To Tame A Countess (Properly Spanked Book 2) Page 22

  She looked up at the grand edifice of the duke’s home, and then down the street at all the majestically appointed carriages of London’s upper crust and almost choked at the idea of hosting such a gathering. She hoped it was ten years in the future. Twenty years.

  “You know, the Duke of Lansing is Aurelia’s father,” he said. “She grew up in this house, if you can believe it.”

  Josephine could make no reply to that, since she was occupied staring at the crowds and the lights. Even Warren looked on the grand granite facade of the duke’s city home with an air of wonderment. It was that outrageous and ornate. A fancy colonnade ran the length of the house, and great clusters of guests stood about looking haughty and important.

  “I daresay Aurelia will be here tonight with Townsend. Arlington has been invited too, so you’ll have some familiar faces.”

  “I don’t feel well,” Josephine said, gripping his arm.

  “Now, now. You mustn’t panic. I have faith in you. Be your charming self and everything shall be fine.”

  Her charming self? What of her panicking self? Or the self that required regular spankings to be tamed?

  He led her into the mass of aristocrats, gentlemen and ladies with coronets and medals, and ostrich-feathered turbans, and glittering rings and jewels. Her ivy necklace, which had seemed so ostentatious in her dressing room, seemed nothing more than a trinket compared to the thick ropes of gold and gems around these ladies’ necks. A tall, thin man raised a quizzing glass to regard her. She didn’t know whether to smile or look serious as he gawked at her.

  “My goodness,” she murmured in Warren’s ear. “Please don’t let go of me.”

  He didn’t, not once, as he introduced her to a never-ending parade of people. Some of them she recognized, but some of the older aristocrats did not socialize as much, or at least attend the balls and parties they did. They all scrutinized her with curiosity, but most were polite. Stafford was there, looking pompous and jealous, and perhaps a bit awed by how different she looked now that she wasn’t hiding in black. “He wishes he’d married you,” Warren whispered to her. “Pitiable fool.”

  Aurelia’s father, the host, seemed even more pompous than Lord Stafford. He wore a ducal coronet and robes and seemed quite puffed up with his own importance. If she and Aurelia had a moment alone, they might have had a giggle about it, but her friend was occupied on her husband’s arm. Josephine did her best to copy her regal bearing, and blank her expression to one of refined hauteur.

  Self-control. It’s just an act. You can do this, for your husband’s sake.

  All was well and Josephine felt relatively secure until they were called inside to be seated for dinner. This task took three quarters of an hour, since people were still talking and exchanging introductions. They milled about in the soaring ballroom, which had been outfitted with two long tables set for two hundred guests. Everyone pored over the seating cards, laughing and talking before they located their assigned seats. It was considered gauche to seat husbands and wives together, so she had expected to be separated from Warren. She just hadn’t realized they would be separated quite so far.

  She was near the head of one table, across from Lady Astbury and between Lord Merryworth and some other older gentleman. From a few seats down, Lord Townsend gave her a fortifying smile. Warren was halfway to the other end of the table with the Duke of Arlington, while Aurelia was seated near her mother and the Earl of Stafford at the foot of the second table. Josephine could just catch a glimpse of her husband beyond the table settings and large candelabras. He smiled and winked at her, completely at ease. Yes, she must be at ease also. She only had to dine and make polite conversation about nothing. How difficult could it be?

  For a time, it wasn’t difficult at all. Lady Astbury and Lady Burke, in her immediate vicinity, were avid conversationalists—it would be unkind to call them gossips, although that was what they were. They kept up a steady stream of banter about goings-on in Parliament, and the best parties of the season, and the most notable matches between families. Josephine recalled that Lady Burke’s son had courted Minette, and so when the lady asked after “Lord Warren’s sister” in a chilly tone, Josephine assured her she was very well, and thought her son must have been one of the men Minette refused.

  From there, the conversation turned to plans for travel. Lord Merryworth, whom Josephine suspected was tired of listening to Lady Burke and Lady Astbury, fixed his gaze upon her. “I believe we have a very experienced traveler in our midst. Lady Warren, is it true you grew up on an undiscovered island in the Pacific?”

