Rushed to the Altar (10 page)

Clarissa went over and took the quill. She glanced down at the closely written sheet. Nan Griffiths had signed above the earl. She hesitated, suddenly terrified that she was about to sign her life away. Could she really expect to be a match for these two sophisticated city people? What would be the penalty for breaking this contract? Because in ten months whether the agreed marriage had taken place or not, she was going to break
it, there were no two ways about that. Could she be accused of theft, even if she took nothing with her when she left? Would she be a fugitive for the rest of her life? But that was ridiculous. She wasn’t important enough for these two to give a damn about her. They’d be annoyed and the earl might demand his money back from Mistress Griffiths, but surely it wouldn’t be the first time a contracted whore had broken her contract.

“What are you waiting for, girl?” Nan’s voice was sharp and Clarissa had an inkling of what it would be like to run afoul of the whore mistress. She knew she’d better make certain she was far, far away when Nan discovered her perfidy.

Slowly she dipped the pen in the inkpot and carefully signed:
Clarissa Ordway.
At least she could keep her real name unknown as an elementary precaution. She sanded the wet ink and stepped back, feeling oddly light-headed. “So, what now, my lord?” Her voice seemed to come from very far away.

Jasper turned to look at her, and there was something about this scrutiny that was quite unlike any other look he had given her. It was possessive, as if he was sizing up a recent purchase. As, indeed, he was. “I need you to dress in a manner a little more indicative of your profession,” he said slowly. “At least for the visit we will be paying this morning. I’d like you to change into one of the gowns you wear for entertaining your clients in the evening. Something a little more revealing, if you please.”

Clarissa glanced at Mistress Griffiths, who said swiftly, “Of course, my lord. Come, Clarissa.” She beckoned imperatively as she went to the door. “We will be but a few minutes, Lord Blackwater.”

Clarissa followed her, feeling as if she was being escorted to the steps of the gallows.

Chapter Five
 

“You should have heeded me earlier, Clarissa,” Nan scolded her as she preceded Clarissa upstairs. “I told you to wear the sprigged muslin then. Believe me, I know what our gentlemen like in their girls.”

Clarissa said nothing. She’d signed away her right to insist on the modesty of her own wardrobe. If the Earl of Blackwater wanted an exposed bosom, then an exposed bosom is what he would get. She would learn to become accustomed as she would learn to act her part in the charade.

She moved to the attic stairway and was surprised when Nan said, “No, this way. I’ve had your chamber changed. Now that you’re one of us, for as long as you remain under this roof, you will sleep on this floor with the others. I expect it will take several weeks for his lordship to make arrangements for a house for you.”

She opened the door onto a large and very comfortably furnished chamber. “Should his lordship wish you to entertain him in the house, then this is where you
may bring him. The servants will bring you anything either of you desires. You may dine or bathe à deux, if that is his lordship’s wish. The gentlemen frequently like to watch their ladies in the bath; for some reason it stimulates desire.”

Nan shrugged as if there was no accounting for taste as she hurried to the substantial armoire. She flung it open and reached for the sprig muslin gown that hung there in lonely splendor beside Clarissa’s two other countrified gowns. “You’ll have no need for those others,” she declared with a dismissive gesture. “I daresay his lordship will have the milliner and the seamstress visit you here to have your wardrobe made up. But in the meantime we must contrive as best we can.” She laid the sprig muslin over the back of the daybed. “Now, make haste and take off that gown.”

Resigned, Clarissa unlaced the bronze muslin and hung it up in the armoire. She was not prepared to have her own clothes dismissed with such contumely and she was equally determined that they would follow her to Half Moon Street. Unfashionably prim and proper though they may have been, the material was good and the workmanship as fine and delicate as the most expensive garment from a London dressmaker.

Nan laced her tightly into the sprigged muslin, then adjusted the décolletage with little tugs and twitches that served to reveal even more of her breasts than earlier. She arranged the ringlets artfully over Clarissa’s shoulders, then stepped back to examine her handiwork. “Yes, very
pretty, very enticing. His lordship will be pleased. You had better hurry down to him now.”

Clarissa dropped an ironic curtsy, fairly confident that the whore mistress would fail to detect the irony, and returned to the parlor. The earl was standing with his back to the door as she entered and turned swiftly. She offered the same ironic curtsy and saw from the quick flash in his eye that he had not missed the slight tilt of her head, the challenge in her eye that turned the courtesy into a parody.

He looked her over deliberately. “Much better but still not enough” was his eventual pronouncement. “I need you to look the part. My uncle is expecting a whore, and I would give him one.” He rang the bell again and when Nan reappeared instructed, “Powder and rouge, a touch on the lips, oh . . . and on the nipples.”

Clarissa gasped, looking down at her bosom. Instinctively she put her hands over her breasts. “No,” she protested. “I won’t have it.”

“You will do whatever pleases your benefactor,” Nan stated. “I will fetch the paint box.” She hastened away, leaving the door ajar.

Jasper regarded Clarissa with a quizzically raised eyebrow, a question in his eye. “I confess that in general I don’t care for paint either, but you are surely accustomed to men who do?”

“I have not been in London for many weeks,” she improvised, “and the men who seem to find me appealing seem to prefer at least an assumption of innocence.”
Clarissa was astonished at how easily the fabrication tripped off her tongue.

Jasper inclined his head in acknowledgment. “I can see how that would be, but we are going to visit my uncle and if he is to be persuaded of the importance of your conversion he must see how far you have fallen from chastity’s tree. The more you look like a harlot now, the more impressed will he be by the eventual transformation.”

