened up and poked at the fire in the hearth. “The upstairs is cool. Come and look at it. If you want to, that is.”

“Okay.” She followed him upstairs, where there were two tiny bedrooms right under the roof, and the collapsed remains of an iron bedstead and a few rags lay sadly abandoned on the dusty wooden floor.

“See?” he said. “Nice, isn’t it?”

“Well…yes, I think it has a lot of potential.” Her approval seemed so important to him that she found herself agreeing.

“There’s no electricity upstairs but Graham can do his homework downstairs, and I’ll come over from the house…”

“But you’re going to Cambridge. You’d only be here during vacations.”

“Yeah.” He ran down the stairs ahead of her, saying over his shoulder, “Well, it’s not one hundred percent certain.”

“What do you mean?” She followed him down the stairs. “I thought you had a really big-shot scholarship. It’s a chance in a lifetime. What happened?”

He walked over to the fireplace and kicked the dying embers of the fire. “It’s complicated.”

She waited, but he didn’t seem anxious to elaborate. He unscrewed the top of a bottle of soda that stood on the windowsill, and offered it to her.

She took a gulp, feeling like a junkie. She’d had coffee and tea over the past few days but hadn’t realized until now how much she’d missed a cold, sweet and carbonated drink. “Thanks. I’d better get back to the house.”

“I’ll come with you.” He took the bottle back from her and placed it in his coat pocket. “Don’t want to get a reputation for skiving off.”

“You always seem to work very hard,” Lou said.

He shrugged, and ushered her out of the cottage, locking the door behind them. “It’s the sort of job where you have to balance what’s expected and what you can get away with not doing. Haven’t you read Swift? His advice to servants?”

“Tell me about it,” she said. She always loved it when one of her students wanted to share a new discovery.

“Well, it’s a sort of joke how-to book for servants. I found it online when I was applying for this job. If you’re sent out on an errand, you should stay out for hours and have a really good excuse when you come back, like you were saying goodbye to a cousin who was to be hanged, or you’d been to look for your master and had to visit a hundred pubs.” He grinned. “It’s pretty funny.”

“It sounds as though he’d met some very aggravating servants. You might like his poetry. Some of it is very ribald and savage, but others are quite tender and lovely. He was an interesting man. I’m sure there are some of his books in the library at the house.” She looked around at the thick growth of trees and bushes. “Which way do we go?”

“This way.” He led the way to a break between some bushes that turned out to be a path, taking them to the far side of the lake. The summerhouse stood graceful and shining on the opposite bank.

He went ahead, bending branches back out of the way, while she tried not to get her gown more muddy than it was. As they approached the summerhouse, the light changed from bright to dark and rain came splattering down.

“Run!” He caught her hand and they ran to the comparative shelter, where they watched rain slant and gust over the lake.

Lou laughed, pushing her disordered, wet hair back, and realized she was still hand in hand with Rob. How shocking, holding hands with a servant, and neither of them wearing gloves.

“Rob,” she said. “Tell me what’s going on with you and university. Can I help?”