  Well, that was a new one. She smiled and shook her head. “I’m afraid you’ve been misinformed. I grew up in Africa and India, among other places. It’s true I’ve traveled a lot. My parents were never inclined to stay in one place.”

  “Oh, you must tell us stories of your outrageous experiences,” Lady Burke exclaimed. “Africa and India! I cannot imagine the things you’ve seen.”

  “I’m sorry I have no outrageous stories to tell,” she lied. In truth, she had seen thousands of outrageous things, most of which she wished she could forget. “We lived there very much as you live here, with English customs and English ways.”

  There were faint murmurs of approval. Of course, it was only well and good in their mind that one would not live as a savage among savages when one was finely bred. If they knew the truth of how she’d grown up, they would snub her to the grave.

  “Do you miss the wayfaring lifestyle, now that you’ve returned to England?” another gentleman asked. He, at least, didn’t seem bent on mockery, but genuinely interested. In fact, several more faces had turned their way.

  “I don’t imagine Warren is eager to take you back to those places,” another man said in a booming voice.

  Josephine forced a smile. “We’re exceedingly happy here in England. I don’t miss traveling, no.”

  “But where on earth did you live?” asked another lady. “In huts, or tents? Where does one live in those places?”

  “They have houses there,” said Josephine. “Not as grand as this one, but they have them.”

  A few of them chuckled at that. An elderly gentleman next to Lady Astbury asked if Josephine spoke any primitive languages, to which she replied, truthfully, that she did not.

  “But how did you communicate with your servants?” Lady Astbury asked. Her unctuous tone set Josephine’s teeth on edge. These privileged aristocrats had no idea about the larger world or what it was like in the places she’d lived. Servants? Sometimes even food and water was not a guaranteed thing. Of course she couldn’t say such things without shocking everyone.

  She had no idea what to say.

  “I suppose if one wanted to order servants to do various tasks, one could make one’s wishes known without formal language,” said another man.

  “With a whip,” jested the elderly gentleman. “That’s how we did it in the king’s navy, when we landed on some misbegotten shore.”

  Everyone laughed at this. Josephine put down her silverware and met Lord Townsend’s gaze with a beseeching look. He tried twice to steer the table’s discussion in another direction, to no avail.

  “I’ve been to Africa and India both,” said the portly gentleman with the booming voice. “You must have your husband bring you to Westmoreland, Lady Warren, where you may see my many hunting trophies.”

  “What are hunting trophies?” she asked, imagining medals or plaques or some such thing. Polite laughter sounded all around her.

  “Hunting trophies are deceased wild animals,” said the man next to her, “skinned and mounted on the wall.”

  “Yes, animals I’ve shot,” the booming fellow said proudly. “I brought down my first wild beast in Africa many years ago. Such vistas, such beautiful, wild land. My friends and I went looking for lions and giraffes and such. Amazing creatures, when you see them in their own habitat.”

  Josephine took a sip of wine as those around her exclaimed how exciting that was. Exciti
ng, to slaughter Africa’s wild animals for sport? She’d seen giraffes on the plains, and lions. And tigers too, in India…

  None of these people had hearts, she was certain they didn’t. She wished she could push back her chair and go to Warren and beg him to take her home. He could spank her, bugger her, whatever he liked, anything but this vile conversation.

  “There was an elephant the third day we were there,” the man went on. “We separated it from its group and I’ll tell you, it took a dozen or more shots to bring the thing to its knees.”

  “I say,” Lord Townsend interrupted in a sharp voice. “Perhaps you will upset the ladies with this sort of talk. Especially over dinner.”

  “You shot an elephant?” cooed Lady Astbury, not sounding upset at all.