It’s just a charade,
Clarissa told herself.
No different from the charades they played at Christmas house parties.
She had loved playacting for as long as she could remember. As far back as her nursery days she remembered co-opting the nursery maid and anyone else on the staff willing to act in her elaborate reconstructions of nursery rhymes. Later she’d tried her hand at writing her own plays, encouraged by her governess and rather less ably assisted by her schoolroom companions. She’d always felt Lawyer Danforth’s and Doctor Alsop’s children lacked a proper imagination.

Nan returned with a box of rouge, powder and brushes, and a small bowl of water. She set to with brisk efficiency, brushing white powder on Clarissa’s cheeks and then dabbing a piece of cotton into the water before dipping it into the rouge. She applied the red paste on the cotton to Clarissa’s cheekbones and then lifted her nipples from the décolletage with a finger and painted them dark red, before arranging the neckline so that they were clearly visible above the lace edging. As a final
touch she took a stick of rouge from the box and traced the line of Clarissa’s lips.

“Will that do, my lord?” She stepped away from her subject so that the earl could take a look.

“Admirably.” He lifted a ringlet from one creamy bare shoulder. “I didn’t think your hair could be improved upon, but the ringlets are delightful.”

Clarissa was too conscious of the cold air on her exposed breasts to be flattered by the compliment. She’d seen enough painted and powdered ladies in the Piazza to make a fair guess at what her face must look like, dead white with two deep red patches and a shining red mouth. Utterly hideous; he couldn’t possibly be expecting her to walk the streets like this. “I cannot go out without a cloak.”

“A shawl, certainly,” he agreed. “There’s a chill wind.”

“I’ll fetch my cloak.”

She turned to leave but Nan forestalled her. “I have the perfect shawl, my dear. Just in the cupboard in the hall, no need to go upstairs.” She went out as she spoke and returned almost immediately with a shawl of Indian figured muslin. She draped it carefully over Clarissa’s shoulders, still managing to leave most of her neckline bare. “There, that will keep the wind off.”

It was better than nothing, Clarissa reckoned, but if she’d had her way she’d have been smothered head to toe in her own woolen cloak, the hood pulled close around her face. But it was clear that she was not going to have her way at present, at least not while Nan Griffiths was
around. Nan knew whores and as far as she was concerned she had one in Clarissa. But as soon as they were out of the house she would draw the shawl tightly across her chest.

“I have a present for you, Clarissa.” Jasper was smiling as he reached into the deep pocket of his full-skirted coat. “A small gift to seal our compact.” He handed her a slim silk-wrapped packet.

He must have been confident of her agreement, Clarissa thought. She hesitated for a moment, feeling somehow that the simple act of taking the gift would morally commit her to honoring the contract to its bitter end. She realized they were both looking at her expectantly. She couldn’t continue to hesitate; taking the gift was merely part of the contract and she’d leave it behind with everything else when this was over.

“You are too kind, my lord.” She took the packet and untied the ribbon, opening up the silk wrapping to reveal an exquisite fan with sticks of delicately painted mother-of-pearl and painted leaves of ivory vellum depicting a carnival scene. She opened it slowly; it was so delicate, so fine in every detail, it seemed out of place with the base crudity of her present appearance.

“I cannot accept it,” she said softly, closing it and holding it out to him. “It’s too beautiful.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Jasper moved her hand aside. “It’s a beautiful fan for a beautiful woman, my dear girl, and I wish you to use it. Come, now, let us go.” He picked up his hat and cane and extended a hand to her. “Madam, will you come?”

Clarissa yielded, feeling that she was in the grip of a wave that would not release her until it finally washed up on the beach, but she was momentarily reassured by the firm warmth of his clasp as he folded her fingers into his.

They left the house and Jasper raised his cane at a pair of chairmen loitering in the shadow of the colonnade. They picked up their chair and came over at a run.

Jasper gave Clarissa a hand into the chair, then, having directed the chairmen to the Strand, walked companionably beside the open window. There was nothing companionable about his conversation, however. It was more a series of instructions.

“I should warn you that Viscount Bradley is an irascible old man, but he was a libertine in his youth, indeed into his later years, and still has an appreciative eye for female pulchritude. He’ll expect a certain boldness from you. He’s never had time for innocence, pretend or otherwise, so don’t imply it. Be a little vulgar, flirt, be as seductive as you know how, show off your charms. He’ll know why
I
find you appealing just by looking at you. You may find some of his remarks near the bone; he comes of a different age, when men said what they meant without honey-coating, so if you can match that, he’ll enjoy your company.”

Clarissa absorbed this in stunned silence. How on earth was she to behave like a vulgar prostitute, flirt seductively with an old man, presumably flash her painted nipples at him? It was ludicrous. It bore no relationship
to the charades of her past. She flipped open the fan and closed it again with a snap. Nevertheless she could do it. She
would
do it.

“Are you clear? Do you have any questions?”

Thousands,
but she didn’t say so. “It sounds rather intimidating” was all she managed.

“Yes, he is an intimidating old bastard.” Jasper laughed shortly. “But he happens to hold my salvation between his hands, so I need you to act as you’ve never acted before. Imagine he’s a client, if that helps, one with particular tastes. I’m sure you’re accustomed to acting out all sorts of roles for your customers; just imagine you’re in the nunnery entertaining an old gentleman of less than refined tastes.”

Clarissa was afraid she was going to start howling with laughter again at the lunatic absurdity of the whole situation. She bit down hard on her lip, then remembered the paint and hastily rubbed at her front teeth with her fingertip. She leaned towards the open window on the far side of the chair, away from the earl, and concentrated fiercely on the busy street until certain she had the unruly impulse under control. And then all desire to laugh vanished. Luke was walking briskly along the street a few yards away from her chair but in the same direction. She leaned back, away from the aperture, her heart thumping.