  “Yes, my chaps and I. It wasn’t an easy thing. But best of all were the tigers we shot in India. You couldn’t believe how big they were, and how sleek and fast.” He threw back his head and gave a poor imitation of a tiger’s snarl. Josephine balled her fists in her lap to keep herself from throwing her glass in his face. “I’ve a tiger skin on the floor of my study now,” he went on, “and a great, vicious creature it looks. We shot one of the biggest males in the pride, or whatever their groups are called. Packs?”

  “I believe a group of tigers is called a streak,” said Lord Merryworth. “Perhaps Lady Warren will know.”

  Josephine couldn’t do anything but stare at her plate and seethe in silent hatred.

  “Did you know a group of martens is called a richness?” she heard Lord Townsend ask. “I learned that at Oxford, along with a great many other useless things. Say, Merryworth, you’re an Oxford man too, aren’t you?”

  Josephine was grateful for his efforts at changing the topic, but the other ladies and the pompous man—Lord Westmoreland?—couldn’t seem to let it rest.

  “I believe you must have ventured into a jungle to find those tigers,” said Lady Astbury, leaning across her soup to bat her lashes at the man.

  “Oh, yes, we did. Humid, ghastly places, jungles. Nothing like the wide, rolling fields of England.”

  “It sounds so dangerous,” said Lady Burke, simpering as if she were not a woman of sixty years or greater.

  “It was, I warrant, but I was a young man full of myself, and I had no fear.”

  “Because you had rifles, you and all your cohorts.” Josephine snapped her mouth shut as soon as she realized the sharp words had come from her.

  “Well, I wasn’t going to bring the beast down with my bare hands,” the man joked in the silence following her remark. “I’m not that brave.”

  “I don’t think you’re brave at all,” she said in a heated voice. “And I don’t think you ought to be bragging about killing a majestic, wild creature that only wished to be left alone.”

  Now everyone was staring. Lord Westmoreland thrust his chin out a little as he leaned back in his chair. “Now, Lady Warren, I gather you have a soft spot in your heart for animals, but tigers are vicious beasts that hunt and kill without remorse. The world can do with a few less, in my opinion.”

  “They hunt and kill for survival, not for sport, which is more than I can say for you,” she replied, scowling at the odious man. “And what of the poor elephant you shot a dozen times? They’re gentle and peaceful. I can’t believe you killed one for the mere fun of it, and that you’ll crow so proudly about it here, among civilized company. Hunting trophies, indeed. I suppose it makes you feel very important to tread over your tiger carpet, but I find the idea of it revolting in the extreme.”

  She realized the room had gone quiet, and that, at some point, she had taken to her feet. Lord Townsend stared at her, wide-eyed, as if she’d lost her mind. None of the other gazes she met were friendly, and Lord Warren was too far away to save her from this debacle, even if he could.

  There was no way she could sit back down and continue to eat as if nothing had happened, and there was no way to disappear into the floorboards, so she did the only other thing she could. She lifted her skirts, turned toward the door, and fled.

  Chapter Seventeen: Falling To Pieces

  Josephine found her way outside, brushing past a footman onto the now-deserted grand colonnade. What a monumental mistake she had made. What a disaster, to cause a scene before everyone, before Townsend and Aurelia and Arlington, and Lord Stafford, and all her husband’s most powerful friends.

  She buried her face in her hands, trying to catch her breath. She had to get away. She had to go hide, and cry, and tear at her hair in frustration. All her hard work to fit into society, destroyed in one undisciplined outburst. Why couldn’t she be like Aurelia, sitting so calmly and politely? Or the other ladies, so confident in their manners?

  She knew why. She didn’t belong with these people and she never would. She was a shabby baroness of a shabby manor in the country, raised in ghastly jungles amidst vicious beasts. She was the dreaded baga lika, and she’d never be anything more, no matter her husband’s riches or political career. She stumbled forward, looking up and down the line of carriages for one she recognized, but there were too many to count. She reached to pull her wrap closer around her and realized she had left it behind.

  “You can’t do anything right,” she said to herself. “Stupid, stupid girl.”

  “Josephine!”

  She turned at her husband’s voice. He’d emerged from the house with her wrap bunched up in his hands, and covered the ground between them in great, angry strides. “Josephine Bernard, you utter madwoman. What on earth were you about, attacking the Earl of Westmoreland in front of two hundred of his peers? Have you completely lost your mind?”

  She angled herself away from him. “I want to go home.”

  “Oh, you’re going home. You’re certainly not going to rejoin the dinner after you made such a spectacle of yourself. Here.”

  He thrust the wrap toward her, and helped her bundle it over her shoulders while lecturing her in a scathing voice. “I can’t imagine what you meant by that display. Standing up and shaking your finger at Westmoreland as if he were some errant schoolboy. My dear, he is the head of Parliament’s foremost political committee, not to mention a senior member in the ministry of finance and reform.”

  “How was I to know that?” She bristled. “He shoots tigers and lions and elephants for sport. Only to kill them! To make carpets for his study!”

  “Plenty of gentlemen kill for sport. It’s not your place to judge. It’s your place to sit quietly and look pretty and—”

  “And simper in a sweet little voice what a marvelous hero he is? I can’t do it. I can’t bear this anymore. I hate all of these people.”

  “Hush.” He put a finger over her mouth as her voice rose in volume. “That’s all we need to complete the performance, is you standing out here raving at the top of your lungs.” He looked back over his shoulder. In the darkness, Josephine imagined the guests spying on her, pulling back curtains to gape and twitter and tsk at the daft countess. She shivered in revulsion. She couldn’t bear to feel this way ever again.

  “Come along to the carriage.” At some point he must have signaled it, for the correct one came rolling to the front of the house. “I don’t know why you couldn’t bite your damned tongue for propriety’s sake. All English ladies do it. It’s not that hard. You might have told me later, amongst ourselves, that Westmoreland annoyed you. I would have agreed with you. You might have privately expressed your anger, even your outrage, and I wouldn’t have faulted you for it, but no, you must rail at him before everyone. You must make a great dramatic scene.”

  “I didn’t mean to,” she cried. “It’s only that they wouldn’t stop talking about my exotic travels, and giving me those looks, like I’m some half-dressed native sitting at the table.”

  “You’re the only one who sees that,” he said, throwing up his hands. “You believe it about yourself and so you think everyone believes it. They were talking about hunting, for God’s sake, not you and your blasted tiger, or the way y
ou grew up. I thought you had left all that behind by now. You looked beautiful tonight, every inch a civilized and dignified lady, and then you opened your goddamned mouth.”

  She stared at him, at his pursed lips and his hard blue eyes. She hadn’t believed him capable of such cruel words, such heartless disregard for her struggles. She had only been trying to please him. “I won’t talk anymore, then,” she said, fighting tears. “I won’t say a word ever again, not to you or anyone.”

  “I wonder how long that will last,” he scoffed.

  “Forever. I’ll go away. Then you won’t have to listen to my ‘goddamned mouth’ ever again.”

  He took her arm hard, almost painfully. The groom stood by the carriage steps, pretending not to notice. “Listen to me, dearest,” he said through gritted teeth. “You are going absolutely nowhere, except home to await me in your room.”

  “You said I could go away if I wanted,” she reminded him a bit hysterically. “You said I could hide in the country.”

  “And you said you would try to do better, so you wouldn’t have to,” he snapped. “Is that what you did this evening? Tried to do better? It didn’t seem so to me, when you were throwing a tantrum in front of my entire set, even Lord Stafford, for God’s sake. Was that your intention, to humiliate me to the worst possible degree in front of everyone I know?”

  She shook off his grip and pushed him away. “I want to leave you,” she shouted. “I hate you for making me go to these things when it’s obvious I’m not happy. I hate you for making me smile and lie, and pretend to be content. All you care about is what other people think, and your precious political career. Why should you care about my feelings? I’m only your wife.”

  “Josephine,” he said in a warning tone. “That’s enough.”

  “I want to leave you,” she said again, her voice rising over his. “I want to go away and live on my own, away from these people you call your friends.”